(This is an article I wrote in its raw form, suppose to be working with an adviser this next semester at school to make it more readable to a wide audience)
I have spent an amount of time reflecting and meditating about Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Of course, even wondering what it would be like if I ever developed one of these conditions. Which, the more I thought about it and the final stages of the conditions, the more I felt that it would signify that my soul has left my body, that I have went on to the next life.
Practicing awareness and mindfulness, I have come to realize the separation of conscious thinking from our brains, which our brains do function much like a computer. But we do have the ability of meta cognition and separating ourselves from our feelings and subconscious and to notice them from a distance. Granted, our conscious is still tied very much to our brains that limit our conscious thinking.
But, in my opinion, our conscious thinking represents our soul in a way, with limited power here on earth, still beholden to these fragile human bodies. One hit in the head in the right spot can still completely change the way we think… But, abstract thinking in a healthy mind and body is a taste of the freedom of our souls, to feel truly alive and to be your own person.
Having felt a taste of freedom of the soul and imagining that I have lost control of my mind and succumb to dementia, I assume that I have left this world. That all I have left behind is my damaged computer brain just running and functioning enough to keep my body alive here. For if I have lost my consciousness I experience now, it can’t be me in my opinion… Not truly me anyways, just an earthly part of me that I have left behind.
It actually makes me worry less about dementia, because I feel somewhere along the way I will have died and left here, the pain that people may feel I am experiencing, I very well might not be. In all reality, it may be one of the least painful ways to leave this world…
It is just hard to me to understand logically that I still exist after I have deteriorated so far… I don’t understand how that could still be me…
theeclecticschizophrenic.com 