"Like Sheep They Are Appointed For Sheol"

Apart from all the passages that with great clarity affirm that there is no perception, and thus no conscious afterlife, in Sheol, the place/state of the dead according to the Old Testament, one Psalm equivalently compares sheep to humans by saying that like sheep, humans go to Sheol, the Hebrew word for the destiny of the dead.  People who have already assumed that the human dead are conscious before return of Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) and the judgment at the great white throne (Revelation 20:11-15) would probably balk at such a comparison, but it is there in Psalm 49.  I quote the English Standard Version below for its habit of actually using the word Sheol in English: 

Psalm 49:13-14—"This is the path of those who have foolish confidence; yet after them people approve of their boasts.  Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol; death will be their shepherd, and the upright will rule over them in the morning.  Their form shall be consumed in Sheol, with no place to dwell."

Not only does Psalm 49:13-14 very clearly appear to equate the condition of dead sheep with that of dead humans, but it also specifies that the form of the human dead will be consumed in Sheol.  This aligns with Sheol equating to unconsciousness for the mind as well as the literal area holding a physical corpse, which decomposes.  This is also consistent with how Revelation 20 contrasts Hades, Sheol by a Greek name (compare Acts 2:27 to Psalm 16:10 in Hebrew and Greek respectively, or in the ESV), with the sea that also holds dead bodies rather than conscious, unembodied spirits.  The human body is dust and returns to dust, as Genesis 3 and Ecclesiastes 3 say.  Psalm 49 certainly points away from any sort of immediate afterlife for humans ahead of eschatological resurrection (Daniel 12:2, Job 14:10-12, both of which also would suggest soul sleep on their own), whether pleasant or unpleasant, and other places in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, are even more clear in their directness and simplicity about what happens to human consciousness at death.

A host of other passages that use the word Sheol (at least in Hebrew or certain English translations) establish that there is simply no mental activity at all in this realm of the dead.  All are unconscious, unless atypically roused for a time, as with the prophet Samuel, whom Saul contacted through a medium in 1 Samuel 28.  See Job 3:11-19 for a very prolonged description of how Job longed to die precisely because there is no suffering for the dead.  While that passage does not use the word Sheol, it does plainly speak of the state of the dead and addresses how it is the same for everyone, rich or poor, slave or free, righteous or wicked.  Here are some additional verses from the English Standard Version that do mention Sheol, one of which is also from Psalms:

Psalm 6:5—"For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?"

Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10—"For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing . . . Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going."

These are just some passages that obviously affirm the unconsciousness of the dead.  Others, with or without the word Sheol, do the same.  For instance, the aforementioned Job 3 is extremely blatant in putting forth genuine soul sleep and presenting Sheol as a blessed relief from all human agony, not a place of torment for anyone.  Even passages that might go unnoticed in their ramifications for soul sleep, like John 14:2-3, could only be correct if the dead are not conscious before resurrection—to summarize, in these verses, Jesus says his followers will only be with him after his return, not before, and so they cannot go be with him in heaven before then if John 14 is accurate.

Returning to Psalm 49, do sheep go to an afterlife of bliss or torment?  Would this afterlife be an intermediate state before the resurrection, prior to entry to Gehenna where the unrepentant wicked are at some point permanently put to death (Matthew 10:28, Revelation 20:15) or to New Jerusalem where only the righteous live forever, as all others perish (John 3:16, 36)?  If not, then how can people be thrust into a conscious afterlife when they go to the exact same place as dead sheep?  The Bible already describes what happens to humans in Sheol elsewhere, and it involves no kind of experience, but the utter lack of it: they enter a status of total unconsciousness.  Psalms teaches that the same happens to animals, albeit probably without any future resurrection.  In this regard, the fate of animals and humans is the same for a time according to genuine Christian doctrines.