~Speaking of Seth~

I'm about 1/3 of the way through a book entitled: Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind. Authors are Kenneth Ring, Sharon Cooper and Charles Tart.

The book is about near-death studies involving only people that are legally blind, whether blind from birth or people who have had some eyesight at one point in their life with seriously compromised eyesight during the study (i.e. could only sense light/dark).

I'm most interested in people who have never been able to see, blind from birth, and what their NDE experiences were like. I've read about two so far, and both of them said they were able to see while they were dead. Both had the typical experience of being above their bodies in the hospital, were able to describe what the doctors did and said, describe the medical devices used, what people were wearing while they were clinically dead. Then they felt drawn upwards (one was able to describe an aerial view of the hospital/city/roads and activities of people and vehicles) and were drawn/pulled into a dark tunnel. They felt they were traveling very quickly upwards through the tunnel, which was narrowing, and then they popped out into a landscape where everything was made of "light" (people too).

While their stories differed in detail (what their particular "paradise" looked like, who met them on the other side, etc.), the basic experience was the same for them as accountings I've read of sighted people's NDE experiences: viewing themselves from above, traveling in a tunnel, ending up in another realm, being told they needed to go back to their bodies.

My question(s): What do you suppose this "dark tunnel" is? Is it the mind trying to interpret something beyond our current range of understanding—something that happens to our soul when it transitions out of the physical and into non-physical?

If we consider that our subconscious creates our reality, then it makes sense that our capability to see isn't related to our physical vision sense and apparatus. Actually some behavioral optometrists followers of the Bates' method, state that impaired vision usually isn't caused by eyes' malfunctioning or degradation, but it originates in the brain, and they successfully improve vision through eye exercises, visualization, and self-hypnosis.

Sometimes when you astral project, you "detach" but can't see anything, or have poor vision. You set your intention to see better, or give yourself a direct command like "clarity now", and images get in focus.

Regarding the tunnel ... When you project and intend to "move" to a specific location, e.g. to the Moon, or to see somebody, depending on how you think about it, you may either 'teleport" there, or you may experience a fast moving sensation that might seem like being sucked through a tunnel.

When you regress to life-between-lives, you can do that by re-living a death experience. When I do that, I feel quickly raising up from my body, leaving it far behind, and I find myself like in a grayish void. It feels like waking up to another me, who has a different perspective of the life that just ended, which seems about as important as we think about our dreams.

hey Deb and inavalan.
thank you both for your interesting posts.

my musings:
perhaps the tunnel is a passageway.
between our home in our bodies here on Earth,
and our new home in the spiritual realm.
(maybe here on Earth is really, in a sense, our home away from home.
and its temporary. our real home, is the other one, at the end of that dark tunnel,
where we will spend a lot more time. as in eternity.)

and maybe the dark tunnel, is dark, because that gives contrast,
between it,
and the light which you go to,
when you get to the end of the tunnel.

when we die and leave Earth,
when we leave the dark tunnel, perhaps we are born into eternal light. 
a place where there are peace and love beyond anything,
with which there are words to describe.
so on Earth we are born, to someday die.
and then when we die, we are born into the other side.

Quote from: inavalan
If we consider that our subconscious creates our reality, then it makes sense that our capability to see isn't related to our physical vision sense and apparatus. Actually some behavioral optometrists followers of the Bates' method, state that impaired vision usually isn't caused by eyes' malfunctioning or degradation, but it originates in the brain, and they successfully improve vision through eye exercises, visualization, and self-hypnosis.

I agree that our eyes are our apparatus for "seeing" things in this physical reality. We don't use our eyes when we are dreaming, and yet we see. I have a friend who is totally blind and she sees in her dreams too. In non-physical there is a different type of seeing, just like all of our physical senses are different in dreams and the non-physical. Experiments I've done in lucid dreams involved sight, taste, smell and touch, obviously not using my physical senses in those cases.

