Proof of Life After Death!!

[AdMan]

I see my dead father and brother all the time in my dreams. In the dreams, they aren't dead, and it's never an issue. We're all in the same state of being in those dreams.

Dreams are constructed of our current thoughts and older memories. No surprise that we see departed family members in them.

 

[TheGoldcountry]

I see my dead father and brother all the time in my dreams. In the dreams, they aren't dead, and it's never an issue. We're all in the same state of being in those dreams.

Oh, me too. I talk to my dad in my dreams. I also wake up.

 

[truethat]

You wanna read something really bizarre. A few nights ago I had a lucid dream. I have a tendency to talk in my sleep. In my dream I was talking in my sleep and my husband was sleeping next to me telling me in a very mean way to shut up. Then I woke up in the dream, still in a lucid state, thinking, wow I was just dreaming about talking to him. I started muttering "I'm sorry" in the second stage and my husband was very sweet and kind and then told me he wanted to show me something under the bed. We got up and looked and it was the other mean husband on the other side trying to get me to come underneath to this creepy place under the bed. I woke up with a jolt and turned to my husband in the bed and hugged him and realized that this was also another lucid dream. He got up to go to work and I was dreaming as if I couldn't shake off the dream but thought I was half awake.

I couldn't figure out how to wake up or who was the real husband. So I leaned over and kissed my husband pretty passionately waking him up out of a sleep. When he kissed me back he woke me up out of it and it was dark and 4 o'clock in the morning.

It was so so very weird. Dreams can be freaky.

 

[TheGoldcountry]

You wanna read something really bizarre. A few nights ago I had a lucid dream. I have a tendency to talk in my sleep. In my dream I was talking in my sleep and my husband was sleeping next to me telling me in a very mean way to shut up. Then I woke up in the dream, still in a lucid state, thinking, wow I was just dreaming about talking to him. I started muttering "I'm sorry" in the second stage and my husband was very sweet and kind and then told me he wanted to show me something under the bed. We got up and looked and it was the other mean husband on the other side trying to get me to come underneath to this creepy place under the bed. I woke up with a jolt and turned to my husband in the bed and hugged him and realized that this was also another lucid dream. He got up to go to work and I was dreaming as if I couldn't shake off the dream but thought I was half awake.

I couldn't figure out how to wake up or who was the real husband. So I leaned over and kissed my husband pretty passionately waking him up out of a sleep. When he kissed me back he woke me up out of it and it was dark and 4 o'clock in the morning.

It was so so very weird. Dreams can be freaky.

"Freaky" doesn't really encompass that feeling. I frequently need to remind myself, and correct myself, when dreams conflict with reality.

 

[quarky]

Dreams are constructed of our current thoughts and older memories. No surprise that we see departed family members in them.

Sure.
The somewhat surprising aspect, to me, is that they are never corpses in the dreams. I saw them dead. I saw them die. Yet, in the dreams, somehow that's never relevant data. We're usually just doing something ridiculous, but interesting. And then I wake up. I wonder why I never dream of them dead?

I'm also curious if this is common. I've never actually discussed it with anyone.
Its also somewhat 'conspicuous' in my dreams, that there are some people that I was very close to that died, and I never see them in my dreams.

 

[michael44]

K you guys win...I'm outta here. Running, screaming to the land of believers! But it was fun while it lasted! Peace.

What? Your leaving already? Honestly, I happen to also believe in the after life. Fortunately, it has nothing to do with people like John Edwards. Tickets to Valerie Harpers Broadway show, a new fridge, Pearl Harbor, all of which can be easily found in attribution to any information you may have offered up to even the most inexperienced of private investigators. .. All BS aside. My first experience was while comatized by undiagnosed diabetes. At a blood sugar exceding 1000, I briefly died, during which time a group of unknown people appeared. (no light at the end of the tunnel, sorry) At the same time, I felt welcomed and accepted by this group, somehow I managed to slip back into consciousness. That was about it. .. Second time was when my brother in law died of an anuerism. Early in the morning after his funeral, I felt something/someone tug on both my ankles as if to send a message, (or wake my ass up). My first thought was it was my brother in law Tim. .. Well anyways, this was my experience with what may have been the afterlife. Whether its something to believe in, well, even I don't know. One things for certain though, scam artists like John Edwards or Sylvia whats her name, will never have a clue as to a true aberation.

 

[12AX7]

But listen I don't have time to beg anyone to read my link I just mistakenly thought the people on this site were seeking knowledge. Obviously I was wrong.

You made an assertion of proof of life after death. Lay out your case here and be prepared to defend it. Real simple format.

 

[TheGoldcountry]

You made an assertion of proof of life after death. Lay out your case here and be prepared to defend it. Real simple format.

