What do you think happens to your consciousness when you die?

I have three things in my mind right now:

1) Nothing

2) This was all just a simulation. Game over, you go back to your "real life".

3) Consciousness is a some sort of field like thing permeating the universe. Living things excites this field and "captures" a bit of it. When you die your body stops exciting the field. But the field is still there.

Consciousness is the product of an active, awake brain. When the brain stops receiving oxygen, it can no longer produce consciousness. This can be demonstrated without death with a good sleeper choke.

Seems about right. Main fear the pain before death, the idea of suffocating in a confined space scares the shit out of me.

Yeah death doesn't scare me, been there before for all the years previous to 1976. It's getting dead that's going to suck, probably. I dunno, maybe the endorphin rush will be nice.

Though I have read that scans of rats brains as they are being beheaded killed show a heightened sense of consciousness for a half minute before fading out. Here's the article.

Probably nothing.

Nothing of course.

Once you die you die and the short time you spent on this planet is ended.

Nothing,probably.

I been unconscious and there is nothing so yeah.

While I think that it does end, the ol' reincarnation does appeal to me. Not because I want to be reborn as a dung beetle, but because new consciousnesses are created every second. If there is something it is like to be conscious, that is, something to be experienced with every new life, then why couldn't it be me experiencing those things. Not as myself, of course, but as a new entity.

Not saying there's any basis for that... only that it's conceivable.

That's it. You do not pass go. You do not collect $200. Death is final...

@tocool340: When I snuff it I genuinely hope this pops up.

You wake up at Blips and Chitz

You become something else that cannot be describe as a human being.

It's always interesting to read what others think may happen. As stated before, none of us know and will ever know. There will always be those articles "I was pronounced dead but come back to life" stories that add fuel to fire. But truth be told, we will never know.

Now, if I was to guess as to what would happen. Nothing. Nothing at all. Our existence is quickly forgotten about as our physical remains are dumped into the ground. Positive outlook I know.

It ends.

Something like your third option. Although your particular conscious experience will just disappear but maybe it affected the bigger conscious system in some way.

Probably the same thing that happened before I was born.

nothing

your brain dies so your consciousness ceases to exist

@uninspiredcup: @br0kenrabbit: Both pretty much summed it up.

I've tried many times to imagine what no longer being alive is like. It's just incomprehensible but even then I still try to imagine it from time to time. It's like trying to remember what it was like before to not exist, before you were born. That's probably what being dead is like. I'm slightly open to the possibility of an afterlife or our conscious living on elsewhere since I am agnostic. But I don't think it's something we can or ever will be able to understand.

It's like going to sleep. That's it.

^ This. Once you die, that's it. No more "you", just nothing.

I believe there are two possibilities for your consciousness upon death. Described below.

Revelation 21:4-8

4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

We don't know for sure, but it's still the most realistic answer.

You see, for me this is a bold statement. Everything we DO know points to everything we call consciousness is in our physical brain. There is absolutely no proof of a soul. Anyone who makes up their own version of "hat could be" are the ones making the bold statements. Is it possible we wake up in a machine, realising we were living in a Matrix? Sure, but it's very unlikely. By your logic, there is literally NO statement you can make. "Maybe it's not raining, maybe it's aliens just creating holgrams of raindrops and we just get wet because they have special devices to make stuff wet when the hologram hits them". Prove me wrong, we don't know if rain exists.

Hopefully just *poof*. The whole concept of paradise, higher consciousness, rebirth or whatever sounds so dull to me...

Hopefully nothing, I don't know if I could handle "more".

I tend to believe in dualism.

And in that, reincarnation or rebirth. Of course I have absolutely no evidence to support this, but I do tend towards the belief that life is a journey of evolution of the soul, or whatever you'd like to call it. It's the only way I can make sense of suffering. I see people in the world who appear to be great souls. Almost on the verge of a higher transcendence if I could place any word on it. A wisdom, a humbleness. I can't help but view life as a learning experience, and I can't bring myself to believe there's an end game of oblivion to that simply due to biological limitations. That it's utterly pointless and finite when the candle extinguishes, the lessons learnt and experiences gained lost forever. The hardships and gains to exist in such a framework of temporal irrelevance and nihilism.

No, I just cannot believe that....life is a teacher, and biology doesn't restrict or dictate that. Not to mean that we'll retain any semblance of our consciousness after death, but the growth we've endured in this life will manifest itself in the circumstances and character of our next in whatever form it may take. I don't think existence ever ends; death is simply a stage of transference to our future one.