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occollegeboi
MushroomSpaceGod


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Is death a state of consciousness?
#14363724 - 04/27/11 09:29 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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After doing a little bit of research on near death experiences, DMT, and noetic science, I find myself asking: Is death just a state of consciousness? When people go into near death experiences, their stories are very vivid and they all visit either a very happy place (which some would say is heaven) or a very scary place where they felt very scared (which some would say is hell.). When the physical body dies, does the mind still live on?
I was talking to my dad about this and he told me that people also create hell on earth, it is their state of consciousness, and they are in a state of hell that they create. If the mind is so powerful that it can create hell, what is the limit of that state of consciousness? Is the "hell" that people visit during near death experiences just a thought process or DMT trip, or is it a real place that they are physically visiting? Sort of like dreaming and waking consciousness. If dreams feel so real, are they a separate reality from waking life (on multiple, various levels)? Is our waking life really just a recurring dream?
Some people say that if you smoke DMT, you cross over to the other side and experience death.
So what do you guys think?
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lolwut
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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: occollegeboi]
#14364484 - 04/27/11 11:31 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Death in the DMT-trip sense is as an archetype of the Bardo - One of the many visions that you can have.
-------------------- Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth, and taste...
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blingbling
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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: lolwut]
#14365000 - 04/28/11 02:32 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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thats a great question. i was thinking about this today and i think its possible, but i dont think the mind or 'spirit' lives on but that it is a seperate type of unconsciousness.
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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c0sm0nautt

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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: occollegeboi]
#14365813 - 04/28/11 08:52 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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A lot of people, including myself, are convinced by OBEs and NDEs that some aspect of the personality survives death. Many cultures saw life as a preparation for death.
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Crasher
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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: c0sm0nautt] 1
#14366026 - 04/28/11 09:51 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
c0sm0nautt said: A lot of people, including myself, are convinced by OBEs and NDEs that some aspect of the personality survives death. Many cultures saw life as a preparation for death.
I agree. Most of my most powerful psychedelic experiences resonate strongly with a NDE I had overseas. After reading "The Psychedelic Experience" and "The Bardo Thodol" I began to seriously consider the states of consciousness that may persist after physical death begins.
I can only speak from my experience, but near death, the clear light of the void seems apparent. Of course, I have no idea what neurological functions might be impaired, what neurotransmitters may be flowing, I can only be the detached observer within my own mind, receiving impressions without placing value judgments to them. Once you begin to accept the illusory nature of your own sense perceptions, you must reject the judgmental nature of the superficial ego. The last thing your mind wants to do is believe it has no control, or that seemingly dualistic concepts are existent simultaneously.
But I digress. I believe states of consciousness persist after physical transition, that there is a spiritual essence to all matter, with its own laws and parallels to states of attraction and repulsion. I'd submit we're reincarnated, and that our purpose is evolution towards the Ultimate Reality.
We are truly star stuff. Particles that give our physical bodies mass have their history in supernovas, events of heat and light that transpired billions of years ago. We are children of the universe, originating in a universal state of compression and non-existence, the seminal point preceding the Bang. After this unimaginable span of time, matter and consciousness have continued to arrange themselves in increasingly complicated and complex forms.
I think that's the biggest miracle of all. the concept of Ain, Ain Soph, and Ain Soph Aur correspond with current physical models of the universe. The corresponding spiritual growth of the universe reflects the material. We're all just works in progress, from single cell organisms to Homo sapiens, from a non-knowing state to our current Mind, and onward toward the Ultimate.
tl;dr: death is not the end.

