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End-of-Life Dreams

commonwealmagazine.org

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Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#91

Post by rob74 »

ekianjo wrote: post #48
clnq wrote: post #33

Whatever is happening, it is sad to hear about yet another case where doctors are too arrogant to listen to their patients and try to understand. It might not be a spiritual experience, it might be delirium. But perhaps it is important step in the human mind making peace with death. And it disappoints me greatly that the medical community shuns this phenomenon and anyone who tries to research it. There is nothing wor…

> And it disappoints me greatly that the medical community shuns this phenomenon The medical community is a joke as a whole. They even brush off side effects because they have never heard about them before. They are as unscientific as you can go. Nowhere in hard science world do people act like that.

Ok, I'll state the reverse opinion in the same stark way as you did: why should they? Their job is helping people who still want to live and can be helped. If someone is terminally ill and has made peace with the thought that they are going to die soon, there's nothing they can do for them anymore...

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#92

Post by zw123456 »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #35
zw123456 wrote: post #14

I am an atheist, a science-based person, but I have been in the presence of someone passing a couple of times. I can tell you that, I do not care how science based you are, there is something about this experience that you simply cannot dismiss. I was with a person who I loved deeply, the details are, personal and I am going to skip over. But when she passed... Her breathing moved from the rattle to just a quiet rhyt…

The phenomenon described in the article does not require any non-naturalistic explanations. This is pretty much the role that people ascribe to DMT all the time, which is supposedly secreted during our final moments. I was in the presence of my mother during her final night and it was the most harrowing and traumatic experience I've ever had. It was obvious that she was in pain towards the end, but interestingly over…

Thank you for sharing thins. I agree, although there is surely scientific explanations, nevertheless, we humans have feelings when a loved one passes.

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#93

Post by spirit557 »

monero-xmr wrote: post #13

One reason I love mystery so much, is that rooted in the human experience is the ultimate mystery, one we will all get to know for sure - what happens when you die. Even if we extend life by thousands of years with technology, eventually we will all experience this mystery. What happens upon death is unprovable, and one of faith or logic or whatever. It’s really about gut feeling. But we will all find out, one day.

I have pondered this too and lately I think a certain way about it. It may not really answer the question but I dunno.

You say "But we will all find out, one day."

I think... maybe we already know? Before I was born, I did not exist. When I die, I will again no longer exist.

If Earth is ~4.5 billion years old, what was it like waiting for all the things to happen before I could be born to crawl upon its surface with a diaper on, grow up and ponder life, eventually find this comment on HN and reply to it?

By not existing before we were born, do we already know what it's like to not exist after we die?

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#94

Post by rmason »

wishfish wrote: post #10

When my father died, he had a waking dream of this. Saw a river with all his dead family across the water. Smiling and waving. Coming to the banks. Waiting for him to cross. His last words were “Cover me in a blanket of sunshine.” He died two hours later. What’s a little remarkable to me is that he had these visions in this detail despite being lifelong blind. As I was reading the article, I kept wondering which came…

My late father had a dream where he said his brother had appeared before him beckoning him to come with him. He said I told him that I needed more time and he nodded.

A few days later with all his relatives around him who flew in from all over the country we had an amazing day and he was in really good spirits. The nurses finally told us that evening we had to leave for the day so he could sleep.

I was the last to leave the room and I heard him softly call out to his brother to say that he was now ready to go. He passed away sometime later that night.

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#95

Post by XorNot »

tomohelix wrote: post #39
pazimzadeh wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was about 5 years old I asked my mom what happens after we die. She thought for a second a said "no one has ever come back and told me." There will always be gaps. While hypotheses, religious or naturalistic, are important, it's also important to be ok not having all the answers.

I work in biotech and as I am sure you know, it is the field where unknown phenomena are the expected norms. So yes, I made peace with not being able to know everything a long time ago. But by the same virtue, it means I can't dismiss anything unless I have concrete evidence against it. It is better to leave rooms for doubts rather than settling with a half-answer and consider it a solved matter. To do so would mean…

There's a difference between not knowing everything and inventing rather specific alternatives which you declare are valid because "we don't know everything".

