Category: Afterlife


Spiritually Speaking, Should I Choose Burial or Cremation?

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Spiritually Speaking, Should I Choose Burial or Cremation?

burial or cremation?
Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I know that I will be long gone when I die, so it won’t really matter what happens to my body. I’m preparing to make a will, however, and I have to decide if I will be buried or cremated. I’m leaning toward cremation, but I have this bizarre fear that I may end up regretting it. I mean, what if I’m stuck in my body or something. Will I feel the process of cremation?
– Robin

Dear Robin:

If you did get “stuck” in your body, would you rather experience being embalmed? (Don’t freak out, I’m just messing with you!) Before we get into this subject in depth, please note that I don’t believe we will really care what happens to our bodies once this life is over, so it’s not something we need to really worry about.

Further, near death experiences reassure us that even if we are still attached to the earth and our bodies, we are not IN our bodies during periods of bodily failure. Our consciousness leaves our bodies, and is usually not too concerned with what happens to them at that point. There is a very detached, dispassionate feeling about the body, as though it is just an object or belongs to someone else. Most people who have an NDE have no desire to return to their bodies.

At the same time, however, many diverse spiritual teachings suggest that the rate at which we fully detach from the physical/etheric bodies varies from person to person. The more materially focused we were while living, the harder it may be to detach from the physical, and the more spiritually conscious and evolved we were when living, the faster and easier we’ll detach and move on to higher realms. It is interesting to note that throughout many different religious traditions, there is a common belief that a body should not be buried or cremated until three days after death, for some spirits may take this long to detach.

This practice may also be based on the concern that one can never truly pinpoint the exact time of death. As hard as this may be to believe, people have been pronounced dead, sent on to a funeral home, and then woken up there. Also, people with Alzheimer’s who have been catatonic for years may “die” and then come back and be mentally “all there” again. They may not have spoken a word that made sense for years, and then revive not only fully “with it” mentally, but with all the spiritual insights that typically follow an NDE.

Past life regressions suggest that at the moment of death, most people find themselves out of their bodies and floating upwards toward a light. Sometimes, however, spirits will linger near their bodies and try to communicate with loved ones, and may even attend their own funerals. Please note that they are not IN the body, but looking on from the outside. It is only when the body is laid to rest by burial or cremation that they let go and move on.

This burial/cremation question is a matter of great controversy between various religious paths. Christians and Jews tend to favor burial, but the reasons Christians feel this way are pretty crazy if you ask me. The Church has changed its position on cremation as Popes have changed office, but traditionally, Christians were taught that any “harm” to a dead body may hinder spiritual rebirth. I think this stems from too literal an interpretation of resurrection. Our next life will be a spiritual life – it is not our physical body we’ve left behind that will be reborn.

So many Christians opt to be buried – AFTER they’ve been embalmed. If they really believe that the body is important to the spirit after death, why would they want to disembowel it and pump it full of chemicals? Further, what in the world are they trying to preserve it for? I think Orthodox Jews are on target with their approach to burial. There is no embalming, and the casket must be simple and made only of wood. This is very natural and designed to speed the return to the earth of the physical body through decomposition.

On the side of cremation, we have most Hindus, pagans, and many Buddhists. Here it is generally agreed that cremation facilitates a break between the soul and the physical and etheric bodies, and helps the soul to move on to the next world. The soul is said to rise heavenward with the smoke of the fire. It is believed that cremation thus prevents spirits from becoming earthbound.

While it may seem gruesome to ponder what we want done with our bodies after we die, I think there are a couple more issues we might want to ponder in making this decision:

First, though many of us seem to have forgotten this, human beings are OF nature. We are part of the natural world. We have effectively removed ourselves from the food chain, but our bodies are of the earth. Once our spirits have left, our bodies are no more important than the bodies of dead plants and animals. If we were to die by ourselves in nature, we would no doubt be eaten by wild animals. That seems to me to be a very normal, natural way to return the body to the earth. If we had died a couple of hundred years ago, we would have simply been buried in the earth or cremated according to the customs of the time and place.

Modern elaborate coffins, embalming rituals and headstones are big business. The funeral industry is profiting from our fears about death and our lack of spiritual understanding about the afterlife. Many people even believe that embalming is required by law, when that is basically not true.

In England, a “green burial” movement is well underway. Here, people are buried in some very simple biodegradable material like a shroud or cardboard coffin, and instead of a headstone, a tree is planted over the grave. In this way, as their bodies decompose, they remain part of the natural cycle of life and death.

I see two ideal options myself: one is to be cremated and have my ashes returned to the earth somehow. I like the idea of being scattered in nature, though there are lots of creative options these days. You can have your ashes rocketed into outer space, for example, and there is even a company that will pack your loved one’s ashes in fireworks so you can go out with a bang.

The other good option is a “green” burial in a cardboard box on the third day after death. This means only refrigeration until burial – no embalming. When in doubt, I say keep things natural – what’s good for the earth must be good for all its creatures too.

If you care about how your body is handled after death, you are indeed wise to specify that legally now – otherwise your grieving family members may defer such choices to a funeral director, and pay a lot of money for something you’d never want anyway.

Further, if we are truly concerned about what will happen to us after we die, the most powerful thing we can do is focus on our spiritual development right now. The more spiritually evolved we are, the faster and easier we will ascend to “the heavens.”

We must remember that when we move from earthly life, any business we’ve left unfinished will stick with us until we consciously address and change it. Our emotional issues follow us into the afterlife; our habits of thought continue. So if we are rooted in fear, anger, jealousy, revenge, gluttony, addiction – any of the habits we consider “sinful” – we’ll have to work through some dark shadows in the astral before we can move on. This is not punishment, but rather the natural out-picturing of our inner world.

As we never know when our “time to go” may come, it’s never too soon to begin to purify our hearts and minds so that when we do leave this life, we will soar to higher spiritual realms.

– Soul Arcanum

 

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Do Spirits Move Out of Range at Some Point?

Filed Under: Afterlife, Spirit Communication, Spirits by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Do Spirits Move Out of Range at Some Point?


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I lost someone dear to me some time ago, and he has sent me some wonderful after death communications since he passed. Lately I’ve been hearing a song by Kelly Clarkson a lot. It talks about being “already gone” and “moving on.” I am wondering if this is a sign from Scott telling me that he has already gone on to higher realms and won’t be with me as much or send me as many signs and messages as he used to. I would love to get your perspective on this.

H.

Dear H.

I’ve looked up the lyrics to this song, and I think it’s a lovely one for a spirit use as a sign. I do think we should step back from your assumptions about what it may mean, however, especially since you don’t report any decrease in contact from him.

To me, this song suggests that what happened was destined to happen; Scott is telling you that it would never have worked out because he was destined to leave this world when he did. He knows how much you loved him but he wants you to move on with your life because he’s no longer here; he wants you to be happy and find new love. I lost my first love at a very tender age, so I know it can be very hard to even imagine falling in love with someone else, but you might look at it like this: What if you had lost someone else years ago, and as a result of that loss, you closed yourself off to new love and therefore never got to meet and fall in love with Scott? If there is someone out there you’re destined to love just as much, you don’t want to close your heart to him. While there is nothing wrong with wanting to connect with the departed, it does seem that the main reason spirits reach out to us is to make sure we are okay and encourage us to let go and move on with our lives.

