Do We Visit The Future When We Die?

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Do We Visit The Future When We Die?</h4>

What if death isn’t the end, but actually the beginning of a journey through time itself? Imagine that when we die, we don’t just slip into oblivion or float into the afterlife, but instead, we’re propelled into the future. This fascinating theory has intrigued scientists, philosophers, and mystics alike: the idea that our consciousness travels forward in time after death. Could there be more to our dying than simply the cessation of life? Is it possible that the essence of who we are continues on a path beyond the present, experiencing future existences?

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; do we visit the future when we die?

To properly explore this idea, we must first grasp the fundamentals of time and consciousness. Time is traditionally viewed as a linear progression from past, to present, to future, but it’s not as straightforward as it seems. Specifically, Einstein’s theory of relativity reveals the flexibility of time. It shows us that time can warp under extreme conditions; that it isn’t absolute and that it can change; and that it can shift beyond recognition via a phenomenon called time dilation. Examples of how and when time can alter are: when you travel near the speed of light, or when you fall within an intense gravitational field, such as around a black hole. Einstein’s theory suggests time isn’t a fixed constant, which we are all experiencing at the same rate, but a variable dimension, influenced by our surroundings. That realization doesn’t really affect our day-to-day lives… but it is crucial when we’re thinking beyond the here and now. 

The other key concept is consciousness. We often view it as the essence of our being, but science struggles to fully explain consciousness. Many believe that it’s the product of complex brain activity; that it’s made by us for us. Not everyone subscribes to this idea though, and some counter theories propose that consciousness might exist independently of the body. Again, this is crucial, because (if true) it suggests that there is the potential for it to exist beyond physical death. Naturally, this raises some intriguing questions about life after death. Or, in other words, life in the future that your physical body won’t survive to see.

There’s plenty of claimed anecdotal evidence through which to explore the topic, but a couple of stories stand out among the rest. First, that of the early twentieth century Swiss scholar, Paul Amadeus Dienach. Born in 1884, he was a professor of French and German. In 1917, he unfortunately became ill with encephalitis lethargica, also known as “sleeping sickness”. In 1921, he fell into a 12-month-long coma as a result of his condition, during which he claims to have lived another man’s life. And that that life took him forwards in time, to the year 3,906. So, what did he see? And how did it happen?

Dienach kept diaries both before and after his coma, and when he eventually passed away in his present time… he entrusted those diaries to a student of his. Ultimately, the contents were made public, and they made for shocking reading. Dienach claimed that (when he moved forward in time) he lived in the body of an Italian who was also in hospital, named Andreas Northam. Northman needed medical care due to his being involved in an accident with a flying car… but that’s not the only claim to the future that Dienach made. 

In his diaries, he says that (while living as Northman) he researched history until that point, in 3,906, mostly by using a machine that is essentially an iPad to modern minds. He discusses a great deal of future events, which all must have seemed extremely random in Dienach’s native time, in the early 1920s. For example, he predicted that by 2204, Mars would be fully colonized, with millions of people moving to live there. He also said, though, that sixty years later, after a monumental disaster on the Red Planet, humankind would never colonize another world again. He further claims that, by the 2300s, environmental disasters would trigger tension and atomic war between all the major nations on Earth, which in turn sends the global population plummeting. Again, according to the story, all of these foretellings are written by a post-coma man alive in the 1920s, decades before nuclear warfare or the space age.

The good news according to Dienach is that, by the time of Andreas Northman, we will have turned a corner. By the era of 3,906, humanity is enjoying a golden era, after hundreds of years of comparative darkness. So much so, in many tellings of his tale, it’s even said that our brains eventually develop an entirely new sense, called “hyper-vision”. It’s unclear what hyper-vision actually does, but it’s said to be key in us changing for the better. 

