Death in General

[Starman]

I believe in a glorious afterlife, and I have seen lots of people die. I am the last surviving member of my parents family; all of my siblings and parents have passed. A thanatologist is someone who studies death; they are mostly psychiatrist, like Elizabeth Kubler Ross, and pathologists.

One of the classes I used to teach was on death and dying, it was a class for students going into careers as counselors or nurses. Death can be sudden or it can be from a terminal condition, in fact human life is a terminal condition. You can usually tell when a terminally ill person is going to die because usually within 24-hours of their death there is a lot of energy around them, even if they are in a coma there is energetic activity in their eyes. Most loved ones usually take this as a sign they have gotten better but often they die shortly after that burst of energy.

People react differently to different ways of dying; they act differently to terminal illness then they do to suicide, or differently to homicide (murder) then they do a sudden death due to an accident. I understand that how a person loses a loved one has to do with the way they grieve. Grieving not only has to do with loss but also how the loss occurred. Suicide is usually the most bewildering loss where surviving loved ones struggle to find reasons. Reactions to death on a large scale, which means dying with a bunch of other people, are also different from a solo death of a loved one who dies alone.

The death of a baby or child has a more potent impact then the death of an adult, even to first responders and hospital workers. The medical field categories death as either Clinical Death or Brain death. As a former ambulance EMT I have seen doctors from the Coroners Office in various counties pronounce a person dead, and we took that person to the local county morgue, and that person woke up in the morgue and was alive. Yes, this does happen! But it is infrequent.

I have not counted but I feel like I have seen hundreds of people die. As a combat medic in Vietnam, later a civilian ambulance paramedic, then also as a nurse working in hospitals and at a hospice. I consider it a privilege to have been with people when they took their final breath, often helping them on their way by slowing them down and helping them be in the moment with their dying. Some people die in great fear and loathing while others die at peace with themselves and accepting death. Some die with light in their eyes and a smile on their face while others die in great fear with a gruesome grimiest on their face. To me death without pain is important.

I remember one of my hospital patients who only had a few days to live and he and I would laugh and joke together, mostly about his death. He had accepted his death and was very light hearted about it. When his loved ones came to visit I left his room but did peak in there every now and then and saw his relatives crying with heavy sadness. He had accepted his death but his loved ones had not, and after his loved ones left he was depressed over this. But there are also survivors who are relieved and thankful when their loved one dies, especially in terminal illness but also in other cases.

Don’t worry about death, I am not afraid of death. Whether you are afraid of death or not is irrelevant, death will still take you, and in my opinion, it is a natural process. The only question is the method by which a person dies.

[Native spirit]

I view death the same way as you do.


Namaste

[inavalan]

I view death as a wake-up from a dream that you didn't know you were dreaming.

[Bluto]

I rarely use the word death on it's own these days - maybe I do if I'm speaking with normal people haha. I tend to say bodily death, because I don't think there is such as thing as ultimate death. I've grown convinced, through what I've read, heard, witnessed, and experienced, that we are essentially an eternal spirit/soul behind a veil of forgetfulness whilst inside our 200lb meat overcoats.

This might sound deeply unpalatable to some, but I don't view bodily death as a big deal at all. I see it as release from prison, or finishing a heavy workout at the spiritual gymnasium. From a cosmological perspective, bodily death doesn't matter at all. I'm odd in that I feel almost celebratory about it. Though it's a personal loss to me, I see it as a huge gain for the them, like a graduation event, so I'm happy for them. I'm very comforted by the cast iron guarantee that one day my body will die.

[Starman]

There is a profession called a “Death Doula,” they are people who help other people with the transition which we call “death.” Depression often accompanies loss and the loss of a loved one is no different.

Depression is the most common mental disorder in the world, everyone on Earth at some point most probably will experience depression; now whether the depression is chronic and long lasting or not is another question. Most people just experience acute depression.

There is a graph which shows the impact of grief on people in various traumatic situations. We grieve loss in all of its forms but the loss of loved ones to a death has a particular kind of grieving. The closer you are to someone, usually the more grieving takes place.

