Heaven Sequence

Dr. Christian Alexander is a world renowned cognitive neuroscientist working at a neurological research center in New York City. He is driven by a childhood obsession to find his father who disappeared before his birth. As a child he believes his father Douglas left for a paradise beyond the horizon. As an adult this leads him to continue his unknown father's research into human near death experiences. He begins to suspect that the brain, or at least a part of it, lives well beyond death. He hypothesizes that there is considerable cognitive activity within the human brain for several minutes after death, and that it can be measured scientifically. His post-death experiments with humans' closest relative, the Gorilla, confirm his suspicions.

Obsessed to the point of hallucinations, Dr. Alexander conducts clandestine research looking for human post-death cognition which, his inner child tells him, is the realm where his father lives. In the process he comes upon a revelation of what the human brain is actually capable of well after all life has left the rest of the body.