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nightscanner59

(802 posts)
47. My only honest answer to both questions is: I don't know.
Fri Sep 7, 2012, 12:28 AM
Sep 2012

How to explain extracorporeal perceptions? Example from today, several nights of sleeping on this:
Sometime after 3 p.m. today, thoughts of my mother emerged in short discussion about her in general, with a colleague. I was at work. At an approximation of the same time, my cell phone, plugged into a socket in my apartment 4 miles away from work received voicemail message from her, no specific question from her, just "hello haven't heard from you in a while, call me." I got that message about 6 p.m. when coming home from work. Simply coincidental? These things only can bring up wondering, more questions than answers. I seem to have uncanny numbers of coincidences like these.
Absence of corporeal thought processes are in nature, extremely disorienting. Allow me to explain what happened to me nearly 25 years ago that has caused me to seek answers to this ever since:
To the best of my ability to put this into sets of words:
I walked into the bathroom after dinner in my apartment in San Francisco. After that, it gets blurry, but: Then I felt tired, and went to bed, or so it seemed. But the door to my bedroom was closed. There was something about I couldn't turn the knob. Then I couldn't seem to get warm, I couldn't seem to pull the blankets. I had no arms and legs to do so. It was evening. Time seemed to stand still. I seemed... to be... the bed.
My roommate, after I returned from the hospital, said I was having seizures on the bathroom floor and he dialed 911. I remember none of this.
Somehow.... (more questions than answers), sort of, instinctively I moved towards where my body was transported... but this is only a "recollective" assumption. I seemed to... expand beyond the bed, beyond the bedroom, and what seemed like suddenly I was laying on wooden floor, somewhere and I was panting. I was covered in fur and had paws. I looked up to a woman sitting in a chair, reading a book. She was like an image from an old black and white television set. Just as suddenly, I was reading the book, and looked over at the dog laying on the floor. But somehow this was all "wrong"... (more questions than answers!) Something, "just felt wrong, but I did feel the chair below me, the warm air brown floor, red and yellow "heat" to my left, the brownish red dog facing me, looking at me, lying on the floor. I was, for a few short seconds, a largish woman sitting, putting the book in my lap and looking at the dog, who was looking back at me.
Then I (best word I can put to this) "expanded" again.
No time seemed to pass except when I was the dog, then the woman. Not more than a few seconds.
I awoke in my own body again. I was tied to a gurney at San Francisco General Emergency room surrounded by staffers there. Soft padding all around, and people. Someone was disconnecting electrodes from my head and calling the doctor. I asked where I was, disoriented. I didn't even know for a few minutes, who I was. I looked down. I was catheterized and monitor leads were all over my chest. My chest hurt, badly. The other staffers there walked away. "Beep, Beep, Beep..." I was afraid of it. I called over someone, and asked what time it was. She said it was about 6 a.m. -- but somehow, this didn't seem unusual or difficult to understand. Only later I realized I had taken some kind of time jump. She gave me, apparently a sedative through my I.V. line. I awoke again later, but I don't know what time. My significant other (Stephen) was there asking me what the hell happened. I couldn't explain.
After discharge, I went to Stephen's place. I moved in with him after returning to my apartment. My roomate at the time looked at me wide-eyed and said I'd scared him to death. I answered him: "No, I died" I don't know how, but I at that point, I knew that.
He asked me to move out.
So, I moved in with Stephen. But the same day, I took my meds, and got a case of wry neck. I couldn't understand that something was wrong till Stephen came home from work and talked me into going back to the hospital. While there, after some kind of shot that alleviated my neck spasm, I inquired the doctor to please explain what happened to me a few days earlier. He came back with a puzzled look on his face. He said I had a cardiac arrest during some kind of seizure. But something was wrong. My labs were totally normal. There was some sugar detected in my urine which he said raised concern for diabetes, so he drew blood, took urine again. Now, totally normal. All tests, except sugar in urine and some cardiac enzyme were now normal. They also had done a tox screen on previous visit. No drug detected.
I wrote it all off... I must have just had hallucinations.
UNTIL
A few months later: I went to Safeway after work. I found myself behind a woman in line who seemed very, very familiar in a way I could not explain. Then she turned and glanced at me. I suddenly felt totally flushed, sick. It was the very woman I'd seen through the eyes of her dog, then became. I uttered: "Oh my god, it was real."
I left the shopping cart right there. I walked home, feeling like I was in a dream. No one seemed real, at all. Even Stephen greeted me in the hallway of the apartment and looked at me: "You look like you've just seen a ghost".
"I did". and I went to bed.
That was, to the best of my recollection, 1987. Stephen died a few months later from complications of AIDS. I am healthy, except for chronic injuries I sustained from being mugged in December 2009. But that is a totally different story.
The Loma Prieta earthquake shook our apartment immensely nearly two years later. I was with a new and different lover, Eldon. He died in 2001.
I have relived this experience thousands of times, and it always just brings up more questions than answers. I'm still sorting it out.

