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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

...to ask what happens when you die?

433 replies

TeaAndAMarmiteSandwhich · 11/12/2017 22:58

... or more accurately, what you think happens?

I really really don't want to die (a good thing I guess! As I wasn't too bothered either way as a moody teen, but now I love life most of the time and want to hang around).

It's comforting to think there's a heaven, but I don't believe there is (and I'd probably get bored if I had to stay there for EVER). But when u die - is that it? Game over ? I'm not too keen on that idea either.

What do you think happens? and what would you like to think happens? Hmm

OP posts:
Medeci · 13/12/2017 10:38

It just wouldn't need to surely......... such attention to detail..... It's as if our bodies have been designed.......

Or as if we evolved over millions of years Smile.
There's an evolutionary advantage for endorphins to be released when we're in pain or afraid.
You hear about people who've had horrific injuries, lost limbs etc not feeling pain and being able to get help, or lie still and wait quietly.

MargoLovebutter · 13/12/2017 10:40

I think we physically end when we die. The neurons cease firing and the last synaptic spark dies and we are no more, other than a corpse. We are buried/cremated and our physical life has ended.

However, I am convinced that we live on in the memories of those who knew us. Over time that fades and eventually most of us no longer exist as memories because those who remember us have also died, but all of our collective knowledge and experience lives on in our descendants - whether we are related to them or not.

We are the result of the random luck of our conception and also the result of the entire history of the earth before us and some bit of us is connected to everything and everyone else who ever went before us and equally who will come after us.

I find comfort in that and have no fear of death itself, although I do fear dying.

EvilDoctorBallerinaRoastDuck · 13/12/2017 10:41

I'll come back as someone else.

buttercupmeadow · 13/12/2017 10:59

medici of course everything can be explained away. But i believe different.

Medeci · 13/12/2017 11:04

buttercup I don't expect everyone to believe what I believe, we all decide what makes sense to us based on our own knowledge and experiences.
And perhaps we also choose to believe whatever makes us less afraid of death.

Gottagetmoving · 13/12/2017 11:27

I think many people think they will know they are dead and can't bear that thought. Thing is, you won't know, you won't exist! You won't miss anyone or feel sad or panicky or anything else.
You can accept that you weren't her before you were born. You don't panic about that.

Medeci · 13/12/2017 11:48

I think many people think they will know they are dead and can't bear that thought

Interesting point.
Animals have no idea that they will die because they don't have self awareness in the same way that humans do.
We know we will die, but find it impossible to imagine not existing. Perhaps future humans will evolve to be able to understand the concept of "not being".

Ghostonthedancefloor · 13/12/2017 12:02

Fascinating thread to read.

@missmustbeamug

I feel exactly the same. It's affecting certain parts of my life and I often wonder should I see someone to try and deal with it.

riceuten · 13/12/2017 17:39

Nothing. That’s it, that’s your lot. ‘Heaven’ and an afterlife are just coping mechanisms to counteract the horrors of no longer existing.

Vitalogy · 13/12/2017 17:42

‘Heaven’ and an afterlife are just coping mechanisms to counteract the horrors of no longer existing. Not in my case. I had excepted the end was the end. Then I had my spiritual/life awakening.

Everhopeful1 · 13/12/2017 17:43

Hoping it's a big fat nothing. Came very close a few weeks ago, had I been alone in the house I would have died. Best thing is, I'm still here & I'm not scared.

FirstTimeMum07 · 13/12/2017 18:02

Many years ago my aunty had an experience, my cousin was terminally ill and was asking what it would be like to die, one day she said she was asleep and all of a sudden felt a heaviness on her chest and she couldn't breathe, she saw a light and was heading towards it, but there was someone (an angel) telling her it wasn't her time and to go back, she woke up expecting mayhem from having "died" but my uncle was asleep peacefully beside her, she told my cousin of her experience and he felt at ease and when his time came, my aunty said he looked at her like he was saying "You were right mum" 😢

Smudge100 · 13/12/2017 18:04

I have read in scientific journals that there is a part of the brain specifically dedicated to dying, doesn‘t kick in till then of course, and that dying is an ecstatic 3xperience, like orgasm. I think if there were an afterlife for humans it would be logical that there was one for other Primates and then how far do you go down the chain: dogs and pigs but not amobae? The idea of nothingness doesn‘t bother me personally — i was dead before i was born and that didn‘t bother me then, did it? Death is just the absence of suffering and the potential thereto.

