Will we meet our dead relatives again?

[nhlpens]

Hi !
What are your thoughts on this? Lately I've been thinking about some family members who are not with me anymore. Do you think I will ever meet them again? Other then in my dreams? What are YOUR thoughts on death? Are we in the end just dust and bones?

[spacedout]

Originally Posted by nhlpens

Hi !
What are your thoughts on this? Lately I've been thinking about some family members who are not with me anymore. Do you think I will ever meet them again? Other then in my dreams? What are YOUR thoughts on death? Are we in the end just dust and bones?

In the end, the body, that we think who we are, will indeed be just dust and bones. Other than that, no one really knows what happens. The energy that fills the body and allows it to move and think is another matter. If it is true that energy can not be created nor destroyed, then the energy of the body must go somewhere. There are many beliefs and ideas as to what that energy is and where it goes. Some of the things that people call the energy is: soul, prana, vital force, spirit, true being, presence.

To be pragmatic about the whole thing, we might say that the body's energy is dissipated and becomes part of the earth and sky. On the mythological side, we might say that the energy retains the body's image and all of its memories and goes somewhere, like heaven, and meets up with other beings. There are people who truly believe in this latter premise, in one form or another.

Since there is no real universal agreement as to what happens to the body's energy why don't we just live in the moment and be here right now. One thing everybody knows for sure is that we are alive, right here, right now, this very moment. Don't fret about the past and don't worry about the future because they do not exist in this moment. Be alive and be happy knowing that you are one with all that is right now.

[JanT]

Hi nhlpens-
I truly believe that we will see them again. It is hard to console, and/or convince, the living who have not experienced this themselves, so I can only offer you my experience.

I was born able to see the deceased, though didn't realize that's what they were until I was older.

When I was older, I was able to see my relatives when they passed over, and they would stop and say bye on their way out.

I am still able to see, sense or hear those who have passed when they pop in to see me or those I am with. And this includes animals that have passed.

[Anagogy]

Originally Posted by nhlpens

Hi !
What are your thoughts on this? Lately I've been thinking about some family members who are not with me anymore. Do you think I will ever meet them again? Other then in my dreams? What are YOUR thoughts on death? Are we in the end just dust and bones?

You will see them again. Death is not the end, but a new beginning.

Also, don't write off your dreams so lightly. The afterlife is just like your dreams. That is to say, the ethereal world is composed of fluid consciousness which can take on any form it desires. Thus, you can look however you want to after you die, create a home for yourself, or whatever. Chances are, your dead relatives are doing the same things they used to enjoy on Earth, but without the memory wipe that accompanies physical incarnation.

The physical world is also a dream, albeit a less fluid one. When you dream of relatives, oftentimes you are actually communicating with them. Sleep is not just rest FOR the body, it is rest FROM the body.

Have a great day.

[IFeelGood]

yes

[Marty McFly]

No. But in the past you all still think it is "now", and your death already exists because all time is simutaneous. Your ego will get attached to physically determined memory but separateness was always an illusion. The conscious mind is chemical, beneath that we are one soul. There is no after life, there is only now.

[themaster]

How about we look at it this way.. there technically not gone.. even when they leave your reality.. they often throw you subtle messages that there still around

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by nhlpens

Hi !
What are your thoughts on this? Lately I've been thinking about some family members who are not with me anymore. Do you think I will ever meet them again?

My first question might be..is it necessary? But I know its not relevant thus I shelve it. As a person who has chosen to believe the Christian explanation of death and afterlife, I say yes you will meet them, but only if all of you will be in the same place; Heaven or Hell! Yes I know…

Originally Posted by nhlpens

Other then in my dreams??

Just read one of them books on Understanding your dreams…but in a Christian perspective, the living do not have any relationship with the dead and any dream to that effect should as deemed demonic.

Originally Posted by nhlpens

What are YOUR thoughts on death?

Death is a doorway to eternal life…..either to pain or pleasure for its all about the choices we make on earth.

Originally Posted by nhlpens

Are we in the end just dust and bones?

From the dust we came from dust we shall go back…..but just for a while…Christian speak!

[Mato Kinze]

If I may share a Vision that was given to me about what happens to "us" when our bodies die, perhaps it will answer your question as it did mine:

Picture a raindrop falling through the sky. A separate, individual drop of water. Complete in and of itself.

It falls in a rainstorm of billions of other separate, individual drops of water. Sometimes merging with other drops, sometimes breaking apart, but mainly distinct. It falls alongside other drops with whom it shares an experience of how the wind blows it; updrafts, gales, cyclones, etc.

Eventually, that raindrop and all the others it fell with land on the surface of the ocean. For a very short time, the molecules that made up that drop of water - that separate, individual and distinct raindrop - remain pretty close to one another. For that very short period of time, there is the illusion that the raindrop still somewhat exists as a distinct entity within the matrix that is the ocean. But only for a short time.

