What has your experience of death taught you?

Whelp, I've got cancer. It's the second time I've had it. About 9 months ago I was told the docs would treat me but I probably wouldn't make it.

Its been a hell of a time.

It's a blood cancer so at the moment I look normal from the outside. I've changed a lot though, in the sense that I've become more me.

I don't give a shit about anything except for spending time with people I like. I especially don't care about money or work.

It (death) is taking a lot longer to happen than I thought it would.

The real trip has been seeing other people's reactions; I accepted it early on but other people have had very different reactions. Mostly I think they just don't know how to react, or they don't think it will actually happen, or both.

I don't think the human mind is capable of understanding the concepts of "eternity" or "oblivion" very well.

I do believe in God but it's still scary.

Its the everyday things that catch you off guard; the other day I was wondering when the next soccer world cup would be, then I realised I probably wouldn't be around for it.

I think when I finally die it will be a relief from all the physical pain.

I was in the hospital in January following a heart attack.

I woke up one morning and was on my phone when the nurse came in.

"Were you asleep about an hour ago?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Your heart stopped for 8 seconds."

". . . Uh, thanks? I guess? I'm not sure what you want me to do with that information."

Never knew it happened.

Death by massive head injury is not a bad way to go. I remember a sunny morning, heading to the bank a mile from my house to deposit my paycheck, and riding towards work. I merged behind a Jeep Grand Cherokee to pass an idiot that was double parked in the bike lane. It was down hill and I easily topped 35 mph to match speed with the Jeep. That is the last thing I remember. Like it was all totally blank and even worse than anesthesia level blackout.

Three hours later, someone pulled a large piece of glass out of my face that severed major nerve in my lip. That woke me up.

That is how I want to go; a pretty day on a nice bike ride, feeling fantastic, then totally blank.

In reality, I was lucid the whole time apparently, or so I was told. I honestly do not have ANY memory of it whatsoever. If you know of anyone that dies tragically with a major head injury, I want you to think of me. Even if they appeared conscious or aware but disoriented, that wasn't the last thing they felt or remembered, I promise, I've lived it; only barely survived it. I still don't remember a thing.

Death itself isn’t necessarily the worst part of dying. In many ways, it’s the most merciful part, that can free a person of their suffering.

I took care of my Dad for some years before he passed away, after it became apparent that he was losing his mental faculties and having physical problems after he had had a stroke. It was a slow & steady decline, month after month, just seeing him lose the ability to do regular, basic things.

At some point, his personality died and the person I knew was gone long before the physical body died. He turned into a zombie of sorts, just wanting cigarettes & soda, those were the only things he wanted anymore to the exclusion of everything else. I felt powerless to do anything about it, I helped him as best I could, but years of him smoking and eating/drinking like crap had caught up with him finally.

I'm in a line of work where I see death very very often.

I don't know what I've learned from it. Besides that it's coming. I also know there are things worse than death. Often, in the end, people/families can't accept it, and they end up uselessly suffering.

Death can come to anyone at any time and unless you live to be 150 years old it will always seem like you didn't get enough time, so it's best not to worry about it.

A dead body doesn’t look real. The stillness and one’s denial mechanisms combine to make it look like a mannequin.

This one is macabre.

I am a homestead farmer so I have hundreds of animals most of which I raised like a baby, they all have names, each was hand fed and raised from birth by my wife and I. We are deeply attached to each of them and it is like losing a child when one dies.

Firstly I can tell you that you can get used to your children dying, you can repress it. I've spent many hours digging graves over time made all the more painful by the fact that often times I would stay with these animals through the entirety of their ill health. Often they would sleep in the room with my wife and I or even in the bed if the right type. When you read something like charolettes Web or what have you and see some old farmer indifferent to their child who wants to keep their animal friend. That is not from some kind of "depersonisation" or dissonance or even indifference to this animal, it is knowing acceptance from a lifetime of pain watching their friends and children die and being forced to bury them.

