Based on my knowledge of the spirit world, I do not believe that the spirit world is a static place (heaven and hell), but rather the afterlife is an everlasting existence where human spirits can come and go as they please. Therefore, I don't believe that there is a time limit for how long an intelligent human spirit can stay earthbound. I believe that spirits (human and non-human entities) can travel between the spirit world and the physical world as often as they please by going through a spiritual vortex (
read here) or through a spirit portal (mirrors, windows, and doorways, for example). I also believe that human spirits can choose to cross over into the spirit world or they can choose to return to the physical world and remain for as long as they desire. That being said, I know that there are human spirits who remain earthbound because they are stuck and unable to cross over on their own. I've communicated with spirits who didn't realize that they were dead, and they were scared and confused. They either died a sudden and unexpected death or a tragic death. I've also communicated with spirits who were angry about dying or who died a brutal death, and they refused to cross over into the spirit world. They chose to be earthbound and remain at the location where they died. An angry or confused spirit can also attach themselves to an object that means something to them or they can attach themselves to a living person, whether the person is someone they once knew or someone who tried to interact with them after they died, such as a paranormal investigator.
That is fascinating and it all makes sense. I have some questions I will be asking you in a private Conversation.
In that book Private Dowding, he did not realize he was dead at first since he died a sudden death. Below is an excerpt from the book.
“Physical death is nothing. There really is no cause for fear. Some of my pals grieved for me. When I 'went West" they thought I was dead for good. This is what happened. I have a perfectly clear memory of the whole incident. I was waiting at the corner of a traverse to go on guard. It was a fine evening. I had no special intimation of danger, until I heard the whizz of a shell. Then following an explosion, somewhere behind me. I crouched down involuntarily, but was too late. Something struck, hard, hard hard, against my neck. Shall I ever lose the memory of that hardness? It is the only unpleasant incident that I can remember. I fell and as I did so, without passing through an apparent interval of unconsciousness, I found myself outside myself! You see I am telling my story simply; you will find it easier to understand. You will learn to know what a small incident this dying is.
Think of it! One moment I was alive, in the earthly sense, looking over a trench parapet, unalarmed, normal. Five seconds later I was standing outside my body, helping two of my pals to carry my body down the trench labyrinth towards a dressing station. They thought I was senseless but alive. I did not know whether I had jumped out of my body through shell shock, temporarily or for ever. You see what a small thing is death, even the violent death of war! I seemed in a dream. I had dreamt that someone or something has knocked me down. Now I was dreaming that I was outside my body. Soon I should wake up and find myself in the traverse waiting to go on guard...It all happened so simply. Death for me was a simple experience--no horror, no long-drawn suffering, no conflict. It comes to many in the same way. My pals need not fear death. Few of them do; nevertheless there is an underlying dread of possible extinction. I dreaded that; many soldiers do, but they rarely have time to think about such things. As in my case, thousands of soldiers pass over without knowing it. If there be shock, it is not the shock of physical death.
Shock comes later when comprehension dawns: "Where is my body? Surely I am not dead!' In my own case, I knew nothing more than I have already related, at the time. When I found that my two pals could carry my body without my help, I dropped behind. I just followed, in a curiously humble way. Humble? Yes, because I seemed so useless. We met a stretcher party. My body was hoisted on to the stretcher. I wondered when I should get back into it again
. You see, I was so little 'dead' that I imagined I was still physically alive. Think of it a moment before we pass on. I had been struck by a shell splinter. There was no pain. The life was knocked out of my body; again, I say, there was no pain.Then I found that the whole of myself--all, that is, that thinks and sees and feels and knows--was still alive and conscious! I had begun a new chapter of life. I will tell you what I felt like. It was as if I had been running hard until, hot and breathless, I had thrown my overcoat away. The coat was my body, and if I had not thrown it away I should have suffocated. I cannot describe the experience in a better way; there is nothing else to describe.”
Private Dowding, p. 14-16