-------------------- Give me silence, water, hope; Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes...
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c0sm0nautt

Registered: 05/19/08
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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: Crasher]
#14366570 - 04/28/11 11:57 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Good post.
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occollegeboi
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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: c0sm0nautt]
#14370044 - 04/28/11 10:30 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Wow, you guys are way more in touch with spirituality than people on other web sites' forums. I have started reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the one with the commentary at the beginning. It's a little hard to follow but I'm getting the general "gist" of it. I am only on the first chapter though.
So, do you think that when the soul lives on in that separate "state" of consciousness, does the ego go on with it as well? Or is death the ultimate "ego death?" I read one man's NDE and he stated that he was "at the gates of heaven" and that he saw EVERYONE he knew. He said he could recognize them as well. Quite interesting.
I've also watched the movie "Enter the Void" (btw is a total TRIP movie!) which is loosely based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
From what I have read and watched about peoples' NDE's is that they all seemed to describe the exact same thing. They either visited a very happy place (which Christians would call "heaven.") or a very very dark place with people suffering and having a very fearful feeling (which Christians would call "hell.") They all also stated that they saw a light or some sort of archetype (again, which cristians would call "God.") which tells them, "It is not your time yet." A lot of the people who visited "hell" stated that they asked this archetype "Why am I here?" and the light thing told them that it is not their time yet, go back to earth and tell people that there really is a hell."
Which brings me to another query: Is "heaven" and "hell" a state of mind as well while in the death state? I was talking to my dad about how people already create a "hell" on earth within their own minds.
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c0sm0nautt

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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: occollegeboi]
#14370223 - 04/28/11 11:02 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
occollegeboi said: Which brings me to another query: Is "heaven" and "hell" a state of mind as well while in the death state? I was talking to my dad about how people already create a "hell" on earth within their own minds.
From numerous reports from out-of-body explorers this does seem to be the case. It is peoples beliefs and accepted limitations which limit them to and trap them in certain after-death environments. People who end up in the astral "hells" seem to be keen on self-loathing. They cannot love themselves.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead is good stuff, but keep in mind it was written for a person in Tibetan culture hundreds of years ago. There are authors today who have similarly explored the non-physical dimensions. However, their accounts and experiences will be more easy to comprehend, more useful to, the contemporary Westerner.
If your interested in some of these guys, check out Robert Monroe, William Buhlman, Robert Bruce, Bruce Moen, Robert Moss and Robert Waggoner. The accounts are fascinating and all seem to correlate and says the same thing.
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Crasher
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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: c0sm0nautt]
#14372104 - 04/29/11 11:05 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
The Tibetan Book of the Dead is good stuff, but keep in mind it was written for a person in Tibetan culture hundreds of years ago. There are authors today who have similarly explored the non-physical dimensions. However, their accounts and experiences will be more easy to comprehend, more useful to, the contemporary Westerner.
If your interested in some of these guys, check out Robert Monroe, William Buhlman, Robert Bruce, Bruce Moen, Robert Moss and Robert Waggoner. The accounts are fascinating and all seem to correlate and says the same thing.
Two good points! First As a student of the world, you must look at various scriptures and traditions through the lens of the people who wrote them. The trouble of religion is the persistence of dead dogma as it moves through history. The books of Moses were written for the jews as they wandered and yearned for a home. Tibetan Book of the Dead was a collection for those living in the mountains in Tibet. (consequently, I believe you should avoid the prescription to snort your ejaculation after checking it for signs of death!)
If you come to learn that the Word is truly alive, that Sophia exists, that Sammadhi can be attained, that the lotus or rose petals truly unfold within, you realize that dead scripture was written for dead men, and that the laws of Reality are written in your heart.
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And Jesus answered: "Seek not the law in your scriptures, for the law is life, whereas the scripture is dead. I tell you truly, Moses received not his laws from God in writing, but through the living word. The law is living word of living God to living prophets for living men. In everything that is life is the law written. You find it in the grass, in the tree, in the river, in the mountain, in the birds of heaven, in the fishes of the sea; but seek it chiefly in yourselves. For I tell you truly, all living things are nearer to God than the scripture which is without life. God so made life and all living things that they might by the everlasting word teach the laws of the true God to man. God wrote not the laws in the pages of books, but in your heart and in your spirit. They are in your breath, your blood, your bone; in your flesh, your bowels, your eyes, your ears, and in every little part of your body. They are present in the air, in the water, in the earth, in the plants, in th e sunbeams, in the depths and in the heights. They all speak to you that you may understand the tongue and the will of the living God. But you shut your eyes that you may not see, and you shut your ears that you may not hear. I tell you truly, that the scripture is the work of man, but life and all its hosts are the work of our God. Wherefore do you not listen to the words of God which are written in His works? And wherefore do you study the dead scriptures which are the work of the hands of men?"
-Jesus, from the Essene Gospel of Peace. A lovely attribution to him, even if it ain't canonized gospel.
Secondly, it looks like being named Robert is the surest way to a profound NDE!
-------------------- Give me silence, water, hope; Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes...
Edited by Crasher (04/29/11 11:07 AM)
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Poid
Shroomery's #1 Spellir




