WARNING: This post speculates about the nature of death, and posits that it's painful and terrifying. It's a downright creepy subject, definitely not suitable for anyone who's recently experienced the death of a loved one. Be warned!
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Okay, if you're still here, then I can promise that you'll at least acquire an interesting story to tell at campfires and Halloween parties. Here goes:
Occasionally you hear families say about a deceased relative: "He died peacefully in his sleep. We can only hope to be as lucky when our time comes." Lucky? How can they be so sure? If the evidence for a peaceful passing was simply the man's relaxed corpse, then maybe they should have withheld their judgement. Who really knows what his mental state was when he died?
What started me thinking about this was a TV documentary about lethal injection. It argued that this might be a more painful method of execution than people think. The show cited a study of brain waves from the lethally injected which indicated brain activity for several minutes after the heart stopped. In view of the pain cited by survivors of heart attack and stroke, it doesn't seem out of line to speculate that these men experienced agony as their body shut down.
You can further speculate that the prisoners were paralyzed by the opiates added to the poison and were unable to show any outward manifestation of that pain. Imagine that...severe pain without even the small comfort of being able to thrash about or scream. A very scary thought!
It occurred to me that the so-called peaceful deaths of the bed-ridden might occur the same way. Imagine a man in bed, sleeping soundly. Somehow the oxygen to his brain is cut off and he startles to wakefulness. Let me stop here to underline my belief that he wakes up. It's inconceivable that the body would react passively to a trauma like this. He'd wake up in a panic.
What started me thinking about this was a TV documentary about lethal injection. It argued that this might be a more painful method of execution than people think. The show cited a study of brain waves from the lethally injected which indicated brain activity for several minutes after the heart stopped. In view of the pain cited by survivors of heart attack and stroke, it doesn't seem out of line to speculate that these men experienced agony as their body shut down.
You can further speculate that the prisoners were paralyzed by the opiates added to the poison and were unable to show any outward manifestation of that pain. Imagine that...severe pain without even the small comfort of being able to thrash about or scream. A very scary thought!
It occurred to me that the so-called peaceful deaths of the bed-ridden might occur the same way. Imagine a man in bed, sleeping soundly. Somehow the oxygen to his brain is cut off and he startles to wakefulness. Let me stop here to underline my belief that he wakes up. It's inconceivable that the body would react passively to a trauma like this. He'd wake up in a panic.
Maybe his lungs would still work for a time, but at a fraction of their normal capacity. If you ever choked on water that went down the wrong pipe, you know what it's like to breathe through what feels like a pinhole. Maybe our sleeper would experience this.
Maybe his heart would lose it's rhythm before it stopped beating. That's bound to be agonizing. The poor victim might try to get out of bed and flail about, but it's more likely that he'd take the avenue of least pain and stay on his back, hoping that the condition would right itself if only he could be still.
As his vessels constricted, his muscles would begin to fail and the victim would lapse into a state of painful paralysis. If he was sitting up before, he'd now fall down on the bed, maybe blind, and with his arms close to his side. His grimacing face would lose it's expressiveness and become neutral.
His mind would be active for some minutes after his body failed, a long time since minutes pass like hours when you're in pain. As the oxygen-deprived brain deteriorates, wild, crazy thoughts might race through his head. Along with the pain might come regret for past misdeeds and worry about family and friends. Maybe he'll think of some vitally important message he wants to convey, but can't. Almost certainly the final thoughts of his crumbling brain would be a scream in Hell... madhouse ravings, with no logic or pattern.
Of course in the morning his relatives will find a relaxed body, peacefully lying on a pillow, and covered with sunlight from a newly opened window.
I hope I haven't disturbed anybody with this. It certainly is macabre.
text copyright Eddie Fitzgerald 9/16/2009
27 comments:
I never thought about what it might feel like to die until I was about 17 and listening to this Hendrix song through earphones:
"A little Indian brave who before he was ten,
Played wargames in the woods with his Indian friends
And he built up a dream that when he grew up
He would be a fearless warrior Indian chief
Many moons past and more the dream grew strong until
Tomorrow he would sing his first warsong and fight his first battle
But something went wrong, surprise attack killed him in his sleep that night
And so castles made of sand melts into the sea, eventually".
