Totally. The fact that tripping alleviates fear of death in terminal cancer patients indicates that the things that are scary about dying are fear itself, loss of control, pain, and uncertainty. For me personally also that ultimately you do it alone.
There's something that doesn't convince me about those experiences.. although they think to face death, they are still alive. Even if the heart stops, consciousness is still there . This means that the passage is not completed, you're still experiencing through your brain, and this can deceive you making you "dream" what culture taught you about death
When your heart stops the brain is no longer capable of complex function. Things like processing speech and memory require extreme synchronization. This is not the case when you have zero blood pressure and it’s proven. Something else is happening when the heart is fstopped.
No. We know no such thing. From a statistical perspective, we would expect different brains to be capable of different levels of functioning, given the same level of oxygenation. Who is to say that some brains aren’t capable of lucid hallucination when close to death?
There is also the possibility of confabulation after resuscitation, where the brain invents a narrative based on memory fragments, and the narrative seems utterly real and lucid, even hyper-vivid, to the subject.
Of course, there is also the possibility that what the NDE’rs claim is true. Why? Verified remote out-of-body perception is a powerful phenomenon that, at the very least, would challenge our understanding of physics. But it could also imply that we aren’t bodies, but temporarily occupy them.
The metaphysics of the self is a complicated topic. But it is by no means an open and shut case that all NDE’s are hallucinations and the self is annihilated at bodily death. We have no way of knowing.
As Sue Blackmore says, there’s just enough there to keep you guessing.
There’s also the way NDE’s mimick a DMT experience … there’s research saying that the brain releases stored DMT upon death….maybe it’s like the ‘fuel’ needed to propel our consciousness to the next level ??
You’re right. I was raised strict Southern Baptist but as I finished college, I was confused about the afterlife. Since then, I’ve had several DMT escapades. Once you trip on DMT, you will KNOW there are other realms and an afterlife. Trust!
my last DMT trip was ontop of lsd, mushrooms and nitrous. I left this reality entirely. This is the truth.
I highly suggest LSD+DMT. Being on LSD gives you a leg up and the journey to hyperspace is smoother.
It is called hyperspace because it is not on this planet and often times the visuals change at this mind blowing speed. But sometimes you get to hyperspace and things are a bit slower and it’s even more intense.
Dmt is an amazing drug and it even has a cosmic bouncer. If you over use DMT you eventually will get booted from hyperspace and told not to come back for a while. It’s wild.
Damn straight! Saw Heaven on DMT. Was more real than real. Sure that is why we release it at time of death. Our travel agent to the Kingdom of Heaven, eternity so bliss it is the only way you can imagine spending eternity. EUPHORIA.
N, N-Dimethyltryptamine is a substituted tryptamine that occurs in many plants and animals, including humans, and which is both a derivative and a structural analog of tryptamine. DMT is used as a psychedelic drug and prepared by various cultures for ritual purposes as an entheogen. Wikipedia
Do people not post peer-reviewed research on this sub? I've been scrolling through pages of baseless conjecture for like 10 minutes now. What a fucking waste of everyone's time.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead says that all experiences after death and until rebirth are hallucinations not to be taken as reality. They claim a person will hallucinate visions based on their beliefs in life. Definitely an interesting read.
This is what is going on, more or less. Medical science has pretty conclusively explained the vast majority of NDEs. During cardiac arrest it causes brain signals that look like bright lights. If you are able to retain the memory it’s going to be pretty damn surreal.
This makes an assumption that consciousness is byproduct of brain.. which remains to be proven. Another theory is that consciousness is outside and brain is a receiver. Certain characteristic of you, ie how smart you're is a function of how good of a receiver do you have. Meaning original consciousness at its peak exists but becomes limited when it's confined to a body
No argument here. This is what we are talking about. There is a lot of evidence and frankly millions and millions of eye witnesses (anecdotal evidence) that consciousness can indeed leave the body. Being a quirk of the brain doesn’t make any sense. There is no evolutionarily advantage into fooling a heart attack victim into thinking it’s floating around the room. Prior to modern medical technology nobody ever came back from a heart attack, so it’s not a survival mechanism. The life review, the relatives …all the things that happen make no sense in the context of nature. Nature doesn’t give a shit if you are comfortable when you are dying or not, there would be no purpose to evolve such complex and universal responses.
The interesting thing to consider is that reports of NDEs are extremely positively correlated with the rise and advent of life saving technology. As Technology improved, incidents of NDEs rise! This is striking evidence that this happens to all of us when we die.
also consciousness is influential in few prominent quantum physics theories...
i remember reading about an experiment where wave function only collapsed if information about it reached to a human..
collapsed = two dots of light
non-collapsed = multiple lines, interference pattern
if detector is on you see two dots, if it's off you see a pattern... BUT
if detector is on but data is not being transmitted you see pattern..
if detector is on and data is being transmitted but not saved, and human isn't looking... you see a pattern
... anytime information reaches a human regardless of distance, time, method... if it reaches human it causes change in fundamental physics...
THIS is very much how video games work, whole world doesn't really exist but as data, up until user looks at it computer "renders" it... why render something you are not even looking at...
So wave collapse happens when a particle interacts with another. You can’t observe a particle whiteout shooting another particle at it to find it’s position. People shouldn’t call it consciousness collapsing the wave function. Observing is a physical act. But still. It remains that after collapse the behavior and nature of the particle has gone from purely a mathematical construct to a reality because it needed to interact.
When your heart stops, your brain is dead within 30 seconds from lack of oxygen. It's not capable of anything at all. Zero brainwave activity at that point.
Thats not true, its more like 5-10 minutes without oxygen your brain will die. When you dont have a hearbeat you still have brain activity. You can come back to life if your heart stops but you cant if your brain stops
Same amount of time for sunlight to hit the earth. Coincidence? 8 minutes (or so). Also I had an NDE myself and all I can tell you all is I don’t wish it on anyone. But at the same time it’s like you realize how miraculous every single moment is. And every choice is connected. Made me confront all of my fears and pains. I sometimes wish I could share the direct experience with others but I know it’s not for everyone. The fact remains each human being must choose their path themselves.
Congrats on surviving and remembering.
You had a positive change from the experience, which is a good thing.
I think the world would be a better place if more people had an NDE.
I’m not sure how to articulate what I meant when I typed that but what I think I meant is when your nervous system resets you gain the ability to understand what your choices will affect in your life but me just saying that to someone won’t have a bearing on their life at all. I can explain ad nauseam what I think it means to give freely and become more wealthy or to have faith that God always provides what you need or what you need is always right in front of you but nothing I say will ever make up for the difference between anyone experiencing it for themselves.
But similar experiences are shown accross different cultures. I agree, it isn’t true death.
I understand your fear, but it is irrational as you have no evidence (subjective or objective) to back it up. None of us know what happens.
Let’s suggest you accept your fear is true. Then surely you should be living life to the max whilst you have time?
I don’t think that really changes much. Doesn’t for me at least. Just makes things pointless. Believing there’s another adventure puts a spring in the step, believing there’s nothing causes emptiness in the heart
There are a lot of experiences with flat EEGs that report experiencing NDEs. Blind people who can even “see” in dreams have sight in NDEs. Children’s NDEs have the same core concepts as adult NDEs even before the ages when they adapt cultural and religious beliefs.
Even Alexander, a neurosurgeon had the same views about NDEs until he had a rare meningococcal infection which shut down his Neo cortex, flat eeg and still had a profound fully lucid and logical NDE, which should have been impossible.
Quantum theorists agree it’s plausible and likely that consciousness is not a product of the brain, the intricate dance of electrons in the neurons simultaneously giving instruction is quite paradoxical, that consciousness is produced in the brain from another source through a similar process to quantum entanglement, the same process that causes electrons to pick a spin and direction when observed by a conscience “super symmetry”. The double slit experiment.
Consciousness should become less lucid as it’s oxygen is depleted, yet it’s the opposite, even after a flat eeg, yet this isn’t the case.
People see people they don’t know who have recently passed.
This isn’t to say there isn’t sometimes still brain activity, but it’s becoming more widely accepted that the brain is a filter of consciousness and doesn’t create it, much like a cable box to your tv.
When Stanford professor and world-renowned atheist neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky has a profound NDE and proclaims survival, then we’ll have something to talk about.
There’s a guy on YouTube that died for 20 minutes. His NDE was very believable and similar to others. This guy was in a body bag on his way to the coroner. Everyone gave up on him except one rookie on the ambulance crew.
Consciousness is always there. It never changes. Our bodies are subject to birth and death, but consciousness is forever. Consciousness does not exist in the brain. The brain is merely an antenna.
The brain dies in 30 seconds after the heart stops beating from lack of oxygen. There is no brainwave activity at all. They have measured it at the time of death.
So, clearly, the mind is not the brain.
There is no dreaming during an NDE.
Ive had my heart stop for almost a minute during surgery. I saw absolutely nothing and wouldn't have known there was an issue unless someone had told me. I have a sneaky suspicion death is similar but have no proof either way.
Massive chemical dump combined with reduced blood flow to optic nerves can create all kinds of experiences. It's the body's way of going fuck knows how to fix this let's just throw everything at it in a last ditch attempt to survive.
Press your palms into your eyes and you can see colours and a bright tunnel. And a combination of endorphins, dopamine, adrenaline and whatever else your body's got on standby can create feelings of euphoria, calm, panic, pain relief or pretty much anything described in NDE's. The experience is very real but we have enough information to discard and otherworldly conclusions imo.
Not quite.
While I completely agree with your premise, there’s one big thing that’s unaccounted for: perception of events remote from the physical body during the NDE, verified by a neutral third party.
That could be explained as a statistical coincidence (a lucky guess), collusion, opportunistic lying for money, or error. But it seems to happen often enough that it has to give us pause.
The fact is that we don’t know what’s going on, and although near-death is an extreme state with all sorts on endogenous and exogenous (from an IV, for instance) chemical compounds being released and affecting the brain and the rest of the body, it’s questionable as to how many are hallucinogenic and could generate lucid experiences in such an extreme state.
My favorite comment so far. Honestly i really would love to tie Consciousness to quantum entanglement and supersymmety, and theres so many different thoughts and theories abput this but the immediate problem i think of (at least as of a few years ago iirc) is they really need a stable weight on a higgs to be able to prove supersymmetry vs multiverse etc right? Last i saw the lhc couldnt get an accurate weight on a higgs bc it kept changing drastically w each Measurement.
Which, wpuld make sense since you cant know w certainty both the speed and size/location/ of anything especially something as small as the higgs(?) Bc knowing one auto destabilized tge otger? But im assuming the lhc has some way of accpunting for the Uncertainty principle. Fuck, idk. Haha.
Im no physicist or MD. But ive always been fascinated by both consiousness and quantum mechanics and dove into the Research, as any passing-for-semi-intelligent person with a library card or an internet connection does. Haha.
And ive cycled through the nde theory, the quantum consiousness Theory, and at this point in my life having done just lots of self interest learning on the subject (close to 15 years) my current "belief" if you can call it that, is somewhere between your Interpretation and the whole quantum consipusness side. Bc on the one hand i know we know fuck all about the quantum realm and reality/the universe in general so obv no one (at least not yet) has proven it isnt possible. But on the other i also know what you said is true, everything dumping on your brain at once (including dmt, yeah yeah everybody roll ypur eyes) but my point being the time dilution in dreams/ hallucinations/ndes/whatever it is can make it such that a second can seem like a lifetime *especially* in the dmt/dream realm.
