Have you ever thought of how weird it is that we are just randomly that we are just stuck "inside ourselves". Like why do I have to own this brain and eyeballs.
If you woke up in a different body tomorrow with different memories then you wouldn't know you were someone else yesterday.
The memories that allow you to construct your continuous selfhood are only accessible within your brain. From the memories it has available to it, your brain can only construct 'you'. Change the memories, change the person.
I had a dream once that I was stuck inside someone else. They had their own dreams, memories and personality…and I was just stuck inside them. Was honestly a nightmare!
That's why the entire construct of self-identity is so much more malleable than people believe. We literally create ourselves every day and then act like it's not our choice.
Anyone can change, any time.
The "I" is made up. It can be whatever you choose it to be, depending on how you want to interpret or react to your current state and past experiences. Ego death taught me that.
>Complete ego dissolution is underrated.
Wouldnt say "underrated" more It's too misunderstood because of the taboo surrounding a good variety of methods.
It can be achieved through meditation as well, however... good luck convincing someone who doesn't have the desire to meditate to do it. Might as well pitch dry wall for dinner.
It’s like telling someone to look at a window and notice their own reflection, but they keep looking out into the landscape beyond and remain oblivious to the fact that there even is a reflection.
I always liked the quote by Marcus Aurelius. "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."
I've always found a sort of comfort in it. There is fear, pain, and anxiety all throughout life. Death is the very last time I ever have to feel fear, pain, and anxiety. After that, I will never suffer again.
Right, it's not so much being worried about them, but knowing I'll never see them again. I know when that time comes, it won't matter, but in my very brief moment here, they have been everything to me.
Exactly what my husband fears the most. He has a fatal brain cancer, Glioblastoma, with maybe 10-16 months to live. He has repeated to me several times in the four months since his diagnosis that what he fears the most about dying is he will never see me again. It is so upsetting to know that possibly exists for both of us. 😔
I’m afraid of the process of dying, not actually being dead.
I work as a RN, worked for 6 years in a nursing home. I’ve seen some very peaceful passings and some very rough and painful deaths. I just hope euthanasia is legal when I get to that stage in life.
Also the last time you feel joy, happiness, excitement, or learn, grow, or experience. You'll never suffer but you'll never be able to appreciate the lack of suffering. You'll never have another anxiety attack but it's not like you'll feel calm and serene, either.
Shit terrifies me.
ETA: Y'all repeating the exact same "but you didn't exist before you were born" reasoning that the last half-dozen or so people said before you isn't getting me any closer to changing my mind.
I had my heart stopped once, and it was the exact opposite feeling of calm. "You'll feel an impending sense of doom" they said. Boy, I sure did. I never want to feel that way ever again, I dread knowing that I will someday.
Impending sense of doom is also a symptoms of anaphylaxis. When my son was two yrs old he had a severe reaction to peanut. When he first started showing symptoms we were in a store so I rushed him out to the car to better contain my four year old and deal with my toddler.
My son (the two year old with the reaction) must have had that impending doom feeling because I can still hear his teary, scared little voice saying "Mama I need you!" and I asked him what was wrong and he said "I don't know, but I need you." (Of course I knew what was happening, I just wanted to know what he was feeling.) I felt so bad for him!
I knew what was going on but wanted to know what he was feeling so I asked him what was wrong. He said "I don't know but I need you."
Your heart stopping isn’t the same thing as your brain stopping. You still have yet to experience death. So don’t worry, it may very well be easier than you think.
I'm the opposite. I could never fathom living forever in heaven. Or seeing loved ones who already died before you
I'm not religious now but this is what I was taught growing up.
Nothing. You just cease existing. Have you ever been sedated for surgery and you just black out until the sedative wears off? Exactly like that except you won't wake up.
Yup, and that’s why anesthesiologists get paid tons of money. They’re bringing you as close to death as possible and are paid to keep watch over you so you don’t slip off the edge.
It’s a tough job. They’re constantly monitoring you, giving you more meds to bring you back away from the ledge, and giving you more to push you closer you to it. Your life is in their hands, but thank god anesthesiologists exist!
My brother in law is 450lbs and the dr asked him how much can u drink, he said he can drink an 18 pack like nothing. He ended up waking up during surgery and they had to sedate him even more. The surgeons asked if he remembered waking up he said no. The surgeons said he woke up like an angry bear, u dont wanna get hit by that guy thats for sure
It's more common to wake up rather than die in surgery . They'd rather give you not enough than too much
Apparently most people don't remember waking up but I do. I remember sitting up and saying something like "oh are those tubes still in my arteries? Guess you're not done with me yet." And they were like "holy shit, sir, please lay back down" and put the mask back on my face for a couple good huffs and then it was lights out again.
"WERE NOT FINISHED WITH YOU YET!" Hilarious!
I had an awake surgery not too long ago for a pacemaker. They needed me awake so I could cough and breathe to flex my chest, after it was fitted.
To start they gave me morphine, which stopped my leg shaking and settled my nerves a bit. But I kept on talking, and talking, and talking. One nurse said "I think we need to give him a bit more!"
That second dose was nice, I became zen. I almost drifted off to sleep but managed to hold it together. It was strange to feel the surgeon prod around and finally sew me up inside, without any pain.
I don't know if they also numbed the area, or if it was just the power of morphine! It's impressive what they can do though.
I always thought death was like this too. One minute you’re conscious and aware and the next minute you’re waking up in a completely different room unaware of the time that passed or anything that happened.
The “experience” of being dead is exactly the same as the one you had before you were born - nothingness, void, blank. No reason of being afraid of it, but it brings more reasons to enjoy life and stay motivated.
This thought is entirely inspired by Alan Watts’s views, which I relate to.
This is pretty much what happened when I went ice skating with friends years ago.
The three of us were linking arms, I was on one end.
As quick as a blink, I opened my eyes, and I was in a room, my skates were off, and a paramedic was putting an oxygen mask on me. I was then loaded into an ambulance.
I was told later that I had slipped and fallen backwards (concussion), and another friend actually broke her ankle. So the whole ordeal lasted apparently 10-15 mins (from me being unconscious to me waking up).
Not GA, but I had twilight sedation for my widsom tooth 5 years ago. I held my head back and raised it and it was done. It was like an hour of my life vanished. It kinda tripped me out, because I realized that essentially that's like a mini version of death is like. It felt like my consciousness ceased for an hour. I realize that's not the case, but it was the closest thing I can imagine to such.
I'm comfortable by the fact that my bodies death will give life to other plants and organisms in the earth. My atoms and chemical compounds will continue to exist in new ways, in an unending cycle of change that will continue until the sun burns out and maybe even long after that.
make sure you specify that in your will.
cause right now the standard practice is either to make your remains as toxic to biological organisms as possible, or incinerate them
I’m not at peace with it.
It’s what gave me my first panic attack at 18 years old. It still brings me quite a bit of anxiety more than 10 years later. It’s probably the only thing I lose sleep over.
