What Happens To Your Memories After You Die? | Unveiled (+Mystery Ep.)

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What Happens to Your Memories After You Die?</h4>

The question of life after death is one that humans have been pondering and debating for thousands of years. It means that today, via science and religion, any two people can have a radically different view on what really happens. In fact, every single person alive has their own, unique understanding and beliefs. But there are still certain aspects of death (and life) that matter to us all, almost universally. Including whether or not we’ll remember… or forget.

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; what happens to your memories after you die?

Your life runs off of memories. The good and the bad, they all serve to shape who we are. At their most fundamental, it’s our memories that enable us to learn; to understand whether things are safe or dangerous; and to realize that we have responsibilities. Meanwhile, it’s also thanks to our memories that we can retain information, ranging from the date of your best friend’s birthday… to the date of the moon landings or the JFK assassination. Or from the taste of strawberries… to the sound of an airplane engine. Our memories also intrinsically shape how we feel, our general worldview, and our hopes (or fears) for the future. Our personalities are built on them; our relationships are sparked by them; our life choices are guided by them. Our memories are us.

And so, it can feel pretty dismaying, distressing and generally concerning to consider that when we die… all of our memories will essentially evaporate. And, in truth, this is the most widely held assumption; that while the memory of a person can certainly live on, the memories of that person - the thoughts they held within themselves - do disappear at death. However, that said, and given the innate unknowableness of death, this also isn’t a hard and fast law. And there are alternate theories to propose a different fate. 

First, there are the physical intricacies of memory in the final moments. What happens to our memories from the perspective of inside our brains? In general, when a person dies the brain encounters a cascade of changes. The end of blood flow and oxygen supply marks the beginning of a sequence that transforms this once indispensable organ into a lifeless mass. In the absence of oxygen, our brain cells face a rapid energy crisis, and the millions of neural connections that had been constantly, quietly running throughout our lives quickly fizzle out.

The hippocampus is a region that’s especially crucial for memory consolidation, and it’s particularly vulnerable. As the brain endures a shortage of blood flow, known as ischemia, it appears that the hippocampus is often among the first areas to sustain damage. The cells within are prone to swell and collapse, and the information that’s encoded along countless synaptic pathways is then immediately under threat. It’s partly why memory loss is a especially common outcome for those who suffer head injuries or brain damage. While it isn’t a universal truth, it seems as though our memory centers are among the first to fall whenever the brain encounters trauma. 

And so it would seem with death. Studies have shown that in the immediate aftermath of death - somewhere between the first 30 and 60 seconds post death - there is a surge of brain activity that often centers on those regions responsible for memory. It could be that it’s within these moments that near death experiences are formed. However, if the person (and their brain) stays dead, then that surge is short-lived. In a neural sense, nothing lands and shutdown is inevitable. From that point, as the body (and the brain) begin to decay and ultimately disintegrate, there is no biological sense in which memories can still exist.

Which isn’t to say that there is no physical way, entirely. At least, not according to some. If you take a biocentric worldview, as outlined in particular by the US doctor and scientist Robert Lanza, then you might argue that it matters not what happens to your brain and body. For biocentricists, drawing on elements from quantum physics and the observer effect, it could be that consciousness exists above all. That it can continue without a body (or a brain) along a different plane of existence, post death. If this were ever proven, then it seemingly would show that your memories do continue (or, at least, are kept) after you die. Similarly, an increasing number of theorists - including the noted British Nobel Prize winner, Sir Roger Penrose - have debated how consciousness could in fact be solely the product of quantum mechanics. Quantum theories on biology, and ideas around the quantum soul, all hint toward our true selves being much more than just the bodies that house them. Again, if consciousness were ever proven along these lines, then one implication is that it could already be immortal - and, as a result, your memories might already be preserved forever, just not via the brain you have right now.

Of course, not everyone views memory as a purely scientific concern. It’s a centuries-old subject for philosophers, as well, and religions offer their own take on what happens to what we know after we’re gone.

For example, some philosophies propose that memories live on through the impact individuals leave on the world. Be it through artistic creations, scientific contributions, or personal relationships, the essence of a person remains in the collective consciousness of society. This isn’t quite the same as simply not forgetting someone. It’s more to do with continuing to understand them or continuing to consult them - perhaps by reading something that a dead person has written, or pondering something that they’ve drawn, painted or built.

