Brain Disease / Damage and Self

We have been discussing the "self" in the many different possible iterations of soul, ego, personality, and more.
We have often been using quite a bit of fringe ideas and fuzzy logic items to try and determine if something survives, what it is, how much of us it is, how many of "us" might exist, etc.

So, I decided to start a thread that is closer to my own heart, my own experiences, and some brain science, to describe what happens on the other end of the spectrum. So not NDE or personal accounts, but those we can see and observe, study and rationalize, that have to do with brain damage cases, brain injury, brain disease, and what is observed in the subjects.

Since my mother has dementia, she is an easy subject for my own observation. There are parts that are still intact. But the obvious bell ringer is the personality change. She is not the same person. Some of this can be adjusted with diet, so nutrition is a main portion of perception and awareness, personality and recall. Memory isn't the only obvious problem. And it shows that much of what people might assign to themselves as some core is non-existent.

We assume that all memory is in the brain. We call other things muscle memory, or the second brain being the gut.
If we assume or believe that reincarnation is true, or NDE experiences, then memory and awareness are not isolated in the brain, or the gut. Memory must be carried forward, or stored and retrieved, or shared and returned to sender.

In brain damage, the obvious changes due to loss of the normal function should shake some screws loose for anyone that knew this person before the damage, to include bizarre or obsessive traits that are now new. 
It can supply access to some very cool and interesting skills. 
Brain damage to the frontal lobes can also increase psi functioning in at least the experiment regarding telekinesis.

Many forms of tumors, or other forms of necrosis and disease that causes damage, often changes the person in extreme ways. No more underlying personality can be recognized.

No amount of meditation, wishful thinking, hands on healing, religion, or intervention appears to be able to help much. Sometimes surgery, sometimes extreme drugs.

Then we see epileptic seizures, where complete parts of memory can be destroyed, and a number of other changes occur.

Then we see all the chemistry and frequency imbalances, from depression to serotonin rage. Where there, people appear to lose track of the 40 Hz resting frequency and "go live" in another frequency. Personality changes, extreme behavior changes, etc.

I have lost my own sense of self a few times. I have also noticed that I can't define who I am, or even what my name is, during lucid dreaming conditions or during most psi phenomena. Most of the time, I don't even have the same interests and it becomes difficult to even ask myself questions that would help define where I am "mentally", if I am moral, ethical, caring or anything I might consider a normal, waking, human condition.

This brought me to my ego description. Where there is a comfortable 40 Hz version of myself that remembers things back to when I was 9 months old, all of my education, all my friends, my social life, my interests, etc. This "feels like" me, and makes functioning in this time / space / frequency very stable and "solid"... and it is only this lifetime.

This ego version of myself rarely ever has any psi phenomena happen. Things are "normal" and "stable" and everything appears to follow the basics of life as we know it, time as we know it, and nothing moves around, no ghosts, no psychometry, no dream walking, very little telepathy (nothing that can't be explained as coincidence). I open my eyes every day, and I can function and interact.

The magic happens mainly when I step away from "self", so something is doing the stepping, something that was aware I am currently in "ego" mode.
To quote a movie, "It depends on who gets the spotlight." (I believe it was Split, 2016, or maybe Sybil?)

The only common factor in the brain studies appears to be some form of awareness, where the question really is; 
What is aware of being aware? Is this what survives?

And for me; How does my awareness move / change and align with things we call psi phenomena? It is pretty obvious to me that it steps away from my ego.
What is not obvious is whether or not this is a portion of me that survives life. 

If it is this basic aware of being aware "thing", it is then obvious why there are little to no memories on rebirth.
There are things that my psi me knows, so it has a memory system, and it has emotions. And to me that feels like layers, where the disassociation with my ego and psi self likely leads to other selves, dream self, time travel self, etc.
The common factor is this awareness that I am aware of things, and that this feels like "me" at any given time unless I fuse with something else. This "fusion" would then be my day-to-day ego self, where I am aware that I am aware of my memories, my body, and the comfort this supplies me at the current moment.
The only recall my ego shares appears to be these carry over or shared memories that are more like dream recall. If you wait too long and don't write them down, they are gone.
Perhaps some of these are only temporary or fleeting? Perhaps this other psi self is like a virtual hard drive? It is there as long as the power is engaged, but when you unplug it, it is gone as if it never existed? The only reason we would then maintain this waking self is because the hard drive (body) is plugged in and constantly running. It can never stop running, that would be death, and then our awareness is snuffed from this biological mass of meat.

We haven't even touched on what drugs can do to people and awareness, loss of control, dissolving the self or ego and overwhelming the brain with stimuli that may or may not exist.

In any case, my personal opinion is that what we cling to as "me" doesn't survive much of anything, since it can't even survive dementia while alive.
Some floating meditation awareness is also not my version of what survives. Just because you can make the monkey mind stop talking does not answer what survives.

