45 replies to this topic

[Sweeney]

(Feel free to move to debates, if you think it becomes necessary)

Personally, I await death eagerly. Don't get me wrong here, I don't believe in God in any form, and I'm certainly not arrogant enough to feel I would get into Heaven if it did exist after. I am a very scientific person, but I have a profound desire for the reality of the supernatural. Bit of a mix really.
At least, that's what you may think. In fact, I believe in the pure power of the human mind. Placebo medicine is proven effective in many cases, and the field of psychology is very interesting and developing at an incredible rate. Thousands of years ago people's unadulterated belief in Jesus' divinity has etched him into our minds and societies forever. For me, it is clear that the countless phenomena witnessed by countless people globally every year are products of their own minds. I do not, however, think that makes them any less real.

This is where I start getting on to death, but first, a little about sleep. When we sleep we dream. No arguing; we dream, but sometimes we just dont remember. Dream memory works in a similar way to real memory, in that unusual events are more likely to be remembered than those that are commonplace, thus a dream about a huge green blob-monster is more likely to remain in our minds when we wake than a dream about walking down the road. This is why we "dream less" as we grow older, our imaginations become less active, so our dreams become more "normal" and thus fewer are remembered. Thus the technique of lucid dreaming was born, where a person falls asleep with the intention to dream, and stays conscious throughout. This is obviously a greatly contracted description of the technique, and I can assure you it is not as easy as it seems. Skilled lucid dreamers are capable of making an hours sleep last countless days in "dream-time".

I believe that the brain, when starved of oxygen, starts to direct our consciousness into a lucid dream-state. This explains our fainting when we asphyxiate, and also why we apparently see the tunnel of light, just before we die. In this way, at the moment of death, we can spend the rest of eternity in a paradise of our minds' own construction, condensed in that infinitesimal instant before brain-death. I feel it quite neatly ties up the end of life; something to look forward to, without the need for a belief in a higher being of any kind.

[Eeyore]

That is a seriously cool train of thought, so very well backed up and things .

I guess that's what they mean about life going past your eyes before you die and all that stuff, if you had the mentality of a lucid dreamer you could see more then just your life and things, that is, if I'm understanding what you've written.

Very interesting to read I thought just there, and I now want to be a proficient lucid dreamer. I can't help think though, if you get so good you can condense days into hours, suuurely you could end up wanting to stay there for months, and put yourself in a sort of...volenteered coma? o-o'

[Fox]

But how can electrical signals, and therefore dreams, be sent around the brain when there isn't any oxygen whatsoever? Those nervous impulses stop being sent at some point. Skeletons, after all, don't have the right organs to dream...

Although it is a really comforting thought to try and imagine it that way!

[Sweeney]

But how can electrical signals, and therefore dreams, be sent around the brain when there isn't any oxygen whatsoever? Those nervous impulses stop being sent at some point. Skeletons, after all, don't have the right organs to dream...

Although it is a really comforting thought to try and imagine it that way!

You misunderstood.
You don't continue to dream once your dead. But in the instant before you die, your consciousness lives an eternity in whatever scenario you wish.
The main point to get your head around is the difference in time scales between dreams and real life.

[Christopher Robin]

mhm... maybe we dream when we die? xD that would be SO cool... i can SOMETIMES control my dreams...

[Fox]

You misunderstood.
You don't continue to dream once your dead. But in the instant before you die, your consciousness lives an eternity in whatever scenario you wish.
The main point to get your head around is the difference in time scales between dreams and real life.

Oh, I see what you mean.
It would be pretty hard to test though. I remember, however, at one point, when I nearly drowned in a swimming pool (meh, hit my head and didn't know what was up and what was down xD) I did see my life flash before my eyes, but I can remember it all going blank and dark very quickly. And then I was fished out with a pole. *Shrug*

I can't help think though, if you get so good you can condense days into hours, suuurely you could end up wanting to stay there for months, and put yourself in a sort of...volenteered coma? o-o'

I think your body would get hungry eventually and wake you up. Or die!

[Sweeney]

Oh, I see what you mean.
It would be pretty hard to test though. I remember, however, at one point, when I nearly drowned in a swimming pool (meh, hit my head and didn't know what was up and what was down xD) I did see my life flash before my eyes, but I can remember it all going blank and dark very quickly. And then I was fished out with a pole. *Shrug*

I think your body would get hungry eventually and wake you up. Or die!

