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Having always been curious about the Afterlife, I have spent most of my life researching it.

What really made a difference for me over the years was the fact I had started my research before suffering any severe loss. In fact, I remember being lucky enough to discuss the topic with both my grandmothers as a child and then as a young woman.

The reason I mention this is because I have found that we experience problems with after-death communication when we lose somebody dear to us. Grief over the physical loss of a loved one can shock us out of any belief system we might have put together over the years and cause us to seriously question any certainty we might have previously had. As I have also found out for myself, it can really take a lot of patience to process the physical loss of a loved one, even when you already have plenty of firsthand evidence that an Afterlife exists.

In particular, out-of-body experiences and vivid lucid dreaming helped me gain first-hand experience-based knowledge that our physical bodies are just a temporary vehicle, and that our consciousness can explore other dimensions that are just as real and solid as the physical plane.

Here are 5 myths I can dispel about the Afterlife, and the actual truths that lie behind them:

1. There is nothing morbid about feeling the urge to stay in touch

Having been brought up within a religion that discourages after-death communication and any attempt to understand what actually happens after death, I remember that no questions could be asked on the topic at Sunday School. The standard answer was that the dead should not be ‘disturbed’, they should ‘rest in peace’, they should not be ‘distracted’ from their path and that we should simply pray for the speedy evolution of their soul.

In fact, what I have found from all my sources and personal evidence is that our departed loved ones are eager to let us know they are alive, healed or uninjured, happy, safe and willing to take part in our lives, watch over us and guide us. I have also found that feeling their absence or suddenly thinking of them are both two clear signals they use to let us know that they are close.

2. Every religion or belief system centring on love is equally precious

According to some new age enthusiasts, following a specific religion or holding a certain belief system may cause trouble in the Afterlife, as our beliefs shape our destination. Religious fundamentalists like to use this argument too, in order to project the feeling of potential separation (which is typical of the physical world) into the Afterlife, so as to keep their believers in check. Hence the idea that we may end up in hell, be forced to reincarnate or even experience a ‘second death’.

In fact, according to the evidence I have put together, there is nothing wrong about holding a specific belief system during our physical lives, because those who have experienced death and reported back, in one way or the other, tell us that love is the essence and death is a joyful get-together.

3. Death is a time of reunion, not separation

When we leave this physical world and reawaken from the illusion that living a physical life involves, we also exit three-dimensional space and linear time. Even though our departed loved ones may go through a ‘period’ of rest and adjustment upon transition, through a ‘time’ of reflection or a life review, this does not hinder their presence around us, because the way they perceive time has no impact on our earthly time. In other words, death is an extremely gentle process, it is like walking from one room to another, knowing that those we have left behind, so to speak, will be with us in the blink of an eye. Even people who have been very evil (such as the former Nazi mentioned in the book Into the Light, by Dr. John Lerma) and experience the darkness of guilt for what appears ages, are not subject to our earthly time. In this specific case the patient was in a coma, when he had a near-death experience and ended up in a hellish environment. The time he felt it took him to overcome his sense of guilt and forgive himself for taking an active part in the genocide appeared to last for centuries. However, when he awakened from the coma, shortly before his death, and asked Dr Lerma how long he had been unconscious, he discovered the whole experience had taken place within 48 hours.

Last but not least, humans are multidimensional beings and may experience life on several levels and in several ways: hence the notion of reincarnation. However, based on my research and understanding, ‘if’ more than one life is recalled, they all come across as taking place ‘simultaneously’. This means that we never lose our loved ones, whatever the case may be. My book Looking Beyond the Fishbowl: A New Comforting Perspective on Reincarnation is entirely devoted to this topic.

4. There is no such thing as ‘earth-bound’ spirits

Death does not involve the need to move on to ‘another’ place. The living and the dead are all made of the same essence: spirit. This means that, when we awaken from our physical life dream, we are instantly in our spirit home and realise that the physical plane is just the denser surface of a wonderful whole. Because of this, unlike near-death experiencers, those who die for good do not need to make a choice about it in order to be close to their loved ones in the physical world. They know that we are always together and it will take ‘no time’ for all their living family and friends to be aware of this too and be together in spirit.

The idea of ghosts and earth-bound spirits, along with the idea that unless a spirit ‘crosses over’ it will not be able to progress, is just a way of projecting earthly drama into the Afterlife.

While it is true that strong feelings of grief, anger, sadness and frustration experienced by the living can give rise to so-called poltergeist phenomena, which are the result of bottled up feelings, the dead only convey their presence in gentle, loving ways and do not take an active part in our lives unless we agree to it. The intrusive phenomena reported in connection with popular haunted sites are created by the psychic energy of living visitors and are nourished by their expectations.

5. There is no danger of getting off-track during the death process

Another popular way to project earthly drama into the Afterlife is to imagine that when we die we might not realise that we are dead, we may be unable to see the spirit guides or relatives who are on the other side to welcome us and may need to be rescued or retrieved by living people or by discarnates who have only recently died.

Once again this misconception is based on the idea that the Afterlife is ruled by linear time and earth-like forms of separation.

While it can be very beneficial for the living to connect with their loved ones after death and take part in their reawakening and adjustment process, it is by no means essential. Just as we have midwives to assist newborns, gentle spirits specialise in assisting us at times of transition if we so require, and every single detail is taken care of in the best of ways.

The Afterlife: Hereafter and Here at Hand and Looking Beyond the Fishbowl: A New Comforting Perspective on Reincarnation by Giulia Jeary Knap are available from http://amzn.to/2Em3JnS and http://amzn.to/2E4fQmb. Find out more here: http://fracieloeterra.org/en/