ELEs : Japanese Study

As usual, Greg Taylor has some interesting comments and links over at his fresh-look site, The Daily Grail. This article is about a Japanese Study of end-of-life experiences with some interesting findings. He notes that the study:

…highlights that deathbed visions are not distressing phenomena for all patients and families, and some regard them as transpersonal phenomena in the dying process, not hallucinations, consistent with previous preliminary studies.

Clinicians should not automatically regard deathbed visions as abnormal phenomena to be medically treated, and an individualized approach is strongly needed.

The findings that the contents of deathbed visions were mostly related to deceased persons, not religious figures, and that patients and families were reluctant to talk about this to healthcare professionals confirmed earlier observations.

In a related link which I had not read previously, he has the account of the last days of the famous film critic, Roger Ebert. I found this quote particularly interesting:

The one thing people might be surprised about — Roger said that he didn’t know if he could believe in God. He had his doubts. But toward the end, something really interesting happened. That week before Roger passed away, I would see him and he would talk about having visited this other place. I thought he was hallucinating. I thought they were giving him too much medication. But the day before he passed away, he wrote me a note: “This is all an elaborate hoax.” I asked him, “What’s a hoax?” And he was talking about this world, this place. He said it was all an illusion. I thought he was just confused. But he was not confused. He wasn’t visiting heaven, not the way we think of heaven. He described it as a vastness that you can’t even imagine. It was a place where the past, present, and future were happening all at once.

[Ninshub]

Yeah, great quote there!

An elaborate hoax is probably one of the best descriptions I have heard in a while.

As usual, Greg Taylor has some interesting comments and links over at his fresh-look site, The Daily Grail. This article is about a Japanese Study of end-of-life experiences with some interesting findings. He notes that the study:



In a related link which I had not read previously, he has the account of the last days of the famous film critic, Roger Ebert. I found this quote particularly interesting:

Is there a link to the Japanese study, Kamarling ? I think I might have seen it but I can't seem to find it now, not even on the Daily Grail. Thanks.

So sorry - I meant to include the inks. Doh!

https://www.dailygrail.com/2016/09/japan...afterlife/

... and the Roger Ebert link is here:

https://www.dailygrail.com/2014/01/did-r...ed-vision/

I guess I pretty much adhere to this idea for the most part. We also see it when certain Eastern adepts call this life nothing more than a dream.

I'm curious how this plays out with ethics. Are there any real lasting ethics in the dream state?

As above, so below, would tend to suggest that the ethical structure carried over into the adjacent realm. 

I think the state of consciousness is a much more important consideration in the movement across the veil. Those who live in a fog will likely have little realization of what happened and quickly fall into another incarnation. Those with a goodly dose of awareness into consciousness will likely see the transition as a true transition, into essentially another, adjacent world.

Where does this leave someone who is ethically a monster but very aware? What happens when we wake from a dream where we have committed some atrocity or another?

An elaborate hoax is probably one of the best descriptions I have heard in a while.

A hoax is something that happens to you. Are you a victim now?

As usual, Greg Taylor has some interesting comments

Quote:The one thing people might be surprised about — Roger said that he didn’t know if he could believe in God. He had his doubts. But toward the end, something really interesting happened. That week before Roger passed away, I would see him and he would talk about having visited this other place. I thought he was hallucinating. I thought they were giving him too much medication. But the day before he passed away, he wrote me a note: “This is all an elaborate hoax.” I asked him, “What’s a hoax?” And he was talking about this world, this place. He said it was all an illusion. I thought he was just confused. But he was not confused. He wasn’t visiting heaven, not the way we think of heaven. He described it as a vastness that you can’t even imagine. It was a place where the past, present, and future were happening all at once.

Roger and Out.

A hoax is something that happens to you. Are you a victim now?

I do appreciate your approach, but I think it is somewhat limited in how effective it can be when dealing with life in general. Your idea that we create our own reality is great and ultimately, likely true. But there are apparent constraints that we adhere to as we live our lives. For instance, I doubt that no matter how hard you tried to recreate your reality as one in which you existed as a cat would be very successful. 

It seems pretty clear that this Earth existence was developed as a system with general rules and constraints. Gravity for example. Of course exceptional individuals may be able to defy these laws for brief periods, but overall the rules apparently rule. 

Sometimes I think your approach would posit that everyone who crossed the veil would be ready to pop open a beer, have an awesome life review and kick back with the non-physical homies. I seriously doubt that is the case. I think lots of folks reach the adjacent reality following bodily death and have zero awareness that they have crossed the veil. They are as clueless on the other side as they are on this one. And perhaps the gravity we see here acts there as a gravity on souls and pulls these unaware consciousnesses back into "bodily" life. Another round in the grinder, with some spark inside them pushing them to become ever more slightly aware, so to perhaps avoid the same fate next time around.

My two cents.

Sometimes I think your approach would posit that everyone who crossed the veil would be ready to pop open a beer, have an awesome life review and kick back with the non-physical homies. I seriously doubt that is the case. I think lots of folks reach the adjacent reality following bodily death and have zero awareness that they have crossed the veil. They are as clueless on the other side as they are on this one. And perhaps the gravity we see here acts there as a gravity on souls and pulls these unaware consciousnesses back into "bodily" life. Another round in the grinder, with some spark inside them pushing them to become ever more slightly aware, so to perhaps avoid the same fate next time around.

My two cents.

I'd go along with most of that except to say that the cluelessness is also part of the reality we create. We may know that this is the case but not at the level the personality who has just crossed over is operating. As I often attempt to explain, I see that personality as part of a larger gestalt - a multidimensional being which includes all of its personalities, or incarnations. So yes, as far as the recently departed is concerned, much will feel familiar and ultimate enlightenment will seem as far away as it was in the life just completed. Yet the whole entity is aware of the bigger picture even if the part of the whole that is this personality is barely aware.

Some, however, seem to get glimpses of a greater reality - the vastness and timelessness that Ebert described. Pssst will probably say that those glimpses are available to us here and now - and that may be so - but I have never experienced them so can't describe them. Perhaps, like anything else, we need to be ready to receive.