Overused but apropos: QFT

 

[SezMe]

I'm actually completely serious. It's the picture that I got in my mind while reading her blog about Nana and the slippers. It would be interesting if it turned out to be a hit.

Why? What in the world would be interesting about it? You, yourself, would think, "Wow, what a coincidence!". You would not look for deeper meaning. You wouldn't start believing in psychics. You wouldn't think you have any special gift. None of those thoughts would occur to anyone else here either.

The total reaction would be, "Meh". Not interesting at all.

 

[pakeha]

Hi, all.
Late to the party, yet again.
I'm one of those who went around to the blog and read the 300+ comments.

It's been a fascinating thread, full of interesting exchanges and information.

Yes, I always have high hopes, cold reading is so obvious you'd think all one needed was to expose the believer to the technique and they'd see the light. But more often than not that confirmation bias is just too powerful.

It's happened to me.
It wasn't til I fully understood the force of the Forer Effect that I woke up from a dream that cost me money, friends and years of my life.

...I have to say Robin I'm a teeny tiny bit cynical in thinking you are being paid to promote John Edward on blogs and forums. If you google your name you've got the same thing over and over again, on your blog, on the Anderson Cooper blog you have a post in a contest to win free tickets to see John Edward.

Just curious why you are promoting him so much? Generally this would be something you would share with your friends and family not tons of people online. I don't get it.

Nice catch. I'd like an answer to that too.

+2.

 

[Pixel42]

Ok, Ok...I do know that there is NO way to convince a true non-believer

Yes there is. I told you what it was back on page 3:

what we need is for Edward to do a series of of say 10 readings under controlled conditions where mundane sources of information like cold and hot reading are carefully eliminated, and for each subject to be given all 10 readings and asked to pick out the one they think is theirs.

No amount of anecdotes should convince any reasonable person, including you, because there is always a more plausible mundane explanation of the hits even if it's just lucky guesses (which are bound to happen occasionally). But a simple test like the one described which resulted in a success rate significantly better than chance would be real evidence, so why doesn't Edward take one? There are many prizes he could win by doing so, not just JREF's million dollars, plus of course the publicity (not to mention the satisfaction of proving such an important fact about the nature of reality) would be immense.

 

[Jomante]

When a cold reading starts and the person tosses out something like "I'm getting a name with ST sound in it" and somebody speaks up and associates a name that doesn't have an ST sound in it, that seems like a dead giveaway to the reader that he has found someone that will take the information and work with it to make it fit.

My question to the OP would be "How much money did you spend on these 'fakes' until you found one good enough to fool you?" although that is quite cynical sounding. What I'm thinking is that the more time and money you invest trying to find the person who can give you the 'comfort' you were looking for, the more desperate you may become to find one. Desperation can make people believe or do things that they might not otherwise.

By the way, I have a refrigerator answer as well (I'm looking to get a new one), I used to watch Mary Tyler Moore, and my daughter was born on December 7th as well. So obviously John was speaking to me. What are the odds?!?! I jest.

If you gain some comfort in believing that your dad's existence continues on with you this day and that helps you cope, then I think that's ok. I think sharing your experience with others to help them cope if they've also had a loss is ok as well. But saying it proves life after death is a bit of a stretch.

 

[quarky]

When a cold reading starts and the person tosses out something like "I'm getting a name with ST sound in it" and somebody speaks up and associates a name that doesn't have an ST sound in it, that seems like a dead giveaway to the reader that he has found someone that will take the information and work with it to make it fit.

My question to the OP would be "How much money did you spend on these 'fakes' until you found one good enough to fool you?" although that is quite cynical sounding. What I'm thinking is that the more time and money you invest trying to find the person who can give you the 'comfort' you were looking for, the more desperate you may become to find one. Desperation can make people believe or do things that they might not otherwise.

By the way, I have a refrigerator answer as well (I'm looking to get a new one), I used to watch Mary Tyler Moore, and my daughter was born on December 7th as well. So obviously John was speaking to me. What are the odds?!?! I jest.

If you gain some comfort in believing that your dad's existence continues on with you this day and that helps you cope, then I think that's ok. I think sharing your experience with others to help them cope if they've also had a loss is ok as well. But saying it proves life after death is a bit of a stretch.

Life after death isn't the stretch in this. John Edward is.

 

[Garrette]

You wanna read something really bizarre. A few nights ago I had a lucid dream. I have a tendency to talk in my sleep. In my dream I was talking in my sleep and my husband was sleeping next to me telling me in a very mean way to shut up. Then I woke up in the dream, still in a lucid state, thinking, wow I was just dreaming about talking to him. I started muttering "I'm sorry" in the second stage and my husband was very sweet and kind and then told me he wanted to show me something under the bed. We got up and looked and it was the other mean husband on the other side trying to get me to come underneath to this creepy place under the bed. I woke up with a jolt and turned to my husband in the bed and hugged him and realized that this was also another lucid dream. He got up to go to work and I was dreaming as if I couldn't shake off the dream but thought I was half awake.

