A.D.

Seeing how this seems to be the predominant topic on this thread.

What do you believe occurs after death? (*aside from the body disintegrating and well... deteriorating to eventual ######)

Anybody here ascribe to any particular beliefs?
Any connections to any esoteric knowledge here?

Any experience with the paranormal?

Pretty much the same as pre-birth.

My answer too as an atheist to the question 'What happens after you die'? Well, what do your remember of before you were born? You never existed....

I'm agnostic, swaying towards atheism: but ever since the ghost of Bela Lugosi (in full Dracula regalia) appeared beside me on the night of the 4th consecutive full moon in December '98, I believe in there is an after-life.

I remember it vividly, because it was the night I was given those really tasty mushrooms!

The lights go off..that's that.

I never believed in life after death. Until I lost my parents and "some stuff" started to happen. Not sure if this "stuff" can be explained in a different way (it probably does) but let's say that right now I'm much more open to believe in paranormal things than I used to be 15 years ago.

I'm mostly inclined towards thinking that once you die, it's over. What I'm practically certain about is that when you die, your character and personality cease to exist.

There have been many claims made of life after death by people who experienced NDEs (near death experiences). One notable case is Eban Alexander, a doctor, who became rather famous through his recounting of his NDE in a book he wrote. The problem with NDEs is that you're not actually dead. If you were so dead, they'd have buried you, and you wouldn't be in a hospital hooked up to machines. Some part of your brain is still alive, somehow, and most likely that is what causes the experience we refer to as an NDE.

One theory which I'm very interested in is that of biocentrism, the concept proposed by doctor Robert Lanza. In very basic terms, biocentrism theorises that it is life (or consciousness) which caused the universe to exist, not the other way round. A star comes into being when we (i.e. a being which is conscious - I'm not sure if higher apes and the like are included in his theory) observe it. We exist not because there is a universe, but the universe exists because we exist.

Lanza goes into the question of "what is consciousness", and he says that consciousness is like a perennial flower which returns to bloom in the multiverse. In other words, when you die, your personality ceases, but that mysterious thing we call consciousness does not - it returns in some form or another in some other universe. There is no direct link or continution of who you are here on Earth, after you die. But your consciousness does 'live' on.

Biocentrism is, of course, not without its critics, and as it stands, it's just an interesting theory with little chance of being proven, at least for now. There are videos on YouTube where Lanza explains the concept in greater detail.

About the after death thing:

[i]Mystery of Death Solved: DMT is the Key [/i]

[i]    by qwizx
    in Health · Lifestyle · Philosophy · Science
    — 1 Feb, 2013 [/i]

[b]We now know what happens at death: [/b]

Resting comfortably in the recessed center of your brain, encased snugly within the corpus colossum, wrapped tightly between the dual-hemispheres of spongy nerve bundles, encased in the quarter-inch-thick armor-plating of skull, finally surrounded by your main and expressive organs with which you face the world, exists a tiny gland, long considered vestigial (serving little to no function), that holds the key to our interpretation of existence as we know it.  I’m speaking of the pineal gland. This minute spec, roughly the size of a grain of rice, is more heavily protected than even the heart with its literal cage of protection, because if something happens to your heart you die, but if something happens to your pineal, you can’t go to heaven.

[b]Never heard of it?[/b]

This pineal gland has influences on both melatonin and pinoline, but our interest is in the gland’s role in the creation of dimethyltriptamine, or DMT. This chemical, DMT, may well be the reason we, as a species, are capable of sentience itself.

[b]
I’m not a chemist; break it down. [/b]

First, DMT is a narcotic, schedule 1. It’s scheduled as a highly illegal substance all over the planet, largely because DMT is one of the most potent psychedelics known to man. Intensely powerful. Yet, every day your pineal produces this stuff.

Secondly, DMT is the chemical that elicits dreams. That’s right. Each night as you drift to slumber-land, not only are you tripping on a psychedelic, but you’re also premeditatedly committing a federal offence; possession or consumption of DMT could land you a felony charge.

And third, this illegal gateway to dreamland is released in massive amounts at the moment of death. When I say massive, if a water glass of DMT evokes a dream, at death, an equivalent river excretes into your system. Any druggies reading this?

