I am not talking about merely dreaming. Nor am I talking about consciousness during sleep. I am talking about being unconscious and still aware of the body's status of being alive or dead.
"being unconscious and still aware of the body's status of being alive or dead" sounds like dreaming to me.
If I dream I know I am alive... if I don't then I am wholly unconscious and unaware of the state of my body, just as I am unaware during that state of anything else.
If you think you can be aware that your body is dead: you can't. Dead body = no consciousness. No consciousness = no awareness.
If you think you are aware... of
anything... then you are alive.
If you think what you are aware of is your dead body then that is merely your living brain interpreting the signals it has as best as it can, and leading to the perception you have.
The same, I believe, goes for "the light at the end of the tunnel" etc.
Has anyone besides me ever die temporarily or have experienced one's spirit or "wavefunction" leave the body only to return and cause one to be alive once again?
In my view, whatever is experienced during major disruption to normal brain activity can not / should not be taken at face value. That would be like blaming tv companies for broadcasting static when it is actually merely the reception at your end that is at fault, not what is broadcast.
Also, I would like to talk about the brain lighting up at certain thoughts and realizations. Because when this happened to me I could see light in my brain while my eyes were closed. This occurred to me on more than one occasion.
Seeing lights when your eyes are closed is a fairly common situation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-eye_hallucination
Certainly nothing to get spiritual or religious about, unless you want to ignore medical viewpoints.
I have also had dreams of Heaven and Hell. In the Heaven dream I was going through multiple doors while being lead by divine beings and there was Arabic writing on the side. In the Hell dream I had to fight to not lose my identity to evil entities. They included people I know in real life.
Amazing what the brain can conjure up as dreams, isn't it. It taps your subconscious while you sleep and you interpret the images as best you can.
I would think most people have had such dreams... or very similar.
I have. In one I had to get through a maze to get to the "pearly gates"... and the maze kept throwing up surprises.
As for dreams of Hell... we all have those as well... at least those of us who have read anything about Hell.
I would think most dream-analysts would put these dreams down to nothing but your subconscious fears - e.g. you subconsciously fear the effect that some people are having on you, such as stifling your natural personality.
Certainly not evidence of anything other than our subconscious at work, taking images that you recognise to relay subconscious thoughts.
Heck, I've had dreams of Ragnarok and Valhalla as well. And of Middle Earth. And space stations with artificial gravity.
Summary: always take your interpretations of what you "see" when not fully conscious (i.e. dreaming, near death etc) with a heavy dose of salt.