Conceptualizing Death

I just got home from hanging out with a few friends down the road. We were sitting around talking and stuff, and I brought up dreams because I had a lucid dream last night. Lucid dreaming quickly led to altered consciousness states and out of body experiences which quickly led to our own individual perceptions of death. My buddy Chris was saying death is the end-all-be-all of human consciousness as a whole. He explained that our actions in life are irrelevant because once we die, even if our consciousness moves on, all events in our lifetimes are lost and therefore do not hold any weight or meaning whatsoever because we literally cannot perceive anything after our brains stop working.

I offered the explanation that he was stuck on the idea of perceiving things through the human ego, and that death refers only to the destruction of the physical form. Everything we experience we relate to our ego - how does this make ME feel, why should I do this, it's a part of MY personality. It's almost like a filtering mechanism for the brain. When you experience death and the metaphysical existence beyond death, you also experience what is called ego-death. The complete and total loss of a concept of self. There is no you, I, or me. You exist as pure thought and therefore are a part of everything in the universe. Because, after all, any universe you create is governed by your thoughts whether you're physically alive or not.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this. Yes, you. Do you agree/disagree? With whom? Why? What is your concept of death? Is there anything beyond death? What is it? Why?

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