Another intuition:

After someone has broken up with you, you become sad and desperate. You hinge your hopes on the possibility that you can get back together. So long as this remains a possibility in your mind, you are constantly motivated by this possibility. https://twitter.com/tom_username_/status/1286341564344799232

You also hinge your hopes on them not getting with another person in the meantime. If this happens, then you're inclined to think this is game over. With all of your emotional energy, you try to avert this fate.

Many people become suicidal at the thought of this happening.

When, however, these hopes turn out to be in vain, you accept your fate.

During this period of acceptance, you recollect all your memories with this person—every detail of your relationship is scrutinised, both the good and the bad.

Eventually, a realistic picture is obtained.

This realistic picture is the process of acceptance.

When people say that their life flashes before their eyes, they are describing an essentially similar process.

Life is basically the constant longing for a means of perpetuation, like the person clinging to their partner.

When there is no longer a means of perpetuating your life—i.e. when you have accepted that there is no way to avoid dying—you experience the 'life review'.

(Just in case you're unfamiliar with this phenomenon, here's a Wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_review)

Basically, life is the process of there being a means of escape available. Living is the pursuit of these available means.

When there is no longer a means of escape available, you are forced to confront the contents of your own consciousness.

Less will, more representation.

The more desperately you live, the more you are trying to escape this confrontation with consciousness. This is very appropriately called 'escapism'

More specifically, you are running from the unresolved aspects of consciousness. You're secretly aware of things you've done wrong

Most people are permanently (and therefore subconsciously) afraid of these mistakes coming to light.

If you're cheating on your partner, your behaviour will permanently be altered in light of this fact (even if it's not clear in consciousness why you're behaving a certain way).

And so their life takes on the character of being *synonymous* with this running away from responsibility.

If you dig down deep enough, you are permanently running from...something (just what, it's not always clear; if it was clear, though, you wouldn't be running from it).

Sometimes it's an incredible discovery to find out what has been bothering you. You resolve something that was long-hidden, and then you are surprised at the resulting freedom. You lied about how free you were before. You ran from your issues.

You ran from it *so long as there was a means of escape available*. Only when the escape was no longer possible did you finally confront it, and internally reckon with it.

So too with the life review. With a means of escape from death no longer possible, you confront everything.

The end result is a huge liberation.

Basically everyone reports this as a great unburdening.

This is not just, "Phew! I survived. Time to live my life with gratitude!"

It's, "Oh my goodness. I can't believe I've been so terrible. I now understand the purpose of life."

Now, this is just for people who have survived

Let's bear in mind that most people do not live to tell the tale. They experience the life review and then...who knows?

We can only infer and intuit what happens next, which is the purpose of this series of essays on the after-life

There is some kind of entry into light, this is well established

There is, generally speaking, a feeling of liberation, which I've established in this thread and others

But not everyone has this experience. Here is the NDE anecdote of 1930s Richard Dawkins' equivalent (AJ Ayer)