No one truly knows whether spirits move beyond the range of communicating with the living at some point, but I can offer you what I’ve come to believe based on my own history with spirit communication and what I’ve read from researchers and other experiencers.

First, it does seem that there are some spirits long dead who communicate with humankind. (Whether these spirits are really who they say they are, no one can say for sure.) The more interested in spirit communication a person was before they died, the more likely they are to continue to attempt interdimensional communication after they leave this world. Some examples that come to mind include the EVPs of Konstantin Raudive and Thomas Edison. This evidence suggests that at least some spirits can communicate indefinitely.

In my experience, there are perhaps two main factors that affect the power and frequency of spirit contact: skill and need. When someone first dies, there is a tremendous need for us to hear from them. Despite this, spirit communication can be very difficult to affect at first for a number of reasons. For one thing, when we’re grieving, our vibration is too low to perceive higher frequencies of energy, so even though a spirit may be trying hard to reach us, we may be unreachable. Further, at first, most spirits don’t know how to achieve a conscious connection with us.

When dramatic phenomena does take place, it’s usually in the initial weeks following death. This is because the spirit still has more of a foothold in this dimension and is better able to affect physical reality. Recently departed spirits are also highly motivated because they want to comfort their grieving loved ones. Since it can be very hard for spirits to get the attention of the grieving, many go to great lengths to send unmistakable signs like lights flickering, phone calls from the other side and other semi-physical phenomena. As they move up into the afterlife, this ability fades. This is why we tend to see striking signs in the first weeks after someone has passed, after which signs and visits become more subtle.

Perhaps the main factor affecting how long a spirit puts a great deal of effort into contact is how his or her loved ones here are doing. This is another reason why most contact happens close to the time of death, for this is when people are most in need of comfort. However, I have heard many stories from people who had contact with a departed relative at a time of great need that occurred decades after the spirit’s passing. For example, one man’s mother had been gone for more than 25 years when she visited him the night before he was planning to kill someone and then take his own life. He awoke in the middle of the night to find her standing near his bed, telepathically comforting him and urging him to reach for forgiveness and choose a higher path.

In many cases, spirit communication actually picks up after a period of time. This is because many spirits need time to figure out how to bridge the dimensions. They also study their own efforts and from this determine who is most receptive to them and what tends to work best in terms of getting that person’s attention.

My best friend from high school died last spring. Despite many years of successful spirit communication experience, I found it impossible to contact her at first. I would reach out to connect with her energy and get nothing but a void. When I asked Spirit about this, I was reminded that my friend didn’t believe in an afterlife. I was made to understand that she was experiencing what she expected to experience when she died: a state of nothingness. In time, she would begin to wonder “who” was experiencing that nothingness and open up to new awareness. Interestingly, some months after she died, I began to get dream visits from her; recently, I got my first official message from her.

Similarly, I now interact with my father in Spirit far more than I could when he died five years ago. At first communication with him was difficult because he seemed so out of it. After a few months, I began to be visited by him in the night. I would wake to the sound of a “phantom doorbell” and sense his presence. Soon I began to experience dream visits from him. Though he died years ago, he seems to be getting better at visiting in this way, for it’s happening more and more.

While there are exceptions to these rules, most of the time overt signs such as visually appearing, calling on the phone and making lights flicker fade pretty quickly. After that, interactions can get more involved and complex via altered states of consciousness. So if you notice that you’re not getting as many outer signs, you might shift your efforts within by either trying to connect with your loved one via meditation or working with your dreams.

If you want to get more information about what your loved one in spirit is trying to tell you, you might try something called induced spirit communication in which a hypnotherapist guides you into a deep trance and facilitates a connection with the loved one in question. In this state, you can dialogue with your loved one and ask him what he’s trying to tell you and also if you can expect to keep receiving signs and messages from him.

Soul Arcanum

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Exploring New Psychic Territory

Filed Under: Afterlife, Psychic Ability, Spirit Communication, Spirits, Spiritual Growth, Strange Phenomena by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Exploring New Psychic Territory

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I’ve read many of your articles, and you seem to have seen and done it all when it comes to psychic matters. Do you think that’s true? Are you ever surprised by your experiences?
– Ron

Dear Ron:

Like everyone else on a conscious spiritual path, I go through periods when nothing really new is happening, and periods when all sorts of crazy stuff is going on. Recently I’ve had a number of experiences that rocked my spiritual belief system.

It seems this new phase began when my father passed away about nine months ago. I had some profound spiritual experiences at that time, but they were nothing all that unusual for me, given my work as a medium. Following his death, however, things got more interesting.

I should first explain that I expected far more from his spirit than I got. My father and I were close, and he loved his family with gusto. Though we didn’t share the same spiritual beliefs, I still expected that if anyone would make a grand effort to reach out to me from Spirit, it would be him.

I was therefore surprised and disappointed when he didn’t appear to me in a blaze of divine glory with elaborate tales of the afterlife. While I did receive some subtle impressions from him, I was afraid this was wishful thinking on my part, and when I did go looking for him in Spirit, I couldn’t find him! It may be important to note that while my dad was a very intelligent, kind, successful man, he also had some serious food addiction issues. Since I know that addictions tend to cause spirits to become earthbound, I began to worry.

About three weeks after he died, I finally had a dream encounter with him that seemed to confirm my concerns. (Please note that a dream encounter is not a typical dream; it’s clearly an actual interaction with a spirit in the astral.)

In the dream encounter, my dad was glued to my brother’s side like a Siamese twin. (My brother also has serious food addiction issues, and this made me worry that Dad was trying to feed his addictions through my brother.) In this encounter my dad was barely conscious, but he was trying to tell me something. I had to lean very close to hear him, for his voice was just a raspy whisper. I had the impression that he didn’t know how to communicate telepathically – like this was the first time he had ever attempted this from Spirit.

I could only hear one sentence, but what he said was definitely something my dad would say. He said, “Thank you so much for trying so hard to reach out to me from the other side.” His main concern was to make me feel appreciated!

Following this experience, I began to be awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of the doorbell. This is a classic way spirits get our attention: we’re awakened by the phone or doorbell, but there is no one there. Sometimes we believe the phone or doorbell truly rang, and other times (as in my case), as soon as we awaken, we realize that we only “thought” we heard the doorbell ring. (At the same time, however, it is more “real” than imagining it.)

While I had heard about such phenomena, I never expected this to happen to me. I assumed I would be far beyond such crude attempts to get my attention – after all, I’m a professional medium – I should be able to just dial Dad up any time I want!

Each time I heard this doorbell sound in the middle of the night, I would half wake up and then become aware of my father’s presence. When I roused myself completely and opened my eyes to physically look for him, however, I saw nothing. I learned that if I stayed in that half asleep mode, I would be able to feel him there. Again, this was really surprising, since I’ve had much clearer connections with other loved ones in Spirit in the past, not to mention hundreds of communications from virtual strangers in Spirit. I figured that my dad didn’t really know how to reach through from the other side, but he was trying hard.

