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

I don't.
My DD was cremated.

By extension - are you suggesting that by being reduced to ash, the 'spirit' of the person is destroyed too? That there is nothing left to pass on? Would that mean anyone who died in a fire ... Where would the boundary lie?

When my DD died, the police came to our house to tell us there had been an accident and to take me to the hospital where she and my other children had been taken. As I went out to get into the police car, I had a strange experience. I had hesitated on the doorstep and looked up at the night sky .. it was a really beautiful starry night. I cannot adequately explain it, but I suddenly felt a hovering presence above my head and I knew it was her. I spoke to her and said 'Don't worry, we will be alright. I know you are dead. I love you.' Just as quickly as it had come, this sense of raw energy - that's what it was - moved away ...
I don't find it easy to share this - I think many people would say ' That is the shock / you imagined it' etc, etc. In my mind, she definitely came to say goodbye.

The point I am making is that whatever was the 'essence' of her - her soul, her spirit - that was already released and gone before she was cremated.

Some years ago I had a "near death experience" it was as though I had just shrugged off my body like an old overcoat that I no longer needed and the spirit that was me felt so safe and happy as I looked back on my body. I do believe that our spirit lives on but of course there is so much we don't know or understand

I think there is something more.

It would take me all night to recount why I feel as I do, why I believe we live on in spirit form. I have had so many experiences which lead me to believe death isn't the end.

I am not religious, nor do I see mediums etc. I feel there are charlatans who do exploit those wanting to believe.

I believe there is more because of explainable things that have happened to me.

"un"explainable!

un

Doh!

In a biology class many years ago, I learned that the human body is made up of millions of cells that are constantly dividing, dying and being replaced by entirely different new ones yet they are similar to their predecessors.

It is approximately a seven year process for several million cells in our bodies to replace themselves in their entirety.

So, if all the cells in our body are not the same ones we had seven years ago, wouldn't that in essence be the same as having a different body than the one that we started out with? (also consistent with the aging process). If we end up in a different body yet our memories and our sense of self remain intact, can it be that our conscious self preserves continuity in a body made up of cells that are finite? Think about the implications of that! (food for thought!)

I'd like to think so but it would also make me fel incredibly sad as my loved ones have never "visited" me.

I do, but I think it is way outside our human understanding. We are very complex beings and have a huge subconscious. I have not seen many dead people but the overriding impression is that the body is merely a shell, the person isn't there.

For many years I worked as a nurse on night duty when patients tended to die. Many patients close to the end would call out to their mothers and I frequently witnessed them becoming calm and serene with the most beautiful smiles as they appeared to see something we could not. When my own mother died my sisters and I sat with her .As she died her hair changed from grey to jet black ,her original colour .It was so strange and something I had never seen before. There appeared to be a look of pure joy on her face. I like to believe she was met by her loved ones and taken off to another dimension .

I do not believe in life after death. I feel confident in asserting that the idea is a) a means of finding comfort in loss and fully understand the pain of having to face up to the death of someone one has loved dearly and wanting to believe that there is something more and a future somehow still together; b) more importantly, a means of enforcing "good behaviour" by whichever group is in charge of whichever religion. "Do what we tell you now and don't complain and you will have everlasting life with endless glorious reward".

I believe that I am some sort of biochemical accident along with the rest of the human race. I believe that if I have any sort of immortality it is in the memories of those I have touched and loved. I truly do not want a life in heaven or reincarnation or any sort of human-imagined life after death. One life is enough for me and when it ends, so be it.

Wow theGlovers1 that is amazing - I've never heard that before, the hair returning to its former glory.
It's true, Willa45 we do grow new cells all the time, and they have the memory of the previous cells. There are quite a few books on the market now that describe, or are written by people who have had transplants and have "inherited" their donors' memories and tastes.

Imperfect So very sorry about your dear daughter & mum I certainly do believe that for a short time after death, they are still here with us, after that I'm not sure. Thank you for sharing.
Only read up to this posts, read more later...

Paddyann So sorry for the loss of your babyD Amazing tales you tell. When I was a child, I would get, like flash backs, of places & people too. As you get older you loose this ability, shame we don't learn to develop it instead of letting it go.

willa45 - I think that you will find that, while our cells change over time, the connections between brain cells are maintained and it is those connections that supply our sense of self and our memories rather than the cells themselves.