Do you think he is forever dreaming of his first battle, or is it just - - lights out? (You ARE getting ready for Halloween, aren't you?!)
Dear Sir,
Supposedly the account of Adam Smith of Hume's peaceful death aroused great controversy in England. Hume "died peacefully" as it were and this was held to be impossible for an atheist (Hume was perceived as an atheist at the time).
It's a rather thorny question, it's true. I think it could be solved though, but it require a very nearly perfect knowledge of the human mind and brain. Essentially, you'd just put a device in the head of the elderly which in the case of catastrophic failure records a core dump - like a UNIX system. The elderly are already filled with such devices so that I don't anticipate much resistance. One could then reconstruct the final emotional state of the brain at one's leisure.
It's too bad that the such an easy answer would have to come from solving much more powerful questions. Otherwise I could be of much more help.
Man, I dunno if that's true or not. I mean, you're basically saying it's impossible to be unconscious when you die. People black out and pass out all the time--and some get hurt while they do, and they don't remember it when they wake up. Arguably you could die while unconscious without waking up. Whether lethal injection is "doing it right," I don't know, but it seems like it should be possible.
As far as people dying in their sleep, it's impossible to know what's going on inside their minds! Even if it's painful, it's probably better than spending weeks or even months in a hospital and dying there. I expect at least someone has been seen dying in their sleep before--in which case it could be verified that they don't ever seem to stir or wake up. It might still be painful, but maybe when you're on your way out naturally like that, you're incapable of waking to consciousness, where you'd feel the pain.
I think maybe you'd wake up for a second or two and then black out from pain before succumbing to death. I actually hear freezing to death is a very comfortable way to die, as far as actual death goes. I hear that you start to feel warm and just fall asleep and that's it. No one wants to die, but when you're going to go I'd prefer it to kind of be like that myself.
Great post (as usual!)
If you're afraid of dying, do NOT read this book (which is quite fascinating!):
http://www.amazon.com/Buried-Alive-Terrifying-History-Primal/dp/039332222X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253201708&sr=1-2
This's one of your best posts yet, Eddie! The muscles in my neck tensed up just reading that last big paragraph!
Yeah this was a really interesting post! I never really took a moment to think about this. The only issue I might have with this theory, is the fact that its under the assumption that the lungs and heart would fail before the brain, which probably isnt the way it happens with everyone who "dies in their sleep". It would really suck if this is how it goes down though...
And what you said about lethal injections was interesting because I recently saw an episode of Law & Order and they were talking about that...
Peace!
Reminded me of this much more optimistic conversation in Waking Life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km5YGCRb0WM although I fear your version may be closer to the truth.
This blog is one of the few places online where discussion does not equal "angry debate", I think the reason for the hostility on most messageboards and comment threads is that they are structured like traditional debates.
I think it would have to depend on how exactly the body shuts down. A heart attack or the failure of a specific organ would surely be painful. But in the case of a full-body blackout -the so-called "natural" cause of death- I would postulate that the nervous system, which of course is what makes you feel things, would be the first thing to go, largely because for most elderly people it's already on it's way out far in advance of everything else. Maybe that's for a reason. Don't you think that the gradual dulling of the senses that happens after eighty or so years of life might be a built-in biological anesthetic to prepare you for death? I think so.
I believe it was the Chess Killer who volunteered, back when they did executions by gas chamber, to help scientists in measuring the painfulness of the execution method by blinking (more blinks=more pain). They developed a specific method and pain scale, as I recall, so that as the chamber filled with gas he could give them a pretty specific measure of how unpleasant his death was. Apparently he just blinked like crazy. My understanding is that's part of why the gas chamber stopped being used. Then again, he was a sociopath (albeit a brilliant one), so maybe he was just messing with us one last time. Your comments on lethal inject reminded me of this, since the gas chamber was considered really humane for its time.
