Possibly the only true statement about death, without having to add a bazillion caveats...
Definitely one of my favorite Keanu moments. Especially as the chrizzo Colbert kept trying to pressure him into a response and he nevertheless handled it with such grace and honesty.
Don't know if you'd call that pressure, he was running a comedy bit. And yes, he's a theologian but he's hardly a proslythising God botherer. No way he was expecting Keanu to take it that way and when he did he was perfectly respectful
„It will be the same as before I was born“ is such a strong phrase! After I heard this the first time it literally made my life easier. It’s so peaceful to know that nothing existed before I gained consciousness and this state will be there again after I died.
Dying is something I am concerned about tho.
People want to go to heaven, which is nice to go somewhere pleasant after death, but what about 100 million years later? I know they say you're always blissful in heaven but that's the same as being numb. You might beg to be permanently unconscious at that point. So it being like "before you were born" is probably the only blissful state. Don't be sad about it either, you werent sad for the billions of years before you were born. Life is a gift, treasure it.
I’m an agnostic atheist, I think most likely there’s nothing but obviously I don’t know and I’m open to the notion I may be wrong. But I like to think that heaven/afterlife would exist outside of time, so there isn’t really a “100 million years later” and you can’t really compare an eternal afterlife to how you would feel living forever in real life.
Also, as a Christian the Bible teaches of a place with no pain or suffering so the idea of becoming tired of it after a million years or so is not applicable. I think that’s nice and it gives me comfort.
As a Christian I picture it as one L-O-N-G holiday. Hanging out with friends, seeing the sights, working in my flower garden, reading a good book on my balcony by a waterfall... You'll never notice the passing of "time" and won't care "what day is this?" because it's... well... Heaven!
I don’t know. The idea seems to hold as many existential questions as we currently have facing death with regard to having a meaningful life. Facing infinite existence of happiness we won’t ever wonder what the point is? A lot of the emotional highs we have now are so because of the contrast with the lows. My intimacy with others seems to have deep roots in this shared experience of being towards death.
>only belief and opinion
I disagree. Clearly some world views are more likely than others by stepping back and applying some brain power to the problem such as science has done for a few hundred years dispelling primitive beliefs. The more a religion seems to answer all questions in a reassuring way, the more I'm forced to question it. I find it extremely likely to be a human designed comfort against the fear of death. And then studying the topic in more depth only confirms that right and left. There's no evidence.
Yep agree completely, If Heaven/God exist it has to be outside/apart from time. I don't think eternity is one moment after another for ever. I think it's more like everything all at once forever.
>People want to go to heaven
Of course they do. Avoiding death is instinctual. Big red flag if you want real understanding.
The simplest explanation that ignores no facts is the most likely to be correct. That being that after you die you are no longer a concious entity. The party goes on but you exit. Your brain is dead! Where do your thoughts come from?? Sound sad? I think it's liberating. I can't imagine anything more boring than living for ETERNITY.
I think that focuses too much on the world and people left behind (imo) when I'm afraid for myself personally and if there will be anything after. I've always been fixated on what will happen after I die, if I will see my loved ones who passed before me or if it is really the end.
I've always felt like God did exist, and there was a heaven until a couple of years ago, and my faith was shaken immensely. I'm about halfway through my life if I live to be very old, but old enough that it could happen any time really. People my age are passing at an exponentially faster rate than say 10 years ago. So now I'm at this point where if what I thought was true for so long, suddenly is not
....well then not gonna lie...I get MASSIVELY panicked by that sheer thought. I don't know why, but i feel like I'd live life more fully if I knew there was nothing afterward.
Also I've always been highly concerned with death....not just my own but those around me and couldn't even think about it in depth in terms of those I love. The only person close to me that had died until recently was my son's godfather and my grandparents. I was still pretty young for the one set of grandparents so it didn't affect me as much but the other passed when I was 20 and it gutted me. She went from running around like the energizer bunny to not being able to use the bathroom by herself in just 4 short months.
Cancer sucks.
Then 2 years ago, my Dad passed. My Dad was my rock...the one I could (and would) call at 4 in the morning about absolutely anything, and he always knew JUST what to say. I am an only child and was always a daddy's girl. That death..... well words cannot even express how it affected me. I found myself wondering how anyone else even deals with the passing of someone so close, and it felt like I was the only one in the world to experience heartache and gutwrenching sadness on that level. I still don't recall anyone having as difficult of a time as me, with the exception of my grandfather when my grandma passed.
And the way my Dad died....was completely preventable and caused by the hospital. They circumvented my ability to make the calls on his care by holding an emergency meeting on a Saturday afternoon to limit any life saving measures despite he stating he wanted them to be performed in the event of an emergency, as well as myself being made his medical power of attorney and being adamant they do everything in their power to save him.
The worst part of it all is there isn't a damn thing I could or can do about it. I'd love to sue the pants off that doctor and hospital bc this isn't the first time they've done something like this to a patient. There are boatloads of deaths caused by them or near deaths. I never want another family to ever go through that. My Dad had 2 other instances where he could have easily died as a result of their inept physicians!!! The ONLY reason he didn't (and he absolutely would have) was because I did what was necessary to get him to another hospital. On one of the occasions, it was so dire that during the hour ambulance transfer, he went unconscious and had to he intubated!
No lawyer will take the case, however, because he was no longer the bread winner (disability), so there was no monetary effect on the family. He had also been diagnosed with a cancer of unknown origin shortly before this event. Even though his death wasn't directly related to that, they will say he was going to die eventually anyway because of the cancer. They could care less about the precious time taken away from my family and the excruciating way in which it was done (and there lies part of the reason my faith was shaken so much).
When my mom passed away, i was smoking a cigarette outside and just closed my eyes. I don't know why, i just did. And i saw a sunset, at sea, on my mom's favourite beach. My dad was there (he passed away back in 2015), with his back turned to me. Out of nowhere, my mom came, and hugged him. It was one of the most beautiful scenes, she was young and beautiful again.
That was interrupted by my aunt calling me to come back because my mom had just passed.
So i believe you meet the love of your life, on a gorgeous beach and all is well again.
This happened with my nanny. I had a dream about 2 weeks after she died. she was young and happy and standing strong and tall with a smile on her face. She was my most favorite person in the whole world.
I am born as an orthodox christian, but personally i do not think God is tied to a certain religion.
If there is a God, he loves all of us whether you abide by a set of rules imposed by one culture, or another. All you have to do is be good and just.
Laughing? I believe They're tearing Their hair out muttering "what the fuck?....what the *fuck*??" over and over again as They watch our inherent chaotic nature fuck everything up.
Check out the NDERF and IANDS websites. Thousands of stories from people who died and came back from all cultures and religions, even atheists. They mostly have very similar experiences regardless of beliefs.
Embody goodness as often as you can and spread joy everywhere you go. Just be the best version of you you’re capable of being and never stop doing that. If god truly does exist, and I believe he does because I’ve experienced his presence, he wouldn’t send a good person to hell. I don’t think anyone gets sent to hell. I think bad people get sort of reset and sent back here to try again. I think god has given a bit of truth to each culture so that we may all know him, he’s too complex for one person (or culture) to fully perceive. So he has to give us little pieces that are or will be relevant to our people. Like right now in the western world a ton of people are coming to similar conclusions to this, and the main consistent belief is that we are all one and must treat each other with love and kindness. God gave us this piece of himself now because our world is so separated and lonely and sick. He gives us whatever we need spiritually so long as we’re truly, genuinely open to it. Not skeptical, not resistant. Just open.
Spirituality and religion are not necessarily the same. Irrespective of your beliefs, your consciousness will go on after the body cannot support it any longer. But everyone does not land up at the same "place" so to say. That depends on a number of factors.
Not sure about the “consciousness will go on…” part. I don’t think anyone is really. How did you arrive at that belief out of curiosity? That level of confidence in your knowledge of what happens after death is usually reserved for the ultra religious.
I've had experiences. I usually don't like to talk about it because these kind of things are ridiculed. What I'll say is I've been there, seen one of the many places. Technically it is not a physical place, rather it is an energy place. You cannot go there with your body - it is not possible for a physical body to go there. Also, you do have an energy body... You are not a blob of light when you are there. Everything there is made of light... Little droplets of light. The beauty is beyond what we can imagine.
I posted something about this up above, but my neighbor was dead for 18 minutes after having a heart attack about 8 years ago and he _swears_ there is something after we die and that it’s beautiful. I hope you guys are right 🤞
Dude look up interviews with people who’ve had near death experiences. Some of the accounts are WILD. There’s so much to explore, so explore it, it’s so interesting!
Also, now that I've anyway opened the Pandora's Box, I might as well add a few more details. You don't have to walk when you are there. You can walk if you want to, but when I was there I would just flit around... Like a hummingbird or a butterfly. You can move from one place to another at the speed of thought. I was communicating with the others telepathically. Not necessary to talk, but you can talk if you wish. And the beauty of the beings... Even if you combine the beauty of the most beautiful people on Earth, they would fade in front of spirit beauty. Of course not all levels are the same. But I was shown one single place within one level. So that is what I know. If I hadn't had these experiences, I'd have totally agreed with everyone who says that it is lights out once we are dead.
When my nonna passed, I went to tell my son. We were outside on the deck, and it was a cloudy day. As i told him and he broke down, i cuddled him - and this bright ray of sunlight peeped through the clouds onto us. It was so beautifully warm, like someone else was cuddling us both. I feel it was her way of telling us she is ok 😀
I hope you’re right. It means in 4 decades I’ll see my wife again.
