What happens when you die

[ElleDriver]

Have recently lost someone close to me.

My thoughts keep turning to death and what happens when we die. I'm not sure what I believe. Part of me hopes for some kind of afterlife but realistically I think it's probably just like falling asleep.

What do you believe?

I'm not sure what I believe but I really hope its like the end of the film gladiator where your loved ones are waiting for you.

The matter which makes your body just changes. So you becomes part of the atmosphere or the earth or the sea. You are still there in the genetic make up of your family. Maybe you are still there in spirit, who knows? We will all find out if so one day.

I believe very strongly in an afterlife

I am a vet nurse and part of my job is helping patients to cross the rainbow bridge. I am.very particular about putting bodies away and wont do anything with then until i feel their spirits have left. I can tell when it's ok. I can't put my finger on what changes but i kniw when it's gone.

I believe it's just like falling asleep but like the nights you don't have a dream. It's just peaceful, and still and nothing. There's a reason they say sleep is the cousin of death.

I hope you feel better xx

We hold our loved ones in our hearts and minds until we go too and our loved ones do that for us. Then that means (to me) that there’s a trickle down of every one of us in someone else (whether family, friend or foe). I’m not sure that makes sense but it’s how I manage thinking of my deceased baby daughter- so long as I’m here (and others who loved her) she is too, even though the real her is gone. And when I go, her existence, which formed so much of me, is remembered by those who remember me, even if they never knew her. I no longer believe in an after-life I should add. I am sorry for your loss and I hope that the pain isn’t too raw and that you have a lot of love in your life x

Your memory lives on in the hearts of those that loved you.

Someone once had a dream after her husband died and he came to her in her sleep and said ‘I don’t love you anymore. I love me’ there was something very real about that somehow

I know what i hope for and its defibrillator the end of gladiator.
My husband used to be very condescending towards me saying 'when you die you are just dead in the ground' and it used to annoy me.In the end i said but who does it hurt thinking that we all meet again because even if that isn't true we will never know and if it is ,how wonderful! I really hope it is like that so its never going to be goodbye,just see you in a while.x

Defibrillator?!?It was meant to say 'really is'

What happens when you die? You lose consciousness and cease to exist.

What's it like? Well, exactly the same as before you were born. You'll have no awareness and know nothing about it.

Agreed. May as well make the most of the time we have!

I don’t believe in God, and I’m not convinced in that the afterlife is a thing.

You hold the memories of those you have loved and lost very close to your heart.

I keep a little book of memories. If I remember something about my sister, I write it down, and then every now and again I read it, makes me smile to read all the good time (and bad). Also any dreams I have.

death and grief are very hard to deal with.

I think we pass into another world, the afterlife. I hope so anyway. It’s scary to think about sometimes. Sorry for your loss Op x

I'm a Muslim who believe that at first the angel of death will come and remove my soul. After some time my soul will return to my body, which is not mine anymore. I will hear people leave my funeral. Afterwards I would stay in the grave until judgment day. Which has it own horrors, but it is when we will meet all who we have meet in this world again.

Loved ones waiting is an interesting one and I gave this some thought the other day when I was walking through a cemetery and saw a very old grave stone marking the graves of a man and the two wives he’d had who both died young and whom he outlived by at least 40 years. Terribly sad. But he’ll have been a Christian - it was a CofE church - and I wondered how it would work in his heaven meeting up with both of his wives.

I don’t really believe in anything after death but I like the idea that all our souls came out of a big soup of consciousness and when we die they go back there. Comfy darkness I suppose.

While I don’t believe in a heaven, when I’ve lost people, especially the babies I’ve miscarried, I’ve still found myself looking up at the stars. Silly but instinctive when times are hard.

After my husband died I just felt very strongly that he was at peace at last. Nobody could ever hurt him again, he'd never have to face another day, no more pain. That's what happens after death to me.

Every so often I think about death quite a lot. I think about people who have died and people who are living with bereavement.

It seems to me that for some of us, I don't know if it's true of everyone, it's very important to make sense of death.

When I have the chance to enjoy a beautiful sunset it doesn't feel like I'm on a rotating planet moving backwards away from a blazing star. I don't think about any scientific explanations of the colours I see. I don't disagree with any of the science, in fact I find it very interesting but it's not what I think about when I watch a beautiful sunset.

My experience at that moment and my unique position in time and space means no one else will see or feel exactly what I do and whatever it means to me on that date, with whoever I'm with, in whatever emotional state I might be.

I'm trying to say that what this person meant to you and how you feel about losing their living presence in your life is your own unique experience. You might feel their continued presence and you can describe that to yourself any way that makes sense to you. I'm not saying there's no value in trying to understand the scientific facts of death but I feel there is also a place for our emotional and spiritual truths which are just other ways of trying to express our human experience.

I believe in God, and heaven and an afterlife that is filled with our loved ones.

I believe the purpose of life is to learn how to love and be loved.
To forgive and grieve and learn, to show kindness and compassion and be faithful.

Since becoming a Christian I personally have a sense of calm and peace regarding death. It's nice to firmly believe that this mortal life isn't everything.

I know people won't always agree, but that's just my personal stance and I love it.

A few years ago I was very ill and until the team working on me managed to turn it around, I was dying. It was peaceful, a pleasant drifting, like when you're feeling very tired at the end of a really long day and you finally get to go to sleep. I don't remember any hurting or upset even though I had been in a lot of pain and distress. I was sad to go but I knew that everyone I loved would be okay, that they'd manage, and that overall I'd had a good enough life. I didn't see any dead relatives, there were no heavenly choirs or faithful childhood pets, only peace. I did have very vivid conversations with my DC, DH, and my mum though, really vivid. I didn't realise until afterwards that it couldn't have possibly been real as a, they weren't there and b, I wasn't capable of talking anyway but even now my clearest memories of that time are the conversations I had with them. The brain is a strange thing.

I don't really believe in heaven, but I do believe my pets are waiting for me at the Rainbow Bridge, even though that's just a modern invention. But I'll see them again.