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Have you ever felt you died and went to heaven? Or how about Hell? What if every time you thought you died, you did die and just didn't realize it?  I am really fascinated by the idea of consciousness after death.

For the record, I choose to believe that there is consciousness after death...I don't claim to know what it is like, but I choose to believe that my consciousness after death will continue in some way that I don't understand right now. 

This thought first occurred to me (I think?) after watching the movie, "Jacobs Ladder".

****Spoiler Alert******:  This page spoils the movie "Jacob's Ladder****

In this film, the main character is Jacob Singer.  In the opening scene, Jacob is stabbed with a bayonet in jungles of Vietnam. The movies cuts without explaination to him living in New York after the war.

As the movie progresses, strange things occur to Jacob, and you are led to believe that he is suffering from post dramatic stress disorder (or his is shell SHOCKED!).

He is trying to find out what happened in the war on the day he was stabbed. As the film nears the conclusion, events are very disjointed and reality seems to be getting very slippery and dream-like.

In the end, you return to see Jacob still in the jungle in Vietnam and he has died.  Neat huh?  Yeah, I thought so too.

The movie doesn't really say at what point in time Jacob died.  Did the dream of his life in New York all take place while he was dying?...or after he died?  Either way, this leads me to ask myself some very thought provoking questions.

Have I died during this life time?

If I did die, how would I know it had happened?  

If I died, could I just "pretend" it was a dream and then wake up?

When I was a kid, I did some things that should have killed me...but I lived through them all...right?  You are saying to yourself..."Yeah, you did dispshit, or you would not be here writing this webpage!"...yeah I know I'm a dipshit...but please indulge me here for a second or two.  :-)

How do I know I didn't die?  I don't really.  All I know is that my consciousness continued with "continuity".

Here is another movie example to illustrate my point:

Remember in "The Matrix" when Mr. Anderson is interrogated by Agent Smith.  Near the end of the scene, the agent makes Mr. Anderson's mouth close up...(with some really cool CG!) which is, of course, impossible. Then even more impossible, they literally "bug him" with a little CG robot bug...

...and then Mr. Anderson wakes up...and believes all those impossible things that just happened to him were part of a dream.  He soon finds out that those events did occur in his "real" life when Trinity takes the bug out of him.

I use this to illustrate the point that when impossible things happen to me, things that I know are impossible...maybe the instinctive and defensive reaction is to assume that what happened was a dream that I can wake up from.

I had a very minor surgery a few years ago.  Although it was minor, it did involve a rather large incision, so the doctor needed to "put me under" a general anesthesia.  The experience was very interesting.  

Someone told me to count backwards from 100 and breath deeply...I inhaled the gases and I remember falling asleep very quickly.

Then I woke up in a different room and the surgery was over.  Where did my consciousness go?  ...or "Dude!  Where's my consciousness?"  Here is the fun answer...doctors don't know!

Doctors know that a certain mix of gases keep you asleep in a way that allows them to operate on your body without you experiencing any pain and without being aware of anything that happens to you after you go under...but they have no clue where "you" go..."you" being your consciousness.

It's like there is a cosmic waiting room that your consciousness visits while your body is in the shop...and right before you leave the waiting room (and that nasty waiting room coffee...YUCK!) they hit you with a "Men in Black" style flashy thing so you don't remember the waiting room...and who would want to, really?

Since this surgery was very minor, I had no expectations of death...but the question I am really asking is this:  How do I know that after they put me under that I didn't die?  Well, you say, "you woke up later and went about your life..." which is true enough.

...but I lost time...there was a period where I was "gone" and I don't remember where I went.  If this had been a surgery where death was a real possible outcome...

...whose to say that I don't go sleep and "wake up" later and go about my life thinking that I was saved and everything was ok...but I actually died on the table?

If I died on the table, who is around to tell me I'm dead?  Maybe a whole universe exists just for me that I create everyday?  I really don't know.

This gets really fun now...because bodies do die...we all have bodies.  So eventually you have have to leave your earth body.

Let's suppose I witness my body in such a state, such as in a war movie...that it is wrecked beyond repair...then I am just going to believe that I died and move on to whatever is next...

...or suppose I am old and in my death bed...I might think "Well, this seem like a good time to go and see what comes next."

On the other hand...let's say...I am blown up by a car bomber.  This sort of death experience MIGHT allow my consciousness on earth to continue.

If I didn't even know the bomb went off and my body was blown up...

...since I didn't know what happened....I could "wake up" and convince myself that it was a dream...get up, take a pee, and go back to bed...or wake up in the hospital and ask them if I was OK.

Same scenario, but this time I know there is a bomb and I know the bomb went off...then I MUST be dead...I tell myself "I was too close to survive...so I have to leave."

In both senarios...what I beleive to be true...becomes the truth.  Perhaps there is a sort of "consent" rule to death on earth.  If you agree you are dead...then you are dead...if you don't then you make up reality that will allow you to continue on earth.

There may seem to be some disparity if the people around me know that I died, and I don't know that I died.

Again, I don't know what happens.  But here are a couple alternatives:

Option 1:  Subjective Reality

Here I mean the your world is totally contained within your "piece" of universal consciousness.  If this were the case, then other people do not exist in your universe beyond the dream characters that you create to populate your dream.

So, other people's points of view cease when you are unconscious, and they would not note a disparity if they witness you die and you didn't witness yourself die...because they are just parts of your imagination anyway...they will go along with whatever you come up with.

Option 2:  Objective Reality

In this case, there is no gray area.  If I die, I die...it doesn't matter what I or anyone else thinks about it.  

I think you can guess that I choose to believe Option 1.  I will post more about Subjective Reality later.

I don't fear death.  I want to enjoy my time on earth, but I choose to beleive that my consciousness will continue after the earth event of my body's death.

I don't idenify myself with my body...my body is not me.  I am the person that is driving my body and I am eternal and exist beyond time and space...

...and I think you are the same as me.  So, the death of a body to me, is just part of the story of a much larger and eternal life...not something to get all fearful about.