I remember reading a brief article recently about a neurosurgen named Eben Alexander who believes that while he was in a coma due to severe meningitis infection, he was still able to create new memories in the form of dreams while his brain was "totally shut off" from the disease. A lot of people say he has no evidence that his brain wasn't still active when this took place, and point out that in order to survive and describe the memories that he had to have functionality return to his brain.

I tend to view the brain as a more complex central nervous system, which is to say that it governs the animation of the body through complex circuitry, but what animates the mind is located some place more transcendent (or in a state of existence beyond descriptions of location).