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00:00 Theories suggest that fear of death is an innate, everyday reality for every single
00:05 human being.
00:06 It's stronger in some than in others, but all of us are in some way guided by the inescapable
00:11 knowledge that none of us are immortal.
00:13 Our days are always numbered.
00:16 But what will it really be like when we reach our final hour?
00:20 This is Unveiled, and today we're answering the extraordinary question; does dying hurt?
00:28 Do you need the big questions answered?
00:30 Are you constantly curious?
00:31 Then why not subscribe to Unveiled for more clips like this one?
00:34 And ring the bell for more thought-provoking content!
00:37 We've covered terror management theory in past videos.
00:41 It's a key consideration for today's question, though, so, in short, terror management
00:46 theory says that all of us are always acutely aware of the fact that we are going to die.
00:51 That doesn't mean that we're all absolutely terrified all of the time.
00:55 It's just that the prospect of death shapes what we do and how we think.
00:59 Sometimes it's obvious, such as a natural reluctance to move too close to the edge of
01:03 a tall building, because death is just a little bit more likely if you do.
01:08 But at other times it's much subtler, such as an inclination or disinclination we might
01:13 have towards certain foods or sports or even ideas.
01:17 At some level, all of us are inbuilt to seek what's best for our survival, even those
01:21 of us who you might describe as a daredevil.
01:24 Even beneath blatant recklessness, there lurks some degree of want and need to prolong our
01:29 lives and not shorten them.
01:31 Or so the theory goes.
01:32 For some, though, fear of death is more specific than simply an anxiety over the unknown that
01:37 awaits us, and it's the physicality of death that really keeps them up at night.
01:42 You might ask yourself things like, "How will I die?", "Will I know when I'm dying?",
01:48 and most unsettling of all, "Will it hurt?".
01:51 Or "How will I die?", without a time machine to use in a particularly macabre fashion,
01:57 we clearly can't see into the future.
01:59 So no one knows how they'll die.
02:01 Although it is a question with a statistical answer.
02:05 According to data gathered by the World Health Organization for up to and including the year
02:08 2019, the leading cause of death worldwide is heart disease, accounting for around 16%
02:14 of all deaths.
02:15 That's followed by stroke, accounting for around 11%, and then chronic obstructive pulmonary
02:21 disease, which includes a number of lung conditions, at around 6%.
02:25 All three are considered non-communicable, which means that they're not spread between
02:29 people, and together they amount to one-third of all deaths on Earth.
02:34 We've seen in recent years how the numbers can quickly change with the emergence of something
02:38 like COVID-19.
02:40 We've also seen new trends set in, such as an increasingly high ranking for Alzheimer's
02:45 disease and dementia in the numbers for some countries.
02:48 And in general, there are differences, sometimes dramatically so, in the data from country
02:53 to country.
02:54 But, the WHO effectively reckons that any one person alive in the 21st century is 33%
03:00 likely to pass away through heart disease, stroke, or a lung condition.
03:04 As morbid as that conclusion is, it's also important information, as it's then used to
03:09 guide scientific research and to allocate resources in the future.
03:13 In terms of "will I know I'm dying?"
03:16 From the point of view of conscious experience, it's a question that we tackled in another
03:20 recent video.
03:21 It follows on from this one, so be sure to hang around.
03:25 For now, though, we can say that there is some evidence to suggest that, under some
03:29 conditions, a dying person might be aware of what's happening to them.
03:33 Yes, that's a pretty vague and non-committal answer, but clearly no one who is dead can
03:38 tell us whether or not they knew what was happening to them.
03:41 For the most part, what we do know comes from the testimony of those who have had a near-death
03:45 experience.
03:46 But, finally, will dying hurt?
03:49 Again, there are a number of ways this question could be answered.
03:53 Taking into account all of the causes of death that the WHO considers, there is usually a
03:57 strong likelihood of at least some degree of pain at some stage.
04:02 Hospital stays, prolonged treatments, sudden injuries… all have the potential to hurt
04:07 in the time before the moment of death.
04:09 There are some mitigating circumstances, such as the possibility of shock negating pain
04:14 in, say, a fatal car accident.