Impossible to test, I'd say
But yeah, nearly dying is very different to actually dying. And even if you did die, bringing you back afterwards would mean you were never brain dead, and therefore hadn't entered the lucid state.

Also, to Eeyore's point, you would get hungry, thirsty, and tired, too. Lucid dreaming is far from similar to being asleep. Doing it on purpous (sp? worrying ) is actually fairly draining.
But definitely worth it

[Eeyore]

I think your body would get hungry eventually and wake you up. Or die!

Yeah but I mean you hear about people going into comas for years on end and not waking up, they obviously don't get hungry o-o

[Sweeney]

Yeah but I mean you hear about people going into comas for years on end and not waking up, they obviously don't get hungry o-o

I think they're fed through a tube, in hospital.

[Fox]

I think they're fed through a tube, in hospital.

They are, they get things like that done for them - they even get 'exercised' in many cases, by having their arms and legs moved around, I think.

[Eeyore]

I think they're fed through a tube, in hospital.

Aaah, that would make sense then. Still though, I mean if people wanted to dream forever and had the mental strength to, they could,and could be put in hospital under the same idea that people are put in hospital for comas, I mean someone that just looks like they're forever asleep looks the same really whether their in coma or just in something similar to it .

I think though, that our conscious doesn't really have enough awareness about it to really enjoy it, so it might live on forever in that instant, but it might not actually remember any of it, just like we don't remember dreams sometimes o-o. I know I've definately had weird dreams, remembered them when I've woken up and no matter how hard I've tried not been able to keep them in waking memory...

[Sakura]

I'm a lucid dreamer, so I know what you're talking about..but it just isn't possible. Even if you did go into a lucid dream at death (very plausible and a very good point with the tunnel) and days are possible from a minute in real life, once you die, you don't have anymore minutes.
If you mean, that you have a final lucid dream and it ends soon after, sure I can agree with that.
If you mean that you start one and it never ends, no, I can't agree you would need a soul (something eternal, so something like the idea of a soul) for that to work. When the brain dies its over. There's nothing left, from a scientific stand point.

I think part of the reason that I'm religious is because I cannot accept that this is all there is. I cannot accept that "kindred spirits" are not just that, souls that are connected despite our physical bodies.

[Sweeney]

Aaah, that would make sense then. Still though, I mean if people wanted to dream forever and had the mental strength to, they could,and could be put in hospital under the same idea that people are put in hospital for comas, I mean someone that just looks like they're forever asleep looks the same really whether their in coma or just in something similar to it .

I think though, that our conscious doesn't really have enough awareness about it to really enjoy it, so it might live on forever in that instant, but it might not actually remember any of it, just like we don't remember dreams sometimes o-o. I know I've definately had weird dreams, remembered them when I've woken up and no matter how hard I've tried not been able to keep them in waking memory...

If you live on forever in that instant, you're never going to wake up.
Do you have trouble remembering what happened a little while ago whilst you're still in the dream? (Actually, considering you're not a lucid dreamer, that may well be a totally irrelevant question, I don't know...)
In my opinion, dreams are hard to remember when you wake up, because the brain regards them as superfluous information, and pretty much discards them. After all, you don't need to remember them.

I'm a lucid dreamer, so I know what you're talking about..but it just isn't possible. Even if you did go into a lucid dream at death (very plausible and a very good point with the tunnel) and days are possible from a minute in real life, once you die, you don't have anymore minutes.
If you mean, that you have a final lucid dream and it ends soon after, sure I can agree with that.
If you mean that you start one and it never ends, no, I can't agree you would need a soul (something eternal, so something like the idea of a soul) for that to work. When the brain dies its over. There's nothing left, from a scientific stand point.

I think part of the reason that I'm religious is because I cannot accept that this is all there is. I cannot accept that "kindred spirits" are not just that, souls that are connected despite our physical bodies.

You agree, that it is possible to compress hours into minutes, yes? And you also, I presume, understand that we have conscious control over a little under ten percent of our brain?
For me, it is not much of a leap from these two pieces of information, to assume that the brain can, if necessary, further compress those days into seconds... tenths of seconds... hundredths of seconds... and so on.