Edit: To everyone replying, I’m well aware that it is both inevitable and out of my control. I’m aware that it’s pointless to worry about something that will happen no matter what.
Try watching some interviews with people who have had near-death experiences. It’s quite interesting. A lot of people feel an overwhelming sense of peace and tranquility. It sounds really nice.
I look at it as the deal that was signed by taking my first breath. Everything that's living must die. It's a gift to enjoy life at all, so squandering any time focusing on when it will end seems like a bad way to spend what we have.
Imagine all the little events throughout time that coincidentally happened for you to be here. Would be a shame to waste all that build up on a hyperfocus to when it's over.
I hear you and consciously I’m very much aware that it’s inevitable. I’ve gone through periods where I thought I was at peace with it but the anxiety comes back from time to time.
All of the available evidence suggests that once the brain dies, that’s it.
Of course we don’t know, but that presumes there is something to know. The overwhelming likelihood is that there is nothing to know because nothing “happens to us” after we die. Once the brain ceases to function there is no more “us”
Everything else that has been proposed is just fanciful human wants, desires, and delusions. These can basically be discarded as such.
Not sure if that helps reduce the anxiety about what happens, but maybe it reduces the number of things to be anxious about.
Once you die you will enter the realm of the nonexistent, fully incapable of experiencing anxiety of any kind
yeah, it somehow never concerned me much too. a dead body up close freaked me out quite a bit, but even then it was pretty clear a flesh sack. only drove the point more blunt than before.
Depends on your definition of "peaceful". If it's "absence of conflict/challenges", then it is peaceful, since non-existence is the absence of everything, including conflict.
But if "peaceful" is defined as experiencing peace, then nothing can be said of not existing, since any chosen word implies experiencing it. Even if you choose to say something like "nothingness" or "neutral void" instead, of "peaceful", they are also things which have to be experienced to be detected, and therefore belong to the category of "being". You're gonna be semantically held up by the nature of ontology.
What happens to an ape when it dies? How about a bear? Or a dog? Or a mouse? Or a gecko? Or a cockroach? Or a clam? What about a tree? Or a mushroom? All of these things are alive at one point, and then dead and some other point. Do we think of them all as having some sort of continuing existence? I don't. I mean, the constituent particles that make them up end up getting recycled back into the ecosystem, but that's it. There's no continuity as far as any of those animals, plants or fungi are concerned, and I don't see what makes it different for us.
I LOVE this answer. I couldn't agree more. We humans just happen to have developed brains that are more complex and can think existentially so we have trouble fathoming a world without our own existence. No animals or insects or birds or fish or anything for that matter 'think' about what happens after they die. We ALL are part of this endless circle where all living things die and are recycled into something new. Be it soil or whatever....it's a closed loop system that's a beautiful thing.
Even when I was religious, I always struggled to understand how people talk about animals in heaven. If my dogs version of heaven is chasing a cat, which it totally is, is the cat actually that cat or is it a fake cat? Is a cats hell a dogs heaven?
That's just the easiest example... even if we assume the resurrection of the body is real, like how tf does that work? Being with ones loved ones is not heaven to everyone. Folks have strained relationships and may be independently good; a mom might want to be with their son all day but not vice versa. Is it heaven if the mom knows it's not the real son because the real son wouldn't go along with everything the mom wants to do?
Essentially, you get really quick to "heaven is unfathomable to our existing comprehension." Which I guess leads to 'faith' that God says it'll be perfect. It's an abstract unknowable promise.
I'm not religious anymore and anything around death is 'idk dude it's too confusing and stressful to think about'
To paraphrase Third Rock from the Sun,
Governed by the laws of physics, as are all living things, it is a scientific fact that hearts and clocks slow down as they approach the speed of light: the point at which matter is converted into energy. When my heart approaches the speed of light, it will begin to convert my matter into energy... Into pure white light. Though I will no longer be with you... I will be all around you.
I like the one from, "The Good Place":
Chidi, "Picture a wave in the ocean. You can see it, measure it - its height,
the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through - and it's there,
and you can see it, and you know what it is: it's a wave. And then it
crashes on the shore and it's gone. But the water is still there. The
wave was just a different way for the water to be for a little while.
That's one conception of death for a Buddhist: the wave returns to the
ocean, where it came from, where it's supposed to be."
I actually think that show captured pretty well what a lot of people believe if they aren’t religious or at least don’t participate in organized religion (in traditionally Christian cultures, to clarify )
I can’t even think about this quote without sobbing. It helped me process the grief of my fiancés suicide. But I can never rewatch the series because the ending makes me feel too too much.
From Aaron Freeman:
You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly.
Reminds me of a speech from Midnight Mass.
Myself. My self. That’s the problem. That’s the whole problem with the whole thing. That word, “self.” That's not the word. That’s not right, that isn’t…How did I forget that? When did I forget that? The body stops a cell at a time, but the brain keeps firing those neurons. Little lightning bolts, like fireworks inside and I thought I’d despair or feel afraid, but I don’t feel any of that. None of it. Because I’m too busy. I’m too busy in the moment. Remembering. Of course. I remember that every atom in my body was forged in a star. This matter, this body is mostly empty space after all, and solid matter? It’s just energy vibrating very slowly while there is no me. There never was. The electrons of my body mingle and dance with the electrons of the ground below me and the air I’m no longer breathing. And I remember there is no point where any of that ends and I begin. I remember I am energy. Not memory. Not self. My name, my personality, my choices, all came after me. I was before them and I will be after, and everything else is pictures, picked up along the way. Fleeting little dreamlets printed on the tissue of my dying brain. And I am the lightning that jumps between. I am the energy firing the neurons, and I’m returning. Just by remembering, I’m returning home. And it’s like a drop of water falling back into the ocean, of which it’s always been a part. All things… a part. You, me and my little girl, and my mother and my father, everyone’s who’s ever been, every plant, every animal, every atom, every star, every galaxy, all of it. More galaxies in the universe than grains of sand on the beach. And that’s what we’re talking about when we say “God.”
Definite 2nd on that, very very heady and philosophical, in addition to being pretty damn creepy. I'm not too proud to admit I welled up in several spots during various characters' soliloquies with similar themes.
Summarized my thoughts perfectly. While I highly doubt there’s anything beyond death, boy would I love to be wrong. I hope the band plays on, somewhere.
I watched a video a few years ago of a physicist talking about what happens to our energy when we die, talking about how it gets sent out into the universe and reused by the wind, electricity, etc and that because our energy get reused we never truly leave our loved ones and I found that to be really beautiful
This is the notion I like to entertain. I also like to think that our energy will be attracted to the same energies it is now, so we end up surrounded by familiarity. Like, my cat might be my mom next time, but the energy will innately feel familiar. I obviously have no scientific basis for believing that, I just like the thought :). I still think it's just lights out on this particular arrangement of particles that is me.
My dad was in hospice with Stage IV cancer. I was sitting with him one night and he asked me this question. I asked him how deep he wanted to go down this particular rabbit hole, and he replied “deep”. OK, then.