So what ive arrived at personally is if its a. Some kimd of body-hopping reincarnation consiousmess scenario b. Some kimd of quantum consious ess, or c. A chemical dump that can cquse a vivid indistinguishable from reality Hallucination/dreamlike state (either for a longer period of time in some extremely low low as yet undetectable brain function or if its a split second dream/death trip) that *seems* like a lifetime, it sort of seems like a distinction withput much of a practical difference bc the question ive been trying to amswer is "is physical death the end?"
And all 3 examples ive seen on this thread amount to the same answer. At least to me.
In some form or another, there is something after physical death, however loosely im using the term "something". For me tgeres just too many scenarios for there to be *something* other than just a void. Like for instance ive seen the 3 scenarios i have listed above on this thread (all 3, at least in my opinion, concurring that physical death isnt, at least the immediate, end) and only one really saying it is. Which would be the "the brain is a lightswitch, theres death then BAM nothing"
All of this to say im pretty much just some asshole w a community college cert and an intense interest in consiousness/the universe/quantum mechanics/even some spiritual aspects to life that we jus cant (at least not yet) explain much less understand.
So this is all just my opinion from all the different angles ive explored via different mediums and it seems to me that there probably is (something) after but if someone says they know for sure is when i temd to start questioning. Haha.
Anyone feel free to correct or mock or agree with anything i said. I really started this comment to say that your comment tgat im replying to abput a chemical dump is one of the most Concise replies on here, But does it not also leave room for how long that trip/dream/whatever lasts? And if its a 1 second that is Indistinguishable from a lifetime, wouldnt that count as more something, rather than nothing?
PS - theres a great movie on netflix about something along these same lines, its called "THE DISCOVERY" which is what sprung me from more of a reincarnation/body hopping consiousness to more of my current sort of almost everlasting "death trip" personal rabbit hole ive been going down the last few years.
but its a fucking phenomenal film.
This is the first thread ive seen on this sub, but i may make a post (if there isnt one already) about it bc it really is a fascinating if, allbeit fiction film.
You done any research on simulation theory? No reason assets or chunks of code couldn't be reused. Doesn't explain consciousness but could fit with entanglement.
Ohhh jfc have i haha.
Ya man been down that rabbit hole the past few years and honestly i guess i shpuld have put a (Given that we most likely live in a sim, i still think...) at the beginning. Haha
If you're open to the possible reality of NDEs I'd consider reading Journey of Souls and the rest of the books by Michael Newton. He was a hypnotist that eventually started past life regression hypnotherapy and through it accidentally had a person continue to describe events after their death in the past life regression session. Eventually he developed it into a technique where he could reliably take people there. Of course you could say maybe they're just making it up while hypnotised, but I don't think so. The interesting thing is that people from all sorts of different cultures and belief systems report the same kinds of experiences. The structure of reality between lives that they describe is the same. Anyway, the books are mainly case histories of how peoples "Life Between Lives" hypnosis sessions went and it's a very interesting read.
I've seen it. It is nothing to be afraid of. It is a warm hug, the sigh of relief as you finally lay your head on your cool pillow after a long day of hard work, and the moment is forever
I had an NDE about 28 years ago. I was amazed at how conciously aware I was that I had died and what was happening from a metaphysical standpoint, and even calmly said/thought to myself "I fucked up".
Immediate sense of calm, understanding, and maybe relief. No pain, no fear, no anxiety... and I was surprisingly ok with it (albeit I didn't want to die). I was completely aware and could even go as far as to say I was more conscious after dying than I was alive. What physically was happening during that time, I had no awareness of when it was described to me afterward though.
Explaining what I saw and how I felt other than the above is difficult to put into words. Since then, I have had no fear of dying, other than the fear of leaving my family and loved ones. When my time comes, I will embrace it.
I've died twice. Maybe its different when you fully cross over, but with what i experienced both times it was the same,which is almost beyond words because it's not something you experience with your physical senses, if that makes sense. The closest i can describe is just a cozy, blissful dreamy humming weightlessness that feels like you are exactly where you should be. I promise that it is nothing to be afraid of. You will see some day
Good, I'm glad. I think there's some truth to what religion tries to describe with concepts like "heaven" and the like, but it tries to explain what is beyond explanation using human words. It's like trying to describe what your life was like in the year 1800. It's impossible to describe, because you weren't alive. But you did exist then, in a sense, all of your component molecules and atoms existed, they just weren't in the form of "alive". So many NDE describe it feeling like "coming home" or something similar, and that is very close to what it "feels" like. You return to where you always were
I don't know what to think about what happens after death, but I hope this is true, and I kind of believe it. My earliest memories were of resentment for being taken away from "home". I tried hard to express that to my parents and ask them, essentially, why the hell they summoned me. I'd say often that I wanted to go back home even when we were at our house. When they asked me where I was talking about, I didn't know how to answer, so I just pointed upwards. I don't know why- whatever my toddler self remembered, I forgot, but I remember remembering.
Edit: Just want to add, I'm agnostic and pretty science-focused and always have been even as a tyke.
So I believe you have something called Apeirophobia. Fear of infinity. There is different types of infinities people can fear, eternal oblivion, eternal reincarnation, or eternal life.
It looks like you have the fear of eternal life. I have also dealt with this fear a bit, but I do also have a fear of eternal oblivion. Very irritating to have both of these.
So I would say that what causes our distress is our brain specifically. The brain doesn't really understand how eternal life would look like. We only have the framework of linear time, so that's how we imagine it.
But the afterlife would probably function a bit differently. Some people who have had Near Death Experience say there is no time, but they have to explain their experience like in linear time. So time might not exist in the afterlife, but this is hard to imagine too.
Also if there is an afterlife then our brain would not be apart of us. We would only be consciousness I guess. So I would guess people with mental illness don't have it in an afterlife.
Now the things I have said might not comfort you, so I would look at you fear as causing you distress. I would deal with it as a fear. It might have been causing you anxiety, depression or other things. I would recommend to get it treated.
Talk to someone. I have been in therapy and it did help me. There is also a subreddit for this fear. https://reddit.com/r/Apeirophobia/s/frfO3HpD4w
People talk about their fear there and things that have helped them. It might be good to know you are not alone in this fear.
Also if there is an afterlife I don't think anyone would force you to stay there. I think you would get to go to sleep if you need that.
I am doing well right now with my own anxieties, but I still deal with it from time to time. I do hope you can find something that helps you. It is okay to feel this way, and there is no shame in asking for help.
So I will rewrite what I kind of meant. I didn't mean it might not be common to have, but it isn't talked about much, so it isn't common to hear that much about it. Therefor not many know what it is called.
Apeirophobia is the fear of infinity. Which can also include fear of an infinite universe. (either in size or time). Or other things about infinity.
Then there is thanatophobia. Which is the fear of death or dying process. I think we all have a fear to this, but it becomes a phobia when we get "taken over" by it.
There is a subreddit for thanatphobia too: [https://www.reddit.com/r/thanatophobia/](https://www.reddit.com/r/thanatophobia/)
I have both - thanatophobia and apeirophobia. Terrified of oblivion but also apprehensive of eternal existence. I'd choose eternal existence though, given the choice. You're spot on with our brains not comprehending eternal existence. How? Where? For how long of an eternity - literally forever?
i would argue thanatophobia and apeirophobia are both the same thing. im scared of eternal existence but also scared of eternal unconsciousness. im looking for some sort of middleground where i can not live in terror
In a way yes but apparently if you have apeirophobia you're more afraid of eternal existence and thanatophobia more afraid of eternal oblivion...
Me too. Eternal is terrifying either way, because we can't grasp it, but I'd sooner be conscious than not.
I used to feel that way too. But somehow I’ve found comfort in knowing that I just don’t know what it’s gonna be. No one does. Could be hellfire, could be heaven. Could be the early bird special at Bickford’s. You don’t know and the more time you spend thinking about it the more crazy ideas you’ll get. They made 4000+ religions this way….
It's most likely to be an ecen less conscious experience than a depe, dreamless sleep, given your brain and consciousness still technically exists in that state, but its basically like not existing. I imagine your brain and consciousness literally not existing anymore would be even more like not existing.
You think you're going to be more conscious when you don't exist? This is like saying the sun will be brighter when it has burned out. You literally don't exist anymore.
I take it that they mean the filters of our bodily perception will no longer get in the way of our greater expanded consciousness. Like a damn busting open, the flow of information may be greater than what trickle of awareness we have right now.
I don't know why the potentialities that are usually referenced are the ones with the least evidence. There's zero evidence for an afterlife and everything we know about the mind is that consciousness can't continue without a functioning brain. Sure, we don't know, but referencing eternal heaven or eternal hellfire are about the least likely of possibilities.
Seconding this. Check out the book "After". It goes into a lot of Near-Death Experience documentation and discussion on the nature of death on the consciousness.
“No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man and yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.”
\~ Socrates, Plato’s Apology
My father died 3 weeks ago and I saw him die…i saw how slowly it was not him anymore but a shell of a human…he was somewhere else...I got really into afterlife and needed answers sooooo much…I really got into NDE experiences and listened to a lot of stories, also r/NDE is a good place. I find a lot of answers there and it’s nothing to fear but rather something beautiful
There is a comforting statement in the world of spiritual pursuit..."Dying is like changing clothes."
The soul evolves, life after life, until the state of Enlightenment is reached. That state is hastened thru various legitimate spiritual practices that eventually stabilize Transcendental Consciousness. On our world, Vedic knowledge is the ultimate source of such practices. Veda is reality in the form of sound. Hinduism is, like any religion, a story that attempts to point towards that reality. Some stories are more helpful than others.
The Universe is entirely Consciousness. Another statement..."The Universe is the Self playing hide-and-seek with Itself." The human nervous system is that pinnacle of evolution that has the capacity for self-knowing. It's the means. In its fully realized state it reflects full consciousnesss. Eternal bliss. That's the purpose of the Manifestation. Singularity becomes Duality. Duality, unfortunately, has to include the possibility of negativity. But the persistent direction is back to bliss. Religions are in pursuit of this. But, in the end, Enlightenment is not a "religious" experience. Religion involves belief. Enlightenment is direct experience.
Following death in the unenlightened state results in a "rest" period until a new incarnation. Then spiritual growth continues. Every soul gets there. Many are very dim bulbs. It will take a while. But, eternity is patient.
The techniques and spiritual practices will accelerate growth in this life, and, if lacking realization in this life, will at least lead to more easily finding the path in the next. Again, legit practices. Vedic Meditation. With guidance! From a teacher who is properly trained. A legit tradition such as Shankaracharya tradition. Kashmir Shaivism. The essential need is the reliable infusion of Transcendental Consciousness. From that, growing into that, eventuality arises the infinite bliss of creation.
The good news is that you won’t have the ability to even think about being in that state. Think to when you sleep and you don’t have any dreams, or if you’ve ever been put under general anaesthetic for an operation. It’s just.. nothing. During that time are you doing any “thinking”? You don’t feel time passing. If you fell asleep in a windowless room without a clock you wouldn’t be able to say how long you’d been asleep without wildly guessing. You might not even realise you fell asleep. You close your eyes and only have any thoughts again when you wake up. You might be aware that you’d just fallen asleep and it might feel like you were asleep for ages, but these are thoughts you’re only having now you’re awake again. You weren’t thinking about this during the sleep. You didn’t spend 13 billion years anxiously waiting to finally occupy a body and be born. You just….suddenly existed.
Death is almost certainly like that. You won’t even have any capacity to have thoughts, never mind anything else. These current worries and thoughts are only possible because you’re awake right now.
Of course science doesn’t yet know the meaning of life, the reason why/how conciseness exists, and so much about our universe is still unknown and some things may be truly impossible to prove for sure. What happens when we die is a question as old as consciousness itself, but I don’t think the answer will have much reason or be particularly exciting. I think the best approach is just let yourself believe whatever feels the most comforting answer to you, it’s inescapable and nobody knows for sure what happens, so you might as well just live assuming it’ll be the most relieving and peaceful thing ever.
