Life after death after life

Life after death is the inescapable topic for me--while I don't think about it every waking hour of life, it certainly takes over many inactive moments when my mind is permitted to wander off into the strange places minds can so often voyage..

The question of what happens at the moment we die is going to greet us regardless of our lifestyle, income, or place on this planet. We all know someone who has died. We all will die.
We are all on the same train to the end times. Each person's end times is going to come at a different stroke of time on a different clock. But it's all the same in the end, perhaps..

Life after life?
Moody attempted to answer..
So did many others ...
Even ancient people believed there was something more than just this playing field.

One of the main reasons I started Night Terror News was to cover the strange and unusual, paranormal and bizarre--and life after death. It was the main issue when I first began writing ... It is inescapable--even though we attempt to run and hide from the complexities of what happens when our body's organs fail and our heart stops. And our brain, too.   If you're interested in some past writings on this topic, you can find them here, here,  here, here, and perhaps some other places in the archive I couldn't locate ...

With all of this death 'stuff' said, I read an article today with great interest.. Deep thought..   I pondered the ramifications, and questioned the validity..

A story appeared in the UK TELEGRAPH and other places in October 2014.. This report was authored by Sarah Knapton, a science correspondent for the publication.. The post focuses on a large scientific study on life after death. The Southampton University researchers have concluded that awareness lasts for several minutes after clinical death--something that Knapton reports was previously unheard of.. I felt it was a good time to travel back to this study and rekindle some of the near-death romance I have lost since then.

This from the TELEGRAPH article:

But scientists at the University of Southampton have spent four years examining more than 2,000 people who suffered cardiac arrests at 15 hospitals in the UK, US and Austria.

And they found that nearly 40 per cent of people who survived described some kind of ‘awareness’ during the time when they were clinically dead before their hearts were restarted.

One man even recalled leaving his body entirely and watching his resuscitation from the corner of the room.

Despite being unconscious and ‘dead’ for three minutes, the 57-year-old social worker from Southampton, recounted the actions of the nursing staff in detail and described the sound of the machines.

This is all nothing really new to those who theorize in the prospects of near death experiences and life after life. Books and divergent scientists going against the mainstream of study have often cited their own studies, much smaller than that undertaken by the university reported on by the TELEGRAPH, stating that these stories are commonplace.  But now, this year at this time, we are beginning to fully wrap our minds (if that's possible) around the concept that this life isn't just 'it.' That something else exists beyond--and the proof may not be the shiny white light, but instead the idea that we can see things and hear things even after we are toe-tagged and ready for embalming..

More from the article linked:

“We know the brain can’t function when the heart has stopped beating,” said Dr Sam Parnia, a former research fellow at Southampton University, now at the State University of New York, who led the study.

“But in this case, conscious awareness appears to have continued for up to three minutes into the period when the heart wasn’t beating, even though the brain typically shuts down within 20-30 seconds after the heart has stopped.

“The man described everything that had happened in the room, but importantly, he heard two bleeps from a machine that makes a noise at three minute intervals. So we could time how long the experienced lasted for.

Think of this number: 39% studied said that they had some sort of awareness at the time of cardiac arrest. Common threads included a feeling of peacefulness, time slowing down to a crawl, heightened senses, or the feeling of becoming separated from the body..

There are naysayers who are concluding that this all is just believers believing too much.. Just brain activity, as it dies, becoming increasingly abundant.

Additional questions could be answered once more research on the brain is actually conducted. For time's entirety, we seemingly have concluded that the brain dies when the heat stops. That may very well be unfounded logic as more scientific research comes out. Just think! your deathbed confessions to dying Grandma or aunt could have been heart.. by the person you were talking to. Those tears as the person dies could be the last earthly sound the brain registers... Those first few moments after death suddenly become more important, don't they? Perhaps a quaint and harmonic sound should play instead of a room becoming filled with morbid doom and gloom? Maybe laughter.. Perhaps a 'congratulations on your new home' is in order, instead of tearful gestures that the dying brain only becomes depressed by?

I perused the internet(s) looking for reaction to this story, and this study. It did not take long to find some.. Like these comments:

Silly study. Life after death is scientifically impossible. There is zero evidence for anything supernatural. It is just a human way of dealing with the end.

Another

The simple answer to this is that brain death takes a bit longer after heart and lungs have stopped functioning than has previously been recognised.

And this

Death is death. Try to make the best of life before death instead of fantasizing about life after it.

We sure think we know a lot, don't we?

There is something that people who wholeheartedly believe in life after death and also believe nothing exists both have in common: They both don't know..

At all.
Nadda.
Zip.
Zilch.

We do not know and will not know a thing until we face the inevitable. And we will. That clock is loudly ticking. You can probably hear it when you least expect it--it starts getting louder when you have a child, when you think about retirement.. when you face the loss of your loved ones. The clock is louder and louder by the day,.

Simply put, studies will study and people will become immediately critical.
And in the end, we will know as much as we did yesterday.
There may be some amazing discoveries about the brain. And those amazing things will complicate matters a bit more, perhaps for both sides of the spectrum. Believers and deniers could be soon in the same boat, paddling with different oars but facing similar questions.. And all the while, their outcomes will be similar, too. They will each meet their destiny and fate in a multitude of ways. At that time, regardless of belief or domination, they will find out of the white light is really real.