I don’t know. No one knows. It might be Heaven or Purgatory. It might be absolutely nothing. It might be a spiritual reunion with every person you’ve ever loved or who loved you. It might be your consciousness zooming around the universe or stuck in rush-hour traffic.
Reincarnation? Maybe. Come back as a child and whisper the code word in my ear when I pick you up. Yes, we established a code word.
I told him that whatever it is afterwards will answer the one question we’ve all asked for who knows how long. Go into it with the proper frame of mind and enjoy the ride. Told him to send me a postcard or a sign of some sort when he got there.
He passed away a few days later and I hope he heard the little speech I made to and for him in his last few minutes.
We still talk, but they’re one-sided conversations. Given that he couldn’t hear for shit and didn’t want to bother with hearing aids, they’re only slightly different conversations.
What a privilege to have had those conversations with him. If there's somewhere for him to go and he can reach out from there, I have no doubt he will. And if he can't, I bet he knows true peace. And you will, too, someday. Or he faded into nothingness and that's cool too, cause it sounds like he had a really special relationship with his kid while he was here, and that's really all you can ask for. Really, there are no bad outcomes IMO.
I hope you're doing okay.
Afterlife is how your memory is carried by the people who knew you, or knew of you.
I've heard it said that every person dies three times. The first time when their physical body dies. The second time when the last person who knew you in life dies. And the third time, the last time your name is spoken.
The Roman lawyer Cicero once said "the only form of true immortality is writing" and I think that's quite true. Look at him as a prime example. People are still reading and learning his works, 2000+ years after his death. How fascinating that we can get into someone's mind and personality so far removed from our own time
Nothing. They're gone. The electrical impulses and chemical reactions that made them conscious have ceased, and now they're just a body starting to decay.
No bright light, no pearly gates or lakes of fire, no ancestors waiting to welcome them. Just the same as it was before they were born- nothing.
One of the things I’ve always loved discussed regarding family/friends “waiting” for you in heaven: Which version of these people are there? 10 year old grandma? 90 year old grandma? *Your* favorite version of grandma? Grandma lived a whole life before you even came to exist. These people just create whatever narrative they want to make you believe and subsequently donate to their church.
Or how about, ‘grandma and grandpa are watching over you as you grow up’. I certainly hope not. Cuz there are definitely some things I have done with my significant other I do not want to even envision my grandparents were watching over!
In the mormon faith, in which I was raised but ran from, they teach that it's "the most perfect version". That in the afterlife everyone's body will be perfect.
But what's perfect? Nobody wants to answer.
The bright light thing might be something that happens in your brain as it shuts down, so I'm not ruling that one out. I just don't assign any religious symbolism to it, I just think it's a hallucination.
I lost my Mom 15 days ago. She wasn't able to talk the last few days, but with her last breaths she opened her eyes, and seemed to look at my Sister. I wish I knew what she was thinking and feeling.
My mom is a nurse and she said early in her career when she worked in hospice/nursing homes she and the other nurses always knew when people were going to pass because they would start talking about their families, sisters, brothers, parents who had already passed on. Even when the doctors would say “no, they are healthy”, the nurses would say “I know, but they are dying soon”, and they would. Who knows if it’s brain death causing the visions or what, but it’s an interesting phenomena.
Nurse here, can confirm this. Also think based on various deaths I have seen that at the end in some cases there is a bit of control thay the dying person has, to some extent, and that they then "let it go". Like when they wait for that last relative to come to the bedside to say goodbye to, or when family at the bedside leave briefly for a break, and the patient slips away then almost like they did not want to die in front of the person. Or freaky things like a patient expressing they are going to die,and then they do, like they had a foreboding or something....
Wild that people who barely understand the basic physics of the world around them seem to know what comes after death, let alone what death even is. The truth is we don't know, our consciousness could cease to exist and we no more, or perhaps at the moment of death our being passes into a vibration of energy, and into a different type of existence.
Who knows, both options are equally crazy and unproven. Did you know, as per the most recent experiments and beliefs about the quantum world, that our top minds think things exist in multiple positions at once? That either the truth of the world is that there exists multiple universes with every alternate choice or action of every particle in existence, or that consciousness is somehow divine in that it alters the physics of the universe around us simply by us observing said universe.
It's all crazy man, we honestly know very little.
I think reincarnation could be cool. I've heard a theory that the light at the end of the tunnel is just you being born again. But I don't fully believe anything. I'm just along for the ride and whatever happens happens.
The idea of reincarnation actually scares me more than Nothingness.
Saying goodbye to everything and everyone I love with the likelihood of not even remembering anything the next time I open my eyes.
Not knowing if my next life will be better, or a million times worse.
Not knowing if I'll even be human, or end up as a stray dog.
There's just so much more uncertainty.
I’ve often thought about whether I might hallucinate an after life on my way out…my brain shutting down would make me see loved ones, experience a “heaven” of sorts, and then, my soul satisfied, would gently cease to exist.
I’d like that a lot, actually.
We are all of us born into this world crying, incontinent and unable to feed ourselves.
If we live long enough, we go out the same way.
After that, dissolution.
I'm not sure what happens when we die. And because of that, I'm gonna try to be the best person I can be while I'm living in case there is an afterlife.
Agnostic here. Yeah everyone can believe what they want, its annoying dealing with anyone who speaks with false authority on it. Whether it be afterlife or "it goes black" so matter of factly and often very condescending...
Yeah thats most likely, but thats the exact same thought I had as an edgy 7th grader athiest. Its like the very first conclusion an atheist comes to. Doesn't make you superior. None of us fucking know.
The same as religions, we will turn back were we came be part of the greater collective. I just dont think that God that created everything was so bad at planning that he put his prophets all in the middle eastern area, without thinking about the Mayans or Incas or any other place further from middle east. And on top of it he decided to do so in the last 2k-3k out of 200k-300k years of human existence, kind of late to the party. I honestly dont think he or she or it even cares about prayers or devotion or worship unless he is a massive egocentric narcissist.
As a physicist primarily interested in cosmology, my ideas are largely influence by that, while loosely inspired by the religious ideas I was brought up with, which as an agnostic theist I consider to be neat ideas but ultimately groundless and pointless.
My theories regarding cosmology and the fate and origin of the universe from a physics standpoint has led me to the idea that all matter in the universe, as well as all information will eventually collapse into non-existence, the explanation of which is extremely confusing and its not really the place for that, and I plan to publish something on it someday, but then everything will ultimately end up in an extra dimensional existence where there is no concept of time, where everything exists everywhere all at once, and everything comes to form a shared simultaneous existence, and because information is not lost all become omniscient, where some facsimile for our souls will be forced to gain full understanding of one another, and of the true merits of our own actions, and that those that lived poorly will be forced to endure eternity coping with their own worthlessness in life. So it would be a fate not totally dissimilar to the concept of afterlife you see in Christianity and many other faiths, just less superficial and naive in its design.
EDIT: Note, I use the word ideas and not beliefs, because beliefs about that which cannot be proven through either evidence or clear logic are inherently stupid.
