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sensubmaybe -> RE: What Happens When You Die? Evidence Suggests Time Simply Reboots (6/15/2010 5:43:27 PM)
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Although this is by no means an attempt to convert you or change your mind with regard to your own experiences, which of course I could never do, I do have to say that I was once intrigued by near death experiences (NDEs) that people had and their recounts gave me hope that there was something out there. That said, I finally had to agree with a number of medical and science based writers who had commented on NDEs and came to the convincing conclusion that an NDE is simply that, near death, they didn't die forever. I am more than happy to accept that our consciousness goes through an experience of perception when the body is in the process of dying, including those moments of clinically defined as death prior to either "coming back" or staying dead. I can accept that perhaps -- as it may be in dreams -- our different levels of consciousness are tapped, awakened or perhaps what NDEs experience is their shutting down prior to the final blackout of death. Indeed, dreams tap into different states of consciousness too and when we wake we tell of everything from premonitions to song melodies that we're sure will be hits if we could only write them down. However, I have not been convinced that what people who have gone through NDEs experience can stand as some sort of definitive proof of what happens when one is finally dead.
Although I'm happy to "never say never," I have yet to find anything conclusive enough to give me genuine confidence that there is anything that happens after death other than our understandable endless speculation, fascination and hope. Not that I have any need or desire to go through an NDE, in many ways your experience is something enviable. Most people who have been through that feel at peace with the idea of death because they are convinced that death is peaceful and there is more ahead. It must be a great feeling and a reasonable compensation for having had to go through it. I hope they're right, I just don't believe it.
I whole heartedly believe that what the person experiences as they are dying is vitally important and that you can never go wrong by creating as calm, peaceful, reassuring and facilitating of an environment as possible up to and at the moment of death. If nothing else, why should anyone's last thoughts or feelings, even on a subconscious level, be of fear or chaos? I've helped people die in peace. I read to them and sang to them and caressed their skin. I convinced myself that death is a nature part, and end, of life and there was no reason to be sad and I was able to help them die without overt signs of my own sadness, loss or pain. I can only hope it helped them. I can only wish that someone will be there and do it for me when the time comes.
I'm sure you've heard the saying "given up the ghost." We use it to mean that we've stopped trying at something or waiting for someone or something, but do you know where it comes from? It's from the Bible and in those times people believed that once a person had "died," for three days there was a potential that they would come back to life, and after three days went by and this didn't happen, they stopped waiting and "gave up the ghost," meaning gave the ghost that they believed was in the body of the deceased, permission to leave the body, thus accepting death. What's at debate here is whether or not that ghost is real. Regardless, there even then, in the act of “giving up the ghost” there is recognition in the finality of things and acceptance that it all ends. Then, as now, people wanted, needed to believe this, yet there is no conclusive truth and there will never be. I'm grateful that you survived, not once, but twice. I'm glad this gives you a sense of certainty and comfort.
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ORIGINAL: dovie
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ORIGINAL: sensubmaybe
That was a pretty thin thread and quite the stretch trying to connect this with anything useful or concrete regarding the speculation as to what happens when we die. Probably like lots of people, I've contemplated this plenty throughout my life, and I've come to the one, hard-to-swallow, conclusion that what happens when we die is probably nothing, absolutely nothing. We just quit moving around in this skin bag and we start to decompose. The world turns without us just as it did before us.
We've invented countless ideas about some sort of continuation and afterlife, reincarnation, soul/spirit progression through some sort of cosmic energy flow into some higher reality, and in the end, I think it's all feel-good bullshit we tell ourselves to get through, to obliterate, at least temporarily, the hard reality that this is all there is and it won't last forever and once it's over, it's over; we had our time here and now it's done.
I'm sorry sensubmaybe.
julia, thank you for posting this. I like.
I died when I was 3 and again when I was 11. You can call the men in white coats now with their thorazine and haldol filled 38's. Don't care...you either understand or you don't. No amount of me telling anyone anything will help with their understanding. It is my belief there is a 'something' that exists after we die to this present existence. To each their own.
btw..the jello here is nice
Regards,
dovie
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