After death

If anyone is interested, Prof Ian Stevenson and his team spent 47 years meticulously researching and documenting accounts of children, many as young as 2 and few over 6, who clearly remember past lives.

These include children who, as adults were killed and have birthmarks in their present life corresponding to the wounds.

Sadly, his research was not fashionable in scientific circles and decried by those who tried to discredit him but he was not gullible and insisted on very strict research and documentation codes.

Since then, others have jumped on the bandwagon and written populist books on the subject, mainly for the US market, which again dilutes and often devalues his work.

But his research papers, published as several books, is fascinating stuff.

I believe we are healed after death

love (not lust) for people, and knowledge, learning, intellectual interests and so on, and memories (including those that we have forgotten) will continue to exist

These things exist in the brain, which dies on our death.

I spent many years working for a brain injury service and an assure you that the brain defines our personality, memory, interests etc. I have seen many people totally change into someone else when their brain is injured.

I have a close family member whose brain was damaged by insults in the womb and this person is anti-social, violent, irrational, quite simply because the frontal lobes are shot.

It is a tough fact of life; but fact it is.

We have to accept the nature of the human condition and just enjoy our friends and family and do our best to lead decent lives.

Is the spirit, or the consciousness, a separate substance from the body?

I agree with Lindiloo. I think you are what you think/feel. Obviously when you pass on, any feelings related to physical comforts such as food etc, will no longer be there because the desire is created by the needs of the body, but feelings such as love (not lust) for people, and knowledge, learning, intellectual interests and so on, and memories (including those that we have forgotton) will continue to exist - but only if we believe . Imagine what that would mean - we would be able to see loved ones, and events past and present just through thought ( since time would no longer exist). I think we may even be able to help inspire those on earth (and maybe beyond). After all, we all experience dreams where we can be somewhere else - even places we have never been, and it is real to us at the time.
I have read that some scientists think this world is just a holograph - if so there must be a generating source of which the world is a copy - perhaps when we die we return to that initial reality! The possibilities are endless.......

It's just that I like sleeping. So that'll do me.

I haven’t given it much thought, I accept the promises of Christ and also his words from the Cross ‘Father into your
Hands I commend my spirit’.

I think "eternal life" means different things to different people.

I know that those dear to me are very much alive in my memory; and also that their influences have impacted on how I am and how I treat others; and will therefore have an impact on those that they meet - ad infinitum. We all live for ever in that way. It is just the cycle of life.

Not for me GoneGirl . Sorry it scares you

Anniebach anything else is scary.

I don’t

I think being dead is exactly how it was before we were born. Remember that? Big fat nothing.

* Biker* when my elder daughter had her first baby I went into the labour ward to see him, my daughters eyes filled with tears , she said ‘ Mum I wish Daddy could see him* I wiped her rears and said ‘he can my darling ‘.

When my grandson was about 3/4 he was in the living room sitting at his desk drawing, my daughter heard him chattering, went into the living room and said ‘sorry I couldn’t hear what you were saying from the hall, he said ‘It was the policeman ‘ and held up a drawing which he could not have done. My husband was in the force, we had no photographs of him in uniform ,he was in CID, we hadn’t told my grandson about his grandfather who then had been dead 17 years .

also my 4 yr old grandson a few months ago kept saying " my grandads taking me to the park later" he never met his grandad and doesn't have any others.

Over the last few months I have kept up with the "black dog" gang.My dh died 4 and half yrs ago(I had to lovely support of many gnetters)

I have often wanted to join the black dog gang but have tried to resist it along side going to the docs.

Anyway about 2 months ago,I was asleep and obviously dreaming...but! it felt so very very real! even now I can feel the feeling....I dreamed my dh had his arms round me so tight almost squeezing me! I cn't tell you how real it felt, I knew I was dreaming yet felt I was awake, I opened my eyes and of course saw nothing, but! a day or so after when I got up I suddenly felt happier/lighter! the weight the dark black cloud had lifted,I think I even started smiling feeling happier than I have done since he died,even my dds noticed a difference.

I had another experience about a week later but not as vivid.

Although now a few weeks later the cloud seems to be re appearing, but those few weeks help me host Christmas dinner and have family round and turned out a lovely day.

I managed to keep a photo of myself and dh out without putting it back behind the sofa (thats where it lives,I cant bare having dh photo around yet and still have his ashes)I just cant let them go yet.

Just before my dh died he waved 3 times towards the end of the bed, he then looked up in the corner of the room, his eyes wider than Ive ever seen them before, I asked "what are you looking at" but got no answer, he died a few hours later. So.........who knows what is out there on the other side as we say ??

Young children find it very hard to conceive of a time before they were born. They will look at old photographs and ask, "Where am I?" Similarly, it is very difficult to conceive of a world and our family within in it when we are no longer there. That we continue in some spiritual form, that we meet up again with those we have loved but who died before us is a natural human desire, but wanting does not make it so.

My granddaughter, aged 4 at the time, told my husband, "You were in my tummy." Surprised at this, one of us said, "What was your name?" (Hoping that she would say my husband's mother's name.) No such luck, she answered, "Mummy." We didn't push it any further, but it makes you think ...?

MooMoo It is not really death itself that is frightening unless you truly believe in Purgatory and, if you have even quite minor sins, hellfire and damnation. It is dying that is scary. It can be a drawn-out, painful process, but it can also be a time of resolution and decision that bring peace. I have seen much-loved relatives die in both sorts of circumstances and hope that when my time comes, I am ready to go.

Could it be, I wonder, that after death you get whatever you believe in? So, if you don't believe in an afterlife, you don't get to experience one (until you wake up and smell the coffee) And if you do, you do. Just a thought ...?

absent Of course there are dogs in 'heaven'! And I can't wait to see my Polly again. She used to sit at my feet and slump against my legs - and I've felt that heavy, warm, 'slump' on several occasions.

Your belief Absent

I am on board with whoever it was that said, "If there are no dogs in heaven, it wouldn't be heaven for me". I know that that there are those who have great faith, but the idea of heaven and hell is, as far as I am concerned, just another folktale designed to keep people in their place. What comes after death is either ashes or decomposition.

I had a very strange experience last night (though I've had lots of these 'happenings' before. A friend of mine has just been diagnosed with breast cancer, and she came round with her husband, for an evening with us. As you can imagine, some of the time was upsetting, but on the whole, we had our usual good night together.
We were all sitting in the conservatory - which leads off the kitchen. As we were talking, I had a sense of someone being in the kitchen. I turned to look - but as always happens in these circumstances, you get just a moment's flash, and then it's gone. I saw a tall man, standing there, just looking at us.
No idea of what this means (if anything). Why did he come at that particular time? Was he someone important to my friend? (Not her dad, because he was shortish.)
I didn't mention this 'presence' to anyone.
Oh yes, we certainly live on. I'm convinced of that.

I’m conjuring up a vision of a soul redistribution centre!,however,
I do think that it’s possible that we carry memories/ feelings in our DNA.

I watched a programme about that phenomena before, and it was absolutely fascinating!
There was a little girl who would say that she really wanted to go and see her husband and children who were in the next village..
They took her to the village, and there was a widower with children that exactly fitted the little girls description.

My DD ( not a particularly early talker) at 2 years described being the mother of an adult son — something outside the imaginings of a child of that age. Talked about living with her grandmother and having another name, etc, etc.
No rational explanation and not a child who did this sort of thing at an older age. These “memories” ceased about 4 years.