Heavy stuff, dudes. Everyone being made of the same basic, recycled components would explain the feeling ya get that everyone is the same motherfucker doing the same thing for the same end, and why leaps in art, science, and sociological development, forward or backward, happen in radically different parts of the world at pretty much the same time… advances in communications nonwithstanding.
I don;t know, guys. The smrf brought up this hypothetical perfect woman and I just can’t focus on reincarnation with all these fantasies of fooling around with this glorious vision of loveliness and her asymmetrical titties.
there’s a part of me that recently, believes that: whatever you believe, may happen. there are millions who believe in reincarnation, so maybe those believers are reincarnated. there’s millions who believe in heaven, so maybe that’s where those believers go. there’s millions who believe in nothing, and maybe that’s what happens to those who believe that. maybe there is no right or wrong, or definitive answer to all this. or maybe there is. but I’ll be damned if I knew what it was.
there’s a part of me that recently, believes that: whatever you believe, may happen. there are millions who believe in reincarnation, so maybe those believers are reincarnated. there’s millions who believe in heaven, so maybe that’s where those believers go. there’s millions who believe in nothing, and maybe that’s what happens to those who believe that. maybe there is no right or wrong, or definitive answer to all this. or maybe there is. but I’ll be damned if I knew what it was.
I’ve felt that way before too, wouldn’t surprise me if it worked that way. Now the problem will be for people like me who have very few solid “beliefs” as such but also very few disbeliefs! =)
Don’t know about reincarnation. My hypothesis is that whatever happens, it’s probably something that is to complex for us to understand and cannot be put into words.
Physically/biologically though, the moment of death can be explained. At that specific point, your brain pumps your body full of a chemical called DMT - an extremely powerful hallucinogenic and anesthetic. It is a chemical that your body has been creating since day one. Some say that this is the likely cause of any sensations one might encounter during a near death experience (ie speaking to deceased relatives, floating down a tunnel etc).
It has been speculated that this rush of DMT causes you to ‘dream forever’ and experience an eternity in a dream like state/place. Effectively - because you are no longer bound by the constraints of time and space that inhabiting a physical body entails - one second could last for eternity.
Seems plausible to me. It’s weird because you could go on forever and ever living these ‘imagined’ lifetimes. At the point of death you imagine a life for yourself - which in reality lasts one second - and at the end of the that ‘life’ you imagine you die and at that point of death you imagine a whole other life for yourself which in reality only lasts one second but seems like an eternity and so on and so on.
I nearly drown as a child and have passed out/had convulsions from the pain incurred from a traumatic injury. I can tell you all first-hand that drowning was super peaceful (hypoxia creates euphoria), my young life flashed before my eyes as if it were on a film strip, and then everything went black. I thought, so this is what it’s like to die.
The traumatic injury took me from upright and conscience to laying on the ground unconscious and then to sitting on the ground conscience but in shock. No crying despite it being the severest pain I have ever felt. It was as if someone flipped the manual override switch, the shutdown script ran, and then I rebooted - heavy duty human body produced pain killers indeed!
As for reincarnation at the most basic level of matter and energy, maybe my particles were a cat or other animal at some point. For some unknown reason, animals love me and they know that I love them back.
We all have the same basic DNA. Anyone ever wonder why only homo sapien survived? Why not the others?
It has been speculated that this rush of DMT causes you to ‘dream forever’ and experience an eternity in a dream like state/place. Effectively - because you are no longer bound by the constraints of time and space that inhabiting a physical body entails - one second could last for eternity.
You can’t dream forever. You are still bound by the constraints of time even if it doesn’t feel like it. “An occurrence at owl creek bridge” has an end, granted 1 second takes a half hour (Twilight zone version, I don’t remember how many pages the essay was), but at some point the brain will shut down. So, there is an end.
As for reincarnation at the most basic level of matter and energy, maybe my particles were a cat or other animal at some point. For some unknown reason, animals love me and they know that I love them back.