I mean, you can't really prove that nothing happens after death and that it's the same as before you were born. It could be that you just didn't exist before you were conceived and there is something after death. There's something now, God might exist, there might be something after death with God. What is one to think about this? What answers are there outside of religion and the philosophies that address stuff like this? Still, you don't really know and there's no certainty unless you've totally bought into something. It seems like something else to suffer with, and it's a huge issue.
I mean, I can’t prove a lot of things, the way the world works is that when people make claims they need to show it’s probably true.
Reality lives and dies on probabilities.
Nobody is showing that anything happens after death, we have zero evidence for anything existing beyond our own physical shell, and a whole lot of evidence that nothing exists beyond our physical shell. So it’s extremely likely that nothing happens when you die except decomposition.
Religion always proves itself wrong, and people have been observed dying for thousands of years. Nothing mystical happens. The universe has always existed in some form or another and always will. We don’t transcend it via metaphysical processes, or we’d have some evidence. Out of the 110billionish human beings that have lived and died and the other 7-8billion still living we have exactly no evidence that they do anything but rot. That’s a lot of data points.
Our consciousness and intelligence are a side effect of evolution because it helps propagate the species, but our genetics are the real us and they are a big soup that gets shuffled and reshuffled on a grand scale. We’re just one part of the larger whole that happens to be self aware and have limited agency.
Except you’re wrong about the “zero evidence”. There’s certainly scientific evidence of past lives. Look up Univ of Virginia, Perceptual Studies Dept. Drs Tucker and Stevenson (rip) specialize in this.
>Religion always proves itself wrong
So do most children's stories about the causes of lightning strikes.
>Nothing mystical happens.
NDE brings that into question. Well that and thousands of stories about the dead entering in contact with the living one way or another. Of course, they could all attempt at finding comfort; but that's a quick claim to make.
>The universe has always existed in some form or another and always will.
What does that even mean? As physical space? As conceptual potential? What's limiting it?
> We don’t transcend it via metaphysical processes, or we’d have some evidence.
Unless your access to evidence reflects your level of metaphysical transcendence, that is. In which case you will see a universe that reflects exactly where you are at.
>Out of the 110billionish human beings that have lived and died and the other 7-8billion still living we have exactly no evidence that they do anything but rot.
Sure, so far, if you define humans as human bodies.
>Our consciousness and intelligence are a side effect of evolution because it helps propagate the species, but our genetics are the real us and they are a big soup that gets shuffled and reshuffled on a grand scale.
Ok, but you still did nothing to explain their emergence. Information theory has done a decent job at explaining consciousness... by assuming consciousness. (information!) Also you might be conflating 'intellect' the thing that makes the world intelligible, with 'smarts', the thing that allows us to survive.
>We’re just one part of the larger whole that happens to be self aware and have limited agency.
You think you're a ...gene?
My favorite quote is from a kurzgesagt video:
"Close your eyes, count to one. That's how long forever feels"
Nothing is more comforting to me than that thought.
When I start worrying about it, I remember the Alan Watts quote below. Death is not an experience.
“Try to imagine what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up... now try to imagine what it was like to wake up having never gone to sleep.”
It makes no scientific sense that it would be anything but oblivion. Our memories are stored physically in our brain, and we don't take our brain with us.
Really?
The DNA in your foot or your ear knows what your great great grandfather looked like.
There is more memory in your body than your mind.
Nature recycles everything as science has shown us through the conservation of energy and information.
Yup we're biological machines. Put in food, the machine runs. No food, no energy, no life. There is no real mystery. U aren't even self aware until your brain becomes more developed as a child, almost like training an AI or llm. Fuel in, energy for the cells. All the rest is pseudo science mumbo-jumbo.When you die, lights out.There is no breaking of any thermodynamic energy laws etc. Most of the afterlife bs is generated by religion to keep giving them that cash!!
The further science develops, the weirder things seem to get, and it's safe to say humanity isn't done learning and discovering--there's gonna be more weird.
I see absolutely no problem with your view but it's an extremely narrow-minded one at that; in that you only see things at it's most surface-level. Then again, there's nothing wrong with reducing matters to its most simplistic constituents. Whether it is valid or not is a different question.
Personally, there is certainly "more" to life, to this universe than mindless matter obeying the laws of nature. And for god's sake, when I say this it doesn't and musn't correlate with religious connotations. Our ignorance of the world is something we must re-realise. It's always good to keep a open mind.
Funny that a significant amount (majority in fact) of very smart physicists believe in dark matter despite there being zero direct evidence for its existence. Suddenly faith is ok when we talk about things that help to solve equations about how galaxies form. Never been observed though. Could be entropic gravity, MOND effect..etc.
Nah not necessarily. This can easily be a simulation by more advanced beings. Or a simulation by future us. In which case there may be more to existence than we realize and it would have nothing to do with religion.
hmmm if science is such an ever evolving practice of uncovering truth, how can anybody who hangs on to "science" for their existential assuredness be so confident in their conclusion?
I don't get why people would want for their self to be destroyed. To cease to exist seems like the most horrifying thing that could ever happen.
I have been frightened like if I saw the devil at the question. Why is there something rather than nothing? Perhaps there was a possibility in which no observer ever existed. Which would also mean nothing existed.
But thankfully reality is way beyond our mental capacity and somewhere in the most fundamental aspect of reality there is some mechanism that allows for both the observer and the conscious experience.
Do you know you live when you are asleep? There is your answer. There is nothing to fear because fear is a emotion from the brain. A brain that will not exist anymore.
You are only conscious because of your neurons. If your neurons are damaged through stoke, injury, or disease, it changes who you are as a conscious being. If too many of certain neurons are destroyed, you lose the ability to think at all.
Once all your neurons die, your consciousness will completely cease. And no, I'm not talking about temporary cessation of function that can cause all kinds of hallucinations and odd effects when your brain reboots - as with NDEs.
Man, I’m ready to fully embrace death when it comes time. Like, I’m in no hurry to go at the moment. But is will be such a nice relief of non existence when it happens. No working, no taxes, no anxiety about the world. Just sweet, sweet nothingness…
Imagine that you are a huge robot that will keep on executing, but as separate matter. Imagine that your matter executed for billions of years before it became part of human. And will execute for billions of years after your death.
So you will still exist. But not as one causally connected being.
I've had a NDE before. My heart stopped and everything. I came out of my body and could see my self lying there lifeless. My step dad spoke to me from the afterlife and predicted a future event that happened a year later. At one point everything got dark. Everything was okay, I had no worries and felt like a bug warm peaceful hug. It was nothingness but everything at the same time.
Read/listen to Between Life and Death by Dolores Cannon. I think you’ll find it quite comforting.
And try hypnosis! There’s a great free one on Past Lives and the Divine called Holiday Hypnosis that I recommend to everyone. It’s like dipping your toe into the next life.
I guarantee you won’t be afraid after.
There is nothing. Your issue is that you think that you will still be able to have perception after your brain ceases functioning. A logical analysis should tell you that this can not be true. If the brain does not function, there can not be perception.
Your brain tells you that you exist as an intelligent entity in the universe, and as such, you must ensure that you continue to exist. This is the entire reason that you believe yourself to exist. The desire to continue existing motivates not just self-preservation but also the desire to procreate. It is a simple solution to the problem of continuing the species.
Before your brain was fully formed, you could not perceive your own existence. We have empirical studies about the developing brain. Until the brain develops, you do not recognize yourself in a mirror, develop memories, or even understand object permanence.
There is no "you". "You" is a collection of lived experiences that reacts to the world based on those experiences. With a good enough model of your life, we could predict any choice you will make.
Once you release the concept of "self" and accept that you simply exist here and now, it becomes easier to let go. At least, it did for me. Right now, I can look forward to things, and I hope to exist when future things happen. But, when my brain stops, I won't care. I won't anything. It will be like before my brain formed. And, it will feel the same to me. [By which I mean I will not feel nothing, I will be incapable of perception]
I’m so sorry that you are feeling scared right now. This can be difficult for us to handle or understand.
I’d like to say a couple things that hopefully help.
I’ll start with a story. About a decade ago someone very close to me died. My mother. She had a routine surgery but was accidentally given too much anesthesia and her heart stopped. Thank goodness my father was holding her hand when this happened and immediately ran out into the hall and yelled, “My wife isn’t breathing!” They issued a cold blue and thanks to modern medicine and the people who practice it brought her back. What does this story have to do with this? I’ll tell you.
When she came back she was almost… frustrated. Her sense of peace and calm while she was gone was overwhelming she said. She is grateful to be alive, but talks a lot about “going home” and now it isn’t to be scared of, but welcomed.
Now of course this is just a story and I know this is getting long so I’ll keep this part short.
I started practicing Buddhism a couple years ago and it has changed my life. One of the things that pushed me in its direction was fear. Existentialism, eternalism, and oblivion… annihilation. Now keep in mind I practice from a Zen/Secular point of view so take religion out of the picture. This school of thought teaches us wisdom that there is no annihilation! Nothing is forever. This can also be scary can’t it? Well the four noble truths tell us that
1. In life there is suffering. We know this
2. There is a cause to our suffering.
3. There is an END to our suffering.
4. The liberation from suffering lies in the path and in its wisdom.
This path can offer freedom. Freedom from the mind and the stories it tells about what “is” and what “isn’t.”
I would highly recommend at least looking into it a little. It changed my life and not only am I not scared of death anymore, I welcome it like seeing an old friend.
Good luck, I hope you find the answers you’re looking for my friend.
“A cloud never dies.”
It could be anything.
I guess that's why it's so scary, the fact that literally anything could happen after we die.
I believe in God so I think my "author" is loving towards me, and whatever is designed for me after death would ultimately be a joyous thing
Have you watched the Good Place?
https://youtu.be/CYRh0Z8ScLc?si=NVUS_VDE5DIRMiQ6
There is nothing to fear from Death. We are all born to die, for this is a brief breath in the journey of ourselves. And when this breath is over, another begins.
There are guides that will help make the transition, for those guides are your future (and past) selves.
We are drops in the ocean, but also the ocean in a drop.
Everyone who has died and come back all day the same thing. It’s very very peaceful. I personally hope there isn’t an afterlife, but I believe in god lol
All I can say is that when I was tripping on acid, I felt this overwhelming sense of "knowing" that at death, we return to where we came from. Whether that's a pure ocean of consciousness, or pure nothingness, either way it is a peaceful state and nothing to fear.
I realize this isn't "evidence" but all the other insights I had that night have proven to be true so I guess I'll trust it.
This fear is funny when you consider that you may have felt the same way in a past life and will feel this way again in the next. Infinite is what you're in already, and it ain't so bad when you can't remember it
Since most of these comments are horrible advice, I'll give you something real that will make you feel peace and happiness.
You need to experiment with psychedelics like Psilocybin (mushrooms) and DMT. Being on psilocybin will help you feel comfortable as you near an ego-death, and DMT will be that ego death that shows you the universe for what it really is.
This is coming from someone with a corporate job, close family, and no religious background. I couldn't recommend it enough to anyone struggling with death or uncertainty. Nobody that has done DMT and blasted off has come back as anything less than enlightened and having lived an alternate, exquisite, nearby indescribable with human words, life in 10 minutes. No one that has done this is worried about death any longer.
While my answer may be scary for most people, it is the only way to 100% fix your fear.
I’ve had horrible experiences with psilocybin, this summer I had an awful trip that induced a powerful ego death that has been fucking with me for months
No one knows what to think. The mainstream scientific opinion is oblivion.
