Consciousness after death?

[GlowingCactus]

I would challenge a lot of people to try a good hefty dose of ketamine with some DMT or LSD or mushrooms and tell me what they think is or isn't possible anymore. ;)

Meh... I've done my fair share of psychedelic drugs and in my opinion many people take these experiences far too seriously. When the functioning of your brain is temporarily altered by drugs of course very strange things can happen but that doesn't mean there's any value or sense to it.

 

[epic]

I was under general anesthesia for an operation ( I didn't know they were going to give me general anesthesia). I had zero consciousness , zero awareness.It was just nothingness.If my life was a video those hours were cropped out of the video and the two loose ends (memory before consciousness and after consciousness) were sewed together.
Death MIGHT be the same phenomenon.

 

[Astral316]

I can't do it anymore but I astral projected from 2009 to 2013... many times I left my body, shot out of my window into my backyard and over a brook that was behind it. I hovered up and over my neighborhood and noted how accurate the houses and everything looked from a birds eye view. I figured how could an animal brain that evolved for the sole purpose of survival come with such a mechanism as dreams and oobe's unless we are something more than just intelligent animals.

On the other hand I'm a irreversibly broken individual, and have recently fallen in love with the idea of no afterlife. Dreamless sleep for eternity sounds good to me.

 

[Rachel74]

Not sure if it was anesthesia but I did come out of my body while I had a cardiac arrest in theatre. Its an experienced that stayed with me and my Mom turning me away and telling me not to go any further, my time was not up then.

 

[Shamana]

The thing is you can

I was under general anesthesia for an operation ( I didn't know they were going to give me general anesthesia). I had zero consciousness , zero awareness.It was just nothingness.If my life was a video those hours were cropped out of the video and the two loose ends (memory before consciousness and after consciousness) were sewed together.
Death MIGHT be the same phenomenon.

I also know a Buddhist master who compiled a whole elaborate complex ritual when he was knocked out by anesthesia.

In buddhism describes the inner experience of the death process to different according to your level of awareness.

In our daily life I think the same concept applies

 

[Darkhaven]

Well i, obviously, would love to have a better existence after this life is ended. However, i honestly don't believe that there's anything else after this.
Our body either rots away or is burned and our mind just shuts done as if for sleep, but this time forever...

 

[Laststop]

My view is that, whatever the truth is...it is. And we can't know where we are. There have been like almost 2,000 religions in history, and they all have a story. Some people even go for the more modern and fashionable belief that they can all be true and real. Whatever is real, nothing any of us says or thinks about it can change it. It's really hard to face death. I would comfort myself in the here and now by picking a belief like so many other people have. It'd be easier to face death, as no mater what it is that you believe is going to happen, it's still better than facing not knowing. But I can't get past that I'd just be telling myself something I don't think is real.

 

[Soul]

Man with tiny brain shocks doctors

The civil servant, who lives a normal life, had his brain reduced in size by at least 50 per cent by build-up of fluid over many years

www.newscientist.com

(The link to the "interview with a dead person" is interesting too, although it's a totally different topic.)

Living without a Brain

www.unexplainedstuff.com

 

[whereisfreedom]

If you want to know more about consciousness and consciousness after death search about Professor Stuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose and quantum mind.
There are impressive lectures of them.





It could even be that we live in a computer simulation of some extraterrestrial species.

 

[JoeFailure]

After his death, every man "exists" only in
in the memory of living people.

You don't know this for sure, though. For every Rabbi or person who says there's "nothingness", there's probably even more that say there was "something".

It could very well be nothingness or something, but like someone else said, it's the certainty of which people talk about this that can come off as smug. Nobody knows for sure.

In Tibetan buddhism when our teacher dies, we usually end up meeting him/her's supposed reincarnation within 10 years. If you have close relationship with this person and you can basicly start where you left off then reincarnation seems pretty natural.

There are NDE's as well where people can describe clearly what's going on the in the emergency room without having any supposed brain function.

If I have a teacher that led me down this path, I have a major beef with them. Must be from one of those districts that awards tenures to teachers based on longevity instead of performance.

 

[Soul]

If I have a teacher that led me down this path, I have a major beef with them. Must be from one of those districts that awards tenures to teachers based on longevity instead of performance.

Hello Joe - good to see your typeface. 8]
Can you explain a little what your beef would be? I'm having a dense day and don't get what you're driving at, and I'd like to. x

 

[ish]

Joe Failure @ ^^^^^
Awareness after death - is only through faith when living. ^^^^^

Whereisfreedom @ ^^^("It could even be that we live in a computer simulation of some extraterrestrial species. ")
People can easily be called self-reproducing and self-evolving biorobots.