I think that the sense that a recently lost loved one is communicating with us in some way is down to "brain lag." It can be equated to looking into the sun, then for a short time afterwards you can "see" the sun as a darker ball in your field of vision even when you have looked away. If your brain is habituated to the sounds and sight of a loved one over many years, it is not surprising that the brain visualises or hears them for some time to come.

I really hope there is life after death.I would truely be in heaven if i was reunited with my mum.

Well I don't know about what occurs after death but I was once in a traumatic life threatening situation and at one point there was a kind of seperation. I wasn't in my body but above it, looking down on what was happening and reviewing my entire life. It sounds trivial when I type it but it was the most sublime experience. No pain, only joy of a kind I have never,ever experienced before.. After I went back into my body, and the event was over, although I had severe physical injury, I felt only inner joy. It lasted about a month and I want(ed) it to come back. It makes me feel there is much to do with life and death that we don't know.

I like to think there is, small comfort that one day I will meet my grandparents again as well as my pets.
I recall sitting with a friends elderly dad until she could get up from London to sit with him. He had had a heart attack and "died" in his hospital bed but they managed to resuscitate him. He told me the angels told him to come back it was not his time.
Put it this was if there isn't then we will never know will we.
I believe all the energy has to go somewhere. But then I guess that somewhere must be very crowded by now.

This thread has made me cry.

Years ago I read a book which said few are able to "tune in."

I believe in life after death. Accordingly, I hope to meet my immediate relatives, also those who died before I was born, or when I was a toddler.

Anyone read "Heaven is for Real" by Tod Burpo?

Last but not least, I found some of the posts moving

No, haven't read that LuckyDucky - can you tell us something about it?

Mmm, I have thought about this and come to the following conclusion. I was brought up an atheist and since living on a farm all my married life I have seen the process of life and death in nature in its many guises. It seems logical that birth is balance by death in nature and that bodies decay and return to be part of the earth. Also why should humans be different to every other life form? That is not to deny the potential of our emotions and imaginations and ways of coping though.
Going back to religion - I now count myself as a Christian because I always wondered why the Old Testament was in the Bible at all when Jesus, after much pondering had a very simple message 'God is Love' i.e. Love is God! Love seems to fit the bill in every respect and is a human potential that is so powerful. I don't need any more personally.

yogagirl my lovely old Irish granny had a huge repertoir of "ghost" stories,we used to fight to share her bed so she would scare the wits out of us.My mother would come charging upstairs at the squeals and threaten to smack us all if we didn't get to sleep...even granny.lol .The one that has always stayed with me is when her mother used to "clerk" mass ,unusual in the mid 1800's for a girl but she wasn't allowed ON the altar.She turned up for 6am mass as normal and the priest arrived spoke to the congregation ,the usual 10 or 12 who went every day and then said mass.He snuffed out the candles when he had finished and left .GG was last out and she met the youngest priest at the door .He asked her what she was doing and she replied she's been to mass with Father D ,that is not possible child he said ...Father D died at 2 am this morning.Still gives me chills .

A few days after my mother died the light went off in my baby son's bedroom for no reason (about 4pm on a dull December afternoon). I switched it back on, double-checked and left the room. When I returned a while later the light was off again; I felt some power surge through me as I realised she had done it (baby and I were the only people in the house at the time).

SussexGirl, I too have left my body. I hovered above myself and took a good look at the 'shell' I had inhabited.

I was working at the time and fully compis mentus. I floated above myself and viewed myself working with a child. I carried on working, being busy but I knew that the body was just a carrier. I could see all the room from the ceiling so I saw tops of large bookcases and people's heads. I was extremely calm and felt so serene. It was a wonderful experience. I think I had been given the knowledge that we are spirits in human form.

I returned to my body but felt such strength, such amazement and incredible comfort. It wasn't scary at all.

I am not sure we return to our loved ones after death, but I have received all sorts of strange signs and messages in my life, pointing me in certain directions or bringing me comfort. Yes, could be pure coincidence and I could be reading into stuff things I want to feel.

I also have to say I'm a cynic. I am not easily fooled and have a strong suspicious streak to my nature which makes me question most things!

I am not religious either. I don't see life after death as a comfort particularly. I am not sure about reincarnation either. The body dies, decomposes, rots but as to what it contains, and the nature of anything else, who knows?

It's a mystery.

bikergran all my husbands organs were used for transplants. You will see from my earlier post, yesterday something unusual happened after his death which was a few months after the Cremation, I have no idea how it happened.