On death and dying

I’m taking a class this semester called “Death and Dying” where we discuss religion and culture’s interaction with the phenomenon of death. However morbid it may seem, it’s actually very interesting. Every once in a while we have to turn in responses on the readings. Considering that I haven’t updated in a while, here is my most recent short paper:

The discussion of near-death experiences is something we are all familiar with. Movies often portray angels coming to visit, or large orbs of light beckoning the soon-to-be-deceased. During a lengthy discussion on the subject, a professor of mine suggested that as we draw nearer to death, the concept of an afterlife becomes increasing attractive. The truth is I didn’t have a strong opinion about this subject until it (almost) happened to me.

About two summers ago while I was vacationing in Mexico, my appendix ruptured. After a comedy of errors from multiple doctors who misdiagnosed my condition as a simple fever while admitting that “for some silly reason, my intestinal system was shutting down” (how peculiar), I was rushed to the nearest major hospital and scheduled for emergency surgery. The (now competent) doctors told me that I was within an hour of death and that my insides had become gangrenous, therefore requiring a somewhat risky operation. Strapped down to an operating table that resembled the cross upon which Christ was crucified, the anesthesiologist began plugging in machines and flushing needles. That was when, during my last moments of lucidity, that I realized no one had asked me any of the prerequisite questions we are accustomed to in the United States. Questions like “how much do you weigh,” Are you allergic to anything” and “how long ago did you eat;” information that can mean life or death when you are going to be made unconscious for several hours. The cherry on top was when I craned my neck back and realized the anesthesiologist had some sort of massive burn mark or skin distortion covering his neck and face. My first thought: “Free basing accident, doctor?” Needless to say, it didn’t instill faith. But I digress.

The point I’m getting at is that this was when I resigned myself to death. Silently, I made a mental checklist of the people who would be distraught when I was rolled to the morgue, and then I yielded to the drug cocktail being introduced to my circulatory system. I don’t recall any lights or angels, although (drugs or no drugs) I was accepting of my fate and felt as calm as a Hindu cow.

Being a non-religious person, I have to agree with Sherwin B. Nuland’s assertions that near-death experiences are little more than neurons firing as the brain prepares itself for a hard reboot. Psychologically, an afterlife reward has a profound effect on those eager to believe, but it is nothing more than mind over matter in a natural and inevitable situation.