04:16 But, and to continue with the theme, there's really no way to know whether that really
04:20 is what happens.
04:21 A dead person would either have to come back from the dead to tell us (impossible) or they'd
04:26 have to have been connected up to various high-spec brain-scanning equipment during
04:31 that car accident.
04:32 Unlikely.
04:33 Much of the firmer data we have comes from various studies into palliative care (end-of-life
04:38 care given to those with terminal conditions).
04:41 In general, it's shown that when the circumstances are such that death can essentially be "managed
04:46 and prepared for" in this way, then reports of pain decrease.
04:51 One 2017 article, published on "The Conversation" and written by three researchers at the University
04:57 of Wollongong in Australia, draws on evidence taken from the Australian Palliative Care
05:03 Outcomes Collaboration.
05:04 The authors explain that "fatigue" is actually the most often reported complaint
05:08 among those receiving palliative care, with 13% of patients citing it at the beginning
05:14 of care and 8% at the end.
05:16 In contrast, 7.4% reportedly cite "pain" at the beginning, with that figure dropping
05:22 to 2.5% at the end.
05:25 Based on those numbers, you're then much more likely to feel "tired" as your death
05:29 approaches rather than in pain.
05:31 With only a 2 or 3 out of 100 chance of feeling significant pain in your last moments.
05:37 Of course, not everyone faces death under these conditions.
05:41 Palliative care isn't always available, and in cases where death happens quickly and
05:45 unexpectedly, it obviously hasn't happened at all.
05:48 While we can say, then, that any pain there is can seemingly be reduced in some scenarios,
05:54 we can't say that death is never painful.
05:57 That said, there are other studies and anecdotes to suggest that pain still isn't the predominant
06:02 sensation.
06:03 Instead, the exact moment of death is painted as something like a clouded, even subdued
06:07 point in time.
06:09 For those experiencing it, it may appear as though they fall in and out of a conscious
06:13 state and are therefore unaware of any pain, even if they should be in pain.
06:18 The journalist Jenny Deer is the author of the 2019 book, "What Does It Feel Like to
06:23 Die?", in which she draws upon her own experience following the passing of her mother.
06:28 Writing for The Atlantic three years earlier in 2016, she quotes a professor of nursing,
06:34 Margaret Campbell, who says, "Roughly from the last two weeks until the last breath,
06:40 people become 'too sick or too drowsy or too unconscious' to tell us what they're
06:45 experiencing."
06:47 In the same article, Deer cites the palliative care specialist James Hallenbeck, who compares
06:52 the mystery of death to passing the event horizon in a black hole - an ultimately unknowable
06:58 experience.
06:59 Nevertheless, Deer explains how there often is a predictable sequence of events, including
07:03 the loss of hunger, thirst, and speech, and then the senses, vision, touch, and hearing,
07:09 in that order.
07:10 Again, throughout it all, and especially if pain medication is being used, the patient
07:15 is often thought to be at peace, and perhaps even wholly unaware.
07:19 Clearly, for anyone on the outside looking in, there are a number of aspects of death
07:23 that seem as though they might be painful, or that seem to hint that the dying person
07:28 is experiencing discomfort.
07:30 In some cases, though, that's not thought to be true.
07:33 Deer writes that the so-called "death rattle", when a person begins audibly laboured breathing,
07:38 isn't believed to be distressing for those that go through it.
07:41 Apparently, pained expressions on the faces of dying people can sometimes relate instead
07:46 to an apparent, dreamlike, unreal state of being that many encounter toward the end.
07:52 And many physical reactions, such as twitching and stiffening, are involuntary, and again,
07:58 might even go unnoticed by the person who's actually experiencing them.
08:01 Ultimately, however, this is a question that's impossible to answer with certainty.
08:06 Death is arguably the greatest unknown of all, but also a wholly unique experience every
08:11 time it arrives.
08:13 It can be long or short, expected or sudden, the result of a statistically probable disease,
08:19 or caused by something altogether different.
08:22 Whether or not it hurts depends on exactly how all of those things play out, although
08:26 thankfully there is evidence to suggest that it more often isn't painful than is.
