Hello All,

I have long thought about exactly where the soul of an Alzheimer sufferer at  the end stage, where the person has become so incapacitated that they are zombie like and comatose and for all purposes  appear to be a body that the awareness has already exited the physical body. Playing devils advocate I put a few points for discussion as follows:

Hi, All,

The degradation of the mind due to Alzheimer's disease suggests that the mind and, resultantly, the human consciousness could be transient things.

Does this indicate that most preconceived notions of an afterlife are fundamentally flawed? Must we be able to perceive, evaluate and understand the afterlife for in to become a reality in the afterlife? E.g. or heaven or hell are creations of the mind which appears “dead” in the end stage Alzheimer sufferer.

The mind might not survive without a functioning human body. Does the eternal soul live on? If the consciousness dies then the thing that makes you an individual, self-aware human might cease at that moment also.

As the disease progresses the Alzheimer's victim goes through anger, rage, violence, depression, regressing to childhood, forgetting current life, almost living in a “past life”' state. As 5 year old child. As a teen or young adult, in random stages of this disease.

We on this side do not have all the answers. We can talk from experience, which is probably the best source of information about Alzheimer's disease.

Each soul with Alzheimer's at the end of his or her life on Earth is unique. No two souls are exactly alike. We can only speak in generalities.

Most people who cross over have some type of infirmity. Sometimes the infirmity hastens their trip to the other side. Even the event called "natural death" has some physical cause, some infirmity. When people have Alzheimer's, senile dementia, brain damage and other brain illnesses such as tumors or cancer, they are missing some parts of the physical brain.
After they cross, do these confused do these cofused souls eventual recovery, just as there is recovery from other physical deformities, diseases, etc.?

Does the soul have to be in a conscious state to recover in the afterlife or is the slate brushed clean and a new set of incarnations started again?

I propose that these confused souls might be kept in an afterlife hospital or infirmary, or rest place until they recover. Some need rest or soulsleep so their soul can recover.
The care given would be appropriate for the individual soul. All souls must recover to continue existing or they would continue forever in dark limbo. It just takes time, maybe many reincarnations. Who knows?

What do the esteemed forum members propose as an answer to this vexing question? A satisfactory solution would be of great help and comfort to the family and the first stage Alzheimer sufferer especially if we can offer some real concrete hope to them that they will continue as awareness’s in the afterlife.

alan

I suspect there's a fair bit of "bad electronics" to it...like you're trying to use the phone, you say "Hi, how are you?" into your end and nothing but static, or worse, unrelated words, comes out the other end.

My mother was an OT, and one of her books was called "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat".  The man in question had had a brain issue, a stroke I think, and he recalls that at the time he was making perfect sense...to him.  But what came out of his mouth wasn't what he was hearing himself say, and of course scared the bejeesus out of those around him.  He's an unusual case, as he pretty much completely recovered mentally and could remember what he'd been thinking at the time.

If you weren't someone who understood that sort of thing to start with (or even if you were), you'd tend to become different after a while...sullen, or just give up, or be angry.  If the physical issues were extreme enough, you might decide you were dreaming of your childhood, or some other time, and just go with it.

Part of what particularly inclined me to this theory (besides the man who mistook his wife for a hat)  was the tendency of Alzheimer's patients to have days where they're almost normal, and then to fall back into being disoriented...as though they were awake some of those times, and back in a dream the rest...it's just that dreaming doesn't restrain itself to their sleeping times.

Alan, you've asked one of those questions that I've been trying to avoid.

I just watched a friend die of Alzheimer's. It took about 5 years and his wife is still recovering after two years of continuous care for him.

One of the things that each of us will have to face is that there is no known way to prevent senile dementia. It begins with minor loss of memory as our older neurons begin to die off and not get replaced. It then proceeds until things stop working permanently. We have no way as yet to prevent this. Of course at the same time various body parts cease their function, which at least is a diversion.

My guess is that the entire dying sequence that goes through one of the dementias, whether from Alzheimer's or the slower normal dementia, or from a terrible disease that causes a coma, or any other problem that denies function, will be about the same for the awareness of the actor. I watch people with various degrees of mental impairment - actually, half a jug of rum comes pretty close to the dementias - and my impression is that the same person still lives in the shell, but is responding to new and unfamiliar stimulii.