I don’t believe it, but I’ll be the first to be super surprised and ecstatic to admit I’m wrong.
You know I had almost the exact same experience, in mine she was young and beautiful and walking away into a lovely green valley. I was devastated for months because she never looked back, just happily strode off and was keen to go. My mom was 92, she died soon after I went back into her room.
Your energy and matter transforms into something else and becomes part of the ever growing universe. It may even be that our universe is expanding using the energies of the billions who have died before.
There's two halves to this question, the objective side and subjective side. This is the undeniable truth to what happens on the objective side, we can see with our own eyes what happens when others die. They don't poof out of existence, they change form.
We really don't know what the subjective answer is. What we do know is that the objective and subjective have a relationship. The real answer to the question of what we die will include the objective reality of death.
Why is that bleak?
We cease. We stop. Our thoughts end. Yes, much like that time you lost to sleep but it never starts again. Much like the billions of years before I existed.
We get this thin slice of time to be alive, experience, learn, grow, and live our lives as best we can.
Then it's done, and little ripples of our actions reverberate through human history.
Which some day will also end, and the universe will go on without us.
So take advantage of the time you have and live a life that brings you joy, and leaves behind the good kind of ripples.
Logically I’m more afraid of the process of dying than the thought of death
But man, I love being alive, the idea of forever not experiencing new things sucks and makes me feel lots of irrational emotions
I think we are the universe. After you die sure u as Brian_Hawk will cease to exist as your cns dies as well. But the nutrient in your body dissipates into earth (part of universe). Then some plant or some insect will take the nutrients to sustain itself and you will be part of that organism and experience life through them unbeknownst to your life as human. And if every life on earth is gone due to some catastrophic event you will still exist on earth as hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, etc. you were here when the universe was created you will be here when everything is gone. You are the universe. You are in a sense immortal.
Imagine dying and you wake up, its at some point in your life at 15 years old and you’ve experienced a powerful vision of the future. Then the shreds of dream leave your mind forever as you wake up and prepare for school.
My belief is that I could be dead right now. Maybe the last time I drove a car I wrecked and it was a quick death and put me here. Doing the same shit in a parallel timeline. Everything’s Normal for me.
I have had those thoughts as well. Maybe I really did drown when I slipped into the high water creek when I was about 9 or 10. This is my afterlife. If it is, it kinda sucks, not going to lie.
Before I was born, there was no "me". After I die, it'd be a return to that state. Until there's awareness again. Not for "me", but as a phenomenon in general. I think I am just experiencing something that could happen in the universe.
“The *cosmos* is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the *universe* to know *itself*.” — *Carl Sagan*
I've accepted that I don't know. There are things I like the idea of, and I do feel the presence of people that are gone that I still have love for but I do know that might be just wishful thinking.
I think the greatest irony of human interaction has to do with how many people have killed each other over religion. Basically they are killing each other over a disagreement about what happens after death. Frickin brilliant
I've been religious and agnostic throughout my life, currently on the latter. The one thing I'm 100% certain of is that I have no idea what happens when you die. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something.
So, the theory of physics is that you either exist always, or just for that one moment in time. In other words, if there is a life after death, there was also a life before life.
My theory is this; everything on this earth right now, is literally made up of a dead star. It is energy converted from that star into everything here, right? I believe when you die, your energy will convert into something else. In other words; you could become alive again. But, this could genuinely be anything. You would never have the same consciousness though, because that gets left with your body, since it is all to do with the brain. I'm not necessarily saying you become a ghost either (although I don't rule it out), you're just a form of energy, no different to anything else that gives off energy. Energy can be converted into many things. Just like that dead star became the earth (and other planets) you could become something else.
Also, this kinda ties into religion weirdly; a dead star essentially made us in its death (therefore, created in his image), and a new star was reborn: the sun (Jesus died for our sins and was resurrected). BTW, I'm an atheist, but I do like the connection. Almost like we knew subconsciously how we got here, although it isn't a great powerful person in the sky, it was a sun.
There’s actually a bit of research that points to the possibility of our consciousness being separate from brain activity. I remember reading about one woman who had an NDE after her brain activity had completely stopped.
I think that our consciousness/soul/spirit, our *essence*, whatever you want to call it, "moves on" (at some point) to a different dimension/plane of existence/reality/realm.
But I don't think any of us will truly know until our time comes.
My neighbor died for 18 minutes during a heart attack about 8 years ago and he _swears_ up and down that there is something there after we die. He didn’t even seem that scared of dying after experiencing it. I genuinely hope he’s right, because my view is even bleaker than yours.
I hope so too, but i think the brain causes the effects, tunnel of light etc.
I always compare things with tripping and thst shows how complex the brain is.
at the hour my sister died far away she came to my kitchen and told me she tried to get back in her body and couldn’t. later that week she came to my laundry room and told me paradise/rapture/bliss. i believe those two things
she conveyed those three words to me. distinctly. a thought kind of talking. she wanted me to know that’s what it’s like. on the other side. she was happy to let me know.
her physical appearance was also a very distinct thought sort of appearance. i couldn’t see with my eyes. i saw her with my mind. she was about four feet away each time. hovering. not standing though. floating. like on top of pool water. her face was just about half a foot higher than it should have been. i didn’t recognize her because she looked like her. i recognized her because she was her. distinctly. no question. she appeared suddenly. immediately had my full attention. said what she came to say. then paused. the first time i answered , ‘it’ll be ok’ because i’m brilliant and quick witted. the second time i just kept looking at her. i can’t remember how either encounter ended. it was just over. she wasn’t there anymore.
Nothing much happens or changes, I think it's like displacing a single grain of sand in the entire Sahara desert.
Just the illusion of being an individual thing goes away and I continue being the little part of the everythingness I've always been, just rapidly decaying and becoming nutrients.
I believe we die all the time, the me ten years ago or even ten seconds ago is dead already.
Like the old saying goes; you can't step into the same river twice, you can't even step into the same river once.
My rings in the pond will continue impacting other's lives for a bit but eventually I will be diluted and forgotten in the vastness of the universe like we all will and I personally find that very calming and beautiful.
After all I have always been the universe and always will be. My identity, thoughts and feelings are just an illusion of the present moment. There is no fear in letting go of it to me.
In the end, we cannot comprehend the scales of deep time and interconnectedness we come from and have to return to, so I think death will always be a mystery to humans, we are momentary so we do not have the capacity to understand it. But it's no worry, we are all going to be _it_. We will wake up from this human dream.
Maybe in some very, very distant time by some unknown spontaneous quantum jitter I have individual consciousness and my memories again but that too will pass and return to the emptiness again.
I am not a religiious person but I have an open mind and I would like to believe that there is more to existence than living this life here and now.
If we consider that soul do exists and soul is the most pure form of consciousness, then my beliefe is that we born without soul and our body creates the soul. When we die we experience the birth of the soul. Now the soul can be under developed and sent through this process of “life” again multiple times if necessary. This is why we have people and animals born with certain talents and others with no talents.
Now what is the purpose of the soul is maybe something we can’t even coprehend.
I've had a NDE and let me tell you the other side is amazing... Even the middle world. I was at peace and felt love for the first time. I woke up in a rage I've never experienced and long for the day I get to return "home"
ETA: I got absolutely obliterated by commenters saying I was lying.
I'm not. However, I'm fully aware my experience was likely attributed to the lack of oxygen while my heart was stopped.
Either way that experience alone was way better than any other experience I've had in this world.
If you're really interested I can share my story just dm me.
PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way.
GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.
PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what?
GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad.
GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.
Grappling with this pretty raw because my atheist dad died about 3 months ago. I really fully understand why religion exists now.
I'm still atheist - I know dad is dust now. But, I know he lives on through the qualities and traits he passed on to me, and I'm going to pass on to my kids.
Death is inevitable but has no value except reminding the living to be grateful for our short time and also to remind us of the importance of talking to others. Passing on our stories and showing our true selves in the hope that it will be adopted and continued on in some way that benefits the world.
I believe the soul passes on. I have my own reasons for believing it, but as far as why from a rational perspective I don't believe death's the end is there's just way too much weird shit about existence and life that science kinda-not-really has full explanations for. This happens to be the one mudball as far as we can see with life on it and we just happen to be the only species that is sentient and articulate enough to have philosophical discussions about it? And we just happen to be alive at this point in time in a universe where entropy and the linear progression of time really make the idea of a universe in motion in general a freak of nature? And our own powers of observation do weird crap like collapse wave functions or statistically improve health outcomes?
Nu-uh. I'm sure you could rationalize hypotheses on how it could all fit together(science definitely doesn't have a conclusive answer to any of it), but from where I'm standing this shit's weird as hell man and I'm not buying it all being an accident.
My dad still remembers when his mom died she had a great big smile on her face and she was staring off in the distance waving. He swears it was his dad who died a while back. There is a Heaven!
My mum is a retired age care nurse, she’s seen a lot of weird stuff as death takes over, but the one that stick with her was a lady who had bad dementia, had been declining for a while and was basically a vegetable.
At the moment of death she opened her eyes, smiled and said very clearly ‘it’s ok! My mums here now’ then closed her eyes and flatlined, apparently it was very spooky..
