I’d be impressed, because it doesn’t get much simpler than that.
When you work in health care, you see many people with shortened life spans, so to speak.
Most have told us they aren’t afraid of death; they just don’t want a painful passing. But then most of them have had time to come to terms with the inevitable.
Then there was the lay minister who was a royal pain in the patootie. He DEMANDED that
someone all but hold his hand all day long. So I escorted him to the toilet one day and while there, he up and had a heart attack for my personal entertainment.
Good place to have a cardiac episode - he went to ICM and, about a week later, he was considered stable enough to return to us.
He was a changed man - sweet and patient and everything you could wish for in a patient. I asked him what he’d done with the other guy, and he said he’d experienced one of those near death things and he’d learned not to be afraid to die. Before, he’d been terrified of death - now, not at all.
So, since several people who’ve ‘been there, done that’ all have told us the same thing,
rather than being afraid of ‘passing over’ we should find out how to do it right. Personally I’d like to die in my sleep, like my mother did 
an seanchai
Well, I sort of agree with Woody Allen who said, “I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” 
Yeah, for the most part it is not the fear of BEING dead, but GETTING dead…or as Asimov put it, “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition
that’s troublesome.”
Yeah, I’m sqeamish. :eek:
I think BIRTH has to be as (or more) traumatic as death. Here you are, all peaceful, floating in a warm, soothing sea with all your needs met, and suddenly your world starts shaking and contracting and next thing you know you are being forced through this tunnel and into this world of blinding light, loud noises and weird giants who are moving you around and doing things to you!!!:eek:
But it’s more than that.
Humans tend to fear the unknown. Even if we THINK we know what will happen at/after death, we really don’t have any solid proof and so that element of uncertainty remains. I happen to believe that we go on in some form (aside from matter). Just for the record. But if I’m wrong, ehh, what will I know about it? 
And unlike most other animals, we are very self-aware and able to contemplate ideas like death and our own mortality for extended periods (not just when we encounter a life-threatening situation and act to avoid it…our fear of death LINGERS well beyond the moment).
It is, I think, our own particular curse/hell. There is a great line in a great film (Little Children) which speaks to this: (to parphrase), “Humans go through life knowing that at any moment, everyone and everything they love can be taken away forever. And yet they go on. That’s what sets us apart…we go ON, even knowing this every moment. Animals don’t do that.”
No, they don’t. They live in the moment, and if the particular moment doesn’t involve threat of death, they don’t think about it. We do. More or less constantly.
I think if we didn’t push this awareness somewhat into the background most of the time we’d go completely batshit insane. To actually think on your own death (or the death of a loved one) without any buffers is some harsh shit, let me tell you.
My husband of 23 yrs died a little over 2 yrs ago. Not an unexpected or sudden death, as it was due to an illness of a few yrs, but still. I thought I had a handle on what death is/means, but I didn’t. Not really.
When you stare it in the face with all blinders removed, it is something else altogether, no matter WHAT you thought you believed. No matter how you try to evade it and soften it and ignore it, it will come back and slap you in the face when you least expect it.
The 3 am realization that the person you knew and loved is now, physically, so many ashes in a small box (and possibly nothing more, ever) is a deep one. It is not something you wrap your mind around intellectually, from a distance, but something you experience on a gut/heart level.
So yeah, that ability to contemplate such things on a higher level can cause fear.
Not only do you think of/remember your loved one dying but of YOURSELF eventually ending up in the same position. You dwell on things to an extent no other animal is capable of (as far as we know).
For a long while after he died, I really didn’t WANT to live, and didn’t really fear death (all squeamishness aside), but what I DID fear was dying and leaving our kids alone/putting them through such a thing again. I still do. That is my greatest fear surrounding my own death. Well, and I have other interests as well currently which keep me busy and looking to the future
One thing I have learned and find interesting and ironic is this: The times in my life when I was happiest, most at peace with myself and everything else, THOSE were the times when I felt I could have died happily without a regret and had no fear of death whatsoever.
The times when I have been most UNhappy, most troubled, to the point of feeling at times I wanted to die, THOSE are the times when I felt most strongly that the worst possible thing would be for me TO die, and the times when I have feared death the most.
Seems it would be the other way around, huh? But I get it. It has to do with what it is we feel we need to do/fix/accomplish. No one wants to die with important shit left undone or to be made up for or at our low point. Even if we don’t think there is anything beyond this life, maybe even more so if we don’t.
May seem like a paradox, but we all want to die happy, at the height of our joy, doing what we love and surrounded by those we love. JMHO.
I think you made a very important point. Things are not as they seem to be. In fact, most beliefs that we hold are the exact opposite of reality. It takes a lot of soul searching to see clearly. Love.
