320.4 THE NATURE OF THE LIFE OF A SOUL OR SPIRIT As regards, in general, the life of souls, that is, of people who have recently died and become spirits, much experience has made it clear to me that when a person enters the next life he is not aware of being in that life. He imagines that he is still in the world, indeed that he is still within his physical body, insomuch that when he is told he is a spirit he is absolutely dumbfounded. He is dumbfounded because, for one thing, he is still in every way a man as regards sensations, desires, and thoughts, and for another, he did not during his lifetime believe in the existence of the spirit, or as is the case with some, that the spirit could possibly be such as his experience now proves.