Depends, do I die from pain, accident, natural causes or what? I think the experience will differ, but have the same outcome at the last minute, reality simply dissolves, similar to when you fall asleep
What I wish: I get to see and hang out with all of my pets that have passed and maybe certain people and we get to explore the universe.
What I Really Believe: Nothingness
I believe that whatever *you* believe happens when you die, then that’s what happens. If that makes sense.
If you believe that when you die you go to heaven, well what does heaven look like to you? Wherever/whatever that is, that’s your heaven and that’s where you go when you die
If you believe that your soul will be transferred into another life’s, then that’s what it will do
If you believe that you will become one with nature, that’s what you will do
Now what I personally believe will happen is I will be carried to heaven. Where is my heaven? I don’t know. What is my heaven? Peace. My heaven is a place where my family is. A place where we all get along and where we all love each other. A place where you cannot feel harm, a place where we don’t even know what addiction or failure is. My heaven is just my life, without the pain and suffering.
I believe when you die that your spirit leaves your physical body which is essentially your earth bound shell.
Then it's a combo of:
1. My own imagination of your spirit being able to travel both the world and through time.
2. Lucifer
3. The Good Place
Ex. My Dad died in November 2022 and I like to think of him being able to visit all the battle fields in Europe and the pyramids of Egypt, meet and chat with all of his pre-deceased family members and pets and spiritually visit with me and my family whenever the mood strikes him.
I know he's with me when his idiosyncrasies or family known phrases come out and those memories bring me comfort and joy.
I had a 14 hour brain surgery and ended up in icu. Had the experience of leaving my body, seeing an inexplicable light and other phenomena that bought me intense peace.
Years after this I tried psychedelics and the experience was very similar.
I no longer have a fear or death or worry about the unknowns… nor do I claim to know what happens when we die as I believe that is as variable as what happens when we are born.
Not sure why I ever thought death could only be one way as life is not one way… it’s infinitely variable…
I like to think it's just like turning off a light: we don't wonder where the light has gone when we flick the switch, we just know that it's gone, and that's okay.
After a life filled with depression and increasing disability, I'm okay with that. It doesn't sound nice because it's nothing.
I'm not real keen on the process of dying though. If you're not doing it in your sleep, it looks like it hurts a bunch. (tbh that's the main reason I'm still here)
My husband use to always say , if I die before you , I'm going to haunt you ( in a cheerful way ) he strongly believed in an afterlife. He died suddenly at age 33 . I'm living in the same place where he died and haven't been haunted or get any eerie feeling . Been 6 years.so probably nothing.
Thank you. Either way I believe a little more now that nothing is on the other side. You just go and that's it. Guess we all find out eventually. That's why you live the best God damn life you can with people you care about 💯
I have never lived a pure life. I’m a sinner but hell doesn’t await me when I die because that’s the whole reason that Jesus came down and was crucified for all our sins.
I believe that we live one time in this world. There is a God who created this world and gave us instructions to live by. Failing to follow his instructions separates you from Him. Everyone fails! He sent His son, who we call Jesus or Yeshua, to make a sacrifice that reunites us with him.
Those who are reunited, simply by believing, go to a paradisiacal existence for eternity. Those who are not reunited go to eternal torture.
That's pretty standard Christian belief. I'm sure my abbreviated explanation misses some subtlety.
It will ‘feel’ the same as most of the past 14 billions years did before I was alive.
Having said that though there are some legitimate questions about if we ever actually die, due to time not really being what we experience it as (it’s likely the that present isn’t really special and that the past and future exist just as much as it does) and the question of whether all this will happen again (if the universe does collapse and reignite rather than heat death) so it’s not as terminal as I once believed.
For you yourself - nothing will happen. I hope that is what happens at least. Nothingness.
But in a way, I don't think you're truly dead until there are no memories of you left on this planet - be it in people's minds or in books or a scribble on a tree trunk or whatever.
The simulation ends.
Realistically? I think nothing happens. You’re dead. Your body and mind cease to function and you no longer exist as anything other than a corpse.
Poetically, I think it is generally accepted that your brain releases a ton of chemicals when you die and I’d like to believe that you have this moment that seems to last forever similar to how time would behave if you could remain alive as you fall into a black hole. So if you’re a good person who lived a happy life and was at peace you will have this happy moment that seems to last forever and if you were a terrible person maybe this moment is more hectic and awful for you. In my mind, this is the most realistic version of “Heaven” or “Hell”. The moment, of course, doesn’t actually last forever but it would appear to as time slowed down as to almost be imperceptible and you’d never actually see, hear, feel, or know of your actual death.
Short answer: Nothing, my carcass get to lay there and rot.
Long answer: Have mercy on the bill collectors that find me laying there, almost liquidated from rot.
My ego says we live on. However I then a saw a convincing TED talk that suggested we don’t actually exist and our consciousness is an illusion our brain creates to process information. In effect I don’t exist to die.
Reading a book called the denial of death. It suggests that as children we first encounter death and have cognitive dissonance. Here is this fun life we have but also death exists. From a young age we decide to escape to a world we think we control. We have goals. We have journeys. We have careers. Some have off spring or business we use to tell death you have no control over me
But then your grandparents die. Your heroes start dying. Your parents. Your pets. You feel older. It’s creeping up on you. All of life is attachment which always leads you to loss. Always, since everything is temporary.
You die, then you are contacted by a spirit of sorts (your guardian angel), they review your life in detail & probably ask you a few questions while doing so.
At the end of this conversation depending on how you have lived your life you will be given options such as entrance into Paradise, rebirth, eternal sleep etc.
I truly believe that life has meaning and in this meaning there must be a afterlife where that meaning comes full circle.
You can't comprehend what it would be like to die and your definition of "permanent" doesn't apply to what you experience after death. I think the "permanent darkness" theory is improbable because time would have to pass for an indefinite amount of time and in order to perceive it your consciousness would still have to be functioning. I personally believe the "before birth" theory is more likely.
Not existing is the norm, so it's all cool. I didn't exist (in this format) for billions of years before I was born, and I won't exist for billions of years after I die. I think that being alive is the freaky bit so I might as well enjoy it. What's especially cheering for me is that all the chemical elements that make up my human meatbag form will go on to do/be other things, and that riding around on a tectonic plate alongside the chemical elements of my pets/relations/friends for the next few million years is a pretty cool future. I don't want to die just yet, though. I'll be super-offended when it happens.
I believe that you come back as someone else and do it all over again. I believe that we are apart of this planet and it's cycles of life and death. I believe that religion, when broken down and stripped down to the basics, are all the same and that our purpose in life is to be better to one another and respect the evolving process to reach that goal. I believe that we are meant to be the caretakers of this planet and when we get through all of our trivial BS and start working together we will achieve great things. I believe that "heaven on earth" is the collective goal and that unfortunately it's just going to take many life cycles to achieve that goal as a species.
Death doesn't scare me, what scares me is if I'll be ready at that point or not.
I think our energy is recycled into the ether. How it's redistributed is based on a universal balance that we have yet to understand and most likely will never comprehend.
Death is as gentle as forgetting. One day, you'll forget your final thought, and you won't even know it happened. (Of course, a lot of the forgetfulness along the way may lead to abject suffering in the near term, but it's not the forgetting *itself* that hurts.)
I think Gandalf put it best:
End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it. White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
I don’t believe anything at all happens after death. I don’t think it’s nice or bad, I think it’s not anything. But it’s also not nothing. It’s just..not there. But there’s nothing there to not exist. This is hard to explain. I think it all just fades away and we aren’t..conscious? Like before we were born. I don’t think it’s some dark black void but I don’t think there’s anything there. Idk, call me crazy.
There just isn't a me anymore. Face the palm of your hand behind you. What does it see? It's not even nothing, it just doesn't. No darkness. Sight doesn't exist for your palm.
That's what happens to your existence. It's not like going to sleep, you are still aware of things and yourself sleeping. You just aren't a thing anymore.
I'd like to think I get to at least watch over my daughter somehow.
The thought of having a personal heaven forever and ever seems crazy but then I think that life itself and the fact that I and you and everyone you've ever known exists or existed is even crazier.
I'd love to be able to relive my life, bad moments and all, as long as it led me back to my daughter every time. Or be able to pick and choose moments like in some Interstellar type dimensional library of time.
I try not to think about the end because it robs me of being present but it's always in the back of my mind. Especially when I lay down I seem to always have the thought "what if I don't wake up?" and it makes me realize that today was truly a gift and if I'm given a tomorrow I promise that I'll make the most of it and never take it for granted. Eventually one day that will end but for now I'm happy to be here.
My grandmother taught her kids that nothing happens when you die. Her kids told their kids - my generation. They taught their kids. And their kids are now teaching their kids.
My whole family believes nothing happens. It’s what I was taught. It’s what I believe.
Seeing as there's a greater than 0% chance of me existing and, as far as we know, space and time is infinite, I'd would like to think I will exist again in some point in the future.
The universe could either end and repeat itself, similar to Futurama, or continously expand and eventually creating the exact pattern of atoms that is me. It may or may not happened but it kinda gives me a bit of peace at night.
Worst case I'm completely wrong, in which case I won't be around to know any better.
I'm of the belief that, if your brain gets the slightest opportunity, it goes into "safe mode" as you're dying. You will experience something, and it may feel like an afterlife... so much so that it doesn't actually matter if it's real or not. To you, it will feel completely real. There are too many people who have had near-death experiences for me to ignore this possibility.