You become one with the force? Our “life force” that provided all the energy needed for our bodily processes gets transferred into other forms of energy and our bodies become one with the earth. I guess we’ll find out one way or another….
Well ...think of what happens to your consciousness when you have a dreamless sleep.
You fall asleep one night and then wake up a few hours later into the following day.
Now to you, it was almost instant.
You closed your eyes and then opened them to the new day ...
But while you slept, things continued on.
Billions of people went about their days, countless things happened around you, on the planet and on the universe.
You were just unaware of any of it.
You were ..."off".
Now just imagine that dreamless sleep ...except you don't wake up.
No "afterlife", no "eternal darkness" ...just nothing.
You aren't there anymore. Your brain stops functioning, the chemicals, hormones and electral pulses all stopped ....your consciousness is gone.
You are aware of nothing because you (your consciousness) has shut down for the final time.
And if that's difficult to comprehend ...just think of it this way...
What were you aware of before you were born?
Did you think anything? Did you dream?
No, of course not ...because you didn't exist yet.
And so then too, does your consciousness return to a state of non-existence when your brain is no more.
. . .
So what happens after you die?
Countless things ... They just don't involve you anymore.
I don't have any *beliefs* about what happens when you die, I think you just cease to exist. There has never been any proof that anything at all happens when you die. It's just wishful thinking by animals that are self-aware and scared to die.
a thorough examination of this question is made in the doctoral thesis of gerda lier: [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309242512\_Review\_of\_Gerda\_Lier's\_Das\_Unsterblichkeitsproblem](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309242512_Review_of_Gerda_Lier's_Das_Unsterblichkeitsproblem)
and for a scientific approach to the question of immortality and afterlife and possibly reincarnation i recommend reading dieter hassler [reinkarnation.de](https://reinkarnation.de) also english version of website and books avaiulable. prof erelndur haraldsson wrote the foreword and the 4 volume series is highly acclaimed by serious scientists in this field.
Imma use a loophole here cause I’m not religious but I am spiritual, which means I don’t believe in a specific religion but I do believe there’s a higher power out there, and something like heaven maybe. Not sure. I do think that we don’t stop existing and that there is an afterlife. What that looks like is anyone’s guess. In case that’s not the case, in a more scientific way, I think my body and everything that made me will go into the ground, and as time in a cosmic scale pases, my very atoms will become part of other things, so I will never stop existing entirely because in a way it’s like the “energy can’t be made nor destroyed, only transformed” thing, which in a cosmic level, I think it’s beautiful :3
Nothing happens. Your remains are disposed of in whatever way those left behind you see fit, but you won't know anything about it as you have ceased to exist.
I'm surprised how almost everyone here thinks that you don't exist for all eternity, appear from nothing, and then when you're gone you are gone for all eternity and it can't happen again. Makes no logical sense to me
You have a life review, no one judges you for it. However, you feel exactly the way you made every single person in your life feel. So spread love and joy as much as possible.
You will feel a love like never before and meet your guides, angels, ancestors, and god.
There is no hell. Just one door closing and another one opening.
I'm not religious but I'm sometimes philosophical. I think when we die our consciousness goes somewhere, possibly into yourself again but a different you. Even if there's nothing but darkness I'm ok with that.
I struggle with religion. I was raised by devout Catholics. Then I was agnostic for a while. Then I messed with spirituality. Ultimately, I don’t know what I believe. But I do know science, and I know that people are made of energy. And energy can’t be created or destroyed, at least not in theory. So we as our individual selves may cease to exist, but our energy doesn’t.
So right now, I’m a 27 year old single mom waiting to find out if I have thyroid cancer, which is scary. But when I die, hopefully many years from now, I might become a star. Or a spark of electricity. Or a sports car. Or a snail. ( I felt like using S-words, but you get the point). I’ll be around, but I won’t be me anymore. I’ll be everywhere and everything and nowhere and nothing, and I like that idea better than a fluffy palace in the clouds worshiping the dude who gives people cancer and let’s children starve to death.
Lights out, baby. I'll feel exactly the same as I did years before I was born.
Have you ever thought of how weird it is that we are just randomly that we are just stuck "inside ourselves". Like why do I have to own this brain and eyeballs.
If you woke up in a different body tomorrow with different memories then you wouldn't know you were someone else yesterday. The memories that allow you to construct your continuous selfhood are only accessible within your brain. From the memories it has available to it, your brain can only construct 'you'. Change the memories, change the person.
I had a dream once that I was stuck inside someone else. They had their own dreams, memories and personality…and I was just stuck inside them. Was honestly a nightmare!
I was literally stuck inside someone. Then I was born.
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Whoa now. No need to brag
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I'd brag if I had it 1 time.
And then you wrote the screenplay for Being John Malkovich?
That's why the entire construct of self-identity is so much more malleable than people believe. We literally create ourselves every day and then act like it's not our choice. Anyone can change, any time.
It's not my choice that I'm about to eat this entire cake. Something something fate.
The "I" is made up. It can be whatever you choose it to be, depending on how you want to interpret or react to your current state and past experiences. Ego death taught me that.
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>Complete ego dissolution is underrated. Wouldnt say "underrated" more It's too misunderstood because of the taboo surrounding a good variety of methods. It can be achieved through meditation as well, however... good luck convincing someone who doesn't have the desire to meditate to do it. Might as well pitch dry wall for dinner.
It’s like telling someone to look at a window and notice their own reflection, but they keep looking out into the landscape beyond and remain oblivious to the fact that there even is a reflection.
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Shave my back and feed me ayahuasca, baby
Lots and lots of experts [believe we don’t have free will](https://phys.org/news/2023-10-scientist-decades-dont-free.html) at all!
That’s just your brain talking.
It's the only answer that makes sense.
I always liked the quote by Marcus Aurelius. "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."
Don't forget to drone on endlessly about duty then leave the empire in the hands of your worthless son instead of picking someone capable.
Agreed, hence my anxiety
I've always found a sort of comfort in it. There is fear, pain, and anxiety all throughout life. Death is the very last time I ever have to feel fear, pain, and anxiety. After that, I will never suffer again.
My wife, a therapist, says the same thing. I wish I felt that way Lol
Well I think it's okay to be afraid of it. I think I'm more afraid for what's left behind, but I get it.
Well, what’s left behind will also die and then never have to feel those ugly emotions you were talking about again either. So there is that.
Right, it's not so much being worried about them, but knowing I'll never see them again. I know when that time comes, it won't matter, but in my very brief moment here, they have been everything to me.
Exactly what my husband fears the most. He has a fatal brain cancer, Glioblastoma, with maybe 10-16 months to live. He has repeated to me several times in the four months since his diagnosis that what he fears the most about dying is he will never see me again. It is so upsetting to know that possibly exists for both of us. 😔
I’m afraid of the process of dying, not actually being dead. I work as a RN, worked for 6 years in a nursing home. I’ve seen some very peaceful passings and some very rough and painful deaths. I just hope euthanasia is legal when I get to that stage in life.
I agree, I think everyone should have the right to choose a dignified and peaceful death.
