I'm currently writing a book where a character drowns to death to open it off and is brought to a sort of mid-death journey. (More info in this paragraph.) He meets his guide, they get in the car, and drive for a bit, but they're ambushed on the way and accidentally careen out of the world. The guide is placed in our world with him, while his body (luckily before decaying or embalming) is reanimated. He is considered missing, and his body functions fairly normally, only running on pure energy (or something no particulars right now) rather than standard anatomy. How would this affect his psyche? How would this change him? (Sorry, meant to put a question mark in the title, not a period.)
This sounds really interesting, but I don't understand all this 'guide' stuff?? Please explain a little more, thanks! Well to the point, does his body repair as well as or just perform the standard things? Movement- I assume he can move Respiration (not needed if running on pure energy) Sensitivity- can he feel stuff? Nutrition (can he still digest stuff? But if running on pure energy not needed) Excretion- also includes sweating (as well as other stuff) Reproduction- can he still make babies? Growth(and repair)- can he still grow and repair muscles and other tissue? These are all bodily functions and depending on whether all of these work will make a massive difference to how someone acts. I mean if you can't repair, I would be very careful. If you have no chance of getting someone pregnant, he might be more open sexually and if you don't sweat and stuff you'll want to stay cool. However if feeling has gone, he wouldn't really care about pain or heat. It all depends.
Well it depends if he is functioning like he used to or not. If he is a completely person then I think he would be happy to be alive. He would probably be a lot nicer then he used to be. If he is not a normal human anymore then he might loath the fact that he was ever born, and begin to hate humanity.
Considering Death is the finality of things, and when faced with it, must be accepted, I would assume confusion and a sense of lost self would primarily be the feelings directly after revival. IF he remembers dying that is. Then there may be thoughts of: Should I really be alive? Do I deserve this? How is this Possible? What should I do next? Can I still be me before I died? Must I become a new Person? Some things to keep in mind is that society will completely reject his existence as it previously was. Unless he died without any witnesses, revived, and met his guide, all without any governmental or societal intervention, his entire identity will have to be altered and hidden.
He may also question if he is still really himself. If he is no longer functioning by normal human means, he will obviously have doubts in his humanity, doubts in his personality and identity, and will also doubt if he is truly in control of his life. Perhaps he becomes paranoid. This sort of event with changes so drastic are nothing short of traumatic. I would certainly stress these as the plot line of someone suddenly gaining powers or coming back to life seem to just seamlessly become accepted without a hitch. Or at most, they question it for a car rides duration and theyre past it.
There's going to need to be a sequence where he figures out just what his body now can and can't do, and this is going to determine a lot of how he feels. You said he runs on [undetermined] now. Does he need to eat? Can he eat? There have been a number of stories with vampires and such trying to figure out how to "pass" as human, toying with their food, slipping it under the table for the dog, or whatever. Does he get cold or hot? Obviously, he's probably not going to try and test out if he can die again, but is he going to need to seek shelter from the weather like a normal person, or will he be able to walk naked through a blizzard? Basically, you need to first figure out how far off of human normal he is in his new state. The smaller the deviation, the smaller the effect, IMHO. He might even think that he had had a near-death experience, rather than actually dying, if the changes were slight, but with big changes he could go anywhere from self-loathing ("I'm a freak, a monster!") to megalomania ("Puny humans, I am the one who has conquered death and returned! Bow before me, mwahahahaha!"). Figure out the degree of changes first, then you'll have something to run with. Or from. ETA: Different ends of the spectrum of having superhuman powers: 1) Interview With the Vampire, by Anne Rice (I'd recommend the book rather than the movie). Louis is turned into a vampire, but never happy with it, and spends a lot of time trying to reject his powers and rein in his needs. 2) Chronicle, a film where three high school boys get superhuman powers from a meteorite, and their differing reactions (one of them goes mad with power) to the situation.