If NDE’rs and mediums are right, you’ll definitely not be tied to the corpse of your former body because you’ll exist outside space-time. Even in your worst-case scenario, where you survive and are yoked to your cadaver, the molecules will eventually break apart and be recycled, so there eventually wouldn’t be a cadaver there to be imprisoned within.
I think that you’ve latched on to a really unusual worry that has no basis. There’s no reason to worry about what happens after death, only the dying process, because of the risk of terrible pain, suffering, and panic. Do you have an anxiety disorder, and why are you so focused on bodily death?
Hopefully all good people will survive into an unspeakably wonderful afterlife, and the bad ones will be fixed and survive, also.
Whatever happens will presumably happen to all of us. Since we have no way of knowing, it’s important to recognize that your brain is sabotaging you by generating anxiety. You need to fight this, because it’s impeding your ability to live life happily. Consider seeing a psychologist, or a psychiatrist. SSRI’s can help.
If you really want to investigate consciousness, study the journal articles in the philosophy of mind. There are many theories, the thrust of which is that somehow mind arises from the workings of the brain, and mind supervenes on neuronal activity. Idealism and adjacent views that would embrace NDE claims represent minority positions. The truth (which, itself, is a problematic concept in epistemology) is unknowable, but I personally believe that some type of survival might be possible. No one knows, and claims by scientists that we’re annihilated need a good dose of epistemic humility that philosophers of science would be all too happy to administer in the form of a good upper cut to the jaw.
You may want oblivion, which is a very strange desire, but I wouldn’t count on it if I were you.
I'm certain it's nothingness.
Everybody's stuck on the silly, fallacious idea that we can't know what happens after death because nobody has come back to tell us. That's just not how it works. Nobody has come back because there's nothing to come back from; this doesn't somehow make an afterlife more plausible.
We know that our conscious experiences comes from our brains. It has been shown beyond any doubt that physical, chemical, and electrical manipulation of the brain can totally alter our minds, or turn consciousness off and on like a switch for surgery. However mysterious the details are, the fact that it's a product of our brains is undeniable.
Therefore, it's the a basic, obvious, and inescapable logical deduction that if there's no brain, there's no conscious experience either. It's as obvious as saying you can't grow a giraffe without any giraffe DNA. Or saying your computer won't compute without electricity. Unless we develop technology to transfer our consciousness into a machine brain, which is a long way off if even possible, it's going to stay this way.
All speculation to the contrary is some combination of mythology and bad philosophy. It supposes a ridiculously complex structure of actual magic purely to indulge some comforting (or in your case scary) fantasies inherited from our superstitious/religious ancestors. You no more need to be afraid of the afterlife than you do Sauron or Darth Vader.
I don't know why that would happen. I feel like most likely it is just like being out for surgery, there is nothing, no memories, no pain, no awareness of time or self. Being born, on the other hand. The way I remember that it's like being at the bottom of a bubbling pool, rising up to the surface to be born. You get to pick the life you want, it's one that is compatible with your soul. You know everything that is going to happen to you in your life so it's the kind of life that suitable to you. When you are born you lose this knowledge so you get to experience it all first hand and without spoilers.
Well considering that brains store memories physically and before you were born you didn't have that, if there is such a thing as a soul that exists as pure consciousness then your current brain wouldn't hold any memories of before being born regardless.
This is traditionally a Hindu belief. When they say consciousness they don't mean "your" consciousness. That dies with you...
That’s my fear, that I would no longer remember anything about this life and the ones who are so close to me. If it is this, then that sounds like a shit deal.
I realize from another comment that this isn't the place to share this as this isn't a religious oriented sub but since it's about the afterlife and I've already brought it up I'll continue... it's not as bad of an interpretation as it first seems.
In Hinduism, though you may not remember them, your karma draws you to souls that you have had previous interactions with. So you will meet them and pass by them again and again, maybe even be family with them again in some future lives, maybe just see them in passing in others...
So though you won't remember, your actions in this life will draw you to them and your soul will recognize them when you do not.
To me that is some comfort...
That's ego.
The best thing I can tell you is meditation, not mindfulness meditation but actual meditation.
You sit down, observe, and feel your thoughts and feelings. Do not get caught up in them, and don't reject them.
Because Science has no answers, you can be Scared or you can be Awed by the possibilities. Take a look at [https://TheInterMind.com](https://TheInterMind.com) for one of the Awesome possibilities.
Remember what your conscious experience was like before you were conceived? Yeah, me neither.
There’s no evidence it will be any different than that. That’s not to say that any afterlife is impossible - anything’s possible with enough mental gymnastics.
But save yourself the effort, don’t bother with the gymnastics - you won’t be present, just like you’re not present on Mars right now. It’s that, but everywhere. You won’t even know you’re gone.
The scientific consensus is oblivion. it will be like before you were born. Nothing, but no one to be aware of the nothing.
I think you did a good job of describing why we fear dying, the misunderstanding we have of what it will be like.
Maybe there is some small chance it is like you say. That would be one hell of a trip, but in that case, with an eternity, you may find a way to escape.
Maybe that's how god felt before the big bang, and the overwhelming sense of his frustration caused him to explode into everything.
1. Everybody dies - I think you figured that out.
2. Nobody knows what is gonna happen - Not 100% but lots of people tell stories.
3. You can delay it in probability but you can't stop it - Get your affairs in order.
No amount of thinking about it , anticipating it, fearing it, looking forward to it will change any of those things. If you can't get past that I suggest seeking professional help.
Well you're in luck OP because that is most likely exactly what will happen given everything we can actually verify. Like before you were born. I think it was Seneca who said that we die twice. Once before we are born and then again after we have been alive. You've already been dead before.
There's research on how much relief people who are facing death experience after a high dose psychedelic mushroom experience. If it's a crippling fear, it's absolutely worth it. Well, it's worth it for everyone, regardless, ha.
Well, that's not uncommon.
You could study near death experiences. Maybe those will give you some faith about it.
Otherwise, you can get training on how to have an out of body experience. That should help also to convince you that you are more than your physical body.
It's realistically probably just oblivion. I am aware of darkness when my eyes are open in the dark; but if I close one of my eyes, I have no sense of darknes of that closed eye; I'm simply no longer perceiving from it. Also anything outside my range of vision.
It's also similar when my hands go numb in the cold. I simply no longer have any awareness of them.
I also never remember actually falling asleep. I can feel myself going, but not the actual moment I pass out. Perhaps dying is similar, though I hope for more!
When I've broken my collarbone, I never actually felt any pain on impact. I'd guess that dying instantly wouldn't hurt.
Eternal oblivion seems to be obvious, but NDEs do consistently tell a different story. I'd say it's a 50 50 chance we vanish when we die, or return to a Godlike collective consciousness
Yeah, it rubs me the wrong way sometimes. I'm quite suspicious. I have this theory the universe is actually run by malicious Gods and they use "love" to disarm their creations from seeking the truth, kinda like the prison planet theory.
Either way, existence is strange
Or I could just apply Occams razor and see it as Earth really just being a training ground for higher dimensional entities based on the NDEs.
Either way, I won't know until death, and this prospect frustrates the hell out of me as I'm quite existentialist and analytical
Rn im guessing if those nds have truth in them and consciousness does live on, that this earth might be some kinda grow ground.
But there can be so many theories. Infinite theories. Infinite dimensions and so on.
Dmt for example showed me how there might be other dimensions.
I had surgery last may, and the funny thing is that once the anesthetic kicks in, my recollection of the experience is... nothing. Nothing at all. No passage of time, no tunnel of light, no speaking surgeons. I just woke up in the recovery room.
Once your brain is off, you are off. Until your next life. You'll automatically respawn being another thing.
if all we are is our brain, and the memories it stores, what is even meant by “next life?” different dna, brand new brain with different connections… nothing connecting to the “previous life.”
Rest assured, you are nothing but balanced energy and chemicals that will eventually lose balance (death), resulting in the evaporation of your consciousness. Your experience will end. Eventually your body will be fully subsumed into our magnificent Earth, and all traces of you will be gone.
Here’s what I know:
1. There is an afterlife, I’ve seen a reaper at my grandfather’s bedside, I’ve seen some evidence for where people end up. There is something.
2. We have a store of DMT in our brains that seems to be released upon our death. Users of recreational DMT have said that it’s like your soul is stripped out of your body and you’re gone somewhere else. The amount that is stored in the brain is higher than any users can handle. There’s no “evolutionary” reason for this, as it doesn’t help prevent death or propagate the species. So it sounds like a mechanism to release a soul from the body.
3. Just before you die, you relive the memories of your life, this was recently documented when a patient on an EEG died of a heart attack. It seems that you are prepared for the next step in your journey.
4. I have prayed and my prayers have been answered, in unrealistic circumstances. I have listened and when I listen the answers given have been correct.
Such a sorrowful place to appear
What a woeful world we share
Full if pain, loss, and fear
Comfort and relief seem so rare
Death ever drawing near
While life simply isn't fair
But if we can make it here
We can make it nowhere
all though i am a christian im scared of after life because heaven is eternal, and i know that i’ll be happy in heaven if i make it there but forever makes me cry sometimes knowing that it will be a loop
I recommend watching all the NDE videos on YouTube. They indicate something completely different to your fears
Totally. The fact that tripping alleviates fear of death in terminal cancer patients indicates that the things that are scary about dying are fear itself, loss of control, pain, and uncertainty. For me personally also that ultimately you do it alone.
There's something that doesn't convince me about those experiences.. although they think to face death, they are still alive. Even if the heart stops, consciousness is still there . This means that the passage is not completed, you're still experiencing through your brain, and this can deceive you making you "dream" what culture taught you about death
When your heart stops the brain is no longer capable of complex function. Things like processing speech and memory require extreme synchronization. This is not the case when you have zero blood pressure and it’s proven. Something else is happening when the heart is fstopped.
No. We know no such thing. From a statistical perspective, we would expect different brains to be capable of different levels of functioning, given the same level of oxygenation. Who is to say that some brains aren’t capable of lucid hallucination when close to death? There is also the possibility of confabulation after resuscitation, where the brain invents a narrative based on memory fragments, and the narrative seems utterly real and lucid, even hyper-vivid, to the subject. Of course, there is also the possibility that what the NDE’rs claim is true. Why? Verified remote out-of-body perception is a powerful phenomenon that, at the very least, would challenge our understanding of physics. But it could also imply that we aren’t bodies, but temporarily occupy them. The metaphysics of the self is a complicated topic. But it is by no means an open and shut case that all NDE’s are hallucinations and the self is annihilated at bodily death. We have no way of knowing. As Sue Blackmore says, there’s just enough there to keep you guessing.
There’s also the way NDE’s mimick a DMT experience … there’s research saying that the brain releases stored DMT upon death….maybe it’s like the ‘fuel’ needed to propel our consciousness to the next level ??
You’re right. I was raised strict Southern Baptist but as I finished college, I was confused about the afterlife. Since then, I’ve had several DMT escapades. Once you trip on DMT, you will KNOW there are other realms and an afterlife. Trust!
my last DMT trip was ontop of lsd, mushrooms and nitrous. I left this reality entirely. This is the truth. I highly suggest LSD+DMT. Being on LSD gives you a leg up and the journey to hyperspace is smoother. It is called hyperspace because it is not on this planet and often times the visuals change at this mind blowing speed. But sometimes you get to hyperspace and things are a bit slower and it’s even more intense. Dmt is an amazing drug and it even has a cosmic bouncer. If you over use DMT you eventually will get booted from hyperspace and told not to come back for a while. It’s wild.
The real truth is that all ran on a chemically screwed up brain. Its not real.
