I'm not a professional and many here would probably chalk my experiences up to lunacy or feeblemindedness, but my own experiences are all I have to go on.
Soon after exiting the WTS, I had a "near death" experience. It was an attempted suicide in which I almost achieved my goal at the time. I had stopped breathing when the EMT's arrived and my heart had stopped. They used the paddles. My brain experienced total nothingness,so I figure the brain's acknowledgement of events upon death is nada, just as we were taught.
However.......another experience I had a few years later, while still steeped deeply in WTS and scriptural doctrine (we sleep, we're conscious of nothing at all and animals don't have an afterlife) served to shake up all my understanding where an afterlife is concerned. I wasn't searching for this experience, nor was I expecting it. It came totally out of the blue and in an unexpected manner. My daughter moved away, leaving her cat (outside) and the cat decided to adopt me in a big way. Misty would climb up on my lap and want to sit on my chest when I tried to read the newspaper or any reading material. She was very loving and would always nuzzle my face, neck and ears for attention, purring constantly. And she always knew when I was arriving home from work and would greet me at the door, meowing to beat the band.
One morning, I treated her for fleas which she'd picked up in her outdoor carousing and BOY! Was she huffy with me! She wouldn't have anything to do with me and went to the back bedroom to sit on the top of the dresser and sulk in silence. That night I went to work, as usual. I was a caregiver for an elderly lady with Alzheimer's and later that night after the lady was settled in for the night, I lay down on the sofa in her living room to catch "40 winks." As I lay there on my side facing the back of the sofa, I began relaxing and closed my eyes. Suddenly, I felt something land on my chest between me and the sofa back. The sound of loud purring and the feel of something nuzzling my neck, ears and face startled me and I opened my eyes to see if somehow a strange cat had come into the house, though we would have been unaware of it's method for doing so. I opened my eyes to see....nothing. But the pressure of the approximate weight of a cat and the loud purring and nuzzling continued for about a minute, gradually waning until it was no longer there. The presence was gone. I wondered about it, thinking it a very strange occurrence and having absolutely NO understanding of the why's and wherefore's of this incident.
The next morning when I arrived home from work, Misty didn't greet me at the door. I figured at first she was still mad at me over the de-fleaing procedure the previous day. I looked all over the house for her and called her, thinking she'd come out, even if reluctantly, for food. She didn't I found her on the back bedroom floor, deceased. Rigor mortis had already set in, so I estimated the time of death to be the previous night around the time I was going to catch "40 winks." From this experience, I put the "2+2" together that were the only equations presented to me as evidence. Very obviously what I'd been taught by the WTS and from the scriptures wasn't totally true. I believe that Misty made a "visit" to me when she died.....or at least her "spirit" did....the part of her that loved me and wanted me to know that she forgave me and still loved me before she moved on.
So, Blueblades, I have to agree with Dr. Don Morse. There is definitely an afterlife, since it exists for animals. I'm sure that humans could expect no less. It would be unnatural for humans to be cognitively aware of this feature of our total being, since the brain, ergo our thought processes, die with the body.
Frannie