I can tell you that if you need cpr I'm your man, I've had alot of practice. There's lots of things cpr won't fix but that had never stopped me from trying. Maybe just maybe if they can have that extra breath or beat they can beat whatever ails them so I try. Here's the fucked part; there is a moment where when something dies, it's easier to see in mammals, there is a moment just before the death rattle, you can see the thing is dead and if you have seen this before you will know what I'm talking about. At this moment of gasping you can "catch" them, like you are catching their escaping souls with your lungs and blowing it back into their mouths. Their eyes get glazed and they do this straining wail and tilt their head, all things in the same way, that is your moment to bring them back and you can see it instantly as their eyes come back to focus and they usually scream in some way.

I've only ever saved 2 in this fashion and I have a large grave yard.

There is no God.

I used to think I wanted whatever possible done to keep me alive. Use the machines, keep me in the coma for years, what have you. Maybe someday they’ll fix me.

My grandmother had a pretty massive stroke. She had some sort of living will, Do Not Resuscitate, something like that, but none of the family could really bring themselves to enforce that so they put a temporary feeding tube in and I think when that reached its limit switched to a more permanent variety.

I can’t remember if she woke up before or after the second feeding tube, but she did wake up in just a couple days; the stroke happened on a Friday and she was definitely awake the next week. She said she was glad they did the feeding tube.

However, while she was still able to talk pretty well, she lost her ability to swallow. Not only could she not eat anything and had to stay on the feeding tube, she couldn’t even drink anything or she risked it going into her lungs. Every time she felt her throat get dry she had to have a nurse with a wet sponge come moisten her throat. They tried electroshock therapy, but it never helped. She described it as the worst torture she’d ever felt and wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemy, but continued trying it because there wasn’t any other alternative from the doctors and it’s really hard to live and not be able to swallow.

She spent months like this, back and forth between the hospital and rehab/nursing centers, doing better but then getting sick in the homes and having to go back to the higher care of the hospital. She never returned to her own home except for a couple hours when one of her sons took her just to see it. In the end one of those times in a nursing home she got sick and started vomiting, some of which went in her lungs and led to her death in just a day or two. All those preceding months of suffering seemed like a waste, just delaying the inevitable.

I don’t want everything possible done to keep me alive anymore. I don’t want to die, but sometimes there are worse things than dying.

I live in the Midwest, right on the edge of tornado alley. When the sirens go off there's three kind of people. People who do the right thing and go hide in the basement or the bathroom or whatever. People who just completely ignore them and keep doing whatever. And then the dip shit rednecks who run outside like 'IMMA SEE ME A TORNADER'

I bounce between option two and three depending on my mood. One time this happened and a tornado actually started to form directly above me. Three times in a row it started to come down and then crap out.

What really surprised me the most was my reaction was a calm 'huh. So this is it...' Didn't try to run. Didn't even move, and not in a frozen in fear way.

And i guess what I learned is I'm ready when the time comes.

Stop worrying about the news, turn it off, and spend more time with family and friends.

Here & now, here & now, here & now, I chant in my head as that's all we have.

Never take the people you love for granted. Don't wait on any deed or utterance that is unfulfilled, and know how fast they can go in a matter of minutes if you take your eyes off them. I made that mistake more than once. In the blink of an eye, life can go from 42 to 0.

Grief...doesn't motivate you. In movies, guys like me, people who have had loved ones killed through prejudices and big evil organizations 🐘 do something about it. Whether that's activism or something more illegal. But I was way more aggressive about my political views before my girlfriend died. Now it's like...I can't muster up the ability to give enough of a shit to do more than vote.

That god isn't real and religion is a lie. It has made me more of an atheist than I'd ever care to proclaim and even more interested in science.

No matter what, if you love somebody, tell them as often as you can. Say it every time you say goodbye. Don't let someone walk away when you've both said nasty, hurtful things. If you are putting off seeing someone, or calling someone, just do it.

You cant take ANY of that back. And you'll never forgive yourself.

