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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask what you really think happens when you die?

259 replies

Tunnocks34 · 07/02/2020 13:11

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!

OP posts:
Chloemol · 07/02/2020 16:49

Having had a number of operations where you technically die as they breath for you, it goes black and you know nothing

restawhile77 · 07/02/2020 16:50

i often think about consciousness, I mean how could it suddenly start in the womb, at what point? Confused

LouReidDododo · 07/02/2020 16:54

Your body returns to dust but your soul/energy/essence goes some where else. Not sure where though.

An elderly relative of mine was dying in hospital she’s been very poorly and was heavily sedated. Just before she died she woke up and looked to the back of the room and spoke to her mother and sister (who had long been deceased) and told them she wasn’t ready to go yet. Then died.

It spooked us out in the room.

Kwkwjwkek · 07/02/2020 16:55

I never used to believe in heaven or hell. Used to think when you die that’s it. But having lost someone close to me in their early thirties recently, I’d hate for that to be over. Never to see them again. Sometimes, it can be the only thing that can help you cope with death, knowing that they exist in some form.

LouReidDododo · 07/02/2020 16:56

i often think about consciousness, I mean how could it suddenly start in the womb, at what point?

See this gets me. Is there a switch that just switches on like electricity running through empty wires till we’re ‘on’?

Or something else

LouReidDododo · 07/02/2020 16:57

trumps I think that’s the film CoCo Wink

LolaLollypop · 07/02/2020 16:58

I believe in something. I'm not sure what but I believe there is more to our bodies shutting down and that's it, kaput.

I also believe some people are more receptive to it than others. When my MIL passed away there were several strange things that happened in the house after her death. Just weird things that couldn't really be explained - her favourite song randomly coming on the radio when nobody was even in the room to turn it on. A text sent to my phone from hers after she had died... just so strange! It was as though part of her soul was still there, reassuring us she was ok. (She was only 45 when she died).

On the other hand, when I've looked for a sign from someone else who has passed - visited a medium etc. Nothing. Nada.

It comforts me to imagine something else after we die. I don't think it's angels floating on a cloud sort of thing but some form of energy that remains until you are ready to fully pass on.

PerfectionistProcrastinator · 07/02/2020 17:00

I used to have very strong spiritual beliefs and felt that there was something more after we die.

I was with my dad when he died and was really surprised to feel the opposite to how I thought I’d feel. It made me question everything. His body laid in the bed. He was there but also not there any more. A whole life lived and his body was all that was there.

He always said he felt there was more after death and that he would be around watching over us but I’ve never felt it.

What I cannot get my head around is that I had a dream premonition about 2 months before he died. The way it all played out came true (it wasn’t the sort of illness where he had a timeline, he had been ill for many years).

2 days before his death I had a random feeling of dread that something bad was going to happen and I kept feeling like I could see something out of the corner of my eye.

These experiences make me question my doubts.

cologne4711 · 07/02/2020 17:03

A family friend lost their eldest son to leukaemia when he was 16 and she is absolutely certain see will see him again one day. The dad died a couple of years ago and she thinks they are together. I think if you can truly believe that it must bring so much comfort although it's a long wait.

But..as others have alluded to - what happens if you meet people you don't want to meet - an ex husband, an bullying boss, Adolf Hitler?

I think peaceful nothingness is a better option.

Ginger1982 · 07/02/2020 17:11

I believe that when you die, you find yourself on one side of a bridge and all your loved ones are waiting on the other side waving. And when you cross over to meet them you live all together forever happily.

Maybe it's simplistic nonsense but it's what I like to believe.

Hepsibar · 07/02/2020 17:13

When my DF died, it was a comfort to me to think of him again being young and strong and with his mum and dad. When a friend of mine died young, we imagined her up in the stars.

The cold reality is you prob just die and recycle into the earth ... but I like to think of the other things for the ones I love. xx

fpurplea · 07/02/2020 17:19

I have great difficulty coming to terms with the fact of "nothing." Our memories of nothing when we're born, or during dreamless sleep are defined by the "something" afterwards. For there to be nothing there has to be an awareness of nothing, but you can't have awareness of nothing in a nothing or that's something. It's fried my brain since I was in primary school.

