I've done it once, a very long time ago, but the blackness beyond the last of your neurons firing for the time just scares me. I think about this constantly and it gets my heart racing so bad now that I have so much to live for and so much to lose the day I finally kick the bucket.

Any of you dealing with this? Any advice? I'm not in a great place because of it.

to this day i have no idea what the fuck people mean when they say shit like "oh yeah i've died once"

no you didn't
whatever you think happened to you, it wasn't death
if you ever died, you wouldn't come back
that's what death is

besides, given the current state of the world, i wouldn't be reluctant to say goodbye to it

triple post because this website doesn't let me edit posts anymore without giving me security warnings

to this day i have no idea what the fuck people mean when they say shit like "oh yeah i've died once"

no you didn't
whatever you think happened to you, it wasn't death
if you ever died, you wouldn't come back
that's what death is

Allow me to rectify.

I was dead, no heartbeat, for 8ish minutes before I was successfully resuscitated. The previous me died, there is no getting that brain matter back after being so oxygen starved. I don't write the same, I don't talk the same, I don't think the same way I did before that happened. The me before died and I am the one living in this body until it expires.

I have the same wants, the same dreams, but what I (probably?) gained in emotional intelligence, I lost in the actual thing.

I saw nothing. Just the void ripping shit away from me and I am lesser for it.

Well, here goes. I'm no stranger to near death. Two suicide attempts a very long time ago. I wasn't knocked close to being dead, but the closest I ever have been was heart troubles during a clot. I went out on the table for a bit and they had to use a defib. You know what I was when I came back? Disappointed and tired to be back here.

I am your inverse. It's not neccessarily that I can't see things worth hanging on to. It's the gnawing dread to me that life, specifically human life, is an unbreakable cycle of patterns that are non-negotiable. Those patterns are a prison. Everything we do is built around them, and therefore any attempt to free ourselves from them is just in homage to those same patterns. It means that no matter what I do, I am not free.

But, I can understand your view. What keeps me tethered to life are two promises. I promised my significant other, and I promised a friend I'd watch out for his family. So while I want my peace of mind, to finally be free of all this, I have a duty to fulfill. I can't do this if I'm dead. The possibility that I could die would mean that I cannot fulfill my promises, and the people I try to watch out for would be left in trouble without me.

That does concern me. And I know what life is capable of. People don't see it. I think only people who've come close to death or clinical death and revival do. Your life is a razor thin wire that can be cut at any moment, by anything. Stepping out of your bed in the morning has a chance of killing you if you fall and land wrong.

The harsh reality of death is that when you are gone, the people in your life will continue. They'll have to, as they have no choice in the matter. What you're really afraid of is the black. Where you are, and where you're going. Death as a concept defies the human mind because we can't imagine what lies beyond. We can't imagine non-existence. It's like childbirth. You don't remember how you were born. One day you just appeared from nowhere with your memories, and everybody told you the story that you had to imagine, that you where born.

That doesn't solve your problem. What will? Challenging your belief structure. You're afraid of the black because you don't what's beyond it. You don't know if anything is beyond it. It's the ultimate fuck you to anybody with an ego. Some poor fuck on the street, or some wallstreet baller who owns half a country, death renders all of their accomplishments null.

I'll tell you something buddy. I think it would help you if you thought of death as a shadow. Like real shadows, they can be so dark that you can't see anything. But that doesn't mean nothing is there. It doesn't mean something lies beyond them. There's a lot of shit in this world we can't explain and we probably won't ever have the answers for. I believe we're more than the sum of our parts.

Want to hear something funny? If you're a private investigator, or an undercover cop, part of training comes with a well established rule. When you're tailing somebody, you do not watch them directly with your eyes, even if their back is to you. You keep your peripherals on them. Why is this? It's documented somewhat loosely. People know when they are being watched, without knowing they're being watched. They may not even have a feeling. They'll just turn and make eye contact with you.

This can tie back to the oldest theories about vision. Early thoughts about eyes theorized that we produced a force that was projected outwards that allowed us to see. We learned that our eyes take in light in order to see. But the grey area and the unexplained phenomenon behind why people know they're being watched still exists.

That's not going to help you with death. I'm just saying everything around us is a web that defies comprehension. If you're afraid of the black, the only way to beat it is to believe that something exists past it. That, or make your peace with it. It's part of the unbreakable cycle. When time is up, that's it. You'll take the longest nap you've ever had, and then maybe one day, you'll wake up and everybody will once again tell you a story you'll have to imagine because you can't remember it, that you were born. Either way, there is an answer at the end. For me it's whether or not I find peace from this shit. For you, it's whether or not you're still you, and if there's anything at all.