I couldn't figure out how to wake up or who was the real husband. So I leaned over and kissed my husband pretty passionately waking him up out of a sleep. When he kissed me back he woke me up out of it and it was dark and 4 o'clock in the morning.

It was so so very weird. Dreams can be freaky.

And that's where you drop the story?! Oh, come on!!!

 

[Garrette]

Yes, I always have high hopes, cold reading is so obvious you'd think all one needed was to expose the believer to the technique and they'd see the light. But more often than not that confirmation bias is just too powerful.

None of my kids shares my passion for magic or mentalism, but they are interested enough and I am pushy enough that they know the basics, including cold reading and the Forer Effect and confirmation bias. To them, it is so completely obvious that it is virtually impossible for me to perform some types of effects for them, and they cannot understand why it works on others. They know it does; they just can't understand why. One son visited from university last year to talk about a mentalist's show the he really enjoyed but which left him flabbergasted. The performer didn't sell himself as anything but an entertainer, yet when he finished with a mentalism routine nearly every student in the crowd fell for what my son described as the most incredibly obvious cold reading schtick he could imagine, and some of my son's friends talked about the performer's obvious psychic abilities.

It was an eye-opener for my son as he had always doubted that what I had shown him could actually work to any degree in the real world.

K you guys win...I'm outta here. Running, screaming to the land of believers! But it was fun while it lasted! Peace.

Why? Seriously, why? We discussed. We did what you asked. We went to your site and read the blog and comments. You said to ask about what we had questions on, and we did that.

I sincerely hope you chooose to come back. If you do, I will seriously engage in discussion with you and remain open minded about the possibility that you are right, and I am wrong. Of course, I expect the same courtesy from you along with the courtesy of actually responding to the informed comments here and of answering the relevant questions.

I would expect that when inconsistencies are pointed out in your story that you address them. I would expect that when you bring up what you think is a supporting document (The Afterlife Experiments) that you actually discuss it instead of running from it when you find out we are knowledgeable on it. I would expect that follow the rational course of the analysis instead of cherry-picking elements and straw-manning the rest.

You came here with a claim. You did exactly nothing here to support it, yet we engaged with you anyway. We did research. We did analysis. We discussed alternate explanations. We asked questions. We demonstrated that we are willing to be convinced. We refrained from accusing you of closed-mindedness. We refrained from implying that you are a humorless purveyor of your beliefs.

You did none of that. You avoided questions. You avoided discussion. You implied we are without humor. You insisted that you cannot be wrong. You ignored pertinent analysis. You avoided topics that you brought up when you discovered we know about them.

And still, I hope you come back. Regardless, all the best. Merry Christmas. All that jazz.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Going by the further information about the fridge "statement" (actually a question), I think it's very obviously a lucky guess while cold reading. While it is, of course, possible to do hot reading using various methods, including getting the sitter's name from a credit card purchase, I see nothing in the account which needs to be explained that way. Some very vague statements, a lucky guess, and something left for the sitters to attach significance to later.

 

[aggle-rithm]

Why doesn't your deceased dad just talk to you if he has something he wants you to know? Is he just waiting around for an opportunity to communicate? Seems like a shabby afterlife.

I picture a bunch of departed souls standing in line waiting for a chance to speak. "I don't believe I have to go through this douchebag to talk to my family," one of them says. "He can't even understand what I'm saying!"

 

[aggle-rithm]

While it is, of course, possible to do hot reading using various methods, including getting the sitter's name from a credit card purchase, I see nothing in the account which needs to be explained that way.

Hacking credit card records may seem unlikely, but here's the way I look at it:

The probability that he got the information hacking into credit card records: .001.

The chance that he got it by supernatural means: .00000000000000000000001 (if that high.)

I think by far the most likely explanation is: He didn't actually "get" any information at all; the victim merely thinks he did.

 

[Resume]

I picture a bunch of departed souls standing in line waiting for a chance to speak. "I don't believe I have to go through this douchebag to talk to my family," one of them says. "He can't even understand what I'm saying!"

It seems like an important subject, life after death . . . One would imagine those on the other side would be all chatty Kathy and **** about how amazing it is. But no, just vagaries and soundbites about pedestrian events.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I picture a bunch of departed souls standing in line waiting for a chance to speak. "I don't believe I have to go through this douchebag to talk to my family," one of them says. "He can't even understand what I'm saying!"

And another says "Yeah, I'm not going to waste any time on chitchat. I'm going to dive straight in with my message: I taped the bank safety deposit box key to the back of the old refrigerator."