I reckon that at the moment of death, your brain fires all your memories and experiences and thoughts together, and because time doesn't really exist in your brain (like how you can have a dream spanning multiple days / weeks etc in a couple of hours) I think in that microsecond your brain shuts into a timeless feedback loop, effectively a dream state lasting only the tiniest fraction of a second but perceived by that person to last... well, some time between a long time and forever anyway. That's where I think the whole, "life flashing before your eyes" thing comes from. The brain knows it's dying, so it starts concentrating the mental activity pre-emptively, so things can appear to you pre-death.

In short, I don't really believe in a higher power or an afterlife, no matter how much I'd like to. (Having said that, when my mum died I shook our lottery number selector ball, didn't play those numbers because they were all in the 30s except one, yet the next draw the numbers were predominantly 30s. No idea if they were exactly the same, strongly suspect not, but it was still a bit weird.) Sorry, that was a diversion. When you're dead, you're gone. But I do believe that your brain can make you live a thousand lifetimes in the time it takes for it to start and finish powering down.

DonKeyshot · 07/02/2020 17:20

If it’s just one big afterlife world, how would we all feel having to be in the same place as the rest of humanity from all of history?

We are currently sharing our space with 'the rest of humanity from all of history' therefore it could be said that we are all in the same place, but it doesn't feel crowded, does it?

We won't be living cheek by jowl in the afterlife and there'll be room to roam, just as there is here.

TorysSuckRevokeArticle50 · 07/02/2020 17:29

I do not believe in an afterlife and I'm happy with that.

The idea of an afterlife in any form makes me feel uncomfortable.

I want to be cremated and for a tree to be planted in my name, the tree will live on and be of use to the earth.

paintedsmile77 · 07/02/2020 17:29

karmastar I agree, I often dream of my mum and grandmother. It's never how they were in their earth bodies, careworn and poorly looking (in my nans case she was crippled) but always radiant and happy, my nan able to walk without sticks. I KNOW they're in a better place, and I KNOW that one day I'll see them again.

pigsDOfly · 07/02/2020 17:33

Well given that ideas of an afterlife and what it might be like, if one existed, have all been made up by people who haven't actually died, they and we, have no way of knowing,

I believe that when you die you cease to exist, the same way as every other living thing does when it dies.

I find the idea of my body, or anyone else's being put in a box and left to rot in the earth horrific so I'll be cremated.

FrankieGoesToLiverpool · 07/02/2020 17:33

I agree with @Meruem...

I’m not religious but agnostic, I’m not really sure what is out there but I’m certain there is something after we die.

Years ago an ex of mine had parents who were really religious and I questioned his dad about being atheist (my dad is staunchly so). He replied simply ‘if there is nothing after, what is the point of living now’.

Stuck with me, a decade on.

WhatKatyDidNot · 07/02/2020 17:36

I'm sorry for your loss, OP.

I don't believe anything relating to consciousness happens after you die. Your atoms rearrange as has happened in one way or another since the Big Bang, that's all.

contentedsoul · 07/02/2020 17:38

I'm not bothered about being dead - Just the build up to it that concerns me slightly.

SevenStones · 07/02/2020 17:41

I think it's a bit like having general anaesthetic. You just stop being conscious and there's nothing.

Anything else is brain weirdness kicking it.

contentedsoul · 07/02/2020 17:42

Just a thought

I wonder how many human skeletons their are now on earth. Considering they don't rot down and the planet population 7bn...which is replaced every 60-70yrs on average
That's a lot of calcium being absorbed by mother earth.

bellinisurge · 07/02/2020 17:43

We become part of the dust of the universe. That's about as philosophical as I get on this. Both my parents are dead.

SpruceTree · 07/02/2020 17:45

I believe after we die we can choose whether we want to go to heaven (no matter what we believed or how we behaved on earth) or not. If not we just end.

Russellbrandshair · 07/02/2020 17:45

I 💯 believe in an afterlife and believe our souls go to God after we die. Then it’s up to him where we go after that! Life is a journey and death isn’t the final destination

bebanjo · 07/02/2020 17:51

Donkey shot, how are we sharing our space with the entire history of humanity?
I’ve never met anyone from the crusaders, or any ancient Egyptians.
Not sure what you mean.