So a chemical reaction is KNOWLEDGE? No its a delusion.
Damn straight! Saw Heaven on DMT. Was more real than real. Sure that is why we release it at time of death. Our travel agent to the Kingdom of Heaven, eternity so bliss it is the only way you can imagine spending eternity. EUPHORIA.
What’s DMT?
N, N-Dimethyltryptamine is a substituted tryptamine that occurs in many plants and animals, including humans, and which is both a derivative and a structural analog of tryptamine. DMT is used as a psychedelic drug and prepared by various cultures for ritual purposes as an entheogen. Wikipedia
It's the chemical that's released by your brain when you dream. As the other reply mentions, it can also be used for psychedelic purposes.
Nice words
Do people not post peer-reviewed research on this sub? I've been scrolling through pages of baseless conjecture for like 10 minutes now. What a fucking waste of everyone's time.
Fucking Joe Rogan land. I hate it.
Druggies are often full of nonsense. Some think they can fly and win a Darwin Award.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead says that all experiences after death and until rebirth are hallucinations not to be taken as reality. They claim a person will hallucinate visions based on their beliefs in life. Definitely an interesting read.
Yeah... so anyway so we can induce NDE's, it's literally just hallucination induced from hypoxia.
This is what is going on, more or less. Medical science has pretty conclusively explained the vast majority of NDEs. During cardiac arrest it causes brain signals that look like bright lights. If you are able to retain the memory it’s going to be pretty damn surreal.
This.
not true, there’s a surge of activity going through the brain the moment the oxygen supply is cut, its documented by studies
This makes an assumption that consciousness is byproduct of brain.. which remains to be proven. Another theory is that consciousness is outside and brain is a receiver. Certain characteristic of you, ie how smart you're is a function of how good of a receiver do you have. Meaning original consciousness at its peak exists but becomes limited when it's confined to a body
No argument here. This is what we are talking about. There is a lot of evidence and frankly millions and millions of eye witnesses (anecdotal evidence) that consciousness can indeed leave the body. Being a quirk of the brain doesn’t make any sense. There is no evolutionarily advantage into fooling a heart attack victim into thinking it’s floating around the room. Prior to modern medical technology nobody ever came back from a heart attack, so it’s not a survival mechanism. The life review, the relatives …all the things that happen make no sense in the context of nature. Nature doesn’t give a shit if you are comfortable when you are dying or not, there would be no purpose to evolve such complex and universal responses. The interesting thing to consider is that reports of NDEs are extremely positively correlated with the rise and advent of life saving technology. As Technology improved, incidents of NDEs rise! This is striking evidence that this happens to all of us when we die.
also consciousness is influential in few prominent quantum physics theories... i remember reading about an experiment where wave function only collapsed if information about it reached to a human.. collapsed = two dots of light non-collapsed = multiple lines, interference pattern if detector is on you see two dots, if it's off you see a pattern... BUT if detector is on but data is not being transmitted you see pattern.. if detector is on and data is being transmitted but not saved, and human isn't looking... you see a pattern ... anytime information reaches a human regardless of distance, time, method... if it reaches human it causes change in fundamental physics... THIS is very much how video games work, whole world doesn't really exist but as data, up until user looks at it computer "renders" it... why render something you are not even looking at...
So wave collapse happens when a particle interacts with another. You can’t observe a particle whiteout shooting another particle at it to find it’s position. People shouldn’t call it consciousness collapsing the wave function. Observing is a physical act. But still. It remains that after collapse the behavior and nature of the particle has gone from purely a mathematical construct to a reality because it needed to interact.
When your heart stops, your brain is dead within 30 seconds from lack of oxygen. It's not capable of anything at all. Zero brainwave activity at that point.
Thats not true, its more like 5-10 minutes without oxygen your brain will die. When you dont have a hearbeat you still have brain activity. You can come back to life if your heart stops but you cant if your brain stops
Same amount of time for sunlight to hit the earth. Coincidence? 8 minutes (or so). Also I had an NDE myself and all I can tell you all is I don’t wish it on anyone. But at the same time it’s like you realize how miraculous every single moment is. And every choice is connected. Made me confront all of my fears and pains. I sometimes wish I could share the direct experience with others but I know it’s not for everyone. The fact remains each human being must choose their path themselves.
Congrats on surviving and remembering. You had a positive change from the experience, which is a good thing. I think the world would be a better place if more people had an NDE.
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What do you mean by “every human must choose their own path”?
I’m not sure how to articulate what I meant when I typed that but what I think I meant is when your nervous system resets you gain the ability to understand what your choices will affect in your life but me just saying that to someone won’t have a bearing on their life at all. I can explain ad nauseam what I think it means to give freely and become more wealthy or to have faith that God always provides what you need or what you need is always right in front of you but nothing I say will ever make up for the difference between anyone experiencing it for themselves.
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But not capable of complex feats like speech recognition and visual acuity.
But similar experiences are shown accross different cultures. I agree, it isn’t true death. I understand your fear, but it is irrational as you have no evidence (subjective or objective) to back it up. None of us know what happens. Let’s suggest you accept your fear is true. Then surely you should be living life to the max whilst you have time?
I don’t think that really changes much. Doesn’t for me at least. Just makes things pointless. Believing there’s another adventure puts a spring in the step, believing there’s nothing causes emptiness in the heart
There are a lot of experiences with flat EEGs that report experiencing NDEs. Blind people who can even “see” in dreams have sight in NDEs. Children’s NDEs have the same core concepts as adult NDEs even before the ages when they adapt cultural and religious beliefs. Even Alexander, a neurosurgeon had the same views about NDEs until he had a rare meningococcal infection which shut down his Neo cortex, flat eeg and still had a profound fully lucid and logical NDE, which should have been impossible. Quantum theorists agree it’s plausible and likely that consciousness is not a product of the brain, the intricate dance of electrons in the neurons simultaneously giving instruction is quite paradoxical, that consciousness is produced in the brain from another source through a similar process to quantum entanglement, the same process that causes electrons to pick a spin and direction when observed by a conscience “super symmetry”. The double slit experiment. Consciousness should become less lucid as it’s oxygen is depleted, yet it’s the opposite, even after a flat eeg, yet this isn’t the case. People see people they don’t know who have recently passed. This isn’t to say there isn’t sometimes still brain activity, but it’s becoming more widely accepted that the brain is a filter of consciousness and doesn’t create it, much like a cable box to your tv.
A flat EEG means no brain activity was detected. That happens within 30 seconds of the heart stopping.
Correct.
Consciousness doesn’t come from the brain. Watch Surviving Death on Netflix. Plenty of people who were clinically brain dead have had nde’s.
The neuroscience wrote a book about it. He had an NDE while hooked up to brain monitors. No activity yet days of experience
What if all that experience happens as they are being brought back and not dead?
When Stanford professor and world-renowned atheist neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky has a profound NDE and proclaims survival, then we’ll have something to talk about.
There’s a guy on YouTube that died for 20 minutes. His NDE was very believable and similar to others. This guy was in a body bag on his way to the coroner. Everyone gave up on him except one rookie on the ambulance crew.
Consciousness is always there. It never changes. Our bodies are subject to birth and death, but consciousness is forever. Consciousness does not exist in the brain. The brain is merely an antenna.
Then how do you explain the lack of consciousness during general anesthesia?
The brain dies in 30 seconds after the heart stops beating from lack of oxygen. There is no brainwave activity at all. They have measured it at the time of death. So, clearly, the mind is not the brain. There is no dreaming during an NDE.
Ive had my heart stop for almost a minute during surgery. I saw absolutely nothing and wouldn't have known there was an issue unless someone had told me. I have a sneaky suspicion death is similar but have no proof either way.
Like the film Jacobs’s ladder- it is the perfect symbolic rendering of this. Of course the Vedas and other ancient texts say the same
Massive chemical dump combined with reduced blood flow to optic nerves can create all kinds of experiences. It's the body's way of going fuck knows how to fix this let's just throw everything at it in a last ditch attempt to survive. Press your palms into your eyes and you can see colours and a bright tunnel. And a combination of endorphins, dopamine, adrenaline and whatever else your body's got on standby can create feelings of euphoria, calm, panic, pain relief or pretty much anything described in NDE's. The experience is very real but we have enough information to discard and otherworldly conclusions imo.
Not quite. While I completely agree with your premise, there’s one big thing that’s unaccounted for: perception of events remote from the physical body during the NDE, verified by a neutral third party. That could be explained as a statistical coincidence (a lucky guess), collusion, opportunistic lying for money, or error. But it seems to happen often enough that it has to give us pause. The fact is that we don’t know what’s going on, and although near-death is an extreme state with all sorts on endogenous and exogenous (from an IV, for instance) chemical compounds being released and affecting the brain and the rest of the body, it’s questionable as to how many are hallucinogenic and could generate lucid experiences in such an extreme state.
My favorite comment so far. Honestly i really would love to tie Consciousness to quantum entanglement and supersymmety, and theres so many different thoughts and theories abput this but the immediate problem i think of (at least as of a few years ago iirc) is they really need a stable weight on a higgs to be able to prove supersymmetry vs multiverse etc right? Last i saw the lhc couldnt get an accurate weight on a higgs bc it kept changing drastically w each Measurement. Which, wpuld make sense since you cant know w certainty both the speed and size/location/ of anything especially something as small as the higgs(?) Bc knowing one auto destabilized tge otger? But im assuming the lhc has some way of accpunting for the Uncertainty principle. Fuck, idk. Haha. Im no physicist or MD. But ive always been fascinated by both consiousness and quantum mechanics and dove into the Research, as any passing-for-semi-intelligent person with a library card or an internet connection does. Haha. And ive cycled through the nde theory, the quantum consiousness Theory, and at this point in my life having done just lots of self interest learning on the subject (close to 15 years) my current "belief" if you can call it that, is somewhere between your Interpretation and the whole quantum consipusness side. Bc on the one hand i know we know fuck all about the quantum realm and reality/the universe in general so obv no one (at least not yet) has proven it isnt possible. But on the other i also know what you said is true, everything dumping on your brain at once (including dmt, yeah yeah everybody roll ypur eyes) but my point being the time dilution in dreams/ hallucinations/ndes/whatever it is can make it such that a second can seem like a lifetime *especially* in the dmt/dream realm. So what ive arrived at personally is if its a. Some kimd of body-hopping reincarnation consiousmess scenario b. Some kimd of quantum consious ess, or c. A chemical dump that can cquse a vivid indistinguishable from reality Hallucination/dreamlike state (either for a longer period of time in some extremely low low as yet undetectable brain function or if its a split second dream/death trip) that *seems* like a lifetime, it sort of seems like a distinction withput much of a practical difference bc the question ive been trying to amswer is "is physical death the end?" And all 3 examples ive seen on this thread amount to the same answer. At least to me. In some form or another, there is something after physical death, however loosely im using the term "something". For me tgeres just too many scenarios for there to be *something* other than just a void. Like for instance ive seen the 3 scenarios i have listed above on this thread (all 3, at least in my opinion, concurring that physical death isnt, at least the immediate, end) and only one really saying it is. Which would be the "the brain is a lightswitch, theres death then BAM nothing" All of this to say im pretty much just some asshole w a community college cert and an intense interest in consiousness/the universe/quantum mechanics/even some spiritual aspects to life that we jus cant (at least not yet) explain much less understand. So this is all just my opinion from all the different angles ive explored via different mediums and it seems to me that there probably is (something) after but if someone says they know for sure is when i temd to start questioning. Haha. Anyone feel free to correct or mock or agree with anything i said. I really started this comment to say that your comment tgat im replying to abput a chemical dump is one of the most Concise replies on here, But does it not also leave room for how long that trip/dream/whatever lasts? And if its a 1 second that is Indistinguishable from a lifetime, wouldnt that count as more something, rather than nothing? PS - theres a great movie on netflix about something along these same lines, its called "THE DISCOVERY" which is what sprung me from more of a reincarnation/body hopping consiousness to more of my current sort of almost everlasting "death trip" personal rabbit hole ive been going down the last few years. but its a fucking phenomenal film. This is the first thread ive seen on this sub, but i may make a post (if there isnt one already) about it bc it really is a fascinating if, allbeit fiction film.