Eventually, the molecules that made up the raindrop disperse. They mix with other molecules from other raindrops that have fallen into the ocean until they are so thoroughly mixed that the illusion of separateness can no longer be maintained.

Further along, the sun causes the surface of the ocean to evaporate and water molecules rise up into the air as water vapor. A mixed, amorphous bundle of indistinct molecules. These molecules cool as they ascend and as they cool, they begin to coalesce.

They gather and accumulate until once again, there is a separate, distinct individual raindrop ready to fall back into the ocean. A raindrop made up of molecules that were once parts of many other raindrops that all fell into the ocean and became one with that source, only to be sucked up into the sky to be reformed. A process that repeats over and over again.

Does this new raindrop, as it falls, hope to see another raindrop it's falling with after it hits the ocean? Or does it understand that once it hits the ocean, it will BE the other raindrop?

[Sivodna]

No, you will not. That is why you must make the most of your family and friends.

Originally Posted by JanT

I was born able to see the deceased
When I was older, I was able to see my relatives when they passed over, and they would stop and say bye on their way out.

I am still able to see, sense or hear those who have passed when they pop in to see me or those I am with. And this includes animals that have passed.

[aggie]

i don't think that is very nice....i don't think you sound nuts at all....i know people who have spoken to my some of my deceased relatives...they have the ability to do so. some of my deceased relatives are watching over me...ones who passed long before i knew they existed. yes, we will see them.

[Melchior]

@ Mato Kinze: That vision is a familiar one

[Reverend Keith]

The short answer is that no one can be absolutely sure. In a way, that's part of the adventure of life and death.

On the other hand, I've done a lot of reading in the area of NDE's (Near Death Experiences). Frankly, none of the non-spiritual explanations for NDE's ring true. There are too many people who come back with information that they had no physical way of knowing (the presence of a particular shoe sitting on the roof of a hospital, for example). NDE states of consciousness are characterized as being MORE lucid than normal waking consciousness - just the opposite of what we would expect if they are simply the chemical hiccups of a dying brain. And many of these NDE's involve contact with deceased relatives.

And for all the examples of mediumship that are undoubtedly hoaxes, there are some mediums who seem to really have a gift of communicating with... SOMETHING anyway.

So I'd say the odds that we will meet some of our deceased relatives again are very good.

[Jaiysun4]

Nobody knows, but the rational, scientific answer would probably be that its unlikely.

Concerning Near Death Experience, the brain is flooded with DMT, the STRONGEST hallucinagenic drug on Earth. It is the brain chemical that is responsible for dreaming. If huge amounts of DMT is flooding around in your Brain you will CERTAINLY have an intense out of body experience.

People who smoke DMT report going to other dimensions, meeting God, meeting Aliens and so on. It seems NDE's are similar in my opinion.

[Mato Kinze]

Originally Posted by Jaiysun4

Nobody knows, but the rational, scientific answer would probably be that its unlikely.

Concerning Near Death Experience, the brain is flooded with DMT, the STRONGEST hallucinagenic drug on Earth. It is the brain chemical that is responsible for dreaming. If huge amounts of DMT is flooding around in your Brain you will CERTAINLY have an intense out of body experience.

People who smoke DMT report going to other dimensions, meeting God, meeting Aliens and so on. It seems NDE's are similar in my opinion.

Understanding the mechanics of how one acheives an experience of an alternate reality does not make it any less real.

[Mato Kinze]

Originally Posted by Melchior

@ Mato Kinze: That vision is a familiar one

I've posted it before. And Universal Metaphors often have some of the greatest Truth.

[Reverend Keith]

Originally Posted by Jaiysun4

Nobody knows, but the rational, scientific answer would probably be that its unlikely.

Concerning Near Death Experience, the brain is flooded with DMT, the STRONGEST hallucinagenic drug on Earth. It is the brain chemical that is responsible for dreaming. If huge amounts of DMT is flooding around in your Brain you will CERTAINLY have an intense out of body experience.

People who smoke DMT report going to other dimensions, meeting God, meeting Aliens and so on. It seems NDE's are similar in my opinion.

It's certainly possible that brain chemistry is a component of the experience. There are some pretty strange states of consciousness available to us without the need for having to die

But the research I've seen on DMT's reproducing the NDE experience weren't promising. And what I've read of the experiences of those on DMT, Ketamine, etc has a significantly different quality to it. Then there's the fact that in some of these experiences, there is NO measurable brain activity - just at the time that the experience is particularly vivid. And of course, the reports of details that were not observable from the vantage point of the patient/experiencer.

I think we'd have to do a lot better before we could say that the rational scientific answer is that it's unlikely. Unless what we mean is that we prefer to disallow answers that aren't covered by currently understood naturalistic principles. Which is also fine, if that's the view you take.