I sort of have this theory that real, true, deep psychedelic experiences reveal to people, alot of things of course, but one common thing it tends to reveal to everyone is the cyclical nature of existence. That everything goes in cycles, the circle, the sphere, or rather toroidal pattern is the flow of all existence.

With that I think the very obvious realization that follows concerning death is not whether or not you do or do not reincarnate, but rather, what part of you does reincarnate? As it becomes obvious you will cycle back around through, in some way, some how. The question is just, what stays as an 'essence' or 'spirit' of the self that can actually transition all the way to the void, through the light, and back into a new form?

At least I've kind of assumed this realization and resulting thought process is something that any solid dosage of a tryptamine or LSD will point out to you.

So I am just curious to know, does anyone feel differently about this subject that has had solid dose of said drugs?

Unless all 'awareness' is equal and in a constant state of embodyment. In a sense that there is nothing that gives you a lasting 'persona' to incarnate, rather there is nothing that makes you 'you' at least no more than what makes you the exact same thing as what makes me.
Say when we die, before we know it we are already alive again with nothing lasting not even a number or a barcode for identity the only thing that stays is the law of continuous experience.

I don't know if that makes sense just a thought, although the nature of these disscussions don't allow for much development on the topic.

What makes you think that this includes "you" to reincarnate. The concept of "you" is rather problematic as is and it is also "cyclic" to turn to dust and be the soil for a tree to grow in (for instance).

I would metaphorically describe us as black holes, that both consume and emit energy, their is a film, the event horizon that captures energy, which becomes your memory, one side of the whole subconscious the other concious and the point between god/creation/your ultimate self. This is the soul filling the body, to me this is the part that reincarnates, it has no face, no description, no context. It merely exists and always has existed, everything else is wiped away at the end of each cycle like cleaning the lense of an eye, always watching and waiting.

At least that's how I see it

I was just reading about simulated reality, some pontificating about how reincarnation might work. Exactly as you've described here. Say there's a bus speeding towards you and as soon as that bus makes contact with your body (killing it) you're instantly reincarnated in the middle of another life, with another identity. Like nothing happened. You just continue existing, there is no death, your consciousness is just shifted around. If all of reality is a simulation, it's just a matter of 'deleting' your knowledge of that previous life, 'downloading' a new set of memories and experiences, and placing you into that current incarnation and pressing 'play'.


Unfortunately, that's the truth. I wish it weren't, that people could just discuss and debate with open minds and leave expectations and belief out of it.

Personally, I do believe in reincarnation. Even if you're a hardcore atheist and believe that all we are is worm food, or ashes scattered to the wind, a piece of our physical body is absorbed back into the earth and continues on. Then, if you believe that we all have a soul or spirit, and it's made up of some kind of energy, well, energy cannot be destroyed.

I'm open to anything but right now the standard interpretations of a sort of linear reincarnation seems way too simplistic to me. There has been a lot of weird cases where children know an uncanny amount of information about what they claim to be their 'past life', which verifies when checked, but there could be other explanations for that.

Through my journey's i've experienced many things which lead me to suspect that consciousness is some kind of non-local field-like phenomenon, and that its all the same field being taped into by our biological lens's. Like 7 billion telescopes with slight differences in the way it twists the same light image into being, our biological lens tunes into and twists this underlying field into a myriad of forms. I remember tim leary saying that he considered himself to be the reincarnation of many people, but not in the traditional sense. He was speaking more about ideas, and in the sense that its possible to tune into and resonate with the consciousness of other people on a level where the boundaries that distinct the two dissolve.

I've merged with the people around me before to the point where there was really no question of 'which one am i', i was just all of them at the same time in an ego-less unified state. And on ayahuasca i've traveled back into what seems like my family tree, experiencing the lives of them all the way down the helix of time. Harmalas alone often take me into what seems like an ocean of souls...And after slipping into trance i'll find myself experiencing the life of countless people (and animals etc)- either one at a time or several simultaneously- without any inkling of a thought pertaining to my former "self".

I don't have any idea what happens when we die, or if we ever truly die at all, but perhaps many things have a possibility of happening once we pass. Life is infinitely bizarre, complex, and surprising...so maybe we shouldn't expect death to be any different in that regard. Who knows... i'm going to enjoy the ride while i'm on it though :]

This also seems the most likely sort of explanation to me as well.
Our biology is a filter along with our thoughts, feelings, and especially beliefs.

I think at death 'we' die. Our ego goes extinct (like a candle in the wind) with nothing left of the former physical life remaining to cling to.

Underneath our ego however is a whole range of conscious experience, but it's experience without a seperate controlling entity. It's a layer of thoughts, feelings, emotions without a personal 'me' attached to it.

