end game

[Que]

Hauntings and those type of people annoy the shit out of me because I live in Appalachia and there are SO FUCKING MANY of them. Every woman and half the men claim this shit. And that's cool. Whatever. It can't possibly be that we live in a drug culture and you bitches are hallucinating. I'm sure that your dead grandma really did appear to you and tell you that you needed to roll up your car windows in case it rained. I don't care. If one of my dead relatives needs to tell me something they can say it and gtfo. I'm not about ghosts or ghost accessories. Literally EVERYONE else in my family is and it just annoys the shit out of me. I'm not saying that ghosts don't exist or that there is no afterlife, I'm just saying that it doesn't particularly interest me, and if I die and have access to up to 16 other planes of existence (as is traditional) I'm sure as fuck not hanging around here. I might come back occasionally out of curiosity to see how the kid's doing but I'm not going to HAUNT her. I'm going to go see how long the lines to hang out with my favorite dead celebrities are.

I have never seen, heard, or felt anything that would lead me to believe that any such thing occurs.

Having said that I am a bit stuck on some things. There can be no master plan that fatalists suggest there is because way too many moving parts and humans throw sand in the gears on the regular, so fate does not exist, full stop.

So we are left with hand of whomever/whatever/coincidence to give us those little nudges in life. I never feel nudged unless it is through interacting with other live human beings.

Now how about this, Botany Boy burns some sacred herb and watches the smoke drift heavenward. He is "inspired" to write something, anything. It happens to strike a chord in me, I do something different than I would have, and end up with a positive result. If I felt nudged, I was nudged.

Now, lets say I am on a road trip, stop by to say hello in your neck of the woods. One of your crazy relatives who THINKS he or she communes with the dead happens to be talking to a dead guy that nudges me the way Dad would have. Doesn't matter if it is a projection on my part, a drug induced hallucination on their part, if it nudges me, and I like the result, I will feel I have been communed with third hand.

I'd ignore ALL of the above except all too often when I feel what others describe as "the Hand of Almighty God, Budha, The Cosmos, or whatever, it is always when talking to another human. These epiphanies never come to me when I am navel gazing. And, were I 10-15 lbs lighter I have an outstanding navel.

So I sort of kind of believe there are "paths." I dunno for sure if these are temporal projections of my fevered imagination or some other-worldly phenomenon. I choose to find it healthy to consider them other-worldly, unidentified. It is an an excellent way to get out of my head and into the world writ large.

Hell, we have people that decry all organized religions but go all Oprah-esqe with "putting their thoughts to the universe so the universe blesses them" or something.

If it improves the frame they hang their painting of life in, more better good. Assume for a moment their is a God-like person capable of gather thoughts faster than the NSA. He would probably laugh at the "prayers to the universe' that are not called prayer, and grant them anyway, on an "A' for effort basis, no?

Meditation does something measurable, so I tend to think all of these various processes are to the good.

That's my 2cents. Mine was minted in 1865 I hope it is worth somewhere near the $14 I laid out for it.

 

[CandiCame]

Meditation and prayer can measurably calm your ass down because you silence your thoughts, control your breathing, etc. I'm not sure what that's got to do with death or ghosts, but that is true. As in, that is a thing that can work. But it's a physical reaction to a physical response. Controlled breathing slows your heart rate (in the opposite way that ragged breathing speeds it up). If you do yoga with your meditation you're also strengthening your muscles at the same time. There are a lot of benefits. So... yeah. You should definitely do it but I don't get how you're connecting it to ghosts.

 

[Que]

Meditation and prayer can measurably calm your ass down because you silence your thoughts, control your breathing, etc. I'm not sure what that's got to do with death or ghosts, but that is true. As in, that is a thing that can work. But it's a physical reaction to a physical response. Controlled breathing slows your heart rate (in the opposite way that ragged breathing speeds it up). If you do yoga with your meditation you're also strengthening your muscles at the same time. There are a lot of benefits. So... yeah. You should definitely do it but I don't get how you're connecting it to ghosts.

I just picture that to "commune" with ghosts they are basically going somewhere in their subconscious and meditating.

It is interesting to me that more people in the US believe in ghosts and alien visitation of our planet than believe in a god of some sort. Who do they suppose organizes these ghosts of theirs?