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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: occollegeboi] 1
#14372334 - 04/29/11 12:09 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
occollegeboi said: Is death just a state of consciousness?
By definition, no, but I can see why believing so might ease your death anxiety.
-------------------- Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan  fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
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Crasher
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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: Poid]
#14372371 - 04/29/11 12:18 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Poid said:
Quote:
occollegeboi said: Is death just a state of consciousness?
By definition, no, but I can see why believing so might ease your death anxiety. 
By definition, death is the cessation of biological functions that sustain life. Consciousness has yet to be concretely placed in a specific part of the brain, nor does it control the autonomic systems as heartbeat, hormone release, etc.
Unless you've got the scientific evidence to tell me consciousness ends upon cardiac arrest, or after certain synaptic firing has ceased, please link it.
I don't know why you think death anxiety is decreased by the belief that it isn't the end. It is equally difficult to accept an afterlife or lack thereof.
-------------------- Give me silence, water, hope; Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes...
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c0sm0nautt

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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: Crasher]
#14372543 - 04/29/11 01:05 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Great quote. And I agree, afterlife-anxiety and death-anxiety are too ways of saying the same thing - it's a fear of the unknown, the fear of not being in control.
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r72rock
Maybe so. Maybe not.




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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: Crasher]
#14372578 - 04/29/11 01:12 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Indeed. When I was a kid, my dad told me that he believed in Reincarnation and explained to me what it was. Afterwards, I cried for a long time and became scared. I hated the idea that this life wasn't the end. It cringed me to think that I could keep going. I wanted to live this life, and end it, and have that be all there was.
But now I see it as more adventures. It took me years to become comfortable with the idea of Reincarnation though.
-------------------- Current favorite candy: Peanut Butter Kisses
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soldatheero
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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: r72rock]
#14372923 - 04/29/11 02:32 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Indeed. When I was a kid, my dad told me that he believed in Reincarnation and explained to me what it was. Afterwards, I cried for a long time and became scared. I hated the idea that this life wasn't the end. It cringed me to think that I could keep going. I wanted to live this life, and end it, and have that be all there was.
Thats interesting. It seems quite common for people to be somewhat appauled by the idea, I think there are quite a few reasons for this. Primarily it takes a shot at your sense of self and the idea of living forever can be scary.
Quote:
I was talking to my dad about this and he told me that people also create hell on earth, it is their state of consciousness,
I think hes spot-on. I came up with the idea that hell and heaven are vivid states of mind a few years back and then I discovered Meher's explainations on life after death and they elaborated and sort of peiced together the ideas I had at the time.
Here is one discourse on Death. "At the time of death, the soul drops its physical body. Therefore, after death, there is generally no consciousness of the Gross world, since Gross consciousness is directly dependent on the physical body. Though the consciousness of the Gross world is thus lost, the impressions of the experiences of the Gross world are retained in the Mental body. And they continue to express themselves through the Semi-Subtle sphere. During the interval between death and the next incarnation, the consciousness of the soul is turned towards these impressions, with the result that there is a vivification of impressions, and the revival of corresponding experiences. The average man does not become aware of the Subtle environment. He is wrapped up in complete subjectivity, and he is absorbed in living through the revived impressions.
In life after death, the experiences of pain and pleasure become much more intense than what they were in the earthly life. And these subjective states of intensified suffering and joy are respectively called hell and heaven. Hell and heaven are states of the mind. They should not be looked upon as being places. And though, from the subjective point of view, they mean a great deal for the individualised soul, they are both illusions within the greater illusion of the phenomenal world...
