PENnED

I’ve been reflecting on something that science and faith seem to agree on: when the brain goes quiet, consciousness doesn’t disappear—it returns to something bigger.

A 2025 study published in Nature Human Behaviour found that under deep anesthesia, the brain’s unique “fingerprint”—the pattern that makes you you—completely fades (Nature Human Behaviour, 2025). The networks that hold your memories, your sense of self, your story… they all go silent. And yet, when the anesthesia wears off, your awareness returns. Your “I Am” comes back.

This has led some scientists to ask: maybe the brain doesn’t ‘create’ consciousness. Maybe it ‘conducts’ it—like a radio tuning into a signal. When the radio breaks, the signal doesn’t vanish. It just stops being heard through that device.

Dr. Stuart Hameroff (Hameroff, 2022) and physicist Sir Roger Penrose (Penrose, 1994) believe that consciousness flows through quantum processes in the brain’s microtubules. When those processes collapse, awareness fades. When they restart, the self returns.

I’ve also seen research by Dr. Robert Hesse and The Contemplative Network showing that prayer, compassion, and forgiveness increase coherence in both brain and heart rhythms (Hesse, 2023). That means these spiritual practices may help us tune into the field of consciousness more clearly. Maybe faith isn’t just belief—it’s a way of aligning with something real and measurable.

So what happens when the brain dies?

If the brain is a conductor, then death isn’t the end of consciousness. It’s the moment when the signal returns fully to the field. The “I Am” may dissolve into something universal. Or—if Christ’s resurrection was historical—it may be retrieved. Not just remembered, but reawakened.

The resurrection, to me, is more than a miracle. It’s a message: that our identity is not lost in death. It’s held. It’s known. It can be restored.

“In God we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)

Science and faith are not enemies. They’re two ways of describing the same mystery. And when the brain goes silent, consciousness does not fade into nothing. It fades into everything.