Discussion Anyone hope that death ISN'T just nothing?

[ladylazarus4]

I agree with forever sleep. I don't care if reincarnation exists, it's not like "I" would know anyways.
Honestly nothingness is neutral to me. If the other option was heaven/hell, I'd choose nothing. I'm not scared of nonexistence. It's not like I'll be around to be sad or care.

If anyone's seen The Good Place, the last episode would be my ideal afterlife. Basically the premise is everyone can work to go to The Good Place and if they become a better person then they go (it's basically heaven I guess). But whenever you want, you can step through this door and then become nothingness.

 

[shame]

Yeah, I sort of have a similar thought! I base my thoughts on the NDEs I've read.

Do you believe in NDE?
Where did you read about that?

 

[CantDoIt]

Do you believe in NDE?
Where did you read about that?

Im trying to believe NDEs for my own sake. I read about them on the NDE subreddit!

 

[shame]

Im trying to believe NDEs for my own sake. I read about them on the NDE subreddit!

Thanks!

 

[Manfrotto99]

I personally fear nothingness. But then logic tells me that's rather silly because if there is nothingness, then I will be nothingness myself and that means I will have no fear and be unable to comprehend the nothingness. I think I fear being trapped in a a big black void of nothingness, but that would mean I would still have to exist in some capacity to be able to experience that void of nothingness and if thats the case I could still proberbly feal pain, emotion etc. I think it would be nice to be able to experience this life from a completely different perspective. I feel like I have been robbed of a normal existence. But really I just hope to experience peace and an end to the pain and suffering I know that is my life.

 

[Darkover]

By bringing a child into the world, parents force another being into a state of perpetual awareness of its own mortality and the suffering that life entails. I hope for eternal nothingness after death

I don't believe in any kind of hellish realm for various reasons.

you should your in one

 

[Suicidal_manlet]

Heaven will get pretty boring and if it doesn't then it's just like someone who is drugged up for eternity which is terrifying

 

[-nobodyknows-]

I honestly don't know. But I do believe there is something.

 

[poizenman]

I get that most people think it's the most likely scenario, but does anyone else hope that there is more than an endless nothing after death?

I understand that maybe it wouldn't be worth risking, but the thing is that I am in this moment already suffering, and whether it's a void or something else I will end up there eventually.

In the relative space of the universe, it doesn't matter whether I die now or later because in the end it's the same result and the amount of time I felt I experienced would be the same (no time at all) if it's a void. A void means no suffering, but if there is an afterlife or reincarnation, going by NDEs, it also means there is no suffering...until the next life, of course.

I don't believe in any kind of hellish realm for various reasons.

I don't want this to be the end, but if this is to be my life I just don't want it. It feels too unreal and bad.

Well for me, even if it's a void of complete nothingness I'm okay with that but if reincarnation is a thing I would hope to be reincarnated in a better life with better circumstances but that's just a wish lol

 

[CantDoIt]

The good thing is that I can't be NOT okay with a void. I can only be not okay with it now, but nothingness doesn't experience.
If there is more after then I don't think it will be worse than here.

 

[Morte]

Some afterlife where I no longer suffer and just experience bliss seems to be just as good

you should your in one

I don't know why people expect peace after death, if theres anything but nothingness, it should be just another painful existence, because we're already in one and we didn't do anything to be in a better place, we just existed.

 

[QteStimBnnuy]

It being nothing is the best option for all of us and immense peace. Don't necessarily think consciousness transferring over to anything would be pleasant, so no

 

[chester]

On the one hand, reuniting with my dead fiancee would be my dream come true, and I'd give anything to be able to experience it. But on the other hand, I can't find a convincing enough reason to believe we're anything more than just bodies, and once my body stops functioning, there will be no me. Which is good in a way, because nothing can be bad for me when there's no me.

 

[landslide2]

I sometimes hope there is something peaceful, i definitely do not want to be reincarnated. But I don't believe there is anything after death and I am okay with oblivion.

On NDEs, there has been some research and studies showing the experiences under the psychoactive drug ketamine are "uncannily like near-death experiences". You can search online if you like. I personally think majority of NDE experiences are a way our mind intervenes to try to gently prepare our bodies for dying which is what the research is hinting at.

 

[justamirror]

I sometimes hope there is something peaceful, i definitely do not want to be reincarnated. But I don't believe there is anything after death and I am okay with oblivion.

On NDEs, there has been some research and studies showing the experiences under the psychoactive drug ketamine are "uncannily like near-death experiences". You can search online if you like. I personally think majority of NDE experiences are a way our mind intervenes to try to gently prepare our bodies for dying which is what the research is hinting at.

I also lean towards the idea that NDEs are just our consciousness gently being extinguished and an attempt to close the loop. Any "tunnel of white light" and loved ones waiting is just a gently way to die. I do believe it takes longer than just the moment from when the breath stops, heart stops etc. and that is when consciousness is experiencing the death of itself. Cells in our body like bone cells live for several days even. The "second brain" in our gut (huge neuron network in there if you didn't know) lives for several hours after activity ceases in the brain even.

