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.
Consciousness and memory both require communication between different regions of the brain. It’s entirely possible that you were "alert’ amd responsive while still suffering a brain injury that prevented you from remembering any part of it.
Anesthesia scares me for similar reasons. It halts the communication between different brain regions, and we know that people have no memories while under general Anesthesia, but are they lying there unable to move, suffering extreme agony throughout the surgery, and just unable to remember it afterwards?
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
That’s how I cry, when I do cry. I can’t help it. I hardly ever cry though I’d like to be able more because it’s such a strong catharsis, but when I do it’s like a very deep voiced whale trying to make air bubbles over and over. “Awhuuoooo oo oo oo aahhuuuooooo”
It usually only happens when there’s a severe loss, my body takes control from my brain, accepts defeat, and starts wailing.
Coincidentally I had a cry a few days ago watching this: youtube.com/shorts/ixouwqK4_Ls - so many emotions piled into one scene, it’s overwhelming.
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.
Yeah but also remember the important thing is the totality of the relationship, not one thing you said in an angry instant. Yes we should try to always let the people we love know how much we love them and how important they are to us but also give ourselves grace for being human. I remember being 16 or 17 driving my dad to the airport for a flight and I was mad at him for something and when he got out of the car my heart sink to my stomach in fear that could be my last interaction. I reversed quickly, got out of the car and ran to hug him and said I was sorry, I didn’t want him to leave that way. He made a point then of explaining that what truly matters is the totality of the relationship, not the last angry thing I said that was a blip of our lives. He knew how much I loved him and how important our relationship was and didn’t question it despite us arguing. He taught me so many amazing things, I miss him so much (he passed away many years later).
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.
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.
No offense, but “No atheists in foxholes” ONLY makes sense to religious people… why would an atheist pray to something he/she doesn’t believe in? Do Christians pray to Muhammad or one of the thousands of other religions in foxholes? Of course not, because they don’t believe in them… that’s the point. If someone is doing that, they’re at best agnostic.
And for the record, I’ve had one of my daughters literally die in my arms, it’s a terrible experience, but it didn’t convert me to some religion to try and make sense out of.
but “No atheists in foxholes” ONLY makes sense to religious people
I’m afraid not. I’m not religious at all - and it makes perfect sense to me.
why would an atheist pray to something he/she doesn’t believe in?
It’s very easy to convince yourself that you’ve chosen to believe this or that when life is comfortable. It’s peak individualism - and such delusions fall apart very fast when the trauma starts piling on. You don’t have to believe me - believe the people who wrote the CIA’s torture manuals.
It’s called “regression” - if you were spoon-fed a certain religion as a child you will “regress” to that under extreme duress (amongst other, even worse, things). That’s why they say, “there are no atheists in foxholes.”
I guess it must be “going over my head”, because it makes no sense to me to pray to something that isn’t there, unless you at least think there’s at least a tiny chance there is… aka agnostic.
I also wouldn’t pray to my toaster unless I thought at least there was the slightest chance it could hear me.
So everything in your life “makes sense”? How did you accomplish that?
I also wouldn’t pray to my toaster unless
I also wouldn’t recommend praying to anything that comes with an on/off switch… though I am undecided about threatening them with banishment to a landfill.
I never said everything in life makes sense, just that praying to something you don’t think is real doesn’t.
Obviously you believe in some form of higher power, so it makes sense that you would pray to it. But you wouldn’t pray to something you don’t at least think has a chance of existing, why would you think an atheist would?
I’m not “triggered,” I was trying to have a conversation in good faith but obviously that wasn’t your intention. Think whatever you’d like, I was pointing out how your first statement was wrong about that weird “foxhole” thing.
So far, only one self-described atheist have attempted what you claim to have attempted - and, so far, that isn’t you.
I will acknowledge, however, that, so far, you haven’t flown off the handle like a lot of your fellow atheists yet - there’s quite a lot of them really angry that their (alleged) rationality is not as guaranteed as they had assumed. Maybe you deserve a medal - considering that the bar is so damn low.
I was pointing out how your first statement was wrong
That’s because I don’t care that much what people think of me not having “belief.” I will say my two cents, if someone want’s to learn something from it that’s great, if not, that’s fine too… whether it’s you or someone else reading this.
but atheism isn’t an invention of the current generations.
Of course it isn’t.
And if you weren’t?
That’s actually a very difficult thing… even someone who was raised in a non-religious home would be exposed to religion (and things worse than religion under our current circumstances) through social osmosis. Soooo… you’d have to find someone that was raised in a society that can be called atheist with a straight face.
Wow this is a stupid take. I was spoon fed Christianity, now I’m agnostic. I’ve experienced plenty of traumatic things and I haven’t found myself praying to God in any of those.
You don’t know me at all, dipshit. Congratulations for being the most insufferable Lemmy user I’ve ran into so far. I feel sorry for people that know you. That has to be traumatic.
People react differently, sure, some will call out to some higher power even if they don’t believe, if these call-outs are part of their vocabulary. I certainly say “oh god” a lot, even though I’m a very vocal anti-theist and strong atheist. But they do not necessarily beg a higher power to safe them because they actually believe, but because in distress reaching for help is human instinct and our theism infused culture conditions us towards “god” in such situations.
I’m not proud of it, but in distress I did call to god for help. But hey, I was 11 years old and just had my fingers crushed to paste, I was in shock and not thinking and at no point did I actually expect help.
None of that is belief, as soon as peoole regain their senses, they discard it. Just like wounded soldiers on a battlefield don’t actually expect their mothers to show up and safe them, yet still call out to them.
Belief needs conviction and irrational panic behavior tells us nothing about conviction but a lot about ingrained childhood experience and familial as well as societal indoctrination.
I’m not proud of it, but in distress I did call to god for help
Doesn’t sound like the actions of a “strong atheist” (if such a thing can or should even exist) to me… just sounds like bog-standard human behavior.
But hey, I was 11 years old
But you’ve left all of that behind, right? You’re a big, strong, rational main character now that will never be put into such a vulnerable situation ever again, right?
None of that is belief,
Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn’t - and that probably isn’t even relevant.
as soon as peoole regain their senses, they discard it.
When I cease to be hungry I stop eating - that doesn’t mean I reject the concept of food.
Just like wounded soldiers on a battlefield don’t actually expect their mothers to show up and safe them, yet still call out to them.
In other words… atheist reasoning only works as long as everything is comfortable and non-threatening? It offers absolutely nothing to those in distress?
I’d say that’s a big, gaping hole in said reasoning.
Belief needs conviction
So does non-belief, apparently. At least, that’s what the narratives I hear from atheists seem to suggest.
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