The pain from loss has a way of sometimes pushing us into places where we would rather not go. How are we going to be without that person in my life, etc. Fear is always about what is going to happen next, even if we are laying on our death bed. Basically, ego is the only thing that may freak out at the time of death.

Death basically removes our mask, our covering. We all have a persona or presentation, but for most people who are dying there is no pretense, when you look at a person who is dying some of them can see right into you. They have been stripped of everything and most are emotionally naked, frail and weak. It is important to be honest and genuine, because most who are terminally ill and close to death can tell if you are not. The death experience is probably the most intimate experience you will ever have.

[Redburyva]

The same way as we are born into this world with a body of flesh and blood, dying is the birth of the soul into the beyond with a new body fit for the environment in which it finds itself in. The soul continues along its path through the planes of life having gained newfound experiences and understandings that have helped it grow and mature.

[Starman]

I feel all who have posted have made some excellent points, but what about death in the here and now. It is one thing to talk about death in the hereafter but what is your experience with death now?

That is why I have written here about depression, loss, and grief, as associated with death. Until you have sat with someone who is dying, held them in your arms until they took their final breath, and felt their soul leave. The rest is speculation.

I have had out of body experiences but I will not say that my inter-dimensional experiences are something that everyone will experience. But I cam say most people experience depression or grief over their own death as well as the death of a loved one.

Working with death in the flesh is a lot different then working with death in the spirit or soul. A person’s mind does react to death is many different ways. Keeping the mind silent, in my opinion, helps with a smooth transition.

How many of you know about a Living Will or an Advance Directive? These are final documents. The advance directive states whether you want them to hook you up to machines or not to keep you alive if you can not breath on your own. A Living Will is about how you want your estate, and body, disposed of. If you do not have these documents then, at least in the U.S., Probate Court gets involved.

[inavalan]

There are emotions that accompany a death event, the kind of emotions that people don't look forward to.

Function of one's beliefs and situation, such emotions could be quite heavy, and I believe that they shouldn't be repressed, but if possible kept in check.

Most people aren't aware that emotions bring in their lives situations that cause them the same kind of emotions, hence they have to pay attention, to force themselves to break the loop early, for their and theirs' quick return to a normal emotional life.

Besides, their sorrow and regrets won't help the departed either; it seems that strong emotional ties slow their transition.

From experience, I know how hard it is to loose loved ones. I wish I knew what I know today when that happened. Such a loss event started my quest to find out if and what is beyond.

[Starman]

inavalan, thank you for that very heartfelt sharing and I definitely agree with what you have said. There is more to it then just losing your physical body and going into the so-called afterlife.

I say so-called afterlife because I embrace that there is only one life, and I know people want to talk about the afterlife but what about the before life, The life we had before we took a birth on this planet?

Right now we are dealing with life between birth and death; which involves layers of existence, a physical existence, yes, but also a mental and emotional existence. In my opinion all interacting with our deeper being, what many call “the soul.”

Emotionalism is an energetic current which we have to deal with until we have detached from our physical body. That detachment may be a slow process, as it is for terminally ill people. Not everyone dies suddenly.

The saying is it is not what life does to us as much as it is how we react to what life hands us, and those reactions may, or may not, come from emotional instability or what Buddhists call “the monkey mind.”

I feel that is why it is important now to embrace our own mortality, knowing that there may be many reactions at the time of physical death but also knowing that we are not our physical body, nor our thoughts, nor are we our emotions.

[hazada guess]

I've read through there comments and tend to agree with Bluto.
Starman,I was with my mother when she took her final breath, in fact, I was holding her hand. There was no sudden spark or mist leave her body, yet she was staring at something in the top left hand corner of the room.I am comforted in the fact that deceased loved ones had come for her.
It was difficult as she was in the final stages of dementia. Just before she passed, her eyes rolled to the back of her head.
What I did find strange was a couple of minutes after she had passed,she stuck her tongue out.Lol.The Nurse said that it was just her muscles relaxing,but I don't know.
I think she was glad to be back with her deceased loved ones as I had been telling her that her ex husband (my dad who had passed 58 years earlier) was waiting for her.