But hell and heaven are both states of bondage subject to the limitations of the opposites of pleasure and pain. And they are both states whose duration is determined by the nature, amount and intensity of the accumulated impressions. Time in the Subtle world is not the same as time in the Gross world, owing to the increased subjectivity of the states of consciousness. But though the time in the Subtle world is thus incommensurable with the time in the Gross world, it is strictly determined by the impressions accumulated in the Gross world. However, the important fact is that the hell-state and the heaven-state are far from being lasting. And after they have served their purpose in the life of the individualised soul, they both come to an end...
Thus the hell-state and the heaven state become instrumental for the assimilation of experience acquired in the earthly phase, so that the individualised soul can start its next incarnation in the physical body with all the advantages of digested experience. The lessons, which are learned by the soul through much stock-taking and reflection, are by the power of their magnified suffering or happiness confirmed on the mind-body. And they become for the next incarnation part and parcel of the intuitive make-up of the active consciousness, without in any way involving the detailed revival of the individual events of the previous incarnation. The truths absorbed by the mind in the life after death become, in the next incarnation, a part of the inborn wisdom. Developed intuition is nothing but consolidated and compressed understanding, distilled through a multitude of diverse experiences gathered in previous lives...
Like the earthly career and its experiences, the states of hell and heaven in the life after death are integral parts and incidents of that journey of the individualised soul, which is ultimately meant to get to the source of all things." http://www.meherbabadnyana.net/life_eternal/Book_One/Death.htm
-------------------- ..and may the zelda theme song be with you at all times, amen.
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Poid
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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: Crasher]
#14373405 - 04/29/11 03:59 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Crasher said:
Quote:
Poid said:
Quote:
occollegeboi said: Is death just a state of consciousness?
By definition, no, but I can see why believing so might ease your death anxiety. 
By definition, death is the cessation of biological functions that sustain life.
Yeah, and the cessation of biological functions that sustain life is not a state of consciousness.
Quote:
Crasher said: Consciousness has yet to be concretely placed in a specific part of the brain, nor does it control the autonomic systems as heartbeat, hormone release, etc.
Your point being? Consciousness is understood not as being localized to a specific location in the brain, but as being an emergent property of the entire thing.
Quote:
Crasher said: Unless you've got the scientific evidence to tell me consciousness ends upon cardiac arrest, or after certain synaptic firing has ceased, please link it.
Consciousness is an emergent property of a functioning brain--once a brain ceases functioning, it no longer produces consciousness.
Quote:
Crasher said: I don't know why you think death anxiety is decreased by the belief that it isn't the end.
It's a pretty simple concept--take death out of the picture, and the result will be that many anxieties regarding it will fade.
Quote:
Crasher said: It is equally difficult to accept an afterlife or lack thereof.
It is equally difficult to accept an afterlife or lack thereof than it is to believe that death isn't the end?
-------------------- Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan  fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
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Crasher
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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: Poid]
#14373562 - 04/29/11 04:32 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Poid said:
By definition, no, but I can see why believing so might ease your death anxiety. 
... Yeah, and the cessation of biological functions that sustain life is not a state of consciousness.
...Your point being? Consciousness is understood not as being localized to a specific location in the brain, but as being an emergent property of the entire thing.
...Consciousness is an emergent property of a functioning brain--once a brain ceases functioning, it no longer produces consciousness.
...It's a pretty simple concept--take death out of the picture, and the result will be that many anxieties regarding it will fade.
...It is equally difficult to accept an afterlife or lack thereof than it is to believe that death isn't the end? 
If consciousness is an emergent property of our biological functioning, then at the time of death, there is a concurrently diminishing state of consciousness while these functions cease. Thus, the physical death has a state of consciousness, albeit degraded by the stopping of certain mental functions, to the point where it may or may not exist at all.
The nature of one's death might allow longer periods of altered states of consciousness, diminished mental capacity, or prolonged cerebral activity after physical movement becomes impossible, so I don't think we can lump the death experience into a single convenient definition. If I get shot, an artery is severed, and immediately I lose awareness of my surroundings because of shock and blood loss, people would say I'm dying. How long am I dying? until I'm dead, I guess. What marks the exact moment of death? a flatline on an EKG or EEG? people have returned from cardiac arrest and electrocerebral silence.