This morning I had a dream that I accidentally pinched the inside of my left forearm with some metal contraption. When I woke up, my arm still hurt for a minute or two until I put two and two together. Later on, I checked my left arm just to see if there was a mark left. Nope.

Quote from: chasman
and maybe the dark tunnel, is dark, because that gives contrast,
between it,
and the light which you go to,
when you get to the end of the tunnel.
. . .
so on Earth we are born, to someday die.
and then when we die, we are born into the other side.

That's so poetic!
Now that you mention it, we travel through a "tunnel" of sorts going back and forth between physical and non-physical, whether it's the birth canal or the tunnel NDE survivors describe. I see it as a non-literal tunnel, that's more of an perception or analogy we have from this perspective for a lack of better words. It's more like a transition period or as inavalan says, the teleport/fast moving sensation that causes people to label it as a tunnel.

thank you Deb.  you are so kind.   

another thought about the tunnel as we return to our home in the sky,

maybe when we are moving on to the happy hunting ground,
we are very focused,
our attention is highly focused.

we want to know whats happening.

something is happening, and it sure has our attention.

so, we are soooo focused, that we get a sort of tunnel vision.
literally.

Hi Deb, Hi All,

Deb. Thanks for this question. NDE's have always been near and dear to my heart.

Over the last several days, I've taken a look at what Seth had to say about NDE's. As it turns out, Seth didn't say much about NDE's at all, but he did say quite a bit about death and the death experience.




Many researchers of NDE's tell us that there are some typical experiences that are common to most NDEs.  Some of these include, finding yourself in an OBE state, experiencing the tunnel, seeing a "being of light", meeting friends on the other side who have already transitioned and experiencing some sort of past life review.   In addition to this, most NDE researchers also tell us that not everyone necessarily experiences every one of these typical experiences.

In "Seth Speaks", Seth tells us quite a bit about the death experience.





In "Seth Speaks, Chapter 9. Session 535, Seth tells us that there is no specific point of death:

What happens at the point of death? The question is much more easily asked than answered. Basically there is not any particular point of death in those terms, even in the case of a sudden accident.

[...]

First of all, let us consider the fact just mentioned. There is no separate, indivisible, specific point of death. Life is a state of becoming, and death is a part of this process of becoming.



He also tells us that our beliefs will affect us. He says:

A belief in hell fires can cause you to hallucinate Hades' conditions. A belief in a stereotyped heaven can result in a hallucination of heavenly conditions. You always form your own reality according to your ideas and expectations. This is the nature of consciousness in whatever reality it finds itself. Such hallucinations, I assure you, are temporary.




Along with this, he also tells us that we will not automatically be wise after death, if we weren't so beforehand.

You will not be automatically wise if you were not so before, but neither will there be a way to hide from your own feelings, emotions, or motives.




Along with this, he also seems to confirm some of the NDE experiences. For example in this same session he also says:

Now, you may or may not be greeted by friends or relatives immediately following death. This is a personal matter, as always.




Along with this, he also seems to describe an life review experience. For example in this same session he also says:

You examine the fabric of the existence you have left, and you learn to understand how your experiences were the result of your own thoughts and emotions and how these affected others. Until this examination is through, you are not yet aware of the larger portions of your own identity. When you realize the significance and meaning of the life you have just left, then you are ready for conscious knowledge of your other existences.







I have found 3 separate comments that Seth has made in this chapter that "might" be relate to, or be the cause of, this "tunnel" experience. The first one occurs in the paragraph that immediately follows his life review comments just given. Following this paragraph, Seth says:

You become aware, then, of an expanded awareness. What you are begins to include what you have been in other lives, and you begin to make plans for your next physical existence, if you decide upon one. You can instead enter another level of reality, and then return to a physical existence if you choose.

I think that it might be possible, that the NDE tunnel experience "might" be the result of this situation where our awareness expands as described above.





In addition to this, in "Seth Speaks, Chapter 9. Session 536, Seth says the following may occur after death.