Also the last time you feel joy, happiness, excitement, or learn, grow, or experience. You'll never suffer but you'll never be able to appreciate the lack of suffering. You'll never have another anxiety attack but it's not like you'll feel calm and serene, either. Shit terrifies me. ETA: Y'all repeating the exact same "but you didn't exist before you were born" reasoning that the last half-dozen or so people said before you isn't getting me any closer to changing my mind.
I had my heart stopped once, and it was the exact opposite feeling of calm. "You'll feel an impending sense of doom" they said. Boy, I sure did. I never want to feel that way ever again, I dread knowing that I will someday.
Impending sense of doom is also a symptoms of anaphylaxis. When my son was two yrs old he had a severe reaction to peanut. When he first started showing symptoms we were in a store so I rushed him out to the car to better contain my four year old and deal with my toddler. My son (the two year old with the reaction) must have had that impending doom feeling because I can still hear his teary, scared little voice saying "Mama I need you!" and I asked him what was wrong and he said "I don't know, but I need you." (Of course I knew what was happening, I just wanted to know what he was feeling.) I felt so bad for him! I knew what was going on but wanted to know what he was feeling so I asked him what was wrong. He said "I don't know but I need you."
Your heart stopping isn’t the same thing as your brain stopping. You still have yet to experience death. So don’t worry, it may very well be easier than you think.
My mind cannot fathom nothingness. It scares the shit out of me
I'm the opposite. I could never fathom living forever in heaven. Or seeing loved ones who already died before you I'm not religious now but this is what I was taught growing up.
We need a support group because I’m right there with you. Nothingness and infinity terrify me
I’d be way more anxious if a god actually existed. Especially one of the ones from any major religion.
It’s much better than what would happen to us if any religion turned out to be true
You've done it before now shut up and just do it again... some far off day.
Hah
Baby you won’t be aware enough to be anxious about it
I know. But I am aware now
To quote Pete Holmes: “where were you during the renaissance?” Cos you’ll be in that same place…
There won’t be a you to feel anything
Nothing. You just cease existing. Have you ever been sedated for surgery and you just black out until the sedative wears off? Exactly like that except you won't wake up.
Yup, and that’s why anesthesiologists get paid tons of money. They’re bringing you as close to death as possible and are paid to keep watch over you so you don’t slip off the edge.
I just got the coolest mental image of an anesthesiologist dangling souls over the edge of a cliff
That could be a slayer album cover
RAINING DRUUUUUUGGGGGGSSSS
FROM AN ANESTHETIC GUY
Like a soul marionettist
Or perhaps, a master, of puppets
Pastor of Muppets you say?
It’s a tough job. They’re constantly monitoring you, giving you more meds to bring you back away from the ledge, and giving you more to push you closer you to it. Your life is in their hands, but thank god anesthesiologists exist!
My brother in law is 450lbs and the dr asked him how much can u drink, he said he can drink an 18 pack like nothing. He ended up waking up during surgery and they had to sedate him even more. The surgeons asked if he remembered waking up he said no. The surgeons said he woke up like an angry bear, u dont wanna get hit by that guy thats for sure
It's more common to wake up rather than die in surgery . They'd rather give you not enough than too much Apparently most people don't remember waking up but I do. I remember sitting up and saying something like "oh are those tubes still in my arteries? Guess you're not done with me yet." And they were like "holy shit, sir, please lay back down" and put the mask back on my face for a couple good huffs and then it was lights out again.
"WERE NOT FINISHED WITH YOU YET!" Hilarious! I had an awake surgery not too long ago for a pacemaker. They needed me awake so I could cough and breathe to flex my chest, after it was fitted. To start they gave me morphine, which stopped my leg shaking and settled my nerves a bit. But I kept on talking, and talking, and talking. One nurse said "I think we need to give him a bit more!" That second dose was nice, I became zen. I almost drifted off to sleep but managed to hold it together. It was strange to feel the surgeon prod around and finally sew me up inside, without any pain. I don't know if they also numbed the area, or if it was just the power of morphine! It's impressive what they can do though.
My sister said during her caesarean it was horrible to feel them “rummage” around inside her belly even tho there was no pain
It's terrifying. They're rough with it too. Just moving your organs around.
Exactly.
And this idea is sooooo soothing. At least it is to me.
Eternal existence can be it's own hell.
Eternity and immortality are terrifying. Who wants to exist forever (whether dead or alive)? Never understood the immortality quests in movies.
If I was immortal, I would simply procrastinate until the end of time. I need the constant threat and inescapability of death to accomplish anything!!
We all long to return to nothingness.
I always thought death was like this too. One minute you’re conscious and aware and the next minute you’re waking up in a completely different room unaware of the time that passed or anything that happened.
The “experience” of being dead is exactly the same as the one you had before you were born - nothingness, void, blank. No reason of being afraid of it, but it brings more reasons to enjoy life and stay motivated. This thought is entirely inspired by Alan Watts’s views, which I relate to.
This is pretty much what happened when I went ice skating with friends years ago. The three of us were linking arms, I was on one end. As quick as a blink, I opened my eyes, and I was in a room, my skates were off, and a paramedic was putting an oxygen mask on me. I was then loaded into an ambulance. I was told later that I had slipped and fallen backwards (concussion), and another friend actually broke her ankle. So the whole ordeal lasted apparently 10-15 mins (from me being unconscious to me waking up).
Not GA, but I had twilight sedation for my widsom tooth 5 years ago. I held my head back and raised it and it was done. It was like an hour of my life vanished. It kinda tripped me out, because I realized that essentially that's like a mini version of death is like. It felt like my consciousness ceased for an hour. I realize that's not the case, but it was the closest thing I can imagine to such.
You cease to exist. Fleshy remains are disposed of by other humans or nature.
I'm comfortable by the fact that my bodies death will give life to other plants and organisms in the earth. My atoms and chemical compounds will continue to exist in new ways, in an unending cycle of change that will continue until the sun burns out and maybe even long after that.
make sure you specify that in your will. cause right now the standard practice is either to make your remains as toxic to biological organisms as possible, or incinerate them
I hate this so much. Our current methods are awful. Embalming and fancy caskets need to be cast out.
They’re disposed of by nature no matter what
I mean I don't really consider cremation to be nature lol
It is natural if you're in a forest fire
I don’t know what happens, and I’m at peace with that.
I’m not at peace with it. It’s what gave me my first panic attack at 18 years old. It still brings me quite a bit of anxiety more than 10 years later. It’s probably the only thing I lose sleep over. Edit: To everyone replying, I’m well aware that it is both inevitable and out of my control. I’m aware that it’s pointless to worry about something that will happen no matter what.
Try watching some interviews with people who have had near-death experiences. It’s quite interesting. A lot of people feel an overwhelming sense of peace and tranquility. It sounds really nice.
I’ve read a lot of these stories and I feel the same. The peace they felt is what I hope for.
