What Do You See?

          What do you see?  I mean this statement metaphorically.  Or do I?  What do you believe that people see once their lives have reached their end?  Some fantastic light show, or a simple light, staring back at them from what seems like the end of a hallway or tunnel.  Does everything feel like it is slowly encompassing around you, leaving you to exist within a dark void?  Does time slow down, as you quickly watch everything around you vanish out of your line of sight?

Do terms like "emptiness", "having nowhere to turn", "being inside the darkest and smallest room imaginable" feel plausible?  I've always wondered, ever since I was a very young child, what exactly do we see and experience when we die.  Do we end up standing before a divine being who dictates what foreign land we will exist in next?  Do we end up existing in a happy and peaceful place, or do we exist in a place full of torture, pain, and damnation?  Do our actions that affect others during our life on this planet affect what we experience when and after we die?  Do we simply walk the endless planes of existence, some which mirror or intersect the world in which we came from? Or do we simply stop existing?  These thoughts have plagued mankind since the dawn of civilization, and no one has been able to come up with a definite answer as to what happens to us when we die.  Do we simply renew our existence as something else entirely on this planet?  Do we exist in another dimension entirely, one that seems plausible or otherwise?  Do we exist in the simplest of things upon this planet in other forms of life after we die?  A blade of grass, a passing deer, the loudest cricket, do we manifest our souls into those forms of life?  Do we even have souls?  And if so, do we simply haunt our homes and favorite places upon the material landscapes as free floating entities?  Or do we simply stop experiencing everything?  Do we simply stop existing and anything that we could imagine that comes after us never exists?  What if the act of killing someone was an act that eliminated them completely from existence?  No place to rest a soul, if those exist, no place to call home after dying, if such exists, would that person simply die and never experience anything again?  Would we simply stop feeling, stop experiencing anything?  Imagine being inside the darkest room.  If you are going to attempt this, follow these instructions.  Shut off the lights if possible.  Make sure the room does not exceed a temperature of 72 degrees Fahrenheit or 22 degrees celsius (colder temperatures are preferable.)  Cover any lights, turn off all alerts, shut off any fans or vents, and make sure that you cannot see the fingers of your own hand.  Most importantly, make sure you are well seated and will not move (if you would prefer to be free floating in water, lay in a bathtub or a shallow pool.)  Once you are situated and are still, control and focus on your breathing.  The breathing is meant to make sure you do not actually die and relinquish yourself from this reality, as you are creating a sensory deprivation room.  You will be alive, but the limited sensations that you will experience within it will open your mind to the possibility of no longer existing.  See if you are capable of imaging something.  Imagine what dying actually feels like.  Replicate in your mind someone cutting off the lifeline that you are clinging to, and you begin your fall into death.  What do you see?  Do you see something joyful, frightful, a new future, new hope, a new beginning, or simply an ending to everything you knew and loved?  Do we live on after we die, or are we extinguished like the smallest flame on a candle?  Once we are out, we are put out forever.  Never to exist again, or experience anything.  Everything you knew, everything you felt, gone forever.  When your flame is extinguished, so is everything else you knew.  Once you die..........what do you see?