Eric and Dylan's state of mind after the cafeteria?

Hi there, first time poster so I apologize if I didn't ask this in the 'small questions' thread.

I wanted to get everyone's opinions on what Eric and Dylan's state of mind was after they appeared on camera in the cafeteria. From what I've read and seen/heard in interviews, after their visit to the cafeteria, they were aimlessly wandering around the school with occasional shooting at walls and lockers with certain reload times outside of classrooms before returning to the library to end their lives. I've even heard that they would occasionally peer into classrooms and see people hiding in them yet would make no attempt to enter.

So I ask you kind people for your opinions on what you think the shooters' state of mind was before returning to the library to kill themselves with the following questions:

-Do you think they just got bored of killing and all of the excitement was gone?

-Do you think reality set in on what they were actually committing and they kind of went into a shocked "holy shit, we just killed innocent people just a short while ago" frame of mind?

-Why wouldn't they attempt to enter any other classroom knowing full well people were hiding in them?

-Do you think they knew that the cops/SWAT team would be entering the school and that their time was very limited?

Ultimately, we will never 100% accurately know what they were thinking after the cafeteria/before their return to the library but I would love to know what you guys think during that short period of time. Thanks.

This might not be a popular opinion but it's possible they realized what they did and felt remorse. They've talked about killing people for months, planned blowing up their school, bought guns and after all their macho talking and rants the day came and they murdered people. They were probably so amped up on adrenaline and when it wore off and they realized what they've done it was too late.


I've read stories where people plan a robbery for days or months and pull it off and feel bad after and try to return the money/merchandise or turn themselves in..... Well with murder you can't undue and killing themselves is better than prison.

I personally don't think if they were truly evil they would have stopped killing, they also wouldn't have wasted time/bullets shooting lockers when they saw other people to kill

I don't think they felt remorse. They were still trying to blow up a whole part of the school.

Well, the point of no return was at 11 am. They still have a chance to pull all the plan back and they didn't.
But, the plan did not go as planned, one thing is blowing the place, didn't see anybody and other thing hole different is shooting people in cold blood. They already were there when the bombs didn't blow, so, you have two options, leave or go inside and improvise, we all know what they choose was and I think that it wasn't what they think it will be like.
The first deads (Rachel &co) pump adrenaline to the max, they go to the Library in an adrenaline rush, kill some other when they realise it wast worth it. Dylan seems to enjoy it, but Eric on the other hand i dont think so, he was at the dance and he indeed dance but his plan was other, in his mind he failed. Thats why he went to the Cafeteria, his plan was blow the place he try again, and again he failed.
He must been so dissapointed about it, the adrenaline was gone and he realize that it was the end. Dylan want to die, he didnt care anything, I dont remember well but i think he killed most of the student in the library, he was there to die and "have fun" meanwhile. Yes they can enter in a classroom and kill, but what for? Eric has also write about raping someone, but again what for? The plan failed, his nose was broken, he has dizzy, not enjoying the thing and he shoot himself. Dylan saw that, and that was the end for him to, he cant do anything by his own, when he saw Eric's "face" he tought "I dont want that for me" and he shoot with the TEC no the Shotgun, and choked with his onw blood.

Jbow89 wrote:

This might not be a popular opinion but it's possible they realized what they did and felt remorse. They've talked about killing people for months, planned blowing up their school, bought guns and after all their macho talking and rants the day came and they murdered people. They were probably so amped up on adrenaline and when it wore off and they realized what they've done it was too late.


I've read stories where people plan a robbery for days or months and pull it off and feel bad after and try to return the money/merchandise or turn themselves in..... Well with murder you can't undue and killing themselves is better than prison.

I personally don't think if they were truly evil they would have stopped killing, they also wouldn't have wasted time/bullets shooting lockers when they saw other people to kill

I agree with almost everything you said here, especially the part about the adrenaline wearing off. I think they were just done with everything, exhausted from the running around and killing and they wanted to try killing off a few cops before they killed themselves. They were also visibly disappointed that their massacre didn't go as planned. This doesn't excuse anything they did, it was fuckin terrible and I wish they would have paid for it.

myshame wrote:

I don't think they felt remorse. They were still trying to blow up a whole part of the school.

Agree, I doubt Eric would have ever felt remorse had he lived and been incarcerated, he was terminally pissed off since he knew he was not who he wanted to be in life and never would. Like Hitler, Eric couldn't even come close to meeting his own unrealistic standards. Dylan I can certainly see as being sincerely remorseful, had he lived I believe that would have been inevitable.

Killing, revenge and power were Eric's missions. He was disappointed I'm sure in his bombs, but the lack of emotion reflects military execution and the lull was due to there being nothing else to do but die at a certain point. Calculated guy.