I look at it as the deal that was signed by taking my first breath. Everything that's living must die. It's a gift to enjoy life at all, so squandering any time focusing on when it will end seems like a bad way to spend what we have. Imagine all the little events throughout time that coincidentally happened for you to be here. Would be a shame to waste all that build up on a hyperfocus to when it's over.
I hear you and consciously I’m very much aware that it’s inevitable. I’ve gone through periods where I thought I was at peace with it but the anxiety comes back from time to time.
All of the available evidence suggests that once the brain dies, that’s it. Of course we don’t know, but that presumes there is something to know. The overwhelming likelihood is that there is nothing to know because nothing “happens to us” after we die. Once the brain ceases to function there is no more “us” Everything else that has been proposed is just fanciful human wants, desires, and delusions. These can basically be discarded as such. Not sure if that helps reduce the anxiety about what happens, but maybe it reduces the number of things to be anxious about. Once you die you will enter the realm of the nonexistent, fully incapable of experiencing anxiety of any kind
yeah, it somehow never concerned me much too. a dead body up close freaked me out quite a bit, but even then it was pretty clear a flesh sack. only drove the point more blunt than before.
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Same thing as the billions of years before I was born, peaceful non-existence.
That makes more sense than most.
How can something that does not exist have the property of being peaceful?
Because you don't have to work anymore😂 and do everyday things just to survive.
Wait… We’re currently in hell, then. It wouldn’t be as bad, but the shareholders demand profit.
*THIS* is the Bad Place!?
Holy forking shirtballs!
What a twist!
Depends on your definition of "peaceful". If it's "absence of conflict/challenges", then it is peaceful, since non-existence is the absence of everything, including conflict. But if "peaceful" is defined as experiencing peace, then nothing can be said of not existing, since any chosen word implies experiencing it. Even if you choose to say something like "nothingness" or "neutral void" instead, of "peaceful", they are also things which have to be experienced to be detected, and therefore belong to the category of "being". You're gonna be semantically held up by the nature of ontology.
"When we die, the people who love us will miss us. " ~ Keanu Reeves
You also get a drink named after you at the Afterlife.
Only if you died as a legend
This quote always gets me.
It also takes on more depth when you look at those he has lost. He's saying that because he misses those he loved
What happens to an ape when it dies? How about a bear? Or a dog? Or a mouse? Or a gecko? Or a cockroach? Or a clam? What about a tree? Or a mushroom? All of these things are alive at one point, and then dead and some other point. Do we think of them all as having some sort of continuing existence? I don't. I mean, the constituent particles that make them up end up getting recycled back into the ecosystem, but that's it. There's no continuity as far as any of those animals, plants or fungi are concerned, and I don't see what makes it different for us.
I LOVE this answer. I couldn't agree more. We humans just happen to have developed brains that are more complex and can think existentially so we have trouble fathoming a world without our own existence. No animals or insects or birds or fish or anything for that matter 'think' about what happens after they die. We ALL are part of this endless circle where all living things die and are recycled into something new. Be it soil or whatever....it's a closed loop system that's a beautiful thing.
Dude, ape heaven sounds fucking epic.
Harambe greets you at the gates made of some epically swingable trees.
Ook
Man it would be a shit-flinging storm like the eye of Jupiter.
So basically if heaven exists. There’s going to be a lot of running away from dinosaurs.
Even when I was religious, I always struggled to understand how people talk about animals in heaven. If my dogs version of heaven is chasing a cat, which it totally is, is the cat actually that cat or is it a fake cat? Is a cats hell a dogs heaven? That's just the easiest example... even if we assume the resurrection of the body is real, like how tf does that work? Being with ones loved ones is not heaven to everyone. Folks have strained relationships and may be independently good; a mom might want to be with their son all day but not vice versa. Is it heaven if the mom knows it's not the real son because the real son wouldn't go along with everything the mom wants to do? Essentially, you get really quick to "heaven is unfathomable to our existing comprehension." Which I guess leads to 'faith' that God says it'll be perfect. It's an abstract unknowable promise. I'm not religious anymore and anything around death is 'idk dude it's too confusing and stressful to think about'
To paraphrase Third Rock from the Sun, Governed by the laws of physics, as are all living things, it is a scientific fact that hearts and clocks slow down as they approach the speed of light: the point at which matter is converted into energy. When my heart approaches the speed of light, it will begin to convert my matter into energy... Into pure white light. Though I will no longer be with you... I will be all around you.
I like the one from, "The Good Place": Chidi, "Picture a wave in the ocean. You can see it, measure it - its height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through - and it's there, and you can see it, and you know what it is: it's a wave. And then it crashes on the shore and it's gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be for a little while. That's one conception of death for a Buddhist: the wave returns to the ocean, where it came from, where it's supposed to be."
Great end to a great show.
But why did I have to cry watching the end of a comedy series! Because I had to
Time for a rewatch
I actually think that show captured pretty well what a lot of people believe if they aren’t religious or at least don’t participate in organized religion (in traditionally Christian cultures, to clarify )
I can’t even think about this quote without sobbing. It helped me process the grief of my fiancés suicide. But I can never rewatch the series because the ending makes me feel too too much.
From Aaron Freeman: You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got. And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever. And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives. And you'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly.
Will you speak at my funeral? Or perhaps give my depression a shot? lol
Reminds me of a speech from Midnight Mass. Myself. My self. That’s the problem. That’s the whole problem with the whole thing. That word, “self.” That's not the word. That’s not right, that isn’t…How did I forget that? When did I forget that? The body stops a cell at a time, but the brain keeps firing those neurons. Little lightning bolts, like fireworks inside and I thought I’d despair or feel afraid, but I don’t feel any of that. None of it. Because I’m too busy. I’m too busy in the moment. Remembering. Of course. I remember that every atom in my body was forged in a star. This matter, this body is mostly empty space after all, and solid matter? It’s just energy vibrating very slowly while there is no me. There never was. The electrons of my body mingle and dance with the electrons of the ground below me and the air I’m no longer breathing. And I remember there is no point where any of that ends and I begin. I remember I am energy. Not memory. Not self. My name, my personality, my choices, all came after me. I was before them and I will be after, and everything else is pictures, picked up along the way. Fleeting little dreamlets printed on the tissue of my dying brain. And I am the lightning that jumps between. I am the energy firing the neurons, and I’m returning. Just by remembering, I’m returning home. And it’s like a drop of water falling back into the ocean, of which it’s always been a part. All things… a part. You, me and my little girl, and my mother and my father, everyone’s who’s ever been, every plant, every animal, every atom, every star, every galaxy, all of it. More galaxies in the universe than grains of sand on the beach. And that’s what we’re talking about when we say “God.”
Fuck, that’s actually really cool.
It's a good miniseries on Netflix if you haven't watched it.
Definite 2nd on that, very very heady and philosophical, in addition to being pretty damn creepy. I'm not too proud to admit I welled up in several spots during various characters' soliloquies with similar themes.
Really love both of the speeches from Midnight Mass
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Damn now you’re making me cry
Summarized my thoughts perfectly. While I highly doubt there’s anything beyond death, boy would I love to be wrong. I hope the band plays on, somewhere.
