You're dead. Oh really?

[cee-dee]

A couple of conflicting reports on what happens when someone dies and is then revived:-

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02/26/what-happens-when-we-die-story_n_6758554.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/08/life-after-death-science_n_5945000.html?ir=UK+Lifestyle

What do you make of those?

Me? OK, I don't think the brain dies immediately. As to what you experience, I think depends on the individual.

It can be a bit like sleeping. Some people dream prolifically (me) and others dream very little or not at all.

There have been cases where someone has been "drowned" in cold water for a long time before being rescued and revived but has no recollection of what went on.

[cee-dee]

Anyone interested in whether you're dead when "someone" says you're dead should spend some time researching Out of Body Experiences and Near Death Experiences. In doing so, avoid sensationalised and highly publicised so-called cases because when you look in to them, most (if not all) are seriously flawed.

Some common things which are experienced near death are a feeling of Peace without pain, Darkness descending, seeing a Light............... but few experience entering The Light.

Make of it what you will (and believe what you will) but when you are dead, you're dead, that's the end of it and no amount of wishful thinking will change that.

[chickengrandma-2008]

It's funny to think that if everyone who ever lived since the world began is 'on the other side'. it must be one heck of a big place.  You'd think that with the technology we have now, someone would have stumbled across it!! 

[captainbovine]

you aren't on the other side as a human being, it would be a tad crowded! No one is ever going to know what it's like...mind you no one ever comes back do they?

Perhaps that is why you leave a person for an hour after they have died in hospital? well we did when I was a nurse...they told us it was a sign of respect and to let the soul leave the body....

like you say believe what you will, but in all the time I nursed I never saw anyone looking as if they didn't want to go!!!!!!

[chickengrandma-2008]

I've always thought it funny how in the deaths column in the paper it says .....so and so, passed away peacefully with his family around him.  They're hardly gonna put .......passed away kicking and screaming!! 

A bit like when someone's died young, they were always such a kind, caring person with lots of friends and would help anyone.  Never a mean  geezer with a bad temper! 

[leoleoleo123]

When I was a nurse... If a person died, we would leave a top window open, in case the soul wanted to fly out..well, that's what I was told anyway.
I have seen many deceased.. And can assure you, that what is left, is indeed an empty vessel..
The soul, or spirit, if there is one, has left the building!
I like to believe there IS something more.. But what, I do not know.

[chickengrandma-2008]

I just hope we don't come back!!

I'd hate there to be the chance of coming back either as an animal or one of the  millions of poor starving refugees or something.  I'd rather not come back at all than risk that!

[stampingpat]

Maybe the light is all the energy from all the souls.

[rainydaywoman11]

I'm with Leo on her point, makes sense but don't know what happens afterwards.

Also agree with CG - in my obituary (already written out and in my will), it does not say ' after a long battle with cancer' and all that rubbish.  At least if you are in a battle you have a chance of winning, not with this.  Nor does it say 'bravely borne'.  It does say exceeding peed off at her lively life being cut off when there was so much left to do.  I wonder if they will print it?

[bankhaunter]

As Eoin Colfer says in his book 'And Another Thing'.

“There is no such thing as a happy ending. Every culture has a maxim that makes this point, while nowhere in the Universe is there a single gravestone that reads 'He Loved Everything About His Life, Especially the Dying Bit at the End'.”

When I suffered an 'event' which I realised could lead to what my specialist euphemistically called 'a serious life changing complication' my first thought wasn't about the prospect of Heaven, Hell or any other sort of afterlife but rather that it would be very annoying to die in May and miss a whole summer's fishing, the fact that I woudn't be doing any thinking if I was dead, didn't actually help.

That the Bible has strictures on trying to contact the dead isn't very surprising, if I were going to start a religion and was writing a holy book, I would include statements about followers being mocked, those who didn't believe being fools and it being wrong to do anything which may expose any lack of truth in my writings.

I am tempted to think those who believe in an eternity of an afterlife, have no real concept of just how long eternity really is, I can't think of any way of spending even a couple of hundred years in any heaven I've seen described without the strong likelihood of me going crazy.

The brain will, in certain situations, work extremely quickly as many drivers who have been in an accident will testify, a whole chain of thinking can take place in 2-3 seconds so I would have thought that the actual process of dying would often have sufficient time for the person to experience something, though what that something is, is hard to know and probably varies wildly.

[cee-dee]

Your point about accident events seemingly taking place very quickly is true. I think it's a rush of Adrenalin but whether a dying person would experience something similar is "open to debate"?

