Many people have looked up at the surface ripples of a swimming pool from the bottom, knowing that they were going to drown within the next two minutes; or seen the rapidly disappearing ledge of the mountain from which they have just fallen; or felt the oncoming grid of the 10-ton lorry bearing down on them at 60 miles per hour. A common theme runs through the accounts that survivors of such traumas tell. In such moments of ‘final consideration’ the brain slows all things down to a standstill, expanding a fraction of a second into a lifetime, and reviews the total experience of the individual.
When pressed to admit that what they had really experienced were a few highlights, the individuals concerned insisted that what they had experienced was their entire lire, including all things they had completely forgotten until that instant of time. ‘My whole life flashed before me’ has almost become a cliché that goes with the near-death experience. Such a commonality of experience again argues for a storage capacity of the brain that we have only just begun to tap.