08:31 At the beginning of this video, we mentioned an in-depth look at whether or not you know
08:35 you're dying when it happens.
08:37 That episode will follow on directly from this one right now, so be sure to keep the
08:42 video running.
08:45 As the old adage says, there are only two things that are certain in this life; death
08:51 and taxes.
08:52 With taxes, you're certainly more aware when they happen due to a sudden and saddening
08:58 drop in available funds.
09:00 But with death, is there any comparable moment of realization?
09:06 This is Unveiled, and today we're answering the extraordinary question; when you die,
09:12 do you know that you're dead?
09:16 Do you need the big questions answered?
09:19 Are you constantly curious?
09:21 Then why not subscribe to Unveiled for more clips like this one, and ring the bell for
09:26 more thought-provoking content.
09:29 Until such time as immortality is possible, the creeping spectre of death haunts us all.
09:36 But in the 21st century, humankind has grown more and more accustomed to facing it head-on.
09:43 Although for hundreds of years beforehand, religion was really the only widespread means
09:49 through which we might try to understand death, in more recent times, science has taken over.
09:56 Where we once only had faith, now we have facts, figures, data and studies as well.
10:05 And that spectre of death has morphed into a whole new beast.
10:10 Although definitions vary around the world, the time of death is generally taken as the
10:16 moment at which your heart stops beating.
10:19 However, as CPR continually shows, you can be brought back from this particular brink.
10:27 Brain death is another crucial stage then, when your cerebral organ essentially gets
10:32 its power cut off.
10:34 However, in between heart and brain death, there certainly is a small period of time
10:41 from 2 to 20, perhaps 30 seconds during which scientists believe that you might know that
10:49 you're dead.
10:50 It's usually during this time that near-death experiences form, before the person is resuscitated
10:58 to recount them.
10:59 That said, it's extremely difficult to know exactly how aware any one person can be during
11:07 that particular and brief time window.
11:10 For those who are brought back to life, the near-death experience might make some sense
11:16 in hindsight, but at the time, when your body is going through the ultimate trauma, it's
11:23 not clear how much of it really hits home.
11:26 It's not clear if you truly know you're dead.
11:32 Nevertheless, various studies have captured headlines over the years, with them usually
11:37 billed as haunting or disturbing experiments to show that perhaps life doesn't end when
11:44 you die.
11:45 Or at least, not exactly.
11:48 Dr. Sam Parnia, a British scientist and senior figure at the NYU Langone School of Medicine
11:54 in New York City, is one of the most frequently cited expert voices in the field.
12:01 Throughout the 21st century, Parnia has headed numerous studies looking into that mysterious
12:06 space between life and death.
12:10 In 2013, following the publication of his book Erasing Death, published as The Lazarus
12:16 Effect in the UK, he gained attention after suggesting that we should be able to resuscitate
12:22 people even up to 24 hours after they've died.
12:28 For Parnia, what many would rather term "resurrection" is actually possible, if only we applied and
12:36 developed the science properly.
12:38 Whether or not you go along with this 24-hour theory, though, if it's even a little correct,
12:46 then suddenly we could have a lot longer in which to understand that we are dead.
12:53 Parnia is also the director of the Human Consciousness Project, based at the University of Southampton
12:58 in the UK.
13:00 Among other things, it was responsible for the AWARE study, taking a deep dive into the
13:05 near-death experiences of cardiac arrest survivors.
13:10 We took a closer look in another recent video.
13:13 Moving on from his body of work, Parnia has previously campaigned for the term "near-death
13:18 experience" to be changed to "actual death experience" as well.
13:23 So committed is he to the notion that death is never just one moment.
13:29 And finally, Parnia has previously indicated a somewhat radical view on the nature of consciousness
13:36 in general, arguing that it might not be produced by the brain, only hosted by it.
13:43 If true, that would potentially mean that the entire human experience, not just death,
13:50 could actually be linked to forces outside of our physical control.
13:56 The stance taken by Sam Parnia, many of his associates, and many other independent researchers
14:03 certainly asks us to question what, and when, we really think death is.
