I have spoken with people who have experienced Recalled Experience of Death (RED) but I couldn't establish if their brains were dead or not. I wish I could have performed functional MRI scans but that was not possible given the circumstances.

Materialists believe that only the brain is real and the mind is the product of the activities of the brain. Spiritualists believe that only the soul is real and everything else is illusion. Dualists believe that both the brain and the soul are real and the soul pilots the brain until the brain is dead and then is either resurrected or reincarnated. I am agnostic about the existence of souls, gods, resurrection and reincarnation. I am trying to find out the whole truth about everything and everyone.

Regarding your question, do you think it possible that the mind 'resides' in the brain and grows/develops there, but can also exist outside the brain too when there is no longer a brain? — Beverley

Nope. Mind is not a separate entity. It is an emergent property of the brain - the result of all the activity and connectivity of all those billions of neurons - one of the two reasons those neurons exist, the other being to control the functions of the body. When they stop working, every other organ stops, waiting for instructions.

...Unless the mind has turned into a soul at some point and grown wings so it can go to heaven, or failed to grow wings, so it must plummet to hell. Or unless it becomes a free-floating ghost....

I do not really know what I believe about this at the moment. — Beverley

Of course, billions of people do believe those stories, or claim to. You'd never be lonely if you chose that option.

I mean, when the brain has stopped functioning, if people are still seeing/hearing things — Beverley

They can see and hear, if the liver or kidneys are not functioning and maybe while the heart is stopped, but can still be restarted. That's what generally happens in these near-death experiences.
In movies, the bystanders rush in, somebody holds a finger to the victim's throat for ten seconds and pronounces him "gone" . (They're sure, because it's in the script.) In reality, people can go four to six minutes of no heartbeat without serious brain injury and survive as long as ten or twelve in some condition. The rare exceptions I know were children who froze in extreme prairie temperatures, who have appeared dead for up to a reported two hours and been revived. In some cases, even the EEG fails to detect very faint brain activity.

Gordon Giesbrecht, a hypothermia expert at the University of Manitoba, told CTV News Channel that it is "very difficult to predict" whether resuscitation attempts will be successful or not.

If you don't find the head cut off, you can't always be sure someone's dead

After all, we accept that energy is all around us, and yet it does not seem to 'reside' anywhere specifically since it is not made of matter. — Beverley

It emanates from the activities of matter. It comes from the burning of the sun's gases in the form of light and heat. But, although we measure units of heat for our own convenience, we cannot discern discrete packets of heat that have names and personalities. Without matter, what would form a barrier between minds? So, all right, if energy emanates from brain activity, it must radiate outward continuously, along with body heat, evaporated fluid and scent, to mingle with all the other energy.

I am open to hearing other ideas though. — Beverley

Ideas are free; people are always eager to share them. It's facts you have to work for.

I appreciate your point of view, however, when a person is in cardiac arrest, the brain is no longer functioning and hence, no signals are being sent. This means they cannot see. But of course, people could say many things to explain away near death experiences. As you may already know, I believe nothing is 100 percent certain.

when a person is in cardiac arrest, the brain is no longer functioning — Beverley

That is not the case. The brain, as I mentioned just a few minutes ago, keeps functioning for minutes and in some very rare instances, even hours, when the blood supply is cut off. (This is the idea behind cryogenics.)
My 'point of view' is the evidence-based knowledge that makes medicine, transportation and communication possible. Believe what you like, but please, if you're sick, go to a doctor, rather than a priest.

I don't go to priests, so don't worry. I believe you are incorrect about the brain. During cardiac arrest, no signals are sent. The reason that the brain doesn't become brain dead is because it takes that time you mentioned, around 5 minutes, maybe slightly more, for the brain cells to die. This is why people can be resuscitated. However, the brain is not capable of sending signals for body function at this point as it is not receiving oxygen.

Dr Sam Parnia and his team seem convinced that the patients met the criteria for clinical death and would not have come back to life without their medical intervention. — Truth Seeker

They may be absolutely correct. A whole lot of traffic victims and people suffering heart attacks could not have survived without medical intervention. Intervention is pretty much the whole point of medicine. When somebody's approaching death, they usually keep going unless somebody else stops them. For a while. Eventually, they and we will die anyway. Then we'll stop telling stories and wondering what to believe.

"Clinical death" is not irreversible brain decomposition in the case of "NDE / RED" and therefore only a medical status and not a biological terminus.

