How often do you think about the after life?

Yes, I think about it especially since my mother passed. I think everybody does to a point no matter how adamant they are there isn't one, and I'm not saying there is one but to wonder about these things is only natural. I wish I had all the answers but I don't.

It's a construct to make people feel less fearful because we just can't accept the idea of death, so never.

artemis said:

Your dead self will not care if anyone remembers you. So stop focusing on that.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Existential dreads and stuff are not easy to shake if they hook into you.

TI92 said:

I've been going but it's not easy idk I try and be a font of positivity for those around me so it'll rub off on me but it never does I don't feel good about myself or anything and i just idk

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

For me it comes in waves, much of the time it's something I can manage, but every now and then it cripples me for weeks or even months at a time.

Be compassionate to yourself, this is really important. Any negative emotions you're expressing inwardly are going to only compound this, and while this is easier said than done you absolutely should understand none of this is your fault.

I don't really have any solid advice beyond therapy and focusing on the things that you can gleen even a little enjoyment from, and understanding that things can get better.

I really hope they do.

I'm sorry to hear about your mom, OP. I hope you feel better.

Yeah I think about it sometimes.

It would be great if there was one where justice exist... Not really like punishing people, but more like giving people who suffered peace & joy.

Some people who have near death experience do report feeling at one with the Universe / immersed in love they can't comprehend. This is probably just their brains shutting off, but still, to them the experience is real and powerful. I think in the end, that may be what really counts.

Anyway, worrying about death is something only alive people do. Once you are dead, your worries are over. Do you remember before you were born? There is nothing to fear in nothing. The Universe will still go on but you will return to that state.

There is also something unsettling about the afterlife, when you think about it. Something that never ends. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the concept. If there is an afterlife and we retain some kind of memory/personality, we would also keep our baggage and scars with us - some people would bring a lot of pain on the other side.

The only way to be truly at peace is to wipe everything that is part of you, whether by being nothingness or merge with everything.

Quite a bit, OP.

I'm not suicidal but the idea of life ending just sounds pleasant to me. My problem is more with how death happens rather than death itself.

Never because I don't believe there is one.

Pomerlaw said:

Some people who have near death experience do report feeling at one with the Universe / immersed in love they can't comprehend. This is probably just their brains shutting off, but still, to them the experience is real and powerful. I think in the end, that may be what really counts.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine

Only when I research philosophy, myths, religions, etc. Not something I believe, but the concept is interesting.

I ponder it daily. I think there's probably something going on, but I don't know how exactly it'll go down. That said, I'm sorry about your mom op. Losing a loved one is never easy

There's no evidence of an afterlife. I do think about death all the time though. Only thing that truly scares me.

I haven't thought about it that much over the last twenty years. Any chance of an afterlife is a non runner for me. As far as I'm concerned its just oblivion.

Is this the existential dread thread? Because I have a real fucked up thought process about whatever comes next thanks to my parent's particular brand of Christianity.

Sorry to hear sbout your mother OP.

This is your only go at the universe. You are not important in any bigger scale just as no human is. Try to get the most out of it and accept the fact that we are DNA carriers and even that DNA will eventually perish.

There isn't one, so you have to try and blank it out.

I don't believe in an afterlife, however I constantly think of death, to the point that it has become an extremely unhealthy obsession.

Without doing any research, the last time I thought about this, the conclusion I was brought to is that we have a big desire to understand everything.

The afterlife, I concluded is not consequential to anything that I'm currently doing, it doesn't have any relevance to anything and is beyond my control and even my understanding.

So with that said, it doesn't make the concept of an afterlife or lack of an afterlife less ominous, but it does take a bit of mental weight off of my conscious when I boil it down to a matter of something that my brain is not versatile enough to properly conceptualize.

Only when I'm very sick or just saw something that made me think about religion

I usually think about how weird it would be to not have any conscious thought. Like, there can't be blackness, because you'd be conscious of the fact that there's blackness and could percieve and process that. It's a weird thought. I usually then start to panic a little and calm myself down and push it out of my head. Panicking a little right now actually lol.

I'm hoping there's some sort of reincarnation where we don't remember past lives or some shit.

It's absolutly terrifying to think it's eternal nothingness. Sure, I don't remember anything before I was born but now that I'm living and conscious I just can't fathom the thought now.

I think about it, but in the sense that I don't want there to be one.

It'd be great if there is an afterlife, but if there is nothing at the end then that is quite depressing.

I sincerely hope that there is no afterlife. The idea that there is more beyond this life scares the shit out of me.

Not often but whenever I think about my parents dying, it makes me really hope I get to see them (and my kids) again one day. I'm open to the idea and don't pretend to know everything about the universe.

It gives me a little more hope than I already had and makes me want to be a better person in general.

sorry about your mom, OP. may sound trite but i feel those who've passed are still part of who i am, and nothing can take that away, afterlife or not

as for afterlife in general, when i was younger i thought about it a lot. but then when my friends and family started dying i started thinking "oh shit, i better get to business with whatever time i have left here". way more worried about when the clock stops ticking rather than what happens afterwards

Zeno said:

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

True shit, let's keep swinging kid! We can think about it when we're dead.

Almost never

Nassudan said:

Not at all.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

.

I don't, because it's a fabrication of soft humans that can't accept we're like everything else on this planet.