As for your post, I don't think it's really inconceivable that people would not wake up as their body began to fail. People have drowned to death while sleepwalking, evidently without waking up (although certainly it would be hard to say so for sure), and the internet is full to bursting with picture of people who have had all sorts of drawing and cocoa powder and stacks of furniture put on them while they were passed out drunk. I could see a slow loss of oxygen to the brain or some other sort of neurological shutdown causing a similarly insensate effect.
Which brings me to the last and final point of this already stupidly long comment- I think a lot of times it's more the case of the frog that got killed by degrees, and that perhaps rather than a sudden shutdown, the heart or lungs or brain slows gradually until it ceases entirely, without raising "alarms." Perhaps I'm just trying to comfort myself, although I kind of want to be gored to death in the streets of Pamplona when I'm really old, or jump straight out of a plane onto the head of some well-known jerk.
A peaceful death involves slipping into a coma before dying since at that point you feel no pain. So ergo I would have to agree that a lethal ejection may not be a humane death after all.
Personally I would love to off myself if I ever knew I was going to die in advance. I really want to impress god so I'll have to do something awesomely creative.
Your state of mind could have an effect too, like how you shouldn't take mescaline or lsd if you're upset.
I'm sure that a Buddhist Monks brain activity would be different than a sociopaths
Timothy Leary took acid on his deathbed.
Eddie - - you are so ahead of the(dying) curve. Look at what is scheduled to be on RADIO LAB tomorrow, Friday September 18th:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2009/09/18
So did Aldous Huxley
Thanks Eddie, now I can't sleep. How many times did you listen to that percolator song before you became obsessed with death?
Was there ever an opera about what goes on inside the mind of a dying protagonist, contrasted against the world around him or her? There should have been.
Gruesome!
Hey Eddie, going off the grim topic - for obvious reasons I thought of you when reading this item on Serge Rezvani aka Cyrus Bassiak, who wrote music for Jules and Jim.
Hope all is well with you!
I'm not in favor of capital punishment anymore, but I don't think the people dieing of lethal injection are suffering. One of the drugs puts them asleep; their minds may remain active, but they are suffering no physical pain. A lot of people subjected to the same drug for sedation purposes during an operation have no memories of any thoughts while under the knife.
My father has Alzheimer's, and the disease is slowly destroying his brain and mind while we watch helplessly. He won't be cognizant of what's going on around him when he finally dies.
I think lots of people die peacefully in their sleep, or even just keel over blissfully with a stroke that kills 'em before they're aware of any problem.
I am reminded of something Joe Bob Briggs once said: "I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather...not screaming in terror like his passengers."
Kellie: Hi Kellie! Good to hear from you! Maybe I'm mistaken, but I could swear Moreau claimed in an interview that she wrote the song in the video. Or maybe I've got it wrong and she just wrote the list of French cheeses and wines that's in the film. I wish I could remember.
Come to think of it though, why would Resvani be in the song if he didn't write it? You're probably right.
The orchestral music was written by someone else...I can't believe I've forgotten the name.
Craig: Interesting lyrics! Also, I listened to an hour of the radio link you put up. Fascinating, especially the part where the woman believed that the things around her appeared to be dead. The analysis the specialist had of her situation was really intersting, and could spin off an interesting story.
Mr. Trombley: Fascinating!
Kris, Buzz: The filmmakers who did the documentary definitely led the viewers to believe the subjects were possibly experiencing pain, but maybe there was a disclaimer and I missed it. Or maybe the people who made the study weren't very good at interpreting their own data. There's a lot of junk science out there.
True, you don't experience pain when sedated during an operation, But the film was set up to make the point this situation may somehow be different. I wish I could see the film again so I could remember the particulars. The film made the point that at least one state dropped lethal injection as a result of the findings I mentioned.
