[SeaGypsy]

And we each believe the lies we must.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'W')e might need to know what we mean by "we" in this context.

Are we our body? Our we our spirit/soul? What's that?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')So no matter how you look at it, when our brain dies then everything we think of as "me" dies too -- maybe something else continues, but that would be something different entirely and not "us" at all.

[Rod_Cloutier]

The biggest problem I've faced in my life is dealing with tradeoffs.

I can't be happily married AND have tantric sex with multiple women
I can have lots of spare time, but no money, or conversely, I can have lots of money and no spare time
I can't be a famous movie star, AND a genius physicist at the same time
I can't be super rich AND an ultra enviromentalist
I can't keep my cake AND eat it also.

Too many choices! I think earlier ages had it easier. Work 15 hours a day or starve, easier choice!

[oowolf]

I've had many OOBEs. I've been to "other" dimensions and times. Some experiences were ecstatic and others terrifying. I believe there is a hell of a lot more going on than here we can even begin to domprehend. I don't have a clue why I have these experiences (except the drug-induced ones). I believe lineal time is rather a misapprehension common to some mammals and that everything has already happened that is going to happen. I guess that makes me a fatalist--so I realize it is inconsistent to try to escape fate. Perhaps I'm fated to attempt to escape.(You see where this spiral leads.)

I feel like I should be more composed, but many of the activities of Homo sapiens sapiens (sic) just really depress me and piss me off. With time, I'm becoming more nihilistic--which doesn't seem very self-actualizing

That's why I spend more and more time getting high and drinking beer. Thinking is a curse.

[Ludi]

I often think some things that seem similar to some of yours, oowolf. I think my perception of time, consciousness, and other such things is probably terribly limited not only by virtue of my being a mammal, a human, but perhaps largely due also to how I was raised. I feel fortunate to have had a very few interesting (to me) mental experiences, probably nothing as interesting or extensive as yours, oowolf. Maybe they (my personal experiences) are "spiritual" experiences, maybe they aren't.

[SeaGypsy]

I have been a meditator since early childhood.
I often have had a very real seeming impression in meditation, that the 'self' beyond the ego, is also beyond the body/ mind.
It is impossible to understand what the Buddah was on about completely with the mind 'on'. We need to stop the inner chatter to perceive the self beyond the self. If that makes any sense?
Just my 2 cents.

[Ludi]

Some people (if I'm understanding them correctly) seem to think the "chatter" is the tendency to turn experience into symbolic thought, possibly a result of growing up in a culture in which written language and other symbols take precedence over other modes of experience. The voice in my head that says things in the language I speak is as far as I can tell what they are talking about. Sort of a non-stop (or nearly non-stop) translation of experience into language. I love language, symbols, and the written word, but I can see how it might limit my ability to think other ways. I also think in pictures, sometimes in apparent sensations (but I'm not sure, I find it difficult to think about thinking ).

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Repent', 'T')he biggest problem I've faced in my life is dealing with tradeoffs.

I can't be happily married AND have tantric sex with multiple women
I can have lots of spare time, but no money, or conversely, I can have lots of money and no spare time
I can't be a famous movie star, AND a genius physicist at the same time
I can't be super rich AND an ultra enviromentalist
I can't keep my cake AND eat it also.

Too many choices! I think earlier ages had it easier. Work 15 hours a day or starve, easier choice!

[Kristen]

I totally agree that the end is the end, game over does apply. But still, sometimes I catch myself gazing at the stars, looking for some kind of answer hidden in there,

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')So no matter how you look at it, when our brain dies then everything we think of as "me" dies too -- maybe something else continues, but that would be something different entirely and not "us" at all.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kristen', 'I') just have the usual unanswerable question us beings with intelligence posses. What happens after I die? Is this my one bang at existence? Surely there must be more to life then endless tv shows, new products, mowing the grass, etc. etc.

[Olaf]

The older I get, the less I want to die and the more I think about it. With all of the difficulties, I like it here.

The older I get, the more I want to be farmer; a partner of the land. Planting crops, planting trees, planting habitat. Watching it grow.

The older I get, the smaller I feel.

[oowolf]

Although I am told I'm a rationalist INTJ and usually tell people I'm an athiest, the intuitive part of my personality has a disturbing belief in "karma" and "primitive animism". I also have a constant suspicion that I'm being evaluated by extra-dimensional "watchers" concerning my ethical relationships with life on Earth.

I often have visions of various mammals including extinct ones like the dire wolf, borophagus, and once dreamed I was (I think) a cynodont roaming the rusty plains of Permian Pangea.

I've had telepathic experiences, but, sadly, have never (to my recollection, which is a considerable caveat) encountered any "dead" people. My OOBEs are totally beyond my control. So I know I have a consciousness that can leave the body-but I'm not certain it can survive death.