How do you prepare to die?

[Cantando]

We may do various things we think will help us at the point of death, but we don’t know, for sure, what state our consciousness will be in at that time. If you are suffering from a painful illness, or under the influence of drugs, you may, basically, go into a state of insanity.

At times in the past, during illness, or occasionally waking up in the night, I have suddenly felt so disconnected from everything and everyone, that it was quite a scary experience. In fact, it was the closest thing to hell I could imagine.

I couldn’t rationalize it or control it. I just had to wait till my mind settled down. When your mind is in a state where you have no conscious control, then you are utterly helpless. I would hate for that to happen when I die. I would like to be lucid enough to be aware of the ones I love (both living and dead), knowing they were there for me.

I believe our deceased, loved ones are waiting for us on the other side and can be of great assistance when we pass over. The best way to prepare for that is to be as loving as possible while we are still alive here.

I sometimes think of every person I have encountered in my life who is no longer here. I think of them lovingly (even if it was someone I didn't particularly care for at the time) and say a prayer for them. Perhaps, I should do it more often.

Just before my grandfather died, he suddenly stretched out his hand and said “Mary”, which was his wife’s name (she had died many years previously).

[NightSpirit]

Originally Posted by Cantando

We may do various things we think will help us at the point of death, but we don’t know, for sure, what state our consciousness will be in at that time. If you are suffering from a painful illness, or under the influence of drugs, you may, basically, go into a state of insanity.

At times in the past, during illness, or occasionally waking up in the night, I have suddenly felt so disconnected from everything and everyone, that it was quite a scary experience. In fact, it was the closest thing to hell I could imagine.

I couldn’t rationalize it or control it. I just had to wait till my mind settled down. When your mind is in a state where you have no conscious control, then you are utterly helpless. I would hate for that to happen when I die. I would like to be lucid enough to be aware of the ones I love (both living and dead), knowing they were there for me.

I have had that scary feeling happen at times and talked to a lot of others who have also. It's just like you describe, hell couldn't be any worse. Doesn't happen often but I have noticed it will be more likely to happen if I fall asleep on the sofa or floor or anywhere else I'm uncomfortable, so it may come from something like sleep apnea. A build up of too much stress or a bad dream will bring it on also.

It's called an anxiety attack in medical terms. Some people feel like running when anxious, some suffocated but the feeling you're describing they call one of impending doom but I would say it's more like overwhelming doom and hopelessness. Someone wrote a book a long time ago about what it physically feels like to die and he said that feeling proceeds your heart stopping. I hope not.

Like I said, doesn't happen often and I can control it, if it does, just by changing my thoughts or distracting myself with some task. But there is medicine for it and you might want to do as I have and tell your family to watch you for signs of anxiety and treat you for it if you ever get in a helpless state. I have to take the medicine if I have surgery. Once I didn't and I almost went over the rail after throat surgery when they weren't watching because I woke up feeling scared and alone like that.

When my mom was dying right before last Christmas, she lost her mind in the last few weeks she lived and it was horrible to watch. At the times when she could talk, she was angry and paranoid, mostly directed at me. She didn't have a lot of physical pain and I kept watching for some signs of her being at peace or comfortable or being helped over but nothing.

I have a large family and I have watched several people die slowly like that and it seems that death magnifies their personality and they handle death in the same way always handle stress. Docile people get more docile, and people who fight their way through stress, fight more when they are in pain. I heard a man say that he heard of a plane going down, looking like it was going to crash. And it was remarkable how many people were cursing out of fear and not praying or crying as you would think they might be. Whatever is in your heart on a gut level, I guess, is what comes out of your mouth at a time like that.

Mom wasn't a bad person but she was a fighter and she was mad about the cancer. If she had sat down and wrote out her worst nightmare of death, what really happened couldn't have been closer, unable to make her own decisions or even ask for help or medicine, confined to the bed and needing someone take care of her like a baby. The only blessing was it didn't last long, about 10 days after we brought her home. Or maybe it was a blessing that she was out of her mind and hopefully didn't realize she was dying.

It took me months to get those last images out of my mind and remember her as she was when she was well. I guess the same thing is happening to someone else every day somewhere in the world. The only thing, I think, that kept us from losing our minds too was the people who tried to help us through it. Every little act of kindness during the worst of it, coming by with food or to help with moving her or cleaning up, or just calling with a few words, the concern of the medical people, all that was just as needed and as appreciated as water in the desert at the time.

Watching someone suffer and die changes you though. Some people get more selfish and some more loving, most a little more of both. I've known people who left their relationships or changed careers or changed their whole outlook on life after something like that. It's like they say "If that's where we're all headed, I'm going to stop suffering through things I hate and start doing exactly what I want while I still can." I guess that's not a bad idea.

[Calimero]

What if your life would not end?
What if your body would be around here for ever?
Off course parts of it would get worn out and used and you would become old and look older....would you live different than you do now?

Why I ask this?

Someone told me once that the best way to live is somewhere in between the two.
Live as if it is your last hour or your last minutes.....but live as well as if you would live forever on this planet.
Some people only focus on the first part, with as a result that sometimes they are rather careless about their own body, ecology, social behavior....and become hedonist.
Some people only focus on the second part and live in a certain way to greedy to reserved towards others, to frightened etc....that you can hardly say that they are living but more or less only gathering stuff as they don't know how long they will be around and they want to make sure to keep a certain standard of materialistic comfort.

You don't have to experience how it would be like to live for ever on the planet or to be nearly dead to live more profound. If it were a must to have one or both of these experiences it would result in that nearly nobody would be able to live more profound.

Maybe you will have to forget about trying to experience being nearly dead or finding a way or urge to change your way of living.

I met already two people that once were very close to death, but they didn't change their way of living once walking around again. So not all people that were close to the end change. That is even another reason to look for another way.