I had several dream encounters with him over the following months. Recently, I’ve begun to meet with him nearly every night, and we have had some surprising exchanges. For example, a few weeks ago I dreamed that I was walking in a crowded hallway when I noticed him. This place felt like a nursing home or a hospital, and there were lots of “patients” milling around. When I noticed my dad, I turned to whoever was with me and said, “Oh my gosh! That’s my dad! I have to go talk to him!”

I went to him and hugged him, and I noticed that he didn’t look well. This really surprised me, and I realized that I had assumed that when we depart this world, we leave behind all illness and become radiantly healthy. I began to cry and express how much I miss him, when he quieted me and said, “Oh now, you know that this is not how to do it!” I knew that he meant that grief and sorrow are not appropriate for prolonged periods after a loved one dies, for they continue on, and we will see them again.

Some may argue that these are anxiety dreams I’m having, but I know they are not. I know the difference between a typical dream and an astral encounter, and these are definitely astral encounters. They have a different visual quality, they feel real, and we have literal, meaningful conversations. They also pack a lot of punch: I wake up moved by these dreams. I know I have been with my father, and we have truly communicated.

When I ask Spirit why my dad doesn’t seem healthy again, I hear that life (including the afterlife) is a journey of learning, growing, healing and evolving. If our illnesses and disabilities are limited to the physical, we shed them when we move on, but if they exist on a metaphysical level – if they’re part of our hearts, minds, and/or spirits – then they come with us, and we must heal them eventually.

As for other recent phenomena, I sometimes have striking spontaneous out of body experiences, which are always fascinating. I also frequently experience incredible “coincidences.” Many of these arise through my internet-based work. A number of times I’ve experienced something really strange and then read a story contest submission for Soul Arcanum that matched my experience, or which referred to specific names or other details in my experience. These “coincidences” are not born of looking for angels in the architecture: they’re of a striking and sometimes even a mind blowing nature.

For example, a couple of days ago I read an article that had been submitted as a possible future feature. In it, author Janis Amatuzio, MD, describes the events surrounding her father’s passing, and how a few days after he died, he sent her a sign through a song on the radio. The song arrived at just the right time, and it really moved her. The song was “In My Daughter’s Eyes” by Martina McBride.

I was bawling as I finished reading this article, because I had the EXACT same experience with my own father. Though I never listen to country music, when my father died, I was driving and crying and I asked him to send me a sign through the radio. I pushed the radio on, and that is the song that had just begun to play. The last lines are: “When I’m gone I hope you see how happy she made me, for I’ll be there in my daughter’s eyes.”

How did that particular article find its way to me? Did my father orchestrate all of this? Is it possible that somehow, the song I was sent was chosen because I would later receive this article, which would further validate this sign? Though my life is full of mind blowing serendipitous events, they never cease to amaze me.

Thanks for your great question, Ron. I certainly hope I will continue to explore new psychic territory for the rest of my life, and pray that your own world is rich with fascinating spiritual discoveries.

– Soul Arcanum

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Healing Guilt After Friend’s Suicide

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying, Energy/Vibration, Healing, Relationships, Spirit Communication, Spirits by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Healing Guilt After Friend’s Suicide

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

A very dear friend just killed himself on 3/11/11. He had come to see me a week before and we talked about how he was feeling. I tried to help by giving him ideas on how to handle his problem, and at the end of our conversation, I thought all was well with him as we were laughing at the situation he had been so concerned about. I was devastated when I heard what he had done. I can see that when he left his body, he was in a dark, cloudy, dense fog with no light. I am feeling so sad for the waste, and keep wondering if there was something more I could have done to stop him. Perhaps instead of joking about the problem, I should have been more serious. He has always said that 10 years ago, I was responsible for saving his life when he was in another very dark place – that I had pulled him back from the brink. If that’s true, why couldn’t I save him this time? What is happening to him on the other side? Will I ever hear from him again? He was not spiritual; he believed that when we die, that’s it. Anything you can say to help me deal with all of this would be so appreciated.

Marla
Dear Marla:

Though it’s normal for you to be feeling as you are feeling, I can assure you that your guilt is wholly unfounded. Your friend didn’t kill himself because of you: He killed himself because he was in more pain than he could bear. You are no more responsible for his death than if he had died of cancer or been hit by a bus.

Your question reminded me of a startling exchange I had with one of the wisest men I have ever known – my father. I was 12 years old at the time, and was mired in adolescenet angst and depressed about all I deemed to be wrong with the world. As I tried to communicate how horrible I was feeling to my father, I confessed that I had thought about killing myself. To my great surprise, he didn’t try to change my mind or save me from myself. He simply said, “It would break my heart if you ended your life, but if you are determined to do it, there is nothing I or anyone else can do to stop you.” Since my father loved me wholeheartedly, this response totally shocked me. However, it also instantly struck me as wise and true. Over the years, I have many times fallen back on this lesson when dealing with loved ones who were depressed: though we can love and support people, it is impossible to save them from themselves, for what they choose to do with their lives is ultimately up to them.

There is a wonderful book that powerfully illustrates our ultimate freedom to succumb to despair or rise above it. I’m referring to Man’s Search for Meaning in which Viktor Frankl describes his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp and how he refused to allow his persecutors to break his spirit. He wrote, Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. Your friend exercised this ultimate freedom when he chose to end his life. If someone is in despair, we can love them with all our hearts, but can’t give them the will to live.

As for what your friend is now experiencing, it’s important to keep in mind that death is a personal experience, so not all suicides are equal. What we experience when we leave this world is entirely a matter of who and how we are on the inside, for when we die, we shed our physical bodies and begin to inhabit our astral bodies. If our astral bodies are light, peaceful and happy, we end up in a happy, peaceful place. If they are heavy and dark with despair, we end up in a dark, heavy feeling place. This is why suicide is associated with negative afterlife consequences: since our astral bodies are our emotional bodies, if we are in tremendous emotional pain when we die, we end up in an emotionally dark and painful place.

That being said, I don’t believe it is any worse to be in a state of despair in the astral than it is to be in the same state here in the physical. People tend to freak out when they think about someone who has committed suicide ending up in a hellish realm, but in truth, they were already in hell when they were living. Their mistake was in thinking that by killing themselves, they could put an end to their emotional pain.

Killing oneself is an effective way to end physical pain. If a person commits suicide in order to spare himself and his family more suffering because he is terminally ill, and he does so from a feeling of love, then he may end up in a fine place in the astral; it is all dependent on his inner energy. Since the astral body lives on, suicide does not end emotional suffering. There is no quick escape from emotional despair; instead, we must grow through it and find a way to transform and heal it. This can and will eventually happen whether we are here in the physical or in the astral.

Since your friend was in emotional despair when he took his life, your perception that he is in a dark place is probably accurate. This does not mean he will remain there for all eternity any more than he would remain in emotional torment forever were he still alive here on Earth. Eventually, he will realize that running away is not the answer, which will lead him to seek a new and more effective way to feel better.