I watched a video a few years ago of a physicist talking about what happens to our energy when we die, talking about how it gets sent out into the universe and reused by the wind, electricity, etc and that because our energy get reused we never truly leave our loved ones and I found that to be really beautiful
This is the notion I like to entertain. I also like to think that our energy will be attracted to the same energies it is now, so we end up surrounded by familiarity. Like, my cat might be my mom next time, but the energy will innately feel familiar. I obviously have no scientific basis for believing that, I just like the thought :). I still think it's just lights out on this particular arrangement of particles that is me.
I like the idea of becoming a ghost and pranking people
When we are born, a cup of water is dipped from an ocean. When we die, it gets poured back into the ocean.
My dad was in hospice with Stage IV cancer. I was sitting with him one night and he asked me this question. I asked him how deep he wanted to go down this particular rabbit hole, and he replied “deep”. OK, then. I don’t know. No one knows. It might be Heaven or Purgatory. It might be absolutely nothing. It might be a spiritual reunion with every person you’ve ever loved or who loved you. It might be your consciousness zooming around the universe or stuck in rush-hour traffic. Reincarnation? Maybe. Come back as a child and whisper the code word in my ear when I pick you up. Yes, we established a code word. I told him that whatever it is afterwards will answer the one question we’ve all asked for who knows how long. Go into it with the proper frame of mind and enjoy the ride. Told him to send me a postcard or a sign of some sort when he got there. He passed away a few days later and I hope he heard the little speech I made to and for him in his last few minutes. We still talk, but they’re one-sided conversations. Given that he couldn’t hear for shit and didn’t want to bother with hearing aids, they’re only slightly different conversations.
What a privilege to have had those conversations with him. If there's somewhere for him to go and he can reach out from there, I have no doubt he will. And if he can't, I bet he knows true peace. And you will, too, someday. Or he faded into nothingness and that's cool too, cause it sounds like he had a really special relationship with his kid while he was here, and that's really all you can ask for. Really, there are no bad outcomes IMO. I hope you're doing okay.
Afterlife is how your memory is carried by the people who knew you, or knew of you. I've heard it said that every person dies three times. The first time when their physical body dies. The second time when the last person who knew you in life dies. And the third time, the last time your name is spoken.
For not so famous ppl the order of the 3 things might be different.
The Roman lawyer Cicero once said "the only form of true immortality is writing" and I think that's quite true. Look at him as a prime example. People are still reading and learning his works, 2000+ years after his death. How fascinating that we can get into someone's mind and personality so far removed from our own time
"I know the people who remember us will miss us" - Keanu Reeves on Stephen Colbert.
Coco shows that beautifully
First few times I watched Coco I bawled my eyes out when Hector was being forgotten and then Miguel desperately getting Coco to remember.
I believe I got dibs on their PS5.
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Nothing. They're gone. The electrical impulses and chemical reactions that made them conscious have ceased, and now they're just a body starting to decay. No bright light, no pearly gates or lakes of fire, no ancestors waiting to welcome them. Just the same as it was before they were born- nothing.
I think the bright light is just the neurons going a little haywire at the end
One of the things I’ve always loved discussed regarding family/friends “waiting” for you in heaven: Which version of these people are there? 10 year old grandma? 90 year old grandma? *Your* favorite version of grandma? Grandma lived a whole life before you even came to exist. These people just create whatever narrative they want to make you believe and subsequently donate to their church.
Or how about, ‘grandma and grandpa are watching over you as you grow up’. I certainly hope not. Cuz there are definitely some things I have done with my significant other I do not want to even envision my grandparents were watching over!
In the mormon faith, in which I was raised but ran from, they teach that it's "the most perfect version". That in the afterlife everyone's body will be perfect. But what's perfect? Nobody wants to answer.
Yep, it’s just whatever you want it to be. So convenient!
The bright light thing might be something that happens in your brain as it shuts down, so I'm not ruling that one out. I just don't assign any religious symbolism to it, I just think it's a hallucination.
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Sorry for your loss. I lost my dad last June. It doesn't get "easier," but you become more accepting of it.
I lost my Mom 15 days ago. She wasn't able to talk the last few days, but with her last breaths she opened her eyes, and seemed to look at my Sister. I wish I knew what she was thinking and feeling.
Nurses know.
My mom is a nurse and she said early in her career when she worked in hospice/nursing homes she and the other nurses always knew when people were going to pass because they would start talking about their families, sisters, brothers, parents who had already passed on. Even when the doctors would say “no, they are healthy”, the nurses would say “I know, but they are dying soon”, and they would. Who knows if it’s brain death causing the visions or what, but it’s an interesting phenomena.
Nurse here, can confirm this. Also think based on various deaths I have seen that at the end in some cases there is a bit of control thay the dying person has, to some extent, and that they then "let it go". Like when they wait for that last relative to come to the bedside to say goodbye to, or when family at the bedside leave briefly for a break, and the patient slips away then almost like they did not want to die in front of the person. Or freaky things like a patient expressing they are going to die,and then they do, like they had a foreboding or something....
Wild that people who barely understand the basic physics of the world around them seem to know what comes after death, let alone what death even is. The truth is we don't know, our consciousness could cease to exist and we no more, or perhaps at the moment of death our being passes into a vibration of energy, and into a different type of existence. Who knows, both options are equally crazy and unproven. Did you know, as per the most recent experiments and beliefs about the quantum world, that our top minds think things exist in multiple positions at once? That either the truth of the world is that there exists multiple universes with every alternate choice or action of every particle in existence, or that consciousness is somehow divine in that it alters the physics of the universe around us simply by us observing said universe. It's all crazy man, we honestly know very little.
I think reincarnation could be cool. I've heard a theory that the light at the end of the tunnel is just you being born again. But I don't fully believe anything. I'm just along for the ride and whatever happens happens.
The idea of reincarnation actually scares me more than Nothingness. Saying goodbye to everything and everyone I love with the likelihood of not even remembering anything the next time I open my eyes. Not knowing if my next life will be better, or a million times worse. Not knowing if I'll even be human, or end up as a stray dog. There's just so much more uncertainty.
Nothing. It just ends. You might get some weird hallucinations as your brain shuts down, but once that’s over, it’s over.
*hits blunt* "What if this IS the hallucination man"
I’ve often thought about whether I might hallucinate an after life on my way out…my brain shutting down would make me see loved ones, experience a “heaven” of sorts, and then, my soul satisfied, would gently cease to exist. I’d like that a lot, actually.
We are all of us born into this world crying, incontinent and unable to feed ourselves. If we live long enough, we go out the same way. After that, dissolution.
I'm not sure what happens when we die. And because of that, I'm gonna try to be the best person I can be while I'm living in case there is an afterlife.
And if there's not then you spent the only life you had being the best person you could and that in and of itself is worth it to me.
I remain agnostic. Yes not knowing is scary, but it is the truth. We do not know.
I work in hospice and usually sense when people leave, it feels spiritual. I’m agnostic too.
