A MACABRE SPECULATION ABOUT DEATH

WARNING: This post speculates about the nature of death, and posits that it's painful and terrifying. It's a downright creepy subject, definitely not suitable for anyone who's recently experienced the death of a loved one. Be warned!

.............................

Okay, if you're still here, then I can promise that you'll at least acquire an interesting story to tell around campfires and at Halloween parties. Here goes:

Occasionally you hear families say about a deceased relative: "He died peacefully in his sleep. We can only hope to be as lucky when our time comes." Lucky? How can they be so sure? If the evidence for a peaceful passing was simply the man's relaxed corpse, then maybe they should have withheld their judgement. Who really knows what his mental state was when he died?

What started me thinking about this was a TV documentary about lethal injection. It argued that this might be a more painful method of execution than people think. The show cited a study of brain waves from the lethally injected which indicated brain activity for several minutes after the heart stopped. In view of the pain cited by survivors of heart attack and stroke, it doesn't seem out of line to speculate that these men experienced agony as their body shut down.

You can further speculate that the prisoners were paralyzed by the opiates added to the poison and were unable to show any outward manifestation of that pain. Imagine that...severe pain without even the small comfort of being able to thrash about or scream. A very scary thought! 

It occurred to me that the so-called peaceful deaths of the bed-ridden might occur the same way. Imagine a man in bed, sleeping soundly. Somehow the oxygen to his brain is cut off and he startles to wakefulness. Let me stop here to underline my belief that he wakes up. It's inconceivable that the body would react passively to a trauma like this. He'd wake up in a panic.

Maybe his lungs would still work for a time, but at a fraction of their normal capacity. If you ever choked on water that went down the wrong pipe, you know what it's like to breathe through what feels like a pinhole. Maybe our sleeper would experience this.

Maybe his heart would lose it's rhythm before it stopped beating. That's bound to hurt. The poor victim might try to get out of bed and flail about, but it's more likely that he'd take the avenue of least pain and stay on his back, hoping that the condition would right itself if only he could be still.

As his vessels constricted, his muscles would begin to fail and the victim would lapse into a state of painful paralysis. If he was sitting up before, he'd now fall down on the bed, maybe blind, and with his arms close to his side. His grimacing face would lose it's expressiveness and become neutral.

His mind would be active for some minutes after his body failed, a long time since minutes pass like hours when you're in pain. As the oxygen-deprived brain deteriorates, wild, crazy thoughts might race through his head. Along with the pain might come regret for past misdeeds and worry about family and friends. Maybe he'll think of some vitally important message he wants to convey, but can't. Almost certainly the final thoughts of his crumbling brain would be a scream in Hell... madhouse ravings, with no logic or pattern.

Of course in the morning his relatives will find a relaxed body, peacefully lying on a pillow, and covered with sunlight from a newly opened window.

***************************

I hope I haven't disturbed anybody with this. I'm happy to be able to end on a more cheerful note, thanks to Anonymous (Buzz?) who made the following comment to the original post:

Eddie, "opiates" are pain relievers. They BLOCK pain. They are not in any way "paralyzers" although too much of them can stop breathing function.

I read a fascinating book dealing entirely with the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg-the wounded, dead, the town and how the cleanup was dealt with. The soldiers left in the "hospital"(a tent, makeshift and filthy) who had undergone hacksaw surgeries, missing limbs etc. including one whose wounds were infested with squirming maggots(who wrote this story at the time in a letter), went from screaming to singing merrily when they were given a nice big dose of morphine-the root drug of all "opiates"-laudanum, codeine, etc.!

They were alert but feeling NO pain at all although some had the most painful wounds imaginable short of burns.

There's been a lot of study into this area; basically the brain when it it shutting down for real (or thinks it is, which is often near enough-i.e. when it goes into that shock) goes about the business of blocking andinhibiting pain--releasing large amounts of endorphins There's no evidence at all that an unconscious person experiences terrible pain or any pain at all, as the brain is not conscious. As others pointed out, if it were not so, every operating patient would come out of anesthesia telling blood curdling stories of the pain they experienced. That never happens.

text not in italics copyright Eddie Fitzgerald 9/16/2009

HOW DO WE REALLY DIE?

