Thread: After you die.

I am atheist and I believe in nothingness....

It is not the feeling of being in blackness forever but rather what you felt before you were born....or even when you were 1 yr old. You body was physically here but what did you remember, see, feel, smell, etc???

edit: this post is in the wrong place... the off topic section of the forums there is a religion/spirituality forum.

Whatever happens after death is, for the moment, mere speculation. We simply make mental projections from this side of the experience.
I know this is only stating the obvious but i find it important to remember. I still havnt worked out the value of holding opions about theories.

Is There Life After Death? by Anthony Peake ~ http://www.anthonypeake.com/

Very similar ideas to what i already had, its a hard book to read but it has a great idea about what happens when you die and thats what you really want to know right?

i have had several OBE's ,and have witnessed the famous tunnel-vision a few times,that one dude had a point when you die you experience the same thing as you are born,you probably start your life with an OBE and die with one(perhaps the tunnel vision is like what you saw as you escaped the womb)
you return to the point from where you came(not physically,but spiritually)
as for death,i don't believe in nothingness ,there is no such thing,the notion of nothing only exists in the mind
when you die your body returns to the ground where it will be part of the natural cycle of life again,the remains of your body become part of the tiny beings that digest it,they are then eaten by larger life like birds,parts of it probably become part of plant-life)as for your soul that is unknown
nothing ever ceases to exist,everything only transforms into something else
in science matter never ceases to exist,the matter that makes up your body is the very same matter that came out of the big bang billions of years ago
with that in mind your soul to must go somewhere,i personally like to think reincarnation is a good possibility(as it makes the most sense)

What if we wake up from a dream when we die?

EDIT: I also think this should go somewhere on ED… Could be the RS section.

I often ponder over this question. Does it not feel like you have been living for an eternity already though? I am only 17 and already I've got billions of different memories that seem to stretch on for ever. And to be honest I bet in 40 years from now, it seems like I've been living for the same, if not a very similar amount of time. And for this reason, among many others, I believe that there is no such thing as 'death' as in the complete end of existence. To me, if I did suddenly die and my conciousness ceased to exist, the universe and everything outside of it would not exist either. Which is surely...impossible? It's because the present is the only true moment.

Oh, and to the Christians, beleif in an afterlife devalues the only life we know. That euphoric rush and (not quite) eternal happiness was the effects of his brain being flooded with DMT, the most powerful hallucogenic in the world. Everyones brains releases it when they die. Interesting huh? The fact that he was religious makes it more likely that he will imagine the Christian kind of heaven whilst he was tripping his balls off.. x

I'm an athiest with a pretty set guess as to what happens... I believe I just won't be anywhere. I won't be seeing blackness or whiteness, but I just won't have the sense of sight at all. I won't be able to feel, as I won't have that or my other senses either. It'll be like my mind is gone.

Originally Posted by floatingjack

the notion of nothing only exists in the mind

Well, then you're one step ahead of me for I cannot grasp the concept of nothingness or ceasing to exist. What is it like, really? Like before the big bang, nothing... Or me just not being here. Everytime I think about it I look at a black emptyness but from an omnipotent view, I cannot get rid of the 'me' in the picture. It's 'me' looking at nothing, but then it's not nothing cos I'm still there... see? :p Even blackness is something... empty space, but empty space is still... you know, unoccupied space... I guess that still is somthing right...?

I believe in an afterlife. Why wouldn't I? It doesn't hinder me in any way, and besides, if I'm wrong, then I just go to sleep forever, tucked away from the problems of the world.

"It's very cold, my friend. Very dark and very cold."

Spoiler for Neverwhere:

~Marquis de Carabas

This is kind of what you are saying, Ladon.

I had an interesting experience one night several years ago when at a friend's apartment. I lay on a bed, awake, and a sudden feeling swept over me that I'd never felt before. It was like a memory, and of piercing solitude that resounded within every hollow of my being (and more that I can't quite pinpoint).. I picked up his house phone and dialed my place, to which I was greeted by my mother. I told her I felt like I was dead. She made clear her worry, but I told her further that I called to let her know that there was no reason to worry, and over death specifically. Death was peaceful. I felt as light as a feather, and calmer than I've ever been. What made the reasoning so clear was that (again) it felt like I was remembering something from long ago. It was familiar. But I haven't felt that before, not that I'm aware (and at least not "this time around," if you get me).

That sensation swayed my worldview somewhat. The end was good. The process of dying may end up being terrible, but afterwards.. Nothing to worry about.

To be a little more specific, there was no form or world I was in (no 'paradise' or 'hell' or 'limbo'). It was like being in friendly blackness, drifting happily along without thoughts or worries. Just peace. Just being.

The only mystery that has ever truly kept my minds attention...