Not knowing means not knowing. Not "well we don't know so maybe it's...".

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#96

Post by bluecatswim »

Zircom wrote: post #89
ggm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that rich. It's usually a two-person dialogue. But the quality here is that most people have some kind of interior dialogue with themselves. Most? Above 50%. I think well above, the web disagrees. If it's couched by most people as an interior monologue rather than dialogue, I think it stands as a distinct state which argues at a minimum 2 participants (the one listening, unvoiced?) Sometimes mine is in schoolboy…

I've asked a close friend of mine something along those lines. His native language is Spanish but he's been speaking English was well since he was around 3, so I think he safely grew up bilingual. Anyhow, he said his default voice in his head these days most of the time is English, unless he is around his family and is exclusively speaking Spanish out loud with them, in those cases he just naturally continues speakin…

Can confirm. I speak 3 languages (A (English), B (my mother tongue) and C). For most of my life I monologued in some combination of A and B. When I was a NEET for a couple years it was mostly in A because I spent most of my time on the internet. When I got a job my coworkers spoke in C so (as much as I hated it) my mind quickly started to occasionally default to C.

Another thing I noticed very often is when I consume any piece of media (could be a book or a TV show) my mind very quickly picks up the peculiarities of the narrative/spoken language and stays like that for a couple days.

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#97

Post by NovaDudely »

tomohelix wrote: post #39
pazimzadeh wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was about 5 years old I asked my mom what happens after we die. She thought for a second a said "no one has ever come back and told me." There will always be gaps. While hypotheses, religious or naturalistic, are important, it's also important to be ok not having all the answers.

I work in biotech and as I am sure you know, it is the field where unknown phenomena are the expected norms. So yes, I made peace with not being able to know everything a long time ago. But by the same virtue, it means I can't dismiss anything unless I have concrete evidence against it. It is better to leave rooms for doubts rather than settling with a half-answer and consider it a solved matter. To do so would mean…

We have to occasionally remember that as an individual, the thinking part of us is but 6 inches across of jelly. To think that the brain can conceive and understand the entire function of the universe is somewhat laughable.

"I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this." - Emo Philips

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#98

Post by XorNot »

elzbardico wrote: post #50
pazimzadeh wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I'm just confused why so many people are pre-facing their comments with some version of "I'm a life-long atheist but I can relate to this story somehow" as if there is a discrepancy between atheism and the article. For the record, I think strong atheism, or the confidence that there is no god or after-life, is just as wrong as being confident that there is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_…

Oh, thanks for that! As an atheist I always wondered what annoyed me so much in other more vocal and militant atheists. I'd love to believe in God, a superior power, benevolent aliens, re-incarnation, anything! The problem is that I just can't, no matter how much I try.

"strong" atheists are asking you to treat your lack of belief like you'd treat any other thing you don't believe in - i.e. faires, fae, ogres, trolls, Babayanka etc.

I don't preface a comment on "those don't exist" by saying "well there's no evidence but..." because very obviously I don't live my life as though there's any probability they exist.

"I don't know god exists" is a meaningless statement because the alternative is not binary. You don't believe 'god' exists when you do, you believe a rather specific God exists.

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#100

Post by ako »

haskellandchill wrote: post #62
ekianjo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it disappoints me greatly that the medical community shuns this phenomenon The medical community is a joke as a whole. They even brush off side effects because they have never heard about them before. They are as unscientific as you can go. Nowhere in hard science world do people act like that.

> The medical community is a joke I've been reading "The Medical Detectives" and it seems like there used to be a stronger drive to seek understanding of the unheard.

We have made a system that has no room for seeking understanding. It needs to be fast, affordable, and without mistakes otherwise you’ll get sued, so everyone simply follows protocols.
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