Chrwe,
let's see it from the extreme; instead of a brain damage, let's think of a total damage of the whole body. It's plain to see that then there is no personality anymore in the physical. The body is the sine qua non in the physical. Your question was about the non-physical, so the examples you brought which made you doubt about an afterlife are simply not applying, and cannot be a true basement of this doubt.

We finally must admit that all we experience is here and now. If you so want, within your consciousness.

Spooky

Greetings,

What happens when you (as Bruce suggested) think of the tenderest, most loving moments of life, such as a baby being held in the arms of a loving mother?  Can you imagine the feeling of such an infant and carry that feeling into your own life?

I know that you have nothing to fear about the afterlife's reality, but I don't know how to describe such knowing.  It grows out of allowing yourself to feel 'pure unconditional love.' Imagining it is a good first step. "Fake it until you make it.'  Then it will become much more than your brain could ever imagine by itself.  The immensity of it as it grows becomes proof of something more than what physical life offers.

Bets

chrwe,,,, I still can't get away from the fact that, if it is as you describe, and there is no future, after 'death', as you call it, then you really won't care, afterwards, right? It won't matter because it just won't. However, if you are wrong, or simply allow for the possibility that there is 'more', how do you know where that would end? It is an open-ended mystery, one which might be worth pursuing. Therefore, I just can't really get too worked up about it, even if there would be no afterlife. But, I see what you're saying, all that time, forever. One could interpret it as a big giant hand in one's face saying 'shut up' and that wouldn't be anything new, maybe. It certainly seems, though, that an awful lot of people are convinced, that we are more, that we will be more. I guess I'll tell you when I get there.

I know how you feel chrwe. It's funny because it's like looking into a mirror when you talk about your feelings. Many of us have been there. You are searching for the truth, for an answer. An answer which is 100% proven (to you). You are looking for the perfect answer and solution, the proof you can truly believe in.

The bottom line?

There either is no afterlife...
or
There is an afterlife.

Only YOU can set the requirements of your choice to believe or disbelieve.

Maybe you need to experience your own NDE?
Maybe you need to pursue OBE and meditate to experience an OBE personally?
Maybe you need to contact a special person that can contact and communicate with the dead?
Maybe you can talk to a priest and be comforted? (personally I frown upon that last option but I am forced to mention it as a possibility.)

All of these things you need to seek out. Some of them can and or will cost money.... but if you prove that there is an afterlife to yourself does money in this short life really matter?

I cannot offer you more than this...

keep looking.

Don't give up.

I doubt you can find absolute proof that the afterlife does not exist but if you do please enlighten me. 

I'm reminded of  the episode of The Simpsons where Homer has a mid-life crisis when he hears that he only has another 37 years to live (statistically). Obliviously he meanders in front of speeding cars , miraculously avoiding being hit, rueing that he only has that time left. Sometimes by worrying about the afterlife we forget about the before afterlife bit....

chrwe, I don't mean to minimize what you are feeling, but again, isn't the worry about what might or might not become of you after your death along the lines of my son's concern over the sun burning out in four billion years?  When it happens, what will it matter?  What can you do about it?  Will you have any control over it?  This simplistic line of questioning is intended to bring some perspective to the importance you are placing on an event over which you have no control...how important can it be while you are intended to live this life to the best of your ability? 

If upon death, life is over as if someone switched off the light, then it is.  While I do not believe that it is, I cannot change whatever actually happens.  And since I am alive now, whatever my ultimate destiny holds will wait until I am finished with this incarnate existence. 

No one can tell you anything that will make this real for you...it must come from inside you.  All I can do is assure you that upon coming to the self-realization that your soul, has not only lived before, but that it is immortal and will continue to learn, love and grow in experience, you will find an amazing sense of peace.

One thing that might help is to speak to an akashic reader.  If you are unaware of the akashic records, they are the "book of life", or a record of everything your soul has ever thought, felt, experienced in every lifetime from the beginning of your soul's existence.    Ask the reader to help you understand why this blockage in your mind is manifesting itself right now.  What has occurred or what is trying to change in you that is causing you such discomfiture.  While you're at it, ask what your soul intended for this life and who with you now has been with you in previous lives and what roles they played with you.  The revelations you receive may alter your life...they altered mine drastically.  I was beginning a particularly virulent midlife crisis when I spoke to a reader and it ended the crisis and opened a whole new world.  As you advance you can access the records yourself with the help of your guidance.  If you have any questions about the readers feel free to pm me.

My best wishes and I hope this helps.         

This kind of fear which can morph into a full-fledged phobia is something I am familiar with, and I think you can reprogram your mind to lose this negativity. For instance, for some people, and this used to be me, fear of flying was practically disabling. Fear of driving on the freeway was another one. But, replacing those disabling thoughts with other thoughts was very difficult for me. I used a lot of guided imagery to help me over those times, and succeeded in creating 'mind strategies' to change my thinking patterns. This is an ongoing thing, not something that just disappears, but it does diminish.  You can actually function, even through such fears. Eventually, the thoughts you 'choose' instead will crowd out the other ones. What I realized was that my brain was taking over, like a manic dog or something similar, and I had to take control, and I could do it in a positive way. I still do this, quite often, for many reasons. Just put in a new 'program' when I feel the need. It's become a 'fun' thing. Well, forgive me for rambling on and on, but I think we just cannot let our 'fears' take such a large 'position' in our lives. It's our life, and what a waste if our ever active brain does nothing but torture us along the way. I say, it's a waste. Crowd out those thoughts of 'poor disappearing me' with better thoughts, and I'm not saying that's always easy. But it can be done.

Leading on from B2's wise words it seems that you are in a depression. The insidious thing about depression is that a kind of feedback loop operates leading to disrupted sleep, repititive negative thoughts which in turn reinforces the depression leading to .... deeper depression.

Getting out of depression can seem like trying to pull yourself up by your bootstraps but it can be done by developing a strategy. First of all I would suggest that you lay your afterlife search to one side to for a moment and concentrate on you...

Some things which helped me when I was in a low state a number of years ago...

... Reprogram your thoughts by listening to positive uplifting tapes such as available at the Monroe Institute site.
.... Listen to uplifting music.
.... Reinforce that by reading positive looking books and eschewing negative stuff such as the news, tragedies etc.
.... Get plenty of exercise esp. outdoors in natural scenery.
.... Write down how you feel/ talk to a trusted friend.

When your mood has lifted revisit the afterlife stuff and you'll probably find that it feels much differently to how it did before. It won't have changed but you will have.

Hope this helps,

Dave