Here's a creepy thought. It came from a dream I had when I was in Texas a few weeks ago. It's just a fantasy, but it takes on an eerie plausibility when you look at the graphics I've marshaled here. I'll discuss these pictures in a minute, but first...the dream.

I'll start with a question: what if humans were immortal? I don't mean some time in the future, as in science fiction, or in the afterlife or in reincarnation...I mean physically immortal right now. What if, unbeknown to us, we've always been immortal ever since we first walked the earth? What if none of us dies a natural death. What if we have to be killed, otherwise our cells would continue to divide indefinitely? What if every human who has ever lived was........murdered?

It's a scary thought. It implies a murderer, someone who thins the flock. Those could be  devils or space aliens. It could be a race of Morlocks, as in H. G. Wells' The Time Machine. It could be quasi-supernatural thugs who enjoy killing for its own sake, and who have a vulture-like ability to detect physical and mental weakness. My dream was about the latter.

I dreamed that I was in a parking lot, looking for my car when I noticed a couple of thugs heading my way. I was the target, no doubt about it, and there was no doubt the thugs had a murderous intent: it was broad daylight and the lot was full of shoppers, but the men savagely pushed them aside as if they were rag dolls. I ran into a nearby supermarket and the thugs ran after me. Inside they tore up the market in order to get at me. I managed to stay one step ahead, but I was getting tired and the thugs seemed to have infinite energy. At that point I woke up.

Lying in the dark with my eyes open and my heart pounding, my half-conscious mind filled in the rest of the story. After I escaped, the joking thugs walked out of the market, confident that they would get me in the next encounter. Previously frightened patrons took on blank expressions then dutifully tidied up the market. After that they went about their business, completely unaware that anything scary had just happened. They had total amnesia about it.

 I remember thinking, "So that's what death is like." In front of witnesses you're violently killed by thugs who then arrange the corpse so it appears that you died a natural death. The witnesses clean up then, with no memory of the killing, resume their normal lives...until some time in the future when their turn comes. Scary, huh?

Okay, it was just a nightmare, something we all get now and then....but as I was assembling the pictures for this post I began to notice that most of them seemed to confirm the premise of my dream. Almost all of them had a common theme: that death comes not to the fatally sick, but rather to ordinary, healthy people who are minding their own business. It's as if there was a consensus of artists and sculptors of the past that death was murder, something that's done to you with malevolent intent. Look at the pictures. Do you see what I mean?

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A PEACEFUL DEATH?

WARNING: This post speculates about the nature of death, and posits that it's painful and terrifying. It's a downright creepy subject, definitely not suitable for anyone who's recently experienced the death of a loved one. Be warned!

.............................

Okay, if you're still here, then I can promise that you'll at least acquire an interesting story to tell at campfires and Halloween parties. Here goes:

Occasionally you hear families say about a deceased relative: "He died peacefully in his sleep. We can only hope to be as lucky when our time comes." Lucky? How can they be so sure? If the evidence for a peaceful passing was simply the man's relaxed corpse, then maybe they should have withheld their judgement. Who really knows what his mental state was when he died?



What started me thinking about this was a TV documentary about lethal injection. It argued that this might be a more painful method of execution than people think. The show cited a study of brain waves from the lethally injected which indicated brain activity for several minutes after the heart stopped. In view of the pain cited by survivors of heart attack and stroke, it doesn't seem out of line to speculate that these men experienced agony as their body shut down.

You can further speculate that the prisoners were paralyzed by the opiates added to the poison and were unable to show any outward manifestation of that pain. Imagine that...severe pain without even the small comfort of being able to thrash about or scream. A very scary thought!

It occurred to me that the so-called peaceful deaths of the bed-ridden might occur the same way. Imagine a man in bed, sleeping soundly. Somehow the oxygen to his brain is cut off and he startles to wakefulness. Let me stop here to underline my belief that he wakes up. It's inconceivable that the body would react passively to a trauma like this. He'd wake up in a panic.

