Here is my general outline for my current understanding/philosophizing of how things could work. My model of the universe is one in which consciousness is an all-encompassing and ever-present property of the universe. Everything, including humans, animals, plants, planets, stars -- literally everything -- has consciousness. See, we only really think of humans and animals as thinking feeling things (, honestly, really just humans,) due to how we perceive them I guess. we think of people as being conscious because we can actually talk to people; make them react. Same thing with animals. We think a dog to be more alive than a rock because a rock won't cry when we kick it. I think this is a very human-centric and small way to look at it. I know that there are many other states of being different to my own. I know that there are infitely many things that I simply cannot know and will never know because of the simple fact that I am a 3 dimensional being in a 3 dimensional world. I believe that things we perceive to be inanimate aren't unconscious, but are simply emoting in a way can't perceive. Emoting in a different dimension altogether. Collective-subconscious, I believe is the term. A completely alien state of being seperate to our own. A metaphysical reality that operates on thought and emotion but no less *real* than our own. Everytime you've ever talked to your friend, you experienced that interaction from a physical, human perspective. But everytime you've ever kicked a rock, there's a whole other side of the interaction you're missing that occurs in a multidimensioinal, metaphysical way you can't perceive. Everything feels. Everything thinks. All life forms are equal. It is close-minded and arrogant to think that the way that we, as humans, perceive the universe is the correct way to perceive it. We think that the earth is an important location because it's where we live, not thinking about There are ecosystems everywhere. Just like earth is pretty much the only place we think about, there are infinite amounts of microscopic life forms living on your body right now, believing that that's the only perspective that matters. So consciousness continues after you die? What would that be like? I'm not sure, but it would certainly be different. Our perspective would probably switch to a hyperbolic metaphysical type thing, quite a departure from the 3 dimensional existence we're used to. You would emote in ways that you can't even imagine right now until you incarnate as another living being. Your body would slowly decompose and eventually return to the earth, becoming the earth. And instead of feeling, seeing, hearing, you would experience things in a completely different way.