Death

Update: Here's the book by that scientist who researches the death experience:

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Dying-Peter-Fenwick/dp/0826499236/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251681887&sr=1-1

He's actually a real research scientist. This book seems to be for the general audience though.

He is associated with this website:

http://www.horizonresearch.org/

There are some PDFs of his more scientific articles...

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I heard a radio program of a scientist who studies the dying process and experience. Much of what he said was what I saw with my dad.

I think most people who die are already sort of dead on the inside, so there doesn't seem to be much happening at the moment of death. Drugs can probably dull things too. My dad was not on drugs and not terminal or in pain, just his heart running down, so he was a good case to see some of the things this scientist was talking about.

People, relatives, coming for the person. The dying person beginning to naturally start to use 'journeying language' ("It's time for me to go now. I'm leaving now." etc.) In my dad's case he reverted to his pilot experience and his language in the last hours of his life were literally of a pilot about to take off. He was doing checks, talking to ground crew, tower, talking to his co-pilot, giving advice, all war-time context too. He was looking up, seeing things. Looking at me, saying, "See that?" He was also talking in a strange way to people in the room we couldn't see. Yet when I'd speak to him he'd 'come back' and speak to me in his normal voice.

One story the scientist related was a woman on her death bed speaking with her son. The woman believed that when you die you go into nothingness. The son believed in life after death. They discussed it, argued, etc. Then a point came where the women was going, and she turn to her son and said: "You're right."

Stories of attempted suicides who had such a powerful experience (good experience) with the near death afterworld that they tried to commit suicide again to experience it.

But back to the usual. That people seem to be sort of dead to it all mostly (not that I've observed a lot of people dying though).

I think it is a powerful thing to imagine your own death. Your ability to 'stand' in that moment. How your level of being will manifest in that scenario. Will you need relatives meeting you? Or are you beyond that. Angels? Are you going to be with God or are you going to recur again. But just imagining that feeling of presence in that moment. How much of it will you have. What have to developed truly in this life along the lines of level of being. It's a powerful motive to want to continue to develop consciousness, real will, and understanding.