There may or may not be disorientation on your part, according to your beliefs and development. Now I do not necessarily mean intellectual development. The intellect should go hand in hand with the emotions and intuitions, but if it pulls against these too strongly, difficulties can arise when the newly freed consciousness seizes upon its ideas about reality after death, rather than facing the particular reality in which it finds itself. It can deny feeling, in other words, and even attempt to argue itself out of its present independence from the body.

Perhaps this disorientation causes the tunnel experience.




Finally, a little further along in this same session, Seth tells us that certain images have been used to symbolize this transition from one existence to another. Here he gives us an example of the river Styx. However he also tells us that this particular symbol is no longer generally in use. Then he mentions that for Christians who believe in a heaven, a hell, a purgatory, and a reckoning, another ceremony is enacted and the guides take on the guises of those Christian saints and heroes.

In the following paragraph, Seth tells us that mass religious movements have for centuries fulfilled that purpose, in giving man some plan to be followed.

[...] Mass religious movements have for centuries fulfilled that purpose, in giving man some plan to be followed. It little mattered that later the plan was seen as a child's primer, a book of instructions complete with colorful tales, for the main purpose was served and there was little disorientation.

Then immediately after this, in the following paragraph, Seth says:

In periods where no such mass ideas are held, there is more disorientation, and when life after death is completely denied, the problem is somewhat magnified. Many, of course, are overjoyed to find themselves still conscious. Others have to learn all over again about certain laws of behavior, for they do not realize the creative potency of their thoughts or emotions.


Maybe, this tunnel experience occurs because in our times, for some people, there are no specific religious symbols that they believe in, that give them some roadmap about what to expect after death. As a result of this, people are disoriented after death and this is what perhaps may cause the tunnel experience.


-jbseth

Quote from: jbseth
There may or may not be disorientation on your part, according to your beliefs and development.

Yes, that's what I attribute to the variations on specifics of the experiences recorded. One woman was sure Jesus met her, another felt she was talking to God in person, other people had relatives meet them. One guy had no one meet him at first.

Quote from: jbseth
Along with this, he also seems to describe an life review experience. For example in this same session he also says:

I've read a little more of the MindSight book, and some of the NDE people had life reviews of their life "so far," and those stories are also very similar to what I've heard from other books. A sort of visual movie-like review of certain times in their lives, and when other people were involved in the incidents, the NDE person was able to sense the emotions and affect their actions had on other people, felt from the other's perspective. It was non-judgmental review, more an objective (if I can use that word) view of occurrences in their lives.

As far as the tunnel experience, I think it has to be related to a transition from one type of existence to the next and the mind trying to interpret or label it. Such as the River Styx!  I've read some instances in other books describe it as a literal bridge. A couple of the people described it as a black tunnel, one person said bright light, another said a collection of bright colors.

Quote from: jbseth
Maybe, this tunnel experience occurs because in our times, for some people, there are no specific religious symbols that they believe in, that give them some roadmap about what to expect after death. As a result of this, people are disoriented after death and this is what perhaps may cause the tunnel experience.

Religious beliefs certainly contribute to the "experience." I'm trying to remember what I was taught as a child being raised Catholic—I think I was told that when we die, our souls wait in our graves for the second coming of Jesus. He would release us from our graves at that time and we fly up to heaven (if we were perfect Catholics). I'd like to see another book written about NDEs that have happened to Catholics only. That would be interesting.

A couple of nights ago I saw an episode of NCIS called Life Before His Eyes. The lead character Gibbs is shot in a diner one morning and he goes through a life review plus some alternate probabilities. It was completely out of character for the show (crime drama) and totally well done! Free on Netflix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Before_His_Eyes

"Through this experience, Gibbs learns that he should not regret the choices he has or had not made."

thank you jbseth and Deb, for your very interesting posts.

I've been listening to Seth Speaks on Audible, so it was great to see the quotes from it.

and Deb I was raised Catholic too.
what you were told, sounds to me like the rapture.

I think I was taught we were going to hell, heaven or purgatory.

and yes the all Catholic NDE's book idea is a great one.

and then, an all Sethies version!!