 

[Asta]

And your proof is exactly what, Ish? You've actually researched and studied every book about the afterlife? You've read the account of every person in the world who has had an ADC, NDE, OBE or past-life Regression? You've watched every youtube video on the subject? If you haven't done all of this, you are no authority on whether or not there is life after death, so your statements about it mean nothing.

 

[Soul]

And your proof is exactly what, Ish? You've actually researched and studied every book about the afterlife? You've read the account of every person in the world who has had an ADC, NDE, OBE or past-life Regression? You've watched every youtube video on the subject? If you haven't done all of this, you are no authority on whether or not there is life after death, so your statements about it mean nothing.

Even if @ish had done all that s/he still wouldn't be an expert on the afterlife. Any of the books/youtube clips could be 100% true, but the world still doesn't know which.

 

[JimFord99]

I astral projected a few times so I know there is an afterlife. Besides that I've experienced ghosts a hand full of times throughout my life too.

Tell us a bit more about your experiences, please? Or you can m me. I really like to hear more about this.

 

[ish]

Asta @ ^^^^^
Everyone has the right to believe what they want.
Experiences of people on the borderline of death,
are the reports living people.

 

[Asta]

The experiences of people who have had ADC's, OBE's or past-life Regressions are not those who are "on the borderline of death". They are "living people".
However, this will always be a useless conversation - as you say, every one believes what they want to believe - and this is way too boring to continue.

 

[I’vehadenough]

I'm so hoping there is something, and something better than this.

I fit pretty firmly in the category of "doesn't want to die, just can't stand living".

Actually, I really do want to live, just not on this miserable planet. I only want to die out of resignation, and I feel resentful of that. So, I guess all I'm left with is hoping that there is maybe something better hereafter?

If there isn't I guess I'll be none the wiser, it still bothers me though.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Don't bank on it, if the idea of nothingness after death bothers you, then find ways to make life meaningful

 

[I’vehadenough]

I have posted this who knows how many times, and it may not be anything you are hoping for, but here it is again:

Ian Stevenson - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Lol I'm not reading 400 pages. Even if I'm reincarnated into a cockroach after suicide, it's better than my life now

 

[JoeFailure]

Hello Joe - good to see your typeface. 8]
Can you explain a little what your beef would be? I'm having a dense day and don't get what you're driving at, and I'd like to. x

Hey Soul, you too!

Well I guess what I"m saying is if I supposedly have a teacher, I think they've done a horrific job of preparing me for life or with any kind of spiritual guidance. If I met them, I'd probably tell them they need to explore a new spiritual profession.

Joe Failure @ ^^^^^
Awareness after death - is only through faith when living. ^^^^^

That's cool if that's your belief, my point was mainly that when you post on threads about this, you say it like it's a certainty. Which you don't know.

It's kind of like when atheists mock Christians or other religious people when they speak in certainties or are smug about their beliefs and condescending to people who don't...which is fine because that happens all the time...but many of those atheists do the same exact thing.

It's kind of like the political smugness that exists between the left and the right, I'm not sure why that has to exist in a conversation or debate.

 

[ish]

JoeFailure @^^^^^
All the advice and books you get in life
it's a matter of faith. Your experiences in life
verifyty this faith.

 

[Arskam]

my opinion is that the sky is empty and our existence, just an accident of the probabilities of the universe. Life can be hell, this is my case and it has been going on for ten years. I wish only one thing, can one day soon have enough courage to extinguish the light and especially not to exist any more here or elsewhere.

 

[IsadoraBeauxdraps]

