Not really religion

[badriya]

I'm probably imagining it but sometimes I feel as if my grandmother is around in a loving protective kind of way. Also perhaps my mum sometimes and then I get the feeling about Malcolm, one of B's partners who died just a year ago

Comments

[mistdog]

I've had similar experiences occasionally.

I do think it comes from the imagination, although imagination is a small word to describe the vast amount that's going on inside our minds. We've evolved brains which are constantly filtering out everything that isn't immediately relevant, but an amazing amount is stored away. We make mental models of everyone we care about, the time we spend with them, the conversations we have with them and the feelings we have about them. (I'm not saying we remember every detail, but for sure we store a vast amount more than we can easily access; sometimes details come out in dreams decades later long after our conscious minds have lost the memory.) We use these models to imagine what someone would say in a certain situation. With someone we know well, we can know quite well what they'd be thinking.

So, even though I don't think the dead continue to exist in the physical world, I think they are still "around" to some extent within us. If we're receptive to it, they can use our minds to think with and they can speak to us. I think it's a tremendously valuable and moving thing.