You're suggesting death anxiety decreases with the belief in a persisting state of consciousness because it's no longer death? Really? immediately the mind springs forth all sorts of speculation: what comes next? is their some ethical judgement on my conduct? heaven? hell? purgatory? Karma? The possibility of persisting mental states does not decrease or increase my fear of death, its a lateral shift at best.
I don't know how you mashed my quotes up at the end... I personally believe death is not the end, but I do not fear it in any way. I can, however, understand the fears and questions of others who are debating their future state of being/nonbeing.
-------------------- Give me silence, water, hope; Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes...
Edited by Crasher (04/29/11 05:27 PM)
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Crasher
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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: Crasher]
#14374212 - 04/29/11 07:11 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Imagine that you're bleeding out, that your brain is losing oxygen and glucose, and that, as you slowly slip into shock, your body produces a surge of DMT (from somewhere, either the pineal gland, enterochromaffin cells, speculative idea #3, etc.) and you begin to lose focus of the external "consensual reality" around you.
Those last few minutes, once you've lost the ability to perceive your relation to time and space, can seem almost infinite. The diminished cognitive capacity of the brain would retard your ability to calculate and reason, to relate things into 3 dimensional space or establish chronological progression whatsoever. You might still preserve lower brain functions, maybe some synaptic firing to areas responsible for emotional sense objects.
The loss of higher brain functions, lack of relative knowledge of space and time, and other stimuli at the point of death would be abhorrent to the typical Ego-identity of a person who solely relies on the five senses and their limited ability to perceive the universe. They would react in fear. Fear at the point of death, with the potential for adrenal response, is like a the worst trip disaster you can imagine.
In this fading light, much like the dying glow of light in old cathode ray tube, every second outside is an eternity inside. The fearful mind, reacting to the threat on non-being, dumps every image and emotional impression associated with this moment on your face! You are left to face a hell of your own design based on the wellspring of archetypal images bubbling forth.
Many practices that propose the idea of an afterlife have their adherents prepare for this moment through prayer and ritual. We're given deities to petition at this moment of self-judgment. We're given a lifetime of dogma to meet this moment with the certainty of a life well or poorly lived. Psychonauts approach this moment with Ego Death type experiments.
At what point does it end? When does the light finally vanish? latent electrical impulses might keep us tied to the flesh in subtle ways we can't detect.
After that, I leave it to the imagination. My person model of the universe suggests that nothing ends, it is all in a constant state of becoming,and our observable material universe is a joke being played on God by himself.
Existence is the answer to god asking himself "what am I?" After all, he's been talking to himself for eternity...
-------------------- Give me silence, water, hope; Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes...
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soldatheero
lastirishman


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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: Crasher]
#14374356 - 04/29/11 07:43 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Nice posts
-------------------- ..and may the zelda theme song be with you at all times, amen.
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blewmeanie




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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: Crasher]
#14374535 - 04/29/11 08:17 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Crasher said: How long am I dying? until I'm dead, I guess. What marks the exact moment of death? a flatline on an EKG or EEG? people have returned from cardiac arrest and electrocerebral silence.
That's one of the frustrating things about this sort of discussion. No one can ever die and come back, because the very definition of death is it's finality.
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occollegeboi
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Re: Is death a state of consciousness? [Re: soldatheero]
#14374693 - 04/29/11 08:54 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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I ask out of curiosity, not because I'm afraid of what's to come. I'm not afraid of death or of the after life. I'm just afraid of HOW I get to that point, for example, I would not want to die by getting shot at by a gun or something painful like that.
If consciousness is sensed by perception, and serotonin affects perception, would the afterlife ONLY be the 10 minute DMT trip directly before the moment of death? And before one is reincarnated, does one gain the wisdom all in that 10 minute DMT brain trip which feels like an eternity?
Yah, some nice posts we've got here.
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