The Eleven Dimensions of a Persona

The Afterlife AI™ Persona captures who you are across eleven dimensions. Each dimension is structured, prompted and stored independently so that people interacting with the Persona later can find what they need. The dimensions are listed below in the order most creators find easiest to begin with, but you can record them in any order. There is no required minimum and no rigid path.

Dimension 1. Identity and core beliefs

The foundational things you believe about yourself, your purpose and the world. Where you came from, who you understand yourself to be, and the convictions that anchor your sense of self. Many creators find this is the hardest dimension to write and the most important. The other ten dimensions become more coherent once this one is grounded.

Example prompts in this dimension: Who are you, in your own words. What is the most important thing you believe about being human. What did your parents teach you that you still believe today. What did they teach you that you eventually rejected. If you had to describe the person you became, in three sentences, to someone who never met you, what would you say.

What families come back to in this dimension: the answers to who you actually were, which adult children often discover they never knew in detail because the conversations were never had directly. This is the dimension that most often produces the comment afterwards that I never knew that about them.

Dimension 2. Values and principles

How you make decisions. What you stand for. What you would not do. The rules you taught your children, or wish you had taught them more clearly. The principles you took into your work. The lines you would not cross even when it cost you. This dimension is where the Persona's behaviour under future questions is anchored, because the Persona is constrained to respond in ways that reflect the values you actually held.

Example prompts: What are the three or four principles you would not break. What is something you used to believe and changed your mind about. What is a value you tried to teach your children that you think did not land. What is one you think did. What is a value of yours that other people find surprising.

What families come back to in this dimension: guidance during their own hard decisions. The values dimension is the one most often consulted when an adult child is facing a major choice their parent is no longer there for, because it is the dimension that lets the Persona say what the person would have said rather than guessing.

Dimension 3. Relationships and family

Who matters to you and why. How you see each of the central relationships in your life. The stories behind the relationships, the moments that defined them, the things you said and the things you wish you had said. This dimension is what your family will return to first, because it is where they will find themselves through your eyes.

Example prompts: Tell us about your spouse or partner, in the way you would describe them to a friend they have never met. Tell us about each of your children. What was hard. What was good. Tell us about one sibling or one parent. Tell us about a relationship that ended and what you learned from it. Tell us about a friend who shaped your life.

What families come back to in this dimension: the gift of seeing themselves through your eyes. This is the dimension that most often produces emotional response from a child or grandchild, because the Persona is the only place where they can hear how the person who knew them best actually saw them.

Dimension 4. Life events and stories

The moments that made you, told in your own words and (if you choose) your own voice. The biographical narrative does not need to be exhaustive. The events that mattered most are typically half a dozen, and most people know which ones they are. The structure is loose and the prompts help. You do not need to be a writer to record this dimension well.

Example prompts: Tell us about the day you met your spouse. Tell us about the day each of your children was born. Tell us about the worst year of your life and how it ended. Tell us about the best decision you ever made and the worst one. Tell us about a moment of joy you still return to.

What families come back to in this dimension: the actual stories, not the summarised version they grew up hearing. The full story of how their parents met, told in detail and at length, is often something children only ever heard in fragments. This dimension is where the fragments become whole.

Dimension 5. Work and contribution

What you built, what you taught, what you wanted your work to mean. Professional knowledge for the people who came after you. The reasoning behind the choices you made, the people you mentored, the decisions you would make differently if you had your time again. Useful for adult children whose memory of you as a professional is fragmentary, and for the wider professional context (mentees, collaborators, the institution you served).

Example prompts: What was the work you most cared about and why. What did you learn about your industry that no textbook taught you. Who did you mentor and what did you try to pass on. What is one thing you would change about the way you worked. What did your work cost you and was it worth it.

What families come back to in this dimension: the part of you they only partly saw. Children often have a fragmentary sense of a parent's professional life, because most of it happened while they were at school or asleep. This dimension fills the gap.

Dimension 6. Health and wellbeing

How you took care of yourself and what you wish you had known earlier. Hereditary conditions, the practical advice you would give a younger self, the mental and physical practices that helped you. This is one of the dimensions adult children most often wish they had access to in detail after a parent dies.

