"Recent experiments with drugs and anesthetics, together with advances in the computer science of virtual reality, promise to remove much of the fear and mystery from death because we may be able to 'preview' it," writes Colin Haynes, whose goal in launching this interactive project is to gather enough information to put together the specs for a virtual reality model of the experience of dying. This is a purely electronic project at the OBS; there is nothing substantial involved--beyond you, the reader, of course.
When the author first contacted OBS about posting this project, he argued strongly for "hitting the Halloween window," when people think about death and might welcome a hypertext approach to the ultimate experience. This project touches on death and Near Death Experiences (NDEs) from many angles-- medical, classical, religious, drug-induced near-death states (specifically nitrous oxide)--and invites readers to become part of the project by contributing (anonymously) their own NDEs, whether in text, graphics, or audio.
The Internet introduces us to new ways of communicating and collaborating, and as Death is a common thread linking us all, we may find that, in spirit if not in technology, the Ancients were here in hypertext before us. Osiris was the Egyptian God whose jealous brother Typhon cut him into pieces, threw him in the Nile, and took over his Kindgom. Loving Isis, Osiris's wife, parsed him whole again, and Osiris was restored to his Kindgom.
With The Osiris Project, Haynes proposes something unusual and ambitious, which, to succeed, must draw its constituent pieces, its ultimate meaning and form, from the experiences of other Net citizens. This Halloween, invest a little of your self in Virtual Death--A Work in Progress. Keep this project alive and buy into it; use the attached email form to submit your own Near Death Experience (NDE), to be included and posted (name withheld on request) at the discretion of the editor, Colin Haynes.