Dienach’s story is chiefly compiled in the 2015 book, “Chronicles From the Future”, edited by Achilleas Sirigos. It’s certainly fascinating, but it’s also tough to know how much truth there is to it. One piece of evidence in its favor lies in how the professor dealt with the story after waking up from his coma… again, giving his diary entries to a student, who translated them. The fact that Dienach himself never tried to profit from his claims, or widely publish them, arguably reveals a certain level of sincerity. There doesn’t appear to be motivation for him to just make the whole thing up, which implies that he was genuinely recounting the experience he had while in his coma.

If such a phenomenon were possible, though, we might naturally expect others to have experienced the same thing. However, while there are a few adjacent stories that explore similar themes, there aren’t many direct parallels to Dienach’s exact experience. As far as we know, what he claims happened to him is unique. Ultimately, then, and intriguing as it is… it doesn’t provide conclusive evidence that we’re ever truly capable of visiting the future. Neither while our body is under stress (such as while comatose) nor after it has suffered the ultimate ordeal in death.

So, if we imagine that Dienach wasn’t lying, but that what he claims likely didn’t actually happen, either… then what’s going on? Some researchers simply attribute it to his being in an altered state of consciousness; to dreams or hallucinations induced by the coma. And it is common for a person to experience extremely detailed dreams while comatose, or in a near-death state. Not everyone sees the future, but many do claim to have seen some otherwise inexplicable things. Of course, there is crossover between this and reported Near-Death Experiences.

Generally, a Near-Death Experience, or NDE, involves the sufferer having vivid experiences during moments of clinical death or extreme trauma. This includes sensations of floating outside the body, moving through a tunnel, encountering bright lights, or even meeting a deceased loved one. Interestingly some studies have found that people recall a sense of timelessness. There are, then, further anecdotal reports of people who have had NDEs, and come back describing visions or insights related to future events. These can be broken down into two types, personal flashforwards, which are when a survivor sees how their life will continue after their NDE… or prophetic visions, where planetary-wide events are foreseen. 

The Pam Reynolds case is particularly famous. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Reynolds was an American singer. At age 35, a large aneurysm was discovered in her brain, very close to her brain stem. This meant she had to be put into emergency surgery, for a procedure with a worryingly low success rate. It was so tricky in part because it involved lowering her body temperature to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, which turned her brain completely unresponsive. Thankfully, after seven hours on the surgeon’s table, the operation was a success. But, despite this, there was a lengthy period during it when Reynolds was clinically dead. And here’s where it gets interesting.

Afterwards, Reynolds said that she had felt as though she’d been pulled out of her body, and as if she was floating above the operation room. She claimed she was able to see the doctors operate, and observed things that happened to (and around) her. She could recall some of the medical instruments used during her operation, as well as some of the conversations that the medical staff were having. Alongside this, she says she was also pulled towards a light; a light which contained her grandmother, an uncle, and other deceased relatives. The more time she spent with them, the warmer she felt, but it was eventually decided that she should return to life on Earth; a sensation which Reynolds described as akin to jumping into ice water.

Now, it might be said that for all its strangeness, Reynolds’ claim doesn’t explicitly involve traveling to the future. However, the seeming detachment of her being from her body has come to stand (for many) as one of the most convincing reports of an afterlife ever made. As with Paul Dienach, it could be said that Pam Reynolds was as close to actually dying as you’re ever likely to be… and she came back adamant that there was somewhere else waiting beyond the veil. Similarly, Dienach apparently felt compelled to pass on his story to his student, so convinced had he become in some kind of life everlasting.

Ultimately, and as always, no one has ever died and come back, to know for sure. Dienach and Reynolds got close, but they never definitively stopped living. And therefore, any question or theory surrounding what happens after you die is inescapably impossible to answer. However, if you consider how time really can change as per the laws of physics… and you think how, according to some ideas, consciousness really might be separate from our physical selves… and you think on both of their stories again… then there’s also, clearly, a fair amount of murkiness and unknowableness. Such is the riddle of life and death.