Am I Dead?

I hope this isn't too weird or mystical for you.

During my hospitalization I died -- technically -- twice. In medical terms I "coded" and doctors told Robin I was gone. Only extreme medical interventions shocked my body back to physical life.

I mentioned before that I was suffering from ICU delirium during most of my stay which altered but didn't eliminate my perceptions. I perceived but interpreted things differently. I even had conversations with people in the real world (Robin, nurses) but our words meant different things.

There's a concept in Tibetan Buddhism called "bardo." It means the interval between death and re-birth. After you die, your consciousness remains active, wrestles with karma from past life and prepares to get re-born into a new body. An unusual writer (Amie Barrodale) just published a novel ("Trip") that explores a woman in bardo. The main character has post-death experiences and they're weird. Seriously weird. For instance, someone she's talking to has arms made of smoke.

Now don't take this the wrong way, or call 911, but life since my aforementioned deaths has frequently been odd. At times I believe I'm half-dead, half-alive. My consciousness -- or soul, if you're comfortable with that word -- is floating around like a crouton in cosmic soup. Actually many people feel today's surreality (politically, socially) is unprecedented and inexplicable. Perhaps you too are all dead and floating in bardo.

Nobody knows what reality is or whether consciousness survives death or if there's an afterlife (Heaven/Hell). We can ponder whether humans have souls and if "reality" even exists, but that discussion won't find resolution. We can only follow our impressions of the noumenal (or numinous, if you lean that way) and guess what's happening.

Verstehen?