

A frail body, weakened by death, lie in place of what was once my hellion grandmother. Her chest rising and falling, but no sign of life beyond that. She was experiencing scenarios unexplainable by anyone else in the room. Outwardly appearing to be rambling useless words about the governor’s mansion, but internally, experiencing something more extravagant than any of us could wrap our heads around. Her words made little sense to us. She conversed with people who didn’t appear to be there, and those who we had once known but passed on. She no longer appeared to be living in the same reality, but some alternative form of life. 

Out of body and near death experiences leave people with stories about the afterlife, leading to different theories based on shared experiences and religious ideas. There is not scientific evidence of life after death because of the inability to experiment with the possibility, or reproduce an experiment on the topic. Hallucinations are a common experience when people are nearing death. Common misperceptions include hearing voices that you cannot hear, seeing things that you cannot see, or feeling things that you may not be able to touch or feel (NEEDS A CITATION). In San Junipero, Yorkie is able to visit one of her possible eternal destinations. Almost as if she’s experiencing hallucinations through a controlled device, Yorkie experiences a place called San Junipero, where eighty percent of the people have “crossed over” to spend their afterlife. 

As Yorkie laid helplessly on her deathbed, lifeless and without even the slightest of movements, she was able to experience a reality unlike any she had before. Visiting San Junipero allowed her to forget her worldly struggles. In her mid-twenties, she experienced a car accident, limiting her for the rest of her life. San Junipero offered Yorkie a retractable experience where she could forget her elderly, quadriplegic body, and live again as a younger, healthier version of herself. In the Christian faith, it is believed that upon entering heaven, your mortal body will be transformed to its immortal body so to speak. Your body becomes the best possible version of itself. “For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies” (NEEDS A CITATION). 

Amongst all scientific theories of life after death, many religious theories coincide with each other. Many are based on the idea of 2 options that an individual may choose between to spend eternity whether it be through deeds, or mere decision. In San Junipero, Kelly talks to Yorkie about the decision her husband made when he was dying. She states that he never visited San Junipero, or even considered “crossing over”, but instead, he chose to die a normal death. Kelly and Yorkie both made their decision after visiting San Junipero to cross over. Amongst the major faiths, they all have a common belief that once the soul leaves the body, it moves to another existence. 

San Junipero and the many related religious theories all link together in minor ways. The choice of a person’s “final destination”, the new body a person receives after death, and the final stages of life a person must go through are all factors that mutually play into San Junipero. In comparison to reality (what we can perceive) to San Junipero, and what we can conclude from Yorkie’s experience, these factors are eerily similar. Upon death, could a place similar to San Junipero exist for some? 