Meanwhile, certain belief systems posit a much more metaphysical continuity. A beyond-this-world afterlife where consciousness again endures, but crucially where memories are kept, as well. Many versions of Heaven offer something like this. Although one popular argument against Heaven is that if we do remember, and we therefore remember the opposite concept of Hell, and we therefore retain knowledge of all the worst things… then is Heaven ever really possible? And, if Heaven is only possible if we forget, then how good can it ever be without the best memories we’ve ever made? We took a closer look at this particular paradox in another recent video, so be sure to check that out after this.

On the other hand, most religious and spiritual concepts of reincarnation offer much less in terms of memory. While some versions do suggest that you will retain all you knew when you get reborn inside the body of someone or something else, most accept that any prior knowledge is lost from life to life. Here’s where talk of apparent past life memories is of interest, though… which, again, we’ve covered before in previous videos. In short, however, a leading researcher in this field is one Dr. Jim Tucker, of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, who has conducted hundreds of interviews over a number of years, all with children who can seemingly recall things they can’t possibly have known about… because they all happened before they were born. Could it be, then, that their previous memories have been retained?

Finally, though, there’s the philosophical argument for Eternal Oblivion. Contrary to the (what they view as misplaced) optimism of the previous perspectives, those in favor of eternal oblivion generally suggest that memories do perish with the individual. In this view, death marks the end of subjective experience, and memories blank out into the void. Perhaps leaving echoes in the minds of anyone who knew the deceased person, yes, but only echoes. The true memory is gone forever.

Finally, though, what does the preservation of memory look like in the future? Overall, we could be fast approaching a major paradigm shift in how the concept of memory is even considered. While the present may not offer a concrete answer to the afterlife of memories, the future holds tantalizing possibilities. Digital storage, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing all provide potential avenues for preserving and perhaps even resurrecting the memories of the dead.

Today, thanks to rapid advancements in neuroscience and technology, the prospect of digital immortality is very real. Increasing numbers see a future where memories are no longer confined to just the decaying neurons of the brain, but are instead continually uploaded onto digital platforms. Or are continually enhanced by physical memory chips implanted into our brains. Or are constantly regurgitated via personalized chatbots that will live on long, long after we ourselves are gone. Companies all around the world are already exploring ways to capture and store personal experiences, creating virtual repositories of memory that could one day be accessed (perhaps universally accessed) and shared. Combined with mounting theories on consciousness as a quantum state, it’s suddenly becoming possible to easily imagine a time when the contents of your mind and brain are never actually lost.

Quite how we should feel about that is another matter. Let us know your thoughts in the comments, both about what you think happens right now… and what you predict for the future. Because that’s what happens to your memories after you die.

Is death really the end? Or is there something else waiting for us once our mortal bodies are no more?

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; what happens to your soul when you die?

Although we’ve been contemplating it, debating it and generally trying to understand it for thousands of years, the soul remains an exceptionally tricky concept to nail down. Depending on your spiritual, religious, philosophical or scientific views, it can mean or resemble a number of things. Generally speaking, however, the soul is held to be the bodiless, non-physical essence of a living thing. It’s what guides or drives that living thing’s consciousness; its character, personality, experience and way of thinking. For humans, the soul is what makes us… us. And, our bodies - our arms and legs and hearts and brains - only really exist as vehicles to house and facilitate our souls. Nevertheless, we know that our physical bodies are only capable of doing this for a certain amount of time. So, when they expire, when we die, what happens to our soul then?

In 1901, the American doctor Duncan MacDougall conducted what became known as the 21 Grams Experiment. He measured the weight of six people at the moment of their death, and roughly concluded that there was a weight loss before and after dying - of about 21 grams. MacDougall’s study has since been widely discredited for a number of reasons - including the small sample size, and the fact that only one of his six subjects showed an exactly 21-gram loss - but it highlights how the soul has continually been perceived as separate from the body and in some way exempt from death.

This idea has been present since at least the eighth century BC. We know this thanks to the 2008 discovery of the Kuttamuwa Monument in modern-day Turkey; an inscribed, stone tablet to mark the death of Kuttamuwa (a high-ranking official). On it, there’s mention of offering “a ram for my soul”, seeming to suggest that the ancient Assyrians believed a part of them survived even when their bodies perished.

The concept shifts for later belief systems like Christianity and Islam, and in classical mythology, where it’s often held that the soul is what gets judged by God, before being either allowed into Heaven (for eternal peace and happiness) or cast off into Hell (to be tormented forever or destroyed completely). The specifics differ between religions and denominations of religions, though, with some believing that the soul actually doesn’t leave the body when we die, and instead resides there in unconscious sleep until the dead are resurrected. Meanwhile, for the Church of Latter-day Saints, the soul exists in a spirit world until it’s reunited with the body and exalted into eternal life.