We might include more of the NDE topic, but I would want to see a brain scan, if possible, before, during, after the experience to help determine what is going on. And likely some hypnosis or other forms of digging deeper to see what else is going on. For all we know, something else might have stepped into the dying person while they were dying, who knows? Has anyone compared personalities, and if they are now different, or have different priorities, are they really then the same person?

I'm not above entertaining all sorts of ideas, but once entertained, let's try to find ways to support it with evidence, testing, or other methods.

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https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/artic...l-lucidity

Terminal Lucidity

Rare cases of patients with long-term dementia and other severe neurological disorders who  exhibit a brief return to mental clarity and full memory shortly before death hold particular significance both for understanding the nature of mind and for terminal patient care. Neglected until recently, the phenomenon of ‘terminal lucidity’ is attracting renewed interest on the part of scientific researchers, particularly in the context of psychical ‘near-death’ phenomena.   

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https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/artic...l-lucidity

I've had this happen with many cancer and liver patients as well. They drop off into a coma due to the toxins building up, stop urinating, and do days of this awful breathing. Then they suddenly snap out of it and say goodbyes before dying.
It is all too common, and usually very short, so it would be hard to test for how much of the person is back at that moment. It appears lucid. And it is likely considered cruel to actually do any memory testing or questions at that point.
They do seem at ease and peaceful in that last moment of clarity.

I've had this happen with many cancer and liver patients as well. They drop off into a coma due to the toxins building up, stop urinating, and do days of this awful breathing. Then they suddenly snap out of it and say goodbyes before dying.
It is all too common, and usually very short, so it would be hard to test for how much of the person is back at that moment. It appears lucid. And it is likely considered cruel to actually do any memory testing or questions at that point.
They do seem at ease and peaceful in that last moment of clarity.

Interesting - are you speaking as a palliative nurse or as a doctor?

Surely even saying goodbyes seems to imply that they are lucid with at least some memory of the people they are speaking to.

I guess if you were alone with a patient who had nobody with him, you could do some gentle probing, "Do you know which year it is?" or "Please add 34 and 27" - maybe the ethics rules would prevent you from writing this up as a formal paper, but you could still report the results here.

are you speaking as a palliative nurse

Caregiver in home hospice settings for many years. Elderly care homes as well. Nine years clinic work. 

There are accounts by doctors, where the clue is that the cancers or other damage should be preventing this type of lucidity, or memory.

So something is actually bypassing actual physical damage that is clearly unaffected by this damage. In other words, according to science it is impossible for them to speak, or remember, but they do.

I can look up some of those studies if they interest you.

Caregiver in home hospice settings for many years. Elderly care homes as well. Nine years clinic work. 

There are accounts by doctors, where the clue is that the cancers or other damage should be preventing this type of lucidity, or memory.

So something is actually bypassing actual physical damage that is clearly unaffected by this damage. In other words, according to science it is impossible for them to speak, or remember, but they do.

I can look up some of those studies if they interest you.

Well I think I have read a fair few - they are remarkable phenomena that are avoided by mainstream science as far as possible.

I really commenting on the fact that you could possibly perform a little research into the mental state of people who recover lucidity in this way.

I think one question is to find a model of ordinary cognitive behaviour when the brain is active. It seems to me that there is a certain analogy with someone sitting on Earth controlling a Mars robot. The robot has some automatic behaviour built into it, but the controller on Earth is nevertheless vital. Now imagine what happens if the software on the robot starts to misfire. There is confusion for anyone watching the robot on Mars, but there is probably also confusion for the guy trying to control the thing. Could that model what is going on in terminal lucidity?

Could that model what is going on in terminal lucidity?

I like it.
It reminds me of burn out. I have suffered from burning myself out and not eating enough, over worked, not enough sleep. Even when I wanted to remember something, or keep going, it was just not happening. What did happen required an enormous amount of effort and will power.
Some of that I was aware of at the time, other parts didn't even occur to me until I had more energy and was rested.
I have over come severe injury long enough to drive myself to the ER, where once in good hands I collapsed. That also took a shift of working past pain and broken bones and focusing intently.
So if we consider the human body / brain as a conduit, envelope, receiver, and something is dysfunctional...
It does make you want to have a cam in there recording. Did the person actually speak to us? Or was that in our minds?
Much of this goes above and beyond any logical function of the remote control.
If the brain is non-functional in your example, the remote control might still be working, but the robot lost the wheels and can no longer move, but it moves anyway.

you could possibly perform a little research into the mental state of people who recover lucidity in this way.

I have been forced into retirement and poverty by this broken system. I will likely be one of these patients soon enough.
You could likely scream the facts of this for the next 20 years and nobody will listen. In particular if you don't have the wall of your office papered with very important degrees, and are well respected in the science / medical world as some expert.
They never listen to people involved in this process. They don't care what we report, or what we have to say, unless it fits whatever they are interested in, trying to promote themselves or get more funding.