[b]How have I not heard of this before?[/b]

Well, the pineal’s significance is neither a new idea, nor an unfounded one. Spanning the expanse of human civilization runs an undercurrent of worshipful adoration to the almighty pineal, more widely known as the inner eye, all-seeing eye, or the like – considered the body’s gateway to the soul.

Egypt had its Eye of Horus (now emblazoned on the US dollar bill). Hindu culture has its bottu (the familiar forehead dot). Even the ancient art of yoga recognizes the brow chakra, or ajna, as blossoming at the pineal, or third eye. That’s only to name a few.

The hell you say! The truth behind the cult of the pineal has gone largely unnoticed collectively, though the symbols themselves have been downright ubiquitous. Tibetan Buddhists, as well, have long carried a belief that the soul enters the fetus precisely 49 days after conception. Likely, reading this, you are not a Tibetan Buddhist – their numbers fall less than 20 million – and whether you subscribe to an eternal soul or not isn’t the point, because day 49 is the moment the pineal is formed in a fledgling brain.

[b]Great, so what does all this have to do with death?[/b]

Well, on an experiential  level, shrooms distort perception, coke smacks you with raw energy, ecstasy grants superpower orgasms (ladies), and most notably, weed slows time – time distortion seems to go hand in hand with most psychedelics as well – so time passage then is totally subjective. Ask Einstein.

Meanwhile, among DMT smokers, out of the macrocosm of potential experiences, two major themes emerge nearly universally:

1) A stretching of time – they experience the hectic 6 or 7 minutes as a near eternity or lifetime. Imagine Cobb’s 50 year night in Inception.

2) They experience religious incarnations with a tilt toward whatever sect the subject is affiliated with.

Here’s the clincher: after death, while this massive psychedelic dose courses through the brain, there is this mysterious several minutes where the brain still functions. With our new perspective, however, we at last understand what these minutes are…

These few minutes after death, subjectively, are experienced as an eternity, engrossed in the DMT universe. Also, the trip itself is a highly personal experience dictated by the deepest realms of the subconscious.

Therefore, whatever at your deepest core you expect to happen when you die… Congratulations, that’s what’ll happen… Every religion was right.

Mystery solved. Peace on earth.

If you’re resourceful, you can find this stuff and try it. The bigger question now is: do you really want to know where you’ll be spending eternity?

Article: [url=http://wondergressive.com/death-solved-by-vestigial-gland]http://wondergressive.com/death-solved-by-vestigial-gland[/url]/

[i]The sources of the article are at the end of it, in the page.[/i]

Actually, I have had a couple of strange experiences (which I totally cannot explain) and know a few people who have had different kinds of weirdness happen (and not while we were enjoying mushrooms or anything else). So I cannot be so clinical or cynical about death or the paranormal. I believe that there is something bigger than what we can understand, but what it is and how it all works - no idea at all.
And no, I am not smoking, eating, swallowing anything stronger than a cup of mocha right now!

^Can you expand please (I thought that might be one of the ideas of matt's post)? Also important not to confuse subjective experiences with what is substantive objective reality.

^^^ Yeah, actually I thought that was what Matt wanted to know as well. But today most people feel silly to come out and say they believe there could be some paranormal stuff going on out 'there'. So I thought I'd get the ball rolling and say it myself.
I do not believe in religion; I think all religions are man-made. But I do believe there is a lot more to life and death than we know. Or understand. Kind of like explaining the internet or cell phones to the cave man.
I'll expand on it all tomorrow, hopefully. Today's been a long day, and I am just going to relax (and chat with the ghost who lives in my basement). ;)

[QUOTE]

[b]noorie wrote: [/b] ^^^ Yeah, actually I thought that was what Matt wanted to know as well. But today most people feel silly to come out and say they believe there could be some paranormal stuff going on out 'there'. So I thought I'd get the ball rolling and say it myself.
I do not believe in religion; I think all religions are man-made. But I do believe there is a lot more to life and death than we know. Or understand. Kind of like explaining the internet or cell phones to the cave man.
I'll expand on it all tomorrow, hopefully. Today's been a long day, and I am just going to relax (and chat with the ghost who lives in my basement). ;) [/QUOTE]

^Thanks, I'm very interested in people's experience in this area!