You can help him by praying for him and visualizing him in a state of well-being. You could also learn to astral travel and try to find him so you can help him directly. For more information on this, research soul rescue as practiced by shamans. I also recommend you explore the work of  Bruce Moen; he’s an expert using astral travel to find and help lost souls.

Sinking into grief and sorrow yourself won’t help your friend; it will just make him feel worse about himself for bringing you down. Blaming yourself serves no one; instead, I urge you to try to transform this experience into something positive. When you start to feel bad for any reason, remember to celebrate your blessings and live each day fully. Cultivate love in your life and strive to spread joy wherever you go. Know that your new strength, wisdom and happiness are blessings that came from your friend’s decision.

I lost my first love when he was just 18 years old. While this was certainly tragic, there are many good things that came of his death. For one thing, it launched me on a conscious spiritual journey; I would not be who I am or doing the work I am doing had this not happened. If you work with it, this can be a profound spiritual growth experience for you. You are now exploring the nature of life and death and suffering; you are searching your soul and opening up to new spiritual experiences. If you honor your desire to find a way to help your friend, you may develop all sorts of new skills and knowledge that you can use to do a lot of good in the future. By creating something positive from his tragic end, you will truly honor your friend and bless yourself with the healing you need to feel at peace again.

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Fear of Death Due to Hellish NDEs

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Fear of Death Due to Hellish NDEs


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I’ve read about some hellish near-death experiences and now I’m terrified of dying. Can you help me work through this fear?

Donny

Dear Donny:

It’s interesting to note what different individuals choose to focus upon. All of life is composed of both darkness and light, yet some people cling to the light they see, while others obsessively worry about the dark. In the case of NDE’s, the tremendous majority of experiences reported are beyond positive. People describe them as blissful, ecstatic, moving, and life-changing in wonderful – even miraculous – ways. Since nearly all of this research is so positive in nature, I often recommend people study near-death experiences to overcome their fear of dying.

Nevertheless, it is true that some people have reported dark or hellish near-death experiences, and to ignore these negative experiences is just as foolish as it would be to fixate on the dark, dangerous and ugly we find in life. The physical universe is full of contrast: good and bad, positive and negative, dark and light. It is this contrast that gives life meaning. Without the contrast, we could not know happiness, beauty, love or even wisdom.

One aspect of spiritual wisdom is to know darkness but no longer fear it. Some people seek peace by ignoring everything that disturbs them and denying their own faults and weaknesses. This does not produce true and lasting peace, of course, for “reality” is constantly rearing its ugly head and marring their idyllic view of themselves and the world. To find lasting peace, we must seek the truth instead of running from it and rise above needing life and people to be anything but what they are. We must acknowledge the darkness as well as the light, and not only accept that this is the nature of reality but embrace and appreciate the perfection of All That Is. It may seem ironic, but it is only by letting go of our resistance to darkness that we begin to shine so brightly that we move beyond being affected by it.

According to ancient teachings such as those found in The Tibetan Book of Death and Dying, death is something of an obstacle course. The more prepared we are for death, the better we will be able to control what happens when we cross over and where we end up. While I’m certainly not a fan of traditional religion, I do believe it’s foolish to throw the baby out with the bath water by actively disbelieving in everything ever taught in a church, temple, or religious text. Every culture around the world and throughout history has shared some key beliefs, including the belief that there are heavenly and hellish realms in the afterlife, and that how we live here on Earth will have a strong influence on where we end up when our time here is over.

I think what scares people the most about death and “hell” is the sense that they have no control over what happens to them. This is where you can begin to work through your fear, for all knowledgeable sources from esoteric teachings to the very near-death experiences you reference suggest that we DO have control over what happens to us and where we end up when we leave this life.

For example, people who have had negative NDE’s tend to have some things in common. Many of them almost died due to suicide attempts or drug overdoses. Others were atheists who had lived according to very superficial values. Basically, their spiritual lives were either non-existent or a mess. It’s my understanding that we are constantly building our home in the afterlife from the inside out, so if our inner worlds are full of darkness, heaviness, sorrow, anger, or other negativity, we will find ourselves in similar realms when we leave our bodies.

People who have had positive NDE’s also tend to have some things in common. Though they may not have been overtly religious or even spiritual, they had cultivated a lot of love in their lives. In fact, the main reason most of them returned was to be here with their children or other people they loved with all their hearts. They had good reasons to live: relationships, goals and dreams they had been cultivating that they wanted to see through to the end. Most of these NDEs involved accidents or illnesses and were not a result of self-destructive choices.

Further, in nearly every account of a positive NDE that I’ve read (and I’ve read many!), the person who almost died lost all fear of death. Interestingly enough, even people who have negative experiences tend to be changed in positive ways and, despite the darkness of their experience, also lose their fear of death. For most people, a negative NDE is a valuable wake-up call that makes them realize that that the direction they are heading in life is not going to lead to where they really want to end up.

The Earth plane has its own hells and paradises, so why wouldn’t other realms? People who make poor choices in the physical can end up in slums or prisons, while people who make wise choices can create their own paradise on Earth. It’s my understanding that the same is true in the afterlife, only what we do physically doesn’t matter so much as what we do metaphysically: what we think about, how we feel, and what we intend. The more we fill our inner worlds with love, faith, peace and gratitude, the more likely we are to end up in a higher realm when we leave this world. Given all of the above, you are wise to be facing your feelings about death and reaching for greater peace and faith.

Fortunately, there are all sorts of things you can do while you’re alive to align with a positive experience when you leave this world. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that most of these things are the same practices that various religions and spiritual teachings have promoted throughout the ages.

First we have the age-old prescription to meditate. Through meditation, you can become conscious of the inner world upon which your afterlife experience will be founded, and gain control over your thoughts and feelings to purposefully cultivate a beautiful inner landscape. Through detachment from the physical, meditation also promotes a deep sense of peace and well-being, a higher vibration, and all sorts of spiritual wisdom, insights and powers.

Though I’m not in harmony with “fire and brimstone” sermons on all the reasons we are surely going to hell, I do think that the idea that to go to heaven, one must be a “good” person is valid. Since our inner landscape becomes the world we inhabit when we leave this life, we are wise to make our thoughts and feelings as beautiful as possible. The more we purify our minds and hearts of negativity, make peace with life and other people, and strive to do good in the world, the more we will be blessed both in this life and in the realms beyond it. We are all wise to cultivate the highest personal vibration possible, and to do this, we must constantly strive to grow into better people. Ignoring our faults, putting off the hard work of facing ourselves and overcoming our weaknesses is foolish, for we take the shadows in our hearts and souls with us when we leave this world.

Finally, I think one of the best things we can do to prepare for the next world is to begin to explore it now by learning how to lucid dream and astral travel. The more adept we are at traveling in metaphysical realms, the more at home we’ll feel when we shed our bodies and move on to new adventures.

Soul Arcanum

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Fear of Death Due to Hellish NDEs

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Fear of Death Due to Hellish NDEs


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I’ve read about some hellish near-death experiences and now I’m terrified of dying. Can you help me work through this fear?