Hi,

this is just my opinion,

Both Dogma and atheism are nonsense for me.
Dogma because they are like simplified stories for children, trying to simplify what cannot be. Not much more to say for me.
Atheism, I had been atheist, but I changed my mind.
We are all here in this world, accustomed to our reality, as if everything was usual. But it's not. For me, normality would be the void. The void is perfect, the void is one. In a kind of way I would say void is soothing.
I know of course that in a scientific view we could say that the universe is perfect, and it is, but the problem is that « it is », it exists, it evolves.
Atheism says it's like that, that's all.
But just open your eyes, wake up, look around you, do it really, look at a distant landscape, look at pictures of the earth from space, think about the billions of galaxies, about the periodic system of elements, think about the space time, about singularity like black holes where laws of physics don't exist anymore, about all the nonsense of quantum physics, where we discover the existence of distant connected particules that interacts immediately no matter the space between them while it should be impossible, the quantum physics which tell us that we can't even know if our world exists materially or is just a projection of a consciousness.
And at the end of this travel, just remember what you felt when you kissed your first love.
All of this exists, all of this emerged from the void, from a tiny point.
There is something, I mean there's already something unbelievable, in the kind of way something absolutely « magical »
When I think about it, when I think deeply about it, I'm off the edge of insanity.
Because there's something instead of nothing. And it's not « normal »
Normality would be the void.
We could debate eternally, but It's a matter of insight. I'm looking at a snail, what can he perceive from reality ? And now myself ? What would be the fragment of reality that I can't perceive ?
There is something, I can't know what it is, but if you open your mind, and look really our world, you will foresee.

 

[PaYo]

I think this is the best and most condenced answer for this question. Dont forget to check it up!

 

[Arskam]

the notion of time and its perception are products of cerebral activity. it is not impossible that mechanisms in our brain, when it dies alters our perception of time. eternity is then the equivalent of a no time. it's all about perception.

 

[IsadoraBeauxdraps]

Hi,

If I was atheist, I would say that our world is the only reality. There's no need to think beyond. But what does exactly « reality » mean ?
Reality could be « what it is »
« The earth is round. »
What do people who are studying deeply a discipline understand ? That there exists limits which are tearing the reality.
Study astronomy and you won't be able to go beyond the event horizon of black holes, art and you won't be able to go beyond the death of the significant and the signified, quantum physics and you won't be able to determinate if the cat of Schrödinger is dead or alive before opening the box, philosophy and you won't be able to go beyond the frontier of insanity without falling down forever.
Of course we can sometimes break down the borders, but when it happens, the horizon is increasingly moving away from us. It sounds like the story of the oak island. To reach the treasure, we're digging deeper and deeper, we're crossing the levels, traps are activated, making the advance more and more perilous, condemning a little more each time the treasure.
It's a bottomless pit. Every serious scientist will tell you that, I mean not the condescending ones.
We could continue the quantum metaphor by saying that it exists frontiers in our world beyond which the form of the earth is just a potentiality, neither round nor flat, and that ultimately we don't even know if the earth exists. Maybe only insane people could see that.
Reality is relative, as time. That's a chimera, we will never determinate it. Reality is not set in stone.
The only concept which espouse the idea of stability is the nothingness, it is one, it don't move, it is eternal, it is perfect, there's no one to think it.
But unfortunately it is a nonsense, because this concept doesn't accept half-measure. We can of course experience the void in our world. We can say that there's no planet between earth and mars, that's there's nothing between elementary particles, that while you're meditating, at the precise time when there's no thoughts in your mind, hishiryo appears, that when you had general anesthesia you don't remember anything, but all of that is the idea of void inside something. All of that is a void where the potentiality exists, where our world emerged. Not the real nothingness.
If it exists a consciousness, whatever its nature, epiphenomenon of the material world or cosmic consciousness, even in a wing flap of a butterfly, then real void will never exist.

There is something...... for me

 

[Alec]

I'm the same as you

The most well accepted theory is that there's no other side, heaven or hell or afterlife, once your brain cells die your cognitive capacity ends and with it ends all of yourself, all your memories, beliefs, ideals, morale, love, past, present and future. Everything you can call conscious ends there, with your non functional death brain.

It's ok that you believe this and I don't want to say anything to prevent you believing what comforts you but just one thing though, how is this belief "most well accepted"? Am I reading this wrong? Because it sounds to me like you are saying this is what most people believe but that simply can't be true. Just take a look at how many religions there are and almost all of them speak of some kind of afterlife and existence. Almost all people believe there is something more after we die in one way or another.

 

[ish]

To sanction civilization, a law was created -
ethics - morality --- faith. This faith requires motivation.
"Lies" for a good purpose.

 

[clarelively]

Same, hopefully the bus takes us somewhere better, better than here.

 

[John Smith]

No one has fully died (like dead over 24 hours) to come back with a report. We wont know until we go. I used to think there was consciousness after, now not really. The brain is capable of giving us some pretty phenomenal experinces.... NEAR DEATH experinces are not DEATH.... not the same. So all the reports to me are just dream states, and stuff that takes place as Brain loses oxygen, and other brain based phenomena..... people have personal experinces. Thats all thier own beliefs, but no conclusive evidence of any true afterlife

Actually there have been cases of people coming back from death more then 24 hours later.