Watching notes on After Death (2023)

After Death (2023) directed by Chris Radtke

I wanted to see this documentary ever since I read the synopsis. What happens after death? The movie explores this question through people's accounts of their near death experiences and some scientific studies. I found it fascinating that since the advance of modern medicine, many patients are resuscitated from near death and have survived to tell the story of what they experienced. There are many commonalities; for example they experience hovering over their bodies and seeing a light of infinite love and warmth. Many describe feeling more alive than they ever felt in their lives with all of their senses heightened. People that were blind from birth reported being able to see and some found their newly gained vision disturbing. There were rare cases where patients were intentionally put into a state of clinical death for hours to undergo extremely invasive medical procedures. They saw and heard things in the operating room that they could not have seen or heard while their brain-stem responses were flat-lined. Many reported a seamless transition to another state of being that was incomparably better than actually being alive and subsequently lost their fear of death. At the very least, the movie made me doubt my previously held assumption that the film gets cut and nothing exists after you die. Your spirit, or whatever you want to call it, continues on. The movie concludes with recounting by one survivor that after his near death experience, he realized his purpose in life was to love the ones he was with. He reconciled with his father who was abusive to him when he was a child. I've never been a religious person but in the last few years since changing my career, I've started to believe that what life is about are the little joys and sharing moments with the ones we love. Connecting with people and doing things that bring us joy. Watching this movie reaffirmed that belief. If love and joy are all we need to strive for, not success, status or career, then life can be quite simple.

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