Story of my deth:)

[whalen]

Well I did not hover over my body. And what I experienced was no longer being separate from everything, and that state was a very brilliant place, like a glow. Now I have read many accounts and do not have any idea what to make of it. But I took some time to read about the oxygen deprivation theory, and it made me sad to think that that was all there was to it. Maybe so.

The fact that I had four heart attacks in 24 hours, and only then realized what they were, gave me a less than 20% chance of survival. I had no idea what was going on, it was rather subtle at first. The final attack was enough for me to google my symptoms, Although my brain was screaming at me the whole time. I am a very lucky man to have a complete recovery. It has taken three years to regain full muscle strength back in my chest, that is because of the surgury. I feel better than I have ever felt, although I have to moderate nicotine.

Do yourself a big favor and google the signs of a heart attack. They are not always the chest grabbing classic ones, that one is self explanatory and my symptoms were more of nausea, numbness, and tightness in the chest, but no where near my heart. Here's the deal, modern living and diets are killing us all, the heart disease that nearly killed me was there for a long time, smoking was the worst for me.

It is better to know what may be wrong with you and do something about it than to wait until you are totally screwed. I have the 20/20 hindsight on that one, and I could have avoided a lot of pain, fear, and financial ruin if I had just taken a little control. I have a very healthy heart, that is why i am still here, I have advanced Atherosclerosis, it is going to kill me eventually, and is preventable if caught in time. I was 53 years old when I went down. To some that is old, but it is just the blink of an eye, and it was my 30's and 40's that set me up. Nuff preaching. As far as I know there is only death after life. Live your life! We will all embrace death. Some of us get a second chance..............................

[sgreger1]

Yes, but that nothingness that emptiness, when there is no mind or ego, is our true nature, we are pure consciousness i believe. We just return to that blissful state when our physical body ends. What Whalen experienced, the singularity, pure energy and bliss, he was aware of it, he experienced it. What i mean is he was actually conscious enough to experience these feelings even though his heart had stopped. How is this possible? It's possible i believe because our consciousness continues even after physical death.

Just because the heart stops does not mean that all systems are completely down, only that the main life support system is down and things are powering off. The last thing to power off is the brain, as the body triages energy in this manner when in crisis, just like when pxygen is low it saves all of it for the brain since that is the most important organ to keep alive.

Anyways, the issue here is how we define consciousness. Consciousness is an emergent phenomena that occurs when you have enough opeprations occuring in parralell in the brain. When you turn off enough of the moving pieces in the brain, you lose consciousness, even though the brain and body may still be in tact otherwise (think of people with severe brain unjuries that left them as vegetables for example). To extremely oversimplify it, the brain creates within itself a "you" to monitor everything that is going on, but that part can and does go offline if you turn off the right parts of the brain. So when we die, we must assume that this consciousness stops, as it's not some magical thing but rather the byproduct of the computers in our brain.

Imagine if you were talking to a robot who believed that once it has been completely powered down, that it's calculations will remain and that there is a certain magical background process that will continue to run despite having been completely powered down. You would say that it simply isn't possible because the calculations which the robot interprets as "itself" are a byproduct of the many circuits and processing chips that in aggregate make up it's processing core. So once you turn the core off and disconnect it from the electricity, it loses it's ability to calculate things completely since that is inherently how computers work. It's the same thing with humans just switch out processing core with brain.



Now as some may know from the many Tom threads, I believe in shit that can't be explained, and I do hope that somehow by some luck of the draw there is some method by which we can continue to exist after we die. I am just saying that there isn't any basis to believe that it's true, and mounds of evidence against it.

[Premium Parrots]

all very interesting. Thanks for explaining to the folks about your ordeal Whalen. You are quite lucky....I think. By that I mean it just might be a whole lot better on the other side. No one knows.


Let me ask a related question.

Has anyone here been contacted in some way from someone that has passed on? That will help to answer what happens to us when we die. Well, not really answer anything but whether there actually is another side. Did you get a kick in the ass by someone that wasn't there?

[sgreger1]

And what I experienced was no longer being separate from everything, and that state was a very brilliant place, like a glow.

This part right here is very important. People who have strokes experience this as well, and in fact many people who almost die have this. It is kind of complicated but let me explain what is happening there.

Now in order for you to function as an organism, your brain has to take account of all of your bodies systems and identify where "you" end and where the "outside world" begins, i.e. that everything inside your skin is "you" and that the things outside of it are seperate entities that should be identified as being seperate from you. Sometimes this doesn't work out so well, like people who have phantom limbs after an amputation and their brain still believes that the external boundary ends at the fingertips so it tricks you into believing that the arm is still there even though it is now nothing more than a stump. People with conditions like this truly believe, feel, and sometimes even see this phantom limb because their brain is convincing them that they have an arm and that the boundarie of where "they" end is at the end of that arm, even once the arm is removed.