Donny

Dear Donny:

It’s interesting to note what different individuals choose to focus upon. All of life is composed of both darkness and light, yet some people cling to the light they see, while others obsessively worry about the dark. In the case of NDE’s, the tremendous majority of experiences reported are beyond positive. People describe them as blissful, ecstatic, moving, and life-changing in wonderful – even miraculous – ways. Since nearly all of this research is so positive in nature, I often recommend people study near-death experiences to overcome their fear of dying.

Nevertheless, it is true that some people have reported dark or hellish near-death experiences, and to ignore these negative experiences is just as foolish as it would be to fixate on the dark, dangerous and ugly we find in life. The physical universe is full of contrast: good and bad, positive and negative, dark and light. It is this contrast that gives life meaning. Without the contrast, we could not know happiness, beauty, love or even wisdom.

One aspect of spiritual wisdom is to know darkness but no longer fear it. Some people seek peace by ignoring everything that disturbs them and denying their own faults and weaknesses. This does not produce true and lasting peace, of course, for “reality” is constantly rearing its ugly head and marring their idyllic view of themselves and the world. To find lasting peace, we must seek the truth instead of running from it and rise above needing life and people to be anything but what they are. We must acknowledge the darkness as well as the light, and not only accept that this is the nature of reality but embrace and appreciate the perfection of All That Is. It may seem ironic, but it is only by letting go of our resistance to darkness that we begin to shine so brightly that we move beyond being affected by it.

According to ancient teachings such as those found in The Tibetan Book of Death and Dying, death is something of an obstacle course. The more prepared we are for death, the better we will be able to control what happens when we cross over and where we end up. While I’m certainly not a fan of traditional religion, I do believe it’s foolish to throw the baby out with the bath water by actively disbelieving in everything ever taught in a church, temple, or religious text. Every culture around the world and throughout history has shared some key beliefs, including the belief that there are heavenly and hellish realms in the afterlife, and that how we live here on Earth will have a strong influence on where we end up when our time here is over.

I think what scares people the most about death and “hell” is the sense that they have no control over what happens to them. This is where you can begin to work through your fear, for all knowledgeable sources from esoteric teachings to the very near-death experiences you reference suggest that we DO have control over what happens to us and where we end up when we leave this life.

For example, people who have had negative NDE’s tend to have some things in common. Many of them almost died due to suicide attempts or drug overdoses. Others were atheists who had lived according to very superficial values. Basically, their spiritual lives were either non-existent or a mess. It’s my understanding that we are constantly building our home in the afterlife from the inside out, so if our inner worlds are full of darkness, heaviness, sorrow, anger, or other negativity, we will find ourselves in similar realms when we leave our bodies.

People who have had positive NDE’s also tend to have some things in common. Though they may not have been overtly religious or even spiritual, they had cultivated a lot of love in their lives. In fact, the main reason most of them returned was to be here with their children or other people they loved with all their hearts. They had good reasons to live: relationships, goals and dreams they had been cultivating that they wanted to see through to the end. Most of these NDEs involved accidents or illnesses and were not a result of self-destructive choices.

Further, in nearly every account of a positive NDE that I’ve read (and I’ve read many!), the person who almost died lost all fear of death. Interestingly enough, even people who have negative experiences tend to be changed in positive ways and, despite the darkness of their experience, also lose their fear of death. For most people, a negative NDE is a valuable wake-up call that makes them realize that that the direction they are heading in life is not going to lead to where they really want to end up.

The Earth plane has its own hells and paradises, so why wouldn’t other realms? People who make poor choices in the physical can end up in slums or prisons, while people who make wise choices can create their own paradise on Earth. It’s my understanding that the same is true in the afterlife, only what we do physically doesn’t matter so much as what we do metaphysically: what we think about, how we feel, and what we intend. The more we fill our inner worlds with love, faith, peace and gratitude, the more likely we are to end up in a higher realm when we leave this world. Given all of the above, you are wise to be facing your feelings about death and reaching for greater peace and faith.

Fortunately, there are all sorts of things you can do while you’re alive to align with a positive experience when you leave this world. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that most of these things are the same practices that various religions and spiritual teachings have promoted throughout the ages.

First we have the age-old prescription to meditate. Through meditation, you can become conscious of the inner world upon which your afterlife experience will be founded, and gain control over your thoughts and feelings to purposefully cultivate a beautiful inner landscape. Through detachment from the physical, meditation also promotes a deep sense of peace and well-being, a higher vibration, and all sorts of spiritual wisdom, insights and powers.

Though I’m not in harmony with “fire and brimstone” sermons on all the reasons we are surely going to hell, I do think that the idea that to go to heaven, one must be a “good” person is valid. Since our inner landscape becomes the world we inhabit when we leave this life, we are wise to make our thoughts and feelings as beautiful as possible. The more we purify our minds and hearts of negativity, make peace with life and other people, and strive to do good in the world, the more we will be blessed both in this life and in the realms beyond it. We are all wise to cultivate the highest personal vibration possible, and to do this, we must constantly strive to grow into better people. Ignoring our faults, putting off the hard work of facing ourselves and overcoming our weaknesses is foolish, for we take the shadows in our hearts and souls with us when we leave this world.

Finally, I think one of the best things we can do to prepare for the next world is to begin to explore it now by learning how to lucid dream and astral travel. The more adept we are at traveling in metaphysical realms, the more at home we’ll feel when we shed our bodies and move on to new adventures.

Soul Arcanum

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Overcoming Fear of Death

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Overcoming Fear of Death


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I am 18 years old, and I had a dream in which I realized I had died. I didn’t feel any physical pain, but when I got up, I was filled with the horror of death. What do I do to get over this horror? Since having this dream, I can’t concentrate on anything and life itself seems futile. Please help me.

Maggi

Dear Maggi:

Before I begin, I must point out that what you’re requesting is a very tall order. The fear of death is the most deep-seated and universal of all fears. I believe this is because we fear the unknown, and we can’t know what really happens when we die until we have that experience for ourselves. This doesn’t mean that fear of death must ruin your life; it means that to overcome your fear, you must become more familiar with what you’re afraid of.

It’s telling that you’re 18 years old, for it’s common for young people to give little or no thought to death’s inevitability unless or until something happens that forces them to wake up to the truth that none of us will live forever – at least, not in these bodies. When people first confront their mortality, it’s normal to be freaked out. Of course, ignoring or denying the reality of death doesn’t change anything. Further, the sooner we face and deal with death, the sooner we can get down to the business of living full, meaningful lives.

I feel that this dream can become a great gift to you if you work with it in a wise manner. Most of humanity is spiritually sleep-walking through life. They either actively avoid thinking about death or they simply don’t give it much thought until it’s somehow staring them in the face. While I was devastated to lose my first love at the tender age of 18, I now view this experience as having blessed me immeasurably on a spiritual level. It did far more than wake me up so that I now live in gratitude for each day; it also blessed me with some amazing experiences that made me question the nature of so-called reality and everything I’d assumed to be true up until that point.

