Thanks for bearing with me this week....

This is just a short note to thank everyone for bearing with me this week....

Earlier on in the week, my Mom was very sick, and she had to be rushed to hospital. She was in danger of going into a coma.... In fact, for about 24 hours there, I thought the worst may occur....

It's caused me to rethink some things, the direction of my life, and so on. It's an unpleasant topic for many, but when these things happen, you can't help but face your own mortality, and the mortality of those around you who you love....

Thank God, my Mom pulled back from the brink and is conscious again, and she is regaining her strength every day....

However, I just want to thank everyone here for bearing with me this week.... I just felt I owed the "supportive gang" here an explanation for my lack of activity!

By the way, during this time, I read through Richard Myers' and Simon Latouche's posts below about Near-Death Experiences, and took some comfort from them.... (Thanks for these posts! They helped me out a lot....) :)

So thank you everyone, and my apologies for not being very prompt this week....

However, many of the discussions and posts here have a therapeutic feeling about them, a feeling of warmth and support. Thanks everyone for making this a great forum to hang out in.... :)

- Dien

Hi Dien,

Fantastic news that your Mom has pulled through. My thoughts and prayers will be for her continued recovery.

It's times like these that remind us just how precious life really is.

All the very best,

-Jesse

> This is just a short note to thank everyone
> for bearing with me this week....

> Earlier on in the week, my Mom was very
> sick, and she had to be rushed to hospital.
> She was in danger of going into a coma....
> In fact, for about 24 hours there, I thought
> the worst may occur....

> It's caused me to rethink some things, the
> direction of my life, and so on. It's an
> unpleasant topic for many, but when these
> things happen, you can't help but face your
> own mortality, and the mortality of those
> around you who you love....

> Thank God, my Mom pulled back from the brink
> and is conscious again, and she is regaining
> her strength every day....

> However, I just want to thank everyone here
> for bearing with me this week.... I just
> felt I owed the "supportive gang"
> here an explanation for my lack of activity!

> By the way, during this time, I read through
> Richard Myers' and Simon Latouche's posts
> below about Near-Death Experiences, and took
> some comfort from them.... (Thanks for these
> posts! They helped me out a lot....) :)

> So thank you everyone, and my apologies for
> not being very prompt this week....

> However, many of the discussions and posts
> here have a therapeutic feeling about them,
> a feeling of warmth and support. Thanks
> everyone for making this a great forum to
> hang out in.... :)

> - Dien

> This is just a short note to thank everyone
> for bearing with me this week....

***Dien, it is indeed an honor and privilege to stand alongside a friend during a time of crisis...I simply wish I had known while you were going through it so I could have added my prayers then....nonetheless, I am quite relieved to hear your Mom is much, much better.

> It's caused me to rethink some things, the
> direction of my life, and so on. It's an
> unpleasant topic for many, but when these
> things happen, you can't help but face your
> own mortality, and the mortality of those
> around you who you love....

****It is a gift we can receive from crises. How well I have learned this lesson! (One of those lessons I am grateful for while at the same time wish there was somehow another way!!!)

>Thanks
> everyone for making this a great forum to
> hang out in.... :)

***And a heartfelt thank you to YOU, Dien, for providing the environment for us to be in!

With Purpose and Passion and a great big hug,

JULIE JORDAN SCOTT


Dare to Discover Your Passion, Decide to Live Your Destiny!

Dien,

Here is same "theme" from the scientific point of view.
Notice this "coincidence".
At the time you are asking questions Reuters is producing some answers.

