The Afterlife and God

@thomaschong, I’ll have to sleep on this one. Not sold yet but I’ve enjoyed the conversation and maybe tomorrow we’ll have some other perspectives thrown in the mix. Have a good night/day wherever you may be.

@shivvy, @cadeus333, Do you guys have any idea how challenging it is acquire the evidence that you’re requiring? At least ponder this hypothesis with as much respect as you give other explanations of the metaphysical. No one completely understands the process and there’s not necessarily a way to prove the outcome. Sure you may have had 1 experience with DMT? but you don’t seem experienced enough to know how complex and elusive it can really get.

“I’m pretty sure if there is a god, him explaining himself to us would be like me trying to explain algebra to a fucking beetle.” No shit man, now remove the ‘him’ and ‘himself’ and just call it G-force if that makes it easier to imagine G-force being the cause to this effect we call life. We identify life with sensory stimulation that creates a memory that we can build upon with experience. Anything we can sense is real and encompassed by the G-force that created it; omnipresent.

My hypothesis is very similar to Chong’s because the similarities between a DMT trip, lucid dream and near-death experience are all undeniably similar. You don’t need the print-out from a piece of lab equipment to identify what you are seeing. It’s a state of remote clarity, an ethereal mind-scape void of physical sensation. And it’s pure, not polar or judgemental; no thing is separate or a mistake, One harmony.

A DMT trip can be very subjective, I’ve had dozens of trips and am still careful to admit anything consistent about it other than it’s ability to awaken your spirit. In comparison, even my most lucid dreams are difficult to direct or hold onto a memory of the experience. It’s that moment of lucidity when you realize “woah, this dream isn’t actually happening, but is all still being experienced”. When you do a DMT trip correctly, you push yourself out of lucidity into a dream-scape. (You guys definitely have not had this full effect, or you wouldn’t be asking for evidence of a link between DMT, dreaming and the pineal.) It is chaotically confusing, a bombardment of hallucinations that you’re an uncontrollable observer of, like a dream. Then before you know it, you’re coming back to consciousness and any memory of the experience begins to fade from you. But you’re left buzzing with this energy and feeling of “Wow! i was physically here the whole time, but that was all happening in there; ‘there’ felt so familiar!”

Now I’ve never had a near-death experience, but from what I’ve heard 1st-hand from people’s stories and from what I’ve read, their effect is eerily similar. When revived to consciousness they describe something that they concretely experienced but cannot vaguely remember. Usually it’s a very subjective projection of their own mind, sometimes their entire life flashing before their eyes; but the feeling of having been brought back from some place else and having felt spiritual comfort there is almost always the same. I don’t completely understand how these are all linked, and I would also throw deep meditation and hypnosis into the evaluation. These practices are difficult to understand because while tapping into this universal and underlying awareness, it’s difficult to retain any memory of it in normal consciousness.

I think that feeling of being someplace else when dreaming, tripping, and other techniques are ways to perceive the afterlife that religions like christianity have tried to label with heaven or hell. G-force is bigger than that, and any human-being’s description of the event being good, bad, scary or otherwise isn’t appropriate. To get back to your quote “I’m pretty sure if there is a god, him explaining himself to us would be like me trying to explain algebra to a fucking beetle.” is exactly right! But we’re a little better than a beetle, we can connect the dots and hypothesize that these incredible moments that have no time or space could be ‘it’.

There’s so much more that could be said about this, but there’s no proof like direct experience, and that can’t be credited with words. Not on this subject.

@versai, I agree with just about everything you said and I never once said that it was not possible. In fact I think it is more likely than not that Strassman’s theory could be correct, my experience with DMT was an almost textbook case of a near death experience. The conversation about it started because He stated DMT in the pineal as fact, when it is not. That was my only point. Trust me, I know how fleeting the experience is and how fast DMT is broken down by the body and I did not take the latter into consideration when I mentioned testing. Chong brought up a great point there. I am very experienced with psychedillics, I’ve done most of them in high doses but none of them come even close to DMT, it’s a different animal completely. The only thing that comes close is a high dose of mushrooms, five grams or more. Which makes sense because they a so chemically similar. Psilocybin is only a few molecules away from DMT.

As far as God, again, I don’t claim to have any idea but I am open to the idea. I sure as hell don’t think it’s some sky daddy watching over us every second of our lives. I would think of it more as a universal consciousness simulating an infinite number of physical existences, if this were the case that means that we are in fact god. I like that idea, it makes sense to me, a lot more so than other descriptions of god. Like I said, I don’t know and I’m cool with that. Maybe one day I’ll have a solid stance on it but if there is a god i’m sure he/it would not condemn me for questioning it’s existence.

I just have to say, I am pretty new here and I love this site. There are so many great conversations to be had with intelligent people. I learn a lot from listening to other people’s points of view and I think it is important to stay open to everything because in the end most of these discussions are opinions and I enjoy them all. Let’s all just remember that as much as we think we know about reality and the universe/multiverse, we don’t know shit.

@thomaschong, I personally believe in an afterlife. There are records of people who have been blind since birth, and have died, then revived and gave in depth descriptions of the doctors, nurses, and room they were in. One record stands out in my mind, a gentleman went into the ER unconscious, and died. The ER doctor had this thing he did where he pointed at tools with his elbows as to not contaminate his gloves. When the dead man was revived and recovered he asked the doctor why he was pointing around with his elbows and the doctor was in awe. Now I know this second one could have a few plausible explanations, but what about all the blind NDE’s? That is quite interesting and convincing to me. Just wanted to know your opinion.

@thomaschong, Of Course. Here you are.

http://near-death.com/experiences/evidence03.html

http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/398-science/7170-new-evidence-suggests-that-the-near-death-experience-is-the-spirit-leaving-the-body-and-not-just-a-dying-brain

http://nhneneardeath.ning.com/video/man-born-blind-can-see-during-near-death-experience

http://www.skeptiko.com/94-jeffrey-long-near-death-experience-research/

There’s a lot of this on the web, seems to be a few books on it as well.

The concept of God exists in our imagination. That being said, God is not the concept of God. My friend can go to a party and tell me that it was awesome, and I can imagine what the party was like and be 100% wrong about it, but it wouldn’t mean that my friend didn’t go to a party, or that the person who organized the party doesn’t exist.

@thomaschong, I’ve had a slight OBE once before as well, but it was mostly sensation. Feeling of being in two places at once, and no sense of breath. Well, I feel if it truly was her soul leaving her body, maybe she could recognize the colors through some acts of divinity. Or she knew previously because someone told her. Who knows! We’ll find out some day :]

@thomaschong, Well, because it’s divine, it’s unknown. Maybe through some type of devine knowledge she just knew. Who knows!

@thomaschong, I mean, I wouldn’t call it bullshit for I am not her, and did not experience it myself. We do not know what divine is or does,it’s unknown, hell, it might not even exist. But if it does, who knows, it might provide an explanation. Just a theory man.