Energy can neither be created nor destroyed...

[ITN]

...it can only be transformed from one state to another.

No I am not in the wrong forum and this isn't a debate about physics and the law of conservation of energy. It is about life after death, or "something" after death.

Do you believe in life after death? I have pondered with this question all my life and I believe something exists after death although I am not quite sure how to express what I believe.

Several experiences I have had in my life lead me to the belief that death isn't the end. I recall being 7 years old waking up one Saturday morning and going into the kitchen for breakfast. As usual my mother and father were there having their breakfast. That day however was different for me, as I had a dream about my grandmother on my fathers side.

I dreamt we were at her home and I was helping her with chores. We then took a walk in the park and as she was holding my hand, she kneeled in front of me and told me everything is ok and for me not to worry. I told my parents about this dream and they were literally in shock. That morning they had received a phone call that my grandmother passed away. I remember crying when they told me, but quickly felt a little better after thinking about the dream I had.

Coincidence?

Two years ago, as many of you know, I had a bad car accident. At the moment of the impact I saw the image of my late grandfather that passed away nearly 35 years ago. The image only lasted for a moment, but then someone pulled me out of the wreckage. She placed my arm over her shoulder (I could not see this woman as my eyes were covered in blood from the impact) and helped me to the sidewalk. As I laid down, she told me; "Don't worry, I am a nurse, you have multiple facial lacerations but you will be fine". About a minute later a guy comes along and asks me if I was ok. I told him the nurse seems to think I will be fine. His answer to me was that there is nobody by your side other than himself. I explained to him that the nurse helped me out of my car and unto the sidewalk and assured me I would be ok. He then told me he was driving the car directly behind mine and saw me limping slowly with my arm held up high....alone with nobody assisting me whatsoever.

Was I dreaming?

And more recently many of you know that my cat Yankee died. He has shown "signs" of being around, things I cannot easily explain, but has given me a very clear indication he is not gone.

Am I nuts?

I do not believe any of these experiences are my imagination, I am a very rational person that always tries to explain things logically rather than just go on faith alone.

The law of conservation of energy says that we cannot create nor destroy energy, it simply transforms into some other state. Is it possible living things when they die "transform" into something we do not yet comprehend or able to explain?

I would have to say yes, life, somehow goes on.

Thoughts?

[OldPhart]

I think your thoughts/feelings in this matter are quite common to the human condition. I also believe that this is why there are so many people that are strongly rooted in their religious beliefs.

I, like you, do not believe that we just cease to exist in any form after we die. That said, I cannot say for sure what will happen to us when we do. I have pondered this issue many times, have had several experiences (like yours) that lead me to believe there is something else.

Some will say that our desire to exist after our earthy demise is just a "wish" to not have a finite existence. I could not readily argue with them in that respect... maybe it is. If so, there are literally billions of other humans that share that same wish. That does not make one right but at least you don't feel foolish.

Can I prove that there is something after death? No. Do I somehow know that there is? Yes.

Are you "Nuts"? Not at all.

[Chris]

Great post ITN.

I think that there is much that we are not yet in a position to understand, and that whatever happens post-passing is one of the biggest of such unknown spheres. Science holds it impossible for energy to simply “go away”, and what else could our consciousness be but energy? There is no other explanation of what form our mind would hold, and so I think it’s very reasonable to speculate that it has to move on in some method that we don’t comprehend.

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

You're definatly not nuts.

My mom's mom was in hospital in Saskatoon in June of 1942 with kidney issues. Her mom, my great grandmother was in Canora, SK. One night my great grandma had a extremely vivid 'dream' of her daughter being sucked into a wirlpool and calling her for help. My great grandma got up the next morning and hitched hiked her way to Yorkton to catch the train to Saskatoon. The train arrived in Saskatoon at 4:30PM. When she got to the hospital she was told that her daughter had fallen into a coma the previous evening and had passed away at around noon that day.

There is lots of stuff that can't be explained.

[eh1eh]

There energies in the universe that we are only starting to make educated guesses about, re: Hawking's theory of everything. Does this energy have a direct link to our conscious mind? Does the energy that our brain uses to electro-chemically make 'thought' carry on after the demise of our bodies? I wish I knew. I do know I will find out one day.

