To whom it may concern, our fear of death.
I believe our fear of death is our attachment to our memories. Odin worries about his ravens, Hugin and Munin, that they may someday not return, but he worries most about Munin. Our memories not only assist in our survival, but we believe they also define who we are. Our memories are what make up our identities, our egos.
We attach ourselves to our memories, to our parents, to the people who raised us from birth. We attach ourselves to our names, to our families, to our teachers, and so on. Then we believe these memories are ourselves, and without them we would be nothing—we would cease to exist. And the desire to exist is the most fundamental instinct of all things.
But what if life is a dream, and our memories of this life are simply memories within that dream? Anyone who has awakened from a dream can recall having it, but when pressed to remember its details, they become unclear, aside from a few poignant moments. What remains are the feelings the dream produced—like the fear from a nightmare. You don’t remember most of the details, only that it scared the hell out of you.
So which are our souls most attached to in the dream—the visual images and illusions, or how they made us feel? And does it matter upon awakening? Does it matter to the dream version of us what becomes of that person once we awake? Do they cease to exist? Do they care? Or do you care when the dream version of you is forgotten upon awakening?
If life is but a dream, and upon awakening from it—or upon the death of the dream—we forget most of it except the fact that we dreamed, why would we worry about the dream at all? Or alternately, why would we not worry about the memory of the dream?
I submit this life is a dream. This reality is an illusion, and upon death in this life, we awaken into the next. Our souls attach themselves not to who felt the feelings, but to the feelings themselves. How far a soul has progressed determines where it resumes in the next life—whether it regresses, is reborn, or continues as another version of itself in another reality.
This last possibility is the hope of those who long for eternal life, as it allows the ego to remain intact for as long as the dream permits. What seems important now may not seem important upon death and rebirth.
The only memories guaranteed to follow the soul through birth, life, death, and rebirth are instinctual ones, hardwired into all things. The primary instinct is the desire to exist. Every atom, every form of energy, desires existence.
It is possible that fragments of memory return, similar to a person waking from unconsciousness with amnesia—retaining knowledge, but not identity. And isn’t that one of the fundamental questions of being human? Who are you? What are you? Why are you?