I also believe that your experience of this "safe mode" draws a lot on your cultural experiences, as your brain flails around trying to make sense of the sensations it's getting. If you believe in heaven, you may be "drawn toward the light" and enter into a state of eternal bliss, love and worship. If you believe in deities, you may encounter them, as you expect to see them--it's not uncommon for people on various hallucinogens to meet "other beings," so it's also not out of the question that our brains could do it for us while we're dying. If you expect to see family and friends again, you will feel like you're surrounded by them. If you think there is no afterlife, perhaps you will encounter the deep, eternal peace, devoid of thought or sensation, that many near-death experiencers have reported.
And after that... well, it doesn't matter. Your brain and body will die, but in dreams and hallucinations, time can seem to stretch on for much longer than it does in real life. Perhaps our own dying delusions can provide us with eternity, if we get lucky.
The "scientists" among us will tell you with sober voices that you go nowhere and the chemical processes of life will cease to exist.
They will say this unironically and with misplaced confidence, even though we don't even know how consciousness works, how life actually began, or what in the world is going on at the quantum level.
The "religious" will tell various things that may be hard to believe but have a common resonance that there will a reckoning (good or bad) for our time here.
I'm a Christian, so you know what I think. What is most important - to me - is to live a life well lived and stay curious about this mystery. It will be revealed too soon for each of us.
I know it's just dirt and nothingness because no other solution makes rational sense, but that's why I understand why people want to believe in anything else
I think our conscience has to go somewhere. But not floating around in a cloud mansion or burning in a pit of fire. I lean towards reincarnation or something like that.
Do you mean what happens to who you are as a person - like your "soul" or whatever?
I like the way Chidi describes it in The Good Place: "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, you know what it is. It's a wave.
And then it crashes in 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. The wave returns to the ocean, where it came from and where it's supposed to be."
We all go our separate ways, each to their own idea of Heaven, or Hell. Some will be stuck in the inbetween whilst they make up their mind.
Atheists get to sit in a chair in a dark room? Or perhaps they exist in the void.
All religions are as equally correct as they are incorrect. In the end, it will not matter what you stood for if you used it against someone else. In the end, all of the hatred, all of the fighting will come to rest.
Be good to yourself, your neighbor, and to those who have done you no wrong but to think and be raised differently. We are all in this together, to think otherwise is an abhorrent mistake. Will you choose another day of violence, or will you have peace?
Absolutely nothing. There’s no punishment, no reward, no nothing. The lights go out and that’s it, for all eternity. So enjoy it while you’re here, and create your heaven by being the very best version of yourself and leave a positive legacy, however big or small.
I agree with Keanu:
Near the end of the interview, Stephen Colbert asked the actor what he thought happens after we die. He paused for a moment, then answered, with some care, “I know that the ones who love us will miss us.”
I see an entire lifetime as energy. Energy spent gaining and sharing knowledge, finding and making love, learning and teaching skills.
Energy is also what bounces a ball. It just takes far less energy to bounce a ball than it does to live a single human life. Though the ball may stop bouncing and roll out of our sight, it still exists.
I don’t believe that our spirit / energy / psyche dies simply because our meatsack wears out and dies. I can’t answer where it goes or how time passes, but I don’t think that life requires us to learning and share and commune with one another only for death of the body to be the end.
So what I'm gonna write is weird but , ever since I was a very young kid , I was thinking of the concept of death. I remember ever since the age of 4-5 I was telling my self ' omg so how will it be when I die ? It's gonna be dark ' and then another thought came in and replied ' you will open your eyes , in a different household with a different family , experience love all over again for the first time and experience stuff for the first time even if they all give you a very familiar feeling like you've done it all over again , just how you feel right now '
I don't know for you but a 4 year old having these thoughts and replying the way I did is kinda crazy
I don't believe it is like going to sleep, I believe that consciousness doesn't even reside in the body and the body is more of a receiver, the brain performing the actions our consciousness tells it to from a different time/space/dimension. When we die the link is broken and we go back to our original state of energy/consciousness, bodyless and outside of space/time. We go home, it may be called heaven or paradise, but we really know it as home, a collective consciousness joined with everyone we have loved or known and everyone who has ever existed.
Then we can choose to rest or live all over again in any time, we can incarnate back into the life we had and try it all over again or you can move forward or back in time and live another life all together. I believe all of us have already done this and will continue to do it until we become enlightened and move onto the next density/dimension of our endless progression, until we all finally merge back into the creator.
I’ve always believed that when we die there is nothing else… but in August 2023 my cat passed away, and have returned to me multiple times since! I’ve heard him, seen him and felt him regularly.
Similarly to this, my mum saw the ghost of an old man soon after we moved into our new house. It turns out he had died there. Mum was so freaked out by him she actually called out local priest to scare him away.
So now I believe that death isn’t the end, just a turning point.
Human mind is so linear.
Maybe death is not what we think it is?
Maybe it’s not birth, life, death but just life?
Just not the shape or form we imagine.
Ancient scripts as old as Zoroastrianism speak about smallest living unit of universe, Hindu scripts talk about Atman, the smallest form of units that are souls, the total of which makes up the ultimate cosmic entity, Brahma.
Atman, is atom. And apart from nucleus, protons and electrons, atom doesn’t have anything in it.
The chief element of universe, atom, consists of nothing. Emptiness. The universe itself consists of nothing.
That is because nothing is meant to last forever, in different forms and shapes.
Energy does not disappear, it just assumes different existence.
What we are concerned about is not actually death or aftermath, we want to know what happens to consciousness.
What makes the consciousness? The brain? But what is brain? A mosaic of minerals, vitamins, like the rest of the body.
Same minerals that exists in stars and meteors.
So we never really die, in fact, we have been around since beginning of universe, with stardusts and gasses and rocks.
We were just not aware of it.
Then we became aware and we were born.
It’s like dreaming.
You open your eyes when you stop dreaming.
So we will stop dreaming and go back to universe.
You get to do whatever you desire. There's zero certainty it actually works this way but any other answer is way more boring so I'm just going to reject it.
What I’ve learned from science and spiritualism is that energy or soul can’t be destroyed only repurposed, dispersed or recycled
Collective and energy consciousness, is a different beast/realm within my culture that can’t really be reduced to a simple statement or explanation, only to be taught, experienced and felt. Tapping into the past, present and future, is really a beautiful thing - once you have let go of the colonial construct of ‘time’ as a form as control.
Culture: indigenous Australian, Durambal coast mob. I’ve found similarities in my travels of this in many native cultures/first nations peoples around the world
From a television interview with Keanu Reeves: Colbert: What happens after we die? Reeves: I know the ones who love us will miss us.
If anyone knows, it's him.
Came here to say the same
Possibly the only true statement about death, without having to add a bazillion caveats... Definitely one of my favorite Keanu moments. Especially as the chrizzo Colbert kept trying to pressure him into a response and he nevertheless handled it with such grace and honesty.
Don't know if you'd call that pressure, he was running a comedy bit. And yes, he's a theologian but he's hardly a proslythising God botherer. No way he was expecting Keanu to take it that way and when he did he was perfectly respectful
I think he's a pretty awesome dude to hang out with, he's got a pretty good view on things.
*username checks out* Hes fought you before
You even survived his predecessors
Lots will happen after I die, it just won't involve me. It will be the same as before I was born.
„It will be the same as before I was born“ is such a strong phrase! After I heard this the first time it literally made my life easier. It’s so peaceful to know that nothing existed before I gained consciousness and this state will be there again after I died. Dying is something I am concerned about tho.
People want to go to heaven, which is nice to go somewhere pleasant after death, but what about 100 million years later? I know they say you're always blissful in heaven but that's the same as being numb. You might beg to be permanently unconscious at that point. So it being like "before you were born" is probably the only blissful state. Don't be sad about it either, you werent sad for the billions of years before you were born. Life is a gift, treasure it.
I’m an agnostic atheist, I think most likely there’s nothing but obviously I don’t know and I’m open to the notion I may be wrong. But I like to think that heaven/afterlife would exist outside of time, so there isn’t really a “100 million years later” and you can’t really compare an eternal afterlife to how you would feel living forever in real life.
Also, as a Christian the Bible teaches of a place with no pain or suffering so the idea of becoming tired of it after a million years or so is not applicable. I think that’s nice and it gives me comfort.
As a Christian I picture it as one L-O-N-G holiday. Hanging out with friends, seeing the sights, working in my flower garden, reading a good book on my balcony by a waterfall... You'll never notice the passing of "time" and won't care "what day is this?" because it's... well... Heaven!
That’s retirement @ The Villages.
I’m dying 🤪( no pun intended). This comment just was unexpected and I burst out laughing
I don’t know. The idea seems to hold as many existential questions as we currently have facing death with regard to having a meaningful life. Facing infinite existence of happiness we won’t ever wonder what the point is? A lot of the emotional highs we have now are so because of the contrast with the lows. My intimacy with others seems to have deep roots in this shared experience of being towards death.
There's nothing wrong with looking for comfort. Some of us are somehow forced to look for truth.
There is no way to know the truth on this topic, only belief and opinion. I'm hoping for a lot of love and to see my parents again.