14:10 The vast majority of research seemingly shows that it might, even will be possible to know
14:16 that you're dead for at least around the first 20 seconds post your last heartbeat.
14:23 But beyond that, analysis of NDEs has been interpreted to hint at something more.
14:30 And if we ever can bring people back to life whole hours after their heart has stopped,
14:37 as Parnia has suggested we should be able to do, then suddenly we could live in a world
14:43 where multiple people within it have spent large portions of time, even whole days, technically
14:50 dead and departed from it.
14:53 Naturally, then, talk of death in these terms can take us to questions of the soul.
14:59 What is it?
15:00 Where is it?
15:01 And does it survive when your body is no more?
15:05 Again, while ideas on the soul have been more traditionally left to theology and philosophy,
15:13 modern science has become increasingly interested in properly defining it.
15:18 For centuries, the soul has proven notoriously difficult to pin down.
15:24 Many have tied it with ideas on the conscience, on morality, and with a species-wide understanding
15:31 of what's right and wrong.
15:34 Others have attempted to definitively explain it not only through the lens of human life,
15:40 but through life in general.
15:42 In the loosest sense, the soul is some kind of seemingly collective essence through which
15:50 the general experience of reality takes shape.
15:54 But that's all just way too ambiguous to satisfy most scientists, and as such, one
16:01 theory argues that the problem might be properly solved via quantum mechanics.
16:08 The theory of orchestrated objective reduction, or ORC-OR, was formulated and published in
16:15 the 1990s by the British physicist Sir Roger Penrose and the American scientist Stuart
16:21 Hameroff.
16:22 The model was then updated in 2014 and has become increasingly prominent ever since.
16:28 At its heart, ORC-OR might reasonably be considered one of the most radical and controversial
16:35 ideas of our time.
16:37 It argues that rather than being the product of neurological connections, consciousness
16:42 is generated via vibrations in microtubules, tiny protein strands inside neurons.
16:52 One of the key takeaways from the ORC-OR theory, though, however, is that it could mean that
16:57 consciousness continues indefinitely after the physical body fails.
17:04 Here, what might be called the soul is merely quantum information.
17:11 Throughout our lives, that information is channeled through our brains and experienced
17:16 through our bodies.
17:18 But when our lives end, the information doesn't disappear.
17:23 Instead, it's more like it gets released.
17:27 The brain no longer hosts it, but it does still exist, somewhere.
17:33 What happens next is still a little sketchy, even within the ORC-OR framework, but advocates
17:40 suggest that there could be a link to broader ideas on the soul and afterlife.
17:47 In terms of our title question, could this then be a mechanism through which you would
17:53 know that you're dead when you are dead?
17:57 Possibly.
17:58 But on the other hand, and as is so often the case with theories surrounding death,
18:03 we perhaps can't know for sure until we've passed away.
18:09 When viewed from an ORC-OR point of view, it could be that near-death experiences are,
18:15 essentially, a fluctuation in the vibrating microtubules that we all have inside us.
18:22 The quantum information they carry very nearly gets released, but ends up re-tethering to
18:29 our physical selves just in time, and we survive.
18:34 Or at least, we survive in our current form.
18:37 But actually, there's still more to come, and so when we do eventually exit our bodies,
18:44 we will, in some sense, know about it.
18:48 Then again, and bringing it all the way back to the more basic macro-level physicality
18:53 of life and death, without our brains to interpret that information, could it ever exist as anything
19:01 like a traditional thought or feeling?
19:05 Perhaps not.
19:06 What do you think about this particular life and death problem?
19:09 Clearly, from a scientific perspective, tracking down the answer is still a work in progress.
19:15 But at the same time, we've arguably never understood what really happens quite as thoroughly
19:22 as we do now.
19:24 For some, contemplating post-death knowledge is comparable to trying to remember our pre-birth
19:31 understanding.
19:33 It matters very little if life is simply bookended by nothingness on either side.
19:39 But for others, this is an ongoing and major philosophical and physical debate.
19:47 What do you think?
19:48 Is there anything we missed?
19:50 Let us know in the comments.
19:51 Check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you subscribe and ring the bell
19:56 for our latest content.