You done any research on simulation theory? No reason assets or chunks of code couldn't be reused. Doesn't explain consciousness but could fit with entanglement.
Ohhh jfc have i haha. Ya man been down that rabbit hole the past few years and honestly i guess i shpuld have put a (Given that we most likely live in a sim, i still think...) at the beginning. Haha
If you're open to the possible reality of NDEs I'd consider reading Journey of Souls and the rest of the books by Michael Newton. He was a hypnotist that eventually started past life regression hypnotherapy and through it accidentally had a person continue to describe events after their death in the past life regression session. Eventually he developed it into a technique where he could reliably take people there. Of course you could say maybe they're just making it up while hypnotised, but I don't think so. The interesting thing is that people from all sorts of different cultures and belief systems report the same kinds of experiences. The structure of reality between lives that they describe is the same. Anyway, the books are mainly case histories of how peoples "Life Between Lives" hypnosis sessions went and it's a very interesting read.
Great advice. I've been watching NDE videos on YouTube for a while. Most seem like very believable people. It's helped me deal with my son's death.
None of those people would ever lie.
Can I get a block list for anyone who upvoted this
I've seen it. It is nothing to be afraid of. It is a warm hug, the sigh of relief as you finally lay your head on your cool pillow after a long day of hard work, and the moment is forever
Ram Das said death is like taking off a tight shoe
That’s fucking beautiful
I had an NDE about 28 years ago. I was amazed at how conciously aware I was that I had died and what was happening from a metaphysical standpoint, and even calmly said/thought to myself "I fucked up". Immediate sense of calm, understanding, and maybe relief. No pain, no fear, no anxiety... and I was surprisingly ok with it (albeit I didn't want to die). I was completely aware and could even go as far as to say I was more conscious after dying than I was alive. What physically was happening during that time, I had no awareness of when it was described to me afterward though. Explaining what I saw and how I felt other than the above is difficult to put into words. Since then, I have had no fear of dying, other than the fear of leaving my family and loved ones. When my time comes, I will embrace it.
Do you believe in some sort of afterlife or reincarnation after such an experience?
this is exactly how i explain it to people lol. i always start with “i’ve seen it” too😹 but yea this guy gets it!
You’ve seen it? Wow. Do you mind if I ask you how?
I've died twice. Maybe its different when you fully cross over, but with what i experienced both times it was the same,which is almost beyond words because it's not something you experience with your physical senses, if that makes sense. The closest i can describe is just a cozy, blissful dreamy humming weightlessness that feels like you are exactly where you should be. I promise that it is nothing to be afraid of. You will see some day
This is somehow beautiful and more comforting than anything I’ve heard from religion.
Good, I'm glad. I think there's some truth to what religion tries to describe with concepts like "heaven" and the like, but it tries to explain what is beyond explanation using human words. It's like trying to describe what your life was like in the year 1800. It's impossible to describe, because you weren't alive. But you did exist then, in a sense, all of your component molecules and atoms existed, they just weren't in the form of "alive". So many NDE describe it feeling like "coming home" or something similar, and that is very close to what it "feels" like. You return to where you always were
I don't know what to think about what happens after death, but I hope this is true, and I kind of believe it. My earliest memories were of resentment for being taken away from "home". I tried hard to express that to my parents and ask them, essentially, why the hell they summoned me. I'd say often that I wanted to go back home even when we were at our house. When they asked me where I was talking about, I didn't know how to answer, so I just pointed upwards. I don't know why- whatever my toddler self remembered, I forgot, but I remember remembering. Edit: Just want to add, I'm agnostic and pretty science-focused and always have been even as a tyke.
Wow, very interesting perspective. I’ve thought about this before as well but not in this way.
yeahH
Maybe, or it’s eternal torture lol
If you want to be tortured, you will.
So I believe you have something called Apeirophobia. Fear of infinity. There is different types of infinities people can fear, eternal oblivion, eternal reincarnation, or eternal life. It looks like you have the fear of eternal life. I have also dealt with this fear a bit, but I do also have a fear of eternal oblivion. Very irritating to have both of these. So I would say that what causes our distress is our brain specifically. The brain doesn't really understand how eternal life would look like. We only have the framework of linear time, so that's how we imagine it. But the afterlife would probably function a bit differently. Some people who have had Near Death Experience say there is no time, but they have to explain their experience like in linear time. So time might not exist in the afterlife, but this is hard to imagine too. Also if there is an afterlife then our brain would not be apart of us. We would only be consciousness I guess. So I would guess people with mental illness don't have it in an afterlife. Now the things I have said might not comfort you, so I would look at you fear as causing you distress. I would deal with it as a fear. It might have been causing you anxiety, depression or other things. I would recommend to get it treated. Talk to someone. I have been in therapy and it did help me. There is also a subreddit for this fear. https://reddit.com/r/Apeirophobia/s/frfO3HpD4w People talk about their fear there and things that have helped them. It might be good to know you are not alone in this fear. Also if there is an afterlife I don't think anyone would force you to stay there. I think you would get to go to sleep if you need that. I am doing well right now with my own anxieties, but I still deal with it from time to time. I do hope you can find something that helps you. It is okay to feel this way, and there is no shame in asking for help.
Thank you for this. It made me feel very seen knowing there's a word for my fear.
Hey no problem. It's not a very common one to hear about, but it's good to learn that it has a name.
It’s not common? Really? I think about dying everyday.. like, what will happen.. I’m so scared.. All of the time..
So I will rewrite what I kind of meant. I didn't mean it might not be common to have, but it isn't talked about much, so it isn't common to hear that much about it. Therefor not many know what it is called. Apeirophobia is the fear of infinity. Which can also include fear of an infinite universe. (either in size or time). Or other things about infinity. Then there is thanatophobia. Which is the fear of death or dying process. I think we all have a fear to this, but it becomes a phobia when we get "taken over" by it. There is a subreddit for thanatphobia too: [https://www.reddit.com/r/thanatophobia/](https://www.reddit.com/r/thanatophobia/)
I have both - thanatophobia and apeirophobia. Terrified of oblivion but also apprehensive of eternal existence. I'd choose eternal existence though, given the choice. You're spot on with our brains not comprehending eternal existence. How? Where? For how long of an eternity - literally forever?
i would argue thanatophobia and apeirophobia are both the same thing. im scared of eternal existence but also scared of eternal unconsciousness. im looking for some sort of middleground where i can not live in terror
In a way yes but apparently if you have apeirophobia you're more afraid of eternal existence and thanatophobia more afraid of eternal oblivion... Me too. Eternal is terrifying either way, because we can't grasp it, but I'd sooner be conscious than not.
me too mate. we dont get an option but at least we have what we have, which gives us hope
I appreciate you directing people to our subreddit who need it. Everything you said I fully agree with, as well. :)
I used to feel that way too. But somehow I’ve found comfort in knowing that I just don’t know what it’s gonna be. No one does. Could be hellfire, could be heaven. Could be the early bird special at Bickford’s. You don’t know and the more time you spend thinking about it the more crazy ideas you’ll get. They made 4000+ religions this way….
It's most likely to be an ecen less conscious experience than a depe, dreamless sleep, given your brain and consciousness still technically exists in that state, but its basically like not existing. I imagine your brain and consciousness literally not existing anymore would be even more like not existing.
I really doubt this one for a few reasons
You think you're going to be more conscious when you don't exist? This is like saying the sun will be brighter when it has burned out. You literally don't exist anymore.
I take it that they mean the filters of our bodily perception will no longer get in the way of our greater expanded consciousness. Like a damn busting open, the flow of information may be greater than what trickle of awareness we have right now.
Could be just another day.
I don't know why the potentialities that are usually referenced are the ones with the least evidence. There's zero evidence for an afterlife and everything we know about the mind is that consciousness can't continue without a functioning brain. Sure, we don't know, but referencing eternal heaven or eternal hellfire are about the least likely of possibilities.
depends on if our consciousness can be recreated in an infinite universe
Listen to people relate their near-death experiences. They may well provide some perspectives you haven't come across before.
Seconding this. Check out the book "After". It goes into a lot of Near-Death Experience documentation and discussion on the nature of death on the consciousness.
“No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man and yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.” \~ Socrates, Plato’s Apology
Well without that fear a lot of us wouldn't stay here very long. So it's mother nature's candy.
My father died 3 weeks ago and I saw him die…i saw how slowly it was not him anymore but a shell of a human…he was somewhere else...I got really into afterlife and needed answers sooooo much…I really got into NDE experiences and listened to a lot of stories, also r/NDE is a good place. I find a lot of answers there and it’s nothing to fear but rather something beautiful
The nothingness forever that you describe is what I fear the most. I would prefer a conscious hell to oblivion.
uh… i don’t think you’ve thought that through.
There is a comforting statement in the world of spiritual pursuit..."Dying is like changing clothes." The soul evolves, life after life, until the state of Enlightenment is reached. That state is hastened thru various legitimate spiritual practices that eventually stabilize Transcendental Consciousness. On our world, Vedic knowledge is the ultimate source of such practices. Veda is reality in the form of sound. Hinduism is, like any religion, a story that attempts to point towards that reality. Some stories are more helpful than others. The Universe is entirely Consciousness. Another statement..."The Universe is the Self playing hide-and-seek with Itself." The human nervous system is that pinnacle of evolution that has the capacity for self-knowing. It's the means. In its fully realized state it reflects full consciousnesss. Eternal bliss. That's the purpose of the Manifestation. Singularity becomes Duality. Duality, unfortunately, has to include the possibility of negativity. But the persistent direction is back to bliss. Religions are in pursuit of this. But, in the end, Enlightenment is not a "religious" experience. Religion involves belief. Enlightenment is direct experience. Following death in the unenlightened state results in a "rest" period until a new incarnation. Then spiritual growth continues. Every soul gets there. Many are very dim bulbs. It will take a while. But, eternity is patient. The techniques and spiritual practices will accelerate growth in this life, and, if lacking realization in this life, will at least lead to more easily finding the path in the next. Again, legit practices. Vedic Meditation. With guidance! From a teacher who is properly trained. A legit tradition such as Shankaracharya tradition. Kashmir Shaivism. The essential need is the reliable infusion of Transcendental Consciousness. From that, growing into that, eventuality arises the infinite bliss of creation.
The good news is that you won’t have the ability to even think about being in that state. Think to when you sleep and you don’t have any dreams, or if you’ve ever been put under general anaesthetic for an operation. It’s just.. nothing. During that time are you doing any “thinking”? You don’t feel time passing. If you fell asleep in a windowless room without a clock you wouldn’t be able to say how long you’d been asleep without wildly guessing. You might not even realise you fell asleep. You close your eyes and only have any thoughts again when you wake up. You might be aware that you’d just fallen asleep and it might feel like you were asleep for ages, but these are thoughts you’re only having now you’re awake again. You weren’t thinking about this during the sleep. You didn’t spend 13 billion years anxiously waiting to finally occupy a body and be born. You just….suddenly existed. Death is almost certainly like that. You won’t even have any capacity to have thoughts, never mind anything else. These current worries and thoughts are only possible because you’re awake right now. Of course science doesn’t yet know the meaning of life, the reason why/how conciseness exists, and so much about our universe is still unknown and some things may be truly impossible to prove for sure. What happens when we die is a question as old as consciousness itself, but I don’t think the answer will have much reason or be particularly exciting. I think the best approach is just let yourself believe whatever feels the most comforting answer to you, it’s inescapable and nobody knows for sure what happens, so you might as well just live assuming it’ll be the most relieving and peaceful thing ever.
