This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »
What is it like to die?
What is it like to die? - going to an eternal sleep or spending a temporarily dreamless night?
"Now, if the death is only a dreamless sleep, it must be a marvellous gain. I suppose that if anyone were told to pick out a night on which he slept so soundly as not even to dream, and then to compare with all the other nights and days of his life, and then were told to say, after due consideration, how many better and happier days ad nights than this he had spent in the course of his life - well, I think that ... (anyone) would find these days and nights easy to counts in comparison with the rest. But death is like this, the, I call it gain, because the whole of time, if you look at it in this way, can be regarded as no more than one single night." - Plato, The last day of Socrates.
This remind me Hamlet's monologue
"..................................To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause..."
being alive means not having first hand experience with death and its process.
but makes us to think if the world ended now would we be happy how you lived our life, would we done justice or would we just let it pass us by.
and finally would we be ready to face the death.
Steve Jobs said: "death is the only destination we all share"
share your ideas (before you die) :-) Thank you
Colleen Steen 500+
I volunteered in a terminal care facility for a couple years, and sat with many people who were going through the process of dying. I helped care for 3 friends and relatives as they were going through the process of dying, and I had an NDE/OBE because of a near fatal head/brain injury, after which I was not expected to live, and from which I was not expected to ever recover. I guest lectured at the Univ. of Vt. for years on the topic of death and dying in the class of a professor, who worked and studied with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who was a psychiatrist and pioneer in near death research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_K%C3%BCbler-Ross
You say...."being alive means not having first hand experience with death and its process".
There is a certain "process" that we know quite a lot about, and has some very common characteristics. For example, there is a certain order in which the body organs shut down in preperation for death. During the process of dying, it is not unusual for people to feel like they are moving back and forth from the human dimension to another dimension. This other dimension has been described as a peaceful transition to another energetic form, and I also experienced this with the NDE/OBE.
Another common factor seems to be that people go through the dying process as they have lived. In other words, if a person was grouchy and negative throughout his/her life, that is how s/he goes through the dying process. If a person lived joyfully, lovingly, that is how s/he accepted the process of moving on. Based on this observation, I suggest that we would indeed benefit from being content in the life experience and ready to accept death.
You ask..."What is it like to die...going into an eternal sleep...?"
For me, the NDE, WAS kind of like sleep. I was immediately knocked unconscious (according to the human medical model), so there was no pain, discomfort or distress. I was conscious on many different levels.
Prakar Jeevan
Death on the other hand stops one from doing bad permenantly. (Not from doing good, because if every one stops doing bad things, then automatically only good will be left)
I would suggest you read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi
Copied: From the above site:
The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: 'Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.' And at once I dramatised the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out still as though rigor mortis has set in, and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, and that neither the word 'I' nor any word could be uttered. 'Well then,' I said to myself, 'this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes. But with the death of the body, am I dead? Is the body I? It is silent and inert, but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of I within me, apart from it. So I am the Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the deathless Spirit.' All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truths which I perceived directly almost without thought process. I was something real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with the body was centered on that I. From that moment onwards, the "I" or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death vanished once and for all. The ego was lost in the flood of Self-awareness. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time.
Louis Ades
Try imagining that you could communicate with a person that never lived. How would you explain life to them? You can't. It's impossible. They have absolutely no way to even imagine it because they're not alive!
Same thing with us and death.
Lejan . 30+
From my point of view I do not agree with this your statement for the reason of 'order'.
For most of us, death is the consequence of life and therefore placed at its final end. But what happens if we also put it in front of it? By this your question 'What is it like to die?' becomes answerable, because we once have already been there. So when I tink about how it may feel like when I am dead, I think about how I felt before I sparked into existence. And just to be on the safe side, hop twelve month before your birthday... and then you know.
We don't even need any sleep comparison, as, consequently, before we were born, we have been death too.
So was there anything what bothered us twelve month before we screamed the first time? Anything negative or positive? Well, nothing I can remember, so the best way to name it would be 'neutral' to me, and I think, this it what it will become again on the last day of my life.
Same AsIs
This will relate to everything you know.
Don Wesley 50+
I have experienced one Out of Body and back event; by my own decision.
And two, death is 0 breaths away and inevitable; but saved.
I want some time to write about these unforgettable events, so I will leave now and come later.
I also have three events which caused PTSD.
Until soon,
Aware of and caring about us All.
Don [From The Silent Generation - 1930's]
Ed Schulte 50+
As the Sufi ( and many attained ones) put it ..