If they subsequently survived, it's possible.

I wasn't involved, but I was about 20 yards from a collision and it all seemed to happen in slow motion as I watched the victim thrown slowly in to the air and slowly back down again before reality struck home and I stopped the car in real time without colliding with any vehicles.

[rainydaywoman11]

Thank you bankhaunter, more food for thought there.

I've often wondered, if I got to heaven, it must be one big place so how am I gonna find my Granny, and will there not be a great bit queue waiting to see John Lennon for example or Mozart, say?

And I like your point about your fishing - the inability to hear new music or see a new movie ever ever again  or not being able to work in my garden again, how selfish I know, that and worrying about my son are the things I currently think about.

[leoleoleo123]

Seriously agree with you being pee"d off rainy! anyhow, if there is a heaven, you won't have to look for your granny.. She will meet you there...

[2017clearout]

I wasn't aware of not being in existence before I was born, so I suspect the same will be the case after I die.  That said, I believe that there is "something" that continues on, if only because, when you see a dead person, something is no longer there - they look different to someone who is asleep: and that something would be what I would consider the soul.  So perhaps eternal life is lived by the soul, whatever that is, and is such a wholly different experience from our normal lives that it is impossible for us to imagine.  

There has certainly been research on NDEs that suggests the reason why they are often so similar is because it is the same parts of the brain that are being affected - the same explanation, in fact, for why people who have encounters with alien life forms report similar descriptions of aliens, apparently.  All that is really sure is that we will only have an answer when it is too late for it to matter - so I think whatever gives people comfort and helps them face the inevitability is fine to hold as a belief.

[leoleoleo123]

Well put.

[wizilizi]

The thought of leaving is daunting, but I'm in the camp which points out that you knew nothing prior to being born, & so it will be after death

I have seen my parents & in laws 'off' & I must say, CG, in the light of what you say, that if I'd had to write an announcement for my Mum, it'd have had to either be a total lie or refer to the now-I-look-back-on-it comedy episode with 2 nurses & the nursing home handyman wrestling her onto the bed.  The illness she had WAS nasty: she was sitting upright in her chair & basically drowning (I won't detail it, but nurses may know, & I am so sorry if I offend)  When gently advised that she'd feel better lying down, she kicked  off, finding amazing strength from somewhere & effing & jeffing VERY loudly indeed 

At the time I was horrified, scared (in the squeamish sense) guilty (I'd fetched the nurse to help Mum) embarrassed (the nurses were pushed over eeek) & so on, but later my daughter & I (she was there to support me as OH runs from these things, by having the urgent need to be elsewhere) well, we had to laugh about poor Mum

The thing was, primarily, she didn't want to go, having had as I subsequently uncovered, a sh*t sham marriage - & my Dad had died & she was free

That discovery floored me for a long while afterwards.  We (my bros & I) children had talked endlessly over the years, & convinced ourselves that she was damaged due to some childhood experience of hers (My MIL was always lovely to & about her, saying 'She must have seen something nasty in the woodshed' when I complained that Mum didn't  really love us & was 'crackpot & embarrassing')

I am so sad

But at the same time I have a little smile about her being an embarrassment to the end.  It's just that now I know why she was as seemingly uncontrolled in her behaviour as she was - she was abused, & stayed with it , mostly if not wholly for us children

The best of intentions, but not recommended

I hope that the abused can be open, & escape: maybe times & society were against my poor Mum

[rainydaywoman11]

My dear Wizi, I know it is so much easier said than done, but do try not to be sad.

From experience I know that 'stuff' like that can take a long time to get over, a very long time.  

I send you my love and a big hug and just a wee bit of strength   love, Rainy xx.

[wizilizi]

Oh Rainy, that's so kind of you XXXXXX  It's a good idea to label dreadful business 'stuff', isn't it?  'Stuff' is what one can't control, things that happen around one with no bidding, & I know you are going through big stuff right now, you bravest kind lady XXXXXX

[learning2me]

Nice one Rainy - would love to read truthful obituaries.

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@rainydaywoman11 wrote:

I'm with Leo on her point, makes sense but don't know what happens afterwards.

Also agree with CG - in my obituary (already written out and in my will), it does not say ' after a long battle with cancer' and all that rubbish.  At least if you are in a battle you have a chance of winning, not with this.  Nor does it say 'bravely borne'.  It does say exceeding peed off at her lively life being cut off when there was so much left to do.  I wonder if they will print it?

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