Although personally I believe that dreams are a product of our physical brains, and once the power is turned off, the lights go out.
One way of putting it is like this: If it were true that we remain concious after the death of our brain, how come we only dream in REM sleep, and in deep sleep we are completely unconcious? As I understand it, deep sleep is almost complete shut down, the closest our brain gets to death without actually going there completely.
Also, most people who have had operations will tell you, they are concious of nothing imbetween being chemically knocked out and then waking up again afterwards (except in those horrific rare cases where the injection hasn’t worked properely or has worn off early or something). If you think about it, all that has happened here is the brain has been chemically knocked out. Wouldn’t the same be true if the brain was destroyed? Also, what about people who are involved in accidents and damage part of their brain, part of them goes doesn’t it, part of who they were before? Surely if all the brain gets damaged in this way, all of the person is then gone?
However, I like to try and remain open minded. Those are just my personal views, my own logical reasoning against why I don’t think it would happen. But as I said earlier, I often think that there is far more going on than we perceive, so I could be wrong, I completely accept that.
I’d be interested to hear any further views you have on the subject, or if anyone has anything they’d like to add, even if people might totally disagree with everything I just said (it’s always good fun to discuss these kinds of things).
Ok, I agree we don´t know anything, but I´ll try to discuss your reasoning
One way of putting it is like this: If it were true that we remain concious >after the death of our brain, how come we only dream in REM sleep, and >in deep sleep we are completely unconcious?
I don´t think that it is impossible to dream.They say you have the first REM phase about 1,5h after sleeping.How comes that we sometimes fall asleep, wake up 30 minutes later and remember a dream?
As I understand it, deep sleep is almost complete shut down, the closest our brain gets to death without actually going there completely.
Also, most people who have had operations will tell you, they are >concious of nothing imbetween being chemically knocked out and then >waking up again afterwards Wouldn’t the same be true if the brain was >destroyed?
Hmm, good point.
On the other hand: They say they aren´t councious of anything.But that doesn´t mean that nothing happened!
Best example are those people who claim they never dream.I am sure they dream, they just don´t remember, and so it seems that nothing happened between falling asleep and waking up.
And what about the NDEs ? Those persons are clinical dead, and still they find themselves flying the room, listening to the chatter of the surgeons, or going through dark tunnels.
However, I like to try and remain open minded. Those are just my >personal views, my own logical reasoning against why I don’t think it >would happen. But as I said earlier, I often think that there is far more >going on than we perceive, so I could be wrong, I completely accept >that.
I have died in dreams, and iv’e had close calls. One time I was shoot in the head, I felt the pain rush through me for a few seconds but then I woke up, scary…
And those damn falling dreams, I have those one’s where I fall and before I hit the ground I wake up, but iv’e also had one’s where I hit the ground, but I land on my feet and use the momentem to jump even higher then I fell
I have “died” three times in lucid dreams within the last year. Once I drowned, once in a hail of bullets (shootout with the police), once hit by a bus. All three times, everything went blank for an instant, then I went into my next dream without waking up.
Drowning was almost peaceful - no pain, just fade to black. (I have nearly drowned twice in real life, so I’m not afraid of going that way). Getting shot was weird - I felt the bullets hitting my body until I finally died. Getting hit by the bus was the quickest - BAM! and it was over.
hmm… I remember getting shot by my next-door neighbor, and I don’t see why; she’s really nice, but anyway…
I remember going into my front door (everything looked like it did in RL) and getting my keys out to unlock the door and proceed inside. However, I glanced over to my left and saw my neighbor on her porch with a gun. I heard the gunshot, then an instant later, I woke up with a throbbing pain in my right temple (which is weird, because she shot my left temple in the dream).
This was just a non-lucid dream. I haven’t really understood what this has meant, but I knew it must have meant something important, so I’ve tucked it into my memory for later investigation, which is going on now…
I once dreamt that I went to a church, or a place that looked like a church. I walked, went on my knees and then shot myself in the head. I remember too how I could feel the bullet in an odd way and the pain.