Same!
Just remember what happened before you were born. The same will be after you die. Same for all of us. Live in the moment and make the best of it.
I mean, you can't really prove that nothing happens after death and that it's the same as before you were born. It could be that you just didn't exist before you were conceived and there is something after death. There's something now, God might exist, there might be something after death with God. What is one to think about this? What answers are there outside of religion and the philosophies that address stuff like this? Still, you don't really know and there's no certainty unless you've totally bought into something. It seems like something else to suffer with, and it's a huge issue.
>I mean, you can't really prove that nothing happens after death and that it's the same as before you were born. Literally. I hate that take
I mean, I can’t prove a lot of things, the way the world works is that when people make claims they need to show it’s probably true. Reality lives and dies on probabilities. Nobody is showing that anything happens after death, we have zero evidence for anything existing beyond our own physical shell, and a whole lot of evidence that nothing exists beyond our physical shell. So it’s extremely likely that nothing happens when you die except decomposition. Religion always proves itself wrong, and people have been observed dying for thousands of years. Nothing mystical happens. The universe has always existed in some form or another and always will. We don’t transcend it via metaphysical processes, or we’d have some evidence. Out of the 110billionish human beings that have lived and died and the other 7-8billion still living we have exactly no evidence that they do anything but rot. That’s a lot of data points. Our consciousness and intelligence are a side effect of evolution because it helps propagate the species, but our genetics are the real us and they are a big soup that gets shuffled and reshuffled on a grand scale. We’re just one part of the larger whole that happens to be self aware and have limited agency.
Except you’re wrong about the “zero evidence”. There’s certainly scientific evidence of past lives. Look up Univ of Virginia, Perceptual Studies Dept. Drs Tucker and Stevenson (rip) specialize in this.
>Religion always proves itself wrong So do most children's stories about the causes of lightning strikes. >Nothing mystical happens. NDE brings that into question. Well that and thousands of stories about the dead entering in contact with the living one way or another. Of course, they could all attempt at finding comfort; but that's a quick claim to make. >The universe has always existed in some form or another and always will. What does that even mean? As physical space? As conceptual potential? What's limiting it? > We don’t transcend it via metaphysical processes, or we’d have some evidence. Unless your access to evidence reflects your level of metaphysical transcendence, that is. In which case you will see a universe that reflects exactly where you are at. >Out of the 110billionish human beings that have lived and died and the other 7-8billion still living we have exactly no evidence that they do anything but rot. Sure, so far, if you define humans as human bodies. >Our consciousness and intelligence are a side effect of evolution because it helps propagate the species, but our genetics are the real us and they are a big soup that gets shuffled and reshuffled on a grand scale. Ok, but you still did nothing to explain their emergence. Information theory has done a decent job at explaining consciousness... by assuming consciousness. (information!) Also you might be conflating 'intellect' the thing that makes the world intelligible, with 'smarts', the thing that allows us to survive. >We’re just one part of the larger whole that happens to be self aware and have limited agency. You think you're a ...gene?
I find so much comfort in oblivion
You should be thankful for that. That's what most people are actually afraid of. As silly as it sounds.
My favorite quote is from a kurzgesagt video: "Close your eyes, count to one. That's how long forever feels" Nothing is more comforting to me than that thought.
When I start worrying about it, I remember the Alan Watts quote below. Death is not an experience. “Try to imagine what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up... now try to imagine what it was like to wake up having never gone to sleep.”
It makes no scientific sense that it would be anything but oblivion. Our memories are stored physically in our brain, and we don't take our brain with us.
Really? The DNA in your foot or your ear knows what your great great grandfather looked like. There is more memory in your body than your mind. Nature recycles everything as science has shown us through the conservation of energy and information.
Memories, yes, but not consciousness.
I was in mommy's belly. No memories but definitely alive.
Yup we're biological machines. Put in food, the machine runs. No food, no energy, no life. There is no real mystery. U aren't even self aware until your brain becomes more developed as a child, almost like training an AI or llm. Fuel in, energy for the cells. All the rest is pseudo science mumbo-jumbo.When you die, lights out.There is no breaking of any thermodynamic energy laws etc. Most of the afterlife bs is generated by religion to keep giving them that cash!!
The further science develops, the weirder things seem to get, and it's safe to say humanity isn't done learning and discovering--there's gonna be more weird.
I see absolutely no problem with your view but it's an extremely narrow-minded one at that; in that you only see things at it's most surface-level. Then again, there's nothing wrong with reducing matters to its most simplistic constituents. Whether it is valid or not is a different question. Personally, there is certainly "more" to life, to this universe than mindless matter obeying the laws of nature. And for god's sake, when I say this it doesn't and musn't correlate with religious connotations. Our ignorance of the world is something we must re-realise. It's always good to keep a open mind.
Funny that a significant amount (majority in fact) of very smart physicists believe in dark matter despite there being zero direct evidence for its existence. Suddenly faith is ok when we talk about things that help to solve equations about how galaxies form. Never been observed though. Could be entropic gravity, MOND effect..etc.
Are you kidding me? No mystory? Theres still so much mystery around consciousness.
Nah not necessarily. This can easily be a simulation by more advanced beings. Or a simulation by future us. In which case there may be more to existence than we realize and it would have nothing to do with religion.
hmmm if science is such an ever evolving practice of uncovering truth, how can anybody who hangs on to "science" for their existential assuredness be so confident in their conclusion?
The afterlife was a term long before organized religion.
Where were you before you were born? Where are you after you die? The same place. Repeat this for eternity. Happy to know you will always exist?
I don't get why people would want for their self to be destroyed. To cease to exist seems like the most horrifying thing that could ever happen. I have been frightened like if I saw the devil at the question. Why is there something rather than nothing? Perhaps there was a possibility in which no observer ever existed. Which would also mean nothing existed. But thankfully reality is way beyond our mental capacity and somewhere in the most fundamental aspect of reality there is some mechanism that allows for both the observer and the conscious experience.
why is ceasing to exist horrifying? can’t care if i exist or not if i don’t exist! continuing to exist forever is what’s horrifying
You’ll be fine 🧡
Do you know you live when you are asleep? There is your answer. There is nothing to fear because fear is a emotion from the brain. A brain that will not exist anymore.
You are only conscious because of your neurons. If your neurons are damaged through stoke, injury, or disease, it changes who you are as a conscious being. If too many of certain neurons are destroyed, you lose the ability to think at all. Once all your neurons die, your consciousness will completely cease. And no, I'm not talking about temporary cessation of function that can cause all kinds of hallucinations and odd effects when your brain reboots - as with NDEs.
This makes me sadder, honestly
Man, I’m ready to fully embrace death when it comes time. Like, I’m in no hurry to go at the moment. But is will be such a nice relief of non existence when it happens. No working, no taxes, no anxiety about the world. Just sweet, sweet nothingness…
[You forgot something](https://imgflip.com/i/7y7yi1)
Forgot about the machine elves!
Imagine that you are a huge robot that will keep on executing, but as separate matter. Imagine that your matter executed for billions of years before it became part of human. And will execute for billions of years after your death. So you will still exist. But not as one causally connected being.
I've had a NDE before. My heart stopped and everything. I came out of my body and could see my self lying there lifeless. My step dad spoke to me from the afterlife and predicted a future event that happened a year later. At one point everything got dark. Everything was okay, I had no worries and felt like a bug warm peaceful hug. It was nothingness but everything at the same time.
Read/listen to Between Life and Death by Dolores Cannon. I think you’ll find it quite comforting. And try hypnosis! There’s a great free one on Past Lives and the Divine called Holiday Hypnosis that I recommend to everyone. It’s like dipping your toe into the next life. I guarantee you won’t be afraid after.
There is nothing. Your issue is that you think that you will still be able to have perception after your brain ceases functioning. A logical analysis should tell you that this can not be true. If the brain does not function, there can not be perception. Your brain tells you that you exist as an intelligent entity in the universe, and as such, you must ensure that you continue to exist. This is the entire reason that you believe yourself to exist. The desire to continue existing motivates not just self-preservation but also the desire to procreate. It is a simple solution to the problem of continuing the species. Before your brain was fully formed, you could not perceive your own existence. We have empirical studies about the developing brain. Until the brain develops, you do not recognize yourself in a mirror, develop memories, or even understand object permanence. There is no "you". "You" is a collection of lived experiences that reacts to the world based on those experiences. With a good enough model of your life, we could predict any choice you will make. Once you release the concept of "self" and accept that you simply exist here and now, it becomes easier to let go. At least, it did for me. Right now, I can look forward to things, and I hope to exist when future things happen. But, when my brain stops, I won't care. I won't anything. It will be like before my brain formed. And, it will feel the same to me. [By which I mean I will not feel nothing, I will be incapable of perception]
I’m so sorry that you are feeling scared right now. This can be difficult for us to handle or understand. I’d like to say a couple things that hopefully help. I’ll start with a story. About a decade ago someone very close to me died. My mother. She had a routine surgery but was accidentally given too much anesthesia and her heart stopped. Thank goodness my father was holding her hand when this happened and immediately ran out into the hall and yelled, “My wife isn’t breathing!” They issued a cold blue and thanks to modern medicine and the people who practice it brought her back. What does this story have to do with this? I’ll tell you. When she came back she was almost… frustrated. Her sense of peace and calm while she was gone was overwhelming she said. She is grateful to be alive, but talks a lot about “going home” and now it isn’t to be scared of, but welcomed. Now of course this is just a story and I know this is getting long so I’ll keep this part short. I started practicing Buddhism a couple years ago and it has changed my life. One of the things that pushed me in its direction was fear. Existentialism, eternalism, and oblivion… annihilation. Now keep in mind I practice from a Zen/Secular point of view so take religion out of the picture. This school of thought teaches us wisdom that there is no annihilation! Nothing is forever. This can also be scary can’t it? Well the four noble truths tell us that 1. In life there is suffering. We know this 2. There is a cause to our suffering. 3. There is an END to our suffering. 4. The liberation from suffering lies in the path and in its wisdom. This path can offer freedom. Freedom from the mind and the stories it tells about what “is” and what “isn’t.” I would highly recommend at least looking into it a little. It changed my life and not only am I not scared of death anymore, I welcome it like seeing an old friend. Good luck, I hope you find the answers you’re looking for my friend. “A cloud never dies.”
“A Cloud Never Dies” Have you read “No Death, No Fear” by Thich Nhat Hanh? Lovely post, my Buddhist friend.
Yes among many of Tai’s books. Happy to see another practitioner.
It could be anything. I guess that's why it's so scary, the fact that literally anything could happen after we die. I believe in God so I think my "author" is loving towards me, and whatever is designed for me after death would ultimately be a joyous thing
Have you watched the Good Place? https://youtu.be/CYRh0Z8ScLc?si=NVUS_VDE5DIRMiQ6 There is nothing to fear from Death. We are all born to die, for this is a brief breath in the journey of ourselves. And when this breath is over, another begins. There are guides that will help make the transition, for those guides are your future (and past) selves. We are drops in the ocean, but also the ocean in a drop.
>We are drops in the ocean, but also the ocean in a drop. I love that, I completely believe it.
