Pain is also a vehicle of knowledge. It may very well be knowledge itself. Ocean Vuong

 A

The doctors never acknowledged anything I said, but there was a nurse on my left who occasionally held my hand and helped me breathe. At one point I heard her say, “Try to keep your eyes open, Mr. Junger,” and when I asked her why, she answered, “So we know you’re still with us.” That’s an odd thing to say, I thought. My brain was clumsy and vague, but there was something about the phrase “still with us” that managed to breach the pain and hallucinations and get my attention. In a very distant way, I finally understood that there was something wrong with me that the two gentlemen standing over me might not be able to fix. They might try and try and then simply run out of ideas, and then I would die

A

nde 

Not only does the brain seem to continue functioning, it has experiences that are consistent across many, many cases. A study of near-death experiences around the world found some cultural variations—people from Anglo-European society were more likely to describe a journey through darkness as a “tunnel” rather than a “void”—but the basic contours of the experience were remarkably similar. The dying generally recall rising over their bodies, journeying to another realm, encountering dead relatives, and returning.

a