All possibilities for what would happen to consciousness after death

This article by S. Perquin discusses what could happen to consciousness after death. With consciousness I mean that which is aware of the existence of itself and its environment, in whatever reality or state it may be. As many conceivable possibilities as possible are listed.

There are two main categories of possibilities: either consciousness is lost forever, decaying because the brain is dead, or consciousness still exists in a different form, outside the old body. In the latter case, consciousness would not depend on the physical brain but would be an independent entity. If you assume that consciousness persists after physical death, there are several possibilities:

  • You become one with a universal consciousness, from which all individual consciousnesses originate. Subjects that would possess consciousness are
    • humans.
    • humans and animals.
    • humans, animals and plants.
    • all organisms.
    • everything (see also panpsychism).
  • You find yourself in a temporary intermediate state, such as merging with universal consciousness or remaining individually in a heaven (or hell), after which you reincarnate on Earth as one of the above-described forms of consciousness.
  • You will be reborn in an eternal heaven (or hell). This may be located on
    • another planet in the universe.
    • another dimension or plane on
      • planet Earth.
      • another planet.
  • You become one with God, which means everything is God, you are a part of God and
    • only some people are part of God.
    • only people are part of God.
    • only living organisms are part of God.
    • everything, including inanimate objects, is part of God (see also pantheism).
  • You become God again because you are God, which implies that you are the creator of the universe. Your life on Earth was merely to experience existence in a body.
  • You wake up from a dream in the real world. You dreamed the life you lived before you died (see also dream argument).
  • You enter a new dream, implying that we are dreaming within a dream, within a dream, and so on.
  • You return to the planet—where extraterrestrial intelligence exists—where you originally came from (see also starseeds).
  • You will wake up from a simulation because you are actually lying in some kind of machine (see also simulation hypothesis). This machine could be located in a parallel universe on
    • the real Earth.
    • another planet.