r/afterlife

It is a question that human beings has been asking since we became concious of ourselves. But do we have an answer for it. What happens when something die. One can simply define it as when the heart stops beating and the body stops working. But is that it? I understand there can be two patha to start thinking from this point. It depends on what you believe. Are we just the hardware or is there something more? If you believe that we are just the brain, the heart and the body then you can think as death as the process of stopping to work. What happens when a machine die? It doesn't work anymore. Ita just scrap. Same with living things. Just hardware that used to work. But if you believe that our consciousness is not just in the brain and it is something that science hasn't explained yet, then death becomes harder to explain. The body is gone. But where does the conciousness go? Will we be concious about the emptiness we are in? Will it be eternal darkness?We see because we have eyes. A conciousness doesn't have eyes. So there is no sight. Can we feel things that is happening? How would it work? There is no thought. There is no pain. There is no us. Would death mean to become nothing?

If we are under the impression that the afterlife is real and absent from all the pain, suffering and the grind of physical life here on earth, what’s the point of being here? I’ve heard so many different theories like we’re here to learn, or we’re here to make bonds or we’re here to just experience or even that we’re here to grow our spirituality. I know that no one really knows why we’re here but what I have such trouble understanding is why go through a life of pain and turmoil and continue to just try to grind through it when what’s waiting on the other side is so much better?

I’m not suggesting anyone just give up here but some days it’s so hard to stay motivated when you know there are so many tough days ahead. Is it simply out of fear of the unknown? I’m spoken to many people who claim not to have that fear but I have no idea how that’s possible with so many theories and so little to go off of in terms of evidence. Many claim to know but a lot of the times you’ll have a bunch of people with conflicting theories who all claim they just know. How do you not question your own knowledge? How do you deal with physical and emotional pain? How do you accept the many stages of life that seem to continuously come with more and more suffering as each stage comes?

Sorry for the rant I’m just feeling a bit confused about how strange this human experience is. It just doesn’t seem to have any point

Just wanted to rant today. Missing my dad a lot today. I know this sounds crazy but my mind just goes into thinking what he is up to today. Is he hanging out with his parents? Is he finally having time to focus on his dreams of writing?

I just hope wherever he is he is happy and doing things he couldn’t do for himself on Earth.

I also want him to know how much we are missing him. Everyday here on Earth is miserable without him.

My father passed away back in march and its his birthday tomorrow. I'm wondering if his birthday can affect anything between us and the afterlife? Can he communicate through signs more easily today or just have an easier time having a prescence here. I'm not expecting him to show up as a ghost randomly (even though I wish he would lol) but I'm hoping he gives us something to show us his prescence.

My dad died when I was three and I had never dreamed about him. Not once. Then the night after I graduated college I had a dream that he was sitting in my room. He looked at me and smiled then hugged me and said “I’m proud of you.”

It felt so real that until I woke up I genuinely thought it was happening. A part of me has always believed that was actually my dad coming to see me during a major moment in my life. But then my logical brain wonders if maybe my mind created exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. 😩😭

I don’t know which explanation I believe more. lol anyone else experience something similar? curious to hear y’alls thoughts

I have heard about pocket universes and such in nde's.

I remember a particular dream I had once, just a regular dream, very lucid though, where I went inside a wall through a small door and it "felt" like my own personal world. It was full of people, and it truly felt like I belonged there and everyone there knew and loved me deeply. It is a feeling I have never felt in my life here, experiencing it in the dream felt so right and wonderful, but it is still something completely unfamiliar to me here on earth. My own world.

It is an indescribable feeling compared to waking reality, it was just a wonderful feeling of being completely and fully where I belonged and being embraced and loved fully. Everyone in that room adored me, in that dream and it felt like my own personal world completely. I did not have to be shy or hold back socially because I knew everyone accepted me and wished me no harm and had no deceit.

I hope more than anything, that in the afterlife, we can all have many such worlds of our own or pocket realities to return to.

Our own worlds, where we are fully embraced and loved by people or beings who belong in our world and love us fully and are compatible with us deeply. Where we can all be our true selves and happy, and feel loved.

Is there a world.... many worlds even, waiting for us back home eagerly? With characters or beings we have forgotten about, but will be so happy when we return and we will only then remember when we get back there, that we actually have always belonged there and it will feel more real and familiar than we can imagine?