In my experience, life-changing events like your dream tend to happen for a good reason and according to a divine schedule. When the idea of death rocks someone’s world, it’s usually a sign that it’s time for them to begin a conscious spiritual journey. Of course, some people never do the spiritual work necessary to make peace with death, and thus they live overly cautious lives in an attempt to stay “safe.” This is senseless and futile for a number of reasons. Even when it seems to prolong someone’s years here on Earth, it prevents them from living interesting, fulfilling, exciting lives. Living from fear also tends to lead to difficulty and disease, so the more anxious we are about our safety and well-being, the less likely we are to live a long, healthy life.

It’s also wise to realize that without death, life would hold little meaning. If we all lived forever, we’d have no motivation to hurry up and experience all we desire to experience and get busy growing into better people.

Of course, these truths don’t erase the fact that it’s natural to fear the unknown, so to heal your fear of death, the best thing is to make the unknown KNOWN – or as known as it can be. This may sound impossible in the case of death, but in fact, there are many ways to familiarize yourself with states of being beyond this physical life.

When I look back on my own journey toward peace with death, there are several factors that stand out. The first thing that convinced me that death is not the end was a number of encounters I had with people who had died. While that may sound like the sort of thing you are either lucky enough to have happen or not, in fact, such experiences can be manifested just like anything else.

You can also consciously work on developing your ability to communicate with spirits. It’s true that some people have a natural facility for this sort of thing, but I believe that a strong desire for any sort of experience is usually a sign from one’s own higher self that this is something that should be pursued. You can find resources for such development at a Spiritualist Church; in fact, attending such a church could also prove helpful and comforting for you for a number of reasons.

Another thing that tends to lead toward a dramatic shift in one’s perspective on death is having an out of body experience. When you find yourself disembodied, it’s hard to deny that your “existence” is independent of your physical body. It also gives you a sense of what it may be like to leave this world behind and move on to other realms. As it’s common for people who achieve or spontaneously experience astral projection to lose their fear of death, studying and working to have such an experience yourself may be the answer.

To begin exploring astral projection, you might read a few of the excellent books on the subject and then begin to apply yourself to exercises designed to get you out of your body. Please note that it can take months of daily effort to achieve this goal. It’s definitely worth it, however, since it will prove to you that you are more than your physical body and open up a whole new dimension of experience for you to explore. The astral projection authors I recommend are Robert Bruce, Robert Monroe and Robert Peterson. The website Astral Voyage is also a great resource.

The most powerful eraser of the fear of death can be found in actually dying. Millions of people have had near death experiences, and nearly all of them lost their fear of death as a result. This is true whether the near death experience was of a positive or negative nature, for experiencers say they now know that death is not the end but rather a transition into a new state of being. While it wouldn’t be prudent to actively court a near death experience, it can be very helpful to study the near death experiences of others. An excellent resource to start with can be found at near-death.com.

It’s also comforting and enlightening to study both esoteric teachings on reincarnation and the research that has been done on this subject such as the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson and the life between life research of Michael Newton, Ph.D. Taken together, the endless teachings and research available paint a coherent picture of life as a journey in which things happen for a good reason, including how and when we leave this world.

With this in mind, there are all sorts of wonderful books you can read to become more familiar with the nature of life and death. Some of the best authors include Michael Newton, Ph.D.; Dr. Bruce Goldberg; Brian Weiss, M.D.; Dr. Ian Stevenson; Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, P.M.H. Atwater, Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Melvin Morse, Carol Bowman, Carla Wills-Brandon and Gary Schwartz, Ph.D. If you’re itching to get started right away, check out victorzammit.com.

Please note that the above are just suggestions. I encourage you to pray for Spirit to guide you to the information and experiences you need to overcome your fear of death, and then act on the signs, impulses and intuitions that come to you. Remember that you can manifest the peace you’re longing for just like you would manifest anything else, so study and work with the law of attraction. By diving into a conscious spiritual journey, you can turn this experience into something positive and make the most of your time here on Earth.

– Soul Arcanum

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Overcoming Fear of Death

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying, Dreams by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Overcoming Fear of Death


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I am 18 years old, and I had a dream in which I realized I had died. I didn’t feel any physical pain, but when I got up, I was filled with the horror of death. What do I do to get over this horror? Since having this dream, I can’t concentrate on anything and life itself seems futile. Please help me.

Maggi

Dear Maggi:

Before I begin, I must point out that what you’re requesting is a very tall order. The fear of death is the most deep-seated and universal of all fears. I believe this is because we fear the unknown, and we can’t know what really happens when we die until we have that experience for ourselves. This doesn’t mean that fear of death must ruin your life; it means that to overcome your fear, you must become more familiar with what you’re afraid of.

It’s telling that you’re 18 years old, for it’s common for young people to give little or no thought to death’s inevitability unless or until something happens that forces them to wake up to the truth that none of us will live forever – at least, not in these bodies. When people first confront their mortality, it’s normal to be freaked out. Of course, ignoring or denying the reality of death doesn’t change anything. Further, the sooner we face and deal with death, the sooner we can get down to the business of living full, meaningful lives.

I feel that this dream can become a great gift to you if you work with it in a wise manner. Most of humanity is spiritually sleep-walking through life. They either actively avoid thinking about death or they simply don’t give it much thought until it’s somehow staring them in the face. While I was devastated to lose my first love at the tender age of 18, I now view this experience as having blessed me immeasurably on a spiritual level. It did far more than wake me up so that I now live in gratitude for each day; it also blessed me with some amazing experiences that made me question the nature of so-called reality and everything I’d assumed to be true up until that point.

In my experience, life-changing events like your dream tend to happen for a good reason and according to a divine schedule. When the idea of death rocks someone’s world, it’s usually a sign that it’s time for them to begin a conscious spiritual journey. Of course, some people never do the spiritual work necessary to make peace with death, and thus they live overly cautious lives in an attempt to stay “safe.” This is senseless and futile for a number of reasons. Even when it seems to prolong someone’s years here on Earth, it prevents them from living interesting, fulfilling, exciting lives. Living from fear also tends to lead to difficulty and disease, so the more anxious we are about our safety and well-being, the less likely we are to live a long, healthy life.

It’s also wise to realize that without death, life would hold little meaning. If we all lived forever, we’d have no motivation to hurry up and experience all we desire to experience and get busy growing into better people.

Of course, these truths don’t erase the fact that it’s natural to fear the unknown, so to heal your fear of death, the best thing is to make the unknown KNOWN – or as known as it can be. This may sound impossible in the case of death, but in fact, there are many ways to familiarize yourself with states of being beyond this physical life.

When I look back on my own journey toward peace with death, there are several factors that stand out. The first thing that convinced me that death is not the end was a number of encounters I had with people who had died. While that may sound like the sort of thing you are either lucky enough to have happen or not, in fact, such experiences can be manifested just like anything else.

You can also consciously work on developing your ability to communicate with spirits. It’s true that some people have a natural facility for this sort of thing, but I believe that a strong desire for any sort of experience is usually a sign from one’s own higher self that this is something that should be pursued. You can find resources for such development at a Spiritualist Church; in fact, attending such a church could also prove helpful and comforting for you for a number of reasons.