I'm torn so many ways, i hope to be able to experience the entire universe in a profound sense as my conscious is returned from whence it came, though, i also wouldn't mind a good nap.
Reincarnation would be hell to me, having to repeat this existence over and over and over. I wouldn't know it of course but still just the idea is scary to me somehow. I have so many theories, but i know for sure that when i take that step past this, i will do so how i believe Einstein did. I believe he was torn equally in half by a severely intense curiosity of what's next and a burning passion to stay here and see how this existence pans out.

I want to see the human race take into space and escape the destruction of this planet, but i'm so so so curious of what's just around the corner whether it be a rest, or a new existence altogether.

I pretty much stopped wondering what i wanted to happen, and i'll take it 1 step at a time when i actually am dead. More important things to think about then death. But there really is no wrong or right answer, there are only answers based on what we believe will happen, just specculation.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

I pretty much stopped wondering what i wanted to happen, and i'll take it 1 step at a time when i actually am dead. More important things to think about then death. But there really is no wrong or right answer, there are only answers based on what we believe will happen, just specculation.

Unless, of course, there is only one step. And then you can take a big a step as you like down 'Nothing Rd.'

Originally Posted by spockman

'Nothing Rd.'

that's down the street from me O.O

A violet light and a low hum.

What I do think is that it goes into nothingness. The best way I have of imagining this at the moment is the colour of air, stretching on forever.

After a person dies--there is nothing left to think with. It is like asking "what is it like running after we die?" Or what does food taste like, after we die?

Knowledge is the memory of perceptions, with what do we percieive with when the perceptor is no more? When the brain is no more, with what do we remember?

If immortality were a given, then why live at all?

One of the means of testing if someone thinks according to definition is to ask them a question that involves simply an error in definition. See how long it takes them to use the definition to reason by, like the famous "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" etc.,

However, the expectation that death is death has nothing to do with a belief in God, especially should it happen that the word "God" turned out to be a metaphor, say, God is truth. To say that one did not believe in truth sets in motion a dog chasing its own tail.

I don't believe in an eternal soul, but there are two possible things, in my opinion, after we die:

a) nothing, like a deep sleep. But death IS NOT sleep.
b) waking up from a dream- but is that death?

I always used to wonder ... but then I met a dream psychiatrist by chance and really became interested in what he was preaching. So, I decided to meet with him. And I asked him what he thought, and his response stuck. He basically said that in our human bodies, with limited minds, we can't understand what would happen after death, and that is a barrier that we can only get through by letting it go and not even thinking about it. When the time comes, we will know and that is it. In my opinion its a Kierkegaardian stance towards death ... just have faith and understand that the answer is incomprehensible. But, unlike Kierkegaard, when it comes to God, I will always question and meditate; I'm not just going to have faith and follow aimlessly; I think that God is very active in this particular realm of existence.

I also believe in a type of re-incarnation. I've seen things that I believe are from other lives. Visions in plain daylight that just seem so real, places, people, settings that are definitely not from any dreams I've had. I just see them, with my eyes open and everything, and get a chill and feel very very nostalgic.

Originally Posted by andrewp

Don Piper was a Baptist preacher when he was a victim of a car crash. He was killed instantly upon impact. Paramedics found no signs of life in him. 90 minutes later, he was alive again. Don is author of the book 90 Minutes in Heaven. In the book, he describes heaven.

I am Christian, so I believe his story. He describes a euphoria, and a feeling of eternal happiness. I know this is more religion than science, but what do you all believe happens when someone dies?

What Don and many others have experienced was a massive release of DMT in the brain. Warm feeling, happiness, intense spiritual experiences, all characteristics of DMT. Also simply because hes a christian doesnt mean you should believe him, there have been Christians claiming to be Christ even though they're not.

The body can live without the mind, for example brain dead but modern medicine keeping the body alive. And the mind can exist without the body. Neither are dependent on the others existence in order for them to exist. But the only way the mind can manifest itself in a being is if the brain is functioning properly. And all minds manifested in people are subjective experiences of the same consciousness and what the mind can do all depends on the evolutionary state of the species its trying to manifest itself in. So the mind never stops existing and once the body it was manifesting in is no longer alive the mind returns to the same objective and collective state in the unconscious. I probably could go on but ill stop there.

If you died and found that there was nothing, just pure black, emptiness, then how do you know of it at all? You obviously still exist.

So when somebody talks of death - the end of your life, your expiry, the end of all, they are talking about becoming non-existence. But non-existence isn't real.

The "pure, black emptiness" a lot of us think of as death can't be experienced. It's a metaphor we use to try to understand the cessation of existence.

If you were actually aware of the cold and dark, you would still exist.

I think an afterlife is unlikely.

Is it not intuitive to think that existence by itself is unlikely? Or is all existence likely? Can anyone know?

Originally Posted by really

If you died and found that there was nothing, just pure black, emptiness, then how do you know of it at all? You obviously still exist.

So when somebody talks of death - the end of your life, your expiry, the end of all, they are talking about becoming non-existence. But non-existence isn't real.

... Why?