A little more information: https://bjgplife.com/recalled-experience-of-death/

The controlled research settings for RED studies are people who have undergone a cardiac arrest. This potentially reversible clinical death state provides the best model to research RED.1 In clinical death, body and brain stem reflexes have vanished and within 15 seconds, the electroencephalogram (EEG) is flat-lined. If lifesaving techniques are not successful to revert this life-threatening situation, death is usually irreversible within five to ten minutes.2 In this context, RED is defined as “a specific cognitive and emotional experience that occurs during a period of loss of consciousness in relation to a life-threatening event, including cardiac arrest”.1

Thank you for the link. I am quoting from the link https://bjgplife.com/recalled-experience-of-death

According to Van Lommel,2 the brain has an interface function and not a producing one. The brain works as transceiver sending information captured by the sense organs to consciousness, and receiving information from consciousness. For Van Lommel, consciousness is a non-local field as compared to an electromagnetic wave coded with information, which requires a gadget to decode it such as a smartphone, a radio or a TV set. These devices can be destroyed but not the information itself and its source. Similarly, the death of the body would not imply the end of consciousness.

Is Van Lommel correct or incorrect?

I agree.

and receiving information from consciousness.

I wonder where this free-floating consciousness gets its information. Do we each have one? How do 8 billion (assuming other species have none, which is a long stretch to accept) consciousnesses keep their identity separate and how do they each know to which receptor they're supposed to convey information? Or is it one big nebula of consciousness transmitting impersonally to the world? Is all the information in the universe available to the meta-consciousness? If so, why are some of us better informed than others? Is it down to the innate quality of our equipment, and is that equipment upgraded through education?

Is Van Lommel correct or incorrect? — Truth Seeker

From that quote, confusing. When I have time to read the documentation for his research, I'll know whether he explains the mechanism.
....
Oh, seems I'd have to read his book. I did find one reference to the scientific paper - a 'prospective study' - what people did and said over a period of time - rather than a controlled experiment. But I didn't find the text even of that study.

None of us can know anything about what happens after death, so why even ask the question? But I suspect it's true.

We may not know until we die and die we will.

I haven't read his book but I read some of the reviews on Amazon of his book. It seems that his book is pseudoscience.

That would explain why it doesn't appear as a research paper. Apparently, the follow-up on cardiac patients was legitimate. Most people who have been close to death do change their lifestyle and I wouldn't be surprised if those who had visions while in critical condition were influenced by those visions. I venture to posit that these visions were the product of their own minds, made of memories, regrets, suppressed desires. It's not their personality that changes; it's their attitude.

I imagine the team collected a huge pile of information from these patients. All of it anecdotal, of a very subjective experience. You can't blame someone for trying to make sense of it. You can blame him for seriously touting made-up theories and using his degree to lend them credence. A whole lot of wishful thinkers would happily fork out for the book.

There are many wishful thinkers on Earth. I have met many of them. Given how harsh life is, I don't blame them for being wishful thinkers.

I don't blame them for being wishful thinkers. — Truth Seeker

Nor do I. But I do blame people whose life is anything but harsh taking advantage.

I am agnostic about blaming and praising anyone. Is being greedy and exploitative someone's fault? Would I not behave like them if I had their genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences? To answer this question incontrovertibly, I would have to create an identical universe with identical variables and see what happens. If hard determinism is true, everything will happen inevitably exactly as it happened in this universe. I think we are all cogs in the machine of reality.

Would I not behave like them if I had their genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences? — Truth Seeker

Then you would be them. There is no point holding anyone responsible for any atrocity, since, if you were them, you'd rape and pillage, too, and I assume you would not take the blame either. But since I have only my genes, environment and experiences, I can't help feeling the way I feel about them.

I am agnostic about blaming and praising anyone. — Truth Seeker

Of course - you cannot be otherwise.

I don't blame you for feeling the way you do about people who harm deliberately. I used to blame and praise but I stopped doing it because I realised that we are all doing inevitable things and are not worthy of praise or blame.

Absolutely non-judgmental? That's a rare skill! I'm sure I couldn't master it, so I won't even try.

I realised that we are all doing inevitable things and are not worthy of praise or blame. — Truth Seeker

Well then, apparently, it's "inevitable" for me to "praise or blame" ... :mask:

I, with my unending powers, welcome you to at the gates of heaven.

I agree.

I don't think it qualifies as a skill. It's simply the result of my realisation that we are all prisoners of causality.

No one deserves to go to heaven or hell because no one has free will.

Not many people know this, but when you die in someone's arms tonight, you go to a warehouse and a lady plays a cello, but it gets taken from her, and so she just keeps playing it like it's still there.

If you see the air cello being played, you've died. Remember that, maybe even tattoo it to your arm so you can read it in your death and you'll know where you are.

This video explains it:

No one deserves to go to heaven or hell because no one has free will. — Truth Seeker

Calvinists, for instance, (seem to) believe that some are pre-determined to be "damned" or "saved".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination

I love the song. Thank you for sharing.