Life Goes On

Or, rather, consciousness lives on, which is as good of an explanation as I've been able to find of how it is I can remember what I remember and know what I know without recalling having learned it.

“The most important thing people are left with is that they are no longer afraid of death. This is because they have experienced that their consciousness lives on, that there is continuity. Their life and their identity don’t end when the body dies. They simply have the feeling they’re taking off their coat.”

How can people experience consciousness while they are unconscious during a cardiac arrest (a clinical death)?
After all those years of intensive study, Van Lommel still speaks with reverence about the miracle of the near-death experience. “At that moment these people are not only conscious; their consciousness is even more expansive than ever. They can think extremely clearly, have memories going back to their earliest childhood and experience an intense connection with everything and everyone around them. And yet the brain shows no activity at all!”

Van Lommel contends that the brain does not produce consciousness or store memories.

... this would mean that the brain is actually a receiver and transmitter of information. “You could compare the brain to a television set that tunes into specific electromagnetic waves and converts them into image and sound.

“Our waking consciousness, the consciousness we have during our daily activities,” Van Lommel continues, “reduces all the information there is to a single truth that we experience as ‘reality.’ During near-death experiences, however, people are not limited to their bodies or their waking consciousness, which means they experience many more realities.”

...) According to Van Lommel, near-death experiences can only be explained if you assume that consciousness, along with all our experiences and memories, is located outside the brain. When asked where that consciousness is located, Van Lommel can only speculate. “I suspect there is a dimension where this information is stored — a kind of collective consciousness we tune into to gain access to our identity and our memories.”

...) People who have experienced such a “life review” say it’s not so much about what you do as the intention behind it. “It is extremely intense to experience that everything that goes around comes around.” Van Lommel leans forward to be sure his words come across. “No one avoids the consequences of their thoughts. That’s very confrontational. Some people discover there’s something they can never put right. Others come back and immediately start calling people to apologize for something they did 20 years ago.”

...) “It’s almost scary to realize that every thought has a consequence. If you let that sink in...every thought we have, positive or negative, has an impact on us, each other and nature.” [ read more ]

More from Van Lommel About the Continuity of Our Consciousness at International Association for Near-Death Studies, Inc posted by Cyndy | link | | |
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