We all end up in that same state though. When it's really time to go, time may not work there as you perceive it in life. You could end up there and find all your friends and loved ones too. A second in there could be lifetimes out here. If you want to take a very hardline, clinical stance on it? It'll be exactly like being born. You won't remember it. You won't know that you don't exist.

Belief changes reality. You need to find something strong enough that you believe with certainty. I don't mean religion either. They'll sell you lies at best, and at worst, when you die and get the wheel of fortune of religons wrong, it'll have meant you were a slave for somebody else's bullshit. You need to find something intrinsic to you that seems to resonate with you. Death's always resonated with me because I see it as a color I cannot describe.

I'll leave it at that for now.

Quote from: Cheat on September 09, 2024, 07:48:03 AM

I frequently tell family who ask how I'm doing that I don't really wanna be here anymore (in a joking tone but still). I can't really relate except that I used to be somewhat nervous about death and now I'm more or less ready for it (I was going to use the word stoked, but that seems like the kind of thing you get worried about someone writing).

What happened was that I took a large dose of weed, plugged in headphones and listened to those gateway experience tapes that are supposed to take you out of body, and I experienced some weird out of body shit that I couldn't explain. And along the way I had what I later learned was an "ego death", which I had no idea could happen on just weed, but ... yeah. It was temporary, of course, but I still have the memories and TBH it really helped.

It's possible to experience ego death simply through meditation without the use of any substance. Though, if the brain does produce DMT on its own, then I wonder if that has something to do with some people's experience.

There's a gland somewhere near the base of your brain in the lower regions. It's one of the most protected parts. Anybody who's dying or who has died will have had this gland fire at maximum and release all of its contents in one shot. It's potent shit. We're talking about the longest drug trip anybody could ever have because the type of chemical dilates the perception of time. The manmade version of the stuff is super illegal just about everywhere.

I think this is the only major time this gland does anything, other than possibly releasing very tiny doses of what it produces during sleep.

Quote from: E on September 09, 2024, 04:51:08 PM

Quote from: Aether on September 09, 2024, 03:18:36 PM

Quote from: Cheat on September 09, 2024, 07:48:03 AM

I frequently tell family who ask how I'm doing that I don't really wanna be here anymore (in a joking tone but still). I can't really relate except that I used to be somewhat nervous about death and now I'm more or less ready for it (I was going to use the word stoked, but that seems like the kind of thing you get worried about someone writing).

What happened was that I took a large dose of weed, plugged in headphones and listened to those gateway experience tapes that are supposed to take you out of body, and I experienced some weird out of body shit that I couldn't explain. And along the way I had what I later learned was an "ego death", which I had no idea could happen on just weed, but ... yeah. It was temporary, of course, but I still have the memories and TBH it really helped.

It's possible to experience ego death simply through meditation without the use of any substance. Though, if the brain does produce DMT on its own, then I wonder if that has something to do with some people's experience.

There's a gland somewhere near the base of your brain in the lower regions. It's one of the most protected parts. Anybody who's dying or who has died will have had this gland fire at maximum and release all of its contents in one shot. It's potent shit. We're talking about the longest drug trip anybody could ever have because the type of chemical dilates the perception of time. The manmade version of the stuff is super illegal just about everywhere.

I think this is the only major time this gland does anything, other than possibly releasing very tiny doses of what it produces during sleep.

Yes, that's dimethyltryptamine. Very similar in structure to other psychedelic hallucinogens like psilocybin, 4-aco-DMT, 5-meo-DMT etc. Supposedly produced naturally by the brains of mammals. Which makes you wonder what the evolutionary purpose of such a thing is.

The closest theory I know of is that it would be tied as part of the mechanisms in the body that know it's dying. It's documented well enough that the human body undergoes changes when some threshold is hit. If you're not in a situation of stress like getting crushed by a car or something, there's measurable patterns in how the heart changes, and certain hormone productions spike and fall. Sleep is reduced, and usually a few days before dying people are more energetic, but relaxed. If I had to guess, that gland is one of the final sequences. The why's still there though. You don't need a lifelong drugtrip in the final minutes of activity. But I guess everybody gets one anyway.

There could be a purpose, and there might not be. Evolution's more akin to some drunk throwing darts at a board and working with what sticks for a while, even if what sticks doesn't make much conceivable sense.