I think a good way to interpret death, or an "awakening" would be very much like being knocked out or asleep and dreaming, for good. If anything, to me, dreaming is the closest thing to death I can imagine, along with a sense of ascension; of course, it's the most painless transition, and you can wake back out of it again. If you're going to die at all (as we were expecting a couple days ago), my best advice to either ascend and painlessly transition, be demolished atomically by a really hot blast of energy akin to anything as powerful as a nuke, or if you can't afford such things, make sure your sensory or central nervous system is disabled or destroyed before dying. Those are at least my suggestions for the least painful ways to go, provided consciousness and sensations start and end at the brain. Anything else would suck otherwise as a transition, due to hurting like hell before spiritual departure, and being a one-way ticket out; even worse if your "flight" gets cancelled at the last minute. In those senses, kinda my reasoning why suicide is always a crappy answer, unless you're doing something heroic, or truly awesome. Make that pain worth it if you somehow survive.
More back to topic:
From time to time, I do enjoy being a creature other than human at times in my dream worlds, and if you will post-mortal existence. Of course, taking the form of an eldritch abomination has it's share of fun as well. In a sense, any form further away from your previous form, the more interesting; then again, that's also more limbs to operate than I think my brain is supposed to from time to time; including vision with compound eyes of various types at various angles, blinking at various times; or taking the form of an atomic structure, or a being that takes on such a form, much like a cherub as described in the Bible as a being with wheels within wheels and such. I think the most fun with taking a non-human form is if you have lucid control over your RSI (residual Self-Image). I think this stuff here belongs better in the Dream Thread.
You know, what if like, the world did end, but it didn't end?
Maybe the human existence as a whole is just some dream that everyone is part of.
All of our brains are linked by some sort of telepathic bond that allows us to interact with one another as if it were real, but it isn't.
Our real bodies are just, laying dormant, waiting for us to leave this universe, and move into the real one.
Dunno where I was going with that.
My siblings and I have talked about this stuff from time to time. It's a pretty interesting angle to come at it from. But what are some theories of shared existences, multiple lives in one, and past lives that can come from any time, from any place, from any 'verse? I mean, for all I know, I've had several past lives that haven't happened yet, if you look at time from a linear perspective; plenty of them, I wasn't human, and I wasn't as much a computer geek as I am today. I could have been a warrior of many cultures, folklore, and so on, and plenty of them not even on Earth itself. Could explain plenty of my other non-human selves I've come across in my dream worlds. Many of them make my eyes hurt to look at, and others, I can't seem to wrap my head around how that would feel like operating (then again,
I could have been looking at angels. I mean, really, those things get freaky looking, and utterly massive; like skyscraper to planetary scales, or bigger. All I can say is, thank God they're with us, as far as I know. One common face I see watching over me, however, is my guardian angel
Saint Michael the Archangel, and that bastard looks well deserving of his badass rank and descriptions across all biblical canon. You don't want to fuck with that guy; especially when you see his true form, and he's having a rough day (definitely not like the humanoid form we're all familiar with seeing in artworks. Simply put, not many things scare me in life anymore, but I nearly crapped myself when I saw his true form for the first time, out of curiosity in my dream (I asked, and he showed). First off, the human form, and scale is for our convenience; the rest, you can leave to your imagination... also because I forgot most of it. Nonetheless, there's a reason they take on humanoid forms around us most the time, I'll leave it there. Simply put, it's one thing to see such a thing illustrated in games like Bayonetta and series like Neon Genesis Evangelion, it's entirely something else to see it, and attempt to communicate with it, sorta-for-real (since it was in my dream world, after all; so many voices in all different languages at the same time, plenty of them beyond alien; I assume they were all saying the same exact phrase/response in all those languages.). Any other normal or unprepared person would have enough nightmares to run a good several lifetimes, or go into hysterical blindness, after seeing something like that. Makes Cthulhu look like an adorable pet dog or cat.).).