The central message of this conversation with Professor Gregory Brown is that fear of death may ease when we experience ourselves as something larger than the physical body. The discussion brings together psychiatry, meditation, near-death experiences, remote viewing, and reincarnation, with warmth and plenty of friendly banter.
I began by explaining that the purpose is to help people relax about the one human experience everyone must eventually face. Greg introduces his work as a psychiatrist, professor, residency training director, and practising clinician. Alongside that professional background, he describes more than forty years of meditation and an interest in the Monroe Institute and the Institute of Noetic Sciences. His first experience of Transcendental Meditation came during college, when he discovered that regular practice helped him remain calm during examinations. That gave him an early understanding that we can change how we experience events rather than simply be pushed around by them.
I shared a youthful interest in Zen Buddhism, judo, and Japanese poetry, including the poetry competition that won me a trip around the world. These recollections establish the conversation as an exchange between two longtime explorers of consciousness.
The first substantial theme is whether the brain produces consciousness or receives it. Greg describes the conventional biological position: consciousness arises from brain activity and ends when that activity ceases. We both favor a broader view, in which consciousness exists beyond the brain and the brain acts as an interface or receiver. I brought up accounts of people functioning despite extensive loss of brain tissue and Karl Lashley’s attempts to locate memory in the brain (but it was not). Greg discusses models that treat consciousness as a fundamental feature of reality.
This leads into out-of-body experiences and remote viewing. I describe the experience of perceiving your body from elsewhere and ask whether consciousness might deliberately relocate its sense of presence. Greg connects this with remote viewing and discusses research associated with Dean Radin at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California. I make a point of distinguishing between obtaining information about a distant place and feeling fully present there. Throughout this section, we both see experiences beyond ordinary bodily perception as reasons to reconsider the idea that death necessarily means the disappearance of awareness.
The conversation then returns directly to dying and bereavement. I point out that those left behind can endure years of grief and distress, and perhaps deserve as much consideration as the dying person. Greg agrees, then discusses the transformation often described by people who have had near-death experiences: a profound reduction in fear, a sense of peace, and a changed understanding of life and death.
I highlighted NDE descriptions of overwhelming, unconditional, nonjudgmental love. Greg emphasizes accounts in which people report observing medical procedures from above their bodies and recalling details they apparently could not have seen from their physical position. We both interpret these accounts as support for consciousness extending beyond the body, and as potentially reassuring to people frightened of dying.
Watch the video conversation here.
Another theme is the changing relationship between consciousness, language, and the brain near death. I asked about confused or seemingly nonsensical speech which sometimes happens, alongside the striking phenomenon of sudden lucidity shortly before death. Greg suggests that these might reflect changes in how the brain accesses a wider field of consciousness. I propose that learned language depends closely on the brain, it’s a reenforced learning pattern rather than a natural gift and that speech may falter as a person’s connection with the physical body loosens.
Greg adds a thoughtful observation: language allows us to share experience, but also compresses experience into what words can contain. A deeply mystical experience may be far larger than its verbal description. I connected this with the Zen image of a finger pointing at the moon—the pointer directs attention, but cannot substitute for the experience itself.
The discussion takes a substantial detour into hearing voices and psychiatric interpretation. I questioned whether automatically dismissing a person’s experience as pathological can increase their distress. Greg introduces a Jungian account that emphasizes engaging with the person’s experienced reality. He also explores an alternative model in which some experiences might involve difficulty filtering a broader field of consciousness. I connected this with channeling and the distress of being unable to switch an enforced “connection experience” off.
This part of the conversation was exploratory: we discussed spiritual interpretations of voice-hearing, creativity, and psychological overwhelm, while criticizing psychiatry’s tendency to reduce human experience to neurotransmitters. When I mentioned a Dutch approach to engaging with voices, by talking with them as real, Greg explicitly says he has not seen the particular studies.
Reincarnation becomes the next possible source of comfort. Greg discusses Ian Stevenson’s investigations of children reporting previous lives and considers two interpretations: actual reincarnation, or access to universal information through nonlocal consciousness. He leans toward reincarnation, while acknowledging that the discussion does not establish how to distinguish between those possibilities. For our shared purpose, either interpretation suggests that human identity may extend beyond the present body.
Toward the end, I confronted Greg and asked what people can actually do. Greg’s starting recommendation is regular meditation. He describes the value of recognizing that we have bodies, thoughts, and emotions without necessarily being reducible to any of them. He also mentions Monroe Institute practices, holotropic breathwork, psychedelic experiences, and past-life regression as approaches people use to explore expanded awareness.
For further reading, he names Ian Stevenson, Dean Radin, and Stanislav Grof, and discusses the ancient Eleusinian mysteries in relation to overcoming fear of death.
Greg closes by emphasizing the difference between intellectual understanding and personal experience. Reading can open a door, but an experience that changes one’s own sense of identity can bring a deeper reassurance. The conversation ends affectionately, with our shared hope that exploring consciousness will help people approach death with greater peace, curiosity, and confidence.
I hope you enjoy this new approach to a newsletter [not necessarily adopting it for the future]. Please let me know your thoughts,
Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor
