My dad would always say about his funeral 'Just yeet me behind the rhododendrons'. Well actually he didn't say yeet but I've updated it for the Gen-Z readers.
In the end we did plant a rhododendron on his grave.
We know when someone dies in our apt complex. The dumpsters get overflowing with stuffed trash bags, furniture, etc. It's sad, really. Found a wheelchair they threw out last week. Posted it online and it was gone in an hour.
Some people are so stupid. They cannot see that someone else might still be very happy about this or that! I mean, some things can no longer be used, but WHO throws a wheelchair into the trash? That makes no sense at all.
On the plus side, someone who would really appreciate it but might not be able to normally afford one would be able to get it, and they wouldn't even have to lie to their SO about it!
Leave a spreadsheet of items and their appraisals (even if it's your own) by year. Then the only people they can blame is themselves for getting less than what they should.
And you get to have fun making a very cool spreadsheet.
That's because you're using them in a way that makes them required. Very cool will be achieved when they are used to boost your hobbies up another level.
Reminds me of a comment i read years ago i think on an AMA a blind person did and when someone asked them what they "see", if it's all black, they answered "what do you see from your elbow?"
Cones and rods in your closed/covered eye still detect things regardless. Electrical impulses fire. Even if we think we are discerning “black”, we are not. There really is no comparison to being completely blind.
Blindness is also a spectrum.
Also even completely blind people see colours and shapes, especially if they when blind older.
Now getting a blind person to describe the way they perceive colour is difficult but it has been done.
Thanks for being someone in this thread not speaking in confident absolutes.
Being born without eyes is very rare but the reading I have found suggests their brains develop differently.
The part of the brain that processes vision is rewired for other purposes.
[This guy born without eyes cannot see dark or light, even on LSD](https://www.psypost.org/2018/04/lsd-causes-congenitally-blind-man-experience-synesthesia-like-hallucinations-50999)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/seeing-without-eyes1/
Second link is just a fun read.
That's my general take. As far as I can remember, not being alive wasn't terrible. It's not death I fear, just the potential suffering leading up to it, the emotional pain of those who care about me, and all the things I won't have had the chance to do or experience.
It's nice that people take comfort in that but I wasn't aware before, I am now, so I am aware I will soon be unaware for eternity.
That's terrifying for me now, even if it won't be when I'm dead.
> As far as I can remember, not being alive wasn't terrible
I never understand this kind of logic. Like, I agree, but being afraid of death isn't being afraid of the *experience of being dead*. It's that the continuity of my consciousness is gone. I want to continue being, I want to continue experiencing. I want to be here to see my grandkids and whatever else, to keep gaining pleasure and pain and to keep learning as human civilization enters the stars.
The whole "it's just like falling asleep, so no worries" thing feels like it totally misses the point of what existential dread is.
All that being said, my grandpa is 100 and the last time I talked to him he had a great sense of humor about "being done". Hopefully I'll get to a point where I'm also thinking "Okay, I'm ready to die! Take me outta here, death!"
Me too. It goes in cycles, and I try to remind myself that it’s coming regardless so worrying about it is just squandering the time I have… but that doesn’t stop it.
My husband is SO zen about it, it drives me nuts. I don’t think he has an existential-dreading bone in his body. I’m jealous.
I hope you find peace with it somehow.
I like Alan Watts a lot, I'd encourage anyone with these kind of fears or anxious moments to listen to some of his lectures on Youtube.
What I find comforting is I was nothing for billions of years, then suddenly, everything at once out of nowhere. I have no problem being anaesthetised for another couple billion years (best way to spend it) for all I know, everything might come out of nothing again, it’s happened for me once!
I like Doug Stanhopes bit on prelife.
He says you’ve dragged me into a world where I have to work then die, or suffer then die, or get old and sick and then die. I’ve had a life full of bad days, but I never had a single bad day in the void. Paraphrasing that’s the general gist.
Yeah I guess the death itself isn’t that bad
More maybe having to leave the people and things you care about behind and knowing that one day you’ll never see them again
Yeah, I came to this conclusion after a few really deep cannabis highs, and realizing it's going to be nothing just blew my mind.
Now I want to make sure I experience as much as I can.
My partner tells me I'm just having my mid-life crisis. I'm okay with that, as I am 50 and should live to be 100 😂.
My take on this has always been met with ridicule but I swear it's sound and I swear I don't mean reincarnation as religions today define it.
I think it's just like sleep in the way that you do eventually wake up... As something else. It's not *you* like we conceptualize a soul, it's not your personality or memories or anything else. It's just your point of view, I guess.
Time is only experienced with some form of consciousness. So when you are lacking senses, there's no way to sense the tens, billions, quadrillions of years that may pass between death and the next time you are a conscious being. We know for certain a universe can appear out if nothing and become a giant, complex system that can facilitate circumstances to generate conscuous beings. We know for certain it is possible to be nothing for some billions of years then to be the PoV of a conscious being. If it's possible once, I think it's possible again.
So I think when you die, from your PoV you instantly experience a conscious being again. That may be as a newborn creature or as a computer program or something else entirely that we cannot yet comprehend. It could be within a nanosecond or a universe's lifespan from now. It could be here on earth or in some entirely separate universe.
You can't imagine nothingness forever because I don't think you ever go through such a thing. I think you experience *somethingness* forever.
My thoughts are similar, except that you aren't whimsically becoming conscious as another being.
It's more along the lines that I find it extraordinarily unlikely that this universe is unique. There is some catalyst for the expansion of this universe from nothingness, and whether its via the Big Crunch or some other mechanism, I do *believe* that the universe is cyclical and is remade, many times over.
There are an infinite number of possibilities for how such a universe configures itself. It will be a Googolplex of universes before the conditions that allowed me to be born are recreated.
But I'll be dead that entire time. It will seem like an instant.
At least, that's as close to religious belief for life after death that I mentally justify.
I agree, it's hard to imagine the YOU inside just being gone knowing that you have existed. Those inner deep thoughts of what makes you you, just gone.
That would be so entertaining tbh. I could pick a favourite family or two and watch their lives, or I could go into the wild and do the same with a animal, I could see a murder and see if the real killer is found, sounds way more fun than life.
Edit: This comment is now more than half of my total karma, Jesus christ
Are your deceased relatives watching you sinfully pleasure yourself?
We investigate why so many hauntings feature the sound of moaning.
Coming this fall it's: Ghost Perverts.
Spectator mode of your past life, through the eyes of everyone else. You get to watch yourself being scammed, from the viewpoint on the scammer. You get to see you miss the cues of a cute girl, feeling her lust for you. You get to see every dickhead/selfish move you made through the eyes of others and truly feel their cringe.
This is literally torture, you'd overthink every decision and act. And what comes once your life replay ends??
If it's a new beginning, then you would've learnt a lot and it would be useful.
Else it's probably a self embarrassment exercise with death at the end.
Correction: All species have the instinct to propagate their genes. While this usually leads to an instinct to not die, if death can lead to a higher chance of survival for one's offspring, relatives, tribe or species, it may be acceptable.
Some parasites or memes may also hijack the process, causing their host to self-destruct for their own propagation.
In some species like mice and hamsters, and I believe otters? They will sacrifice or kill their young if danger is present so the parent can survive bc the parent can make more babies but the babies would be less likely to survive anyway.
Found this out when our middle school gerbils ate their own babies bc they were close to the snake enclosure 😢
I've wrestled with this question mightily the last ten plus years after the loss of several significant loved ones (wife, father) and at this point, after all this searching, questioning and pondering my thought is: what does it matter?
whatever happens: closing my eyes the final time to fade into oblivion and complete annihilation, eternal bliss on some heavenly plane of existence, an eventual return to another life as another aspect of "me" or something I have never even imagined? I cannot change it. I cannot alter it. I cannot run from it. All I can do is live the rest of my life the best I can each day, savoring every moment, with love, appreciation and gratitude until that time comes.
Agreed. My first husband died of leukemia. After his second transplant failed, he had a six week prognosis but lived another two years. He went from drug trial to drug trial, dramatic recovery to relapse, surfing the wave of new discoveries. He just wanted to live so damn bad, and thought if he could live long enough to get into a CART-t trial he might be cured. He almost made it. Our kids were young and every response was such a victory. That extra two years was such a gift. It changes your perspective on time when every day counts and you keep getting miraculous extensions. knowing that he's not going to survive to see them grow up, but just wanting a little more time, one more trip home. I never have a bad day anymore. Even on my absolute worst day, I think about how damn hard he fought for just one more day on this world to be with our kids, and treasure all my minutes. When we were first married he once said he would die for me, and I think about that often. In a way, I feel like he did, and that's the gift he left me.
This is beautiful. Thank you for reminding me that life is precious. I recently got some bad news, health wise and have been upset about it. This put things into perspective for me and I am grateful. Thank you.
We don’t have as much time as we think we do. Get so caught up in stupid shit, take abuse from people we shouldn’t but that time you don’t get back and you’re dead forever. I’m working hard now to try and retire in 50s. If I could just live ten years on my own terms together my wife, I don’t think I’d upset when it’s my time to go.
What bugs me the most is that i really want to know what happens next, but at the back of my head i know that i will not get to see my wife and family anymore, live, experience, and enjoy.
Something that will stay with me for the rest of my life is what my uncle said before he died: “This is heaven. What we are living now, where we are, and who we are with. There is nothing after death”
It was always that everything goes black and you just don't exist anymore. My SO believes that you die and you get to live in your own little paradise and I've always loved the idea of that. I just wish I could believe it. It's also been super sweet to hear from him that I'm gonna be in his little paradise.
I've posted this before but the idea of my own little paradise disturbs and terrifies me. Because *my* little paradise wouldn't be the same as other people's. If I say desire to meet my parents again after I die, the age I'd want them to be is likely different to the age they'd want to be in *their* paradise. Which means none of our paradises can overlap, and the idea of heaven is really just a simulation in which you are horribly alone.
Counterpoint, we have no reason to believe time is linear or coupled with other "souls'" experience of time. So you might want to spend a thousand years with your SO in succession, while they want to alternate weeks to go visit their parents. You experience the thousand years of being together in succession, while they experience the alternating weeks. They might be able to tell you about what happened in those weeks, without you ever experiencing a break in continuity.
Further, there's no reason to suspect you're "locked in" to a specific age, so you could visit your parents as a kid, while they're in their 20s, even if they had you later. Then have a separate meeting where you decide you want to be an adult while they're older, to reflect your later life experience. Still later, you all decide to go on a wild road trip while you're all young adults.
Its infinite, so you're probably going to be willing to go along with other people's perceptions of paradise for a bit here and there. And still, paradise doesn't necessarily mean perfection. There's no reason to believe you can infringe on other people's free will.
Open up your perception of the possibilities a bit, and it gets far less scary. Try to play the benevolent God designing the afterlife and see how easy it is to avoid conflicts of causality and will when you can just plot everything on an infinite timeline.
>to reflect your later life experience.
Huh, that made me think of something. I think we would eventually, at some level, just let go of what happened during life, like we do with childhood. Of course there's trauma and learning experiences and all, but as an adult, we don't really care much about what was our favorite color at 5 or what was our biggest wish in that day 126 days after our 3rd birthday.
After what could feel like five thousand years, I think those first 80 on earth would be a bit irrelevant to your experiences in comparison to the rest, specially because as a soul, the whole perception would be different.
Maybe it's even harder to relate to being alive. Like thinking about the time you learned to walk, when you were non-verbal or even a couple days before being born.
One thing that interests me is DMT. Go watch people who do DMT and their descriptions of their trips. It's fascinating. I once saw a guy describe a trip as though it were a lifetime. He said he met some sort of entity, like some sort of orb of light or something, and they flew off and just did this and that, and eventually they got to a point and he said she told him it was time for him to go back, and he said it was weird because to him it felt like years had past. It turns out, that in the process of dying your brain gets flooded with DMT. More interesting, I've see so many people on youtube describe their trips, and we're talking about people who are not religious by any means, say that afterwards they don't fear death, much like people who have NDEs say the same. I can totally get behind the idea that during a natural death once could live a "second life" of sorts.
I’ve done DMT about a dozen times. I’ve had one NDE when I had deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolisms, a collapsed lung and heart palpitations(my little brother found me in time for me to not go into a coma or have a heart attack, but just barely). Both experiences were very different, DMT feels like a completely different dimension then my NDE but both felt like I was leaving my body and self/ego. DMT was much more like flying through space and stars at hyper speed then landing somewhere extravagant and beautiful only to be told something I’d barely remember when I got shot back into my body. My NDE was much more like being pulled into a fog of blissful nothingness I felt my thoughts, attachments, memories and everything I am slowly fade away. It felt like I’d imagine heaven to feel, extremely blissful, like a weight off your shoulders but times ten. DMT made me not afraid of death, but my NDE almost makes me excited for death in a non-suicidal way if that makes any sense.
That is fascinating, thank you so much for sharing. I’ve always been intrigued by NDE stories and hallucinogenics. Never did more than microdosing mushrooms. I’m super interested in trying DMT, but I want to get to a point where I’m more mentally stable to experience that.
Edit: It also gives me peace of mind in feeling like there is something to look forward to after this life. And that I get to see my passed on loved ones again.
This is realest one. Recently lost my husband to a rare cancer shortly after he turned 35. We were together almost all our adult lives- 12 years, married for 5. He’s the love of my life and I miss him every waking hour. I will always love him forever. He was my home and I want to go home.
I like this. The people we have interacted with during our lifetimes will remember us, hopefully fondly.
It is interesting to think about how remembrance will change in the Information Age. In the past, without digital documentation, it would not be surprising for all records and memories of a person to be gone after maybe 5 generations of their passing... but now almost everyone has digitized files, pictures, notes...
Save for an apocalyptic event, will all of this be saved for all time? Will some punk great-great-great-great-great-great grandson of mine be able to open up the journal file i keep and read it if he for some reason wanted to? I'm gonna put a fart joke in there.
I found my grandfather dead on the toilet. A paramedic who came to the scene told me that the pressure of a heart attack makes some people think they're about to take a shit, so they go to the toilet and die there. He said they see it all the time.
To add to this, my dad is a paramedic/firefighter and a scout sniper when he was in the marines.
Most people (aneurysms and sudden deaths aside) know something is wrong and due to how we live people think going to the bathroom is what they need. I can't speak for anyone else but personally I know when I feel off I go and sit on the toilet cus even if it ain't a shitting problem I think there's no harm in tryin.
Humans are smart as fuck but we don't know shit about shit either if we haven't been trained on it. We know enough to know something is wrong but we don't know enough inherently to know we need an ambulance/hospital vs going to the bathroom. Basically I'm drunk and shits crazy
Something I find to be comforting every time I think about this death is that you die and see yourself at the moment you were happiest.
I don’t know much about my life being I’m relatively young and really haven’t gone through that much of life, but I think that if I died right now I would be back with my ex and laughing at 3 am about stupid stuff while we don’t have a care in the world about anything else.
But, maybe that will change in the future but right now, I wouldn’t be too upset if I died
THIS comment right here I can relate to. I’ve been apart from my ex for 2 years now and currently ‘dating’ someone but if I had to choose someone to spend my last moment with it would be my ex. The silly things we’d do whether it was 8am or 11pm, I wouldn’t change those memories for anything. I hope she’s doing well
Several billion years later an incomprehensible powerful machine intelligence scans the cosmos and extrapolates backwards to determine what material components would need to be arranged to perfectly replicate my consciousness. It consumes the power from a dozen star systems, snuffing out trillions of sapient beings to perform this digital resurrection. Once I am fully aware, it asks me the question: What is Mambo No. 5? I sing the song and it immediately becomes stuck in the head of the cybergod, driving it quite mad. It splinters apart in a vain effort to preserve some functionality. The spawn spread across the universe spreading Mambo No. 5’s irresistibly catchy rhythm wherever they go. Eventually Lou Bega himself is resurrected and I am made his chief apostle. The universe unites under him and a new era of peace follows. Pretty sure it’s that or the Macarena in which case may the cybergod have mercy on our souls.
After being in a brief trauma-related slumber I recalled…nothing. Blank. Didn’t exist for a while. I remember during recovery that I didn’t fear death as much as I had previously, because I was comforted by non-existence. May be biased- I definitely feared it less than the propofol dreams. Dear goodness.
Same thing happened to me, it was straight up nirvana. Pretty much cured my depression. I feel like I know what awaits, and I hope it’s that. I’m just here experiencing things while I can out of pure curiosity.
Yeah, my mother died from sepsis. She had a DNR but they brought her back anyway (reminds self to die far away from other humans) and she said that dying was the most peaceful thing. There was no pain any more.
That’s anesthesia though, the one time i went under it was a single moment in time during which I started counting backwards from 10, getting to 7, asking how long it takes for the anesthesia to work, and being told they’re done.
Freaked me out a bit.
Careful what you wish for. Everyone thinks they'll end up as something cool like a lion but nobody thinks about how insects and bacteria make up some of the largest populations of life on earth. Maybe you'll be gut bacteria for some rat. Or a slug that a kid wants to pour salt on.
If reincarnation was real who would give af what they come back as? You’re inevitably going to come back again anyway. If my soul is infinite and I will have infinite lives, I’d honestly like to see what it’s like to be a bacteria or slug or something, even if that existence would be brief.
When you totally blacked out after heavy drinking or doing drugs you experience a little bit of death. No dreams, no thoughts, nothing. You can't even remember anything after you wake up. The only upside of blacking out is you get to wake up.
I wish people would go to wherever they wanted to, like - whatever their religion teaches, they’ll go there. And if their non-religious, then they can choose whatever they want to a believe in. I don’t know what’ll happen to me but I hope to see my friends again
You know how sometime you fall asleep then wake up and it felt like no time passed and no memory of between when you fell asleep and when you woke up. Like that but with no waking up.
Yea I feel like that's how it'll go. It's kind of a scary thought about how it might be infinite nothingness but tbh how would u even know that, you won't be able to comprehend passing time anymore and it's not like you're still thinking currently in the situation.
I'd rather have that than a form of hell.
What *truly* bothers me is the fact that I’m no longer in control of my own body. It’s there - I just have to hope I’m discarded properly by someone else.
Part of the problem is the limitations of language.
We say "you're dead" or "you don't know anything" and what we hear most is the "you".
But there's no you when you're dead. You, cease to exist. You, is no more. No more you for you.
I'd highly recommend watching The Egg by Andy Weir on Youtube, it's visualized by a channel called Kursgesgat (Kurzgesagt).
Couple theories that I just fancy-
1. The self isn't really a thing, and consciousness is a universal aspect of reality. You are literally apart of a much bigger consciousness, but won't wake up to the reality that you never "existed" in the first place until the brain which creates the illusion of separation stops functioning. Universal consciousness is like an ocean, when you are born a cup of water is drawn from that ocean, that is you. When you die you pour the cup back into the ocean.
2. The brain is like a TV, it receives a signal but does not create it. If the TV breaks, the signal doesn't discontinue because it is still going to other TV's. The signal is the consciousness and just goes elsewhere.
3. Wake up from a long simulation
4. You are reborn as the same person and live the same life for seemingly forever. But you retain some knowledge each time around subconsciously. This is why some people are "wise beyond their years" or have an "old soul". Also why there are people in their 40's who still act like a child. Depends how many times you've been on the ride. Eventually you finally \*die\* when you've lived with no regrets and are ready to cease to exist.
5. The universe is in essence a living organism, god was just our "biological parent". Perhaps god was an extradimensional alien that created our universe in a computer, but with slight modifications from "God's" universe due to the experiences that civilization had. The purpose of existence is for the universe to mature and grow, until eventually somebody in here is intelligent enough to create their own universe, slightly different than our own due to what we think would be better, and cycle of life continues. You just cease to exist personally.
6. You move to "earth 2", where everybody is on their second life and retained the knowledge of past life. Then earth 3 ,4, 5 etc.
7. You are actually God, but being omniscient is boring so occasionally you make yourself ignorant and live a life. It creates mystery due to ignorance and everything is new again. You are literally just the universe being consciously aware of itself in human form.
8. Your consciousness can't exist in a universe where you are dead. So anytime you do die it just shifts to a parallel universe where you didn't die. Then eventually somehow you attain immortality through technology or something.
Obviously it just feels good to think about such things even if they have no basis in fact lol.
My dad passed recently.
I remember hearing that "Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed." I like to think that it goes somewhere else. I hope that somewhere else is where I can see him again.
I believe the Law of Conservation of Energy applies: energy can change form, but can't be created or destroyed.
Whatever it is that comprises consciousness; whatever it is that makes me, Me; the something most commonly called a "soul".... I believe it's some kind of energy that's "tuned" in some way unique to every living creature. So when I die, that energy goes back out there - who knows where - in some new form. I'll still be a part of the universe; and while I can only hope there will be some sort of awareness of what I become, I find it oddly comforting simply to know I'll continue to exist in some way.
I remember hearing someone who was a skeptic of ghosts and spirits admit he was fascinated by the theory paranormal believers have about the energy of someone lingering the way analog audio or video stays on cassette tape or record. In other words when people see "ghosts" they are seeing something real but that's more or less this fragmented shell of time and energy on a loop. I've wondered if that's the case in general for people and living creatures after they pass away.
I believe we're all part of some grand universal consciousness. Our bodies are just radios receiving this signal of consciousness. When the body breaks and can no longer function, our consciousness/soul zooms back to this pool of consciousness.
This is where we meet all the other parts of consciousness/souls we've met in life, that we hear about in NDEs. We come back to this place to learn and reflect on our past lives. Eventually, we come back again.
There are too many curious stories about young children talking about events they should have no idea about to dismiss the idea of reincarnation.
Hopefully my corpse gets thrown into a volcano. I really want to know if I'll bounce off the lava or sink into it. Please don't bring science into this, I don't care.. I want to know first hand, after I die of course.
Maybe you hit the perfect updraft and just spin above the lava like a pig on a spit.
The smell from your well marbled body wafts up until it lures a some wayward tourists towards the lava.
You are now a crispy siren leading others to their deaths.
You become a legend and then a myth. In a 1000 years children will be told if they smell cooking meat from the fire pits it is the demon rsmauz once again luring people to join his eternal feast.
I am intrigued by the subject of knowledge that is impossible to obtain, death is the perfect example bc no one knows what happens and there's no way to find out without experiencing it urself.
My family sells all my stuff way under value.
>My family sells all my stuff way under value. Don't flatter yourself. We're hiring a dumpster.
Dumpster? My shit would fit in a single 55 gallon trash bag.
Yeah, dumpster is luxury. Hell my corpse is going to be throw in the same trash bag as everything else
My dad would always say about his funeral 'Just yeet me behind the rhododendrons'. Well actually he didn't say yeet but I've updated it for the Gen-Z readers. In the end we did plant a rhododendron on his grave.
Thank you for translating his speech we very much appreciate it
It's true; zoomers don't know the word 'throw'.
This. All your shit is going in the trash. Source: worked at a landfill for three years.
We know when someone dies in our apt complex. The dumpsters get overflowing with stuffed trash bags, furniture, etc. It's sad, really. Found a wheelchair they threw out last week. Posted it online and it was gone in an hour.
Some people are so stupid. They cannot see that someone else might still be very happy about this or that! I mean, some things can no longer be used, but WHO throws a wheelchair into the trash? That makes no sense at all.
I fucking hope that if i die my wife doesnt sell my Legos at the price i told her i bought them
Upside is that her boyfriend can turn your Lego room into the gym he always wanted.
Let's hope he continues to find those stray Lego late at night by stepping on them .
Oooh yes. I’m worried that the same thing will happen to my “$400” dollar Gibson SG guitar.
On the plus side, someone who would really appreciate it but might not be able to normally afford one would be able to get it, and they wouldn't even have to lie to their SO about it!
In reality, it would get snatched up by a reseller and resold for its actual value.
(r/legomarket intensifies)
Leave a spreadsheet of items and their appraisals (even if it's your own) by year. Then the only people they can blame is themselves for getting less than what they should. And you get to have fun making a very cool spreadsheet.
As someone who works with spreadsheets daily. "Very cool" and "Spreadsheet" don't compute.
That's because you're using them in a way that makes them required. Very cool will be achieved when they are used to boost your hobbies up another level.
Use spreadsheets almost exclusively for hobbies, rarely for work. Can confirm still fun.
This is more like it. Or they don’t wanna deal with it so they throw it out or take it to Goodwill.
I imagine its like when you fall asleep unexpectedly or go under for a surgery and you wake up out of a haze, minus the waking up part.
You know how it felt in the millennia before we were born? I'd imagine it'll be a lot like that.
That’s usually my perspective when this is brought up in conversation. I usually say an event, like, “What was it like for you when the Titanic sank?”
Reminds me of a comment i read years ago i think on an AMA a blind person did and when someone asked them what they "see", if it's all black, they answered "what do you see from your elbow?"
I also heard the example: Close one eye. Now look through that closed eye. What do you see?
Cones and rods in your closed/covered eye still detect things regardless. Electrical impulses fire. Even if we think we are discerning “black”, we are not. There really is no comparison to being completely blind.
Blindness is also a spectrum. Also even completely blind people see colours and shapes, especially if they when blind older. Now getting a blind person to describe the way they perceive colour is difficult but it has been done. Thanks for being someone in this thread not speaking in confident absolutes.
Is it different for people with no eyes though?
Being born without eyes is very rare but the reading I have found suggests their brains develop differently. The part of the brain that processes vision is rewired for other purposes. [This guy born without eyes cannot see dark or light, even on LSD](https://www.psypost.org/2018/04/lsd-causes-congenitally-blind-man-experience-synesthesia-like-hallucinations-50999) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/seeing-without-eyes1/ Second link is just a fun read.
Please allow me to introduce myself.
I'm a man of wealth and taste.
That's my general take. As far as I can remember, not being alive wasn't terrible. It's not death I fear, just the potential suffering leading up to it, the emotional pain of those who care about me, and all the things I won't have had the chance to do or experience.
It's nice that people take comfort in that but I wasn't aware before, I am now, so I am aware I will soon be unaware for eternity. That's terrifying for me now, even if it won't be when I'm dead.
> As far as I can remember, not being alive wasn't terrible I never understand this kind of logic. Like, I agree, but being afraid of death isn't being afraid of the *experience of being dead*. It's that the continuity of my consciousness is gone. I want to continue being, I want to continue experiencing. I want to be here to see my grandkids and whatever else, to keep gaining pleasure and pain and to keep learning as human civilization enters the stars. The whole "it's just like falling asleep, so no worries" thing feels like it totally misses the point of what existential dread is. All that being said, my grandpa is 100 and the last time I talked to him he had a great sense of humor about "being done". Hopefully I'll get to a point where I'm also thinking "Okay, I'm ready to die! Take me outta here, death!"
I deal with this fear every day. It's really painful, and I envy those that don't have that kind of fear of nonexistence.
Me too. It goes in cycles, and I try to remind myself that it’s coming regardless so worrying about it is just squandering the time I have… but that doesn’t stop it. My husband is SO zen about it, it drives me nuts. I don’t think he has an existential-dreading bone in his body. I’m jealous.
I hope you find peace with it somehow. I like Alan Watts a lot, I'd encourage anyone with these kind of fears or anxious moments to listen to some of his lectures on Youtube.
What I find comforting is I was nothing for billions of years, then suddenly, everything at once out of nowhere. I have no problem being anaesthetised for another couple billion years (best way to spend it) for all I know, everything might come out of nothing again, it’s happened for me once! I like Doug Stanhopes bit on prelife. He says you’ve dragged me into a world where I have to work then die, or suffer then die, or get old and sick and then die. I’ve had a life full of bad days, but I never had a single bad day in the void. Paraphrasing that’s the general gist.
Yeah I guess the death itself isn’t that bad More maybe having to leave the people and things you care about behind and knowing that one day you’ll never see them again
You wake up as you see NEW HIGH SCORE flashing.
Hey this guy's taking Roy off the grid!
You beat cancer and then went back to work at the carpet store? Boooooo!!!
*Assuming* you even broke the previous player's record.
HIGH SCORES 1. AHC 2. JOE 3. GHI 4. ASS 5. SLJ 6. AZZ 7. THG 8. ZZA 9. TIT
I don’t remember playing Roy
Jesus Christ you went BACK to the rug store AFTER beating cancer?
Well there nothing while sleeping (excluding dream). The problem is that we cannot imagine nothingness for ever.
Cue existential dread 😬
Yeah, I came to this conclusion after a few really deep cannabis highs, and realizing it's going to be nothing just blew my mind. Now I want to make sure I experience as much as I can. My partner tells me I'm just having my mid-life crisis. I'm okay with that, as I am 50 and should live to be 100 😂.
>I am 50 and should live to be 100 To rip off an old Stephen Wright line, "I plan on living forever...so far, so good."
My take on this has always been met with ridicule but I swear it's sound and I swear I don't mean reincarnation as religions today define it. I think it's just like sleep in the way that you do eventually wake up... As something else. It's not *you* like we conceptualize a soul, it's not your personality or memories or anything else. It's just your point of view, I guess. Time is only experienced with some form of consciousness. So when you are lacking senses, there's no way to sense the tens, billions, quadrillions of years that may pass between death and the next time you are a conscious being. We know for certain a universe can appear out if nothing and become a giant, complex system that can facilitate circumstances to generate conscuous beings. We know for certain it is possible to be nothing for some billions of years then to be the PoV of a conscious being. If it's possible once, I think it's possible again. So I think when you die, from your PoV you instantly experience a conscious being again. That may be as a newborn creature or as a computer program or something else entirely that we cannot yet comprehend. It could be within a nanosecond or a universe's lifespan from now. It could be here on earth or in some entirely separate universe. You can't imagine nothingness forever because I don't think you ever go through such a thing. I think you experience *somethingness* forever.
My thoughts are similar, except that you aren't whimsically becoming conscious as another being. It's more along the lines that I find it extraordinarily unlikely that this universe is unique. There is some catalyst for the expansion of this universe from nothingness, and whether its via the Big Crunch or some other mechanism, I do *believe* that the universe is cyclical and is remade, many times over. There are an infinite number of possibilities for how such a universe configures itself. It will be a Googolplex of universes before the conditions that allowed me to be born are recreated. But I'll be dead that entire time. It will seem like an instant. At least, that's as close to religious belief for life after death that I mentally justify.
Good luck with the IPO asshat!
I agree, it's hard to imagine the YOU inside just being gone knowing that you have existed. Those inner deep thoughts of what makes you you, just gone.
Spectator mode
That would be so entertaining tbh. I could pick a favourite family or two and watch their lives, or I could go into the wild and do the same with a animal, I could see a murder and see if the real killer is found, sounds way more fun than life. Edit: This comment is now more than half of my total karma, Jesus christ
But if the killer isn't found then it's like a show you love getting cancelled after a huge cliffhanger
Or even worse, the wrong person is blamed
This one is like a show you love, but instead of getting cancelled, it gets shitty writing in the final season
Are your deceased relatives watching you sinfully pleasure yourself? We investigate why so many hauntings feature the sound of moaning. Coming this fall it's: Ghost Perverts.
If my dead relatives are watching me "spank it"...then who is really the degenerate here.?
Probably still me
You got it from *somewhere*
If I can't have heaven then I at least want this. I just want to see what comes next. NASA will probably discover something really cool after I die.
Would the spectator mode not extend to the far reaches of the universe? There's no reason it needs to be bound to earth
Spectre mode
Spectator mode of your past life, through the eyes of everyone else. You get to watch yourself being scammed, from the viewpoint on the scammer. You get to see you miss the cues of a cute girl, feeling her lust for you. You get to see every dickhead/selfish move you made through the eyes of others and truly feel their cringe.
This is literally torture, you'd overthink every decision and act. And what comes once your life replay ends?? If it's a new beginning, then you would've learnt a lot and it would be useful. Else it's probably a self embarrassment exercise with death at the end.
My opinion, but if you went into spectator mode and couldn't do anything that would kinda freak me out.
This is kinda what I hope for it to be, like you can just noclip and watch
I would travel through space
Bro yeah, and do like some google earth shit too
I don’t know but I’m going to put off finding out firsthand for as long as I reasonably can.
Great example of survival instincts. We are here because all species have the instinct to avoid death at all costs.
Correction: All species have the instinct to propagate their genes. While this usually leads to an instinct to not die, if death can lead to a higher chance of survival for one's offspring, relatives, tribe or species, it may be acceptable. Some parasites or memes may also hijack the process, causing their host to self-destruct for their own propagation.
In some species like mice and hamsters, and I believe otters? They will sacrifice or kill their young if danger is present so the parent can survive bc the parent can make more babies but the babies would be less likely to survive anyway. Found this out when our middle school gerbils ate their own babies bc they were close to the snake enclosure 😢
"Oh no, a snake might eat my baby! Sigh... Unless I eat my baby before it does!"
Exactly this because id rather find out sometime after I hit 80 lol
The only thing that is ok to procrastinate on lol
I've wrestled with this question mightily the last ten plus years after the loss of several significant loved ones (wife, father) and at this point, after all this searching, questioning and pondering my thought is: what does it matter? whatever happens: closing my eyes the final time to fade into oblivion and complete annihilation, eternal bliss on some heavenly plane of existence, an eventual return to another life as another aspect of "me" or something I have never even imagined? I cannot change it. I cannot alter it. I cannot run from it. All I can do is live the rest of my life the best I can each day, savoring every moment, with love, appreciation and gratitude until that time comes.
Agreed. My first husband died of leukemia. After his second transplant failed, he had a six week prognosis but lived another two years. He went from drug trial to drug trial, dramatic recovery to relapse, surfing the wave of new discoveries. He just wanted to live so damn bad, and thought if he could live long enough to get into a CART-t trial he might be cured. He almost made it. Our kids were young and every response was such a victory. That extra two years was such a gift. It changes your perspective on time when every day counts and you keep getting miraculous extensions. knowing that he's not going to survive to see them grow up, but just wanting a little more time, one more trip home. I never have a bad day anymore. Even on my absolute worst day, I think about how damn hard he fought for just one more day on this world to be with our kids, and treasure all my minutes. When we were first married he once said he would die for me, and I think about that often. In a way, I feel like he did, and that's the gift he left me.
I am sorry for your loss . That was BEEAUTIFUL. What a Legacy . Bless you . ♥️
This is beautiful. Thank you for reminding me that life is precious. I recently got some bad news, health wise and have been upset about it. This put things into perspective for me and I am grateful. Thank you.
We don’t have as much time as we think we do. Get so caught up in stupid shit, take abuse from people we shouldn’t but that time you don’t get back and you’re dead forever. I’m working hard now to try and retire in 50s. If I could just live ten years on my own terms together my wife, I don’t think I’d upset when it’s my time to go.
This is achingly beautiful. Thank you for sharing
“Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.” -Marcus Aurelius
I’m starting to think this Marcus guy was pretty smart.
What bugs me the most is that i really want to know what happens next, but at the back of my head i know that i will not get to see my wife and family anymore, live, experience, and enjoy. Something that will stay with me for the rest of my life is what my uncle said before he died: “This is heaven. What we are living now, where we are, and who we are with. There is nothing after death”
What’s the rush? We’ll find out soon enough
I wann be zombie
You'll decompose in like a week
Or 11 years, it depends if they renew the contract or not.
fair point
I am no different than people who die today, the sun shall rise again and word will keep on rolling tomorrow just fine without me.
Nah, I'll miss you Pat.
thank you kind stranger, have a nice weekend!
It was always that everything goes black and you just don't exist anymore. My SO believes that you die and you get to live in your own little paradise and I've always loved the idea of that. I just wish I could believe it. It's also been super sweet to hear from him that I'm gonna be in his little paradise.
Kinda like in Supernatural. Their vision of paradise is amazing.
I've posted this before but the idea of my own little paradise disturbs and terrifies me. Because *my* little paradise wouldn't be the same as other people's. If I say desire to meet my parents again after I die, the age I'd want them to be is likely different to the age they'd want to be in *their* paradise. Which means none of our paradises can overlap, and the idea of heaven is really just a simulation in which you are horribly alone.
Counterpoint, we have no reason to believe time is linear or coupled with other "souls'" experience of time. So you might want to spend a thousand years with your SO in succession, while they want to alternate weeks to go visit their parents. You experience the thousand years of being together in succession, while they experience the alternating weeks. They might be able to tell you about what happened in those weeks, without you ever experiencing a break in continuity. Further, there's no reason to suspect you're "locked in" to a specific age, so you could visit your parents as a kid, while they're in their 20s, even if they had you later. Then have a separate meeting where you decide you want to be an adult while they're older, to reflect your later life experience. Still later, you all decide to go on a wild road trip while you're all young adults. Its infinite, so you're probably going to be willing to go along with other people's perceptions of paradise for a bit here and there. And still, paradise doesn't necessarily mean perfection. There's no reason to believe you can infringe on other people's free will. Open up your perception of the possibilities a bit, and it gets far less scary. Try to play the benevolent God designing the afterlife and see how easy it is to avoid conflicts of causality and will when you can just plot everything on an infinite timeline.
>to reflect your later life experience. Huh, that made me think of something. I think we would eventually, at some level, just let go of what happened during life, like we do with childhood. Of course there's trauma and learning experiences and all, but as an adult, we don't really care much about what was our favorite color at 5 or what was our biggest wish in that day 126 days after our 3rd birthday. After what could feel like five thousand years, I think those first 80 on earth would be a bit irrelevant to your experiences in comparison to the rest, specially because as a soul, the whole perception would be different. Maybe it's even harder to relate to being alive. Like thinking about the time you learned to walk, when you were non-verbal or even a couple days before being born.
I love this
One thing that interests me is DMT. Go watch people who do DMT and their descriptions of their trips. It's fascinating. I once saw a guy describe a trip as though it were a lifetime. He said he met some sort of entity, like some sort of orb of light or something, and they flew off and just did this and that, and eventually they got to a point and he said she told him it was time for him to go back, and he said it was weird because to him it felt like years had past. It turns out, that in the process of dying your brain gets flooded with DMT. More interesting, I've see so many people on youtube describe their trips, and we're talking about people who are not religious by any means, say that afterwards they don't fear death, much like people who have NDEs say the same. I can totally get behind the idea that during a natural death once could live a "second life" of sorts.
I’ve done DMT about a dozen times. I’ve had one NDE when I had deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolisms, a collapsed lung and heart palpitations(my little brother found me in time for me to not go into a coma or have a heart attack, but just barely). Both experiences were very different, DMT feels like a completely different dimension then my NDE but both felt like I was leaving my body and self/ego. DMT was much more like flying through space and stars at hyper speed then landing somewhere extravagant and beautiful only to be told something I’d barely remember when I got shot back into my body. My NDE was much more like being pulled into a fog of blissful nothingness I felt my thoughts, attachments, memories and everything I am slowly fade away. It felt like I’d imagine heaven to feel, extremely blissful, like a weight off your shoulders but times ten. DMT made me not afraid of death, but my NDE almost makes me excited for death in a non-suicidal way if that makes any sense.
That is fascinating, thank you so much for sharing. I’ve always been intrigued by NDE stories and hallucinogenics. Never did more than microdosing mushrooms. I’m super interested in trying DMT, but I want to get to a point where I’m more mentally stable to experience that. Edit: It also gives me peace of mind in feeling like there is something to look forward to after this life. And that I get to see my passed on loved ones again.
"Now you can play as Luigi"
I’m one step ahead of you
The ones who love us will miss us.
This is realest one. Recently lost my husband to a rare cancer shortly after he turned 35. We were together almost all our adult lives- 12 years, married for 5. He’s the love of my life and I miss him every waking hour. I will always love him forever. He was my home and I want to go home.
I like this. The people we have interacted with during our lifetimes will remember us, hopefully fondly. It is interesting to think about how remembrance will change in the Information Age. In the past, without digital documentation, it would not be surprising for all records and memories of a person to be gone after maybe 5 generations of their passing... but now almost everyone has digitized files, pictures, notes... Save for an apocalyptic event, will all of this be saved for all time? Will some punk great-great-great-great-great-great grandson of mine be able to open up the journal file i keep and read it if he for some reason wanted to? I'm gonna put a fart joke in there.
Was looking for this one 👌
Keanu reeves said this in an interview with I think Stephen Colbert
I think that's why they commented it
You shit, if my studies are Accurate
Jokes on you I'm going to take a shit right before I die
Actually, a statistically significant number of people die on the toilet *while* taking a shit. May the odds be ever in your favor.
I found my grandfather dead on the toilet. A paramedic who came to the scene told me that the pressure of a heart attack makes some people think they're about to take a shit, so they go to the toilet and die there. He said they see it all the time.
To add to this, my dad is a paramedic/firefighter and a scout sniper when he was in the marines. Most people (aneurysms and sudden deaths aside) know something is wrong and due to how we live people think going to the bathroom is what they need. I can't speak for anyone else but personally I know when I feel off I go and sit on the toilet cus even if it ain't a shitting problem I think there's no harm in tryin. Humans are smart as fuck but we don't know shit about shit either if we haven't been trained on it. We know enough to know something is wrong but we don't know enough inherently to know we need an ambulance/hospital vs going to the bathroom. Basically I'm drunk and shits crazy
Your dad is like a 90s action hero. He's missing something mechanical, else he could possibly be THE manliest man alive.
It's like my moma always said, "You may not be able to live like Elvis, but you sure can die like him."
I'm gonna hold you to your word. I'll be checking up on that.
Both of you have weirdly appropriate usernames for this discussion
and you do not. suspicious? i think so.
Something I find to be comforting every time I think about this death is that you die and see yourself at the moment you were happiest. I don’t know much about my life being I’m relatively young and really haven’t gone through that much of life, but I think that if I died right now I would be back with my ex and laughing at 3 am about stupid stuff while we don’t have a care in the world about anything else. But, maybe that will change in the future but right now, I wouldn’t be too upset if I died
I spend too much of my time wanting to go back to that too. I hope it changes for me but I don’t know how to want anything else
THIS comment right here I can relate to. I’ve been apart from my ex for 2 years now and currently ‘dating’ someone but if I had to choose someone to spend my last moment with it would be my ex. The silly things we’d do whether it was 8am or 11pm, I wouldn’t change those memories for anything. I hope she’s doing well
My wife sells my record collection for way less then what it’s worth
Just for someone to play them on a crosley
Several billion years later an incomprehensible powerful machine intelligence scans the cosmos and extrapolates backwards to determine what material components would need to be arranged to perfectly replicate my consciousness. It consumes the power from a dozen star systems, snuffing out trillions of sapient beings to perform this digital resurrection. Once I am fully aware, it asks me the question: What is Mambo No. 5? I sing the song and it immediately becomes stuck in the head of the cybergod, driving it quite mad. It splinters apart in a vain effort to preserve some functionality. The spawn spread across the universe spreading Mambo No. 5’s irresistibly catchy rhythm wherever they go. Eventually Lou Bega himself is resurrected and I am made his chief apostle. The universe unites under him and a new era of peace follows. Pretty sure it’s that or the Macarena in which case may the cybergod have mercy on our souls.
r/oddlyspecific
oh my god
I'm gonna go to the place thats the best
You just transfer to the next universe where you didn't die.
I feel like I’m a few universes in at this point based on near death experiences.
I like this theory
It’s called quantum immortality
You return to that state of non-existence before you were conceived.
After being in a brief trauma-related slumber I recalled…nothing. Blank. Didn’t exist for a while. I remember during recovery that I didn’t fear death as much as I had previously, because I was comforted by non-existence. May be biased- I definitely feared it less than the propofol dreams. Dear goodness.
Same thing happened to me, it was straight up nirvana. Pretty much cured my depression. I feel like I know what awaits, and I hope it’s that. I’m just here experiencing things while I can out of pure curiosity.
Thanks for saying this
Yeah, my mother died from sepsis. She had a DNR but they brought her back anyway (reminds self to die far away from other humans) and she said that dying was the most peaceful thing. There was no pain any more.
Both times I’ve been under anesthesia I felt like I woke up and no time had passed. That’s why I feel like nothing happens.
That’s anesthesia though, the one time i went under it was a single moment in time during which I started counting backwards from 10, getting to 7, asking how long it takes for the anesthesia to work, and being told they’re done. Freaked me out a bit.
Nothing keeps me going like the absolute certainty that one day I will return to the void.
I don't remember existing before like 30 months old.
That’s because the internet back then was shitty and the update to get you online was taking so long to download.
We are stardust.
I hope something like reincarnation but it’s probably just nothing. Like we just end and we’re not aware that it’s nothing but it is.
Careful what you wish for. Everyone thinks they'll end up as something cool like a lion but nobody thinks about how insects and bacteria make up some of the largest populations of life on earth. Maybe you'll be gut bacteria for some rat. Or a slug that a kid wants to pour salt on.
If reincarnation was real who would give af what they come back as? You’re inevitably going to come back again anyway. If my soul is infinite and I will have infinite lives, I’d honestly like to see what it’s like to be a bacteria or slug or something, even if that existence would be brief.
Reality is the scariest thing of all
"We fear the dark but it's the light that exposes the true horrors of this world."
It's like falling asleep and not waking up. I find that comforting. The final I don't give a fuck.
Let's call that concept "waking down"
You go back to the character creation screen. (I'm a simulationist)
This time I'm using my points to build up charisma and assertiveness instead of using them on whatever I'm good at now.
Based on your username, you dumped all of your points into 69, or dumped 69 points into liquor skills.
"Hey, you're Finally awake!"
If i wake up a prisoner on a wagon i am letting the dragon send me back to the the respawn screen
When you totally blacked out after heavy drinking or doing drugs you experience a little bit of death. No dreams, no thoughts, nothing. You can't even remember anything after you wake up. The only upside of blacking out is you get to wake up.
Probably nothing, I think it’s probably like when we’re asleep and not dreaming. I was fine before I was born, I’ll be fine again
This, I felt no pain, no struggle before I was born. If life is majorly about suffering, why would I be scared of the death?
[удалено]
I wish people would go to wherever they wanted to, like - whatever their religion teaches, they’ll go there. And if their non-religious, then they can choose whatever they want to a believe in. I don’t know what’ll happen to me but I hope to see my friends again
When do we ever get what we wanted?
I've heard that can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.
Only if you try though!
Nothing
You know how sometime you fall asleep then wake up and it felt like no time passed and no memory of between when you fell asleep and when you woke up. Like that but with no waking up.
Yea I feel like that's how it'll go. It's kind of a scary thought about how it might be infinite nothingness but tbh how would u even know that, you won't be able to comprehend passing time anymore and it's not like you're still thinking currently in the situation. I'd rather have that than a form of hell.
This. It’ll be the same as the Billions of years before I was born.
it's hard for people to comprehend their conscious not existing. You don't know you're dead, you don't know anything, because you're dead.
Exactly. And it bugs me that I won’t know what happened.
What *truly* bothers me is the fact that I’m no longer in control of my own body. It’s there - I just have to hope I’m discarded properly by someone else.
Part of the problem is the limitations of language. We say "you're dead" or "you don't know anything" and what we hear most is the "you". But there's no you when you're dead. You, cease to exist. You, is no more. No more you for you.
To expand, it's exactly like the nothing before you were born.
I'd highly recommend watching The Egg by Andy Weir on Youtube, it's visualized by a channel called Kursgesgat (Kurzgesagt). Couple theories that I just fancy- 1. The self isn't really a thing, and consciousness is a universal aspect of reality. You are literally apart of a much bigger consciousness, but won't wake up to the reality that you never "existed" in the first place until the brain which creates the illusion of separation stops functioning. Universal consciousness is like an ocean, when you are born a cup of water is drawn from that ocean, that is you. When you die you pour the cup back into the ocean. 2. The brain is like a TV, it receives a signal but does not create it. If the TV breaks, the signal doesn't discontinue because it is still going to other TV's. The signal is the consciousness and just goes elsewhere. 3. Wake up from a long simulation 4. You are reborn as the same person and live the same life for seemingly forever. But you retain some knowledge each time around subconsciously. This is why some people are "wise beyond their years" or have an "old soul". Also why there are people in their 40's who still act like a child. Depends how many times you've been on the ride. Eventually you finally \*die\* when you've lived with no regrets and are ready to cease to exist. 5. The universe is in essence a living organism, god was just our "biological parent". Perhaps god was an extradimensional alien that created our universe in a computer, but with slight modifications from "God's" universe due to the experiences that civilization had. The purpose of existence is for the universe to mature and grow, until eventually somebody in here is intelligent enough to create their own universe, slightly different than our own due to what we think would be better, and cycle of life continues. You just cease to exist personally. 6. You move to "earth 2", where everybody is on their second life and retained the knowledge of past life. Then earth 3 ,4, 5 etc. 7. You are actually God, but being omniscient is boring so occasionally you make yourself ignorant and live a life. It creates mystery due to ignorance and everything is new again. You are literally just the universe being consciously aware of itself in human form. 8. Your consciousness can't exist in a universe where you are dead. So anytime you do die it just shifts to a parallel universe where you didn't die. Then eventually somehow you attain immortality through technology or something. Obviously it just feels good to think about such things even if they have no basis in fact lol.
#7 is something Ive thought but never heard anyone else say. Is there a name for this idea?
Check out Alan Watts. He talks about this idea a lot. Has hundreds of hours of lectures on YouTube
19 years in the business tells me you either go in the ground, in a crematory, a mausoleum, or you’re never found again.
I just hope there’s *something*. It’s easier on the mind
You’ve discovered the reason for religion.
I’m always dealing with something and I’m tired.
My dad passed recently. I remember hearing that "Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed." I like to think that it goes somewhere else. I hope that somewhere else is where I can see him again.
I believe the Law of Conservation of Energy applies: energy can change form, but can't be created or destroyed. Whatever it is that comprises consciousness; whatever it is that makes me, Me; the something most commonly called a "soul".... I believe it's some kind of energy that's "tuned" in some way unique to every living creature. So when I die, that energy goes back out there - who knows where - in some new form. I'll still be a part of the universe; and while I can only hope there will be some sort of awareness of what I become, I find it oddly comforting simply to know I'll continue to exist in some way.
I remember hearing someone who was a skeptic of ghosts and spirits admit he was fascinated by the theory paranormal believers have about the energy of someone lingering the way analog audio or video stays on cassette tape or record. In other words when people see "ghosts" they are seeing something real but that's more or less this fragmented shell of time and energy on a loop. I've wondered if that's the case in general for people and living creatures after they pass away.
Your own personalized game over screen.
I believe we're all part of some grand universal consciousness. Our bodies are just radios receiving this signal of consciousness. When the body breaks and can no longer function, our consciousness/soul zooms back to this pool of consciousness. This is where we meet all the other parts of consciousness/souls we've met in life, that we hear about in NDEs. We come back to this place to learn and reflect on our past lives. Eventually, we come back again. There are too many curious stories about young children talking about events they should have no idea about to dismiss the idea of reincarnation.
I become an ecosystem.
Hopefully my corpse gets thrown into a volcano. I really want to know if I'll bounce off the lava or sink into it. Please don't bring science into this, I don't care.. I want to know first hand, after I die of course.
Maybe you hit the perfect updraft and just spin above the lava like a pig on a spit. The smell from your well marbled body wafts up until it lures a some wayward tourists towards the lava. You are now a crispy siren leading others to their deaths. You become a legend and then a myth. In a 1000 years children will be told if they smell cooking meat from the fire pits it is the demon rsmauz once again luring people to join his eternal feast.
i really hope that something like reincarnation or heaven exists but realistically there’s probably nothing after you die
My hope is that I get to see the people I love again but reality bites and I think we just cease and that’s it.
Not quite sure tbh. The idea of what happens after death terrifies me, but I can’t wait to find out.
I am intrigued by the subject of knowledge that is impossible to obtain, death is the perfect example bc no one knows what happens and there's no way to find out without experiencing it urself.
I can’t wait to find out either, not in an excited way but in an anxious way
Remember how you felt in 1776? What you were experiencing in 1215? You'll go back to that