Man says a near-death experience changed his life at 20 — what it taught him about the brain reshaped how he sees the world
The way we think about ourselves and the world around us can turn into a habit. If we spend our days dwelling on what is going wrong, it can become harder to notice anything else. But changing that pattern begins with something as small as the words we use and the thoughts we entertain. For Matthew Cunningham, that idea became outstanding after a near-death experience when he was 20 years old. Years later, he still remembers what he says he learned about the brain and the way it filters the world around us. He shared this on TikTok under his handle @papaswellness on September 7, 2026.
In the video, he introduced viewers to something called "the reticular activating system", or RAS, a network involved in regulating arousal and attention. His explanation was that the brain is constantly taking in far more information than we can consciously process. What reaches our attention is influenced by what we are already looking for, thinking about, and expecting to find. That can make our mindset feel like a filter. “If you're constantly viewing things as negative and complaining and searching for reasons to complain,” he explained, you are more likely to keep noticing things that fit that pattern.
He wasn't arguing that people literally manufacture the outside world with their thoughts. Rather, his point was that the way we habitually think can affect the parts of reality we notice. Individuals who spend most of their time looking for things to complain about may have a harder time noticing what is going well. He encouraged people to become more conscious of their self-talk, particularly the things they repeatedly say about themselves and other people. He argued that if you constantly describe yourself negatively, those thoughts can become part of the identity you carry around. “You can change your life today by starting to think positively and talking positively about yourself,” he said.
He also took the idea further, arguing that people should avoid speaking negatively about others. Words matter because they reinforce what we repeatedly focus on. The more attention we give something, the more familiar that pattern becomes. Nature Reviews Neuroscience on perception has found that prior expectations can shape how the brain processes incoming information. At the same time, selective attention determines which parts of our surroundings receive more of our mental resources.
In other words, our brains are constantly prioritizing some information over other information. The creator said that those questions became meaningful after an experience he had at just 20. The world around us does not necessarily change because we think differently. But the version of that world we notice can, and that can be enough to make us look at the same life a little differently.
For more information, you can follow @papaswellness on Instagram.