 

[CandiCame]

I just picture that to "commune" with ghosts they are basically going somewhere in their subconscious and meditating.

It is interesting to me that more people in the US believe in ghosts and alien visitation of our planet than believe in a god of some sort. Who do they suppose organizes these ghosts of theirs?

If ghosts were organized, we wouldn't see them. They'd have ghost organizations to go to and ghost shit to attend to.

But no, meditation doesn't let you communicate with ghosts. Meditation 'turns off' your brain; the goal is to get completely blank so that your mind and body merge and you prefrontal cortex can communicate directly with the basal ganglia allowing you complete and total control over your body so you can do things like regulate your lungs and your heartbeat. This is considered a prime state and is SUPER hard to get to. A lot of people like to focus on something like an unanswerable riddle or use guided meditations. Others, like me, find it impossible to do alone and turn to drugs that are known for mind altering properties like marijuana and peyote, which open the synapses and help with achieving the 'blank' mindstate. Even high people who aren't meditating will sometimes 'space out'.

My ancestors apparently burned a lot of sage and worked themselves near heatstrokes, and I've tried that, but it doesn't clear my mind, it makes my mind go, "Fuck it's hot. I see why they call it a sweatlodge, I'm fucking soaked. This is gonna get in my hair and I'm going to have to wash it with that strawberry shampoo to get the stank out. Jesus fucking Christ it's fucking hot. Why am I doing this to myself? Fucking shit it's hot." And then just variations on the phrase "It's hot" until I get out.

 

[CandiCame]

I've heard that binural beats are good too, but... I've not had time to meditate since I found out those existed. I need to get back into it. I downloaded like 99 of those binural beats to SEE if they worked.

Has anybody had any success with those?

 

[dolf]

My Dad passed last year.

When I said, "What's wrong with you" I didn't mean your philosophy, I meant your body. The OP made me think that you were dying and I was wondering what was wrong. As in: Why are you dying? I just realized how you took that and why you thought that I was being an even BIGGER asshole than I actually was, and I'm sorry I worded it weird. I've had a rough couple days.

yeah, I know, that's why I was extra nice in my bitchiness.

nowt wrong with me, 'cept an irregular ticker. but every one of my clients is stepping closer the end game by the day. one of them is there right now... maybe today, maybe later this week. she was awesome.

 

[pink]

Funny you should post this thread and I happen into it. I think I can use the word "Ironic."

 

[trysail]

I'm a dead man. It's only a matter of time.

I do my level best to avoid thinking about it and, thus, have yet to come face-to-face with that reality. On those rare occasions when I do confront the end, it's terrifying. When the time comes, I may be enormously jealous and envious of those possessed with religious fervor. Cognitively, I know it will happen; nevertheless, there's a part of me that wants to believe I'm immortal.

Yesterday, I talked with a fellow whose mum is slowly dying. Her lungs are shot; her organs are slowly shutting down. She's already suffered one heart attack. It's only a matter of days/weeks/months until she's hit with a stroke or another heart attack. She knows what's going on; the physician has told her. Quite naturally, she's anxious.


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[unregistered]

 

[colddiesel]

Dolf, do you sometimes encounter the situation where very elderly people seem to decide themselves that they have had enough. My mother was 98 in 2007 when her best friend who was 5 years younger died. She didn't seem particularly upset at the time but in hindsight made plans for her own end. She reviewed her will, sent one or two personal bits and pieces as presents to friends, and rang her daughter (my sister) a retired Doctor in Harrogate to tell her she was coming to visit. It is no easy journey from a small village in the far North West of Scotland, but she made it on her own quite well, as she had many times before.

My sister was then asked to do two things, firstly to ensure that all of her will was carried out and secondly she wanted to go for afternoon tea at "Betty's." After agreement on the former she enjoyed the latter but a few days later just told my sister she felt very tired and went for a doze in the conservatory. She just dozed off quietly and didn't wake up.

Why make the journey? She had donated her body to the Medical school in Leeds and had liked to claim for years that it was a way of making the English pay for her disposal, but we had never guessed that by visiting Harrogate she had essentially ensured delivery. Typical of her, but how could she know it was her time?

 

[dolf]

I've known a couple like your mum. they're the best.