I was in the waiting room for my friend when the surgeon came in and told us he had a week to live. The sound his family began to make was haunting and terrifying. It was a deep groaning and crying that I haven't heard since. It made my hairs stand up on end and it made me quake. There is nothing heavier than death.

I've only observed that it seems to be a relief, at the very end.

72. Strive ever to more! and if thou art truly mine -- and doubt it not, an if thou art ever joyous! -- death is the crown of all.

73. Ah! Ah! Death! Death! thou shalt long for death. Death is forbidden, o man, unto thee.

74. The length of thy longing shall be the strength of its glory. He that lives long & desires death much is ever the King among the Kings. 

Excerpt, Liber AL vel Legis, Chapter II

The most important things in the world to you could be here one day, perfectly happy and healthy, and the next day gone. The weight of discovery and their limp body.

Every time I would see someone acting in movies I used to think, that’s a bit of an over reaction. No it’s not. When you see a movie and the reaction seems a bit over the top, it’s not.

Don't go too fast on roads you haven't ridden your motorcycle on before.

Though, a friend died on the same road after avoiding a pothole and striking a car, the trailer ran over his chest. He was teaching a new young rider the ropes and wasn't going fast. The pothole formed over the last few months he hadn't been up there. The local council denied it existed. We rode up and took a photo for the local news and a truck was there about to fill it in as we arrived. It was shallow but took almost half the lane on a blind corner.

Life is short.

If you have time to say goodbye, many insecurities fall by the wayside. If you don't have that opportunity, you'll carry a load of "what-if" around and you'll consume plenty of your short time being concerned with it.

Death comes to everyone. Make the best life you can and try to laugh every day.

I don't know if this counts but it's the closest I've been to death.

I had an accidental breakthrough on DMT. I don't even remember what happened during that 12 minutes except brief things that came to me in daydreams and night dreams afterwards. But before I did it, I was suicidal and ready to die. When my consciousness came back I was no longer the same person. I felt like I had just lived 1,000 years. I immediately felt like the world was no longer on my shoulders, and I involuntary started screaming about how much love there is in the universe. Before that, I had struggled with the concept of unconditional love. I used to have daily suicidal ideation, typically multiple times daily, but I have only experienced ideation a few times since then. Over a decade ago.

At one point in time I was inundated with death. Due to the fentanyl epidemic and other mental health and drug related issues, I've watched many friends die. Thankfully I'm in a much better place now, I'm no longer in that place I was hiding from myself before that day. Whatever death is, whatever reality is, I no longer fear it. I fear not being able to provide for my wife and children after I'm gone, but that's it.

To answer the accidental breakthrough question before it comes up: I was sniffing DMT fumurate (nasally active) at doses around 20-50mg, walking around my house, looking at the static dewwy webs of light, walking over them, under them, trying to hold them. I was so intrigued by the lack of movement of the visuals, where with other psychedelics you can blink or shift your eyes and it goes away. I did a few larger lines in a row and my vision started to bend and fold in on itself and I instinctually laid down in my bed.

OP, you'll find that most people haven't experienced death, and the rare few that have, only for a very short time.

I've had an absurd amount of death in my life, double digits by the time I was 18. Every one of them I knew personally or was family. From a variety of ways. Accidents, suicides, sickness, drugs.

What I learned from this is that, its gonna happen. Life as a whole isn't all that special to the world or to the universe. But your experiences and everything you put value in, is.

At this point, death is more like (in my eyes) someone taking a trip and I just gotta say Goodbye and hope they do well because they won't be able to talk to me anymore. Remember the good stuff and why you liked em, and move on. Because it's gonna happen to you and others in your life too and if you dwell too long you won't be able to remember the people around you now and why you liked them too.

Nothing is a bigger regret than trying so hard to cling to someone out of reach that you never held on to those reaching for you

I haven't personally died yet, so no first person report. My dad died suddenly when I was 16, gently it seems; and my stepson by suicide, not at all gently. From these experiences I will say PLEASE try not to die before your parents do. It's sad to lose a parent but we all know it will happen. We recover. Losing a kid? No, I don't think anyone really recovers from that.

