You’re Not Dead

It’s an easy mistake to make. Given the drudgery and repetitiveness of daily life, no one could blame you for idly wondering if you were just a restless spirit going through the motions. But we all feel that way sometimes—the best way to combat it is to do something a little reckless and feel the thrill of your own mortality. And who knows—today might end with you becoming a ghost after all.

You Might Be Dead

If you find that you tend to blend into the background and people treat you like you’re not even there, there’s a very real chance it’s because you’re dead. Fortunately, there are exercises that can help you confirm your existence. Try pricking yourself with a pin to see if you feel pain or running full-tilt into a wall to see if you pass through it. Even then, your mind might be constructing the illusion of pain because you’re not ready to face the truth.

You’re Definitely Dead

Bad news. You are 100 percent deceased. Whether through your own stubborn delusion, some kind of traumatic block, or intervention from a divine power, you may not know that you’re dead, but the clues are impossible to ignore any longer. Did you push the elevator button this morning, or did you just step on when the doors opened? Did you pull out your chair, or did you just slide in when it was empty? It’s all coming back to you now, isn’t it? The sound of crashing metal, the hospital lights, someone crying. It’s okay. It’s okay.

We’re All Dead

All signs point to you being an aimless specter haunting your own life, but it doesn’t stop there. Who's to say that, given a set of false or partial memories as a starting place, we aren’t all inhabiting some kind of afterlife, purgatory, or holographic simulation? Test this theory today by behaving as though no one and nothing is real and as if none of your actions, no matter how reckless, have any consequences—because they probably don’t.