Dylan's emotions seemed forced, his "natural" part was the suicide. Directionless and self defeated just going thru the motions in life and also on this day.. remember "Oh, just killing people".

Bombs? total bust. Not bright enough, prepared or experienced to realize plastic alarms were a poor conduit and the tanks of propane were not much smarter.

Killing for revenge and respect? Innocent and harmless non jocks hiding under tables couldn't have sustained the adrenaline very long.

Cops? John Stone's drunk ass is pretty much a drifter in life after that epic show of worthlessness. No showdown to be had.

Nothing left but an empty school for the most part and despite the horrific massacre and damage they did, it was a failure on their terms.

I think Eric's state of mind was a mix of regret, satisfaction, anger, numbness. Regret not because he killed people, but people he loved, they probably crossed his mind at some point, parents, brother etc... What's done is done, it'd have been great if he could go back but he can't, the inevitable comes... Death. Thoughts of "maybe it could've been avoided but still I did it", forcing himself to believe it was worth it, probably a dose of rationalization too.

Anger to a lesser degree, he vented his frustrations... Numbness in a sense that, it was already like an out of body experience for him... Lack of sleep, sweat, shooting people, smoke, blood, guts, fire, looking around, adrenaline, noise, as the final shot was approaching, I think his sight was distorted to a degree as well.


Dylan probably had a mix of numbness, satisfaction, relief, expectation. I don't think he regretted anything at all and hardly even thought about his family. He was satisfied, like Eric he vented his anger and frustrations, he relived his version of the movie NBK, his journey is almost complete and I think he was anxious to see what was coming after the shot to the head.

That's one of the most intriguing questions for me. I've been wondering about it ever since i started researching. I think that if any of the boys felt remorse it was eric. He seemed to be more in touch with reality and his feeling. He mentioned his parents and how this would affect them several times, he even cried thinking about his old friends he would never see again. I can imagine after the adrenaline rush faded, these feelings came back 100 folds. Dylan on the other hand was in his little world and so far removed from his human side in my opinion and he just wanted to die asap. Another theory that i have is that they both felt empty and numb. I can only imagine that after doing something like that your mind wouldn't even be able to grasp the severity of the situation and defence mechanisms would kick in. It's one thing to plan it and fantasize about it, but actually doing it.. i think it didn't feel as they thought it would at all. At least not for eric and dylan maybe didn't feel anything at all. I don't know, maybe i'm giving them too much credit and the only thing they regretted was the bombs not going off and killing even more people. God, i relly wish i knew exactly how they felt when all was said and done. Why do you guys think they returned to the library to kill themselves?

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] It's funny how everyone seems to think that Dylan was kindest. Dylan was doomed (badum tss) since the beginning of everything. He was going to die in 1999 no matter what, he havent got any goals, no way in life, no aspirations of any type, he was complety lost in depression. Eric, by the other side have goals, dreams and besides all the crap he suffred in life he was still trying, with girls by example. He has the dream of become a marine, buy well, he wasnt a very lucky boy, at the end, he reach the point when he cant take more shit.

Pennydreadful wrote:

That's one of the most intriguing questions for me. I've been wondering about it ever since i started researching. I think that if any of the boys felt remorse it was eric. He seemed to be more in touch with reality and his feeling. He mentioned his parents and how this would affect them several times, he even cried thinking about his old friends he would never see again. I can imagine after the adrenaline rush faded, these feelings came back 100 folds. Dylan on the other hand was in his little world and so far removed from his human side in my opinion and he just wanted to die asap. Another theory that i have is that they both felt empty and numb. I can only imagine that after doing something like that your mind wouldn't even be able to grasp the severity of the situation and defence mechanisms would kick in. It's one thing to plan it and fantasize about it, but actually doing it.. i think it didn't feel as they thought it would at all. At least not for eric and dylan maybe didn't feel anything at all. I don't know, maybe i'm giving them too much credit and the only thing they regretted was the bombs not going off and killing even more people. God, i relly wish i knew exactly how they felt when all was said and done. Why do you guys think they returned to the library to kill themselves?

My thought was that Eric and Dylan tried to explode the bombs but couldn't so they did wander around. They did try to break into science classrooms and turned on the gas in a room to try to explode that. I do think Eric was trying to waste some time. Maybe trying not to think about what was to come. But then they could hear the cops were arriving. I think they went to the library to see how many were out there. Then they tried to shoot at them. But they didn't or couldn't do any damage. I think they saw that there were many cops and knew time was limited. So I think that Eric realized he couldn't push his death out any longer and turned around sat down and killed himself. I don't think it was as hard for Dylan. I do think he had something in him call it an innate human instinct maybe of self preservation but I think he lit that cocktail realized he was alone and then killed himself. After Eric was gone he knew he had to die too.

