pod cast

[Shellshock]

Heya PPI ,  Just stopping by to say hello !
Currently relaxing and really enjoying the pod casts - Great stuff ! 
Xoxo's ~ Shelly

[PPI Brian]

Hi Shell,

It's so good to see you on the boards! Thank you for downloading our podcasts. Be sure to check out the Halloween 2009 episode with Tracy. 

We have one "in the can" that we're working on. It features the curator of the Whaley House Musuem, and was recorded (unbelievably) 30 years ago. It took a great deal of care and effort to salvage the old cassette tapes, but we managed. The audio quality is exceptional considering their age. Hope to make that podcast available before Halloween.

Hope all is well!

[Shellshock]

Heya , All your pod casts were  great. Thanks for sharing them !
In Your Halloween Pod Cast I related to the concern about people who pass on who
had Alzheimer's .  My Grams had that when she passed away.
Will she be okay? will she know where she is? Will she understand now?  will someone guide her?
Concerns, grief... always on my mind.  It was something that had my stomach in knots for a while....
Still does.

I don't like not knowing !
Lots of people say we dont have the ailments we had here once we cross over.
But ultimately who knows? Maybe like someone said, we just cease to
exist all together. Which makes me sad to think.. Agh.
I tend to lean toward the idea we just change into a different form of energy ... and
I pray we're all good when we "float on". =)

[Brigham]

This is a weird question to ponder. If we assume for the sake of argument that a personality may continue to exist non-corporeally after death, what kinds of consequences does this have? A disease like Alzheimer's is very clearly the result of a chemical process in the brain which results in physical plaques; personality change, memory impairment and dementia are all results of physical processes. If a personality is separated from their physical brain somehow, would this imply that they would return to a more normal state? Or would their impaired mental function actually permanently alter whatever mental essence there was?

This brings up a related question: if someone were totally braindead, would their ghost be "braindead" as well; or would the intelligence already be separated from the body, allowing them to haunt themselves?

[PPI Tracy]

That is a really interesting topic.  I wonder if people can actually choose to come back in a form where they were most pleased with themselves.  For instance, we have all heard of someone passing away at say, 90, and they were basically incapacitated.  Yet someone sees their apparition and they appear as they were in their 20's or 30's.  Now if they have the mental capability to choose that, then that makes sense.  If they do not possess the mental capability when they pass, I wonder if they somehow are given the choice or given clarity of mind at that moment to be able to choose.   Maybe it's like your belief system.  I remember the book (the movie sucked) What Dreams May Come.  Written by Richard Matheson (sp?).  The husband dies and then the wife takes her own life. Because she is so caught up in grief and anger, she cannot see that she has the power to completely change her surroundings, yet she won't even let herself open up to the possibility.  It takes quite a long time for her husband to actually convince her that their is another state of being.  Then once she takes on that possibility in her mind, everything changes around her.  Her world becomes  bright, beautiful and full of color. In an instant, she goes from dark, dingy, filled with the things she is afraid of like spiders and such, to this incredible place that has always been in her dreams where she is the most happy.  

[Damian]

Great question Brigham!  I'm inclined to look at "personality" as being more related to a persons energy or essence...one could even call this energy a soul.  When contemplating the paranormal I try to think of things in energy terms.

Getting back to the specifics of your question, I think that Alzheimer's (and the like) creates a physiological barrier between ones true energy/essence and the outward manifestation and communication of that energy/essence.  And it's scary because according to this theory, someone suffering from Alzheimer's (dementia, etc) is literally trapped in their body.  Their essence knows who they are and how they want to live, but their body is physiologically preventing that from happening.

Following that theory further down the road, I think that any intelligent paranormal remenant we might encounter would be the deceased's true essence/energy, rather than a form of that energy affected by a physiological crippling.  And I don't believe this to be a choice that the deceased would make, it would simply be an expression (for lack of a better term) of their true self, which would consist of how they percieved themselves in life.

Excellent and thought-provoking question!

[ljiljanac]

Yah, I agree with Damian.  If physiological issues were to remain in effect after death, then every single spirit would have some sort of sign or symptom of what caused their deaths at the least.  I do, however, believe that there would be a difference between spirits in a residual haunting, as opposed to an intelligent haunting.  In the case of a residual haunting, I believe that the spirit would exhibit signs of said Dementia or Alzheimer's and whatnot. 

[PPI Brian]

Our latest podcast is available for download on our Podcast Page http://www.pacificparanormal.com/joomla/content/blogcategory/7/26/ or on iTunes http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-paranormal-podcast/id393262497

06 - Whaley House Interview #1 
Travel back in time through the PPI audio archives for the first of a series of a special interviews with June Reading, Director of the Whaley House Museum in Old Town San Diego.  June Reading and Anita Kerwin share their personal  experiences at the Whaley House with PPI Investigator Brian Miller during a busy winter afternoon at the museum.

This is the first in a series of podcasts that feature conversations with June Reading and her staff that were recorded in 1982 during a very active period at the Whaley House.

[PPI Tim]

Sounds Wonderful Brian. I'm waiting to hear what June says about Regis Philbin and Hans Holtzer.

[PPI Brian]

I'm sifting through the source tapes now.