"Die before you die and know there is not such thing as "death""
This is a realization every HUman will come to know for ones Self...it is the only reason for the so-called 'HUman experience" to begin (and end ) with. there was no beginning and therefore no End. It is equally true to modify Steve Jobs words and say "Birth is the only destination we all share."
It is very unfortunate but at the same time necessary that the ages old teachings / tellings of the "Seven Heavens" which constitute the structure of HUman consciousness has before sooooo messed up by current religious teachings but .....and this is the wonderful side ...we will travel back and forth in these layers ...knowingly or ...unknowingly!!!
Random Chance 30+
because the end is always the best.
The first time, I left my body, went up and into a wonderful light, that held me, as though or like one might imagine, being held by a cloud. A very loving cloud. The light was thick.
I did hear wonderful music (or sounds?) as I rose. I was seven.
It was the most euphoric, peaceful, loving, serene, safe, secure and beautiful experience I have ever had. Nothing in my life has ever come close to it. (It has made me wonder if I should have just gone back on my own, instead of staying alive and looking for beauty here)
The next time (13), I lost almost all the blood a body can lose without dying, and that too was very peaceful, like falling asleep. Well, I was I guess but if one can relate to those times as an infant, when a loved and trusted one was carrying you and you didn't have to fall asleep or stay awake and could constantly drift back and forth, in and out of both, with complete safety, security and peace. It's a lot like the nodding-out that junkies seek, where there is no pain in their world and the feeling is one of total peace, happiness,contentment and almost bliss.
The next time, about 3 years ago, was horrible.Maybe it was because I didn't die, but I sure as hell wanted to and tried to in the ambulance rushing me to the hospital. But, the emergency personnel kept slapping me in the face, which I thought was very funny.
What does it all mean? I don't know and even if I truly believe it means, x, y, or z, I cannot prove any of it, nor do I need to, nor does anyone else need to or can.
But, I will take the first one, if I can. I really don't care for scientific orgasms or deaths. I prefer the real blissful ones, filled with emotion, meaning and then sleep.
There is, I believe, a sect of Hindus that believe sleep is a form of death and I am inclined to agree with that. Perhaps that is what death is like, after of course, dying.
Gerald O'brian 50+
Dear life.
Roken Cunal
Where we actually go after death is still not known, and so we are scared. I once experienced a near death experience and all I can feel is fear. All kinds of thoughts come to mind. We can’t really be prepared for death, it just comes to us any second. Anyhow, why do we think of death when we don’t even know how to live?
“Makes us to think if the world ended now would we be happy how you lived our life, would we done justice or would we just let it pass us by” All I can say is if you are happy living your life with intense passion so as to believe that in the end you have given justice to your life then do so. But if you are also happy just going with the flow and letting your life pass by, then I think you have all the right to do so. I think we should live life based on how we want to and not on how “rules of life” said we should live because nobody can really judge whether you lived rightly or not. People have lead many different lives. It’s not as if in the end, Person 1 lived correctly, person 2 live wrongly, etc. I believe there is really no such thing as a right or wrong way to live. There is if you believe in religion, or on being a good citizen. By then, one can judge that you live rightly if you lived like Jesus or as the Bible says and so on. I hope know you know what I mean. But, removing all those, who can really say right? I’ve gone too far… Interesting subject you opened here…2/2
Roken Cunal
John Dunbar 10+
What if death just sits in entire opposition to life on earth? What I mean is what if everything was reversed, instead of fearing death one fears being born and spends a large amount of time allowing this to shape ones beliefs and actions. Freud theorized a life and death drive that was constantly at war within all of us, he tried to prove it biologically (he was a neurologist) but came up short. He believed that on the cellular level life simultaneously wishes to replicate itself and also wishes to return to its original state. When the brain dies it seems as though consciousness does and my experience tells me this is so, yet I also know that much of the functioning of the brain is a mystery.
In "civilization and its discontents" Freud made an analogy he was talking about prior mental states and how it seems to be true that humans can revert to earlier stages in life (regression). He started talking about ancient Rome and its architecture how it has been built over prior greek architecture and other previous settlements. The point he was making is that the brain seems to be able to build over past states yet somehow these states remain intact and accessible. The brain seems to function differently than the material world yet is a part of the material world. Either that or the answers to questions about consciousness may not be accessible to our biological restraints.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
elizabeth muncey 10+
elizabeth muncey 10+
Edwin Nazarian 10+
Where are we going here?