I have only had one experience that left me thinking there was some sort of existence for our selves beyond the conscious state we experience. When my grandmother was in the hospital with cancer, I was at work some fifty miles away having my lunch. Suddenly I felt something, it was my grandmother hugging me and it left me with an electric tingle in my entire body. Less than a half an hour later the phone rang, she had passed away about 20 minutes earlier.

This line of thought also leaves the door open to theories of reincarnation but that is another topic.

[CDNBear]

Thoughts?

First off, you are as far from nuts as one can get. The fact that you are leaps and bounds ahead of the common internet user, in regards to the use of critical thought, means that these events were likely analyzed to death by yourself, long before you came to post this.

I wish my Grandfather would visit me. Perhaps he has. There have been many times where I've been about to make a decision, only to here someone say "Ohkwai". It has always made me take pause and given me a moment to reconsider my next move.

You know my beliefs on death, and where I hope to end up, so no need to rehash them here. But I also believe I may be wrong. As you said, energy never goes away. It isn't made and it certainly doesn't end when we do. Our conscious might, but the energy that makes that up, lives on perpetually. As the multitude of Deer and fish over the years have given me their energy to live, I too will share my energy with what I come into contact with, so that they may live, when I pass.

I hate to use this term, but that there is the circle of life Simba, lol.

I do believe those with a great deal of energy, either negative or positive, can leave a foot print on the places they have been. Leaving behind a piece of themselves, which of course we sense from time to time. Or our energy is of such strength, that we capture a piece of them as they leave us, holding onto it ourselves. Or both.

We are a strange and fascinating creature, whose potential is barely tapped.

[Sal]

I too believe we move onto another state of energy. I believe that it is a conscious and knowing one which retains memory, has will and moves toward a larger form of energy that some would term "God".

Of course, that doesn't make it so.

None the less most of my life I have had a "knowing" about things beyond myself that are unseen and yet to happen. I have learned to trust it and rely upon it. Seldom has it been wrong. Many times it has saved me from grief by following that knowing that is bigger than me and beyond me.

The person I have shared that most with is Mr. Sal although he seemed the most unlikely one to have shared such with when I first met him. By sharing with him before things happen it has confirmed to me that it is not just in my head. He now does it too. I think we are much larger and greater than we know.

Neither do I know believe that time is linear which maybe why we can know things beyond us with certainty.

I think the more we push those boundaries the larger and more flexible those boundaries become. Thus the greater we become.

Because everything is moving energy even the keyboard under our fingers, nothing ends, it just changes form.

[Ron Toronto]

Thanks for sharing that ITN, and everyone else.

I, too, firmly believe there is something after our life here on Earth but I know not what it is.

I wrote in another thread about the family cat visiting me in my hospital bed in the middle of the night, the same night he disappeared and was never seen again.

My wife was sleeping one night and kept hearing a voice telling her something five or six time over, but she couldn't make out what it was. Finally, the voice shouted at her, "YOUR UNCLE DIED - YOUR UNCLE IS DEAD!" so loud that she bolted upright in bed. At daybreak a few hours later, her mother phoned to tell her the same news.

When my father died from lung ca in '95, his cousin and childhood best friend in southeast Poland knew it, he said Staszek had come to him in a dream that night to tell him that he passed away, he had come to say goodbye. The relatives in Poland phoned my mother just minutes before she was about to phone them to tell them the same news.

Somehow, somewhere, we're all connected and that doesn't stop necessarily when we die - it just takes another form.

[Sparrow]

I also believe there is something else after this life. My parents dies 18 months apart and they both came to me twice. Before that I didn't know what to believe but now I do believe there is something, exactly I don't know.

Some say it is society and religion that put such a taboo on see and talking to the dead that we lost our ability to do so. They say to watch a baby or our cat/dog and we will know that something is there because they see that energy.

[Muz]

Excellent post, ITN!

I had the oddest experience in the days following my mother's passing where the flourescent light over my head (which for the seven years I've lived here only burned on two out of four lamps) flickered and lit up full all four lamps as I was working on designing her memorial card.

It stopped the day she was cremated and has been back to two lamps since.

It made me think of the law of conservation of energy at the time too, as I searched for an explanation or wrote it off as a coincidence. I like to think there was something to it.

One would have to be crazy to ignore the possibility that life goes on.

"Life" is is a hybrid of matter and energy both of which constantly separate and come together in infinite formulations in the infinity of the universe.

Muz