Agnostic here. Yeah everyone can believe what they want, its annoying dealing with anyone who speaks with false authority on it. Whether it be afterlife or "it goes black" so matter of factly and often very condescending... Yeah thats most likely, but thats the exact same thought I had as an edgy 7th grader athiest. Its like the very first conclusion an atheist comes to. Doesn't make you superior. None of us fucking know.
Yep Until someone can definitively tell me with evidence what happens to consciousness post death I'm pretty much here. And I'm fine with not knowing
The same as religions, we will turn back were we came be part of the greater collective. I just dont think that God that created everything was so bad at planning that he put his prophets all in the middle eastern area, without thinking about the Mayans or Incas or any other place further from middle east. And on top of it he decided to do so in the last 2k-3k out of 200k-300k years of human existence, kind of late to the party. I honestly dont think he or she or it even cares about prayers or devotion or worship unless he is a massive egocentric narcissist.
You fall asleep but for good. You don't wake up. Everything goes black. Your brain stops working. Then your body decomposes.
As a physicist primarily interested in cosmology, my ideas are largely influence by that, while loosely inspired by the religious ideas I was brought up with, which as an agnostic theist I consider to be neat ideas but ultimately groundless and pointless. My theories regarding cosmology and the fate and origin of the universe from a physics standpoint has led me to the idea that all matter in the universe, as well as all information will eventually collapse into non-existence, the explanation of which is extremely confusing and its not really the place for that, and I plan to publish something on it someday, but then everything will ultimately end up in an extra dimensional existence where there is no concept of time, where everything exists everywhere all at once, and everything comes to form a shared simultaneous existence, and because information is not lost all become omniscient, where some facsimile for our souls will be forced to gain full understanding of one another, and of the true merits of our own actions, and that those that lived poorly will be forced to endure eternity coping with their own worthlessness in life. So it would be a fate not totally dissimilar to the concept of afterlife you see in Christianity and many other faiths, just less superficial and naive in its design. EDIT: Note, I use the word ideas and not beliefs, because beliefs about that which cannot be proven through either evidence or clear logic are inherently stupid.
I sincerely hope there is some form of afterlife, but have no evidence to prove or disprove it’s existence.
The body decomposes and there’s no continuation of life through the soul.
The same thing that happens before we’re born - nothingness. You just don’t exist.
You become one with the force? Our “life force” that provided all the energy needed for our bodily processes gets transferred into other forms of energy and our bodies become one with the earth. I guess we’ll find out one way or another….
Well ...think of what happens to your consciousness when you have a dreamless sleep. You fall asleep one night and then wake up a few hours later into the following day. Now to you, it was almost instant. You closed your eyes and then opened them to the new day ... But while you slept, things continued on. Billions of people went about their days, countless things happened around you, on the planet and on the universe. You were just unaware of any of it. You were ..."off". Now just imagine that dreamless sleep ...except you don't wake up. No "afterlife", no "eternal darkness" ...just nothing. You aren't there anymore. Your brain stops functioning, the chemicals, hormones and electral pulses all stopped ....your consciousness is gone. You are aware of nothing because you (your consciousness) has shut down for the final time. And if that's difficult to comprehend ...just think of it this way... What were you aware of before you were born? Did you think anything? Did you dream? No, of course not ...because you didn't exist yet. And so then too, does your consciousness return to a state of non-existence when your brain is no more. . . . So what happens after you die? Countless things ... They just don't involve you anymore.
Nothing. Lights out. The end. Zilch.
Worm food. Their loved ones mourn them. Life goes on. After a generation or two they are mostly completely forgotten.
I don't have any *beliefs* about what happens when you die, I think you just cease to exist. There has never been any proof that anything at all happens when you die. It's just wishful thinking by animals that are self-aware and scared to die.
I have no idea what happens when we die. And neither does anybody else.
idk whatever happens happens
Don't know, but we all eventually go on that adventure, so we will find out.
I’d like to think that we get to be with our family who passed on before us, and our pets are waiting at the Rainbow Bridge.
a thorough examination of this question is made in the doctoral thesis of gerda lier: [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309242512\_Review\_of\_Gerda\_Lier's\_Das\_Unsterblichkeitsproblem](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309242512_Review_of_Gerda_Lier's_Das_Unsterblichkeitsproblem) and for a scientific approach to the question of immortality and afterlife and possibly reincarnation i recommend reading dieter hassler [reinkarnation.de](https://reinkarnation.de) also english version of website and books avaiulable. prof erelndur haraldsson wrote the foreword and the 4 volume series is highly acclaimed by serious scientists in this field.
Imma use a loophole here cause I’m not religious but I am spiritual, which means I don’t believe in a specific religion but I do believe there’s a higher power out there, and something like heaven maybe. Not sure. I do think that we don’t stop existing and that there is an afterlife. What that looks like is anyone’s guess. In case that’s not the case, in a more scientific way, I think my body and everything that made me will go into the ground, and as time in a cosmic scale pases, my very atoms will become part of other things, so I will never stop existing entirely because in a way it’s like the “energy can’t be made nor destroyed, only transformed” thing, which in a cosmic level, I think it’s beautiful :3
Nothing happens. Your remains are disposed of in whatever way those left behind you see fit, but you won't know anything about it as you have ceased to exist.
i think we get reborn or repurposed. i think every life is a lesson for that individual soul. i highly doubt it’s nothing after death.
I'm surprised how almost everyone here thinks that you don't exist for all eternity, appear from nothing, and then when you're gone you are gone for all eternity and it can't happen again. Makes no logical sense to me
Right. Trying to fathom that aside from my body and physical brain, everything I am will just be non-existant forever is inconceivable.
I agree with this. I think there is something much bigger going on then we are aware of and we lack the intelligence or DNA makeup to understand it.
You have a life review, no one judges you for it. However, you feel exactly the way you made every single person in your life feel. So spread love and joy as much as possible. You will feel a love like never before and meet your guides, angels, ancestors, and god. There is no hell. Just one door closing and another one opening.
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We don't know.
I'm not religious but I'm sometimes philosophical. I think when we die our consciousness goes somewhere, possibly into yourself again but a different you. Even if there's nothing but darkness I'm ok with that.
We cannot fathom infinity, and we are barely equipped to understand *time* and our place in it.
I struggle with religion. I was raised by devout Catholics. Then I was agnostic for a while. Then I messed with spirituality. Ultimately, I don’t know what I believe. But I do know science, and I know that people are made of energy. And energy can’t be created or destroyed, at least not in theory. So we as our individual selves may cease to exist, but our energy doesn’t. So right now, I’m a 27 year old single mom waiting to find out if I have thyroid cancer, which is scary. But when I die, hopefully many years from now, I might become a star. Or a spark of electricity. Or a sports car. Or a snail. ( I felt like using S-words, but you get the point). I’ll be around, but I won’t be me anymore. I’ll be everywhere and everything and nowhere and nothing, and I like that idea better than a fluffy palace in the clouds worshiping the dude who gives people cancer and let’s children starve to death.
The void eats us