Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, has an interesting essay in The Daily Beast in which he describes an experience he had while comatose. His overall claim is this experience occurred at a time when there was no brain activity in the cortex and thus consciousness is something more than and independent of brain activity. He also infers that the overall experience was veridical, which would indicate that there is a realm accessible in the afterlife.
I find the description of his experience fascinating, but the pyrrhonist in me wants to balk at his larger claims. First, there is the problem of timing: while he believed his experience occurred during a time in which his brain was inactive, it is possible that the experience occurred as his brain was beginning to shut down or that it occurred at the time of awakening. This would render problematic his claim that the conscious events were somehow independent of neural activity. Second, vividness of one's dreams does not necessarily imply the truth of the dream. One is reminded of Descartes' dream argument in Meditation I. His inner compulsion to believe in the truth of what happened should not obligate us in believing that what he experienced was the afterlife.
To be fair, his final proposition is one I think merits consideration: near death experiences occur to many people, and there's no reason why they should not be the subject of an investigation of neuroscience.
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