What happens to human consciousness after death?

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I conceive of our reality as a realm governed by rules. Think Minecraft, but with more rules. If you read enough of it, you can work out how water operates in Minecraft and then can do some pretty cool things with it. Well, here you can build way cooler things, like computers that can play Minecraft.

When I think of the afterlife, I think of a realm governed by fewer rules. It intersects in various ways with our reality, but because it doesn’t play by our scientific rules, you can never measure or study them with our methods.

When you die, your consciousness becomes unhinged from your body. It lasts for awhile and then it goes away, I think of it as returning to “the Source.” Your consciousness is hooked into a soul which operates in a similar fashion to how consciousness is attached to the body. The soul then finds another body to attach to, growing a consciousness to start the cycle all over with again.

The cycle ends when the soul decides not to incarnate anymore. The way I picture this happening is one of the consciousnesses decides it wants to exist forever and not return to the Source.

I think that as we learn and grow our experiences are transmitted back to the soul and when you die, you regain access to everything you did in the past. The soul and subconscious collectively work together to present you with challenges to help you grow further.

If you had strong beliefs in an afterlife, I think the force of those beliefs along with everyone else that has them contributes to an afterlife “realm” that you can go to, such as the Christian idea of heaven. Given that these ideas change over time, heaven itself is shaped to fit the needs of all the new people going there.

For example, I’m not a Christian, but I grew up one and my mom is Christian. When I die, assuming I die after her, I might go keep her company in the afterlife until she decides to go back up to the Source. (God in her case) Then I’d go do my own thing, and play around in a sandbox of endlessness until I get bored and want to go back to a land of rules and struggle and growth.

Let’s say I wanted a world kind-of like the one I live in, only a “perfect” one. Everything happens according to how I want it to happen. If you think about it, there’s not a whole lot of daylight between that and just dreaming everything while you’re here. Eventually you’ll get bored of endless delight and want something more meatier. Off to a new life you go!