In other words, the whole idea of "me" being everything inside of my skin, is essentially an illusion (sort of) that the brain must provide me with so that I can better survive. As we start to die, or if we have a stroke or in some way lose functionality to certain regions of our brain, the part of the brain responsible for maintaining this illusion slowly gets turned off. When this happens, the boundaries of where "we" end and where the "external world" begins start to blur. Eventually it is completely lost, until you get to the point where you can no longer make the distinction between "you" and the "outside world" at all, and it is percieved in a manner where you suddenly feel "at one" with everything outside of you. The line between where your hand ends and where the wall begins no longer exists as far as your brain is concerned, you feel that you are everything, and that everything is you. Or in Whalen's words, he was "no longer seperate from everything", because the part of the brain that is in charge of defining boundaries has turned off, and the illusion of being seperate from the rest of the world is no longer there, you are no longer seperate from everything but a part of it.


It happens in different ways, and it feels a little different for each person when it happens, but one thing that sticks with many people who survive brief periods of death or strokes is this feeling of "oneness", where they suddenly become part of everything, of the universe, that all is one and that they are no longer "them" but a part of the collective universe which they now see as all one piece. This is a very spiritual sounding experience, but the reason it occurs is simply because the process in the brain who normally draws the boundaries and forms the illusion that you are a seperate being from the rest of the outside world, has turned off, so you can no longer perceive any boundaries and you feel like you are everything and everything is a part of you. This is very peacefull I would imagine, but in light of knowing how it occurs, can we truly say it is spiritual and not biological in nature?

Now there is the argument of whether we are all one or not, and that is more of a philosophy debate, but it's seperate from this issue. I personally believe everything is one, and that when we die, the brain that for so many years tricked us into believing we were ourselves, suddenly is no more, and we go back into the collective energy pool that is the universe. However, we are not "conscious", we are not ourselves, "you" do not live on, you simply return to the universe where your energy is recycled. The whole concept of "you" is an illusion, and you will be rid of it once you die. So in this interpritation, no "your" consciousness does not live on in any form when you die in my opinion, rather you go back to the universe from which you came, where all is one and no true boundaries exist.



Edit: Check out the TED talk where the girl who survives the stroke describes her experience as her brain slowly shuts off. She goes into detail about what it feels like to suddenly not be trapped in the body, but feel like a part of everything This is likely the true nature of things, and the illusion of the self is most likely just an illusion created by the brain for survival purposes, but may not reflect the true nature of reality.

[bill77.017]

My wife's father has expiaranced heart stop for 4 minets during operation , and he told my following : I saw my body from up above I was like in the corner of roof and I have seen what they wos doing with me the doktor said heart stop we loosing him , he made 2 injections of I do not remember what and started to scream on nurses and the other stuff, sadanly somthing was pulling him with indescribable force thru dark and inplesent tunell, and in the end of that tunell he sees light finally he thrown away out to thet light he can not describe how nice and butyfull is there.... And he sees two buskets, one is black.. In which are black papers with black letters , other one white with white letters, and white papers , when I asked him could you read ? He answered yes , but I could not understand what was written and Georg .... Belive me every body will have Jagment day ... He was atheist today each day he goes to church ... With him have talked the doktor who was amaised how in details he described everything what was happening there while his heart was stopped , and then my wife's father told me that sadanly he sow a display, and someone or somthing was behind him.. That was guiding him thru the life he lived .... And I sow tears in my wife fathers eyes ... And I ask him Mr. Leon why you have tears he told me all bed I have done in my life I was seeing on that display .... Never hurm Georg anyone in your life .... I do not afraid of dying Gevorg, and during that conversation my sisters 20 years old son also with us and he asked what heppened then ... And he told us he can not tell us . We did not asked him more ....

That's a great story GN. I believe there's definitely some truth to it. What an experience.

[bill77.017]

Well I did not hover over my body. And what I experienced was no longer being separate from everything, and that state was a very brilliant place, like a glow. Now I have read many accounts and do not have any idea what to make of it. But I took some time to read about the oxygen deprivation theory, and it made me sad to think that that was all there was to it. Maybe so.

The fact that I had four heart attacks in 24 hours, and only then realized what they were, gave me a less than 20% chance of survival. I had no idea what was going on, it was rather subtle at first. The final attack was enough for me to google my symptoms, Although my brain was screaming at me the whole time. I am a very lucky man to have a complete recovery. It has taken three years to regain full muscle strength back in my chest, that is because of the surgury. I feel better than I have ever felt, although I have to moderate nicotine.

Do yourself a big favor and google the signs of a heart attack. They are not always the chest grabbing classic ones, that one is self explanatory and my symptoms were more of nausea, numbness, and tightness in the chest, but no where near my heart. Here's the deal, modern living and diets are killing us all, the heart disease that nearly killed me was there for a long time, smoking was the worst for me.

