To ask what you really think happens when you die?

[Tunnocks34]

I’d describe myself as agnostic. I’d like to think God exists, and heaven exists but logically I think it’s probably unlikely.

My grandads mum died this week, she was asleep really for her final days, and in the run up to her death she’s been quiet, and not really present, however, the second before she died, she opened her eyes, smiled (her face in all honestly wall almost glowing with joy) and shouted ‘Mama, Mama’ and then she died.

I’d love to think her mum came to get her and take her to heaven or an afterlife but the logics part tells me it was probably something neurological. Might ignore my logical side though because I like the other possibility better!

I think that being dead is exactly the same as before we were born.

We will have no consciousness at all.

Apparently a lot of people call for their mothers in their last seconds. I find that idea quite amazing really, how strong that bond is until the end.

You will all meet again one day.
There will be absolute disbelievers on this thread and that is absolutely fine.
But I know without a doubt that it is what it is.

Me too

My ndn was v interested in the paranormal, as am I (we would swap books etc)
She always said that when she died, if she could, she wld absolutely let me know she was still around.
When she died (aged 96!) I PROPER asked for it prowled around her house in the dark, called out to her etc....
Nowt

Nothing happens. There is no after-life, no god etc. We are as insufficient as all the trillions of other living things that have died before us. Once your brain stops you cease to exist forever.

I don't believe in God, heaven, the afterlife or the human soul. I think those that do find comfort in thinking that there is 'something more' than just their physical body and this life on Earth, but to me that makes no rational sense whatsoever. You are born, you live and you die. When you die you decompose and the elements that your body is made up from return to the Earth and the cycle of life continues. The only way that you 'live on' is if you have DC, so your genes live on.

I'm sorry for your loss OP, but I'm afraid I think it's part of the brain shutting down. People often seem to think about their parents or those who have died before them as they too are dying, but again I think it's comforting to think that you're joining them, rather than facing the fact that you're dying and that that's it for you.

I don't believe there is anything and as above, something sparks in the brain ask you die which makes these apparitions.
I watched my grandmother die last year. She was grabbing out in pain, incoherent and kept trying to ask for something, which we couldn't understand. 'Where is xxx?' She wasn't addressing anyone and getting quite agitated.
She turned and stared directly at my sister and I, then put her head back and pointed at her chest and then pointed upward. Did this 3-4 times in quick succession and then was gone.

I think when your body dies, you die. Our personalities are our brains, there's no spirit or soul.

Make the most of this one amazing experience while you can :)

interesting, Im not religious what so ever but, I do have a belief in the paranormal.

I don't believe there is anything else either.
I'd like to think I used to be open to the idea.
But, watching my little sis die and watch the life drain from her and then 'nothing'. I now know there is nothing.
When you die - you are dead.
This is why it is so important to make the most of life - right now!

I quite firmly thought there was nothing but I was with my Grandmother as she passed and I “saw” a black shape leave her body and fly upwards the instant after she took her last breath. The other people in the room had a similar experience. Whilst I agree all that remained was a shell, we definitely saw something leave her body and then she became a shell if that makes sense. She was very religious and looked beautiful after death, younger, smiling, at peace.

My Grandad had a similar experience to what you describe. He was in a coma then suddenly awoke, grabbed my Grandmother and asked her if she could see how beautiful “the Gates” were and said to go with him. His face was radiant. Then he died.

My father’s first wife died in her 30s unexpectedly. Dad was away from home that night but thought her heard her calling his name in the middle of the night. He sat up in bed and “saw” her in the full length mirror opposite. The next morning his first wife was found dead, having died sometime in the middle of the night.

My Dad had a near death experience when he had a heart attack and had to be brought back to life. He saw “the gates”, had conversations with what he believes were angels or saints and told them that he wasn’t ready. He described what he saw to me in great detail. Years later we visited a family member in another country for dinner. We had never been to their house. Dad froze because he saw the large picture in their lounge of the exact gates he had seen in his experience. He asked the relative where the picture came from and what it was and he said “oh, the person that sold me it said that’s what they say the entrance to Paradise looks like.” It really freaked my Dad out because when he’d had the experience he had been surprised as it wasn’t what his imagination had led him to believe the afterlife had been like. So his initial experience was challenging to his ideas and then seeing this painting of exactly what he had seen during his experience was a real goosebumps moment for him. He totally turned his life around after his experience too, it had a profound impact.