It's difficult to summarize into words, and English because many of the ideas and experiences of the post-life world transcend easy explanation, but here goes nothing (and I'm fine with being judged/downvoted, most of this will seem like nonsense to casual readers):

1. The goals, priorities, duties, missions, and dreams you have, what you value, and believe to be important -- isn't.

A. Approximately 180 seconds after you accept you're not recovering from your imminent death, you are immediately pardoned from all duties, debts, goals and otherwise.

B. Basically everything you'd been worried about, stops worrying or bothering you. Your name is off the high score board, permanently, so to speak.

2. Cognition is dependent on physicality.

A. The way that humans experience reality depends on their sensory organs, brain, and various other instruments to create a quasi coherent image of the world.

B. The raw state of being, is absolute chaos. It defies description. Hegel tried his best to put it into words but he also failed. Time is non-linear. Nothing makes any sense. Dimensions don't exist. Quantum physics barely scrapes the surface of what's going on.

3. Consciousness is independent of physicality.

A. Almost immediately after the ripping and dissolution of the corporeal body, after the dynamic system that used to be you, no longer exists, it is no longer dynamic, or on the material plane - life continues. You perceive. You persist. You think. It makes zero sense, but the universe is under absolutely no obligation to explain itself to you, or make sense.

4. Everything in Section Four unfortunately lacks the appropriate language, or terminology to sufficiently describe and so must be experienced by each person individually. Everyone is owed this. Sorry. No spoilers.

That it's normally never quick and painless and that it can happen at any time.

You could just be walking down the street and trip and fall into the road or smack your head off something or have a heart attack/stroke/aneurism.

One missed second with hitting the brakes in your car. One misstep. One mistake. Hell you can even be doing everything right and still get caught in something that leads to your death.

Protect my doggo. She is stupid.

Anyone here sad lonly and dying with a huge fortune they would like to donate to the charitable foundation called me. I cant promise ill change the world but i can promise i try my godamn hardest to do so.

How to accept and let go of someone. I lost my dad very early in my life. It was sad, and unexpected, and to this day it does feel like I lack a father figure (hope this doesn't sound weird, English isn't my first language). But, I realize, there's no use excessive crying over someone's death. It's not like I can change anything about that. I learned quickly it's better to leave the past and move on.

If you ask me whether I miss him or not, I do miss him. But, really, it's not something I can control.

Life is random, and meanness and cold. No matter who you are, death comes with no bias. You have to make life worth living in the now because I have seen the regret and pain in the eyes of the dying far too many times. Also be nice to your kids.

That consciousness is eternal. That each of us will live until the end of the universe and possibly beyond. Alone.

Oh, I just had a near death experience! Ran a stop and almost got hit by a bus; would've hit me right on the ribs! I've had another crash before where a powerline pole fell over my car, right next to my head.

My experience? Life didn't flash before my eyes. I was just very scared at the moment, and was anxious and upset for a few hours after. It's definitely going to change how carefully I drive moving forward.

Otherwise, I've seen a lot of patients sick, dying or terminally ill, working as a physician. It definitely affected the way I see life; I try to care less about what other people think I should be doing and instead act in a way I think is right. I am happy and satisfied that if I die I will be thought of fondly by most people I've interacted with.

WHY IS NO ONE PAYING ATTENTION?!

I didn't even know I died. I just... woke up. I'm so happy to be depressed and to admit my faults and to make my friends laugh. There is a Multiverse where I don't do that.

letting your hamster ball roll down the stairs isn’t good

I am to my knowledge still alive, meaning that I don't have any experience with being dead.

My experiences with death has cured me of any atheist delusions. There's a damn good reason they say, "there are no atheists in foxholes." It's not about whether you believe this or that to be real or not real - that is irrelevant - it's about what matters in those horrible moments people experience true mortality before they go. It's not pretty like they pretend it to be in the movies, and armchair philosophizing doesn't mean squat to people then.