Our ability to comprehend death is in many ways what makes us the self-aware human beings

that we are.

For some, the realization that our life and maybe even all life may one day come to an

end can be a paralyzing fear.

For all of us, it is the greatest of mysteries.

The law of conversion dictates that energy can neither die nor be created.

Instead, it merely changes from one form to another.

So although there is little doubt what fate awaits us all in a material sense, understanding

what happens to our consciousness beyond that zero point has proved in all together

more difficult beast to pin down.

It is an unknown that calls into question the very nature of consciousness itself.

In his studies of dream theory, the psychiatrist Carl Jung draws the distinction between

personal dreams and larger, more universal dreams.

The theory suggests the possible existence of some kind of collective unconscious.

A condition that he believed was demonstrated by a set of archetypes that we are all prone

to recognize from our deepest unconscious states.

When put like that, it is hard not to wander, just whose dreams exactly are we dreaming?

You are listening to unexplained and dime Richard McLean Smith.

It could be said that all stories are ultimately about one thing, death, none more so than

the stories we tell each other concerning what awaits us after life.

It is a theme that can be found in stories told across every community and culture from

as far back as we can remember.

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