I think that both of them actually felt a bit of remorse for what they were doing. You know, when you plan revenge writing about the most efferate execution by gun, everything sounds perfect in the mind of the killer. But despite all of the rage, when you're thrown into the brawl you start asking yourself "is it worthy?" but you've also stepped too far to get away from the trail of destruction you left, so your mind goes auto-pilot and damage keeps to be done without any particular reason.
Both Eric and Dylan didn't express their full murdering potential on that day, luckily.

probably let down that it didn't go down how they envisioned.

Adrenaline gone

Thanks for the responses everybody, it was really nice to read everyone's POV on what they think happened during that time.

I myself am more inclined to believe that they were just flat out bummed about everything as a whole up to that point (ie - their failed bombs, what made them do this in the first place, perhaps also the sight of death from earlier) thus, the excitement and thrill was gone. I firmly believe that reality smacked them right in the face during that time between the cafeteria and their return to the library and most (if not, all) of their anger was already expressed. Their adrenaline was depleted.

I hope to hear more responses in this thread since I feel this certain brief time during the shootings isn't as talked about as other moments. Cheers.

I think it was the combination that their adrenaline was gone and they were physically exhausted as they had little sleep in the days before the shooting. They also were emotionally drained and felt failure that the bombs failed to detonate and the bombing event they planned for months in reality was nothing like how they envisioned it to be. They may even have been a little confused and puzzled that the police did very little to stop them during the shooting. Eric saw all the police presence from the library window, feeling a sense of failure, exhaustion and pain from his broken nose, realized it was time to die as he didn't want to be taken alive. Dylan also realized he had to die and killed himself.

They did not go into the classrooms because they were scared of getting jumped. In the library they frequently mentioned getting jumped and covered one another to avoid it.

Also, they did not wander aimlessly around the school. They walked around systematically vandalizing the school. Eric was not able to blow up the school, so he had to settle for vandalizing it hallway by hallway to create the impression of a total catastrophe.

If you look at the ammunition counts, it is very clear that they killed themselves because they ran out of ammo.

There was no change of heart or change of mind at any point. Some of the last shots they fired were at ambulances taking away injured students.

spinvault wrote:

I think it was the combination that their adrenaline was gone and they were physically exhausted as they had little sleep in the days before the shooting.

Oh yeah, I didn't know they had little sleep leading up to the shooting. Though I guess it makes sense since they knew what was about to go down. Thanks for bringing that up.

lasttrain wrote:

They did not go into the classrooms because they were scared of getting jumped. In the library they frequently mentioned getting jumped and covered one another to avoid it.

Also, they did not wander aimlessly around the school. They walked around systematically vandalizing the school. Eric was not able to blow up the school, so he had to settle for vandalizing it hallway by hallway to create the impression of a total catastrophe.

If you look at the ammunition counts, it is very clear that they killed themselves because they ran out of ammo.

There was no change of heart or change of mind at any point. Some of the last shots they fired were at ambulances taking away injured students.

Oh wow that's another thing I didn't know; that they were avoiding getting jumped. That would probably explain why they would only peer into classrooms and not try to enter them. Also you bring up a good point with your last sentence there. It looks like they were ready to go out with a bang regardless of the "failure" of their attack. Now I could have sworn I've seen news footage of cops exchanging gunfire with E&D though I don't know if I'm just imagining it or not. It would be kind of interesting to see though.

ShawnMaggles wrote:

spinvault wrote:

I think it was the combination that their adrenaline was gone and they were physically exhausted as they had little sleep in the days before the shooting.

Oh yeah, I didn't know they had little sleep leading up to the shooting. Though I guess it makes sense since they knew what was about to go down. Thanks for bringing that up.

lasttrain wrote:

They did not go into the classrooms because they were scared of getting jumped. In the library they frequently mentioned getting jumped and covered one another to avoid it.

Also, they did not wander aimlessly around the school. They walked around systematically vandalizing the school. Eric was not able to blow up the school, so he had to settle for vandalizing it hallway by hallway to create the impression of a total catastrophe.

If you look at the ammunition counts, it is very clear that they killed themselves because they ran out of ammo.

There was no change of heart or change of mind at any point. Some of the last shots they fired were at ambulances taking away injured students.

Oh wow that's another thing I didn't know; that they were avoiding getting jumped. That would probably explain why they would only peer into classrooms and not try to enter them. Also you bring up a good point with your last sentence there. It looks like they were ready to go out with a bang regardless of the "failure" of their attack. Now I could have sworn I've seen news footage of cops exchanging gunfire with E&D though I don't know if I'm just imagining it or not. It would be kind of interesting to see though.

This photo here is showing the smoke from Eric and Dylan shooting out the windows at law enforcement from the library.[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Remorse? Regret? Maybe in an alternate universe. I hope some of you realize that both Eric and Dylan felt absolutely no remorse for what they did. Their biggest regret was not making the bombs correctly. They failed. Add that with the adrenaline rush and Eric's broken nose, and they felt exhausted, and depleted.

