What happens when we die? This spiritual question has haunted humanity since the dawn of thought. Yet despite centuries of soul-searching, the mystery of consciousness remains unsolved.
The Mystery That Refuses to Die
Philosophers have wrestled with the idea. Theologians have preached about it. And scientists have probed the brain using microscopes and scanners.
But we still do not know what consciousness is.
In November 2025, Professor Maria Strømme of Uppsala University ignited a firestorm of a debate with a radical new hypothesis: consciousness is not generated by the brain at all, but is a fundamental field of the Universe itself.
If true, this idea could explain phenomena ranging from near-death experiences to telepathy, and even provide a scientific framework for life after death.
Spotlighted in the Daily Mail, Strømme’s extraordinary claim has rippled across science publications, simultaneously sparking excitement and skepticism.
The emergence of time, space, and matter is intricately linked to the presence of consciousness.
Prof. Maria Strømme,
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanotechnology and Functional Materials, Uppsala University
To understand its significance, we trace the story from sensational tabloid headlines to peer-reviewed Physics journals, and from ancient philosophy to modern Quantum Mechanics.
Into The Daily Mail’s Sensational Spotlight
The Daily Mail article, published on 26 November 2025, introduced Strømme’s theory to a mass audience. It described her claim that consciousness exists as a “building block of the universe”, independently of the brain.
According to Strømme, when a person dies, their consciousness does not vanish – it simply returns to the universal background field.
This framing was deliberately provocative, emphasizing the implications for near-death experiences and life after death, and capturing the public imagination. Nevertheless, it also raised eyebrows in the scientific community.
Could a mainstream tabloid really be the first to spotlight a theory that challenges centuries of neuroscience?
Uppsala University’s Scientific Release
The official Uppsala University announcement provided more rigour. Strømme’s paper, published in AIP Advances, argues that consciousness precedes time, space and matter.
In her model, the universe itself emerges from consciousness, not the other way around. This is a profound inversion of the standard scientific narrative.
Traditionally, Physics has assumed that matter and energy give rise to complex structures, which eventually produce consciousness. Strømme’s theory flips this assumption on its head: consciousness is the foundation and matter is the derivative.
Her paper was not only published but also selected as the best paper of the issue in AIP Advances. This recognition signals that her work is not fringe speculation, but instead a peer-reviewed contribution to the field of Physics.
Bridging Physics and Philosophy
Phys.org emphasized the quantum mechanical underpinnings of Strømme’s theory. Her equations suggest that consciousness existed even before the Big Bang, in a timeless state.
Key Findings
1. Consciousness is treated as a fundamental field
The model proposes a universal consciousness field that exists independently of spacetime.
2. This field exists in a “timeless” state before the Big Bang
The summaries describe a pre‑spacetime domain where time has not yet emerged.
3. Spacetime emerges from this field
The theory claims that the properties of the consciousness field give rise to the metric structure of spacetime.
4. The Big Bang is not a beginning, but a transition
Instead of a singularity, the Big Bang marks the point where time and space crystallize out of the underlying field.
This idea challenges the conventional cosmological model, which assumes that time and space originated with the Big Bang.
However, Strømme’s hypothesis implies that consciousness is more fundamental than spacetime itself. In her view, the Big Bang was not the origin of everything, but rather a transformation within a pre-existing field of consciousness.
Her career trajectory adds weight to the claim.
Strømme is not a philosopher dabbling in metaphysics. She is a nanotechnology expert who has spent decades working at the intersection of Physics and Applied Science.
Her leap from Nanotechnology to Cosmology underpins the interdisciplinary nature of her thinking.
Quantum Physics Meets Non-Dual Philosophy
A related publication in Life Technology framed Strømme’s theory as a bridge between quantum physics and non-dual philosophy.
This is significant because it connects modern science with ancient traditions that have long claimed consciousness is fundamental.
Consciousness is fundamental; only thereafter do time, space and matter arise.
