Do you believe in life after death? - If you post ...

When my mother died it was just after midnight and my father said she got up from her chair and started to walk to the door and said ' I see you, I'm coming now' and fell to the floor - her heart just gave out. He was adamant that she could see someone and was not talking to him - he was far from being a fanciful man.

My SIL is also very level headed and not prone to fanciful things - his mother died when he was about 12 - he told me that at her funeral he could not understand why his brothers and sisters and everyone else was so upset when his mother was standing right behind him and telling him she was fine. He told me she often visited him and gave some instances - the last one being in the morning of the day he married my DD - he was driving his car to collect something and almost crashed the car because he became aware of her in the car talking to him.

I think there are many things in this life we just do not understand.

I do believe something survives after death and have had several experiences. When my grandmother was very ill I visited her and she said she knew she would die soon. I asked how she knew, she said because my grandfather and my uncle had come to show her the way (they had both died many years before)

I underwent an operation for cancer and on my first night back home I was in bed and clearly saw my late father standing by my bedside, watching me and smiling.

I was on holiday when I had a dream of a dear friend who was seriously ill. She was confined to a wheelchair but in my dream she was running along the street. I grabbed her arm and asked what she was doing and she just said "It's OK I alright now" When I returned home from holiday I was told she had died the same day I had the dream

My late husband was a great joker and one evening shortly after his death I put on a DVD of a television programme we both liked to watch. When I watch something like that I like to click on the individual episodes whereas he would just click on "play all", the DVD would only "play all" rather than individual episodes - until I spoke to him and told him to stop messing around! If I can't find something or am concerned about anything I ask him to help and always whatever I am looking for turns up and the solution to the problem presents itself.

No experiences as others have stated but I do believe in God. Life after death, yes in some form, something I can't explain to anyone else. Just a feeling that I have had since a young child.

Yes, definitely. We are too complex. How can we simply cease to exist? I have been contacted by people who have died and they told me things I couldn't possibly have known, so I am in no doubt that it is only the body which dies.

My (now very elderly) sister-in-law had a dream many years ago that DH's father -who had died not long after DH's brother had got married - had told her not to be sad that he had died. He told her that he had responsibilities where he was, because he was looking after a young 15-year-old boy.
My son, had he lived, would've been 15 at that time. He died of cot death when only 3 months old.
Due to family circumstances around that time, it would've been impossible for my sister-in-law to know the year my baby died.

I do, for the few days before she died my Gran spent hours talking to my Gramp ywho passed a few years earlier

I think that human beings have evolved to look for meaning in things. Its how our species became so successful and its part and parcel of having the big brains which allowed us to thrive. So we question what happens after people have passed away and almost all past civilisations have had rituals and beliefs around death and dying. Its one of the ways civilisation is defined and its a natural part of abstract thinking. Personally I dont believe in life after death, but I dont necessarily disbelieve it either. I just dont know. However for anyone who is bereaved and finds comfort in the notion of life after death I think it is a wonderful thing which can help those left behind enormously.

When my DS was a baby he would chatter to someone/something we could not see. As he grew & started talking he would sit on the stairs talking to 'his man'.
Eventually a friend of ours asked who his man was. DS went to a group photo & said that was his man putting his finger on my father in the photo. He then told us that 'his man' was with us when we went swimming in the sea after Nursery.
We had always been sceptical but now do believe as this is something my DS at a very young age could not have made up.

If you have to 'believe' in something where there's no firm evidence, it almost certainly isn't so. It's good to have an open mind, but not so open as to let the wind blow between your ears. Sorry.

I agree strongly with Greenfinch. We attended a funeral some years ago where the lady conducting the service said that we have all had a life before birth,and if anyone had told us when we were in the womb that we would emerge into this world and have a completely different existence we could not have comprehended it. I hope to see my loved ones again although my ideas about this are quite confused at times. I just hope.

I believe there is something, I think this world will only understand things that qualify scientifically, and that misses lots of things. I am a committed Christian but the reason for my faith is to guide me in my life not to give me life after death, that is an insurance policy.
There have been too many very similar near death experiences to discount, like those above and many experiences like 'meeting' people who have died. My mum rented a cottage which was haunted, I've written about it elsewhere on here, & she's very strong minded and was anti life after death. She & her sis were in a medieval holiday cottage owned by the landmark trust in Devon. They had a strong feeling they weren't wanted there, whatever was there just wanted to be alone. They slept in the same twin bedded room, switched the light out to go to sleep. After a while aunt said to mum 'I wish you'd stop snoring,' mum said, 'I've been lying here listening to that.' They said 'if you stop we'll go tomorrow & never come back." And it stopped. It was Margells, Branscombe.

