Your time has come. You’ve died. Sorry about your loss. Now, how would you handle dying? What would happen to your body? And what’s on the other side? So, bad news. Mr. Grim Reaper has shown up at your door. How the heck are you even supposed to process this?
In fact, in 1969, psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross developed a five- step roadmap for dealing with death that is still in use today. The stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. But before the Grim Reaper drags you off, we need to make sure you are absolutely dead.
In 1968, a group at Harvard defined the criteria for what counts as dead. They are divided into two large groups. The cardiopulmonary criterion is when the heart stops beating and the neurological criterion is when the brain stops working, AKA brain death.
If you’ve checked off both these boxes, I’ve got some bad news for you. You are dead. So now, what’s going to happen to that body of yours? Well, before checking off both criteria, it’s a gradual physical process that differs from person to person. Let’s say you are lucky enough to not suffer a fatal accident, but die of natural causes.
At first, you will feel coldness in your hands, arms, legs and feet. When the heart loses its ability to pump blood efficiently, the skin becomes blotchy and turns reddish purple. This is called mottling.
You will sleep more and become uncommunicative and unresponsive. Day-to-details will slip. You may not recognise your family members and friends. You may not even know the day and month, or even know where you are.
This can usually be caused by a chemical imbalance, decreased blood flow to the brain, or a combination of the two. The theory is that over time, you’ll stop eating and drinking and the body stores the energy it needs for the natural process of dying. At this point, you may begin to see unexplained things: bright lights, deceased love ones. But what are you exactly seeing? What is afterlife?
Researchers have documented cases of people who survived being medically dead and everyone had similar experiences. They experience things like a sense of peace, the illusion of bright lights and freedom from physical pain. But are these just hallucinations? Studies at Melbourne’s St. Vincent Hospital show that these visions can help people die more peacefully and can be a means for self-comfort. Is our body trying to make the experience a little more comfortable?
In a 2008 study, 42% of cardiac arrest survivors declared that they had some consciousness level as they were being resuscitated. These survivors said they felt that time was speeding up or slowing down.
They also experienced an overall peacefulness and that they were having an out of body experience. Some felt joy, and even saw a bright light or golden flash. That all sounds kind of nice, except for the fact that an unspecified number of patients reported feeling fear and a sense of drowning.
Let’s face it, we’re all going to die. Judging by various studies, the experience will be different for each and every one of us. As for what lies beyond the veil, it’s still a mystery.
NAME: Chady Oumme Hanyah
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