Its so very hard to say NDEs are proof that consciousness exists outside our bodies (I do not deny nor believe) or proof of something after biological death. I do know NDEs are VERY significant and change peoples lives and alter their minds forever. It's just so hard to accept a truth especially when we think of quantum mechanics and the quantum brain yikes (still highly controversial and lacks empirical evidence - a process science naturally takes and is very slow). We are so far from the truth.

 

[CantDoIt]

I also lean towards the idea that NDEs are just our consciousness gently being extinguished and an attempt to close the loop. Any "tunnel of white light" and loved ones waiting is just a gently way to die. I do believe it takes longer than just the moment from when the breath stops, heart stops etc. and that is when consciousness is experiencing the death of itself. Cells in our body like bone cells live for several days even. The "second brain" in our gut (huge neuron network in there if you didn't know) lives for several hours after activity ceases in the brain even.

Its so very hard to say NDEs are proof that consciousness exists outside our bodies (I do not deny nor believe) or proof of something after biological death. I do know NDEs are VERY significant and change peoples lives and alter their minds forever. It's just so hard to accept a truth especially when we think of quantum mechanics and the quantum brain yikes (still highly controversial and lacks empirical evidence - a process science naturally takes and is very slow). We are so far from the truth.

I suppose I just don't see the evolutionary purpose of the mind gently preparing us for death. It seems like a waste of energy and resources for evolution to have evolved "kind" ways to put us down.

I definitely don't think NDEs are proof of anything, they are only anecdotes. But I actually do sort of lean toward them being real, and if I'm wrong on that one there will be no me to regret it. :)

 

[divinemistress36]

I sometimes hope there is something peaceful, i definitely do not want to be reincarnated. But I don't believe there is anything after death and I am okay with oblivion.

On NDEs, there has been some research and studies showing the experiences under the psychoactive drug ketamine are "uncannily like near-death experiences". You can search online if you like. I personally think majority of NDE experiences are a way our mind intervenes to try to gently prepare our bodies for dying which is what the research is hinting at.

I felt like I was dead in another dimension of some sort it was very odd

 

[landslide2]

Not all NDEs experience the same thing, and they're not all pleasant experiences. Which can also be similar to tripping on psychoactive drugs. It's common to hear people's experience on psilocybin to generally be positive, like feeling oneness or connectedness to the life that surrounds them. But people have bad trips too where they just want to curl up into a corner with all the lights out until it's over. There is definitely a lot about the brain that we don't know.

• The human brain has been described as the most complex structure in the known universe.
• The brain contains around 86 billion neurons, 85 billion other cells, and over 100 trillion connections.

Researchers recently found a link that connects the long covid brain fog that still afflicts many people the world over, as having to do with something called blood-brain barrier disruption. Which hopefully means targeted therapies in the near future for those suffering.

 

[CantDoIt]

Not all NDEs experience the same thing, and they're not all pleasant experiences. Which can also be similar to tripping on psychoactive drugs. It's common to hear people's experience on psilocybin to generally be positive, like feeling oneness or connectedness to the life that surrounds them. But people have bad trips too where they just want to curl up into a corner with all the lights out until it's over. There is definitely a lot about the brain that we don't know.

• The human brain has been described as the most complex structure in the known universe.
• The brain contains around 86 billion neurons, 85 billion other cells, and over 100 trillion connections.

Researchers recently found a link that connects the long covid brain fog that still afflicts many people the world over, as having to do with something called blood-brain barrier disruption. Which hopefully means targeted therapies in the near future for those suffering.

I'm glad to hear sufferers of long covid may get a treatment in the future.

I would happily agree that we know virtually nothing about the human brain. Or, at least, virtually nothing about how consciousness is constructed, received, used, etc, by it.

 

[newjourney]

Look at it this way: humans have literally no frame of reference for true "nothingness." It couldn't just be an inky black void, because you would need a mind to perceive and process color and the concept of a void. So there are infinite possibilities for what "nothing" in terms of what you would see after death could entail, and none of them are what we would expect, because we would have to cross the threshold of relinquishing our existing sensory and cognitive systems to see it, which is impossible to do while we're alive.

You have clearly given this a lot of thought. I'm curious to know what you believe?

 

[ham and potatoes]

Where did you read about that?

I read about them on the NDE subreddit!

ive posted on SS a couple time about this site, i find it fascinating. and heres also the guy who started the site doing an interview with theo von
https://www.nderf.org/

 

[kyhoti]

I'm actually counting on there being something at the end of the tunnel. Kinda why I have peace with the idea of CTB. I'm hoping that I won't have to be unalived by my own hand ( I'm old and sick), but I still have an exit strategy.

 

[BrainShower]

I hope i make as many memories after death as i retain from before life began.
In other words, zero.

It does bring up interesting concepts. The concept of "life" is not static.

 

[ADBoy777]

I don't have a clue what's gonna happen after death but Imo you just feel nothing not even darkness you just gone and that's it

 

[CantDoIt]

ive posted on SS a couple time about this site, i find it fascinating. and heres also the guy who started the site doing an interview with theo von
https://www.nderf.org/

Thank your for sharing! I need to go have a read as soon as possible!

Also, I recommend "Why an Afterlife Obviously Exists: A Thought Experiment" by Jens Amberts. The author is a former materialist skeptic and the book is non religious (it's from an NDE perspective and not a human religious one).