Time? who invented it? - Man
why 24 house and not 1440 house (today's one minute = an hour)
Calendar? who invented it? - Man
why 12 months and 30/31/28/29 days in a month and not more or less... who would actually know whether the years is right with its 365 days or/and wrong with its 730? today in 21st century we would accept it as truth if the years had 730, this means each day would have 12 hours. this may make us to live long or short life.
but death or the process of dying isn't men's invention, neither his creation. and maybe because of that it is so mysterious that not many talk about it or knows about it.
Life is given, but death is taken...
as during the time when a woman is pregnant, she and the baby are alive, men can investigate and find out its process.
but
as death is taken, ... and I think while something is take, it is out of our control to find out, the HOW part, how it is taken and by who it is taken. ( except killing one another)
elizabeth muncey 10+
Edwin Nazarian 10+
Sorry to recall unpleasant and emotional moments in your life. and I am sorry for the lost.
not you, neither me, nor anybody can change the past, bring people back to life.
why did I started this talk or asked this question?
I was wondering in the library and I got this book of Plato, The last day of Socrates.
Sure it was hard and difficult to understand what he was talking about, I started to pass through pages and read here and there some passages. The one I have quoted comes from there and it picked my interest... I started to remember people, talking about death, Like Hamlet and then I watched Steve Jobs' speech at Stanford University. so I ended up asking TED community,
I admit that I didn't think that it would rise / recall some unwanted memories,
My apologies .
edward long 100+
Edwin Nazarian 10+
My question was for the Process of dying...
you said: "...the transition from Time to Eternity."
can we understand that death is an asleep in Eternity by this?
does this also mean that there is life after death which is eternal?
Please note that I haven't brought up the religious approach to death or dying, but a mere philosophical and poetic approach.
Thanks
edward long 100+
Edwin Nazarian 10+
Thank you, I believe you are a believer and this may also be true to say that you are a follower of this supernatural power, (as you named it so).
so as I understand you correctly you were saying that after death we end an eternal conscious existence in the process of God. How could this be Conscious when our organs don't function. I like the way Shakespeare put: "...For in that sleep of death what dreams may come."
it can also be asked: for in that sleep of death what mind can think and be conscious?
I just wonder why people in church tells us that it is alright to die, and Haven is a good place to be, when in actual fact NO one, absolutely no one, not even the Pope, wants to die.
it is like we all want to go to Haven , but we don't want to die. Correct me if I am wrong in this.
"where there is a life there is hope" - I agree, Hope is a good thing and no good thing ever dies, and where there is life, just live it.
to me , Haven is nowhere (now here). I want to see Haven on Earth.
God created me/ you /us in his/her shape, and he made us to be creators. so God is in me/you/us. we are the God, the Creator, the Destroyer, The EVERYTHING.
I seek inner guideness...
Peter Law 30+
:-)
Ken brown 30+
elizabeth muncey 10+
elizabeth muncey 10+
Mitch SMith 50+
In my experience (3 near death events) it goes something like this:
Violent near-death in car accident:
Firstly a highly sharpenned clarity of senses.
Secondly, Accepting the likelyhood of death
Thirdly, regret for those who will mourn.
Fear becomes irellevant, afterlife becomes laughable.
Undergoing general anaesthetic with chance of not ever coming out:
Acceptance, regret for mourners, fade to white.
Heart Fribulation (resulting in brain hypoxea).
Momentary fear,regret for mourners, acceptance, fade to black.
That is my personal experience.
I have a friend who nearly died from a lacerated jugular (car accident) who reported out-of-body watching the paramedics fishing round in his neck to find the blood vessal.
So I assume these OOB things are more common with exsanguination.
elizabeth muncey 10+
Mitch SMith 50+
I think it's generally understood that anaesthetics induce neural noise. The noise threshold overpowers normal neural signals and simply drowns consciousness out.
The affect this has on synaptic structures is not known as far as i have heard. However, I would say that some synaptic disruption takes place. If a person is his/her conectome, you are not the same person when you wake up. However, it is likely that inherent network stabilisation dynamics will re-build something close to the original.
elizabeth muncey 10+
Mitch SMith 50+
That's truly fascinating.
Loose association is something that my wife and I call "planets".
I can invoke the state consciously, my wife was precipitated into it as part of BPD - meds give her the capacity to take conscious control of it.
Loose association has the remarkable property of wild creativity and the skill that DeBono calls "latteral thinking".
In network terms, these associations are supressed by the "field of attention", but there is a qualification of "context". Context is a nested "framing" dynamic whereby the exit point of a network signal is dictated by the entry point. These entry/exit maps can have very deep nesting with each frame being constant and retaining the hierarchy of priority. The context hierarchy further supresses any exit point that does not conform to the framing hierarchy.
