Horror Report

Tag: life after death

  • Untitled post 15958

     There is “LIFE AFTER DEATH” according to a study..

    That’s an actual headline from the UK EXPRESS.. and while it seems hopeful and amazing, the information was certainly not conclusive. There is a certain chance that we can live up to three minutes after the heart stops.. there is also the chance that many people have experienced ‘life after death’ type out of body experiences.. or as the UK EXPRESS titled them, ‘outer body.’ There is also a chance that Raymond Moody had it best–and first–with his life after life scenarios and circumstances.

    What we know is that we still don’t know..
    One of the biggest focuses of this website–and me personally–is to get to the bottom of this question. It may be the most important question we ever ask on this planet.  And if we would so happen to find an answer.. my God, imagine how amazing that could really, really be?

    I get a sense we will not find that conclusion we are looking for, however.. instead just strange stories, hints, and allegations from the world at large.

    We will get the conclusive answer when we meet our fate.
    And we hope and strive for a long and healthy question session before we finally get the final answer..

    But I am always reminded when I talk about this subject of a comment from John Leer on Art Bell so many years ago: Do NOT go into the light. It’s a trap.

    Two years ago after a health scare, radio host Clyde Lewis added to the ‘no light’ statement with a joke that he pictures a hillbilly with a bugzapper as each person enters the tunnel …

    Avoid the light?
    Is there a light?
    One thing that sticks with me from the UK EXPRESS article describing the emotion people had, mostly, during the NDEs: FEAR.

     

  • Of life and death under the shroud of night

    Of life and death under the shroud of night

    6e609595The 3am curse occurs again..

    Last night, while most of the East Coast was undoubtedly sleeping through a peaceful summer night, I found myself pacing the house around three in the morning—the witching hour I have often written about on this site. While I don’t profess to know why the curse of sleeplessness of night terrors hits at this moment in time, it seemingly does each chance it gets.

    This time I was awakened by a mysterious feeling. As a matter of fact, it was one of the immediate ‘wake ups’ where you’re shaking, or at least feeling like the room is moving. However, I could not recall what dream I had just been removed from.. I felt like something plopped my body down onto the bed and I was simply propelled back into a reality that didn’t exist only seconds prior.

    So I did what anyone else would do.. sneak my way through a dark hallway, attempt not to stumble over my son’s toys—along the family pet Mutley the dog—and make my way to the kitchen cabinet and grab a few chocolate chip cookies.

    Once I wake up at this time, it’s ridiculously difficult for me to get back into the sleep feeling again. These are the times I find myself chasing airwaves of radio stations or firing up a computer and watching the BYTEs as they fly through the air…

    This night, however, as I nibbled a bit on a few cookies—perhaps too many to admit without Katie Couric blasting me for sugar intake—I also found myself focusing on some relatives who passed away.. It began as just a thought about my grandmother, and then my aunt, and then my uncle, and then friends, and then pets… by the time my cookie was just crumbs I was talking to these former breathing beings as though they were in the room with me. At least I wished they were in the room with me..

    If I had a dime for every time I yelled out to someone who has left this planet, I’d be a wealthy man. Typically, my angst over life comes out when I visit cemeteries alone. It is those moments in time when my guard is down, when I cry out, even pound on the green grass, in a show of anger over not knowing if loved ones have a life after this. I blog about the bizarre and weird, paranormal and spiritual, yet I end most days not knowing what in this planet there is to believe in. What ‘reality’ is true, and what happens when we die. Paranormal mysteries often can be explained through science eventually..
    Except consciousness..
    That seems to the one perplexing item very few people can explain away with any surety.
    What scares me is contemplating that consciousness, in all its amazing wonder, ends when your blood stops flowing, and when your heart stops beating. That somehow, this entire life of love and laughter, tears and pain, can be over with the drop of a hat. Finished.. complete. Kaput.

    So last night as I sat in a dark room staring into the infinity of space and time out my window, I once again took the moment to ask loved ones if they are still around. If they are watching me, or if they have gone onto heaven.. hell.. the abyss..

    Like other times, I ended my prayer-like conversation with no answer. No feedback.. nothing. As other times before.

    The silence is not proof or disproof of anything. It is simply proof of silence.

    This moment of life, I realized why I even write anything on this website to begin with. I was covered by a roof, but my primal fears were the same as any other ancestor before me. Darkness around me, I was on a course for a night of deep and dark thoughts, coupled with nostalgic gut wrenching memories… and prayers to a higher power I have no clue if existent.

    Night terrors don’t always occur during sleep.
    There are times when they meet and greet you in conscious thought.

    An empty carton of cookies—and an angry son after he discovers I ate the last remaining ones—later, I took myself back to the bedroom. Laid down. And slept for about a half hour before the alarm clock went off.. Before I woke up and got dressed for work.. a job where you have to pretend that night terrors don’t exist.. a job that does not contemplate mysterious or passion, but instead exists with a pure emptiness of emotion. Like any job.. Because jobs aren’t natural either.

