Death

[JW Frogen]

The dark democracy, we all vote there.

What do you think happens at death? Or maybe what do you feel happens at death, after death?

The Big Black, nothingness, non-being after being?

Rebirth?

Your cosmic redemption or retribution?

Perhaps a bit of both?

Another chance or the end of the illusion of chance?

[Sappho]

I wish I could remember where I heard this... but... there is a study going on in Australia at the moment where by, strange objects and pictures are placed in a hospital at a height that cannot be seen unless the person is having an out of body experience.

The aim is to test the reliability of these out of body experiences that are so often reported to medical staff from patients who have died and revived or who have had a near death experience.

Medical staff have some very strange stories to tell.

As for my opinion... I have my mother on a promise to return for a visit after death as evidence of an afterlife.

We shall see.

[Jubial Priest]

Worm food. That is all. Anything else speculated on is to appease those that are about to vacate or make money off those that are left behind.

In the event I am wrong, I promise to come back and bitch slap every fucking idiot I have encountered on the internet. Allowing for a 3 second slap, I should be able to finally rest around 20 years after I am worm food.

Even when you are retired retired there is still so much to do...

[Auzgurl]

"the end of the illusion of chance"--I suspect this is closer to the truth. But I tell my kids and they inevitably ask the question, for they fear it, that we are reincarnated beings, we have lived many lifetimes already we just cannot remember them..part of me belieives this also. As we grow older I think we fear death less. When I was a teen it terrified me..but somehow on a subconscious level you internalise the inevitable and the irrational fear is numbed/desensitised somewhat..

Some older folk seem to welcome the end..my mother who was not so very old at all, almost embraced it.

Thinking happy thoughts, Im off to bed.

[mantra.]

There are a few people I've known over the years who claim their loved ones have come back and visited them at various times. One person who lost her daughter very suddenly says that at certain times she'll go into the daughter's bedroom and find her bedside light on. An aunty says that her husband who passed away more than a decade ago occasionally comes and sits on her bed at night and talks to her.

I had a little maltese given to me a few years ago - she was the sweetest little thing. She got very sick and I couldn't bear her suffering, so the vet put her to sleep. I felt incredible guilt for about 6 months and kept thinking I hadn't done the right thing. Then one night I had a dream with her in it and she communicated to me that she was happy and everything was alright. After that it was like a load lifting from my shoulders and the guilt disappeared.

It's hard to know whether it's our subconscious that brings people (or pets) back to us - or they really do come back to visit.

[Auzgurl]

My mother and I have a cup of tea and a chat about once a year mantra..in my dream of course..but who's to know the true state of consciousness at any given moment?

[boxy]

I think it goes dark, and ends.

If I was "the" god though, every person would be trapped for infinity, reflecting upon the life they'd led. Those who truly felt they had lived their life justly could "sleep" in peace, those who had done questionable things in their life, things they still regretted would be forever tormented by them. Heaven and hell, chosen by personal conscience.

Too bad life, and death, wasn't meant to be fair.

[Sappho]

People who are about to die can behave in strange ways.

I have two stories from my mother, who was a nurse.

1. On going in to check on a woman, nurse mum went to sit in the chair and was told... "No don't sit there, can't you see my husband?" "Oh", says nurse mum, "Has he come to visit?" Thinking all the while that this is odd given she is not demented. "No." said the patient, "He's waiting for me. I'm going to die soon." She died less than 24 hours latter.

2. Another woman, who was known to be dying and was comatosed in those last moments, frog breathing and wot not. Nurse Mum and Nurse whoever, came in to check on her comfort... Only to see her rise up from the bed, reach out her arms and call to 'Harold!', then fall back dead.

As a skeptic... I have no explaination for these events, however, I prefer to think it is the mind playing tricks.

[Jovial Monk]

I think so too, Sapho. The body is deing, organs closing down, why couldn't the brain get odd nervous impulses or invent something to take away the fear of death?

Reincarnation is total bosh, religion just a hope death is not final (while religious wars fianlly end lots of lives, alas!)

When we die we die.

[JW Frogen]

My mother and I have a cup of tea and a chat about once a year mantra..in my dream of course..but who's to know the true state of consciousness at any given moment?

My Dad gives me advise about my son all the time, my son is so such much like him already!

OK, this is probably just memories, love mixed with imagination, but I swear some times it really feels like he is there, advising me.