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[t'Sade]

These two little images are kind of cool, but it got me to thinking about that final moment before you die. Not the calm, normal lives 99.999% of us will experience, but what goes through one's head? I could find the Saw movies interesting, except you never really get into the heads of the individual characters. It is just death scene after death scene; though I haven't watched most of them.

I sometimes try to find that point in my stories; but I like the sex too much to really explore it fully.

[necrocorpse]

Maybe you should have put a "claustrophobia warning" on your post, eh?    Yeah, I've often wondered the same thing.  Though it was the subject of a very recent nightmare I had.  I was about to die, along with everybody around me, and there wasn't a damn thing anybody could do about it.  At that point, I woke up.

[MariusVI]

These two little images are kind of cool, but it got me to thinking about that final moment before you die. Not the calm, normal lives 99.999% of us will experience, but what goes through one's head? I could find the Saw movies interesting, except you never really get into the heads of the individual characters. It is just death scene after death scene; though I haven't watched most of them.

I sometimes try to find that point in my stories; but I like the sex too much to really explore it fully.

"Of us..."

You're assuming nobody from Africa or any Brazillian (or, for the love of God, Indonesian) favela is frequenting this forum?

[Ludovico]

Personally, I'm going to be thinking about chips & dip.

This reminds me of the old myth that your whole life flashes before your eyes. There is a legend (not true) that Wyatt and Morgan Earp argued this as kids. After Morgan was shot in the back, and lying dying on a pool table, he whispered in Wyatt's ear " I don't see a fucking thing ! "

[t'Sade]

Heh, that got a laugh.

[azalel]

About 20 years ago, I attempted suicide by swallowing a bottle of pain killers.  What I didn't realize was that the pain killers were not pain killers.  They were antibiotics (for an infected ingrown toenail).  I took 61 of the fucking things.  Rather than the painless death I envisioned, I went through excruciating agony as the antibiotics ate a hole in the wall of my stomach.  I died of internal bleeding.

Although the doctor was able to revive me, I was clinically dead (no blood pressure, no heartbeat) for 4 and a half minutes.  Like Morgan, I saw nothing.  I felt nothing.  Kinda killed my belief in God. 

Before I died, however, I experience what some of my characters feel; a desire for death.  An end to the pain. 

[Ludovico]

Thanks for sharing this.

An evangelical would argue that God erased your memory upon revival.

[KK]

And a neurologist would argue that the shutdown of the circulatory system stopped supplying the brain with oxygen. That effectively shut down ultra short term memory which stores the actual moments of conscious thought only as electrical impulses.
Obviously the experiences just before clinical death were erased. Upon revival, they were gone.

[azalel]

I know next to nothing about the religious or scientific explanations. I really have not looked into it.

I said it 'kinda' killed my belief in God. After 20 years, though, I have changed my mind. To my way of thinking, saying there is no god is as ridiculous as saying there is a god. You cannot prove either statement.

So now, I just let people believe what they want.

[t'Sade]

I think knowing something is going to happen next is a comfort. For some, it gives hope that everything just won't end at that final moment, that there is simply nothing. For others, it gives them excuse to screw around, to hurt people, simply because they know there is nothing.

[azalel]

I have to agree....to a point. I, personally, have no use for a belief in anything after death, but many people do need that threat of consequences or promise of reward to keep them in line.

I have studied many religions in my quest to find a 'way' and none have impressed me much. Wiccans, however, are the closest to my view. They have a creed of sorts:  "Do as thou may, but harm none."   I like that.  But, I can follow that creed without having to believe in anything spiritual (my wife thinks rocks have more spirituality than I do).

[Ludovico]

Okay, I've never shared this, but here it goes.

For a long time, I've had this fantasy that when I die, I will wake up in bed as an 8 year old, and remember everything. With the mind of an adult, and detailed knowledge of the coming decades, I will live a new life.

This leads to all kinds of fantasies of what I will be able to do - great fun to let my imagination run wild, while drinking beer and eating chips & dip.

[KK]

I belief in the... well.... continuity of the personality after physical death.
I cannot describe it any less abstract.

Because the concept of the personality just being gone, is unacceptable. What would individuality mean if it just ends? Nothing. Life as an individual then has no meaning and then that raises the question of why we are individuals and why we would care about society - philosophy, human rights etc. all? Ultimately it would mean nothing.
Just find that unacceptable, so I prefer to belief in that it matters because "we" as a personality, a set of memories and experiences continue to exist somehow consciously.

I don't care whether there is a god or higher being or whatever, because all that matters to me is the concept of continued existence as the personality I am.

[tlaloc52]

For me death is the beginning of a new cycle and the end of, if any, pain.  Then there is continued existence, just in a different form, only to be replenished again at another time. 

I originally hail from central america so the philosophy of those cultures feels close to home.  Some would say the Maya were barbaric but they were actually very giving.  That was the whole point of sacrifices.  Replenishing to ensure a future.  We take from the earth so we should give back to it.  Sort of ancient "eco-friendly" if you think about it