Another thing that tends to lead toward a dramatic shift in one’s perspective on death is having an out of body experience. When you find yourself disembodied, it’s hard to deny that your “existence” is independent of your physical body. It also gives you a sense of what it may be like to leave this world behind and move on to other realms. As it’s common for people who achieve or spontaneously experience astral projection to lose their fear of death, studying and working to have such an experience yourself may be the answer.

To begin exploring astral projection, you might read a few of the excellent books on the subject and then begin to apply yourself to exercises designed to get you out of your body. Please note that it can take months of daily effort to achieve this goal. It’s definitely worth it, however, since it will prove to you that you are more than your physical body and open up a whole new dimension of experience for you to explore. The astral projection authors I recommend are Robert Bruce, Robert Monroe and Robert Peterson. The website Astral Voyage is also a great resource.

The most powerful eraser of the fear of death can be found in actually dying. Millions of people have had near death experiences, and nearly all of them lost their fear of death as a result. This is true whether the near death experience was of a positive or negative nature, for experiencers say they now know that death is not the end but rather a transition into a new state of being. While it wouldn’t be prudent to actively court a near death experience, it can be very helpful to study the near death experiences of others. An excellent resource to start with can be found at near-death.com.

It’s also comforting and enlightening to study both esoteric teachings on reincarnation and the research that has been done on this subject such as the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson and the life between life research of Michael Newton, Ph.D. Taken together, the endless teachings and research available paint a coherent picture of life as a journey in which things happen for a good reason, including how and when we leave this world.

With this in mind, there are all sorts of wonderful books you can read to become more familiar with the nature of life and death. Some of the best authors include Michael Newton, Ph.D.; Dr. Bruce Goldberg; Brian Weiss, M.D.; Dr. Ian Stevenson; Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, P.M.H. Atwater, Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Melvin Morse, Carol Bowman, Carla Wills-Brandon and Gary Schwartz, Ph.D. If you’re itching to get started right away, check out victorzammit.com.

Please note that the above are just suggestions. I encourage you to pray for Spirit to guide you to the information and experiences you need to overcome your fear of death, and then act on the signs, impulses and intuitions that come to you. Remember that you can manifest the peace you’re longing for just like you would manifest anything else, so study and work with the law of attraction. By diving into a conscious spiritual journey, you can turn this experience into something positive and make the most of your time here on Earth.

– Soul Arcanum

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Near Death Dream

Filed Under: Afterlife, Dreams by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Near Death Dream

 

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I had a dream that I was in a grave with dirt being thrown on me, but I don’t think I was dead. It was very sunny out and I woke up and that was it. I wasn’t afraid. About one month before the dream, I had heart surgery. During the surgery, I felt like I went to the other side but did not die. I don’t remember what was said on the other side. I woke up feeling very different, and I still feel changed. I am wiser, more loving, calmer and vibrating higher. Other than that, everything is the same. Can you explain this to me? Thank you!

Elizabeth

Dear Elizabeth:

It sounds like you were wondering if you did indeed “die” during your surgery, and this dream came to answer the question burning in your heart while also confirming what you learned when you “died” that day: that death is nothing to be afraid of.

I am assuming that you have found your way to the term “near death experience” and read up on this phenomenon. If not, prepare to be amazed, for it’s commonly accepted that near death experiences (in which someone is clinically dead but then brought back to life) are known to induce the very personality changes you describe. A great resource for near death experience information is I am assuming that you have found your way to the term “near death experience” and read up on this phenomenon. If not, prepare to be amazed, for it’s commonly accepted that near death experiences (in which someone is clinically dead but then brought back to life) are known to induce the very personality changes you describe. A great resource for near death experience information is near-death.com.

Most people who have an NDE vividly remember the events that happened while they were supposedly dead. They may have perfect recall of every moment or they may have some parts that they can remember and some parts that seem vague or blocked. Often the parts that they can’t remember seem to involve deep conversations that they sense they are not “supposed” remember upon return to this world.

I have, however, heard of people who just knew that they had died but couldn’t remember much if anything about what happened while they were out. Further, it makes sense to me that you could have had a near death experience and not be able to consciously remember it. After all, we can’t remember most of the spiritual experiences we have when dreaming or astral traveling, especially those that transcend our current beliefs and expectations. If I were you, I would trust your feeling that you had been to the other side, especially since you exhibit many of the classic signs of someone who has had an NDE.

If you want to remember what happened while you were gone, you may be able to relive those events with the help of a skilled hypnotherapist. Since regression therapy can take us back to relive events from childhood, the womb, and even past lives and lives between lives, it should be possible to relive what happened while you were unconscious and possibly in another realm. At the same time, however, there is usually a good reason why we remember some metaphysical experiences and not others, so you would be wise to trust that when the time is right, you will gain awareness of whatever you need to know.

The fact that NDEs tend to induce profound spiritual awakenings and personality changes is well established, but why that would be is a mystery. This whole subject raises lots of fascinating questions for me. Why does dying and coming back change us in profound spiritual ways? Is it because we no longer fear death, and since fear of death is the ultimate fear behind every other fear we experience, when we lose it, our vibration shoots through the roof? Is dying like getting a glimpse behind the proverbial curtain, after which the world’s illusions fall away and we can see clearly for the first time? Is it because, when we experience a life review, we instantly realize how most of the things we focus on aren’t important, and how the only thing that really matters is how well we love?

I imagine there is no greater change in perspective than to be lifted right out of life, for only then can we see the immensity of the landscape below us and get a true sense of the lay of the land. However, there does seem to be something energetic happening, as you allude to when you write that you’ve been “vibrating higher.”

Indeed, the changes that people describe following a near death experience mirror many of those that are associated with kundalini awakening and conscious spiritual development. When we purposefully raise our vibration, we naturally begin to tap into psychic abilities and feel filled with love, compassion and other positive emotions. As many of the spontaneous results of an NDE mirror those of spiritual development, it makes sense that near death experiences cause a shift into a higher vibration.

As a result of this shift, you may spontaneously begin to have psychic experiences. For example, you may be able to sense what other people are thinking and feeling, have prophetic visions or feelings about the future, or begin to see spirits and subtle energies that other people can’t. You may begin to have profound spiritual dreams or spontaneous out of body experiences. You may suddenly develop healing ability or feel called to help people who are in physical or emotional pain. You may start to experience strange electrical phenomena; for example, watches may break when you wear them or lights may flicker when you touch the switch or pass by. You may begin to feel called to do something more meaningful with your life or devote yourself to helping others in some way.

The main message that people bring back from near death experiences is that love is the most important thing in the Universe, and our goal is to love others as ourselves. In various ways and terms, NDE’rs tell us that God is love and our whole goal in incarnating is to put ourselves in challenging situations and learn to choose love despite our ego-based, primal fears for our own well-being and personal interests.

