Here's a cheerful thought to start your day - according to new research, your brain knows that you're dead after you've died because it keeps on functioning.
That means that even after you've shuffled off this mortal coil, it could be that your brain is still completely aware of what's going on around you.
So, obviously we have to take this with a pinch of salt, given that we aren't able to bring people back from being properly dead and this research was carried out by scientists, not spiritual mediums.
However, we do have a number of people who have flat-lined, or come back from the dead after a brief experience. Those are the people who these researchers have been talking to.
They found out that a lot of people reported the same things: bright lights, sensations, that sort of thing.
The research found that perhaps our consciousness continues going for a short time after the heart stops and body movement becomes impossible.
That means that you're essentially stuck in your body with a brain that knows what is happening to it.
Told you it was a cheery tale to ease you into the morning.
Cardiac arrest survivors reported to the study that they'd been aware of what was going on about them even when they were 'dead'.
Perhaps more horrifying is that they found some evidence of people even being aware of doctors pronouncing their death.
Dr Sam Parnia is the man studying all of this, and he looked at cases of cardiac arrest and consciousness after death in Europe. Basically, he found that anecdotal evidence points towards people still experiencing things during the first phase of death.
Parnia told LiveScience: "They'll describe watching doctors and nurses working, they'll describe having awareness of full conversations, of visual things that were going on, that would otherwise not be known to them."
So, does that mean we need to rethink when we declare someone dead? Parnia explained: "It's all based on the moment when the heart stops.
"Technically speaking, that's how you get the time of death."
Wow, that's a scary thought. Nobody wants to hear themselves declared dead, right?
Anyway, the point of his work is to see what happens to a person's body after they enter a state of cardiac arrest.
That includes whether consciousness continues at all or not, and for how long - if at all - that consciousness keeps going.
He hopes that his research will improve the quality of resuscitation and try to stop brain injuries incurred when restarting someone's heart.
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