The age old question of what happens to us after we die has faced man since the dawn of our existence. It is a question I myself have pondered upon the answer to for many years. Being raised by Catholic parents, I was told growing up that when we die our spirit goes to heaven or hell. I was satisfied by that answer for many years, but as I grew older and my beliefs changed, I again began searching for an answer to this question.
With so many different religious beliefs around the world, how can we be sure which one is correct? What if none of them are correct? What if all of them are correct? Maybe after our bodies die our consciousness goes wherever we believed it would go while we were alive. Despite the countless number of times I have heard people confidently debate their beliefs and what awaits us after death, I have yet to hear one that I can stand behind.
There are also those who believe that there is nothing waiting for us beyond death and our consciousness just shuts off. I struggle with this concept as well. Our minds and our consciousness within are so complex that I cannot fathom it just fading away into nothingness.
During my search for answers, I came across a few interesting articles that linked near death experiences with REM sleep related lucid dreaming. They theorized that as our brain begin to shut down, it enters a fight or flight state and switches into the REM state of consciousness. I find this theory extremely fascinating. If our mind is able to enter the REM state of consciousness before death, then maybe the afterlife is nothing more than a dream fabricated by our own mind as it fights in vain to survive. Even though in real time our brain may enter that REM state for just a brief moment before death, the dream that we perceive to be the afterlife may feel like an eternity because of the timeless feeling that dreams tend to have.
This is the most appealing theory I have heard so far. Think of the possibilities. If the afterlife was a dream created by our mind, we could make it anything we wanted it to be. Who knows, with access to our vast amounts of memories, maybe it would be possible to manifest our friends and family into our dream-state afterlife as well. Even though I don’t believe in this theory wholeheartedly, it’s comforting to think that this could possibly be what’s awaiting me when my time on this earth comes to an end.
Inside Matthew's Mind 