A dead body doesn’t look real. The stillness and one’s denial mechanisms combine to make it look like a mannequin.
Also, if the person has a protracted fight with a disease or simply old age (ie anything that isn’t a sudden death) they rarely look like themselves. One elderly family member had an open casket and I could barely recognize them, they wasted away to half of their normal size.
When my mother went she had an aggressive immune therapy to fight lymphoma. That’s what actually killed her. Ended up looking like 3rd degree burns all over, unconscious and shivering… didn’t look like her.
I’ve only observed that it seems to be a relief, at the very end.
72. Strive ever to more! and if thou art truly mine -- and doubt it not, an if thou art ever joyous! -- death is the crown of all. 73. Ah! Ah! Death! Death! thou shalt long for death. Death is forbidden, o man, unto thee. 74. The length of thy longing shall be the strength of its glory. He that lives long & desires death much is ever the King among the Kings.Excerpt, Liber AL vel Legis, Chapter II
Life is short.
If you have time to say goodbye, many insecurities fall by the wayside. If you don’t have that opportunity, you’ll carry a load of “what-if” around and you’ll consume plenty of your short time being concerned with it.
Death comes to everyone. Make the best life you can and try to laugh every day.
I don’t know if this counts but it’s the closest I’ve been to death.
I had an accidental breakthrough on DMT. I don’t even remember what happened during that 12 minutes except brief things that came to me in daydreams and night dreams afterwards. But before I did it, I was suicidal and ready to die. When my consciousness came back I was no longer the same person. I felt like I had just lived 1,000 years. I immediately felt like the world was no longer on my shoulders, and I involuntary started screaming about how much love there is in the universe. Before that, I had struggled with the concept of unconditional love. I used to have daily suicidal ideation, typically multiple times daily, but I have only experienced ideation a few times since then. Over a decade ago.
At one point in time I was inundated with death. Due to the fentanyl epidemic and other mental health and drug related issues, I’ve watched many friends die. Thankfully I’m in a much better place now, I’m no longer in that place I was hiding from myself before that day. Whatever death is, whatever reality is, I no longer fear it. I fear not being able to provide for my wife and children after I’m gone, but that’s it.
To answer the accidental breakthrough question before it comes up: I was sniffing DMT fumurate (nasally active) at doses around 20-50mg, walking around my house, looking at the static dewwy webs of light, walking over them, under them, trying to hold them. I was so intrigued by the lack of movement of the visuals, where with other psychedelics you can blink or shift your eyes and it goes away. I did a few larger lines in a row and my vision started to bend and fold in on itself and I instinctually laid down in my bed.
I haven’t personally died yet, so no first person report. My dad died suddenly when I was 16, gently it seems; and my stepson by suicide, not at all gently. From these experiences I will say PLEASE try not to die before your parents do. It’s sad to lose a parent but we all know it will happen. We recover. Losing a kid? No, I don’t think anyone really recovers from that.
They don’t tend to recover but they do often move forward. It can be quite inspiring but I keep that to myself.
My experiences with death has cured me of any atheist delusions. There’s a damn good reason they say, “there are no atheists in foxholes.” It’s not about whether you believe this or that to be real or not real - that is irrelevant - it’s about what matters in those horrible moments people experience true mortality before they go. It’s not pretty like they pretend it to be in the movies, and armchair philosophizing doesn’t mean squat to people then.
People react differently, sure, some will call out to some higher power even if they don’t believe, if these call-outs are part of their vocabulary. I certainly say “oh god” a lot, even though I’m a very vocal anti-theist and strong atheist. But they do not necessarily beg a higher power to safe them because they actually believe, but because in distress reaching for help is human instinct and our theism infused culture conditions us towards “god” in such situations.
I’m not proud of it, but in distress I did call to god for help. But hey, I was 11 years old and just had my fingers crushed to paste, I was in shock and not thinking and at no point did I actually expect help.
None of that is belief, as soon as peoole regain their senses, they discard it. Just like wounded soldiers on a battlefield don’t actually expect their mothers to show up and safe them, yet still call out to them.
Belief needs conviction and irrational panic behavior tells us nothing about conviction but a lot about ingrained childhood experience and familial as well as societal indoctrination.
I’m not proud of it, but in distress I did call to god for help
Doesn’t sound like the actions of a “strong atheist” (if such a thing can or should even exist) to me… just sounds like bog-standard human behavior.
But hey, I was 11 years old
But you’ve left all of that behind, right? You’re a big, strong, rational main character now that will never be put into such a vulnerable situation ever again, right?
None of that is belief,
Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn’t - and that probably isn’t even relevant.
as soon as peoole regain their senses, they discard it.
When I cease to be hungry I stop eating - that doesn’t mean I reject the concept of food.
Just like wounded soldiers on a battlefield don’t actually expect their mothers to show up and safe them, yet still call out to them.
In other words… atheist reasoning only works as long as everything is comfortable and non-threatening? It offers absolutely nothing to those in distress?
I’d say that’s a big, gaping hole in said reasoning.