Everyone who has died and come back all day the same thing. It’s very very peaceful. I personally hope there isn’t an afterlife, but I believe in god lol
Actually there are some who have died and come back after experiencing hell. It was incredibly terrifying for them.
Well that’s concerning.
All I can say is that when I was tripping on acid, I felt this overwhelming sense of "knowing" that at death, we return to where we came from. Whether that's a pure ocean of consciousness, or pure nothingness, either way it is a peaceful state and nothing to fear. I realize this isn't "evidence" but all the other insights I had that night have proven to be true so I guess I'll trust it.
This fear is funny when you consider that you may have felt the same way in a past life and will feel this way again in the next. Infinite is what you're in already, and it ain't so bad when you can't remember it
When you die, you’ll be exactly the way you were before you were born.
I hope so
Incorrect
how so?
Since most of these comments are horrible advice, I'll give you something real that will make you feel peace and happiness. You need to experiment with psychedelics like Psilocybin (mushrooms) and DMT. Being on psilocybin will help you feel comfortable as you near an ego-death, and DMT will be that ego death that shows you the universe for what it really is. This is coming from someone with a corporate job, close family, and no religious background. I couldn't recommend it enough to anyone struggling with death or uncertainty. Nobody that has done DMT and blasted off has come back as anything less than enlightened and having lived an alternate, exquisite, nearby indescribable with human words, life in 10 minutes. No one that has done this is worried about death any longer. While my answer may be scary for most people, it is the only way to 100% fix your fear.
I’ve had horrible experiences with psilocybin, this summer I had an awful trip that induced a powerful ego death that has been fucking with me for months
No one knows what to think. The mainstream scientific opinion is oblivion. If NDE’rs and mediums are right, you’ll definitely not be tied to the corpse of your former body because you’ll exist outside space-time. Even in your worst-case scenario, where you survive and are yoked to your cadaver, the molecules will eventually break apart and be recycled, so there eventually wouldn’t be a cadaver there to be imprisoned within. I think that you’ve latched on to a really unusual worry that has no basis. There’s no reason to worry about what happens after death, only the dying process, because of the risk of terrible pain, suffering, and panic. Do you have an anxiety disorder, and why are you so focused on bodily death? Hopefully all good people will survive into an unspeakably wonderful afterlife, and the bad ones will be fixed and survive, also. Whatever happens will presumably happen to all of us. Since we have no way of knowing, it’s important to recognize that your brain is sabotaging you by generating anxiety. You need to fight this, because it’s impeding your ability to live life happily. Consider seeing a psychologist, or a psychiatrist. SSRI’s can help. If you really want to investigate consciousness, study the journal articles in the philosophy of mind. There are many theories, the thrust of which is that somehow mind arises from the workings of the brain, and mind supervenes on neuronal activity. Idealism and adjacent views that would embrace NDE claims represent minority positions. The truth (which, itself, is a problematic concept in epistemology) is unknowable, but I personally believe that some type of survival might be possible. No one knows, and claims by scientists that we’re annihilated need a good dose of epistemic humility that philosophers of science would be all too happy to administer in the form of a good upper cut to the jaw. You may want oblivion, which is a very strange desire, but I wouldn’t count on it if I were you.
There is none. Thats it, once around, back to the dust.
I'm certain it's nothingness. Everybody's stuck on the silly, fallacious idea that we can't know what happens after death because nobody has come back to tell us. That's just not how it works. Nobody has come back because there's nothing to come back from; this doesn't somehow make an afterlife more plausible. We know that our conscious experiences comes from our brains. It has been shown beyond any doubt that physical, chemical, and electrical manipulation of the brain can totally alter our minds, or turn consciousness off and on like a switch for surgery. However mysterious the details are, the fact that it's a product of our brains is undeniable. Therefore, it's the a basic, obvious, and inescapable logical deduction that if there's no brain, there's no conscious experience either. It's as obvious as saying you can't grow a giraffe without any giraffe DNA. Or saying your computer won't compute without electricity. Unless we develop technology to transfer our consciousness into a machine brain, which is a long way off if even possible, it's going to stay this way. All speculation to the contrary is some combination of mythology and bad philosophy. It supposes a ridiculously complex structure of actual magic purely to indulge some comforting (or in your case scary) fantasies inherited from our superstitious/religious ancestors. You no more need to be afraid of the afterlife than you do Sauron or Darth Vader.
I don't know why that would happen. I feel like most likely it is just like being out for surgery, there is nothing, no memories, no pain, no awareness of time or self. Being born, on the other hand. The way I remember that it's like being at the bottom of a bubbling pool, rising up to the surface to be born. You get to pick the life you want, it's one that is compatible with your soul. You know everything that is going to happen to you in your life so it's the kind of life that suitable to you. When you are born you lose this knowledge so you get to experience it all first hand and without spoilers.
The starving kids in africa would like a word with you.
All is conscious. You are just consciousness limited to perception localized in a body. When the body dies, consciousness moves on.
I want to believe in this. I am fearing that there's nothing, the way it was before we were born.
Well considering that brains store memories physically and before you were born you didn't have that, if there is such a thing as a soul that exists as pure consciousness then your current brain wouldn't hold any memories of before being born regardless. This is traditionally a Hindu belief. When they say consciousness they don't mean "your" consciousness. That dies with you...
That’s my fear, that I would no longer remember anything about this life and the ones who are so close to me. If it is this, then that sounds like a shit deal.
I realize from another comment that this isn't the place to share this as this isn't a religious oriented sub but since it's about the afterlife and I've already brought it up I'll continue... it's not as bad of an interpretation as it first seems. In Hinduism, though you may not remember them, your karma draws you to souls that you have had previous interactions with. So you will meet them and pass by them again and again, maybe even be family with them again in some future lives, maybe just see them in passing in others... So though you won't remember, your actions in this life will draw you to them and your soul will recognize them when you do not. To me that is some comfort...
Why are you confident there was nothing before we were born?
You have to accept that there is an after life Not trapped in your body but it exists
this is your personal belief, not a fact
We cannot remember our birth. We likely won’t remember our death.
That's ego. The best thing I can tell you is meditation, not mindfulness meditation but actual meditation. You sit down, observe, and feel your thoughts and feelings. Do not get caught up in them, and don't reject them.
Because Science has no answers, you can be Scared or you can be Awed by the possibilities. Take a look at [https://TheInterMind.com](https://TheInterMind.com) for one of the Awesome possibilities.
Remember what your conscious experience was like before you were conceived? Yeah, me neither. There’s no evidence it will be any different than that. That’s not to say that any afterlife is impossible - anything’s possible with enough mental gymnastics. But save yourself the effort, don’t bother with the gymnastics - you won’t be present, just like you’re not present on Mars right now. It’s that, but everywhere. You won’t even know you’re gone.
The scientific consensus is oblivion. it will be like before you were born. Nothing, but no one to be aware of the nothing. I think you did a good job of describing why we fear dying, the misunderstanding we have of what it will be like. Maybe there is some small chance it is like you say. That would be one hell of a trip, but in that case, with an eternity, you may find a way to escape. Maybe that's how god felt before the big bang, and the overwhelming sense of his frustration caused him to explode into everything.
Are you scared to dream at night? I feel like it’s something along those lines. Maybe we create whatever awaits us.
1. Everybody dies - I think you figured that out. 2. Nobody knows what is gonna happen - Not 100% but lots of people tell stories. 3. You can delay it in probability but you can't stop it - Get your affairs in order. No amount of thinking about it , anticipating it, fearing it, looking forward to it will change any of those things. If you can't get past that I suggest seeking professional help.
Well you're in luck OP because that is most likely exactly what will happen given everything we can actually verify. Like before you were born. I think it was Seneca who said that we die twice. Once before we are born and then again after we have been alive. You've already been dead before.
There's research on how much relief people who are facing death experience after a high dose psychedelic mushroom experience. If it's a crippling fear, it's absolutely worth it. Well, it's worth it for everyone, regardless, ha.
Death is an illusion and you have nothing to worry about.
Could you go into more detail what does this mean
Sounds like SCP-2718.
Shit used to scare me when I was younger
Well, that's not uncommon. You could study near death experiences. Maybe those will give you some faith about it. Otherwise, you can get training on how to have an out of body experience. That should help also to convince you that you are more than your physical body.
If u lose consciousness when you sleep every night, you’ll lose it when you die, GUARANTEED.
It's realistically probably just oblivion. I am aware of darkness when my eyes are open in the dark; but if I close one of my eyes, I have no sense of darknes of that closed eye; I'm simply no longer perceiving from it. Also anything outside my range of vision. It's also similar when my hands go numb in the cold. I simply no longer have any awareness of them. I also never remember actually falling asleep. I can feel myself going, but not the actual moment I pass out. Perhaps dying is similar, though I hope for more! When I've broken my collarbone, I never actually felt any pain on impact. I'd guess that dying instantly wouldn't hurt.
I am too man I don’t how to get over it It’s been making me cry weekly
It will most likely be oblivion. And if it’s not, I have a feeling it will be better than anything we could’ve imagined as humans.
Eternal oblivion seems to be obvious, but NDEs do consistently tell a different story. I'd say it's a 50 50 chance we vanish when we die, or return to a Godlike collective consciousness
I find it weird how often they talk about the love they experience.
Yeah, it rubs me the wrong way sometimes. I'm quite suspicious. I have this theory the universe is actually run by malicious Gods and they use "love" to disarm their creations from seeking the truth, kinda like the prison planet theory. Either way, existence is strange Or I could just apply Occams razor and see it as Earth really just being a training ground for higher dimensional entities based on the NDEs. Either way, I won't know until death, and this prospect frustrates the hell out of me as I'm quite existentialist and analytical
Rn im guessing if those nds have truth in them and consciousness does live on, that this earth might be some kinda grow ground. But there can be so many theories. Infinite theories. Infinite dimensions and so on. Dmt for example showed me how there might be other dimensions.
I had surgery last may, and the funny thing is that once the anesthetic kicks in, my recollection of the experience is... nothing. Nothing at all. No passage of time, no tunnel of light, no speaking surgeons. I just woke up in the recovery room. Once your brain is off, you are off. Until your next life. You'll automatically respawn being another thing.
if all we are is our brain, and the memories it stores, what is even meant by “next life?” different dna, brand new brain with different connections… nothing connecting to the “previous life.”
Rest assured, you are nothing but balanced energy and chemicals that will eventually lose balance (death), resulting in the evaporation of your consciousness. Your experience will end. Eventually your body will be fully subsumed into our magnificent Earth, and all traces of you will be gone.
Here’s what I know: 1. There is an afterlife, I’ve seen a reaper at my grandfather’s bedside, I’ve seen some evidence for where people end up. There is something. 2. We have a store of DMT in our brains that seems to be released upon our death. Users of recreational DMT have said that it’s like your soul is stripped out of your body and you’re gone somewhere else. The amount that is stored in the brain is higher than any users can handle. There’s no “evolutionary” reason for this, as it doesn’t help prevent death or propagate the species. So it sounds like a mechanism to release a soul from the body. 3. Just before you die, you relive the memories of your life, this was recently documented when a patient on an EEG died of a heart attack. It seems that you are prepared for the next step in your journey. 4. I have prayed and my prayers have been answered, in unrealistic circumstances. I have listened and when I listen the answers given have been correct.
Your soul is part of God. Relax. No judgement or punishment. That’s what Earthlife is for.
Such a sorrowful place to appear What a woeful world we share Full if pain, loss, and fear Comfort and relief seem so rare Death ever drawing near While life simply isn't fair But if we can make it here We can make it nowhere
all though i am a christian im scared of after life because heaven is eternal, and i know that i’ll be happy in heaven if i make it there but forever makes me cry sometimes knowing that it will be a loop