Lights Out

You fall asleep. Then you wake up. What happens in between? You lose consciousness. You dream. Your mind technically stays active. But you typically aren't aware. 'You', as in your consciousness.

You lose consciousness when you fall asleep. You also lose it when you die. The difference is when you die, you don't regain consciousness, right? How do we know we will wake up? We have no guarantee. We expect to wake up because we have been waking up since we were born. But one day we won't. Unless there's some way to preserve our consciousness beyond our physical body.

It seems strange, at least to me, that one would be okay with dying. I understand that if you are in lots of pain, either physical or emotional, you'd rather die. But what if you aren't in any pain. What if you enjoy every day. Would you then still be okay with dying? I suppose it depends on the person. For example, if the person happens to believe in the afterlife, then dying is no big deal. But if you're like me, this life is all you have.

If you ask people how they prefer to die, most would likely say in their sleep. That way you're unconscious when it happens. Being aware of your impending death is frightening. We spend the majority of our lives trying to stay alive. If you die without being aware, then it's the same as falling asleep.

In the future, the definition of dying might be different than what it is today. We may be able to capture one's 'soul' or consciousness on a computer chip. One day it may be possible to fall asleep in one body and wake up in another. This could be considered a manufactured reincarnation. We could potentially live forever. But, until that happens, we need to deal with death. And some, if not most people are perfectly okay with dying. Many people prefer not to live forever.

Life might become boring after a while, right? As the saying goes, life is a struggle. Why struggle forever if you don't have to? Then again, perhaps everything will be automated in the future and all ailments will have a cure. What then? Would people still choose death?