What goes on in our brains after we die?

Question

I watched this movie called Waking Life and it commented that after we die, our brains are still active for 6 to 12 minutes. What is it doing? I mean, are our senses still functioning someone, are we acknowledging that we're dead, or are we just kind of working on shutting down?

Answer 1

I think that there would be no activity, a person can be brain dead and still have a heartbeat.

Answer 2

Who would care?

Answer 3

A movie is a movie. Doesn't mean that that's real. We are dead. Our brains are just shutting down. Kind of like when you kill a snake or cut its head off, it kind of wiggles for a minute it's shutting down. So that would be what our brains do if that movie happens to be true.

Answer 4

Between 2-6 minutes without oxygen brain cells die, period. Your brain is not like a computer where it 'powers down'. Basically your brain dies from the cortex (the outermost part) down to the most primitive inner deeper parts down. That is why people with massive brain injuries of the cerebral  cortex continue to breath and have heart beats. The upper part is what you use to think, analyze, imagine, emote, etc. Your personality, what makes you unique dies with the cerebral cortex. Brain dead patients can register noxious (painful) stimuli in some cases, and have reflexes to withdraw from them (decorticate or decerebrate posturing) but otherwise you are simply a sack of meat.  

When you die, there is nothing there to acknowledge the experience,  unless you believe that your spirit lives on somehow.

I am sure what they meant by 'active' had nothing to do with higher cortical functioning, or resembled constructive thought patterns by any stretch of the imagination.

What it is actively doing is dying, cells are rupturing and digesting themselves, blood clots, you are becoming cellular slush.