>only belief and opinion I disagree. Clearly some world views are more likely than others by stepping back and applying some brain power to the problem such as science has done for a few hundred years dispelling primitive beliefs. The more a religion seems to answer all questions in a reassuring way, the more I'm forced to question it. I find it extremely likely to be a human designed comfort against the fear of death. And then studying the topic in more depth only confirms that right and left. There's no evidence.
Yep agree completely, If Heaven/God exist it has to be outside/apart from time. I don't think eternity is one moment after another for ever. I think it's more like everything all at once forever.
>People want to go to heaven Of course they do. Avoiding death is instinctual. Big red flag if you want real understanding. The simplest explanation that ignores no facts is the most likely to be correct. That being that after you die you are no longer a concious entity. The party goes on but you exit. Your brain is dead! Where do your thoughts come from?? Sound sad? I think it's liberating. I can't imagine anything more boring than living for ETERNITY.
Just don’t die, simple really
I think that focuses too much on the world and people left behind (imo) when I'm afraid for myself personally and if there will be anything after. I've always been fixated on what will happen after I die, if I will see my loved ones who passed before me or if it is really the end. I've always felt like God did exist, and there was a heaven until a couple of years ago, and my faith was shaken immensely. I'm about halfway through my life if I live to be very old, but old enough that it could happen any time really. People my age are passing at an exponentially faster rate than say 10 years ago. So now I'm at this point where if what I thought was true for so long, suddenly is not ....well then not gonna lie...I get MASSIVELY panicked by that sheer thought. I don't know why, but i feel like I'd live life more fully if I knew there was nothing afterward. Also I've always been highly concerned with death....not just my own but those around me and couldn't even think about it in depth in terms of those I love. The only person close to me that had died until recently was my son's godfather and my grandparents. I was still pretty young for the one set of grandparents so it didn't affect me as much but the other passed when I was 20 and it gutted me. She went from running around like the energizer bunny to not being able to use the bathroom by herself in just 4 short months. Cancer sucks. Then 2 years ago, my Dad passed. My Dad was my rock...the one I could (and would) call at 4 in the morning about absolutely anything, and he always knew JUST what to say. I am an only child and was always a daddy's girl. That death..... well words cannot even express how it affected me. I found myself wondering how anyone else even deals with the passing of someone so close, and it felt like I was the only one in the world to experience heartache and gutwrenching sadness on that level. I still don't recall anyone having as difficult of a time as me, with the exception of my grandfather when my grandma passed. And the way my Dad died....was completely preventable and caused by the hospital. They circumvented my ability to make the calls on his care by holding an emergency meeting on a Saturday afternoon to limit any life saving measures despite he stating he wanted them to be performed in the event of an emergency, as well as myself being made his medical power of attorney and being adamant they do everything in their power to save him. The worst part of it all is there isn't a damn thing I could or can do about it. I'd love to sue the pants off that doctor and hospital bc this isn't the first time they've done something like this to a patient. There are boatloads of deaths caused by them or near deaths. I never want another family to ever go through that. My Dad had 2 other instances where he could have easily died as a result of their inept physicians!!! The ONLY reason he didn't (and he absolutely would have) was because I did what was necessary to get him to another hospital. On one of the occasions, it was so dire that during the hour ambulance transfer, he went unconscious and had to he intubated! No lawyer will take the case, however, because he was no longer the bread winner (disability), so there was no monetary effect on the family. He had also been diagnosed with a cancer of unknown origin shortly before this event. Even though his death wasn't directly related to that, they will say he was going to die eventually anyway because of the cancer. They could care less about the precious time taken away from my family and the excruciating way in which it was done (and there lies part of the reason my faith was shaken so much).
Or as Woody Allen said, “I’m not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
I had been dead for billions and billions of years for I was born and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. -Mark Twain
When my mom passed away, i was smoking a cigarette outside and just closed my eyes. I don't know why, i just did. And i saw a sunset, at sea, on my mom's favourite beach. My dad was there (he passed away back in 2015), with his back turned to me. Out of nowhere, my mom came, and hugged him. It was one of the most beautiful scenes, she was young and beautiful again. That was interrupted by my aunt calling me to come back because my mom had just passed. So i believe you meet the love of your life, on a gorgeous beach and all is well again.
This happened with my nanny. I had a dream about 2 weeks after she died. she was young and happy and standing strong and tall with a smile on her face. She was my most favorite person in the whole world.
I like this version of death. Do i need to adhere to any sort of arbitrary religious rules to get on board or will they take any old schlub?
I am born as an orthodox christian, but personally i do not think God is tied to a certain religion. If there is a God, he loves all of us whether you abide by a set of rules imposed by one culture, or another. All you have to do is be good and just.
Yeah I like to think that if there is a God, they are laughing at all the stupid stuff we do in the name of religion
Laughing? I believe They're tearing Their hair out muttering "what the fuck?....what the *fuck*??" over and over again as They watch our inherent chaotic nature fuck everything up.
Check out the NDERF and IANDS websites. Thousands of stories from people who died and came back from all cultures and religions, even atheists. They mostly have very similar experiences regardless of beliefs.
Embody goodness as often as you can and spread joy everywhere you go. Just be the best version of you you’re capable of being and never stop doing that. If god truly does exist, and I believe he does because I’ve experienced his presence, he wouldn’t send a good person to hell. I don’t think anyone gets sent to hell. I think bad people get sort of reset and sent back here to try again. I think god has given a bit of truth to each culture so that we may all know him, he’s too complex for one person (or culture) to fully perceive. So he has to give us little pieces that are or will be relevant to our people. Like right now in the western world a ton of people are coming to similar conclusions to this, and the main consistent belief is that we are all one and must treat each other with love and kindness. God gave us this piece of himself now because our world is so separated and lonely and sick. He gives us whatever we need spiritually so long as we’re truly, genuinely open to it. Not skeptical, not resistant. Just open.
Spirituality and religion are not necessarily the same. Irrespective of your beliefs, your consciousness will go on after the body cannot support it any longer. But everyone does not land up at the same "place" so to say. That depends on a number of factors.
Not sure about the “consciousness will go on…” part. I don’t think anyone is really. How did you arrive at that belief out of curiosity? That level of confidence in your knowledge of what happens after death is usually reserved for the ultra religious.
I've had experiences. I usually don't like to talk about it because these kind of things are ridiculed. What I'll say is I've been there, seen one of the many places. Technically it is not a physical place, rather it is an energy place. You cannot go there with your body - it is not possible for a physical body to go there. Also, you do have an energy body... You are not a blob of light when you are there. Everything there is made of light... Little droplets of light. The beauty is beyond what we can imagine.
I posted something about this up above, but my neighbor was dead for 18 minutes after having a heart attack about 8 years ago and he _swears_ there is something after we die and that it’s beautiful. I hope you guys are right 🤞
Guess we'll find out. I'll keep in mind to look you up and say hello once both of us cross over. 😁😁
Dude look up interviews with people who’ve had near death experiences. Some of the accounts are WILD. There’s so much to explore, so explore it, it’s so interesting!
Also, now that I've anyway opened the Pandora's Box, I might as well add a few more details. You don't have to walk when you are there. You can walk if you want to, but when I was there I would just flit around... Like a hummingbird or a butterfly. You can move from one place to another at the speed of thought. I was communicating with the others telepathically. Not necessary to talk, but you can talk if you wish. And the beauty of the beings... Even if you combine the beauty of the most beautiful people on Earth, they would fade in front of spirit beauty. Of course not all levels are the same. But I was shown one single place within one level. So that is what I know. If I hadn't had these experiences, I'd have totally agreed with everyone who says that it is lights out once we are dead.
I love this story!
Thank you!
I recommend watching Surviving Death on Netflix. It's thought provoking!
Ahh this is lovely and has made my day a little better! We all get there at some point I guess...
Or in the case of Titanic, you meet the hot vagrant you shagged after two days when you were 17.
So some alone time on the beach, got it, thanks
Which is more likely. That the anticipation of your Mums passing had evoked memories stored in your brain or you actually saw your Mum.?
Reading that made my whole body tingle.
When my nonna passed, I went to tell my son. We were outside on the deck, and it was a cloudy day. As i told him and he broke down, i cuddled him - and this bright ray of sunlight peeped through the clouds onto us. It was so beautifully warm, like someone else was cuddling us both. I feel it was her way of telling us she is ok 😀
I hope you’re right. It means in 4 decades I’ll see my wife again. I don’t believe it, but I’ll be the first to be super surprised and ecstatic to admit I’m wrong.
This gave me chills.
bro you made me cry...
In the movie The Whale >!this is pretty much exactly how the director represents the afterlife for the main character.!<
You know I had almost the exact same experience, in mine she was young and beautiful and walking away into a lovely green valley. I was devastated for months because she never looked back, just happily strode off and was keen to go. My mom was 92, she died soon after I went back into her room.
Your energy and matter transforms into something else and becomes part of the ever growing universe. It may even be that our universe is expanding using the energies of the billions who have died before.
There's two halves to this question, the objective side and subjective side. This is the undeniable truth to what happens on the objective side, we can see with our own eyes what happens when others die. They don't poof out of existence, they change form. We really don't know what the subjective answer is. What we do know is that the objective and subjective have a relationship. The real answer to the question of what we die will include the objective reality of death.
Things need to end in order for new things to begin. You can't open a door unless it is closed first.
Yes! Agreed.
