This has probably been asked before ...but

I've never been anesthetised - is it that different from going unconscious because of too much alcohol? Because that I've experienced.

As a Scotsman I'm ashamed to say "I've no idea!".

It's unique in my experience. Wow, such healthy specimens? Obviously I should drink more! 

I wonder what the trigger is for 'death'? What line do we cross to start the non-human side of the process? I'll try searching for testimony from coma sufferers that have survived. See what they have to say?

Ask this dude.

I 'tend heavily' toward believing in reincarnation and the afterlife. I too, don't consider lack of memories to be an obstacle, but let's stick to what we know about this experience during this lifetime.

It worries me somewhat, that what I consider to be 'my consciousness' can be switched off. Still, I'm obviously not dead in that state, as, as far as I know, we can't revive the dead! 

I wonder what the trigger is for 'death'? What line do we cross to start the non-human side of the process? I'll try searching for testimony from coma sufferers that have survived. See what they have to say?

At the time of death, the subtle bodies — the astral and the mental bodies within the etheric 'body' — withdraw from the dense physical body, quickly or more slowly. The 'more slowly' underscores the concept that individuals and a few major religions that one should wait for three days before burial or cremation to ensure that the etheric vehicle has completely withdrawn from its physical counterpart.

Excepting vital signs, when you look at someone sleeping dreaming, you are seeing the physical body separated from the etheric (astral).

Thankfully, our ancestors, the Anunnaki, at least the benevolent factions within the race (Enkeites), realized that conscious beings with etheric counterparts upon separation, would require a 'spirit world' or 'afterlife', in which to temporarily exist while the vibratory adjustment called 'death' takes place.

Ask this dude.

No, I'm just no longer that interested in things like this. The reason being there's no way that I can verify its honesty. Truth is hard to even define, people's honesty is easier to see, even though part of me remains sceptical..

Am I too cynical? 

At the time of death, the subtle bodies — the astral and the mental bodies within the etheric 'body' — withdraw from the dense physical body, quickly or more slowly. The 'more slowly' underscores the concept that individuals and a few major religions that one should wait for three days before burial or cremation to ensure that the etheric vehicle has completely withdrawn from its physical counterpart.

Excepting vital signs, when you look at someone sleeping dreaming, you are seeing the physical body separated from the etheric (astral).

Thankfully, our ancestors, the Anunnaki, at least the benevolent factions within the race (Enkeites), realized that conscious beings with etheric counterparts upon separation, would require a 'spirit world' or 'afterlife', in which to temporarily exist while the vibratory adjustment called 'death' takes place.

But who or what decides when we should separate? 

Someone I know had an nde due to cardiac arrest, several times in fact. He met a couple of people on the other side who seemed surprised to see him, one of them said something like "Ray's here", causing the other one to look up. 

Do the systems in place in other dimensions make mistakes?

But who or what decides when we should separate? 

Someone I know had an nde due to cardiac arrest, several times in fact. He met a couple of people on the other side who seemed surprised to see him, one of them said something like "Ray's here", causing the other one to look up. 

Do the systems in place in other dimensions make mistakes?

All death is essentially suicide because the time, place and events are pre-planned prior to your incarnation. It is your system and it is perfect in its execution.

There can be mistakes but those mistakes happen at the level of physical reality e.g an accidental death that wasn't part of your plan but just happens. You now have the choice to return to a parallel reality that, for all practical purposes, is a duplicate of the one you left.

One other thing, for the first time in physical reality, in this Age of Transformation, we can renegotiate our main themes we wished to experience, reset our goals as such, in concert with our Higher Mind. This isn't a 'power' that we are given, it is a power that we have always had but due to our separation from our spirit selves, the Real You, and All That Is by definition, we have forgotten our power.

The question I cannot answer is "was it the plan to have a plan go awry, rewrite the 'script' and continue on"? My best guess is No but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Higher Mind and the spirit self know the off-track event will come but have no clue how we might use free will when it does.

No, I'm just no longer that interested in things like this. The reason being there's no way that I can verify its honesty. Truth is hard to even define, people's honesty is easier to see, even though part of me remains sceptical..

Am I too cynical? 

I think of the definition of cynicism as ignorance and arrogance.