    The other natural things in life, the only sure bets, are these: Darkness, night terrors, mysterious, and questions.

    Answers are seldom.
    But minds, unsettled, should never stop asking.. And you should never let silence stop you from continuing to pound your first against the post, and still insist you see a ghost.

  • Life after death after life

    Life after death after life

    Life after death after life

    My latest thoughts on life after death after life..

  • Life after death after life

    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.

  • The long goodbye

    The long goodbye

    Let me fill you in on a little secret: You saw someone today that is going to die.
    As a matter of fact, you saw a lot of people that are going to die.
    And it all started this morning when you glanced in the mirror and tried to understand the ball of electrons and atoms staring back at you, vibrating in some form of reality that your mind tries to understand. But in reality doesn’t get one bit of..

    I knew someone who died today. A few days ago, I alluded to a friend who was afflicted with cancer, and who was succumbing to the disease after his battle began to end. He passed away from this world early in the morning, and has become the latest person in my life and close circle of friends and family to meet destiny. I suppose someone out there reading this right now may have the same moment of sadness and grief as well. Death is common, after all..

    My heart is distraught and my mind is reeling. I am attempting to understand the significance of life and somehow juxtapose that with the rapidity of death. Our arrogance and affluence permits us to borrow time. But that time is fleeting. All things must end, including the worries and fears, smiles and hugs. All things must end..
    And that’s the part that darkens my spirits this evening..

    The internet has been a wonderful thing. And an awful thing all at the same time. For much of my life, I expressed myself in private settings. I would summons my artistic powers and draw cartoons or comics in the good times. In the bad times I’d plant the seed of darkness and expel all of my emotions using less vibrant colors.. less humor.. More of the deeper stuff, I suppose. But with the advent of the Internet during my late high school years, that source of artistic adventure was turned off, met instead with the HTML coding and eventually blog services that would steal the paint.  I have tried to draw now and then. For the most part I either can’t think of something or I am mentally unable to focus long enough to make a picture look good, good like I think they used to.  So instead now, I write.
    And tonight I feel that need to write, to get thoughts down in this setting, and surrender myself for a while to the tears that indeed are flowing due to the death of a friend.

    This special person and I were also coworkers. Most of the time, when we talked, our chats would turn into conversations and often times feel never ending. But in a very good way. Once we got work off the table, our talks would turn deeper and other-worldly.  He, like me, consistently pondered about the meaning of life, the purpose of our bodies, and the questionable reality of our souls. I often thought that God is math, he thought God was electricity. Either way, neither of us had the belief that God was the large white male with a beard that Catholic nuns had taught us. A little more of a nuanced approach to faith was in play once we got talking..

    I will forever miss these talks–these amazing moments in which both of us let our guards down on purpose and spoke freely and openly about fears and superstitions, facts and figures.  Now tonight, I suppose one can say he knows the answers to the mysteries of the planet earth.
    As do many others by the second.

    x x x

    My son falls asleep to music now. Instead of bed time stories, we quietly play YouTube videos of songs he likes to relax him. His little four-year-old nature is perceptive. He knew I was sad today and asked why.. I honestly told him what had occurred, and he looked down and admitted “that is sad, Daddy.” Of course, as a child would do, he eventually wanted to think about those innocent kid things again. Which was fine for me, wrestling my son when he is calling himself the Incredible Hulk is much better than focusing on negativity all night.
    But before he fell asleep, he picked the CIRCLE OF LIFE song from the LION KING. Somehow the words had an extra special meaning today, this day, when the CIRCLE OF LIFE was completed for one and undoubtedly beginning for a lot more..

    x x x

    The death toll in Nepal is rising rapidly. And that is the horror so often seen in this world. One earthquake has taken the lives of thousands of poor people who were living in squalor already. The Prime Minister said the numbers could get to a frightening level of 10,000 or more.. Death at that scale happens from time to time on this planet. Either Mother Nature is busy utilizing the tricks of the trade to steal the lives of humans, or Man himself thinks of plots to murder his fellow friends on the earth. Deadly days are always here–the end of the world, feared by many, happens every single day.

    x x x

    I am not a hopeless person. I am not someone who enjoys reliving the dour over and over again–some who know me, even close friends, often accuse me of that very thing. Instead, I contemplate these events of sadness and grief in an attempt to understand them. Sometimes even to quell my loud laughter on purpose.. because I need to know what I am laughing at. Events of awful nature can often put things in a greater perspective.
    Ever have one of the day job moments when backbiting, sour apple co-workers, and meaningless office politics takes over your existence? When you think that those things actually matter? You get shaken up now and then.
    You meet a bigger destiny..
    You often meet a maker.

    x x x

    Death has been called the great equalizer. We all share one bond on this planet, regardless of rich or poor dispositions: We will have the common event of an ending at some point.
    We hope far away in the distance.. We long for the taste and smells of life. But they go away..

    x x x

    I recall about a year ago, my work had a conference. That same person who died today was alive and well then, just diagnosed with cancer.  He and others, along with me, went to a fancy steak house and he splurged, buying all of us dinner and a few rounds. He wanted no argument at the time the bill came. He wanted to pay. That was his nature–but that night even more, because he wanted us to remember a rancorous good time of loud laughter, cold beer, and great food. All on him–his gift to us… This is one of his finest moments, and perhaps one of his happiest. The sight of us allowing him to get the tab made him the happiest man in the room that evening.
    He was a consummate professional but also a never-ending entertainer. He played songs loud and sang louder. He lit up a room when he entered.
    Those rooms lit by the fiery of his existence are dark this night.

    x x x

    What is life?
    What is death?
    Those questions are asked to often we fail to even care anymore..