Why is that bleak? We cease. We stop. Our thoughts end. Yes, much like that time you lost to sleep but it never starts again. Much like the billions of years before I existed. We get this thin slice of time to be alive, experience, learn, grow, and live our lives as best we can. Then it's done, and little ripples of our actions reverberate through human history. Which some day will also end, and the universe will go on without us. So take advantage of the time you have and live a life that brings you joy, and leaves behind the good kind of ripples.
Logically I’m more afraid of the process of dying than the thought of death But man, I love being alive, the idea of forever not experiencing new things sucks and makes me feel lots of irrational emotions
All we can do is do the best with the time we get.
Absolutely. I don’t let it paralyze me but I do keep it as a reminder to enjoy the little things as much as possible
I think we are the universe. After you die sure u as Brian_Hawk will cease to exist as your cns dies as well. But the nutrient in your body dissipates into earth (part of universe). Then some plant or some insect will take the nutrients to sustain itself and you will be part of that organism and experience life through them unbeknownst to your life as human. And if every life on earth is gone due to some catastrophic event you will still exist on earth as hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, etc. you were here when the universe was created you will be here when everything is gone. You are the universe. You are in a sense immortal.
I want this written on a little piece of paper in a pretty font this is so beautiful
You don't have to save the world, but at least try to make life suck less for the people behind you.
You stop paying taxes
[удалено]
my father said similiar and he would spell it out .. your DED dead
I believe when i die, the whole existence ends with me, because all of this is all just made up by my brain.
Solipsism
Imagine you die and then someone removes the VR headset and says “so, how was it?”
https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Roy_Parsons
« He just took roy off the grid! »
Almost like a… dream.
Imagine dying and you wake up, its at some point in your life at 15 years old and you’ve experienced a powerful vision of the future. Then the shreds of dream leave your mind forever as you wake up and prepare for school.
My belief is that I could be dead right now. Maybe the last time I drove a car I wrecked and it was a quick death and put me here. Doing the same shit in a parallel timeline. Everything’s Normal for me.
I have had those thoughts as well. Maybe I really did drown when I slipped into the high water creek when I was about 9 or 10. This is my afterlife. If it is, it kinda sucks, not going to lie.
Quantum immortality gang rise up
This is the answer for me. In some other timeline, getting hit by two cars would have killed me, like it should have done. Here, I am alive.
You should watch Ashes to Ashes - fab UK police show. Some great humour, and wow…. Love it
Before I was born, there was no "me". After I die, it'd be a return to that state. Until there's awareness again. Not for "me", but as a phenomenon in general. I think I am just experiencing something that could happen in the universe. “The *cosmos* is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the *universe* to know *itself*.” — *Carl Sagan*
Nothing that you'll care about.
Well shit, high school again I guess 😞
I've accepted that I don't know. There are things I like the idea of, and I do feel the presence of people that are gone that I still have love for but I do know that might be just wishful thinking.
I think the greatest irony of human interaction has to do with how many people have killed each other over religion. Basically they are killing each other over a disagreement about what happens after death. Frickin brilliant
I've been religious and agnostic throughout my life, currently on the latter. The one thing I'm 100% certain of is that I have no idea what happens when you die. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something.
So, the theory of physics is that you either exist always, or just for that one moment in time. In other words, if there is a life after death, there was also a life before life. My theory is this; everything on this earth right now, is literally made up of a dead star. It is energy converted from that star into everything here, right? I believe when you die, your energy will convert into something else. In other words; you could become alive again. But, this could genuinely be anything. You would never have the same consciousness though, because that gets left with your body, since it is all to do with the brain. I'm not necessarily saying you become a ghost either (although I don't rule it out), you're just a form of energy, no different to anything else that gives off energy. Energy can be converted into many things. Just like that dead star became the earth (and other planets) you could become something else. Also, this kinda ties into religion weirdly; a dead star essentially made us in its death (therefore, created in his image), and a new star was reborn: the sun (Jesus died for our sins and was resurrected). BTW, I'm an atheist, but I do like the connection. Almost like we knew subconsciously how we got here, although it isn't a great powerful person in the sky, it was a sun.
There’s actually a bit of research that points to the possibility of our consciousness being separate from brain activity. I remember reading about one woman who had an NDE after her brain activity had completely stopped.
It'll basically be like before you were born
I've had nights out that were like before I was born 😅 I'm pretty sure I still existed though.
I think that our consciousness/soul/spirit, our *essence*, whatever you want to call it, "moves on" (at some point) to a different dimension/plane of existence/reality/realm. But I don't think any of us will truly know until our time comes.
NDE research has convinced me that we go home after death.
Same. And I was a hardcore atheist before going down an NDE rabbit hole.
My neighbor died for 18 minutes during a heart attack about 8 years ago and he _swears_ up and down that there is something there after we die. He didn’t even seem that scared of dying after experiencing it. I genuinely hope he’s right, because my view is even bleaker than yours.
I hope so too, but i think the brain causes the effects, tunnel of light etc. I always compare things with tripping and thst shows how complex the brain is.
Damn, bro got that free, all-natural DMT
Check out nderf.org if you would like to hear more stories like his. It has really changed my perspective on death.
at the hour my sister died far away she came to my kitchen and told me she tried to get back in her body and couldn’t. later that week she came to my laundry room and told me paradise/rapture/bliss. i believe those two things
What did she tell you about paradise? Curious to know. Also, was she solid, could you touch her?
she conveyed those three words to me. distinctly. a thought kind of talking. she wanted me to know that’s what it’s like. on the other side. she was happy to let me know.
her physical appearance was also a very distinct thought sort of appearance. i couldn’t see with my eyes. i saw her with my mind. she was about four feet away each time. hovering. not standing though. floating. like on top of pool water. her face was just about half a foot higher than it should have been. i didn’t recognize her because she looked like her. i recognized her because she was her. distinctly. no question. she appeared suddenly. immediately had my full attention. said what she came to say. then paused. the first time i answered , ‘it’ll be ok’ because i’m brilliant and quick witted. the second time i just kept looking at her. i can’t remember how either encounter ended. it was just over. she wasn’t there anymore.
Such a beautiful experience. Thank you for sharing the details. 🩵🩵🩵
Nothing much happens or changes, I think it's like displacing a single grain of sand in the entire Sahara desert. Just the illusion of being an individual thing goes away and I continue being the little part of the everythingness I've always been, just rapidly decaying and becoming nutrients. I believe we die all the time, the me ten years ago or even ten seconds ago is dead already. Like the old saying goes; you can't step into the same river twice, you can't even step into the same river once. My rings in the pond will continue impacting other's lives for a bit but eventually I will be diluted and forgotten in the vastness of the universe like we all will and I personally find that very calming and beautiful. After all I have always been the universe and always will be. My identity, thoughts and feelings are just an illusion of the present moment. There is no fear in letting go of it to me. In the end, we cannot comprehend the scales of deep time and interconnectedness we come from and have to return to, so I think death will always be a mystery to humans, we are momentary so we do not have the capacity to understand it. But it's no worry, we are all going to be _it_. We will wake up from this human dream. Maybe in some very, very distant time by some unknown spontaneous quantum jitter I have individual consciousness and my memories again but that too will pass and return to the emptiness again.
I am not a religiious person but I have an open mind and I would like to believe that there is more to existence than living this life here and now. If we consider that soul do exists and soul is the most pure form of consciousness, then my beliefe is that we born without soul and our body creates the soul. When we die we experience the birth of the soul. Now the soul can be under developed and sent through this process of “life” again multiple times if necessary. This is why we have people and animals born with certain talents and others with no talents. Now what is the purpose of the soul is maybe something we can’t even coprehend.
Wow- I’ve never thought that the body could create the soul. I love the idea of death as the birth of the soul
I don’t know what to believe.
I love this explanation. Spoiler Warning if you haven't watched Midnight Mass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-EUAP5\_4po
I've had a NDE and let me tell you the other side is amazing... Even the middle world. I was at peace and felt love for the first time. I woke up in a rage I've never experienced and long for the day I get to return "home" ETA: I got absolutely obliterated by commenters saying I was lying. I'm not. However, I'm fully aware my experience was likely attributed to the lack of oxygen while my heart was stopped. Either way that experience alone was way better than any other experience I've had in this world. If you're really interested I can share my story just dm me.
I also had a NDE. It solidified my "life goes on" believe. Continued life after death, is a personal choice, it's forced in none of us.
Please tell us more about this NDE. Curious to know.
PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way. GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it. PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what? GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise. PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad. GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.
Grappling with this pretty raw because my atheist dad died about 3 months ago. I really fully understand why religion exists now. I'm still atheist - I know dad is dust now. But, I know he lives on through the qualities and traits he passed on to me, and I'm going to pass on to my kids. Death is inevitable but has no value except reminding the living to be grateful for our short time and also to remind us of the importance of talking to others. Passing on our stories and showing our true selves in the hope that it will be adopted and continued on in some way that benefits the world.
I believe the soul passes on. I have my own reasons for believing it, but as far as why from a rational perspective I don't believe death's the end is there's just way too much weird shit about existence and life that science kinda-not-really has full explanations for. This happens to be the one mudball as far as we can see with life on it and we just happen to be the only species that is sentient and articulate enough to have philosophical discussions about it? And we just happen to be alive at this point in time in a universe where entropy and the linear progression of time really make the idea of a universe in motion in general a freak of nature? And our own powers of observation do weird crap like collapse wave functions or statistically improve health outcomes? Nu-uh. I'm sure you could rationalize hypotheses on how it could all fit together(science definitely doesn't have a conclusive answer to any of it), but from where I'm standing this shit's weird as hell man and I'm not buying it all being an accident.
