I have been putting this theory of mine together for a few weeks now, and I just finished the basics this morning. It's going to sound a little far fetched, but hear me out.
You're happy. You're walking down a city street, feeling good about life. Suddenly, a car coming down the street veers out of control and drives up on to the sidewalk. It's coming toward you at full speed as you try to leap out of the way. (#) The car slams into your body, and you go tumbling back hitting your head on the pavement.
Notice the little (#)? That's what I call the exit point. This is the point where the consciousness departs the body and warps to a parallel universe.
Think I'm totally off my rocker? Great. Read on.
There's a theory which states that every choice to every decision is actually made, and the result is played out on a nearly infinite number of parallel realities. Needless to say, there are going to be an almost infinite number of realities that are damn near identical to our own.
Now that you (hopefully) understand that theory, let's assume that our consciousness is somehow tied into the inner workings of this structure. Obviously, our subconscious knows a lot of shit that we don't, so it has a pretty good idea of what's going on at all times.
Now, what if your soul is immediately zapped to safety just before the possible point of death? I'm not talking minutes here, either. I'm talking about less than milliseconds.
Let's take my example above. The car is heading for you, and you try to leap out of the way. At the point where the (#) appears, your soul leaves your body and heads to a buffering area - a type of waiting room. It sees the event play itself out. In this case, the body is hit by the car, tumbles backward, and splits its head on the pavement. The body dies. At this point, the soul is instantaneously shot to another reality where your balance is slightly different during the jump, and you roll out of the way of the car unharmed.
Now since the body actually dies in that other reality, the people in that other reality accept you have died. You, on the other hand, are convinced that you are one hell of an athlete and can dodge oncoming cars. Life goes on.
This theory can explain a lot of things. It explains the weird disorientation during an event like this, as well as all of those "near misses" in your life: severe car accidents that you were able to survive, etc. It can explain deja vu to a point, as you may have actually repeated an action that was originally done in your new reality. It can explain those weird feelings you get when you just know something just isn't "right", and wasn't like it is now, yet it can't be explained.
Believe it or not, it also can explain the presence of ghosts. Age is a definite factor, and as the body grows older, it grows weaker. There will come a point where the physical body can't sustain life anymore, and dies - at which the soul exits. It doesn't go anywhere, it just hangs around in whatever form it wishes.
As for an aferlife, well, I don't know. Perhaps the soul has a choice of how long it wants to hang around in its present reality before moving on.
Realize, there are exceptions to this theory! If you climb to the top of the Empire State Building, and hurl yourself off the observation deck, your ass is dead. There's no way your subconscious is going to attempt to convince your soul of a possibility of survival. So you scream, and fall to your death where your soul is shot to its final destination immediately, and your body explodes on impact. How fun.
In that instance, every part of your being knows you're about to become chunky salsa. There's no hope. But in the instance of the car example above, there is a good chance of survival, as far as probability goes. The fact is, this theory applies to any situation where the soul is wishing survival, and the situation itself has the appropriate variables to comply with that wish - even if it means zipping over to an alternate reality where the body actually does live.
Now, I know what many of you are thinking. "He's been watching too much 'Sliders'." Wrong. That show is about controlled transport to alternate realities, and always took the most extreme differences between each. It uses the same base scientific theory, but is actually quite different in application. Plus, I didn't like the show very much. I watched the pilot, and that was pretty much it.