In the past I had a conversation with a user here who's no longer with us. She shared that she was trying to imagine an afterlife that's peaceful, even if it's pure fantasy. Since then I've taken an active interest in cultivating a peaceful fantasy life. I find this helpful.
The spark of the conversation was sharing one of my favorite paintings - The Garden of Death by the Finnish painter Hugo Simberg. It depicts an afterlife where people become plants that are lovingly cared for by death. My pfp is a detail from it.
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I actually think something kinda similar. I am very much an athiest. I believe in what can be seen and tested. But I do think it might be important to imagine the afterlife is a peaceful happy place.
So think about going to sleep and dreaming. Surely I am not the only one who ever had a dream that felt like only a few seconds, just to wake up and realize its been hours. Or I've had the the complete opposite. So our brain seems to process time differently in a dream like state. The episode of Bojack Horseman when he is drowning in the pool, and his unconscious mind is imagining all the people in his life who died. He sees them all putting on a show. After each one is finished performing, they walk through a door into black nothingness. Bojack is the last to perform, and he tells his friend Herb who was acting as the announcer "See you on the other side." before he is about to walk through the door. Herb chuckles and says "No. There is no other side. This is it. This is just your brain doing what it feels like it needs to do."
That episode made me think. Those moments as your brain dies, what will it be doing? Is it gonna feel like a really long dream, a dream that in reality is only seconds or minutes? If so, what will it be doing? Will our brain be doing the same thing, imagining whatever it thinks its supposed to be thinking? If you have fear or a guilty conscious like Bojack, if you feel like your gonna go to some sort of hell when you die, is that what your brain will imagine as it dies? Can we instead picture peace and happiness as the afterlife so if we do spend time in some sort of dream like unconscious state it will be pleasant one. Obviously I dont think it will be permanent, I dont believe in a real afterlife, but I'm sure it will feel just as real while it happens.
Not sure if any of that made sense. Maybe I'm just crazy, but it makes sense in my head lol Basically I think we are in control of our own temporary, fake "afterlife" depending on our thoughts and emotions.