So why do dogs wanna be my best friend when I don’t care for them?
Late,
grmpysmrf
@Mooney: That’s v. interesting to hear about your drowning experience. I was always under the impression that drowning would be intense and traumatic. Maybe I’ll consider pulling a Bodhi when my time is up
They’re dirty, you can’t even think about petting one without a cloud of dirt coming off of their fur, they stink, they have an obnoxious bark, whether it’s that of a big dog or a tiny yap yap dog. They are for the most part clumsy. Just not a fan. I can see why others are drawn to them but they’re not for me.
Late,
grmpysmrf
Mick, I think the intense and traumatic would fully depend on the circumstances. If someone were holding you down, I could certainly see it being intense and traumatic. In my case, I slipped into the deep end of a family friend’s backyard swimming pool. Next thing I knew, I was laying on the pool deck hacking up water. To this day, I have no recollection of how I got from in the pool onto the pool deck. Apparently, my aunt jumped in, pulled me out, and then squeezed the water out of me when on the pool deck.
Smrfy, animals just know which people do not like them. I had two cats while I was attending university. My design group came over to my place to work on our group project. Seven people in the place and the two cats walked straight up to the one chick who loved dogs and hated cats. Go figure.
[reply]mooney138: Wow. Same here. That’s pretty heavy, now that I think about it.
FUCK.
Man.
Care to share?
I’ve come very close a few times, but I’m still here.[/reply]
I’ve almost snuffed it a buncha times (most recent one was a year ago when I was almost hit by a train), but I’ve only almost drowned once. I was about eight or nine and I couldn’t swim that well, so I had a life vest on. Well, one of the clasps on it was messed up somehow, and the whole vest made me more or less capsize in a way that made it so I couldn’t get my head above water, and in trying to get the thing off, I unknowingly drifted into the current. Someone upstream caught me right as I blacked out, probably took me to shore and did the whole rescusitation thing, I guess. I don’t remember. All I know was that everything went dim and I was REALLY tired. Like, haven’t slept in three days and goddamnit doesn’t that pillow just feel GREAT tired. I remember that right before the intense pain that comes with hacking up water, there was the sensation of BECOMING water, if that makes sense. Not too deep, on retrospect, but still pretty crazy.
They’re dirty, you can’t even think about petting one without a cloud of dirt coming off of their fur, they stink, they have an obnoxious bark, whether it’s that of a big dog or a tiny yap yap dog. They are for the most part clumsy. Just not a fan. I can see why others are drawn to them but they’re not for me.
Late,
grmpysmrf[/reply]
Yep, they’re kind of like kids.[/reply]
from what I’ve seen, so far, it’s a different kind of dirt!
Late,
grmpysmrf
[reply][reply]mooney138: Wow. Same here. That’s pretty heavy, now that I think about it.
FUCK.
Man.
Care to share?
I’ve come very close a few times, but I’m still here.[/reply]
I’ve almost snuffed it a buncha times (most recent one was a year ago when I was almost hit by a train), but I’ve only almost drowned once. I was about eight or nine and I couldn’t swim that well, so I had a life vest on. Well, one of the clasps on it was messed up somehow, and the whole vest made me more or less capsize in a way that made it so I couldn’t get my head above water, and in trying to get the thing off, I unknowingly drifted into the current. Someone upstream caught me right as I blacked out, probably took me to shore and did the whole rescusitation thing, I guess. [/reply]
Whoa, I can see the visual of this happening as I have seen similar in rushing water rescue video.
Anyone else beside carmangary, icepick, and I who have a near-drowning experience?
I would have bought the farm in a car accident back in '97 had I not started screaming “STOP!” My screaming caused the driver to hit the brakes just enough to slow the car we were in to the point that the guy who t-boned us took the front end of our car off instead of hitting me in the passenger door. He ran a red light at 8:30 am in clear blue daylight. I watched him/the accident - He had glassy eyes and never blinked or hit his brakes.
