An Afterlife Adventure
A few years ago I had a very unusual experience, which my readers may find hard to believe. I was sick with a cold. A very bad cold. Probably the worst I’ve ever had. Yes, this was a real William Henry Harrison magnitude rhinovirus, and I felt like I was going to die.
I got out of bed to do something, and the last thing I remember was shuffling down the hallway, stifling a sneeze, while chasing a Kleenex. Suddenly I was hovering above my body, which I could see lying on the hallway floor.
Apparently I had passed out . . . or worse. I could see everything going on. For instance, I saw my wife step over my body several times, on her way in and out of the bathroom. And I saw my dogs licking my fingers and nibbling on my ears.
Then a bright white light approached me. Brighter and whiter than anything I’d seen since that time I bleached my briefs. “Are you God?” I asked the bright light.
It spoke to me in a kind of telepathic way. “Yeah, yeah, if that’s what you want.”
“Am, am I dead?”
“No, you’re playing blackjack in Vegas. What the fuck?! What do you think it looks like?”
You can’t live in denial in the afterlife. You have to face facts.
Next thing you know, this bright light is playing a movie for me. It’s a movie of the history of my life. Hey, if I had known some being was lurking around me with a camera, I would have lived differently. But it was too late. Now my life was flashing before my eyes.
I saw all the times I had been good and nice and kind to people. But I also saw all the times I’d been a self-centered royal asshole. There was the time I kicked the dog. There were restaurant scenes where I failed to leave a tip. And there was that string of bank robberies.
But the being of light was non-judgmental. He said that the purpose of life was to learn lessons. That was a new one on me. I’d always thought that the purpose of life was to endure the torture of hard labor for several decades, then retire and leach off of society for as long as my fragile heart could hold out.
God showed me heaven next. And it was beautiful. The streets were paved with tacos. There were shredded beef burritos hanging from trees, everywhere. Football season lasted all year. And some of my relatives were there. Not the perverts, thank goodness.
I saw a heartwarming sight. There was my Dad and Grandpa sitting on the softest couch you can imagine, with their feet propped up, drinking beers, passing gas, and watching football on TV. My Dad looked over at me and said, “You made it, son. Grab a beer and sit down with us.”
“You know I don’t drink,” I told my Dad. “Alcohol is poison.” He furrowed his brow like he always did when I told him that. Then I took a step forward.
Suddenly I heard a loud, booming voice thunder, “Ha ha! You have to go back!” Next thing you know I was sucked back into my body like a bug through a vacuum cleaner.
My wife walked over and kicked me a few times. “Would you get up and stop playing around,” she said. “I need you to empty the trash. It’s overflowing. You haven’t emptied it once since you got sick.”
I nearly gave her a piece of my mind. But then I remembered that celestial camera, heaven, and year-long football. It was time for me to turn over a new leaf.
So I quietly emptied the trash.
it sounds like your wife is not going to allow you to go gently into the night…
and is this when you became an atheist?
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No, there’s too much trash to empty, apparently.
I became an atheist many years before this event. The Being didn’t positively commit to identifying itself as God, so I still have my doubts. But I do believe there is an afterlife with streets lined with tacos, and year-long football. And I wonder why none of this is mentioned in the Bible.
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I believe there are tacos in Heaven and cake too. 🙂
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There better be. Then again, I’ll bet there are barbecued ribs in Hell. Hmm. Decisions, decisions.
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😶🤚!
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maybe the Bible should be updated to include such rewards…
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I think so.
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👍
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Oh gosh! What am I supposed to say to a vision like that? 🙂 Glad it was just a vision and that you didn’t die or I wouldn’t have known you!
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Thanks. These days when I get a cold, for some reason I also get a hankering for Mexican food. I wonder if heaven might be located somewhere in Mexico.
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LOL! I don’t think so … but …!
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I don’t think death was involved in any of my out-of-body experiences. And anyone watching my life probably tuned-out during the commercials. The tacos sure sound good though… hopefully not just a recruiting thing?