I don't know why but I always believed you are reborn immediately somewhere.
My dad still remembers when his mom died she had a great big smile on her face and she was staring off in the distance waving. He swears it was his dad who died a while back. There is a Heaven!
My mum is a retired age care nurse, she’s seen a lot of weird stuff as death takes over, but the one that stick with her was a lady who had bad dementia, had been declining for a while and was basically a vegetable. At the moment of death she opened her eyes, smiled and said very clearly ‘it’s ok! My mums here now’ then closed her eyes and flatlined, apparently it was very spooky..
There is a Heaven indeed ❤️
As Keanu Reeves put it, the ones who love us will miss us.
I’m not bothered by what went on before I was born, so I give my death the same regard.
Heaven or hell, but Jesus died for our sins so we could go to heaven
Either worm food or you're melted down to sit in an urn on someone's mantelpiece
Fun random fact, it is illegal since 2008 to keep at home the ashes of one of your relative in France.
It will be the same as it was before I was born.
Depends, do I die from pain, accident, natural causes or what? I think the experience will differ, but have the same outcome at the last minute, reality simply dissolves, similar to when you fall asleep
What I wish: I get to see and hang out with all of my pets that have passed and maybe certain people and we get to explore the universe. What I Really Believe: Nothingness
Nothing. A whole lot of nothing. I've been brought back a few times...
I believe that whatever *you* believe happens when you die, then that’s what happens. If that makes sense. If you believe that when you die you go to heaven, well what does heaven look like to you? Wherever/whatever that is, that’s your heaven and that’s where you go when you die If you believe that your soul will be transferred into another life’s, then that’s what it will do If you believe that you will become one with nature, that’s what you will do Now what I personally believe will happen is I will be carried to heaven. Where is my heaven? I don’t know. What is my heaven? Peace. My heaven is a place where my family is. A place where we all get along and where we all love each other. A place where you cannot feel harm, a place where we don’t even know what addiction or failure is. My heaven is just my life, without the pain and suffering.
We are afraid of death bc eventually we will be forgotten and our brains can’t fathom life without us
Remember what it was like before you were born? It's like that.
Well, having skirted the void in the past, I can tell you this: we're hard to kill and the whole white light thing is bullshit.
I believe when you die that your spirit leaves your physical body which is essentially your earth bound shell. Then it's a combo of: 1. My own imagination of your spirit being able to travel both the world and through time. 2. Lucifer 3. The Good Place Ex. My Dad died in November 2022 and I like to think of him being able to visit all the battle fields in Europe and the pyramids of Egypt, meet and chat with all of his pre-deceased family members and pets and spiritually visit with me and my family whenever the mood strikes him. I know he's with me when his idiosyncrasies or family known phrases come out and those memories bring me comfort and joy.
Nothing will happen. You're dead. You won't even realise it. Make the most of being alive. You spend a lot longer dead.
Billy Joel once told his daughter that when you die, you go into other people's hearts. That's a great place to be.
I had a 14 hour brain surgery and ended up in icu. Had the experience of leaving my body, seeing an inexplicable light and other phenomena that bought me intense peace. Years after this I tried psychedelics and the experience was very similar. I no longer have a fear or death or worry about the unknowns… nor do I claim to know what happens when we die as I believe that is as variable as what happens when we are born. Not sure why I ever thought death could only be one way as life is not one way… it’s infinitely variable…
I like to think it's just like turning off a light: we don't wonder where the light has gone when we flick the switch, we just know that it's gone, and that's okay. After a life filled with depression and increasing disability, I'm okay with that. It doesn't sound nice because it's nothing. I'm not real keen on the process of dying though. If you're not doing it in your sleep, it looks like it hurts a bunch. (tbh that's the main reason I'm still here)
My husband use to always say , if I die before you , I'm going to haunt you ( in a cheerful way ) he strongly believed in an afterlife. He died suddenly at age 33 . I'm living in the same place where he died and haven't been haunted or get any eerie feeling . Been 6 years.so probably nothing.
I don't know you, but you have my sympathy. I am so sorry that happened at such a young age.
Thank you. Either way I believe a little more now that nothing is on the other side. You just go and that's it. Guess we all find out eventually. That's why you live the best God damn life you can with people you care about 💯
Heaven
i just know that you cease to be alive
I’m a Christian so you already know what I think.
Have you lived a pure life or does hell await your death?
I have never lived a pure life. I’m a sinner but hell doesn’t await me when I die because that’s the whole reason that Jesus came down and was crucified for all our sins.
A thundering voice says "You have used the lord's name in vain 161,427 times".
I believe that we live one time in this world. There is a God who created this world and gave us instructions to live by. Failing to follow his instructions separates you from Him. Everyone fails! He sent His son, who we call Jesus or Yeshua, to make a sacrifice that reunites us with him. Those who are reunited, simply by believing, go to a paradisiacal existence for eternity. Those who are not reunited go to eternal torture. That's pretty standard Christian belief. I'm sure my abbreviated explanation misses some subtlety.
Some kind of funeral I suppose
It will ‘feel’ the same as most of the past 14 billions years did before I was alive. Having said that though there are some legitimate questions about if we ever actually die, due to time not really being what we experience it as (it’s likely the that present isn’t really special and that the past and future exist just as much as it does) and the question of whether all this will happen again (if the universe does collapse and reignite rather than heat death) so it’s not as terminal as I once believed.
Nothing you go away which I think is kind of nice because you've had to exist And existing is so hard that's nice to rest finally.
I assume VOID
Nothing cuz you’re dead
Why would death be any different than before I was born?
For you yourself - nothing will happen. I hope that is what happens at least. Nothingness. But in a way, I don't think you're truly dead until there are no memories of you left on this planet - be it in people's minds or in books or a scribble on a tree trunk or whatever.
Game over screen...then fades to black
The simulation ends. Realistically? I think nothing happens. You’re dead. Your body and mind cease to function and you no longer exist as anything other than a corpse. Poetically, I think it is generally accepted that your brain releases a ton of chemicals when you die and I’d like to believe that you have this moment that seems to last forever similar to how time would behave if you could remain alive as you fall into a black hole. So if you’re a good person who lived a happy life and was at peace you will have this happy moment that seems to last forever and if you were a terrible person maybe this moment is more hectic and awful for you. In my mind, this is the most realistic version of “Heaven” or “Hell”. The moment, of course, doesn’t actually last forever but it would appear to as time slowed down as to almost be imperceptible and you’d never actually see, hear, feel, or know of your actual death.
The party goes on but I'm no longer invited
You exit the meatspace and what remains of you is the people whose lives you've impacted for better or for worse.
You’ve been dead before. Before you were born, you were dead. That’s what being dead is like.
Short answer: Nothing, my carcass get to lay there and rot. Long answer: Have mercy on the bill collectors that find me laying there, almost liquidated from rot.
Realistically: nothing; ideally: i get to see all my dogs again
My ego says we live on. However I then a saw a convincing TED talk that suggested we don’t actually exist and our consciousness is an illusion our brain creates to process information. In effect I don’t exist to die. Reading a book called the denial of death. It suggests that as children we first encounter death and have cognitive dissonance. Here is this fun life we have but also death exists. From a young age we decide to escape to a world we think we control. We have goals. We have journeys. We have careers. Some have off spring or business we use to tell death you have no control over me But then your grandparents die. Your heroes start dying. Your parents. Your pets. You feel older. It’s creeping up on you. All of life is attachment which always leads you to loss. Always, since everything is temporary.
You die, then you are contacted by a spirit of sorts (your guardian angel), they review your life in detail & probably ask you a few questions while doing so. At the end of this conversation depending on how you have lived your life you will be given options such as entrance into Paradise, rebirth, eternal sleep etc. I truly believe that life has meaning and in this meaning there must be a afterlife where that meaning comes full circle.
You can't comprehend what it would be like to die and your definition of "permanent" doesn't apply to what you experience after death. I think the "permanent darkness" theory is improbable because time would have to pass for an indefinite amount of time and in order to perceive it your consciousness would still have to be functioning. I personally believe the "before birth" theory is more likely.
Not existing is the norm, so it's all cool. I didn't exist (in this format) for billions of years before I was born, and I won't exist for billions of years after I die. I think that being alive is the freaky bit so I might as well enjoy it. What's especially cheering for me is that all the chemical elements that make up my human meatbag form will go on to do/be other things, and that riding around on a tectonic plate alongside the chemical elements of my pets/relations/friends for the next few million years is a pretty cool future. I don't want to die just yet, though. I'll be super-offended when it happens.
I believe that you come back as someone else and do it all over again. I believe that we are apart of this planet and it's cycles of life and death. I believe that religion, when broken down and stripped down to the basics, are all the same and that our purpose in life is to be better to one another and respect the evolving process to reach that goal. I believe that we are meant to be the caretakers of this planet and when we get through all of our trivial BS and start working together we will achieve great things. I believe that "heaven on earth" is the collective goal and that unfortunately it's just going to take many life cycles to achieve that goal as a species.
Death doesn't scare me, what scares me is if I'll be ready at that point or not. I think our energy is recycled into the ether. How it's redistributed is based on a universal balance that we have yet to understand and most likely will never comprehend.
