What do you think happens after death?

[AnnO'Neemus]

Well, what do you think happens?

I just woke up from a really weird, vivid dream, in which I was having a conversation with an ex-bf's mother, who was talking about their family dog, which was ill, but she said Lottie the dog wasn't really suffering, the dog didn't mind that she was going to die, because she knew she was going to expand her consciousness and was looking forward to it.

And then I woke up. And now I need to know: what really happens after we die?

 

[Yossarian]

We live on in other people's memories - sometimes I have dreamt about people I know that have died so vividly I woke up feeling like I'd had a good conversation with them.

But when the last person who remembers you dies, then I think you're gone forever.

 

[Baronage-Phase]

No idea what happens. But I do believe in an afterlife.
Have had 3 near death experiences. Last one my grandmother was there and just told me it wasnt time to go yet.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Redistribution of energy. We're all socialists when we go.

 

[JuanTwoThree]

I don't think there's anything but if I could choose it would be like a sort of barbecue/picnic/meal on a terrace, like Valhalla outside in the summer, with some kind of shade, vines overhead maybe. Tables stretch into infinity, there's food and drink and conversation and music with everybody I have ever known, and beyond them the people that they knew but I didn't. Everybody is well again. The feast is joined by people when they die. The sun never sets, the food and drink never run out; it never ends but isn't ever boring.

 

[JuanTwoThree]

We live on in other people's memories - sometimes I have dreamt about people I know that have died so vividly I woke up feeling like I'd had a good conversation with them.

But when the last person who remembers you dies, then I think you're gone forever.

When I dream about people it is always at a Christmas dinner or something like that. I was suddenly reminded of this:

Last night or a few nights ago, I don't know exactly when because reading all these dreams has brought it to mind, I dreamt that it was one of the big summer outside meals that we had when all four boys (me and my brothers) were home from work, school or university, plus friends and family and neighbours. Booze, food, puns, in-jokes, my sister-in-law not always getting them, nicknames, reminiscences, dogs, cats, sunshine, my mother presiding.

Except that our children and their children and spouses/partners were also there and we were quite a bit older. It was a hell of a crowd.

My father was there too and after a while my elder brother, who often had acted as our spokesman, said to him:

'It's amazing to see you Dad and I'm not complaining but aren't you, well, you know, dead?'

'Well, there were so many people here that were born after I died that I thought nobody would mind me seeing how you all were. I won't stay long'

(I must add that he was less there than we were but he was there. Anyway it was a dream and I knew it)

We didn't mind at all and after a while I noticed that he wasn't sitting in the chair where he had been before.

At more or less that point I said very discretely to my big brother:

'And what about you? You never saw Tom's children, your nieces, or your own grand-children because you died over ten years ago, and here you are too?'

'I didn't think anybody had noticed, what with the niceness of seeing Dad. Don't go mentioning it to everybody and I'll be able to stay a bit longer'

I didn't. My mother thought it was odd. She looked at him a couple of times and he just smiled back at her.

I think I've had it before, only at Christmas. It's very comforting and doesn't imply any belief in an afterlife or the like.

So obviously seeing everybody again at a party is something that's been going around in my mind for a while.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Nothing - our constituent atoms just get recycled back into the biosphere.

 

[Lorca]

i had a near death experience of sorts once, going over on ketamine - i found out that after death is just like before you were born - nothing. if you live on it is through memories others hold of you, your reputation good or bad, and your genes if you have children. could be wrong though!

 

[gentlegreen]

I'm going to be composted if I can arrange it - or be eaten by wild animals ...

 

[girasol]

And then I woke up. And now I need to know: what really happens after we die?

So, as the poll's vast majority is 'Nothing happens. We just die.' has your question been answered?

 

[danny la rouge]

The meaning of ours lives isn’t what happens after we die. It’s what happens before we die.

 

[planetgeli]

I'm going to be composted if I can arrange it - or be eaten by wild animals ...

There’s a few cultures do this for differing reasons. Tibetan Buddhists leave you to the vultures so it can be arranged.

 

[Steel Icarus]

The meaning of ours lives isn’t what happens after we die. It’s what happens before we die.

Awrite Motivational Poster

 

[Johnny Doe]

The meaning of ours lives isn’t what happens after we die. It’s what happens before we die.

Can you do in comic sans so I can post on Facebook?

 

[danny la rouge]

Can you do in comic sans so I can post on Facebook?

Fuck off

 

[wiskey]

Perhaps unusually for someone who has never participated in organised religion I do not believe that we just stop.

I have always believed that you get redistributed into something else. So I ticked reincarnation, although i don't believe in it in the more usually defined 'you were a person - now you are a beetle' way.

 

[gentlegreen]

i don't believe in it in the more usually defined 'you were a person - now you are a beetle' way.

Lots of beetles, but rather more flies.
It depends how long you're lying there ...

 

[wiskey]

Lots of beetles, but rather more flies.
It depends how long you're lying there ...

 

[yield]

There’s a few cultures do this for differing reasons. Tibetan Buddhists leave you to the vultures so it can be arranged.

Zoroastrians too

 

[Yossarian]

Perhaps unusually for someone who has never participated in organised religion I do not believe that we just stop.

I have always believed that you get redistributed into something else. So I ticked reincarnation, although i don't believe in it in the more usually defined 'you were a person - now you are a beetle' way.

According to the laws of physics, none of the trillions of atoms in our bodies are destroyed when we die, they just end up in other places.

"You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died ...

... You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly."

NPR Choice page

 

[JuanTwoThree]

According to the laws of physics, none of the trillions of atoms in our bodies are destroyed when we die, they just end up in other places.



NPR Choice page

So we are only mostly here; we are considerably less where we have ever been.

 

[prunus]

More of the same except without you experiencing it.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

We're eaten up by these when we die.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Fuck off

It's a pity comic sans isn't one of the fonts available on the boards - I'd use it all the time to wind you up.

 

[danny la rouge]

It's a pity comic sans isn't one of the fonts available on the boards - I'd use it all the time to wind you up.

I’m not bothered by comic sans, to be honest. There are much worse fonts/type faces.

 

[8ball]

We live on in CCTV footage and archived records of our internet activity.

 

[maomao]

I never worry about what happens to me after I die. There's no way of knowing anyway. I worry about what will happen to the world and what will happen to my kids after I die though.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Suppose it depends on whether it's a cremation or a burial

 

[Puddy_Tat]

 

[campanula]

I sincerely intend to return to earth via a range of handy decomposers (ranging from beetles down to single cell microlife) replenishing the soil in my wood. An eternal cycle of death and rebirth, growth and decay.