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So you’ve had out-of-body experiences, eh? That would make for an interesting post, if you only hadn’t quit posting. I’m always fascinated with this phenomenon. I suspect it’s the best evidence we’ll ever get of an afterlife, even though it’s purely anecdotal.
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Resisting a reply… So I’ll engage in a little Aristotelian questioning instead.
You ever read any fiction where you really, empathetically get into the head of the character or characters?
Are the characters “alive”?
If so, where?
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Well, since I believe life is change, I think everything is alive. They are alive wherever they are changing, even if just in your own imagination.
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My questions stand. You read a book. Nothing in the book changes. The print is fixed. There’s something more fundamental going on, something that is revealed as you experience the words. I don’t want to jump too far here, because I don’t want you to have to take my word for something that’s not intuitive about the universe and how it actually works. Even “imagination” is merely patterns in the brain.
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I don’t know. This is all getting very deep. I’m sticking with my answer, and trying to avoid the murky depths where philosophy can drown the mind.
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I’m trying to avoid any philosophy. I don’t find it helpful, except as a shorthand for ideas. My background is also in a hard science, so my thinking is limited by an acceptance of what I can directly measure… or experience.
You’ve done some serious meditation. Have you ever been able to completely clear your mind?
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Yes I have been able to completely clear my mind. I know this because as soon as my mind was completely cleared, I realized it, and the thought occurred to me that my mind was completely cleared. Ironic, eh?
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Yes… I understand. I’m the same way. I’ve only managed it for brief moments, and then an awareness of the peculiarity of the pure and undefined sensation causes me to consciously notice it. Brief… nevertheless, profound.
So… what is that direct experience? It’s not say… “the color red”. Rather, it’s the experience of redness. It’s not a measurable or material thing, like a brain or neurons firing. (Philosophers call it “quale”.) So where does it exist?
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It is profound, I’ll agree. As well as ineffable.
As for that direct experience, I’d say it exists in the luminous aether that lightness travels through. 😉
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Ha! 🤭
You were asking about “out-of-body” experiences. I had one in college that was intentionally caused by my participation in a vision experiment. Left me feeling loosely attached to my body for several days after, which made me realize how much our sense of physical location is generated by the brain. Aside from that, I don’t have any article categories for “Sex”, “Drugs”, or “Rock ‘n Roll”, although I have written a little about a Chinese fertility goddess who winked at me, and once chatting with a gnome.
That said, I sometimes think we search too hard for explanations while ignoring the obvious. Want to have a religious experience… feel the sun, see the desert, taste the ice cream…
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Sounds like a fun experiment. I’ve always wanted to try out a sensory deprivation chamber, just for kicks and grins.
I’d think if a Chinese fertility goddess winks at you, you’d better double up on your BC pills.
And I agree. The everyday experiences of life are miracle enough.
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I don’t think the college vision experiment would be allowed anymore. I only did it for a day; there others who did it for a week. Skipping the week off on the BC pills during college with extras picked up during trips to Mexico left me as a participant in a long-term study on the aftereffects. The fertility goddess seemed to be sending the message that despite reaching the point where it was becoming a mere academic concern, it was “all good”. No comment on the gnome.
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Hey, if you’ve spoken to gnomes, who am I to doubt you? I chase unicorns.
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So glad to read you survived your bout of man flu, and came back to us, TG! 😁 Your vision of heaven sounds pretty good, except for all the football. 😉 Streets paved with tacos? I’m in!
Deb
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Heaven comes equipped with special noise-canceling headphones, so you don’t have to hear the game. And the tacos are always delicious.
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I have to email you the meme I had on FB yesterday…lol
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Oh gosh! I am trying to remember which one that was. 😄
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It had trash stacked skillfully on top of full wastebaskets, by passive-aggressive housewives whose husbands had been neglecting their chores.
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Oh yes! I didn’t identify since I am sooo not passive-aggressive. LOL!
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Right. Poor Brad.
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😛
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Haha, the garbage can one.
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That was a good one!
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Hehehe
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Got it, and replied. And I think I’m going to go empty the trash now.
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Hop to it!
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I will. Just like the Easter bunny.
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Good thinking.
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