Belief needs conviction
So does non-belief, apparently. At least, that’s what the narratives I hear from atheists seem to suggest.
You want a drink with all that straw, man?
Depends… is it big enough to fill the giant gap in atheist reasoning?
No offense, but “No atheists in foxholes” ONLY makes sense to religious people… why would an atheist pray to something he/she doesn’t believe in? Do Christians pray to Muhammad or one of the thousands of other religions in foxholes? Of course not, because they don’t believe in them… that’s the point. If someone is doing that, they’re at best agnostic.
And for the record, I’ve had one of my daughters literally die in my arms, it’s a terrible experience, but it didn’t convert me to some religion to try and make sense out of.
No offense,
None taken.
but “No atheists in foxholes” ONLY makes sense to religious people
I’m afraid not. I’m not religious at all - and it makes perfect sense to me.
why would an atheist pray to something he/she doesn’t believe in?
It’s very easy to convince yourself that you’ve chosen to believe this or that when life is comfortable. It’s peak individualism - and such delusions fall apart very fast when the trauma starts piling on. You don’t have to believe me - believe the people who wrote the CIA’s torture manuals.
It’s called “regression” - if you were spoon-fed a certain religion as a child you will “regress” to that under extreme duress (amongst other, even worse, things). That’s why they say, “there are no atheists in foxholes.”
So you’re saying you’d pray to things you don’t believe in when confronted with something traumatic?
This is all going straight over your head, isn’t it?
I guess it must be “going over my head”, because it makes no sense to me to pray to something that isn’t there, unless you at least think there’s at least a tiny chance there is… aka agnostic.
I also wouldn’t pray to my toaster unless I thought at least there was the slightest chance it could hear me.
because it makes no sense
So everything in your life “makes sense”? How did you accomplish that?
I also wouldn’t pray to my toaster unless
I also wouldn’t recommend praying to anything that comes with an on/off switch… though I am undecided about threatening them with banishment to a landfill.
I never said everything in life makes sense, just that praying to something you don’t think is real doesn’t.
Obviously you believe in some form of higher power, so it makes sense that you would pray to it. But you wouldn’t pray to something you don’t at least think has a chance of existing, why would you think an atheist would?
Wow this is a stupid take. I was spoon fed Christianity, now I’m agnostic. I’ve experienced plenty of traumatic things and I haven’t found myself praying to God in any of those.
Where did you get this is bs?
Where did you get this
I guess you missed this part?
You don’t have to believe me - believe the people who wrote the CIA’s torture manuals.
I suppose you were too busy convincing yourself that losing at video games qualify as “traumatic…”
You don’t know me at all, dipshit. Congratulations for being the most insufferable Lemmy user I’ve ran into so far. I feel sorry for people that know you. That has to be traumatic.
You don’t know me at all
I agree. And I’d prefer to keep it that way.
most insufferable
Considering how easy it was to trigger you I find your claim of any kind of actual life experience quite dubious.
You make an awful lot of assumptions. Keep being a basement keyboard warrior, loser.
if you were spoon-fed a certain religion as a child
And if you weren’t? Probably hard to believe for most Americans but atheism isn’t an invention of the current generations.
but atheism isn’t an invention of the current generations.
Of course it isn’t.
And if you weren’t?
That’s actually a very difficult thing… even someone who was raised in a non-religious home would be exposed to religion (and things worse than religion under our current circumstances) through social osmosis. Soooo… you’d have to find someone that was raised in a society that can be called atheist with a straight face.
I was in the waiting room for my friend when the surgeon came in and told us he had a week to live. The sound his family began to make was haunting and terrifying. It was a deep groaning and crying that I haven’t heard since. It made my hairs stand up on end and it made me quake. There is nothing heavier than death.
Condolences for your friend.
That’s how I cry, when I do cry. I can’t help it. I hardly ever cry though I’d like to be able more because it’s such a strong catharsis, but when I do it’s like a very deep voiced whale trying to make air bubbles over and over. “Awhuuoooo oo oo oo aahhuuuooooo”
It usually only happens when there’s a severe loss, my body takes control from my brain, accepts defeat, and starts wailing.
Coincidentally I had a cry a few days ago watching this: https://youtube.com/shorts/ixouwqK4_Ls - so many emotions piled into one scene, it’s overwhelming.
It’s difficult to summarize into words, and English because many of the ideas and experiences of the post-life world transcend easy explanation, but here goes nothing (and I’m fine with being judged/downvoted, most of this will seem like nonsense to casual readers):
- The goals, priorities, duties, missions, and dreams you have, what you value, and believe to be important – isn’t.
A. Approximately 180 seconds after you accept you’re not recovering from your imminent death, you are immediately pardoned from all duties, debts, goals and otherwise.
B. Basically everything you’d been worried about, stops worrying or bothering you. Your name is off the high score board, permanently, so to speak.
- Cognition is dependent on physicality.
A. The way that humans experience reality depends on their sensory organs, brain, and various other instruments to create a quasi coherent image of the world.