I do assume that you're conscious almost to the time when the brain stops functioning. As long as the brain functions at all I'm assuming it would react strongly to something it perceives as life-threatening... but that's a guess, I admit.
Eddie, Zoran, Benjamin: True, the order of failure would influence all this.
Rick: Do we know that people in a coma feel no pain?
Anon: Interesting speculation. Is the whole film like that? I'll have to watch more.
Anon: Looks like an interesting book. I wonder if it mentions the experience of the French cemetary workers who had to move the remains of soldiers who were hastily buried in boxes after a battle in WW1. Legend says they discovered signs of premature burial in 5 - 10 % of the cases.
Ian: I'm not obsessed. Around Halloween time I start to look for story ideas that haven't been done before so my radar's on, but that's not the same thing as obsesion.
Eddie: Someone that is comatose is incapable of feeling pain because the brain's activity is severely limited. Speculatively speaking if they could feel any pain, I think it's safe to say response would be almost non-existent.
A friend of mine was holding his mother the moment she died, and he described it as a moment in time when she suddenly opened her eyes and looked around the room for a brief second or two, then expired. There was no prolonged suffering or sense of suffocation/struggle because of oxygen deprivation. It could be that people who are already in nursing homes like she was are on various drugs like morphine and this might quiet things donw..but no, death doesn't seem to always have to be a struggle.
Eddie, "opiates" are pain relievers. They BLOCK pain. They are not in any way "paralyzers" although too much of them can stop breathing function.
I read a fascinating book dealing entirely with the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg-the wounded, dead, the town and how the cleanup was dealt with. The soldiers left in the "hospital"(a tent, makeshift and filthy) who had undergone hacksaw surgeries, missing limbs etc. including one whose wounds were infested with squirming maggots(who wrote this story at the time in a letter), went from screaming to singing merrily when they were given a nice big dose of morphine-the root drug of all "opiates"-laudaunum, codeine, etc.!
They were alert but feeling NO pain at all although some had the most painful wounds imaginable short of burns.
There's been a lot of study into this area; basically the brain when it it shutting down for real (or thinks it is, which is often near enough-i.e. when it goes into that shock) goes about the business of blocking and inhibiting pain--releasing large amounts of endorphins There's no evidence at all that an unconscious person experiences terrible pain or any pain at all, as the brain is not conscious. As others pointed out, if it were not so, every operating patient would come out of anthesia telling blood curdling stories of the pain they experienced. That never happens.
You're somehow channeling Albert Ryder (masterful painter of creepy moonlit clouds) in the images you've chosen for this post.
That’s Too nice, when it comes in india hope it can make a Rocking place for youngster.. hope that come true.
Dear Eddie, First let me thank you for this site. In October, I received word that a friend of mine had passed the end of September in a foreign country. Naturally, I contacted the US Embassy/Stat Dept. They confirmed the death but nothing else. Later, I received an email via a relative of my friend with little more than what I already knew. The email, via a live in partner, stated that My Friend died 'peacefully in his sleep at 2am.' I have trouble with peacefully and an exact time of 2am. What was the roommate doing? My friend used a c-pap machine for breathing. Several years earlier he had a heart attack while we were walking to a restaurant in the neighborhood with a friend. We had enough time to fetch her car, drive to a clinic, and then he was transported via ambulance .to a hospital under and hour away. (not instant death like in the movies)The roommate is a nurse.(training??level??) The State Dept. takes charge and automatically does an autopsy and confiscates your stuff. However, getting your hands on police reports,911(?) info., ambulance reports, autopsy report is next to impossible...even with the help of your Senator. You are free to ask all the questions you wish but, they might go unanswered. I have been with people who have died. None of them died 'peacefully'. The only people I can think of who might appear to die peacefully would be someone who bled to death because they would be in a coma due to loss of blood.
I would love feedback on my dilemma. You can probably see why I am stuck here. thanks in advance for your thoughts and insights.
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