CIA.

You don't qualify, imvho.

I also don't think you are skeptical which is defined by a pre-existing bias. Observant places you in a neutral position, that's more like you.

I think of the definition of cynicism as ignorance and arrogance.

CIA.

You don't qualify, imvho.

I also don't think you are skeptical which is defined by a pre-existing bias. Observant places you in a neutral position, that's more like you.

Neutral.

I like that, which possibly takes me away from neutral. 

Neutral.

I like that, which possibly takes me away from neutral. 

That's the idea! Neutral is a place of power - not passivity as many think - from which you can decide what you prefer...then act on your preference...moving you out of neutral.

Anyone who's had an operation under general anaesthetic knows that, at least in my case, it's the only time in my life that we really 'lost consciousness'. From the time that the chemical is injected and starting to count backwards from 100, 99,98, 97,96....then waking up maybe hours later! 

This seems to imply that our consciousness can be switched off by drugs. 

If it can be switched off by drugs, why not switched on by drugs? i.e. Generated by the brain.

Thoughts?

A post I made on the old Skeptiko forum seems fairly related here. It seems likely that this research may have localized the exact structure that is "turned off" by anesthesia. Maybe this is the "gateway" structure enabling "downloading" of nonlocal consciousness to interact with the physical through the brain. Presumably while this module is turned off spirit consciousness is also turned off because parts of the machinery of the cortex are also shut down. 

 
It seems that neuroscientists continue to locate the main area of consciousness neural processing in the cerebral cortex, with the brainstem controlling arousal or whether consciousness and awareness are turned on or not. This is explained in one 2013 paper summarized here:

Consciousness is generally thought of as being comprised of two critical components - arousal and awareness.
Researchers had already shown that arousal is likely regulated by the brainstem - the portion of the brain that links up with the spinal cord - seeing as it regulates when we sleep and wake, and our heart rate and breathing.
Awareness has been more elusive. Researchers have long thought that it resides somewhere in the cortex - the outer layer of the brain - but no one has been able to pinpoint where.
Now the Harvard team has identified not only the specific brainstem region linked to arousal, but also two cortex regions, that all appear to work together to form consciousness.
To figure this out, the team analysed 36 patients in hospital with brainstem lesions - 12 of them were in a coma (unconscious) and 24 were defined as being conscious.
The researchers then mapped their brainstems to figure out if there was one particular region that could explain why some patients had maintained consciousness despite their injuries, while others had become comatose.
What they found was one small area of the brainstem - known as the rostral dorsolateral pontine tegmentum - that was significantly associated with coma. Ten out of the 12 unconscious patients had damage in this area, while just one out of the 24 conscious patients did.
That suggests that this tiny region of the brainstem is important for consciousness, but it's not the full story.
To figure out which other parts of the brain were fully connected to this region, the team looked at a brain map - or connectome - of a healthy human brain, which shows all the different connections that we know of so far in our brains (you can see a connectome in the image at the top of this story).
They identified two areas in the cortex that were linked up to the rostral dorsolateral pontine tegmentum, and were most likely to play a role in regulating consciousness. One was in the left, ventral, anterior insula (AI), and the other was in the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC).
Both of these regions have been linked by previous studies to arousal and awareness, but this is the first time they've been connected to the brainstem.

Claims that deep brainstem structures are responsible for consciousness and account for awareness during cardiac arrest NDEs are misfounded - the brainstem only turns consciousness on and off. Also, there are far too few neurons in the brainstem to produce consciousness in the faulty brain = mind materialist model, which assumes consciousness forms from the massive data processing of billions of neurons. In any case the cerebral cortex isn't working or is working very poorly during cardiac arrest. 

But with some NDEs vivid "realer than real" consciousness with veridical elements occur during cardiac arrest or during heavy anesthesia, coma, etc. Evidently, for presently not understood reasons, occasionally but rarely some people under deep general anesthesia or other conditions with no brainstem or cortical responses have their spirit consciousness disengage from and separate from the dormant or switched off brain structures that were housing it. The Pam Reynolds case is probably the best documented. When the suppressed spirit disengages from the dormant or shut down brain structures it regains a much enhanced form of consciousness.