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The Last Chapter in the Book

A while ago I was asked by a friend what it feels like to die and if people suffer. At the time I didn’t know the answer. One month on and I’m still no closer to it. Hopefully this provides some closure for people who have lost friends and loved ones recently…… the heat is a killer ……

By the time your average medical student is in his/her final year they usually know how to dodge every bullet and answer every question you throw at them. The fuckers go through paper faster than termites …..

But there is (and will always be) one question which they can’t answer, not for lack of trying but for lack of research. Most (all) doctors don’t know what it feels like for a patient when s/he dies and can’t tell you if they felt pain during death, as frustrating as that sounds not only has modern science failed us at curing AIDS, cancer and obesity; they’ve also forgotten to do their homework on the last chapter of the book.

Having spent the last month trying to find articles of any merit on the subject I’ve come to this conclusion:

WE KNOW FUCKALL ABOUT DEATH

We do however know alot about near death experiences, cases where somebody was brought back to life by CPR, or (if you prefer) a touch of the divine. Unfortunately because of the how closely death is linked to religion many of these cases have been interpreted from a more theological standpoint making them angel laden, filled with ether,pomp and circumstance and very hard to believe. But there is one study I found very helpful by Limmel and his team and published in the Lancet (Forbes Magazine for medics). The study interviewed 344 patients who were (and I cringe as I use this term) brought back (ugh …. fuckers think they’re gods ….all they did was get daddy pay the school fees on time) and found that a good one in five (well 18%) had experienced one of the following if not more:

• The notice of a very unpleasant sound or noise.
• A sense/awareness of being dead.
• A sense of peace, well-being and painlessness. Positive emotions. A feeling of being removed from the world.
• An out-of-body experience. A perception of one’s body from an outside position. Sometimes observing doctors and nurses performing medical resuscitation efforts.
• A “tunnel experience”. A sense of moving up, or through, a passageway or staircase.

• A rapid movement toward and/or sudden immersion in a powerful light. Communication with the light.
• An intense feeling of unconditional love.

And as they came back they saw being of light which upon further focusing turned out to be nurses doing all the work while the doctors signed the death certificate.*

Now, most people would regard that as a pretty fair description of going to heaven. You know you’re dying, people are screaming all around you everything goes dark then goes white again and you feel oh so happy for once in your life now that you’re rid of that pesky mutt of a boss and that stupid tea boy who keep putting too much sugar in your coffee ………

But the scientific hypothesis (yet to be proved but far more convincing that angels bathed in light) proposed by many “experts” in the field seems to point to the fact that the process occurs as a result of the progressive shut down of different centers in the brain and for those of you who really want to know the details here they are (taken from a book by Ivan and Melrose 1986):

1. The triggering mechanism is decreased blood oxygen availability. The feeling of peace and tranquillity is an early manifestation of decreased nerve activity (the way tranquillisers work, this is theacceptance of death part).
2. As the chemical changes increase in quantity there is an effect in the limbic system of the brain (the part activated during arousal and motivated behaviour) such that there is a sense of euphoria and body-separation.
3. With the progressive changes, other elements of the brain become involved and when the visual cortex is affected ‘blacking out’ occurs (entering the darkness).
4. Further changes cause hyperactivity of the same nerve cells and visual hallucinations become intensified (seeing the light).
5. In the final stage, just before the part of the brain responsible for consciousness is abolished, a hallucination occurs (entering the light).

This by and large makes sense (well at least it does for me and should to most neuro-physiologists), so in theory at least (coupled with the first hand experience of about 80/344 people) we can all assume that  for the most part the way we die (slit wrists, fall from the roof, car crash, drug over dose, heart attack) doesn’t really affect us in our last moments, so in other words we can all rest assured that we’ll be getting that last moment of bliss ….. that millionaires death …. no better or worse than saying good night to your loved ones, going to bed and not waking up in the morning ……

And for those of you who (like me) have found the evidence a wee bit too shoddy there is light at the end of the tunnel, a group at the University of Southampton of have taken on the task of interviewing over 1500 people and assessing them clinically (brain scans, blood work up, psych evaluation) at the time directly after they’ve been “brought back” and after a 6 month follow-up. They’ll be taking into account everything from the persons religious views to their cholesterol level and are hoping to prove/disprove what we now assume is what that last chapter feels like ……..

* No, I wasn’t being serious …..

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