It was horrible but the dream made in a weird way sence at the time…
I had a dream that me and some other d00ds held up a bank. They all had MP5s while I was stuck with a mere USP pistol . The SWAT team breaks through the front door and I’m the only numbnut standing the middle of the bank. Before I could even fire one shot at them I felt a barrage of bullets sink into my stomach. The weirdest part which I think is actually pretty funny is that as I was being shot I had a HP counter that went from 100% to 2% and I collapsed to the floor crawling. They ran past thinking I was dead yet I just seemed to crawl slowly over several feet until my vision slowly dimmed black and returned, then dimmed again, returned then dimmed for good and then I woke up.(maybe this explains actual death…fade to black, then wake up in some other world sleeping in your “bed”)
The weirdest part about this dream that REALLY freaked me out is that I woke up with stomach pains . As the dream slowly left my mind so did the pains so I think they were truely caused by my mind itsself. Has anyone else ever experienced dream based pain transferring to RL?
I’ve died in dreams but never in LDs. I have tried dream suicide in lds many times but never die. I remember one time slitting my wrists in a dream. I just bled and bled, never died. Made a nice river with my blood though.
Moonhunter – I had a dream that I was running from the police, and as I got shot my number of lives went down. In fact, as I was running away everything seemed to shift to videogame view. Then I had a little counter of lives and it went down to 0. A funeral casket popped up and said “Your funeral - October 8, 2003”.
If I end up dying on October 8… Well, that would be weird.
Hmmm… maybe those of you that have died in your dreams actually DID die, then woke up into this world… interesting thought trancewave:P but now you’ve confused me I hate thinking about that stuff…hehe and you DO indeed play too much CS
Anyway, I agree with ed case on almost everything he’s posted in this thread… that our brains are just machines, and when the plug’s pulled, the plug’s pulled, I’m not a real religious person, etc… but I, too, believe that there are plenty of things we don’t understand and/or are simply aren’t capable of understanding.
I’ve never personally died in a dream… I seem to be immortal in my dreams, surviving the most ridiculous traumas without a scratch… I jumped out of an airplane once and landed on my face without injury… shrug
The situation that I posted before was the only time I’ve ever died… In all other situations, I either wake up right before I would feel the impact of whatever would have happened or appear to be immortal, like you mentioned ChicoRaton.
In a lucid dream I just can not die…lol even when i do i still live!
Falling from a plane i survived easely…jumping into lava just gave me some tan lol…not so strange…why the hack you else are lucid in your dream…to experience fear? For what?
Weird indeed Daysong your dream about your death date…but it cant be because then you wouldnt see LOTR III part
That would be so cruel!
Well, I’ve had 2 normal dreams in which I dreamed that I died. In both of those dreams, I saw what happened after death.
In the first one, I went to this hospital type place - because my number was up, and it was my duty to die - and I swallowed this centipede type thing. (This was supposedly the moral way of suiciding, which was a citizen’s duty.) After I was dead, whatever I though of was what I experienced, sort of, like it would be an everlasting lucid dream. (I had never heard of Lucid dreams at this point though.)
That dream made me think that this could be what the afterlife held.
However, within the month, I dreamed that I died again. I don’t remember what the occasion was, but it also ended with death. In this dream, once I died, there was nothing - only blackness. Oblivion…
All in all, it was a pretty depressing dream.
In conclusion: Dreams don’t hold any secret of life or death, only what we randomly think what will happen.
My personal belief about the afterlife is that we don’t know.
. The SWAT team breaks through the front door and I’m the only numbnut standing the middle of the bank. Before I could even fire one shot at them I felt a barrage of bullets sink into my stomach. The weirdest part which I think is actually pretty funny is that as I was being shot I had a HP counter that went from 100% to 2% 
and I collapsed to the floor crawling. They ran past thinking I was dead yet I just seemed to crawl slowly over several feet until my vision slowly dimmed black and returned, then dimmed again, returned then dimmed for good and then I woke up.(maybe this explains actual death…fade to black, then wake up in some other world sleeping in your “bed”)
. As the dream slowly left my mind so did the pains so I think they were truely caused by my mind itsself. Has anyone else ever experienced dream based pain transferring to RL?
I hate thinking about that stuff…hehe and you DO indeed play too much CS 
Not yet, anyways. I still have 3 hours and 40 minutes until tomorrow… 