Depending upon what sorts of thoughts, feelings, emotions this underlying consciousness has most likely determines what sort of rebirth the ego based consciousness will eventually undergo again...though it would be a completely seperate ego in a complete seperate body. The non local aspect of the mind stream may even remain fairly similar well into the next rebirth, but over time it is eroded away and replaced with a new mind stream reflecting it's current experience. I love the mind stream analogy because it jives so well with what I experience on psychedelics...it's like the inner light is turned on and the mind stream shows itself...

Anyway that's just my rambling take on it. I only believe something like this because I've experienced ego death and I've had trips were I remembered former lives... It could all just be a brain on drugs though. Who knows...

Maybe when we die we lose our ego as joedirt said, and that is really the only thing that is containing the "me" feeling you have. When really maybe we are just one single consciousness and when we die we return to that pure state and may emerge as another being that carries the same consciousness, it is only after the ego is constructed that there is a separate sense of "me" from the one. The consciousness could be slowly expanding with each new individual experience, checking boxes each time as it gains a new unique perspective.

Think of it like a fungus, the mycelium is a huge unseen single organism and the mushrooms are perceived as individuals but really they are part of the same organism, when they die the mycelium remains but has grown a bit to facilitate that individual mushroom and then new "individual" mushrooms pop up. The new mushrooms only appear different from the rest due to environmental conditions, they are still the same organism.

Just a thought, but it could be that we never really experience a separate consciousness only a separate sense of consciousness. Therefore reincarnation would not be dependent on past experiences or separate souls it would just continue seamlessly expanding itself utilizing life/matter as a tool for having new experiences.

good analogy...especially since the mycelium looks like a big neural network

Wax

I concur, beautifully and eloquently put good Sir.


Much Peace and Respect

What came first, the apple or the apple tree? The torus or the phylogeny?

I just had a visualization of something like this while reading this thread, it never really occurred to me that way before. I always thought of it as below my ego layer I have a layer that is real me, separate from other souls or whatever you want to call them, and that if reincarnation does exist then I would be sent back to learn lessons that I never understood in previous lives. I also feel like we are all one at some fundamental level but never thought that maybe in that space where we become egoless and we feel that we are our true self, that self is the same self everyone else feels, not just made of the same energy but actually the same entity.

What if we aren't here to learn lessons and elevate our souls but "matter puppets" on the tentacles of a creature that feeds upon the very novelty that it creates, in an environment that only contains matter and consciousness symbiotically existing. We are like the arms of a consciousness octopus. When you begin to think of consciousness not only as awareness but as an entity itself all kinds of possibilities open up.

consciousness consciousness consciousness...had to throw a few more in for good measure.

I can totally resonate with this! Great analogy!

heheh..have you ever read this? https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=26524

Haha, I actually started to read it and decided to print it out to be easier on the eyes....didn't realize how long it was and after a few pages I walked back to my printer and it said printing page 6 of 74 or something like that. I had to abort the mission.

So no I haven't, only the first few pages, but I will get around to it one day! I'm assuming my statement sums it up and probably cheapens it a bit?

I think it is some deep individualised part of my being that can exist excarnate.

I base this on several experiences ('cos nothing beats experience). When I was a boy, alone in bed at night, I used to enjoy fighting sleep. The transition totally fascinated me. This, on several occasions, resulted in unmistakable out-of-body experiences (OBE); I would be near my bedroom ceiling and willing my movement around the house, passing through doors, going downstairs (not on foot) and witnessing the eerie stillness of empty rooms.

Feeling, several times, as a very young boy: 'I am here again' (like in a body and alive on earth); and, 'So these are my parents, this time'.

At 14 having one more OBE but floating (excarnate) down my street at about 20foot in the air with everything just as normal except everything being extremely radiant and with aura's and then at the bottom of the street noticing there were fuzzy edged oval shaped light "beings" in the (very dense) air and recognising these were (somehow) living things. (At 14 I had no idea what drugs were and had never touched anything that could induce such an experience)

As an adult, watching my dads body age but seeing that his mind was still playful and active...the ageing body was limiting and anchoring his mind.

Taking DMT and wondering what on earth are these entities and how they can interact with me and how they can exhibit such knowledge (about me and my life) and have such intelligence.

What part indeed does re-incarnate? My questions are: Is the reincarnating part sexed or sexless and is it specific to race, or not (Not to mention wondering about the complex law of karma )

Lets give a "cheer" for re-incarnation...for this time, the last time, and the time yet to be.

My current thoughts on things like reincarnation is this. I don't think persons, gods, spirits and reincarnation are really clear and organized things with a standard model that they must consistently adhere to. We would all be surprised at what could be with 2 ingredients, infinite time and possibilities.

One of the things I've been shown and learned over the years, (there are many and they change and evolve), that makes sense to me is that Consciousness is really all there is and probably has always been. I don't think consciousness or a part of consciousness are contained in what we would call a person nor the things that make a sentient being an individual.