It is better to know what may be wrong with you and do something about it than to wait until you are totally screwed. I have the 20/20 hindsight on that one, and I could have avoided a lot of pain, fear, and financial ruin if I had just taken a little control. I have a very healthy heart, that is why i am still here, I have advanced Atherosclerosis, it is going to kill me eventually, and is preventable if caught in time. I was 53 years old when I went down. To some that is old, but it is just the blink of an eye, and it was my 30's and 40's that set me up. Nuff preaching. As far as I know there is only death after life. Live your life! We will all embrace death. Some of us get a second chance..............................

I agree. It's very important to look after yourself, especially your heart. Whalen, thank you for sharing your experience with us, it was obviously a very hard time in your life.

[sgreger1]

Whalen, what are some things you would have done differently to avoid the tragic things that occured? I am 26 and I really have this like almost fear that I am going to die of a stroke or heart attack or something which causes lots of anxiety for me. I think if I were more healthy about things I wouldn't feel so guilty and could maybe get over it, but I mean what things would you have done differently at 26 so that I can do my best to emulate them and avoid having a heart attack (or 4!).

[sgreger1]

My wife's father has expiaranced heart stop for 4 minets during operation , and he told my following : I saw my body from up above I was like in the corner of roof and I have seen what they wos doing with me the doktor said heart stop we loosing him , he made 2 injections of I do not remember what and started to scream on nurses and the other stuff, sadanly somthing was pulling him with indescribable force thru dark and inplesent tunell, and in the end of that tunell he sees light finally he thrown away out to thet light he can not describe how nice and butyfull is there.... And he sees two buskets, one is black.. In which are black papers with black letters , other one white with white letters, and white papers , when I asked him could you read ? He answered yes , but I could not understand what was written and Georg .... Belive me every body will have Jagment day ... He was atheist today each day he goes to church ... With him have talked the doktor who was amaised how in details he described everything what was happening there while his heart was stopped , and then my wife's father told me that sadanly he sow a display, and someone or somthing was behind him.. That was guiding him thru the life he lived .... And I sow tears in my wife fathers eyes ... And I ask him Mr. Leon why you have tears he told me all bed I have done in my life I was seeing on that display .... Never hurm Georg anyone in your life .... I do not afraid of dying Gevorg, and during that conversation my sisters 20 years old son also with us and he asked what heppened then ... And he told us he can not tell us . We did not asked him more ....

That is a kickass story GN, thanks for sharing. All of that is explainable by much more mundane things, but I won't get into that as it would take an entire book's worth of material to explain how such a vivid, seemingly real event such as that which your wife's father experienced is explainable by things we already know about. Lets just say that many people have similar experiences during near-death and that what god they talk to or what version of the afterlife they see changes based on the culture and religion of the person having it, but it is definately a cool phenomena.

[bill77.017]

Just because the heart stops does not mean that all systems are completely down, only that the main life support system is down and things are powering off. The last thing to power off is the brain, as the body triages energy in this manner when in crisis, just like when pxygen is low it saves all of it for the brain since that is the most important organ to keep alive.

Anyways, the issue here is how we define consciousness. Consciousness is an emergent phenomena that occurs when you have enough opeprations occuring in parralell in the brain. When you turn off enough of the moving pieces in the brain, you lose consciousness, even though the brain and body may still be in tact otherwise (think of people with severe brain unjuries that left them as vegetables for example). To extremely oversimplify it, the brain creates within itself a "you" to monitor everything that is going on, but that part can and does go offline if you turn off the right parts of the brain. So when we die, we must assume that this consciousness stops, as it's not some magical thing but rather the byproduct of the computers in our brain.

Imagine if you were talking to a robot who believed that once it has been completely powered down, that it's calculations will remain and that there is a certain magical background process that will continue to run despite having been completely powered down. You would say that it simply isn't possible because the calculations which the robot interprets as "itself" are a byproduct of the many circuits and processing chips that in aggregate make up it's processing core. So once you turn the core off and disconnect it from the electricity, it loses it's ability to calculate things completely since that is inherently how computers work. It's the same thing with humans just switch out processing core with brain.



Now as some may know from the many Tom threads, I believe in shit that can't be explained, and I do hope that somehow by some luck of the draw there is some method by which we can continue to exist after we die. I am just saying that there isn't any basis to believe that it's true, and mounds of evidence against it.

Point taken sgreger1. I was talking more on spirit consciousness though. It's hard to explain ones beliefs. I know scientifically that theres no proof in the after life, but what about faith? It basically comes down to god, and whether you believe in a god. I see god as one consciousness which we are all a part of. I don't want to get to heavy on the subject, but that's what I believe and i understand your view as well brother.

