What actually happens after a person dies?

After the passing, the sleeper awakens and becomes truly conscious of his surroundings—he knows both what he is and what he has been. 

His true psychic life begins, and he enters into that state, which may be said to be the immediate result of his earthly life—that state, which has been spoken of as one of punishment and reward—words that were true enough in their original meaning, but which have been so distorted by our low ideas that they are more misleading than true. 

We now reap what we have sown and enter into the possession of the treasure that we have laid up—or we find ourselves naked and poor, but all will be led in time to the heavenly city.