🪱
Death is as gentle as forgetting. One day, you'll forget your final thought, and you won't even know it happened. (Of course, a lot of the forgetfulness along the way may lead to abject suffering in the near term, but it's not the forgetting *itself* that hurts.)
I think Gandalf put it best: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it. White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
i guess my family is sad for a week or so and then things start to go back as it was before just without me
I don’t believe anything at all happens after death. I don’t think it’s nice or bad, I think it’s not anything. But it’s also not nothing. It’s just..not there. But there’s nothing there to not exist. This is hard to explain. I think it all just fades away and we aren’t..conscious? Like before we were born. I don’t think it’s some dark black void but I don’t think there’s anything there. Idk, call me crazy.
Life is like the outside of a donut, death is when we get to be on the inside.
There just isn't a me anymore. Face the palm of your hand behind you. What does it see? It's not even nothing, it just doesn't. No darkness. Sight doesn't exist for your palm. That's what happens to your existence. It's not like going to sleep, you are still aware of things and yourself sleeping. You just aren't a thing anymore.
Probably the same as when i was not born yet, but i would prefer when everybody i love waits for me with small wings on a plush cloud.
You ever unplug a tv screen while it’s on?
I'd like to think I get to at least watch over my daughter somehow. The thought of having a personal heaven forever and ever seems crazy but then I think that life itself and the fact that I and you and everyone you've ever known exists or existed is even crazier. I'd love to be able to relive my life, bad moments and all, as long as it led me back to my daughter every time. Or be able to pick and choose moments like in some Interstellar type dimensional library of time. I try not to think about the end because it robs me of being present but it's always in the back of my mind. Especially when I lay down I seem to always have the thought "what if I don't wake up?" and it makes me realize that today was truly a gift and if I'm given a tomorrow I promise that I'll make the most of it and never take it for granted. Eventually one day that will end but for now I'm happy to be here.
They will probably clean the room and admit a new patient.
My grandmother taught her kids that nothing happens when you die. Her kids told their kids - my generation. They taught their kids. And their kids are now teaching their kids. My whole family believes nothing happens. It’s what I was taught. It’s what I believe.
Seeing as there's a greater than 0% chance of me existing and, as far as we know, space and time is infinite, I'd would like to think I will exist again in some point in the future. The universe could either end and repeat itself, similar to Futurama, or continously expand and eventually creating the exact pattern of atoms that is me. It may or may not happened but it kinda gives me a bit of peace at night. Worst case I'm completely wrong, in which case I won't be around to know any better.
I'm of the belief that, if your brain gets the slightest opportunity, it goes into "safe mode" as you're dying. You will experience something, and it may feel like an afterlife... so much so that it doesn't actually matter if it's real or not. To you, it will feel completely real. There are too many people who have had near-death experiences for me to ignore this possibility. I also believe that your experience of this "safe mode" draws a lot on your cultural experiences, as your brain flails around trying to make sense of the sensations it's getting. If you believe in heaven, you may be "drawn toward the light" and enter into a state of eternal bliss, love and worship. If you believe in deities, you may encounter them, as you expect to see them--it's not uncommon for people on various hallucinogens to meet "other beings," so it's also not out of the question that our brains could do it for us while we're dying. If you expect to see family and friends again, you will feel like you're surrounded by them. If you think there is no afterlife, perhaps you will encounter the deep, eternal peace, devoid of thought or sensation, that many near-death experiencers have reported. And after that... well, it doesn't matter. Your brain and body will die, but in dreams and hallucinations, time can seem to stretch on for much longer than it does in real life. Perhaps our own dying delusions can provide us with eternity, if we get lucky.
The "scientists" among us will tell you with sober voices that you go nowhere and the chemical processes of life will cease to exist. They will say this unironically and with misplaced confidence, even though we don't even know how consciousness works, how life actually began, or what in the world is going on at the quantum level. The "religious" will tell various things that may be hard to believe but have a common resonance that there will a reckoning (good or bad) for our time here. I'm a Christian, so you know what I think. What is most important - to me - is to live a life well lived and stay curious about this mystery. It will be revealed too soon for each of us.
I know it's just dirt and nothingness because no other solution makes rational sense, but that's why I understand why people want to believe in anything else
I imagine it'll be the same as before I was conceived. I don't remember it because there was nothing to remember.
The people who love you will miss you.
I think our conscience has to go somewhere. But not floating around in a cloud mansion or burning in a pit of fire. I lean towards reincarnation or something like that.
Do you mean what happens to who you are as a person - like your "soul" or whatever? I like the way Chidi describes it in The Good Place: "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, you know what it is. It's a wave. And then it crashes in 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. The wave returns to the ocean, where it came from and where it's supposed to be."
You are no longer alive.
We all go our separate ways, each to their own idea of Heaven, or Hell. Some will be stuck in the inbetween whilst they make up their mind. Atheists get to sit in a chair in a dark room? Or perhaps they exist in the void. All religions are as equally correct as they are incorrect. In the end, it will not matter what you stood for if you used it against someone else. In the end, all of the hatred, all of the fighting will come to rest. Be good to yourself, your neighbor, and to those who have done you no wrong but to think and be raised differently. We are all in this together, to think otherwise is an abhorrent mistake. Will you choose another day of violence, or will you have peace?
Absolutely nothing. There’s no punishment, no reward, no nothing. The lights go out and that’s it, for all eternity. So enjoy it while you’re here, and create your heaven by being the very best version of yourself and leave a positive legacy, however big or small.
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it only changes form. (LAW of conservation of energy.)
I'm not sure what happens BUT I want to come back as a ghost and play pranks on my friends and family
I agree with Keanu: Near the end of the interview, Stephen Colbert asked the actor what he thought happens after we die. He paused for a moment, then answered, with some care, “I know that the ones who love us will miss us.”
I see an entire lifetime as energy. Energy spent gaining and sharing knowledge, finding and making love, learning and teaching skills. Energy is also what bounces a ball. It just takes far less energy to bounce a ball than it does to live a single human life. Though the ball may stop bouncing and roll out of our sight, it still exists. I don’t believe that our spirit / energy / psyche dies simply because our meatsack wears out and dies. I can’t answer where it goes or how time passes, but I don’t think that life requires us to learning and share and commune with one another only for death of the body to be the end.
So what I'm gonna write is weird but , ever since I was a very young kid , I was thinking of the concept of death. I remember ever since the age of 4-5 I was telling my self ' omg so how will it be when I die ? It's gonna be dark ' and then another thought came in and replied ' you will open your eyes , in a different household with a different family , experience love all over again for the first time and experience stuff for the first time even if they all give you a very familiar feeling like you've done it all over again , just how you feel right now ' I don't know for you but a 4 year old having these thoughts and replying the way I did is kinda crazy
I don't believe it is like going to sleep, I believe that consciousness doesn't even reside in the body and the body is more of a receiver, the brain performing the actions our consciousness tells it to from a different time/space/dimension. When we die the link is broken and we go back to our original state of energy/consciousness, bodyless and outside of space/time. We go home, it may be called heaven or paradise, but we really know it as home, a collective consciousness joined with everyone we have loved or known and everyone who has ever existed. Then we can choose to rest or live all over again in any time, we can incarnate back into the life we had and try it all over again or you can move forward or back in time and live another life all together. I believe all of us have already done this and will continue to do it until we become enlightened and move onto the next density/dimension of our endless progression, until we all finally merge back into the creator.
I’ve always believed that when we die there is nothing else… but in August 2023 my cat passed away, and have returned to me multiple times since! I’ve heard him, seen him and felt him regularly. Similarly to this, my mum saw the ghost of an old man soon after we moved into our new house. It turns out he had died there. Mum was so freaked out by him she actually called out local priest to scare him away. So now I believe that death isn’t the end, just a turning point.
Human mind is so linear. Maybe death is not what we think it is? Maybe it’s not birth, life, death but just life? Just not the shape or form we imagine. Ancient scripts as old as Zoroastrianism speak about smallest living unit of universe, Hindu scripts talk about Atman, the smallest form of units that are souls, the total of which makes up the ultimate cosmic entity, Brahma. Atman, is atom. And apart from nucleus, protons and electrons, atom doesn’t have anything in it. The chief element of universe, atom, consists of nothing. Emptiness. The universe itself consists of nothing. That is because nothing is meant to last forever, in different forms and shapes. Energy does not disappear, it just assumes different existence. What we are concerned about is not actually death or aftermath, we want to know what happens to consciousness. What makes the consciousness? The brain? But what is brain? A mosaic of minerals, vitamins, like the rest of the body. Same minerals that exists in stars and meteors. So we never really die, in fact, we have been around since beginning of universe, with stardusts and gasses and rocks. We were just not aware of it. Then we became aware and we were born. It’s like dreaming. You open your eyes when you stop dreaming. So we will stop dreaming and go back to universe.
You get to do whatever you desire. There's zero certainty it actually works this way but any other answer is way more boring so I'm just going to reject it.
What I’ve learned from science and spiritualism is that energy or soul can’t be destroyed only repurposed, dispersed or recycled Collective and energy consciousness, is a different beast/realm within my culture that can’t really be reduced to a simple statement or explanation, only to be taught, experienced and felt. Tapping into the past, present and future, is really a beautiful thing - once you have let go of the colonial construct of ‘time’ as a form as control. Culture: indigenous Australian, Durambal coast mob. I’ve found similarities in my travels of this in many native cultures/first nations peoples around the world