If I believed that its possible, as others claim, to remember or recall their past lives that would have to conclude that we contain consciousness or it contains us and more than just the universal consciousness continues after death. That being a part of us and I haven't seen this to be the case personally. It very may be this way and there are millions of brilliant thinkers and explorers that have come to this understanding and I respect that school of thought it just hasn't been the case for me.

I think it does probably happen but that does not mean its the norm. I think all possibilities eventually happen because statistically they must in an infinite state but no, i don't think the universe is a big school of learning and things like karma are real nor do we eventually graduate and combine into the light.

Lately it feels like there is no rhyme or reason for any of this. Things happen because they statistically must with enough space and time. I think reincarnation makes a lot of logical human sense and is easy to understand. Therefor it is an attractive truth to many. Our minds are evolved to find reason and logic in a reality that may just not have any.

I used to spend countless hours contemplating these thoughts, endless intentions set before journey's to understand it all but I feel its kind of a waste of time and energy now. Other than giving a person comfort and joy I don't see what purpose any of it really serves. That in itself is purpose one could suppose but at the end of the day it doesn't change anything.

The funny thing is as I re-read this reply all it is is a bunch of meaningless word salad. It is fun to discuss at times and also to read and exchange ideas but not good to get too caught up in and certainly pointless to ever argue about.

I used to say it doesn't matter because when we die we will all find out the true nature but even that may not be the case. Its just an endless riddle that we can choose to play with or leave alone. This may be the most pointless point I have ever made, lol.

Sorry I just wanted to touch on this.
So I assume we're all familiar with quantum entanglement, quantum tunneling or nonlocal atomic relationships where every atom has a partner without any physical connection and they can be universes apart. If our scientific understanding could develop enough so that we could find an atom's soul mate, it would be interesting if there is a particular location or behavour of our brain cell's distant brothers.
Could be there is a giant brain in space made up of all ours..

Oh and one more thing, appologies for crapping on here but if you have not read on 'the big wow theory' please do so right now.
Heres the link - http://www.quantumbionet.../eng/index.php?pagina=60
Thanks for you patience.

Well yes.

I see reading through all your responses that we are sort of circling around the same central idea with different metaphors.

I think people who have deep psychedelic experiences also have a different meaning of the word 'you' and 'me'. To us I think it just kind of goes without saying that when I say 'me' I am not referring to the surface layer identity of formed ego. So much as I am just using the one word we have to different perceived forms at this level.

To me it seems obvious that the surface layer ego identity does not reincarnate. But that is also not what I intuitively refer to when I say me or we.

I think part of the realization of reincarnation, not as a standardized ordained understanding, but rather reincarnation as a dynamic to be perceived, part of the realization comes from being able to recognize what the word 'me' is literally referring to. With that it becomes obvious that 'I' am not inherently all that leaves at death, because 'I' am something other than the surface layer of ego identity.

The metaphors of an octopus and mushroom mycelium are I think accurate. But I understand it more through Rupert Sheldrakes morphogenetic field theory, which I think is more literal to what it literally is. The collective concioussness, and the pre-eminating frequency, and fractalling frequencies are a wave form, a multi-dimensional waveform. That the formation of all form is hooked into and tuned into. When I think in terms of what parts of me can be reincarnated, I think in terms, of what resonances can I imprint in the morphogenetic field. As all perception of 'I' will dissolve into singularity, but the light of consciousness's reformation into the physical plane will be directed by the morphogenetic field.

This idea of consciously directed reincarnation is something that intrigues me. But the process of reincarnation, and even directing it, is like interfacing with something beyond yourself, that is not you, the morphogenetic fields. It is us, but when perceived by us, from our current point of view, it's like the underlying machinery of manifestation. A vast web we are all hooked into, but can only exert will over from a localized position of our manifestation in it. Ultimately the experience of willed reincarnation would be like attempted to imprint some will on this machinery, web, morphogenetic field, then willfully extinguishing all manifestation of the self, forgetting everything, then allowing it to reform yourself.

Certainly components of the psyche, even memories, could be given an essence or resonance in the morphogenetic field, to be reformed in another person. But ultimately that person would not be the exact same, nor carry some unique singular point. As all form must pass through the singular point of light to return, all form revolves around the same point of light. But form may extrude itself in a similar space of the waveform of the morphogenetic field, recreating the same memories in the form, but it will also be intermixed with everything else that has stirred into the morphogenetic field. So a new form may actually come to be in the space that once previously occupied two manifestations of people, ultimately making the reincarnation a mix of the two. It's even possible I think that new forms can manifest themselves into areas of the field that was heavily influenced by someone who is still alive, so one could inherently be the reincarnation of someone still living.