What Happens When We Die?

Redditor boring_user_name has described a classic out-of-body experience:

"When I coded, I don't remember a sensation of floating, but I was able to recall things in detail that happened while I was 'dead' on the other side of the room. No white lights, no dead relatives, nobody telling me to go back, but I was definitely able to see things that were in no way visible from where my body was. I remember speaking and being angry because nobody would answer me. My mother told me 'you didn't say anything, you were dead.'"

OBEs occurring at the time of death are particularly difficult to study as all efforts are (quite rightly) put in to resuscitation rather than study at this point.

There have been countless theories about OBEs over the years, drawing many differently conclusions and citing everything from sleep paralysis to a delusion created by the brain to sort of "trick" us into believing that we have a soul, as a way of protecting our sense of self. Despite this, nobody really knows why it happens, or even if there is just a single cause.

Whatever the reason behind these bizarre and mysterious phenomena, their effect on the human psyche is not to underestimated. It is uncertain as to how these kinds of experiences are linked to our ideas about the soul, the afterlife and consciousness and where they sit in terms of the cause and effect of these ideas. It may well be that our superstitions about death, learnt and absorbed over a lifetime, have an effect on how we experience death, or even that it was these experiences that led us to believe that there could be something beyond the grave in the first place.

We may never truly understand what happens when we die, however, slowly but surely, we are gradually closing in on the great unknown.