Maybe his lungs would still work for a time, but at a fraction of their normal capacity. If you ever choked on water that went down the wrong pipe, you know what it's like to breathe through what feels like a pinhole. Maybe our sleeper would experience this.

Maybe his heart would lose it's rhythm before it stopped beating. That's bound to be agonizing. The poor victim might try to get out of bed and flail about, but it's more likely that he'd take the avenue of least pain and stay on his back, hoping that the condition would right itself if only he could be still.

As his vessels constricted, his muscles would begin to fail and the victim would lapse into a state of painful paralysis. If he was sitting up before, he'd now fall down on the bed, maybe blind, and with his arms close to his side. His grimacing face would lose it's expressiveness and become neutral.

His mind would be active for some minutes after his body failed, a long time since minutes pass like hours when you're in pain. As the oxygen-deprived brain deteriorates, wild, crazy thoughts might race through his head. Along with the pain might come regret for past misdeeds and worry about family and friends. Maybe he'll think of some vitally important message he wants to convey, but can't. Almost certainly the final thoughts of his crumbling brain would be a scream in Hell... madhouse ravings, with no logic or pattern.

Of course in the morning his relatives will find a relaxed body, peacefully lying on a pillow, and covered with sunlight from a newly opened window.

I hope I haven't disturbed anybody with this. It certainly is macabre.

text copyright Eddie Fitzgerald 9/16/2009

FASHIONS IN DROWNING

Apparently drowning is subject to fashion just like everything else. According to a book I picked up recently, drowning was usually described as horrific and painful by survivors before the Romantic era, and as painless, even pleasant, by later generations.

During the hippie era it wasn't uncommon for survivors to claim immense tranquility as their lungs filled with water, and deep resentment against the rescuers who fished them out. You'd read comments like, "The only pain I felt was when air was rudely forced back into my lungs."

Since we have contradictory accounts, I feel free to come to my own conclusion, which is that it's horrifying. Drowning is oxygen deprivation, something hanged men re-act to by kicking wildly...surely a sign that they're not enjoying themselves.

Physical reaction to lots of things follow fashion. In the 50s few people were actually made sick by smoke in restaurants. A lot of sensitive types who fainted when smokers lit up 40 feet away in the 80s used to pay big bucks to get into smoke-filled clubs in the 50s. Remember the Beat cafe in "Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom?" Clubs like that were considered cool. Beatniks smoked like bandits.

I don't think the tolerance of the human lung changed, just people's perception of what their lungs can tolerate.

BTW, I'm not pushing smoking here. I don't smoke and never have.

A hundred years ago women were diagnosed as having hysteria much more frequently than now. Sure, social prejudice accounted for some of that, but it's also likely that women of that time really were more emotional in public about some things. They collapsed from bad news, wailed uncontrollably at the death of loved ones, got physically sick when certain things were discussed, and fainted more frequently. I don't think human physiology has changed since then, just people's perception of how their bodies are supposed to react to things.

You see this in the way some people react to fast food these days. When MacDonald's first put up franchises, long lines and positive comments were universal. Almost everybody in those days thought of MacDonald's as something you did for fun, like going to the Dairy Queen for ice cream. That changed during the hippie era when MacDonald's and Coke were recast as symbols of "The Man."

Once MacDonalds was perceived differently, people's stomachs magically changed too. The same burger they relished a short time before was now thought to be utterly impossible to digest. In the "Supersize" film above you can actually see the filmmaker throwing up from eating a big Mac and a large fries. Was he faking? Probably not.

It's funny because he looks so much like the kind of wholesome, Jimmy Olsen kind of guy who would have taken root at MacDonald's only one generation before.

Am I saying that fast food is equal in taste or digestibility to food that costs 4X more in a classier place? No, of course not. I'm just noting that human physiology has a way of serving up whatever kind of physical reaction our mind expects of it.

This is a bit off topic, but all that talk about drowning makes me want to share this video I stumbled on. It shows what the filmmaker saw in Drake's Passage, beneath South America. This isn't even a particularly rough sea, yet the threat of drowning is ever present. I recommend just the first minute and a half of the film.