My paternal grandfather passed away on the other side of the world. Two years previously he’d bought us an alarm clock from Mecca which played the Islamic call to prayer. Dad wasn’t practicing, the rest of us aren’t Muslim so it stayed in a drawer and was never used. The night he died, we were sat downstairs and heard the call for prayer going off. The alarm clock, which had never been used and was under piles of clothes in a drawer, had went off for the first time ever in two years. It really freaked us out. For about 18 months afterwards it would go off intermittently whenever we spoke about him, even when we removed the batteries. It was too spooky so we got rid of it in the end.

So as much as I’m quite a logical person, I definitely feel that it’s been challenged at times by certain experiences and I can’t say it’s as black and white as I’d like to think.

Nothing before; nothing after.

I work in a care home and have seen lots of people die. I truly believe that their most loved one will come and get them. I’m not religious. I’ve seen too many times the resident has been looking at the end of their bed and has nodded when you ask if someone is waiting on them.

We come from atoms, we go back to being atoms. We are made of atoms from others, and go on make others from our atoms. Atoms of everything that has ever existed pass through us every day.

I suppose you could see that as a sort of pre/afterlife, but as you have no consciousness of the experience, it's irrelevant.

I like the beauty in the science of it - we are all made of elements which are returned to the earth, so we’re never really “gone” in that sense. I’d love to believe we’re reunited with loved ones, but I don’t know that I believe that, deep down. I’m actually quite envious of those who do believe that 100%.

I’ve had 2 very vivid dreams about my dad - one just after he died and I was hugging him and I could feel the bones of his shoulder blades (he was a big man but chemo reduced him to skin & bone) and I was asking him to stay and he said he had to go. I asked to go with him and he said no - I remember it so clearly.
6 months after he died, I miscarried. I then dreamed my dad was holding a baby - he said it was a baby girl and I said “Grace” and he smiled. It was a hugely comforting dream and I felt so peaceful when I woke up. I’ve never dreamed of him since. So I would love to think that the 2 of them are together somewhere, and that I’ll see them both again one day, but I don’t know.

My belief -

We exist, and contain cells that produce energy. Energy can't disappear, its got to go somewhere. I believe the end of life is like a sandcastle being blown away by a strong gust of wind; the form isn't there any more but the sand that made that castle has now been spread. Some will become glass, some will be part of a new sandcastle and some will stay in the ground that helps form the beaches.

Just like sand is used in actual building blocks, our energy will be used in the building blocks of life - from the beautiful planet we live on, to help enable the circle of new plants, animals, insects and people forming and growing.

We are never "gone".

I think our atoms go back to the universe, where they came from and we live on in the memories of our loved ones and the impact of our actions on others.

Google 'ask a physicist to speak at your funeral'. It's really beautiful to a logical, non-religious brain like mine!

I think if more people believed 'this is IT' they'd make more of an effort in this life.

I also believe some energy may linger, allowing people to "feel" loved ones and even unknown presences around them. It explains in my own head why so much paranormal things happen to people. We contain a lot of "sand" and some might take a little bit longer to disperce.

I think it's possible there is some sort of after life but not in the sense of God or heaven. I don't actually believe in God. But I think there are more things in this universe than we currently understand. We have not reached the pinnacle of science whereby we know everything there is to know. There are many mysteries we don't yet have the answer to.

Marshmallow91 beautifully put.

You cease, you decompose. Other people remember you until they die. Tbh, I find that more comforting than the heaven and angels nonsense I was spoon fed as a child. Makes me more determined to a) have a good time and b) not impact anyone else's short life adversely, if I can avoid it.

I think if more people believed 'this is IT' they'd make more of an effort in this life

See I think the opposite. If I knew 100% there was only this life I would lose any purpose or motivation to care about me or anyone else. I would feel so insignificant, that I'd just stop caring.

I think the energy that makes us who we are is reabsorbed into the greater energy which surrounds us all and possibly recycled into future life at some point in the future. That way we are always surrounded by our loved ones who have passed.

I believe heaven and hell is a creation made by the living for the living.

@Meruem may I ask why you feel that way?

The idea that this life isn't a trial run but the real thing brings me a lot of peace and makes me determined to make the most of it.

Your feelings are of course, just as valid - but I wondered what made you feel that this life would be empty without the possibility of an afterlife?