Also to add a follow up. I had ptsd and my only serious interests are meditation, philosophy and spirituality since this occurred. Eastern religions too, despite being raised Mormon. I feel a strong sense that everything in life is illusionary, just a projection of the mind. I don’t remember anything but the no sense of self and timelessness but I feel like there was something more to it.
The hardest part wasn’t being dead, but the absolute misery of the early dying process and then the long recovery. Death was peaceful.
People often think about death as some kind of positive non-existence when in reality death can’t by definition be experienced. If it feels like something then it’s the process of dying people are talking about. Not being dead. I believe the closest thing to death we can “experience” is general anesthesia and the people who have gone thru that know there’s nothing to experience. Just a teleportation from one moment to another.
This actually makes me believe in some form of “rebirth”. Not in the sense most people think about it but since consciousness can only experience being but not “not being” then it seems very likely that death just means that your experience moves from one place to another. If there’s a break in between you can’t experience it. You just can’t help but keep having experiences.
Really interesting stuff. Sam Harris made a fascinating podcast about this subject. As a subscriber I can give free links to the full episode if you’re interested. Just send me a PM.
Since I was dead and did not experience self, time or consciousness while this happened the closest I can explain it is that I just didn’t exist during that period of reference. It was like time travel, and did not feel like anesthesia, the time completely felt like it did not happen. It was minutes but might as well have been thousands of years, there was no concept of time at all.
My personal theory is that whatever death is, it exists outside of the concept of time. It seems that your consciousness resets and you find yourself alive again. In my case back in the same body but if reincarnation is possible then in a new life.
The perceived time doesn’t seem to need to be in any time frame or chronological order. Maybe you instantly skip over many years, or even transfer to the past.
Here is a theory I came up with entirely based on my own experiences, only to find out it is a real quantum physics theory:
Basically you find yourself in the reality where you somehow survive, because the one where you didn’t you don’t have consciousness. Both times incredibly unlikely circumstances saved me that also happened to occur at the exact moment needed.
I’m not sure how to pm on here but maybe if you send me one I can see it to check out your links.
I may have misread or misunderstood, but it sounded like you said Sam Harris believed that somehow you experienced a form of “rebirth”, where you appear somewhere else after death, and talked about this on a podcast.
If that’s not what you meant, I apologize, that is how I understood what you wrote.
The podcast was about death in general and what I was talking about is just one thing he talked about. It’s not something he believes in per se but just an idea he entertained. I can link you the full episode if you’re interested.
EDIT: I explained this theory a little further in another thread:
I find the non-experience of general anesthesia to be quite comforting in two ways.
Assuming that from the first person perspective it’s indistinguishable from death then it confirms that death is not just some kind of positive non-existence. You’re not left floating in a black void. It’s not that there’s a gap in the movie that’s just a blank screen. That entire section is removed. You go from one moment to another entirely skipping what happened inbetween. From first person perspective that gap doesn’t exist. You never really went unconsciouss. You went from experiencing the drugs starting to take effect to waking up. Death is probably just like this except that there’s no jump from experience to another but experience just stops.
The another thing about this is that maybe death doesn’t stop experience. Since you cannot experience not existing then maybe death is no different from general anesthesia; you die here and then in an instant you’re (what ever that is) transported having some other experience somewhere else in a different body or into whatever that can have experiences. Perhaps this is what people mean by rebirth.
Incredible story. This is making me reflect on a lot of things. I’ve had the same feelings re: projection of the mind, and I feel much calmer hearing this. Thank you so much for sharing.
Also to add a follow up. I had ptsd and my only serious interests are meditation, philosophy and spirituality since this occurred. Eastern religions too, despite being raised Mormon. I feel a strong sense that everything in life is illusionary, just a projection of the mind. I don’t remember anything but the no sense of self and timelessness but I feel like there was something more to it.
The hardest part wasn’t being dead, but the absolute misery of the early dying process and then the long recovery. Death was peaceful.
What a great post. Thank you for sharing it and all the best for you!
People often think about death as some kind of positive non-existence when in reality death can’t by definition be experienced. If it feels like something then it’s the process of dying people are talking about. Not being dead. I believe the closest thing to death we can “experience” is general anesthesia and the people who have gone thru that know there’s nothing to experience. Just a teleportation from one moment to another.
This actually makes me believe in some form of “rebirth”. Not in the sense most people think about it but since consciousness can only experience being but not “not being” then it seems very likely that death just means that your experience moves from one place to another. If there’s a break in between you can’t experience it. You just can’t help but keep having experiences.
Really interesting stuff. Sam Harris made a fascinating podcast about this subject. As a subscriber I can give free links to the full episode if you’re interested. Just send me a PM.
Since I was dead and did not experience self, time or consciousness while this happened the closest I can explain it is that I just didn’t exist during that period of reference. It was like time travel, and did not feel like anesthesia, the time completely felt like it did not happen. It was minutes but might as well have been thousands of years, there was no concept of time at all.
My personal theory is that whatever death is, it exists outside of the concept of time. It seems that your consciousness resets and you find yourself alive again. In my case back in the same body but if reincarnation is possible then in a new life.
The perceived time doesn’t seem to need to be in any time frame or chronological order. Maybe you instantly skip over many years, or even transfer to the past.
Here is a theory I came up with entirely based on my own experiences, only to find out it is a real quantum physics theory:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality
Basically you find yourself in the reality where you somehow survive, because the one where you didn’t you don’t have consciousness. Both times incredibly unlikely circumstances saved me that also happened to occur at the exact moment needed.
I’m not sure how to pm on here but maybe if you send me one I can see it to check out your links.
More about time:
https://interestingengineering.com/science/what-einstein-meant-by-time-is-an-illusion
Sam Harris believes in life after death?
No and even if so then not in the way any religion describes it.
You literally just said he did!
Edit: I may have been too quick to say that
You mind showing me the quote where I said that?
I may have misread or misunderstood, but it sounded like you said Sam Harris believed that somehow you experienced a form of “rebirth”, where you appear somewhere else after death, and talked about this on a podcast.
If that’s not what you meant, I apologize, that is how I understood what you wrote.
The podcast was about death in general and what I was talking about is just one thing he talked about. It’s not something he believes in per se but just an idea he entertained. I can link you the full episode if you’re interested.
EDIT: I explained this theory a little further in another thread:
Ah I see, sorry these days it’s very easy to equate talking about something to giving support for it, terrible habit.
I blame youtube
Incredible story. This is making me reflect on a lot of things. I’ve had the same feelings re: projection of the mind, and I feel much calmer hearing this. Thank you so much for sharing.
Check out the Law of One for some funky spiritual stuff. There might be something in there that makes sense of this reality for you.