If the framing hierarchy gets disrupted, you will have loose association.
For instance, the symbol "tank" may have entry and exit point framed by "container" as in "water tank" but it also has a military frame. Loose association might see a military tank filled with water or a rainwater tank shooting projectiles.
There is one very important role for loose association - it tends to follow the strongest association chain - that devoid of context heirarchies, can map an underlying reality that is not percieved in practical perception - at the very least as a subjective reality, but at the most - inspiration.
Do you keep journals?
elizabeth muncey 10+
elizabeth muncey 10+
Mitch SMith 50+
Australia has plenty of felidae now - they are eating the native wildlife at an alarming rate.
The marsupial population had cat-like animals, but they are all extinct or nearing extinction.
Wife uses quetapine. However, we have discovered that it is only the start - the key is regular sleep. Qietapine helps with that. Need absolute regular dose time - thou shalt always take the dose at 7:30pm - inscribed in obsidian. Then commandment #2 is thou shalt not get disturbed during sleep, and #3 is - thou shalt not be awakened by the expectations of self or others - sleep until finished, not a second before. Then - there is about one hour spent waking-up, do not expect to do anything for 1 hour after waking, take it easy, do no work - don't let others over-ride this, they haven't a clue.
This reduces the productive day to about 8 hours, but what the hell, it's just how it is, and a human needs only 4 hours effort per day to survive.
If you need to get something done, start with a piece of paper - write down what the task is - in big letters, then each subtask in smaller letters - the big letters keep your framing. To keep "on-track" read the words from bottom to top and back down again. This wil train-in nested framing.
Do a lot of writing and read it back to yourself.
Do regular breathing in meditation. Listen to silence - it's not empty.
Count to 10 with eyes closed while imagining a pen writing the number on a paper.
Get foot massage.
Make friends with your physical heart (it has a little brain and will appreciate the attention).
btw - many animals do talk. If you take the time to learn their language.
I have a tribe of currawongs nearby who I am feeding to get their company - they recently tried to teach me their language - I got a few words so far, mostly to do with placation, Even though they want me to, I don't want to do their territorial call - it might get interpreted as another tribe - I cant sing as well as they can.
elizabeth muncey 10+
Mitch SMith 50+
The goal is "the window of clarity". Getting that window open gives us a chance to widen it.
If meds do the trick, then that's what is required.
But once you are in that window, you are presented with the task of widenning the window in such a way that meds will become less essential to get teh damn thing open.
So the most effective use of the lucid window is to work on techniques of lucidity.
Do you follow?
But you have to get that window before anything can happen.
Here it is from another angle:
The Buddha can sit anywhere, it is necessary for us to walk.
To be without walking is to be the Buddha.
We become the Buddha through walking.
I am merely asking you to become the Buddha.
This is the challenge of all living things.
Or:
Take tiger mountain - by storm or strategy.
elizabeth muncey 10+
Mitch SMith 50+
Ther have been many Buddhas. They are simply those enlightenned ones who choose to teach - we hear about those ones, we do not hear about the many Buddhas who choose not to teach. In the tradition, they are all the same. In reality, we are all the Buddha - but only in flashes.
I know very well about mysogeny. But the aberance of others defines only our self-story.
You must remember that the self-story is only a tool, it is the tool we take up to carve the rock of society. Mostly, we forget to put it down.
My father would say:"Argue for your limitations .. and .. sure enough - they are yours."
I have made some suggestions. If you choose to argue about how you cannot do these things . I wonder about how much you need them .. perhaps you don't. If they are not neccessary or important, then something else must be more necessary and important. Is it important for you to be in perpetual low-energy and helplesness? There may be some wisdom in that, I have found it does not work for me. I say to myself:"I will be good to myself first - then I will be strong for those I love. If I am low, all i have to give is low - let's see how strong I can be!". So I ask myself: "What is this thing that I should be low for?" ANd teh silence answers me "nothing".
elizabeth muncey 10+
Edwin Nazarian 10+
Sorry to hear that you had such an experience, but I believe after that you look at life with completely different eyes and now you are making the most of it.
Well, I haven't had such an experience, my experience was being unconscious for like a night or day In Military Hospital about 14 years ago, there I had no idea where I was and what I was dong there. years passed after that until I learned how to use my conscious and unconscious mind to memorise and remember certain events. Then I was sure that our unconscious mind knows and remembers everything, this took me a while, but I got myself into deep hypnotic trance to find out what had exactly happened that night in Military Hospital. Well, now I know that I was there, but I wasn't really there, it was only my body laying there.
was this a near death experience I am still not convinced.
have I experienced it again? NO...
thanks
Mitch SMith 50+
Yes, trauma changes one's outlook.