While we normally can sit in the dark and watch the ghosts and other psychic denizens float by without caring one way or the other, the ability to recognize the world is diminished, so that meanings no longer are clear. This can lead to anxiety. It seems that this is the level at which Buddhist ideas are operative. One who is willing to order and organize the incoming stimulii will retain autonomy of some degree. Then, when the mechanisms for rational thought cease, we drift in a combination of attitude by which we are led to respond according to our character, and the facts of our historical existence by which our place in the world is defined, and which lead to new definitions of who and what we are.

As the Bardo Thodol puts it, "blown hither and thither by the winds of karma".

A quick review of people taking deliriant chemicals suggests that at death there is an interruption of the flow of rational consciousness, followed by a collective dump of all the factors of our existence into our field of awareness at the same instant.. Thus we simultaneously have sensations of motion, screwed up geometry, multiple occurrences in parallel worlds, and impressions of being processed through a relative passive awareness that feels as if it is simply going along for the ride while the cosmos turns handsprings. Eventually this stuff seems to settle into a pattern, presumably one that is most stable with respect to our interests and desires. We can see reports of such experiences by looking at people who have been using airplane glue, toluene from shoe adhesive, or materials such as dramamine and (in my estimation) salvia divinorum - these can be found at Erowid etc, and readily Googled up.

In "primitive" society - those places where people still have awareness of natural reality, live in extended family groups, and support one another emotionally - the aged live in a progressively supportive environment of family and neighbors. There is generally a pervasive sense of respect for the elders, as they represent the respositories of wisdom and calmness, especially in the face of youthful impulsivity. Modern technological society has streamlined itself by disbanding the extended families of yesterday, and has replaced loving care with chemical restraints such as Valium. The elders live in a grey fog in your world, with neither regard for their ability to further contribute, nor for their past value. - My personal solution is to give my physician a DNR order - "Do Not Resuscitate" - so that at least I won't have to go through the knothole more than once.

Obviously the term "primitive" is a matter of opinion. It reminds me of Kardec, who came to us from Brazil where he was immersed in a spiritual culture. As I recall he was learning to participate in some of the religious activities, although whether Umbanda, Santeria or what I don't know.  The ancestors are still hanging around because they are welcome members of the community.  They get called up and invited to ceremonies, and are employed as helpers in times of stress. - We have lost a great deal of reality by making a trade off that selected technology over spirituality.

I've been curious whether meditation would act to stabilize the last vestiges of sanity at death, so that the transition would be more like an advanced kundalini exercise than a meltdown. This has made me wonder about the mechanisms of healing that are available to us, because they imply some kind of control over the mass of psychic crap that otherwise threatens the descend like a blanket. One of the experiences of advanced meditation is a sense of leaving the mundane values and references of the world, and adopting, in their place, a sense of direct participation in the spirit world - or perhaps better termed, a sense of unity with the Light. Although the experiences of all of us differ, I've noticed that about half the members of the forum have reported related experiences, and some have been quite advanced. 

dave

Hi, all,

I approach the possibility the painful subject of euthanasia. Remember your doctor death.


I have also experience the horror of a friend degenerating from a caring intelligent person into a mindless drooling totally incontinent, who would grunt bite and pinch like a mind less animal. He had to be forced fed and hydrated clothed etc. but for all purposes was no longer their loved one he had become a jelly fish mindless biological entity, at this final stage confined to an instituted at great cost to the devastated family.

Now if I were the final stage Alzheimer sufferer, I would not want my life to be protracted by medical means and would appreciate positive euthanasia to end my abject unspeakable state of imprisonment in this dark hell of the mind.

Surely, the soul or awareness of this person has departed by the end stage of this unspeakable disease and what is the reason for prolonging the life of this shell?

Perhaps I have been a too blunt but feel Alzheimer in an enigma, very relevant to the subject of afterlife knowledge, as this would be a horribly way to depart into the next realm of existence.

alan