[sgreger1]

Point taken sgreger1. I was talking more on spirit consciousness though. It's hard to explain ones beliefs. I know scientifically that theres no proof in the after life, but what about faith? It basically comes down to god, and whether you believe in a god. I see god as one consciousness which we are all a part of. I don't want to get to heavy on the subject, but that's what I believe and i understand your view as well brother.

No I understand where you are coming from brother, I am just stating my opinions like everyone else. I too believe that it doesn't stop at death necessarily, but I have come to learn that the concept of us as "individuals" is really more of an illusion, therefore when we die, the brain is no longer there to maintain this illusion that we are seperate from things, or that we are ourselves, and we just become part of the universal consciousness I guess you could call it, our energy returns back to where it came from. In other words, I as Sgreger1 will no longer exist, and as I join the rest of the energy in the unvierse and go back to where I came from, it will not be Sgreger1 that is returning, as Sgreger1 and who he was during life was just part of his biological life and body which has died and no longer exists, and that anything that does move on does not contain the ego of me being "me". Kinda of hard to explain.

[whalen]

Whalen, what are some things you would have done differently to avoid the tragic things that occured? I am 26 and I really have this like almost fear that I am going to die of a stroke or heart attack or something which causes lots of anxiety for me. I think if I were more healthy about things I wouldn't feel so guilty and could maybe get over it, but I mean what things would you have done differently at 26 so that I can do my best to emulate them and avoid having a heart attack (or 4!).

Tell that very thing to your doctor- but try to use vegetables and exercise instead of pills - I use only minimum meds, I think aspirin is critical, since I do believe that inflammation is the key.

Quit Smoking
go to the gym and do cardio
Eat more Fiber, fruit and vegetables
Reduce most sugar
Take a baby aspirin
No freakin Pizza and donuts
Drink a beer everyday

Most important - Know your Blood pressure and Cholesterol - If it's off, do what ever it takes to get it right again.

For me, no smokes, no Donuts, Less bacon, no oily cheese.

The funny thing is that I have only had to change about 5% of my diet. I went through cardio rehab and I just gave in and do whatever they told me to do.
I eat fresh vegetables and salad, only Healthy cereal everyday, keep meat portions small and trim it. I use only Almond milk. Whole grains and hummus. I eat almonds every day and exercise everyday. I am about to eat my lunch, fresh baked whole wheat bread and goat cheese.

[bill77.017]

No I understand where you are coming from brother, I am just stating my opinions like everyone else. I too believe that it doesn't stop at death necessarily, but I have come to learn that the concept of us as "individuals" is really more of an illusion, therefore when we die, the brain is no longer there to maintain this illusion that we are seperate from things, or that we are ourselves, and we just become part of the universal consciousness I guess you could call it, our energy returns back to where it came from. In other words, I as Sgreger1 will no longer exist, and as I join the rest of the energy in the unvierse and go back to where I came from, it will not be Sgreger1 that is returning, as Sgreger1 and who he was during life was just part of his biological life and body which has died and no longer exists, and that anything that does move on does not contain the ego of me being "me". Kinda of hard to explain.

Well said brother, i agree with you. This universal consciousness though, and the fact that we believe we are a part of it, not separate from it and upon death cease to exist as an individual but join the collective so to speak, do you think this universal consciousness is aware of itself, and therefore us being part of that conciousness are aware too?

[bill77.017]

Tell that very thing to your doctor- but try to use vegetables and exercise instead of pills - I use only minimum meds, I think aspirin is critical, since I do believe that inflammation is the key.

Quit Smoking
go to the gym and do cardio
Eat more Fiber, fruit and vegetables
Reduce most sugar
Take a baby aspirin
No freakin Pizza and donuts
Drink a beer everyday

Most important - Know your Blood pressure and Cholesterol - If it's off, do what ever it takes to get it right again.

For me, no smokes, no Donuts, Less bacon, no oily cheese.

The funny thing is that I have only had to change about 5% of my diet. I went through cardio rehab and I just gave in and do whatever they told me to do.
I eat fresh vegetables and salad, only Healthy cereal everyday, keep meat portions small and trim it. I use only Almond milk. Whole grains and hummus. I eat almonds every day and exercise everyday. I am about to eat my lunch, fresh baked whole wheat bread and goat cheese.

Great advice brother. The cholesterol and blood pressure checks are really important.

[GN Tobacco Sweden AB]

Yes I agree with Walen .... But it very difficult to do it like you have nice round naked buty Of beautifull lady in front of you and you keeping your self from touching it ... One time is possible every day .. Not for me

[Frosted]

To echo what GN said....I haven't had a drink for two weeks to see if there were any benefits. There weren't any so on Sunday night after work I'm gonna have a crate of beer:.............have a rant on snuson, head over to the I Shit My Pants thread, receive a ban and collapse in my own urine. Typical Paddy night on the booze really.