Forever is a mighty long time. Still, you’ll be able to count the atoms in the universe when you’ve done everything else.
As long as there are planets bearing life such as the earth, and there are gazillions of them, there will be plenty to do. They will need guides, border guards, teachers, healers, etc. Not to mention parallel dimensions, alternate dimensions, and new frontiers to open. There will be universes to create, and those that fail to decreate. There is art, music, theatre, libraries, and huge places of learning. I will not be bored, I have seen enough to know. You think far too small.
Dude, you won’t have a brain. There wont be an “I”. And, even if there was, if life’s events can change a person forever, I’m sure the “I” that exists after death will have little relation to the “I” that existed before it.
Including yours?
You are mostly correct, you won’t have a brain, and the I that exists will have little relation to the I that existed before.
That sounds like I’m all correct… where did I slip up then? Oh, I see. There will be an I, you are saying. That I wont be me though, however I try to get round it with words.
If they were truly dead they would not be able to be revived! Think as you like, but you were not (in my opinion) ever dead. The human brain does strange things. My heart stopped once while having a test, but I wasn’t dead! My brain and other organs were not shut down, you may have been near death, but miles away from it. It seems to make you happy to believe that so that is your right.
Believe whatever you wish. The brain shuts down approx, 12 seconds after the heart does. Some near death experiencers have been dead for an hour before they were revived such as Pam Reynolds.
I think it is funny that skeptics got that way by the teachings of science that materialism was the only thing that existed. So they turned their backs on spirituality. Now in order to maintain that stance they will have to turn their backs on science also.
Science didn’t start teaching pure materialism until the 1960’s so it is hardly anything set in stone with real proof or even evidence. All science has ever had is untestible theories that are now tumbling down with real research. Read Van Lommel’s book.
Not even that. According to his blog, all he experienced was a bad dream involving a mysterious being asking him if he wanted to live. Of the NDE, he scores one out of three-the “E”.
My heart was shut down more than 12 seconds,and I wasn’t dead! They just restarted my heart, and then I was told (when I came to), to see my heart doctor. If they hadn’t told me I would never have known it had stopped. Some people I have heard had to be shocked several times to revive them. Since I am no doctor nor are you, you have every right to think you were dead. If it makes you happy and live a better life…so be it!!
Scientists know more about the brain than either of us and studying the brain and the parts that are affected during a stroke or any brain damage helps a lot. Drugs can also alter the brain, a friend of mine lost a lot of her functions by suffering from malnutrition. Like it or not we are all material beings,made of the same thing as the stars. At a funeral the other day the Minister reminded people that we are dust, and to dust we will return…sort of true…we do not want to have this be all that there is, our atoms etc. return to the universe like any plants or animals do. DNA and RNA validate this.
I find it hard to believe a minister told you there was no life after death. My best friend crossed over this week and I will be engaged in preparations and attending his funeral for the next few days. So I may not be available to answer serious questions. I probably will not answer heckles or snarky remarks at any time. But we have had some really good posts in this thread so far.
I would like to see more people come forward to tell about their death experiences.
The minister didn’t say there was no life after death, he just quoted what many say at a funeral. “man you are but dust and to dust you will return”.
58 years ago, when my one child was born, I thought(like you) that I had had a near death experience during the delivery, I saw a bright light, and thought I had died because I herad some one say I had a girl, and heard people talking about some of the life experiences I had, had. After I saw my doctor he said I was not near death in anyway, he was talking to the nurses about an experience some one else had years ago, and since I was not in a deep sleep The bright light in the delivery room would have seemed like I was in a bright light, and at that time I had believed I was seeing a light (like some people also thought they saw),and he was not referring to me. It was just a coincidence. The mind can play tricks on us. As I stated before you have the right to your own beliefs and thoughts. You get peace from that so I believe you can use what ever helps you get through life.
Logically, we should not fear death. If there is no afterlife, you will simply be unconscious…no inputs, no outputs. If there is an afterlife (and you have conformed to generally-accepted ethical standards, you have no fear either.
What I experienced was nothing like what you just talked about. If you would actually read some near death experiences you would quickly see that.
The big problem is when I was young most churches taught people would go to hell if they did not believe in the church doctrine. How good you were to others just didn’t matter. You must believe in Jesus in order to be saved. However a lot of churchgoers especially the young couldn’t buy into that doctrine so they left the church. The fear that was instilled in them as children is still haunting them, and without some real examining of one’s beliefs, the fear will continue to haunt them.
The reason is that what you experienced was not an NDE, but a bad dream. Since you were not near death, what you had can best be described as a “CDE”-Common Dream Experience.