Simon

Scientist Says Mind Continues After Brain Dies
By Sarah Tippit
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A British scientist studying heart
attack patients says he is finding evidence that suggests that
consciousness may continue after the brain has stopped
functioning and a patient is clinically dead.
The research, presented to scientists last week at the
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), resurrects the
debate over whether there is life after death and whether there
is such a thing as the human soul.
``The studies are very significant in that we have a group
of people with no brain function ... who have well-structured,
lucid thought processes with reasoning and memory formation at
a time when their brains are shown not to function,'' Sam
Parnia, one of two doctors from Southampton General Hospital in
England who have been studying so-called near-death experiences
(NDEs), told Reuters in an interview.
``We need to do much larger-scale studies, but the
possibility is certainly there'' to suggest that consciousness,
or the soul, keeps thinking and reasoning even if a person's
heart has stopped, he is not breathing and his brain activity
is nil, Parnia said.
He said he and colleagues conducted an initial yearlong
study, the results of which appeared in the February issue of
the journal Resuscitation. The study was so promising the
doctors formed a foundation to fund further research and
continue collecting data.
During the initial study, Parnia said, 63 heart attack
patients who were deemed clinically dead but were later revived
were interviewed within a week of their experiences.
Of those, 56 said they had no recollection of the time they
were unconscious and seven reported having memories. Of those,
four were labeled NDEs in that they reported lucid memories of thinking, reasoning, moving about and communicating with others
after doctors determined their brains were not functioning.
FEELINGS OF PEACE
Among other things, the patients reported remembering
feelings of peace, joy and harmony. For some, time sped up,
senses heightened and they lost awareness of their bodies.
The patients also reported seeing a bright light, entering
another realm and communicating with dead relatives. One, who
called himself a lapsed Catholic and Pagan, reported a close encounter with a mystical being.
Near-death experiences have been reported for centuries but
in Parnia's study none of the patients were found to have
received low oxygen levels, which some skeptics believe may contribute to the phenomenon.
When the brain is deprived of oxygen people become totally
confused, thrash around and usually have no memories at all,
Parnia said. ``Here you have a severe insult to the brain but
perfect memory.''
Skeptics have also suggested that patients' memories
occurred in the moments they were leaving or returning to
consciousness. But Parnia said when a brain is traumatized by a
seizure or car wreck a patient generally does not remember
moments just before or after losing consciousness.
Rather, there is usually a memory lapse of hours or days.
''Talk to them. They'll tell you something like: 'I just
remember seeing the car and the next thing I knew I was in the
hospital,''' he said.
``With cardiac arrest, the insult to the brain is so severe
it stops the brain completely. Therefore, I would expect
profound memory loss before and after the incident,'' he added.
Since the initial experiment, Parnia and his colleagues
have found more than 3,500 people with lucid memories that
apparently occurred at times they were thought to be clinically
dead. Many of the patients, he said, were reluctant to share
their experiences fearing they would be thought crazy.
A TODDLER'S TALE
One patient was 2-1/2 years old when he had a seizure and
his heart stopped. His parents contacted Parnia after the boy
''drew a picture of himself as if out of his body looking down
at himself. It was drawn like there was a balloon stuck to him.
When they asked what the balloon was he said, 'When you die you
see a bright light and you are connected to a cord.' He wasn't even 3 when had the experience,'' Parnia said.
``What his parents noticed was that after he had been
discharged from hospital, six months after the incident, he
kept drawing the same scene.''
The brain function these patients were found to have while
unconscious is commonly believed to be incapable of sustaining
lucid thought processes or allowing lasting memories to form, Parnia said -- pointing to the fact that nobody fully grasps
how the brain generates thoughts.
The brain itself is made up of cells, like all the body's
organs, and is not really capable of producing the subjective
phenomenon of thought that people have, he said.
He speculated that human consciousness may work
independently of the brain, using the gray matter as a
mechanism to manifest the thoughts, just as a television set
translates waves in the air into picture and sound.
``When you damage the brain or lose some of the aspects of
mind or personality, that doesn't necessarily mean the mind is
being produced by the brain. All it shows is that the apparatus
is damaged,'' Parnia said, adding that further research might
reveal the existence of a soul.
``When these people are having experiences they say, 'I had
this intense pain in my chest and suddenly I was drifting in
the corner of my room and I was so happy, so comfortable. I
looked down and realized I was seeing my body and doctors all
around me trying to save me and I didn't want to go back.
``The point is they are describing seeing this thing in the
room, which is their body. Nobody ever says, 'I had this pain
and the next thing I knew my soul left me.'''