Recommendations

0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):

Good question libodem Aug 2012 #1
Thought... sansatman Aug 2012 #2
Buddhism is something you do and not something you believe. The myriad of images, both wrathful byeya Aug 2012 #3
Reincarnation is very important in Mahayana Buddhism, and reincarnation requires faith. ZombieHorde Aug 2012 #36
totally is, if you're not traditional Ted Meissner Aug 2012 #4
Welcome to DU! ellisonz Aug 2012 #20
I'd suggest reading a bit of Tibetan history. Neoma Aug 2012 #5
The barrister Christmas Humphries started The Buddhist Society in England in the 1920s. byeya Aug 2012 #6
I'm not an expert but I like some of the "American Zen" practitioners CJCRANE Aug 2012 #7
I'm not Buddhist but I don't see how reincarnation can be reconciled with atheism. rug Aug 2012 #8
#rug I'm not Buddhist but I don't see how reincarnation can be reconciled with atheism. iamnotyou Aug 2012 #11
Then what would happen to the notion of Karma and Enlightenment? rug Aug 2012 #13
Neither karma nor rebirth are necessary. You ask what if there is no rebirth? white_wolf Aug 2012 #14
Then, what of Nirvana? rug Aug 2012 #15
Nirvana is attained in this life. white_wolf Aug 2012 #16
I never heard that. rug Aug 2012 #17
Here is the link to the Sutta I mentioned where Buddha addresses the issue of death after Nirvana. white_wolf Aug 2012 #18
Thanks. I'll read up on it. rug Aug 2012 #19
Welcome to DU! ellisonz Aug 2012 #22
iamnotyou Aug 2012 #12
I am a non practicing buddhist atheist Shankapotomus Aug 2012 #25
Is the rearrangement subject to karma? rug Aug 2012 #26
of course, being a totally natural process, Shankapotomus Aug 2012 #28
I think physics would govern that, not karma. rug Aug 2012 #29
So what you're saying I think, is that while Buddhism is probably atheistic... GliderGuider Aug 2012 #34
Not quite. rug Aug 2012 #35
Buddhist karma tama Sep 2012 #52
Only those beliefs and practices that you can verify YankeyMCC Sep 2012 #53
Reincarnation does not require gods, so atheism and reincarnation can be compatible. ZombieHorde Aug 2012 #37
I keep coming back to this one thing. rug Aug 2012 #43
I don't know. I consider reincarnation to be a supernatural concept, ZombieHorde Aug 2012 #44
You can see the energy radiated from the sun and stars, the very same nightscanner59 Aug 2012 #45
"This is very, very difficult to put into words," ZombieHorde Aug 2012 #46
My only honest answer to both questions is: I don't know. nightscanner59 Sep 2012 #47
self reply... train of "experience" best I can recall in a timeline nightscanner59 Sep 2012 #48
Here' the short, easy answer Shankapotomus Nov 2012 #54
I'm a practicing Zen student and remain atheist YankeyMCC Aug 2012 #9
yes. marasinghe Aug 2012 #10
Correct IMHO ellisonz Aug 2012 #21
Buddhism is compatible with atheism, Christianity, Hinduism, Taoism, etc. bananas Aug 2012 #23
Not really, no it isn't. white_wolf Aug 2012 #24
In my experience, Buddhism is not compatible with an omnipotent being who is except from the laws byeya Aug 2012 #30
Yes. Manifestor_of_Light Aug 2012 #27
"Don't make gods" - Zen Master Seung Sahn. Fozzledick Aug 2012 #31
Please read my post a few above. Don't try to explain it, just read. nightscanner59 Sep 2012 #49
Red Pine's translation of the Heart Sutra declares all characteristics as empty. white_wolf Sep 2012 #51
Read "Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist" by Stephen Bachelor. Odin2005 Aug 2012 #32
hmmmm libodem Aug 2012 #33
I think so. I really like Buddhism, but since I do not believe in any of the supernatural aspects ZombieHorde Aug 2012 #38
Oooo....Dogen would not like you calling it Philosophy ;) YankeyMCC Aug 2012 #39
Dogen could use my post as an opportunity to learn patience. ZombieHorde Aug 2012 #40
Just having a little fun YankeyMCC Aug 2012 #41
I know you were just being silly, but I love to argue, and I took the opportunity to do so. ZombieHorde Aug 2012 #42
Sometimes I'm afraid to shut off the computer and go to bed nightscanner59 Sep 2012 #50
I just wanted to come back and say a big thank you to all those that took the time to answer... truebrit71 Dec 2012 #55
Old Ch'an saying: When you get to the top of the mountain, keep climbing byeya Dec 2012 #56
There is no top! Odin2005 Dec 2012 #57
Buddhism is not Compatible with Atheism or any religion. rabid_byter Feb 2013 #58
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