What a brilliant thread this has been to read. My Father in Law died just over 5 weeks ago just, we were all there with him at his and my Mother in Law's home when he passed away that morning, when we got home that evening our kitchen clock had stopped at exactly the time that he had died.

I believe in it a few years ago my son was very ill with a condition he was 23 at the time, I was asleep in bed someone woke me by calling my name iwoke up very alert which is unlike me and the voice said Kyle needs you now, I bent down to find my slippers and the voice said hurry up hes very ill and needs you now , to cut a long story short I went into his bedroom was met with a horrific site , called an ambulance , another 10mins and he would have been dead, so yes I believe .

The Bible says those who have faith in God have a sure hope of eternal life after this life on earth has finished. It says Jesus Christ died, was buried and rose again so Christians believe there is life after our earthly bodies have died. Although this is a difficult concept to take in, I live in the hope of eternal life with God when my earthly life has finished.

As a Catholic child the priests and nuns made a good job of persuading me that it was the fiery furnace for me (even though I was pretty much a 'good girl').

Rationality intervened and for many decades I have been an atheist. I couldn't see the sense of a 'loving' God toasting an insignificant atom like me on the griddle for all eternity.

I am hoping for annihilation.

However, I loved the Wordsworth quotation even though I would view it more as a pleasure and consolation for this world rather than any serious 'intimation' of the existence of the next.

I believe there is definitely something that lives on,when my mother died I was trying to decide what music to have for the funeral when I played a particular song sung by my DD a heave metal lamp fell on to the floor no way it could have moved itself.

Yes, I do think there is something after death.Wondering what exactly is just supposition/speculation, so I try not to do it......we will find out, all in good time.

It must be an odd sort of afterlife, though, if all we do is hang around waiting to speak to our great-great-grandsons or having the odd word with a relative now and then.

I was hoping for a more purposeful, or at least peaceful, afterlife!

My DH hopes that will be nothing......he is a worrier and finds the thought of endless 'sleep' more comforting.

I do not believe in life after death. You only live once, make the most of it and enjoy what you can. I believe memories live on and that's quite helpful. If you are buried ,or cremated and scattered , physically tiny pieces of you continue a life of their own. In a way people are constantly being recycled or so my son assured me when he was 13 and my father had died and we scattered some of his ashes in our garden and planted a tree for him.

Yes, I believe in life after death. I try to live a Christian life and trust in God's promises to mankind. Jesus is the way the truth and the life, look for him as he looks for you.

Like Anniebach, my answer is yes.
But, I don't think that one has to be a "Christian" or any sort of believer to have a life after death. Good people join good people there, bad people get a chance to redeem themselves, or choose to go to the other place...
It is a comfort to me, but if others don't believe, it is up to them. I shall certainly not condemn them to eternal hellfire or whatever!

The brain plays tricks on you especially when close to death, nerve endings misfiring and chemical balance going haywire. I have seen many people die and I have not seen one that looked towards the light or spoke of going to relatives.

I can accept that 'imagining' I heard my dead daughter's voice greeting her nanny the day the mother died could be my brain 'misfiring' - a projection of my thoughts if you like, even though it felt very 'external' and interrupted what I was doing and thinking a the time. However, many accounts given here - including the two dreams had by strangers to each other - and in different countries - that seemed to be about my daughter - are inexplicable and point to there being something beyond / some 'wiring' and connectivity between those who are here and those who have passed. And time and again, these accounts, like my own, are given by people who would never have sought such experiences, never believed in ghosts / supernatural experiences - are almost embarrassed to give a recount because they can be met with disparagement. There is always the implication that we are a bit needy, or imbalanced, or have not grieved properly / not let go etc. Just not the case.

I think I've told this story before on here. When my DGD was almost two she asked her mum about Christmas. DD was telling her about baby Jesus and said, "well, you know baby Jesus", and before she could go any further my DGD said, "no, but I know God", and then, in a wistful voice, " heaven".
One day, picking her up from nursery school we passed a pub on the way home. She piped up from the back seat and said, " she should put on our make ups and jewels and go to the plub". We are sure she must have been here before!