B. The raw state of being, is absolute chaos. It defies description. Hegel tried his best to put it into words but he also failed. Time is non-linear. Nothing makes any sense. Dimensions don’t exist. Quantum physics barely scrapes the surface of what’s going on.
- Consciousness is independent of physicality.
A. Almost immediately after the ripping and dissolution of the corporeal body, after the dynamic system that used to be you, no longer exists, it is no longer dynamic, or on the material plane - life continues. You perceive. You persist. You think. It makes zero sense, but the universe is under absolutely no obligation to explain itself to you, or make sense.
- Everything in Section Four unfortunately lacks the appropriate language, or terminology to sufficiently describe and so must be experienced by each person individually. Everyone is owed this. Sorry. No spoilers.
One of the interesting takeaways of depression for me is just how much conciousness is dependent on physicality lol. The brain is like if an LLM existed physically, rather than in software. Your… you is a direct result of the physical structure and anything that disrupts that, even subtly, will have profound effects on who you are.
That it’s normally never quick and painless and that it can happen at any time.
You could just be walking down the street and trip and fall into the road or smack your head off something or have a heart attack/stroke/aneurism.
One missed second with hitting the brakes in your car. One misstep. One mistake. Hell you can even be doing everything right and still get caught in something that leads to your death.
I was in the hospital in January following a heart attack.
I woke up one morning and was on my phone when the nurse came in.
“Were you asleep about an hour ago?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Your heart stopped for 8 seconds.”
“. . . Uh, thanks? I guess? I’m not sure what you want me to do with that information.”
Never knew it happened.
And they’re just checking on you an hour later?! Wow thanks.
Apparently it alerted at the nurses station but didn’t set off any alarms in the room… or so I was told… I mean, I WAS asleep…
WHY IS NO ONE PAYING ATTENTION?!
I didn’t even know I died. I just… woke up. I’m so happy to be depressed and to admit my faults and to make my friends laugh. There is a Multiverse where I don’t do that.
I’ve had an absurd amount of death in my life, double digits by the time I was 18. Every one of them I knew personally or was family. From a variety of ways. Accidents, suicides, sickness, drugs.
What I learned from this is that, its gonna happen. Life as a whole isn’t all that special to the world or to the universe. But your experiences and everything you put value in, is.
At this point, death is more like (in my eyes) someone taking a trip and I just gotta say Goodbye and hope they do well because they won’t be able to talk to me anymore. Remember the good stuff and why you liked em, and move on. Because it’s gonna happen to you and others in your life too and if you dwell too long you won’t be able to remember the people around you now and why you liked them too.
Nothing is a bigger regret than trying so hard to cling to someone out of reach that you never held on to those reaching for you
How to accept and let go of someone. I lost my dad very early in my life. It was sad, and unexpected, and to this day it does feel like I lack a father figure (hope this doesn’t sound weird, English isn’t my first language). But, I realize, there’s no use excessive crying over someone’s death. It’s not like I can change anything about that. I learned quickly it’s better to leave the past and move on.
If you ask me whether I miss him or not, I do miss him. But, really, it’s not something I can control.
I used to think I wanted whatever possible done to keep me alive. Use the machines, keep me in the coma for years, what have you. Maybe someday they’ll fix me.
My grandmother had a pretty massive stroke. She had some sort of living will, Do Not Resuscitate, something like that, but none of the family could really bring themselves to enforce that so they put a temporary feeding tube in and I think when that reached its limit switched to a more permanent variety.
I can’t remember if she woke up before or after the second feeding tube, but she did wake up in just a couple days; the stroke happened on a Friday and she was definitely awake the next week. She said she was glad they did the feeding tube.
However, while she was still able to talk pretty well, she lost her ability to swallow. Not only could she not eat anything and had to stay on the feeding tube, she couldn’t even drink anything or she risked it going into her lungs. Every time she felt her throat get dry she had to have a nurse with a wet sponge come moisten her throat. They tried electroshock therapy, but it never helped. She described it as the worst torture she’d ever felt and wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemy, but continued trying it because there wasn’t any other alternative from the doctors and it’s really hard to live and not be able to swallow.
She spent months like this, back and forth between the hospital and rehab/nursing centers, doing better but then getting sick in the homes and having to go back to the higher care of the hospital. She never returned to her own home except for a couple hours when one of her sons took her just to see it. In the end one of those times in a nursing home she got sick and started vomiting, some of which went in her lungs and led to her death in just a day or two. All those preceding months of suffering seemed like a waste, just delaying the inevitable.
I don’t want everything possible done to keep me alive anymore. I don’t want to die, but sometimes there are worse things than dying.
I’m in a line of work where I see death very very often.
I don’t know what I’ve learned from it. Besides that it’s coming. I also know there are things worse than death. Often, in the end, people/families can’t accept it, and they end up uselessly suffering.
I suspect the suffering is often compounded by certain cultural beliefs and practices, that (arguably) have less healthy outlooks on death or approaches to grieving. Western countries rooted in puritanical belief systems immediately come to mind.
Absolutely. Especially those who believe in miracles.