Sorry to hear you're going through this OP. Please consider talking to someone privately and professionally if you find life becoming a weight on your shoulders that's hard to bear. Sometimes it can be inconceivable that such a simple act could help but it really can. Speaking to someone that understands and has no connection to you can be an incredible way to release.

Now and again I'll ponder it. I don't really believe in an afterlife but it would be lovely in many ways if it was true. Something like 'The 5 people you meet in heaven' by Mitch Album was rather lovely and quite a comforting thought that no matter how your life went there was reasons for everything and your stories were intertwined with many others.....but I expect its just a dark void and you know no more.

When I was younger and in my mid-20s I would think about it a lot because I was struggling with the existence of an afterlife. Now that I have come to the conclusion it doesn't exist and fully embraced it I never give it a thought. It is freeing, in a way.

Also, sorry for your loss, OP.

Im believe in specific religion , so I do believe in after life .


And it scares the shit out of me sometimes.

For me how the earth is so balanced and the universe and all that stuff is just hard for me to believe no one behind all that , even tho I believe in the big bang theory at the same time.

Almost never. It's going to happen and there's nothing I can do to stop that, so there's not much mulling it over. I have too much stress and anxiety to spend my time stressing over being dead.

Mostly when other people bring it up. It's not exactly a large day to day concern.

I think about it exactly as much as I think about Santa Claus.

While notions of the soul and consciousness are interesting to me, and even the idea that consciousness may not be as simple as our singular temporary bodies, the idea of an after life, particularly one that follows as a result of our actions in life, is so clearly a combination of wish fulfillment and cautionary bullshit to get people to behave that it's right there with Santa for me.

Not often. I determined a long time ago that there's no such thing.

As a Muslim belief in the afterlife is an article of faith so I dont worry about it. I totally understand why you feel dread though. All those feelings, memories and ideas lost the moment you're gone.

Logically there is nothing to fear in death, it's actually living and dying that is scary. That is part of being alive and I think we have to live with the fact that some fear of death is ingrained inside us...

We try to conceptualize what it feels like to be dead while we are alive. But we can't - it won't be nothingness, but non existence. You won't worry about it.

Nothing you can do can change that fact anyway. Nature is change, and if everything was fixed then we would not be here to talk about it. I see life as a plus, a bonus, a chance I have to experience something instead of nothing.

Who knows, maybe we live in a hologram and there is a place, outside time, where everything is complete and eternal.

Only time I think about it is when someone else brings it up.

I'd like to believe in an afterlife but know that one most likely doesn't exist. It's one of the few things that keeps me from killing myself when I feel particularly depressed. The thought of nothingness forever terrifies me.

Never. Sorry about your mom OP.

I wouldn't say I think about it often. However, I do think about it. It's an interesting topic. Currently, I don't believe in an afterlife, however I'm not going to completely reject the notion of one.

Humanity has a hard time wrapping their heads around nothingness. After being conscious for so long, it's hard to believe about the unconsciousness of death. It's one of the main reasons religion exist. People want comfort in knowing there is something after, even if you're going to hell because eternal damnation is still better than not existing. It's really our egos. We think we are special and deserve something after. Sure, we are special in a sense that we have the ability of abstract thinking. However, when you take the time to consider the vastness of the universe, we are no more special than the bugs we always squash.

For me, the easiest way to think about it is like this. Do you remember anything before you were born? No, you didn't exist yet. Will you remember anything after you die? No, you don't exist now. It's that simple.

BizzyBum said:

I'm hoping there's some sort of reincarnation where we don't remember past lives or some shit.

It's absolutly terrifying to think it's eternal nothingness. Sure, I don't remember anything before I was born but now that I'm living and conscious I just can't fathom the thought now.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I find reincarnation to be terrifying. One life is hard enough. Imagine eons and eons of lives. Being born as animals, insects, into poverty, etc.

I just have a hard time believing that there's a hard stop when your body passes away. I think the "you" that you consider to be you carries on into a new body.

I'd prefer to believe in heaven or nothingness when someone dies, but I can't shake the idea of reincarnation. There have even been instances of people remembering their past lives.

Every now and then. Mostly in the "Really hope they don't bring this up when I get there" sort of way after I've done something particularly stupid... so yeah, every now and then...

Probably every couple months. Nothing like that existential dread hitting you and ruining your high.

I've had bad breaks in life, so I sometimes think about what to expect after I die. I don't know what happens after you die, but I'd hope it is something pleasant.

Forerunner said:

We think we are special and deserve something after. Sure, we are special in a sense that we have the ability of abstract thinking. However, when you take the time to consider the vastness of the universe, we are no more special than the bugs we always squash.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Another thing that makes us special is that we are the only creature we know that can make universal explanations, which means, we can explain things and get knowledge of universal laws and concepts. I take this from Deustch http://beginningofinfinity.com/interview

Ex. : We know how stars are formed at the other side of the Universe.

Dead Guy said:

I'd like to believe in an afterlife but know that one most likely doesn't exist. It's one of the few things that keeps me from killing myself when I feel particularly depressed. The thought of nothingness forever terrifies me.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I honestly don't think you should. It is your ego and sense of self preservation (your instinct to stay alive) that is manipulating you - it doesn't mean you have something to fear from being dead.

When you go to deep sleep every night, you lose consciousness. Now, if you don't wake up, you'll be fine. Don't worry about this.

No point in thinking about it since it doesn't exist.

I'm terrified of death so often think about it,.

The wheel and all that