For many branches of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism there’s a more significant change of direction, though, in the form of reincarnation. Loosely speaking, this is the idea that while your body will die, your soul (or spirit) will pass on and into something else. In pop culture, its next destination is usually an animal of some kind… but, depending on belief system, your soul could also migrate to trees and plants, or even into a new-born child. The key aspect is that there’s a cycle that your soul is moving through, with many believing that it’s only when the soul is freed from this cycle that it can achieve its ultimate goal… what some refer to as nirvana.

From a philosophical standpoint, the soul has intrigued and tormented many of the greatest thinkers in history. Plato believed, too, that the soul survived beyond when the body carrying it died, and also that it could move between bodies to regenerate anew. Plato also mapped out what he believed the soul actually was, however, with his tripartite theory being one of the earliest recorded attempts to make some sense of it. The tripartite theory of the soul divides the soul into three main sections; the logos, which is found in the head and covers logic and thought; the thymos, found in the chest and the birthplace of anger; and the eros, which was said to be in the stomach, and responsible for desire. The key to a healthy soul was keeping these three aspects of it in balance.

Aristotle also devised a three-tier mode of thinking about the soul, but this time he sought to differentiate between the souls of people, animals and plants. For Aristotle, there were three levels. The first related to souls needing to grow and reproduce, only… so that’s all of life, including plants. The second related to animated souls responding to senses with sensitivity… so, that’s all animals and people. And the third related to souls capable of reason… so, only people. Where Aristotle most differed to Plato, though, is that he didn’t necessarily believe that the soul was immortal. Critics are still divided on exactly where Aristotle stood regarding the soul post-death.

In the days since Plato and Aristotle, this toing and froing over what the soul is, where it is and what ultimately happens to it has never truly been resolved. But, for more modern philosophers and scientists, it’s been less a question of trying to physically define the soul, or translating it into some kind of knowable substance… and more a question of determining what we really mean when we refer to it. For the eighteenth-century German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, the soul (as with God and the afterlife) was unavoidably beyond human comprehension. We could only ever trust in its existence, rather than know that it existed… which, to some interpretations, takes the question of death out of the picture.

Another major player in the history of the soul (and how we understand it) is the seventeenth-century French thinker, René Descartes. His most famous work centred on the mind-body problem, and his argument for dualism - the idea that the soul and body are separate, but very closely linked. For the dualist Descartes, the body couldn’t exist without the mind, but the mind could exist without the body… and therefore the death of the body needn’t be the death of the mind. That part of us, the part that comprehends the rest of us, might then carry on forever.

This tying up between the soul and the mind (and consciousness generally) has also been a key theme in more recent studies. Descartes suggested that there could be some kind of filter within the human body, connecting our immaterial thoughts to the material world - with the pineal gland in the brain being where he thought that was. But that idea, the idea that the pineal gland held the key, has since been widely thrown out and ridiculed. Descartes’ general concept of dualism hasn’t been dropped though, although it is contested by monism - the idea that mind and body are one; that neither exists without the other. 

For those searching for an outlook wherein at least a part of us lives forever, monism (particularly one version of it, physicalism) probably isn’t for you. Here, if there is a soul, it’s the product only of our physical, biological matter being arranged in exactly the right way; we only have a soul because we have a brain which can power it. So, when we die and that all-important brain is no more, the soul disappears forever, too. In the twenty-first century, the Franco-American cognitive scientist and writer, Julien Musolino - who wrote the 2015 book, “The Soul Fallacy” - has become one of the most prominent voices on this side of the argument, against there being a soul to survive our deaths… while the US physicist Sean M. Carroll is another leading the charge against the soul, arguing that there’s nothing we know of to support even its existence.

Clearly, there is no one, certain answer to this question. If there was, we’d all be one huge step closer to deciphering the meaning of life! Most religions teach that the soul in some way lives on, be that in an afterlife, in unconscious sleep until resurrection or via reincarnation. For philosophers throughout history, it has been just as important to determine what the soul is before wondering what happens to it when our bodies expire. Meanwhile, for modern-day scientists, the soul is just as unknowable and, according to some, it might not exist at all. 

No matter your belief, though, if we understand the soul (abstract, or not) to be what guides our lives… to be our own, individuality, personality and essence… then let’s all try to put it to good use. Because a little soul goes a long way!