How Does It Feel to Die
Even if death is a universal experience, we don’t know much about what it actually feels like to die. What happens to your body and mind during the transition from life to death? The good news is that there is some research on this, and when you learn about what we do know, it makes the whole thing a little less intimidating.
What happens to your body
Death can be very different, so let’s assume that you die a natural death and are about to leave. First, it is important to know that there is no exact “moment of death”. Dying is a process with many gray areas, because there is so much we don’t know yet.
However, we can legally divide death into two stages. Right now, your body is gradually approaching the so-called “ near death”, which occurs when your heartbeat, breathing and blood circulation cease. But after that, the cells in your body are still alive for the next four to six minutes, until biological death occurs . At this point, your brain cells began to die, and resuscitation is impossible.
Okay, now we know what death means from a legal point of view, but let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. How are you feeling? Well, according to James Hallenbeck, M.D., palliative care specialist at Stanford University , your last few days on Earth are what they call an “active dying” phase. You quickly begin to lose your natural urges and most of your feelings. Hallenbeck says everything goes in the following order:
- You stop being hungry.
- You stop feeling thirsty.
- You stop talking.
- You stop seeing.
- You stop hearing.
- You stop feeling the touch.
Other side effects include shortness of breath, depression, anxiety, extreme tiredness, confusion (likely due to lack of oxygen), constipation or urinary incontinence, and nausea. Basically, your brain gradually sacrifices less important functions in order to prolong your survival. Even your skin will start showing signs of your demise. It will turn cold, turn bluish gray, and may even develop mottling . The mottling is one of those things you learn when you see: the skin is marbled with red and purple marbles and is cold to the touch because the heart can no longer efficiently pump blood to the limbs.
Soon, you will become too weak to cough or swallow, and your breath will emit an unsettling guttural sound in the back of your throat called a “death rattle.” However, as far as doctors can tell , death rattle doesn’t hurt, even if it sounds bad to everyone else. But doctors aren’t sure how much pain people actually experience when they die. Obviously, being burned alive or shot is probably a painful journey, but when you die a natural death in a hospital bed or at home, it’s hard to tell. Your pain is usually handled by healthcare professionals and you are likely to pass out in the last hours of your life, so it is most likely very minimal. Usually, when they know you are about to leave, their doctors and nurses try to make you as comfortable as possible.
When your body finally lets go, the little brain function you left behind quickly fades away. This means that your brain can no longer control your body , so you can urinate, defecate, or perhaps even ejaculate (but this is rare). All of this may sound terribly uncomfortable and intimidating, but your brain has a few tricks up its sleeve.
What’s going on in your head
As your body begins to align, your brain does everything it can to prepare your consciousness for the leap into the great beyond. In their last moments of life, many people go through out-of-body experiences, meeting relatives in a quiet place, feeling more connected to the universe and, of course, seeing the classic bright light at the end of the tunnel. But what is really going on there?
First, you probably won’t be afraid of what happens to you in this mental state. One study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill compared the mental state of terminally ill patients and prisoners on death row with the mental states of people who were told to imagine they were dying. Their findings show that the closer you get to death, the more positive you feel about it. Perhaps this is because you have become more accepting of death when it is less abstract and you have to face its reality. Or maybe it’s because you have peaceful dreams and visions.
In a study conducted at a hospice center in Buffalo, New York, researchers found that dying people daydream much more actively than usual. In fact, 88 percent of the study participants claimed they had dreams or visions that seemed more real than normal dreams, and they often went into a waking state. Most people dreamed of reuniting with people they knew who had already died, others said that they dreamed of preparing for a trip somewhere, and some again witnessed significant events from their past. For many of these people, dreams and visions have comforted and diminished the fear of death.
As soon as you begin to die clinically, your brain begins to work with an overload – a surge of electricity and a surge of activity in various areas of the brain – and begins to release neurochemicals that excite it much beyond normal. This is when all these “bright white light” experiences take place. One study, published in the Journal of Clinical Research (seriously), suggests that all those who have experienced a near-death experience tend to witness the same thing, although they vary with the cultural and religious beliefs of each individual. However, another more recent study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience suggests that the timing and order of occurrence of these experiences varies from person to person. So, you will probably experience these things in no particular order:
- Hyperconscious mental state or very clear consciousness. This can be a state of wakefulness or sleep.
- An out-of-body experience, usually in the form of hovering over your deathbed. It may be caused by damage to the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) of your brain due to lack of oxygen.
- Your life flashes before your eyes. Many people see important moments of their lives being reproduced for them.
- Reuniting with lost loved ones – sometimes even ancestors you’ve never met in your life. Or maybe a visit to a strange world and meeting with beings from the light. Lack of oxygen in the brain can cause hallucinations.
- An overwhelming sense of peace and quiet, possibly caused by the release of endorphins.
- Bright white light at the end of the tunnel. Your visual system becomes overly excited and filled with carbon dioxide, making you more sensitive to light. You also have other heightened senses for a short time.
You can experience all of these or just some of them. And it is not known when and in what order they will occur. According to survivors close to death, these experiences make death feel normal and almost welcome. By the time your mind completes the farewell ceremony, you will be ready to go. We may never know for sure what is beyond death, if anything at all, but you can at least rest easy knowing that your brain will try to make it as comfortable as possible.
This story was originally published in September 2017 and has been updated on December 18, 2020 to revise the content in line with the current Lifehacker style.