Oh, and I never mentioned that I don't believe in a soul. I once (and I can't remember where) heard it put most succinctly; I have a body, and I can think about that. I have a mind, and I can think about that, too. I can think about both these things at the same time. So, what's doing the thinking?
Hmm... I wish I could remember the exact wording, my version sounds so much worse.
Of course, I don't view the soul as a religious entity, just another unexplained part of being human. For now, at least, I am happy with it being unexplained, and I don't need to believe in a god to make me comfortable with it's existance.
The soul. A component of humanity, connected with others, existing outside of time.

[Fox]

You know, I do understand where the opinions here are going (I lucid dream sometimes), but I'm likely to stay quite blank myself, when it comes to death. Are you aware of anything before you're born? I just tend to think it's going to be like that when we die... and it doesn't really bother me that much.

We're just a lump of chemicals.
Now, isn't that a happy thought.

[Eeyore]

If you live on forever in that instant, you're never going to wake up.
Do you have trouble remembering what happened a little while ago whilst you're still in the dream? (Actually, considering you're not a lucid dreamer, that may well be a totally irrelevant question, I don't know...)
In my opinion, dreams are hard to remember when you wake up, because the brain regards them as superfluous information, and pretty much discards them. After all, you don't need to remember them.

I do have lucid dreams, but I don't fall asleep deciding I'm going to have one. So I'm not like...a skilled lucid dreamer or anything .

If dreams are superfluous information, why does our brain let us remember what happened on the last episode of our favorite TV show? I mean I want to remember my dreams as much as I'd want to remember what went on in Desperate Housewives or Greenwing, so why can I only remember the latter and not the former? o-o

You know, I do understand where the opinions here are going (I lucid dream sometimes), but I'm likely to stay quite blank myself, when it comes to death. Are you aware of anything before you're born? I just tend to think it's going to be like that when we die... and it doesn't really bother me that much.

We're just a lump of chemicals.
Now, isn't that a happy thought.

I think that, but in the same way I also think we're reincarnated. But we don't remember that we have been, just we aren't wasted, something about us is recycled, we just have no idea what's happened. Like...we die and something is reset, and we start again as whatever, not depending on how we lived our past lives or anything, just depending on what role needs filling the moment we die...

[Sakura]

I do have lucid dreams, but I don't fall asleep deciding I'm going to have one. So I'm not like...a skilled lucid dreamer or anything .

If dreams are superfluous information, why does our brain let us remember what happened on the last episode of our favorite TV show? I mean I want to remember my dreams as much as I'd want to remember what went on in Desperate Housewives or Greenwing, so why can I only remember the latter and not the former? o-o

In your awake state you're taking in the episode and your brain is actually thinking, 'I'm paying attention, I need to remember and process.' With dreams its more of a replay, things you already remember and doesn't need to be shifted into storage. Think of it as if your head is a computer and you have a song file. You love this song but you have a copy and then someone sends you another copy with a few other songs around it. You don't really like the other songs, you're not going to waste storage on the extra file, you're going to keep your current one, the one that has the important information.

[Fox]

I think that, but in the same way I also think we're reincarnated. But we don't remember that we have been, just we aren't wasted, something about us is recycled, we just have no idea what's happened. Like...we die and something is reset, and we start again as whatever, not depending on how we lived our past lives or anything, just depending on what role needs filling the moment we die...

Course we're recycled! You might have the same atoms in you as a tropical fern did a few million years ago.

[Eeyore]

Course we're recycled! You might have the same atoms in you as a tropical fern did a few million years ago.

Exactly *grin* That's what I think happens in death, I don't think we retain anything though. So death is just black I think, like sleep can be, though you aren't even aware of it because there's no energy in your body to -be- aware of the black. But elsewhere our soul or...something, is in another animal, doing an entirely different job with no clue of what it used to be or have o-o.

So I don't fear death either really , because death isn't anything to me. I fear dying more then death itself, because dying might actually be painful, but I don't see much point in being scared of that anyway, it's not like I'd have to look back on it and wince o-o.

[Sweeney]

Sorry, that edit took a while to write. I'll repost it.

I'm a lucid dreamer, so I know what you're talking about..but it just isn't possible. Even if you did go into a lucid dream at death (very plausible and a very good point with the tunnel) and days are possible from a minute in real life, once you die, you don't have anymore minutes.
If you mean, that you have a final lucid dream and it ends soon after, sure I can agree with that.
If you mean that you start one and it never ends, no, I can't agree you would need a soul (something eternal, so something like the idea of a soul) for that to work. When the brain dies its over. There's nothing left, from a scientific stand point.