    Instead in the age of smart phones when a hand held device gives us all of the information we crave, we stopped asking the important things.

    Hillary Clinton is apparently going against some of Bill’s crime policies from the 90s.  Jeb Bush did something too. I don’t recall what it was. And I frankly don’t care. These are not the stories of human passion that we should be hearing.

    We should be racing for the stars, trying to find Mars..
    By now cancer should be gone..
    At this point, all people should have a chance for a happy life.
    Every child should share in the dreams of a planet..
    Life is too short..
    By the time you get to this point in this posting, it’s even shorter for you.

     

    x x x

    A little rock and roll heaven may be needed for a moment like tonight..
    So enjoy it..
    Life is only a one night stand. If you believe in forever, of course.

    So do you believe in forever?

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLHKA9EGEzc]

  • Life after death. And before life. When you’re dead.

    Life after death. And before life. When you’re dead.

    The other day I promised I’d have some more thoughts on the new much publicized life after death study that took place—the one which we are told provides evidence that we may not be dead when we think we are..

    I have been doing some deep thinking about this. Actually it’s been on my mind my entire life, and probably yours too..

    It is the most troubling and yet amazing question to ask: Is this it? We have debated, prayed, questioned, been hopeless, and hopeful. Sometimes all at the same time.

    Here is the basic facts you need to know about the actual study:

    • A team based in the UK has spent the last four years seeking out cardiac arrest patients to analyse their experiences
    • 46% described having some form of “awareness” at a time when they were declared clinically dead
    • The new study sort of makes garbage of the premise that the brain survives 30 seconds after the heart stops. Instead, the new conclusion we see is that it may be up to 5 minutes.

    But here is the money quote from the TELEGRAPH story on the study:

    One man, however, gave a “very credible” account of what was going on while doctors and nurses tried to bring him back to life – and says that he felt he was observing his resuscitation from the corner of the room

    That part is where the paranormal begins to become normal, if the ‘credible’ man is to be believed.. And that would supply evidence to suggest all of the near death experiecnes that Dr. Moody and others have written about for decades are real.. accurate. And true to form..

    And that could blow a lot of minds and change everything..

    Some of this also is not knew. We know that people are brought back to life minutes after their heart stops—we have come a long way since the ‘feather test’ of long ago to show when someone stops breathing.. Things are most amazing now. But future science and medicine will also show how antiquated our current 2014 way of thinking is, and will be ‘was’ then. The study of the brain is in its infancy. There’s so much to learn about the computer inside all of us..

    Here is another snippet from an article on the study from MEDICAL DAILY:

    Among 2,060 people who experienced cardiac arrest, 330 survived and of these survivors 140 reported at least partial awareness at the time of resuscitation. Nearly half (46 percent) had memories with seven major themes: fear; animals/plants; bright light; violence/persecution; deja-vu; family; and recalling events post-cardiac arrest. Two percent described awareness with explicit recall of seeing and hearing actual events related to their resuscitation

    Oh that bright white light again—the light some say is a trick and others say is a safe place to go when you die. Until we see the light, we really won’t know. And if you’re not allowed to bring your dog, like in that old TWILIGHT ZONE show, then it’s not heaven at all..

    But there are skeptics on the mind blowing account of the man seeing himself dead from the side of a room. And they could have a point. After all, one man out of 2060 had this type of story.. There are also some who say the entire study was a waste of time.

    I don’t think trying to find an answer to the most important question in life is ever a waste of time.. quite the opposite, actually. We should be doing more of this.. learning more, and never just deciding that something is not true without scientific study.

    For most of my life, I have heard science’s response to claims of near death experiences and out of body happenings: Pure and simply hallucinations.

    But this new study does something to the hallucination theory.. it strikes a dagger directly into its heart. That is why I find it to be important to read, contemplate, and study more.

    Theory is never fact. It’s theory.. And what we think is a law of gravity may not exist in a parallel universe, if they even exist.

    I know this: I have read accounts and heard them firsthand from people who have claimed a near death ‘something.’ And when they speak of them, the fire in their eyes is real.. they are being honest. If the hallucination is real, it was still real to them.

    And face it: We will all experience of or more of the following in our lifetimes:  hallucination, near death experience, or quite simply put, death.

    Wouldn’t it be comforting to know that something else exists..
    Or… would that be the scary part?