I was talking with a friend about death and his fear of it. Which, it seems mostly centers around the unknown and concern that what if you were conscious for infinity but without a body to do something about it.
I understand this fear, because I carried it throughout most of my adolescence.
That thought is still quite terrifying and I got over that fear mostly because the stroke I had eighteen years ago showed me that in that entire 2 - 3 week period I was unconscious I was completely unaware of any passage of time. One second, one day, two weeks, it made no difference it was completely the same to me. The same thing happened this passed December when I actually clinically was dead before getting restarted, I had no awareness of time. I also think about sleep, and that for about 70% of it I am totally unaware of any passage of time.
Mostly what scared me about what death is and what happens afterwards only really is in relation to perception of Time.
But I just thought about something else just now. Let's just say that a person actually is conscious and aware of the passage of time after death just without a body to actually do anything.
Yes, I was thinking this would be terrifying, BUT, if you think about the nature of consciousness consciousness is merely the change in thought states every microsecond.
So... who's to say that just because you no longer have a body to do things that you can't actually find thought and ways of looking at things differently.
If people are conscious after death, this means that you can still choose to grow and change as a person. The way you perceive the world changes with your own conscious state. But think about it, now you have infinite opportunity to change your way of looking at and thinking about things. Truly this means that literally you have the time to genuinely think the same exact way that every single person in existence thinks/experiences during life. For example, I can experience what it's like to think open and equal with anyone AND I can choose some other moment to experience what it's like to think as racist and hating as the worst of any person in history. My consciousness means that the state of mind I choose creates a lot of activity post physical life.
The only thing really that I would find scary about death would be if I chose to stay mentally stagnant forever choosing not to institute change at all.
Either way, if we're not conscious of time at all after death or if we going around seeing through infinite perspectives death doesn't actually terrify me.