I think part of the reason that I'm religious is because I cannot accept that this is all there is. I cannot accept that "kindred spirits" are not just that, souls that are connected despite our physical bodies.

You agree, that it is possible to compress hours into minutes, yes? And you also, I presume, understand that we have conscious control over a little under ten percent of our brain?
For me, it is not much of a leap from these two pieces of information, to assume that the brain can, if necessary, further compress those days into seconds... tenths of seconds... hundredths of seconds... and so on.

Oh, and I never mentioned that I don't believe in a soul. I once (and I can't remember where) heard it put most succinctly; I have a body, and I can think about that. I have a mind, and I can think about that, too. I can think about both these things at the same time. So, what's doing the thinking?
Hmm... I wish I could remember the exact wording, my version sounds so much worse.
Of course, I don't view the soul as a religious entity, just another unexplained part of being human. For now, at least, I am happy with it being unexplained, and I don't need to believe in a god to make me comfortable with it's existance.
The soul. A component of humanity, connected with others, existing outside of time.

[Eeyore]

In your awake state you're taking in the episode and your brain is actually thinking, 'I'm paying attention, I need to remember and process.' With dreams its more of a replay, things you already remember and doesn't need to be shifted into storage. Think of it as if your head is a computer and you have a song file. You love this song but you have a copy and then someone sends you another copy with a few other songs around it. You don't really like the other songs, you're not going to waste storage on the extra file, you're going to keep your current one, the one that has the important information.

That...sort of makes sense I guess. But I've had dreams I haven't been aware of controlling that I can remember o-o, so I wouldn't class them as lucid dreams because if they'd have gone my way they wouldn't be scary for one, but...as you can tell, I can actually remember them. Surely if what you say is true I wouldn't remember those dreams either...

[Sakura]

That...sort of makes sense I guess. But I've had dreams I haven't been aware of controlling that I can remember o-o, so I wouldn't class them as lucid dreams because if they'd have gone my way they wouldn't be scary for one, but...as you can tell, I can actually remember them. Surely if what you say is true I wouldn't remember those dreams either...

No... as Joe had stated, you had made a frightening dream, something that really stuck out, sometimes people also manage to think out a problem in their dreams, and they'll remember. Its your dull ones that are just replays, you'll almost always remember things that are actually processed.


And Joe, I think what you're talking about is the theory of Duality...I think, maybe, that was Descartes theory.
I am religious...something close to christianty, I guess that's the closest I could get to explaining my beliefs with something established.

[Sweeney]

No... as Joe had stated, you had made a frightening dream, something that really stuck out, sometimes people also manage to think out a problem in their dreams, and they'll remember. Its your dull ones that are just replays, you'll almost always remember things that are actually processed.
And Joe, I think what you're talking about is the theory of Duality...I think, maybe, that was Descartes theory.
I am religious...something close to christianty, I guess that's the closest I could get to explaining my beliefs with something established.

-nod-
It's possible. I shall try and find that quote as soon as I can.

But my theory concerning death is all my own, unverifyable as it is.
The only real leap of... well, faith... is the complete separation of an individual's timeline from reality.
But I see no reason why the subconscious mind would be incapable of taking it to that extreme.

[Eeyore]

But I see no reason why the subconscious mind would be incapable of taking it to that extreme.

Which is why it is made your belief . Others can, so obviously it isn't their belief. I'm not entirely sure the mind would be powerful enough to make an instant last forever, but my theroy involves the mind being powerful enough to be recycled and reset millions of times over, so meh

[Sweeney]

But you see, making an instant last forever for one mind only doesn't sound that difficult at all.

[Eeyore]

But you see, making an instant last forever for one mind only doesn't sound that difficult at all.

Does to meeee, as soon as you say 'forever' I start thinking of maths and numbers and how things last forever there, and thats mind boggling. Thus, if it's mind boggling, the mind wouldn't be able to deal with it . Laame arguement that was in honesty meant as a bit of a joke, but you can understand where I'm coming from. No one can comprehend terms such as forever or infinity, we all picture a stop, as soon as we stop considering it it stops. So as soon as the one mind stops considering lasting for forever to live out some kind of paradise...it wouldn't be lasting forever anymore o-o.