Prof. Maria Strømme,
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanotechnology and Functional Materials, Uppsala University
The universe emerges from it, exists within it, and dissolves back into it. Source: Templepurohit.com
For example, Vedic texts describe consciousness as the source of reality, a claim echoed in Buddhist and Taoist traditions.
Mystical traditions across cultures have long insisted that the mind is not confined to the body but is part of a universal whole.
Strømme’s theory provides a scientific framework for these intuitions, suggesting that consciousness is indeed woven into the fabric of the cosmos.
Other news coverage stressed that many scientists remain skeptical.
Skepticism and the Scientific Debate
Critics argue that the theory is unproven and requires rigorous testing. Neuroscience overwhelmingly supports the view that consciousness is brain-based, arising from complex neural networks.
From this perspective, Strømme’s theory is extraordinary. And extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.
Skeptics warn that without empirical validation, her hypothesis risks being dismissed as metaphysics rather than science.
Yet skepticism is not dismissal.
The history of science is full of ideas that were initially ridiculed, only to later reshape entire fields. The challenge now is to design experiments that can test whether consciousness truly exists as a universal field.
The Implications for Near-Death Experiences and Telepathy
One of the most compelling aspects of Strømme’s theory is its potential to explain phenomena often dismissed as pseudoscience.
Near-death experiences, for example, have long puzzled researchers.
Medical patients reported experiencing vivid perceptions even when their brains show little or no activity. If consciousness is independent of the brain, these experiences could be explained as the mind temporarily detaching from the body and reconnecting with the universal field.
Telepathy – long relegated to the realm of science fiction – could similarly be understood as minds communicating through the shared consciousness field. In such a framework, thoughts may not be confined to individual brains, but ripple across the universal substrate.
Most provocatively, Strømme’s theory suggests that life after death is not a mystical hope but a scientific possibility. Individual consciousness, she argues, does not vanish but reintegrates into the universal source.
A Framework for Testing
The Above the Norm News coverage highlighted that Maria Strømme’s framework generates testable predictions. This is crucial, because without testability, the theory risks being dismissed as metaphysics.
Potential experiments include quantum tests designed to detect consciousness fields, neuroscience studies on brain-independent awareness and cosmological models that incorporate the idea of a pre-Big Bang consciousness.
If these experiments yield positive results, they could indeed revolutionize our understanding of both Physics and Psychology.
Historical Context – From Descartes to the Quantum Mind
Strømme’s theory joins a long lineage of attempts to explain consciousness.
In the 17th century, French philosopher René Descartes proposed dualism, the idea that mind and matter are separate substances. In the 19th and 20th centuries, materialism became dominant, with scientists arguing that consciousness is nothing more than brain activity.
In the late 20th century, quantum theories of mind emerged, most notably Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff’s “Orch-OR” model, which suggested that consciousness arises from quantum processes in microtubules within neurons.
Strømme’s leap is even more radical. For her, consciousness is not just quantum, but fundamental.
Consciousness is the foundation of reality itself.
Cultural Resonance
Why does this theory resonate so strongly? Because it touches the deepest of human concerns.
What happens when we die? Are mystical experiences real?
Is consciousness universal?
These are questions that science has often avoided, dismissing them as unanswerable or irrelevant. Professor Strømme’s theory confronts them head-on, offering a scientific framework that bridges the gap between science and spirituality.
This cultural resonance explains why the Daily Mail article captured so much attention.
This is not merely a scientific claim. It is the crux about the meaning of life and death.
A Paradigm in the Making?
Professor Maria Strømme’s hypothesis is not just another theory: it is a paradigm challenge. If consciousness is indeed fundamental, science may need to rewrite its understanding of reality itself.
Whether proven or disproven, her work forces us to confront the possibility that we are not brains that generate consciousness, but consciousness that generates brains.
It is a philosophical revolution. And like all revolutions, it will face resistance, skepticism, and debate.
But it also holds the potential to reshape our understanding of who we are, where we come from, and what happens when we die.