Okay, here's some entertainment for the members on QZ.
I am going to give you a few examples of weird stuff that has happened to me or to people I know really well. Again, I have no explanation; I feel we still have a lot to learn about 'life' and 'death'.
I grew up in a very normal family house in a regular subdivision in Vancouver. No out-of-the-way deserted old house, nothing near any graveyard. Just a regular house. On the main floor was the living room, dining room and kitchen. Just outside the kitchen, a hardwood stairway took us up to the bedrooms and bathrooms. Time and time again, my brothers or I would hear very deliberate, loud footsteps going up or down the staircase. My brothers would run to investigate (I was too chicken) but there was always nobody around. The footsteps were quite distinct, definitely not just creaking or muffled sounds which could be attributed to shifting of pipes, etc. These were loud, slow, deliberate footsteps coming down or going up stair by stair. My brothers are total sceptics and would try to find some reasonable explanation for the footsteps, and madly dash out to the staircase as soon as we heard them, but there was nobody on the stairs or in any of the upstairs rooms.
My grandfather died a couple of years ago. He had this huge personality - always exuberant, always game for everything. And a total believer in the here and now. Anyway, six months before he died, he kept telling us of feeling a hand on his shoulder, very lovingly beckoning him. And he would hear in his mind (never words, just the knowledge in his head) at that very moment as if it was his dead mother calling him to join the family on the other side. At first he cracked jokes about it, but it kept happening on quite a regular basis. He was an insomniac, and it would happen most often at night when he was unable to sleep, and reading. Couple of times he woke my gran up, but naturally she neither saw nor felt anything. Anyway, he fell very ill all of a sudden a few months later, and the last 3 days or so before he died, he was unconscious. My mum and aunt were with him. The day before he died, he suddenly became quite coherent for a few minutes, and smiled and just said, 'It is so beautiful' and then did not regain consciousness and died the next day. Again, this is no proof of the hereafter, just a strange thing - the premonition.
Then there is my best friend's grandmother. And this is the weirdest thing. She can actually tell you what is going on somewhere far away at a certain time. But it only works for people she herself knows. Once her sister was taken to hospital rather suddenly. The sister lived in another country. My friend's mother was trying to call family and friends to let them know her aunt was dying. When she was calling her own brother, the old lady spoke up saying not to bother - her son had himself been taken in for some urgent surgery and was at that very moment in the OR, and that his wife and daughter were waiting outside the OR, and his neighbour had brought him in. My friend's mother ignored the old lady and kept calling. Nobody answered. She then called up her sister-in-law, who told her she was waiting outside the OR while her husband was undergoing emergency surgery. There was no way the old grandmother would have known. All this had happened in the past half hour or so. She confirmed that her neighbour had found her husband doubled over in the driveway, and had rushed him to the hospital. Again, a very weird thing. And I have been told the old lady has done this many times. And I have heard about her 'power' from many different people.

The incidents I have mentioned are just small examples of weird stuff happening to me or somebody I know, but subjectively speaking, what about the thousands of cases of reincarnation that have been documented by different researchers all over the world? There are some amazing studies and research by Dr. Ian Stevenson and others. You can argue about NDEs that the people are not really dead - fair enough. But what about these reincarnation studies?
All I am saying is I have a very open mind about life and death. Just as we did not understand or even imagine that there could be something as amazing as the internet, or that people could go to the moon just a couple of hundred years ago, today we still have lots to learn about the reality of our existence.
Again, I am not speaking from a religious point of view. I truly believe all religions are man-made. But I feel there is really more to life and existence than we know right now.
And I am not scared to admit it.
Perhaps one day, science will find the answers to this as well.

Does anyone really think that the dead would make all that effort to cross back from the realm of the afterlife, back over the threshold into this earthly realm, and then having achieved that, make their presence known... by moving a chair around a little bit, slamming a door, turning the light off or on, or making the room a bit colder? Why wouldn't they just appear to you or say something? Think about it.