Is it all "just in your head?" Does your consciousness expire?

[Curious39]

I was just contemplating a philosophical rambling here in order to solidify what I'm learning.  I may still do that however something occurred to me....

Elsewhere on this site there have been threads regarding people attempting to project while under anesthesiological care.  They are unable to do so.

My question becomes one based on that phenomenon.  Many of us know what it feels like to be anesthetised by a doctor (wisdom teeth, minor operation, etc.).  You are tapped with an I.V., you go into the operating room... they plug the drip into the I.V. and say, "OK, I'm releasing the agent, you'll begin to feel very sleepy in just a moment."  You think, "I will?  When will I feeee.... zzzzzzzz"  Its that quick.

And you are GONE.

Now, if your consciousness resides outside of your body, then I would think anesthesiology would cause you to go OBO almost by default.  Your body winds up drugged, your consciousness gets catapulted free prior to phasing into dreamland.

The fact that this does not occur makes me wonder if we are merely exploring our own physical mind during AP / OBE, etc.  If *that* is the case, does our consciousness reside IN the body?  Does it expire at physical death?  

Now, I am a firm believer in afterlife.  For a tremendous study list in this I found this site:  http://www.victorzammit.com/

Anyway, I realize this question is precisely why we have threads on Validation, however... what have people here been able to determine and just WHY do you get knocked out from anesthetising agents?

C

[kiwibonga]

Now, if your consciousness resides outside of your body, then I would think anesthesiology would cause you to go OBO almost by default.  Your body winds up drugged, your consciousness gets catapulted free prior to phasing into dreamland.

The fact that this does not occur makes me wonder if we are merely exploring our own physical mind during AP / OBE, etc.  If *that* is the case, does our consciousness reside IN the body?  Does it expire at physical death?

Actually, it does occur. It does occur even when we go to sleep every night... The thing is, we identify very much with the physical body, to such an extent that we follow the body into sleep and go idle.

I don't think we ever go completely unconscious. The mind is always aware to a certain extent. Every noise or disturbance around you while asleep is analyzed, weighed for potential danger or importance, and treated appropriately. People undergoing an operation will often hear the doctors talking to each other while anesthetized. In much the same way, when I experimented with alarms, I noticed that I would wake up at every alarm, in deep trance, and instead of attempting an OBE, I would stay asleep -by choice- with little memory of even waking up.

I think it all comes down to memory... You really can't have a blank period, no matter what happens. As soon as the physical dozes off, the non-physical (or the subconscious) has to come to the foreground. The non-physical is rarely aware that it is not remembering things, it is always in a state of pure bliss, with no worries that what it's witnessing has any importance.

Imagine having no memory, to such an extent that you can't even remember what you're doing right now -- that's how "dumb" the subconscious is, until you tame it and make it record through sheer intention.

[cavernstoy]

This is kind of off subject but when we die, we loose our memory storage (along with our physical bodies). I think we can "remember" things while in Focus 3 and 4, because time is absent, thus everything is being experienced at once. We choose to focus most of our attention on specific portions that we define as a "moments", creating an illusion of a linear reactions to our choices; or a consecutive cause, and effect scenario, that fills our "need" for time, although its really all happening at once.  If this is true, then it is likely that when you are talking to someone in focus 3, they are isolating a completely different experience. Mabey to them they have moved to focus 4.  Ive never astral projected before so sorry if I sound like an idiot.

Cavernstoy

[Hagethuriel]

people attempting to project while under anesthesiological care.  They are unable to do so.

I feel that many do but without recall .I work in a group of  mystics. My peers have had surgeries and recalled NDEs and other OBEs under anesthesia . I had spinal fusion 19 March 07 and recall my exit and re-entry and some of the journey between . My mystic mate Jodie recalled quite a bit during surgery last year also.

The fact that this does not occur makes me wonder if we are merely exploring our own physical mind during AP / OBE, etc.  If *that* is the case, does our consciousness reside IN the body?  Does it expire at physical death? 

It does occur . I feel most of us project in dreamstate without recall also.I have been to the homes of deceased spirits with my peers .There can occur  a RIP eventually for the spirit which becomes non engaged .But other spirits choose to work and evidence of this continued consciousness occurrs in the ancient mahatma.

Imho, only the soul reincarnates, the spirit lives one life as the personality and will then exist as a spirit after death .

[DZ7]

 Not to mention the fact that anesthetics have effects on the consciousness just like any other drug, so although it may seem like you should be able to have an OBE because you are still conscious and then asleep almost instantaneously, well, in that short span of time the drug could have fogged up your consciousness quite a bit and sent you spriraling into a dream.  Just my opinion.  I think basing these ideas on the effects of a drug is rather inconclusive.

[catmeow]

And of course there's RB's concept of the mind-split and the need to download OBE memories into the physical brain. It's quite possible that the effect of an anesthetic is to prevent memory download of any OBE experience back into the physical brain.  So the experience is totally lost.  It might well be that the effect of anesthetics on our body chemistry is to actually block out all memories of any OBE's we had.  Interestingly, if you think about it, we are nothing without our memories.  There are actuallly cases of people who were physically awake during their operations, but unable to move, experiencing the agony of the op.  In some of these cases, the memory of this traumatic experience is actually wiped out when the person comes round from the anesthetic.  It's only later that these individuals begin to dimly remember the traumatic experience.  So it seems that anesthetics might have the curious property of wiping our memories.  Even in spite of these considerations, there have been quite a few reports of OBE's during anesthetic.  Robert Crookall did a study in one of his books, I'll see if I can dig out a reference or link to this work.