How do I know they felt no remorse? Because minutes prior they were trying to kill law enforcement, shoot at ambulances who were driving away to take injured kids to the hospital, and tried to blow Dylans car up (he planted a bomb there) to kill surrounding people, media personnel, etc.

To actually think these 2 dipshits felt remorse makes me scratch my head. They loved and enjoyed every piece of it. They won in the end. Here we are still talking about them for nearly 20 years. They have had followers, copycats, countless pages dedicated to them. If these 2 went on to live a life without crime they would have been paid zero attention. How sad that one way to finally get yourself known is to commit mass murder on your fellow classmates.

I don't believe they got 'bored' of killing. I think they were extremely disappointed that their propane bombs didn't explode in the cafeteria. Especially as they went into the cafeteria to shoot at the bombs to try and make them explode.

As their original plan was for the bombs to explode and kill the majority and then they shoot off survivors, I think they were just annoyed the plans they had made for around a year failed. They put so much thought into their plans but they didn't follow through.

This isn't to say they didn't enjoy their alternate plan. We know they did due to the fact witnesses heard them laughing whilst the shooting was taking place. I think that towards the end like other users have said the adrenaline was wearing off and realising their plans didn't work out how they wanted plus they were running out of ammo.

simple

they exhausted all possibilities , dont forget they went through the school one last time checking rooms   and other places inside the school .

they did what they intended , remember eric or dylan ( dont know for sure ) said they wanted '' hopefully ''  to have the most kills in an incident of this sort , meaning school related incidents with weapons .

this just remembers me those two kids Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden that killed 5 people and injured some others .

well , this being said , they had no alternatives , the cops were alreay closing the perimeter , they knew it was over and was a matter of time until swat or the regular cops would enter the school searching for them .

so they fired a few shots just for kicks at the cops before they killed themselves .

lol wrote:

... How sad that one way to finally get yourself known is to commit mass murder on your fellow classmates.

 
Agreed. There have been numerous infamous cases that were similar.  The killer just wanted to be known.  Like the sick bastard that killed John Lennon.  Purely for fame and unfortunately to forever be linked in history with JL.    

Eric ad Dylan were not far off the mark with their remarks from the basement tapes and journals about being remembered or w.e.   They wanted to be "GODLIKE" at whatever cost it was.   I dont remember who said this quote or where it came from but it fits with this.... "To be famous, is to be dead"

I think that when they were in the cafeteria Eric was embarrassed and ashamed that the bombs didn't go off.

He realised he would look like the pathetic kid he was once people read his journals. He's bragged about the planning and hundreds he was going to take out with his bombs. His amateurish bombs made him look like a fool and he knew people would realise this. He was just another school shooter which he'd previously mocked.

Dylan I don't think was that bothered. He was probably just looking forward to killing hinself in those next few minutes. Personally I think if Eric was still game, that Dylan could have had another short burst spree in him (like the few minutes in the library) - I think he'd have been up for going in one of those classrooms they peered in and offing a few more kids before the big finale.

I expect it was Eric who had enough and decided on going back up to the library to try and get death by cop, then eventually gave up and opted for death by his own failure hand.

I honestly don't think the failure of the bombs devastated them quite as much as people claim. They were obviously disappointed, but Eric himself wrote in his journal that "I know I could get shot by a cop after only killing a single person", meaning he was likely mentally preparing himself for the possibility of complete failure, yet together with Dylan, he still managed to go on a long-winded, high-profile rampage through the school he loathed so much that left 13 dead (though he likely thought it was easily double that, judging by the amount of people they shot who didn't die).

Trying to look at it from his perspective, it could have been more of a "Well, I guess this is it" mindset. They had been planning this massacre for over a year, fantasizing about it nonstop, hyping it up in the tapes and journals, and now it's happened. The climax is over, cops are practically surrounding the school, and a SWAT team could be storming in at any second, so the only thing left waiting for them was death. So, they walked to the cafeteria, gave the propane bombs one last try and finally decided to end it.

Obviously nobody knows for sure what they were thinking at this point and I could be completely wrong, but that's how I've come to see it.

I agree with the above. They were running around with gusto when they tried to set the bombs off. They were not disappointed at all with what they did.

I agree pretty much with what everyone has said! I can imagine their feelings were a mixture of 1. Shock with the realisation of what they'd done, all that build up for months, and they were finally here 2. They were annoyed and taken aback with their original plan not working and 3. They wanted to hurry up and get the suicide over and done with. I wonder what, if anything they said to each other before they killed themselves....we can only imagine

They were probably a little disappointed but didn't obsess over it. It sadly didn't depress them so much they cancelled the whole day. Could you imagine if right before they decided to go in.... one of them got a bad case of stomach cramps??