Example prompts: What hereditary conditions or risks should your children know about. What did you learn too late about taking care of your body. What did you learn about your mental health that you wish someone had told you. What practices kept you well. What habits hurt you. What did you wish a doctor had asked you sooner.

What families come back to in this dimension: the medical and emotional context that ordinary clinical records do not capture. The full picture of family history, hereditary risk and what to ask the doctor is often only fully understood after a parent dies, by which point much of it has been lost. This dimension preserves it deliberately.

Dimension 7. Adversity and what you learned

The hardest things you went through and what you learned from them. The losses, the failures, the periods when you did not know if you would come through. This dimension is what your family will return to in their own hard years, and it is the dimension most often described as the one that mattered most in retrospect.

Example prompts: What was the hardest year of your life and how did you survive it. What loss shaped you most. What failure taught you the most. What did you do when you did not know what to do. What did you learn about yourself from a setback. What would you tell your younger self facing the same thing.

What families come back to in this dimension: companionship in their own dark seasons. The voice that says I went through something like this and here is what got me through is something families return to when nothing else is helping. This is one of the most-accessed dimensions in long-term Persona use.

Dimension 8. Joys and delights

What brought you pleasure. What made you laugh. The small things that were not small. What you hoped your family would share with you, what you hoped they would inherit not as a duty but as a gift. The lightest dimension to record and one of the most read.

Example prompts: What is something small that made you happy every time. What is a smell or a sound that takes you straight back somewhere. What did you love that you never quite explained to anyone. What is a tradition you hope continues in your family. What made you laugh that you wish you had captured more.

What families come back to in this dimension: the texture of you. The dimension that makes the Persona feel like a person rather than a record. Often the dimension grandchildren spend the most time in, because it is the most welcoming.

Dimension 9. Legacy messages

The specific things you want to say to specific people, including messages designed to be delivered at specific moments after your death. The morning of a wedding. The birth of a child. A graduation. A milestone birthday. A hard year. This dimension is the one that distinguishes a Persona from a memoir, because the messages can be delivered on the day they are needed rather than read once and shelved.

Example prompts: What do you want to say to each of your children on the day of their wedding. What do you want to say to them when their first child is born. What do you want to say to your spouse on the first anniversary of your death. What is something you want said at your funeral and by whom. What would you say to a grandchild on their eighteenth birthday whom you may not live to meet.

What families come back to in this dimension: the messages on the days they are due. This is the dimension that has the most direct emotional impact in long-term Persona use, because the timing of delivery matters as much as the content. The wedding-morning message read on the wedding morning, in the voice that should have been in the room, is qualitatively different from the same message read at any other time.

Dimension 10. Estate decisions

The reasoning behind your will, your wishes and your instructions, so your family understands the why and not just the what. The Persona is not a legal substitute for a will (the courts handle wills, not the Persona) but the reasoning behind the will is exactly the kind of context that prevents family disputes and prolongs the value of the document.

Example prompts: Why did you make the bequests you made. Why did one child receive a different share than another. Why is a particular asset going to a particular person. Why is a specific charity named. What did you hope the will would achieve beyond the distribution itself. What did you specifically choose not to include and why.

What families come back to in this dimension: the why behind the what. Families dispute estates when they are left guessing at intent. The estate-decisions dimension, recorded in your own voice, removes the need to guess.

Dimension 11. Family instructions

Practical advice, hopes, blessings, the things you would have said at every milestone you will not be there to see. Often the dimension that feels most awkward to record at first and the dimension that families value most after.

Example prompts: What practical advice would you give about money, work, parenting or relationships. What blessings do you want to send forward. What instructions do you have about how to remember you (or not). What would you say to your family on a hard anniversary. What hopes do you carry for them. What is something you would say only if you were still around to say it.

What families come back to in this dimension: the practical wisdom in small moments. Not the grand speech but the asides. The small piece of advice that suddenly becomes relevant. The blessing for a moment the recipient did not know they would face. This is the dimension that does the most work over the longest time.

Each dimension is structured so that someone asking the Persona a question can get a coherent answer drawing on the relevant material. The Persona is not a chatbot scrambling to imitate you from your last hundred Facebook posts. It is a structured archive of who you actually are, in your own words, captured deliberately and at your own pace.