No Detectable Electroencephalographic Activity After Clinical Declaration of Death Among Tibetan Buddhist Meditators in Apparent Tukdam, a Putative Postmortem Meditation State

Abstract

Recent EEG studies on the early postmortem interval that suggest the persistence of electrophysiological coherence and connectivity in the brain of animals and humans reinforce the need for further investigation of the relationship between the brain’s activity and the dying process. Neuroscience is now in a position to empirically evaluate the extended process of dying and, more specifically, to investigate the possibility of brain activity following the cessation of cardiac and respiratory function. Under the direction of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, research was conducted in India on a postmortem meditative state cultivated by some Tibetan Buddhist practitioners in which decomposition is putatively delayed. For all healthy baseline (HB) and postmortem (PM) subjects presented here, we collected resting state electroencephalographic data, mismatch negativity (MMN), and auditory brainstem response (ABR). In this study, we present HB data to demonstrate the feasibility of a sparse electrode EEG configuration to capture well-defined ERP waveforms from living subjects under very challenging field conditions. While living subjects displayed well-defined MMN and ABR responses, no recognizable EEG waveforms were discernable in any of the tukdam cases.

Patients with Disorders of Consciousness: Are They Nonconscious, Unconscious, or Subconscious? Expanding the Discussion

“…as a delay in, or attenuation of, the processes of postmortem decomposition. The visage of those in tukdam is described as radiant, their skin remains supple and elastic, and the area around the heart is said to be warmer than the rest of the body" ( [111], p. 2). Internally, it is believed that the tukdam state is experienced as a 'pristine luminous expanse', 'unimpeded radiance', and inseparable from 'ground emptiness' [107,112].…”

Defining Meditation: Foundations for an Activity-Based Phenomenological Classification System

“…We may define spiritual context as that which includes reference to transcendence, the divine, and/or awakening; within a secular context, such aspects of meditation practice are bracketed or denied. In relation to meditation, a spiritual context might include some, but not necessarily all of the following: ideas as awakening (Komarovski, 2015), the dissolution of ego (Lindahl and Britton, 2019), the unification of self with the ultimate being or good (Bryant, 2009;Chlup, 2012), dissolution of fixed concepts and/or the appearance of ineffable concepts or unities of opposites (Sparby, 2015), perceptions of true reality (Sparby, 2019a), the end of suffering (Bodhi, 2000), exalted emotions such as bliss and devotion (Sparby, 2019b), subtle energies (Lindahl, 2017), and the cessation of the cycle of reincarnation or the overcoming of death (Lott et al, 2021). Insofar as a secular context is not seen to deny spiritual contexts, they may be seen as complementary.…”

Report from a Tibetan Monastery: EEG neural correlates of concentrative and analytical meditation

“…This is because the narration of this experience and the terminology used depend on the context and the cultural and experiential background of the meditator. Recently, some studies aimed at reducing this gap by directly collaborating with monastic universities ( Jiang et al, 2020 ; Lott et al, 2020 ; van Vugt et al, 2020 ; Medvedev et al, 2022 ). In this direction, one of the peculiar characteristics of this work, consists in the fact that all the volunteers who participated in the research (monks and Geshe of the Sera Jey Monastery) have the same cultural background and have shared for at least 10 years the life of the monastery.…”