What It Feels Like to Die

The Atlantic ^ | 09/09/16 | Jennie Dear

[BunnySlippers]

A week or two after we spoke to the nurse, my mother sank into a state where she was rarely conscious. When she was awake, it was only the most basic part of her that was there: the part that told her legs to move to get her to the bathroom, the automated steps in brushing her teeth and then wiping the sink afterward. Her mind turned away from her children and husband for the first time.

I wanted to know what she was thinking about. I wanted to know where her mind was. Being at the bedside of an unresponsive dying person can feel like trying to find out whether someone is home by looking through thick-curtained windows. Is the person sleeping, dreaming, experiencing something supernatural? Is her mind gone?

For many dying people, “the brain does the same thing that the body does in that it starts to sacrifice areas which are less critical to survival,” says David Hovda, director of the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center. He compares the breakdown to what happens in aging: People tend to lose their abilities for complex or executive planning, learning motor skills—and, in what turns out to be a very important function, inhibition.

[central_va]

Morbid.

[newfreep]

Thanks - appreciate your comment.

It’s been many, many, many moons but I discovered, even with the passage of time, one never forgets.

[BunnySlippers]

Yes most people do not see it as an illusion .... they see it as an event in their lives. You are a minority!