It's so interesting to me, reading about how the world in the afterlife can be so perfect or tailored to each individual, like the dying process is created for each person in particular for them to feel comfortable with it and at peace.

I’m having a really difficult day today. I miss my dad so much that I don’t even know how to put it into words.

I keep thinking about the possibility that this is really it. That he is gone and I will never see him again and I honestly cannot accept that. I don’t want our relationship to have ended. I don’t want him to just be a memory.

I want to believe there is something after this life. I want to believe that somewhere, somehow, I will see my dad again. That I will recognize him. That he will recognize me. That I’ll still be his daughter.

And honestly, I want to be his daughter in every life.
I don’t care what form it takes or what the afterlife looks like. I just want him. I want the dad I remember. His voice, his laugh, his presence, his way of being there for me. I want to be able to hug him again and somehow know, without any doubt, that he is my dad and I am his daughter.

If you believe in reincarnation, an afterlife, soul families, signs from loved ones, near-death experiences, or anything else that has given you hope that we continue to exist and that our loved ones are still connected to us, please tell me about it.

I’m not asking anyone to prove anything to me. I think I just desperately need some hope today.
I need to know that loving someone this deeply doesn’t mean that losing them is the end of the relationship.

I want my dad to know how much I miss him. I miss him so, so, so much. I miss him every day. There are moments when I want to tell him something, or I need him, and then I remember that I can’t just call him anymore. And it hurts in a way I don’t know how to explain.

If there really is an afterlife, I hope he knows.
I hope somehow he can feel how much his daughter loves him.

And more than anything, I hope that one day, somewhere beyond this life, I get to see my dad again.

I just really need someone to give me hope that I will.

I rarely dream. I don't believe in much of an afterlife despite wishing I did. But someone I deeply love who passed away a few years ago showed up in a dream last night, with his best friend and brother kind of sitting there seeming bored that he had to be there waiting for this emotional errand. I won't get into the details of the dream, but I remembered he was dead and that he wasn't real, which broke my heart and woke me up. I tried to go back to sleep so I could see him again, but couldn't. I wondered why his brother was with him, so I googled him. He had passed away 2 weeks ago.

I'm a really skeptical person but I've had a couple of these types of situations before. I called my grandmother before in the middle of her having a heart attack despite rarely calling her. I just felt like I should.

If anyone has good resources that are scientifically rooted in the nature of consciousness, I would appreciate the recommendations. I'm seeking hope that it's scientifically possible that it was really him in this dream, and not just my mind making it up for comfort. The more scientific, the better, I'm a scientist and naturally quite skeptical of most claims. At the same time, I really miss him, so even if it's not scientific and you're someone who picks up on things from the other side, I'm open to hearing those things too.

A term used by only the living to describe the absence of biological function--nothing.

An abstract concept similar to cold and darkness; neither of which exist either, words used to describe the absence of heat and light, respectively.

We will never experience our death but only what it means for others.

Ok don't laugh at the idea... But do you think animals experience NDE's? What makes us humans capable of experiencing NDE's and seeing such vivid visions? Does it simply involve being conscious? Or does the being have to have some sort of more complex intelligence?

All answers are respected and please be respectful 🤲

IMO, there's only one very particular assumption that causes all the confusion, panic, doubts, fears and insecurities about the afterlife and the nature of existence wrt how/why we're in this world, what our relationship is to the afterlife, and what the afterlife is like.

That basic assumption is: universalism.

In a nutshell, universalism is the idea that there is one set of metaphysical truths, or fundamental laws, that govern everything and apply to everyone everywhere. This manifests particularly in afterlife-related communities as disagreements about these "whether or not" points, to list a few:

1. Whether or not we choose to come here;
2. Whether or not the afterlife is physical or non-physical;
3. Whether or not we have "soul contracts;"
4. Whether or not we retain our individuality/ego after we die;
5. Whether or not we reincarnate and/or have had many incarnations;
6. Whether or not some or many or all of our experiences here and/or in the afterlife are illusions/simulations;
7. Whether or not the signs we get are really from those we love that have died;
8. Whether or not some form of "justice" is delivered in relation to evils committed;
9. And countless other "whether or not" conflicts and confusions.

I refer to these kinds of universal claims as low-order universalisms that only survive by offering various dismissive explanations for contradictory experiences, information and evidence - that these other other experiences and the contradictory evidence are mistaken, or are "illusions," or represent outright fraud.

