Why The Life Flashes Before Our Eyes When We Are Close To Death?

Premonition or Normal Brain Activity?

You must have seen in many movies the moment when some character is close to death and his or her life appears to "flash" before the eyes. It is not just a Hollywood fantasy but the real phenomenon that has happened to many people.
According to studies it appears that this experience is related to how we process the information when we are about to experience life threatening situation. For example, when a policeman suddenly orders everyone to abandon a building, moments before the the bomb explodes, it is not because he or she had a gift of premonition. Although it may look as some sort of sixth sense, it is really about the way we access our memories and make use of our past experiences. Our memories record much more information than we are consciously aware of, so when we are under danger, the brain suddenly brings up all those recorded experiences and tries to apply them to that situation. This cognitive process is necessary for our survival.

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Life Review Experience

But what happens when we encounter a dangerous scenario that we have never experienced before? Like slipping off the tall cliff or being in the train accident. Under such circumstances, our brain instantly browses through all our memories but is not able to find the relevant information. In desperate attempt to find any clues, it releases all the subconsciously recorded memories giving us the impression of life flashing before our eyes. This phenomenon is called Life Review Experience or LRE and can be instantaneous or last up to few seconds. According to the studies, those sudden flashbacks are never chronological like in the movies but always random or simultaneous. They appear timeless and spaceless and often have profound impact on how people later see their lives. Scientists say that this may be related to the fact that the areas in the brain that store memories are the last ones to be affected by oxygen and blood loss when we suddenly suffer from severe injuries.

-logic

References:

"Why Life Should Flash Before One's Eyes: Episodic Memory and a Hypothesis Arising From the Recognition-Primed Decision Model", 2006.

"The life review experience: Qualitative and quantitative characteristics.", 2016.

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