Belly,
I've only ever seen one person expire before my eyes and something definitely "happens" and it's not at all like in a movie, it's a very weird feeling even if it's someone you don't know, in this case it was an old homeless man.
I've seen a couple of other people in the minutes after they've died from drug overdoses and again, they obviously look dead but they also look empty somehow.

Jay,

Perhaps those who inquire as to why your mum's friend is in their house, and who don't seem to know they're dead - aren't dead.

Perhaps it's a glitch in time - or in the experience of spacetime.

Physicists haven't found a law that says that time should only be a one way deal - maybe time is like a big loaf of something.

The persistent illusion is of "past", "present" and "future".

Here's an excerpt from "The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene.

"....As a prime example, the intuitive sense of time's flow can be vividly portrayed in this framework by a variation on the movie-projector metaphor. We can envision a light that illuminates one time slice after another, momentarily making the time slice come alive in the present--making it the momentary now--only to let it instantly go dark again as the light moves on to the next slice.....But again, while this image seems to match experience, scientists have been unable to to find anything in the laws of physics that embodies such a moving light. They have found no physical mechanism that singles out moment after moment to be momentarily real...Quite the contrary.....there is convincing evidence that the spacetime loaf--the totality of spacetime, not slice by single slice--is real..."

I liked the contributions of Jay and Poirot.
And agree we can not truly know, while we live in any case.
Not a believer, and aware God says we will die until he returns not open a door to heaven and step in.
Heard of the English haunt that many report seeing, Roman soldiers marching out of a wall and it to another disappearing.
A family for generations more in fear and searching for under standing, passed down the story of a son appearing in the kitchen days before the telegram came informing his mum he had died in ww1 in France.
For every true person seeing things as Jay reports ten frauds exist.
For that reason this thread, talking mostly of personal happenings, has merit.
I while preaching openness on this subject, like most, am holding back, some things are unbelievable.

Belly.

"Heard of the English haunt that many report seeing, Roman soldiers marching out of a wall and it to another disappearing.

This belly can be put down as a glitch in time. The past over-lapping with present or ghost fragments since the past has already been. The future on the other hand is the event horizon, hence why you don’t see space creatures or our own futures (lets say,the year 2050, coming out of walls or thing else for that matter. Some fragments of the past are caught in loops ( you can look at it by flicking the pages of a book, and each page is a fixed point in times past) and when a weak spot in the time continuum happens, you get what I call, the cross-roads effect or ghosts if you like.

This is more than likely what happens. However these ghosts fragments only last for a few hundred years or so and then there compressed like the last pages of the book, and can no-longer exist because of the more future that comes at its current and steady rate....hence why no-one sees T-REX or cavemen running around in your kitchen.

These glitches are very few, and thank goodness for that....you would be all frighten out of your wits downing lots of heavy medication.

The persistent illusion is of "past", "present" and "future".

Only two of these are right.

Just a thought.

PLANET3

Hi there PLANET3...

An interesting theory I believe ? And who's to say you're not right ?There's so much we're yet to know 'out there', and I don't think a layman like myself could ever furnish an explanation that would satisfy, the most strident fatalist or philosopher for that matter.

Perhaps it's only those who harbour the deepest of religious conviction, that feel secure enough in themselves and in their own beliefs, not to concern themselves of the events immediately subsequent to own deaths ?

A while back, I recall talking to a young bloke at the old Prince Henry Hospital. A moment or two before he expired, he asked me how much trouble he was in ? A stupid question on the face of it, so I answered in the only way I could, he just kind of grinned, and was gone.

They called 'time', and that was that. He looked very peaceful at the time he passed...why ? Who knows ? I hope by my reassurance, he appeared to settle a bit and relax, seemingly a little happier, and died peacefully ? Right, wrong or what, I wouldn't have a clue ? I saw what I saw ?

The thread can be just as long as that very old one.
It has potential.
It questions our inner thoughts and ideas.
If we leave God out of it, or do we need to?
Belief is part of the whole thing.
I some how wounder if P3 has it right, a fold in time.
It would explain all ghost story's.
But not my trip with my dead father.
Mum had many hospital stays, each close to death, in her last years.
She told of a near death experience.
Dad she said, had sent her back, she had work to do.
I and mum, had our hands full doing what grand parents and elder sons/daughters do, raising grand children.
The job was done at the time of her death.
Every one, very nearly, has a ghost story.
One thing is certain we can not prove or disprove life after death.