Richdebtomdom · 13/12/2017 18:10

Out, out brief candle...

Ravenesque · 13/12/2017 18:11

I don't know what happens after we die, but very much suspect it's nothing and that that wont' matter at all.

I was close to death about six years ago - funnily enough I was listening to a programme on 4Extra yesterday that made me realise I was even closer than I had thought - and since then I've had no fear of death at all. I was in a serious amount of pain and I just accepted that I was very probably going to die and that it really didn't matter at all. I was at peace with the whole thing.

BMW6 · 13/12/2017 18:12

My intellect says of course there is nothing after death. My intuition says there is..... I believe it is as CS Lewis wrote
"The term is ended ; the holidays have begun.
The dream is over ; this is the morning"

waterlego6064 · 13/12/2017 18:20

I like Ellisandra's post very much; it echoes my own feelings. My parents' ashes were put in a natural burial ground where they have their own plot and tree (a silver birch). It is hugely comforting to me to think that the atoms that composed them are part of the landscape there. It allows me to feel that they 'go on' in a physical way. They still matter and have a purpose in the world. As for the real 'them', that survives only in memories and dreams.

I was recently thinking about death (overthinking, to be honest), and got quite anxious about the thought of endless nothingness. Of course, I tried to explain to myself that there would be no awareness or feeling and so it wouldn't matter that there was nothing, but my anxious mind couldn't wrap itself around that at the time. Confused

Baileyscheesecake · 13/12/2017 18:25

TeaAndAMarmiteSandwhich I recommend "Journey of Souls" by Michael Newton as an interesting read on the subject www.goodreads.com/book/show/104979.Journey_of_Souls

manicmij · 13/12/2017 18:35

You won't be able to notice you are missing anything just like when you are asleep (without dreaming). So when you die that's it.

mummaCL · 13/12/2017 18:39

You die, cease to exist.
I hope it’s like going under anaesthetic - there one minute and gone the next. I was with MIL when she passed and she seemed very peaceful. That’s the death I would choose, peaceful and not alone.
You live on in your loved ones memories....

Rudgie47 · 13/12/2017 18:44

I think your spirit/soul leaves your body.
I once had an out of body experience when I was looking after a friends flat. I was lying down in bed and it felt like the back of my top was yanked and I was pulled upto the ceiling where I was stuck. I could see myself in bed and I was frightened and fell back into my body.I lay there for ages terrified. Thats never happened since.
So I think death is something like this but you go somewhere else. Hopefully somewhere better than round here anyway.

runwalkrun · 13/12/2017 19:02

The soul leaves the body at death and it is the soul that lives on in heaven.
But what do they do all day?
Anybody else wondered that?

It's like when people say
May he/she rest in peace.
Restin in Peace isno substitute for Living and being Alive.
Who wants to rest doing nothing Hmm

runwalkrun · 13/12/2017 19:09

I felt a distinct pressure on the duvet by my side, exactly as if someone or domething were leaning on the bed, only there was noone or nothing visible. It lasted for a a few seconds only but was unmistakeable. I knew it was this person as something notable always happens a few days after I have spoken to them, as I had on this occasion.

and this business of them
'always being by your side'

I don't like the thought of loved ones watching me on the loo, or doing other 'intimate' things Shock

Vitalogy · 13/12/2017 19:21

Yes, but you're thinking as time as linear. Try and imagine about no sense of time.

I don't like the thought of loved ones watching me on the loo, or doing other 'intimate' things I don't know about them always being by out side but this has crossed my mind re the loo etc, It's just the human condition though, basic functions, trivia really.

buttercupmeadow · 13/12/2017 19:31

"What do they do all day"?

Well according to some on my facebook they're all "partying hard" Grin

I think they have the freedom of the earth and all the universe. According to many NDEs i've read about, heaven is unimaginably beautiful, where there is peace and happiness beyond anything they've ever experienced. People also describe intense love and goodness....Plus the added bonus of being with loved ones. I also think that heaven is a place where, whatever would make you happy on earth, then you would be able to in heaven.