Avengers: Endgame - Every Mystery The Russos Have Answered (So Far)

4. The Dusted

The Question

It's a strange one, but it's one that a lot of people have asked since Infinity War and Endgame: what happened to everyone's consciousness when they disappeared and then came back after five years? Were they aware of being "dead" for five years? Wouldn't that fundamentally change you as a person?

The Answer

The Russos confirmed that those people who were unlucky enough to be snapped out of existence were not conscious of what had happened while they were "away," despite us seeing them aware of what was happening as they disappeared. That's a small mercy really:

"To those dusted people, they had no conscious in these past 5 years. They didn't know what happened. It's as if they had just woke up from a long sleep."

There's been a clearer confirmation more recently:

"You wouldn't age if you were zapped out of existence, you would just stop existing. And then when you were brought back you'd begin existing again.

Interestingly they also revealed that Doctor Strange was the only one who knew how long they'd been away:

"The only one who was aware about how many years has passed was Doctor Strange, because he has already seen that when he was time mediating on Titan."