Another main message is to live our lives fully. Many report that the only remorse they felt upon their life review was not for the things they had done wrong, but for all the good things they had failed to do. This does not mean that there are big “shoulds” we need to figure out somehow, but that life is all about finding happiness and embracing every opportunity to experience and create more joy. Indeed, instead of putting our dreams aside in the name of duty, we are wise to trust and honor the true desires of our hearts.

You don’t have to remember your near-death experience to benefit from it, for we are all being guided to fulfill our higher purpose via our hearts whether we’ve had a near death experience or not. The key, then, is to listen to and follow your bliss with trust that doing so will prove wise and good.

While we’re on the subject of near-death experiences, a model of the Universe comes to mind that resonates with me as true and fits with everything I’ve learned through spirit communication and metaphysical studies. It’s the idea that we are already dwelling in the afterlife – that the Earth is just one of many spiritual realms. Our ideas about hell reflect dimensions of a lower vibration, while our ideas about heaven reflect our awareness of higher dimensions. In this scenario, birth and death are simply transitions from one dimension to another. As we evolve, we naturally rise in vibration, eventually moving into the range of a higher dimension and beginning the cycle of birth and rebirth there. Thus it is true that the more we develop spiritually while living, the more likely we are to go to a “a better place” when we leave this life.

– Soul Arcanum

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Why Do We Dream of Acquaintances in Spirit?

Filed Under: Afterlife, Dreams, Spirits by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Why Do We Dream of Acquaintances in Spirit?

 

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I had a friend who was dear to me, but I moved out of state and didn’t see him often or even talk to him much. Strangely, every time I would go to visit, I would always run into him somewhere. A couple of years later, I found out that he had died in an accident. What was strange was I had thought about him for the first time in a while two days before I was told of his death. I then had a dream about him several weeks later. I saw him walking and smiling and I ran to him and said, “I thought you were dead!” He said no and just smiled. I have now had several dreams of him. In one he confirmed that he was in fact dead. In another he came to me and said to remember him. I have dreams every now and again of him, and I’m wondering why. My three-year-old son came to me one day and said “Mama, D.C is here.” (That was his name.) I had never talked about him to my son and am wondering what is going on with all of this.

M.

Dear M.:

When loved ones cross over, they tend to visit people with whom they have a strong loving bond like the two of you have. The amount of time you spent together doesn’t matter; the important thing is the quality of your connection. This psychic bond brought you together when you visited his city when he was alive, and it’s continuing to bring you together now that he’s in another dimension.

Spirits also reach out to people who are receptive and able to perceive them. They may also try to come through to other surviving loved ones, but if those people can’t perceive them, they’ll focus on someone who can. People who are open and sensitive to spirit contact glow with a certain light in the astral; they’re like beacons that attract spirits looking for contact with this world.

My first spirit dream is a great example. This was many years ago, when I was in my early twenties. A friend from high school named Jennifer had tragically died in a car accident just after graduation. Jennifer and I had known each other since kindergarten, and while we ran in the same circles, we weren’t especially close. After she died, her mother told me that it had meant a great deal to her that I had offered to loan her a dress for prom.

Jennifer had been a really good cross country runner in high school. At the time I dreamed about her, I had been running for less than a year and had developed an injury that had me really frustrated. The night I had the dream, I remember lying in bed, thinking about the injury and wondering if I would have to give up running forever. This had me really down, so I sent out a vague prayer to the Universe for help with this problem.

That night I had a striking dream. In the dream, I was walking down a crowded sidewalk when I twisted my ankle and fell off the curb. I was sitting in the gutter, holding my ankle and worrying about never being able to run again, when the crowd parted and through it came Jennifer. She looked absolutely radiant and was wearing an angelic white dress. She looked more grown up and beautiful than I’d ever seen her look before. She walked directly up to me, looked me in the eye, and said, “Don’t worry; you’ll run again.”

When I awoke, I was perplexed and amazed by this dream. Of all the people in Spirit to come to me in a dream, why her? I now believe she came to bring me comfort because she wanted to return the favor I’d done her years before, and also because her own passion for running made her empathetic to my plight. (For the record, I did run again, and have been running ever since.)

A couple of years after that, I dreamed that I met her in this vague, misty place. I was startled to see her there, and said, “Hey, aren’t you Jennifer?” She indicated that she was. I said, “But aren’t you…dead?” She indicated that she was dead in this world, but that didn’t mean she no longer existed. Soon after that the dream ended.

Let’s turn now to your dreams about your friend. I believe that whenever we dream about someone who has died, and in the dream we are aware that they are dead, we are visiting with their spirits on another plane. I’ve now had many such dreams, and they always have a special quality about them; they’re especially moving, vivid, real and memorable.

Sometimes I dream that I see my departed father in a crowded public place. In these dreams, I know he’s dead and I’m very excited to see him. I am hugging him and talking to him while the other people in the dream can’t see or perceive him at all. I’ll say, “He’s right here in front of you!” but they still can’t perceive him. Sometimes they look at me like I’m crazy because I seem to be talking to empty space, but I don’t care: I’m too excited to see him to worry about what other people think.

It sounds like you and D.C. had a very loving connection. Further, you are obviously open to spirit contact and sensitive enough to both perceive spirits while in an altered stae of consciousness and remember those events after the fact. I’m sure that with some development, you could learn to do the same thing from an altered but awake state of consciousness.

The fact that your friend popped into your head two days before you learned of his death further validates your psychic sensitivity. I’m assuming that he was already dead at that point and was trying to get your attention. Since he couldn’t fully dialogue with you when you were awake, he began to try to reach you via the dream state. This is when it is easiest for us to visit with loved ones in other dimensions.

Regarding why our friends in Spirit come to us this way, there are lots of possibilities.

First, this sort of thing just happens naturally. Just as you would run into him when visiting his city, you run into him while you’re both in the dream world. Imagine that the cords between us and those we love are like rubber bands. Wherever we go, whether in this world or other worlds, the tension of being apart will draw us toward each other. This is how we find each other via <q>destiny</q> when we reincarnate together, and how we are naturally draw together again when we leave this world. The same thing is happening all the time whether we’re on the same plane or not. When we dream and visit the astral/other planes, the walls between us are removed, and this force can pull us toward the people we love on that plane.

Spirits also visit us to deliver love, comfort and messages like my friend Jennifer did. If they resonate with what we are going through, they may feel called to try to help. This is the same motivation for visits from spirits when we are grieving for them.

Finally, spirits sometimes visit us because they need something from us. Since your son perceived your friend, he’s clearly visiting you both when you’re awake and asleep, but you haven’t yet developed the ability to perceive him when you’re awake. Most of us are born with psychic skills that we lose over time as we’re taught what is “real” and “imaginary” and as we shift from the high vibration of the spirit world to focus on physical reality. When spirits do want our help, it’s often because they need an intermediary who can perceive them to relay some message to another loved one in this world.

I don’t feel that this is the case here because your interactions with him have been so casual and he hasn’t mentioned anything like this. Instead, I feel that your love for each other simply draws you into orbit of each other, and when you’re in a certain state of mind, you are able to interact and later consciously remember that interaction.

– Soul Arcanum

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