The car crash gave me some PTSD for a while - and would get anxiety in cars for foar a while / hyper vigilance never truly subsided.
But cumulatively, these events have helped me become intollerant of afterlife fanatics and demonstrated the fallacies of heaven/hell and most notions of "god" - because at the point of death, none of these things matter.
Sounds like you had some injury to brain stem .. maybe the left pre-frontal cortex?
Things in the subcosnscous are not without structure. There are core-self functions that don't require a lot of memory. they are not particularly conscious unless we focus on them - feelings/emotions which arise from body-state. And they monitor things that we have little awareness of. The hippocampus(major memory function) seems to be involved in a couple of functions - it looks like a left/right division with the right doing holistic recording, the left being more serial memory attached to awareness - recording causalities. The other main component seems to be the arrangement of behavioural "macros" (skills/habbits) which are probably associated with the cerebellum.
i must mention that the memory is not totally stable - it gets subjected to update with fresh associations replacing synaptic atrophy.
Edwin Nazarian 10+
I haven't had any injury to my brain. all I had was a certain virus (which later on was common in the area) and this made me to drink a lot of water, my stomach was filled with water which doesn't allow me to eat anything as there was not enough space for "extra"food. I walked about three months like a pregnant woman and yet being on duty of Flag Of Honour - (means standing straight and motionless during 2 hours) and this was over three months every God's day and night. - (there was three of us so we each had this 2 hours.)
One morning I didn't feel well, I was sent to see a Doctor from there directly I was hospitalised for very long time, about 8 or 9 months.
the moment I told you was during the first week when my conditions weren't getting any better but worse and not a doctor could know what was going on. Because they could see nothing but water in my stomach...
I couldn't believe that I wasn't allowed to drink water or eat anything watery.
Glad it is gone and over... since then, health comes first for me!
I started to believe that MIND - BODY is a system,
our physical conditions affect our mental condition and vice versa.
george lockwood 20+
Edwin Nazarian 10+
Thanks for your note,
surely I have got a highly respect what religion things about the event called: dying. I also believe that it differs from culture to culture. some sing for their deaths some cries, etc... we all are different and yet created by the same organs, this means none of us can escape from it.
avoiding is another thing, so I don't do anything to avoid it .. I do everything to live the life to the fullest.
Thank you
Robert Winner 50+
I know many people who are brain dead and still the body remains with us.
Could there be a spirtual death .... how about dead tired ... dead on my feet ... or the living dead as in the movies.
Some religions believe the flesh remains and the spirit is released .... most believe in a after life ... some believe in a cestial heaven where you are reunited with your family.
So here is my take ... find a group that shares your comfort levels in death. It is the purpose of religions to provide answers to such philosophical questions.
Do not go softly into that night ....
All the best. Bob.
Danger Lampost 10+
There's quite a bit of information available on this topic. I'd start by reviewing the experiences of those that report near death experiences. Those are the people that have gone closest to physical death, and then come back to tell the story. There is quite a bit of controversy about the interpretation of these stories. There are some documentaries on this topic too, for example "National Geographic: Moment of Death" which is available on Netflix.
Another source of information is available from those that have experienced intense drug states, most notably DMT and its stronger variant 5MEO. Some say there is a relationship between near death experiences and endogenous DMT.
I would also look at Tibetan Buddhist literature, as they have studied this topic for 1000's of years - specifically, the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
And finally, to turn to your actual question and try to answer it. I am unqualified to answer this question! However, I would say that what it's like to die depends entirely on how you die. It's probably a very psychedelic experience. Oh Wow!
Yuddandi Sivasubramanyam
Edwin Nazarian 10+
it is obvious to everyone how to differ alive from death.
I am sure hardly a few has experienced it, so we may find certain interpretation of it, which in actual fact not be truth or untruth but a mere idea.
Thanks for sharing your idea about this with us.
pat gilbert 50+
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
Edwin Nazarian 10+
I have been thinking about them as well, but I couldn't find a site for special these dead people. and Halloween is gone too, so I guess they are not around any more.
but if you have ever faced an enemy or hold a dead body in your hand you may have collected an idea what it is like being a dead person.
Thanks anyway
Frans Kellner 100+
They're just a thought away. You can ask them if you like.
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
Edwin Nazarian 10+
Frans Kellner responded you
here is his message:
"Feyisayo,why do you think the loved ones you knew that have passed life aren't with you now?
They're just a thought away. You can ask them if you like."
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+