If we drop these low-order universalisms, the actual information and evidence can be interpreted in much less competitive and less conflict-based way: some people choose to come here; some do not. Some people have soul contracts; some do not. Some people retain their individuality/ego after they die; some do not. Etc.

I suggest there's a higher-order meta-universalism one can adopt that makes sense out of all this seemingly contradictory and confusing information that low-order universalisms generate: existence/reality is infinitely diverse and all possible things exist - or to put it another way: all possible realities exist.

Under this higher-order universalism, it's not a question about whether or not any of those specific things are true; it's a question of what kind of reality a person either naturally aligns with, or chooses for themselves going forward.

From a metaphysical perspective, you might ask yourself: out of all possible realities, why would only one exist? Why is the only way to support the notion that only one exists is by relying on dismissal of countless contradictory experiences, large amounts of inconvenient evidence, and all the contradictory information? Why do all the low-order universalisms require cherry-picking evidence, information and experiences that supports that particular concept and structure of reality?

IMO, the afterlife and existence is relatively easy to understand under this meta-universalist perspective. IMO, the only thing that is "wrong" wrt any particular description of anyone's preferred or observed or experienced reality is their assumption that the reality they are experiencing, believing in, observing, learning about, finding evidence to support and describing is the only reality that exists.

Much like the irrational idea that "there is no afterlife" is impossible to support either logically or evidentially, the idea that "there is only one reality" (as described above) is impossible to support either logically or evidentially. "There are no other realities" is as irrational a claim as "there is no afterlife."

And, indeed, there is a lot of evidence that supports the idea that virtually infinite experiential realities do, in fact, exist, and that it is by our individual observation, measurements, thoughts, inner states, assumptions and beliefs that move us into corresponding realities.

All of this is, of course, from my perspective, experiences, and from what evidence and information i have examined.

Bonjour, j’ai pleins de question sur la mort. Quand j’imagine la mort, j’ai peur car je me rend compte que la vie est trop courte, que apres la mort il y a un trou noir, on ne sait plus rien sur la vie qu’on a mener. la vie ne signifirait plus rien? On est comme pieger dans un univers ou on va tous mourir et ca m’angoisse.. j’ai l’impression on va vivre nos premieres fois d’une vie et on va mourir mdr on a meme pas de seconde chance, on en a une seule et c’est sois la vie ta gaté sois non.. ca me fait stresser personnellement

Today it’s really struck me, there’s no way the eternal torture can be real right?

Hey guys,
I have been spending a lot of time researching the after life as my spiritual journey has started. It all started with anxious thinking because i realized i didn’t know what i believed but really hoped it would be something. i have now come to the conclusion that there is something but it is still unknown to me, however i keep hearing conflicting and anxiety inducing things. one of the things i hear is when you die don’t go toward the tunnel of light because its a trap and your soul will be stuck forever. is there any truth to that? death is already kind of horrifying to me because of all the uncertainties there are but hearing that definitely doesn’t help. if it is a trap what happens if my loved ones fall for it, do i never see them again? i can’t tell every single person i love about this bc a, i would seem a little crazy lol and b, how do i even tell every person i care about that? I honestly feel crazy for my beliefs anyways because of the amount of people who just believe there is nothing after this life. i found that optimism is treated like stupidity especially when it comes to the unknowns of death. Thank you everyone who responds! 🫶

Just want to start this off by saying I do believe in mediums. (credible ones not the ones who scam people)

I'm lucky enough to have found a real medium that has helped give me messages from my deceased father. She knew my mother on a purely business relationship and only knew that she had a husband, 2 kids, and our ages. She knew no real details about our family other than extremely surface level information. It wasn't until my dad died that her and my mom got into contact again and she revealed she had this gift of being able to communicate with deceased people. She gave us messages from him that were things only me and my family knew and she described his personality perfectly. She's also knows things that are happening to us currently which she has no way of knowing unless there was someome watching over my family from beyond the veil of death. How could science ever explain or disprove something like this. Materalistic science likes to attribute all experiences with the afterlife to malfunctioning brains, but how would it explain something like this? How could it explain these experiences that provide her with true information she otherwise wouldn't? I went on a bit of a rant there but I just had to share my thoughts with you guys.