I read: “He died in his sleep” a lot. Does that mean ‘he’ didn’t feel a thing? Or did ‘he’ wake up for a minute, said: “WTF?, augh!” and then died?
How do we know anyway?
Well the look on the persons face when they’re found might be an indicator of what they were feeling when they shuffled / snored off this mortal coil.
laughing my ass off at this one… 
Count my ass as laughed off also.
“WTF? augh!” Hope I can remember that when it’s my time to go.
Having recently stood by my mother’s bedside as she breathed her last, I can tell you that, at least in some instances, a person may be sleeping soundly, and then simply stop breathing. No drama, no memorable last words, just a quiet cessation. Sometimes, it’s like a wind-up clock running down: the alarm doesn’t go off - the clock just starts ticking more slowly, and then stops.
I’ll make every attempt to come back and tell you.
It could be a while.
That’s what you think! 
In June 1995 I received a traumatic brain injury in an automobile accident. My heart stopped several times and I had to be resuscitated in the ambulance. At the hospital I was entubated and put on a respirator and was maintained this way for four days when my wife ordered the plug pulled. I was dead but no one did the paperwork much to the dismay of the organ procurement people. I do not know anything about the month of June 1995 except what I have been told, I do not believe that I was in pain. I am much better now.
Four weeks ago on June 23, I was at the ICU when my wife’s heart stopped beating. I was there with the nurse and he looked up at the monitor and said, “It will happen anytime now, Mr. Lee.” The line just went flat, I had given the DNR order earlier. There was no indication that she was aware that it was happening. A day earlier she was in wicked amounts of pain but on June 23, she passed peacefully.
I sure fuckin’ hope so!
Now Troy, that’s a little insensitive… :dubious:
My condolences for your loss.
In other news, I think that a good quick crushing wouldn’t really hurt, per se.
The “WF? Argh!” line made me laugh out loud too!
Yes, hlanelee. I’m so sorry for your loss as well. 
Glad to be able to make you guys laugh. Doesn’t happen often. 
But I *was * serious at the question. [kinda]
How do you know a person doesn’t wake up for a bit - feels like shit - and then dies? Will his face show?
I don’t understand, they pulled the plug and you were dead but now you are much better? Did they revive you?
A few hours after my accident up to a few days my body was unable to sustain itself. I was put on a respirator. After 4 days, my wife was told that I could live forever in a coma on a respirator and the situation would likely not change. She made the decision to have them wean me off of the respirator and see if I would survive on my own. They pulled the plug but it took them 10 hours to do it. I think, I really wasn’t there.
How do we know that a specific person didn’t do this? We don’t. I would suppose that some (possibly small, possibly sizable) portion of the people who are said to have died in their sleep actually suffered a major heart attack that was painful and woke them up. A doctor examining the body could guess about this, but wouldn’t necessarily report it (the likely pain) to the family.
On the other hand, we do know that it isn’t generally true, because many, many deaths have been observed. People who were asleep have not necessarily showed signs of wakefullness or discomfort before dying, and people who were alert up to the point of death have not always reported or otherwise show signs of sudden pain. Of course, technically, death is a process, and presumably, there is always some finite, usually short, period of time between loss of conciousness and permanent non-recovery, and one could imagine that there is a subjective, non-concious state of pain in this moment, but there is no reason for this. On the contrary, people who have reached the point of clinical death (necessarily including loss of all detectable signs of conciousness), but nevertheless recovered, have often reported the experience leading up to death as quite pleseant, even in situation that would other be (or were) quite painful, e.g., drowning.
I suppose you could still claim that there is a momentary feeling of pain experienced after death has become permanent and irrevesable (and hence has necessarily never been reported), but here you are basically positing a brief and painful afterlife, which is a matter of faith, not science. (And an odd article of faith it would be, though not nearly so odd that I would doubt that somebody, somewhere, holds it dearly.)
Given that there is no reason whatsoever to think that apparently peaceful deaths are actually painful (and, I hope I’ve shown, significant reason not to), why on earth would you suggest it? You seem to be grasping at the idea that there is some moment surrounding death that is necessarily unobservable and unknowable, and that it might be painful. Putting aside the philosophical problem of positing an undetectable, why assume it to be painful? Why not ask if all death is blissful and joyous?
A local woman died of a massive heart attack in her sleep about two weeks ago - she was 32. Anyway, from what I’ve heard, she complained about pains in her chest, back and arm the previous evening, and in the morning her husband awoke to find her dead. I don’t know if he’s a heavy sleeper or anything like that, but I assume if her death had been that traumatic that she would have woken him.
My father’s friend also passed in his sleep of a heart attack. His wife was talking to me about that night and told me that she was having trouble sleeping because he was restless. He gave a little jerk, and she decided enough was enough, so she went to sleep in the spare room instead, and when she got up the next morning she found his body. She couldn’t be sure, but she thinks she may have left the room just after he died based on the estimates of his time of death and so forth. If so, he didn’t have a chance to say “WTF? Argh!”, as he just gave one last jolt and was gone. He may not have been dead at that point, he may have died soon after, but his wife didn’t hear a peep out of him all night.
How much can you actually feel when you’re asleep? I know if I am sleeping and someone shakes me awake, I can’t suggest that I was aware of them touching me the whole time (especially when they indicate it was hard to wake me). To what extent is our consciousness actually processing any of our body’s signals during that time?
A fairly sizeable proportion of people who have heart attacks don’t feel any sort of pain at all, and are unaware of the event until later. And a proportion of people who have major heart attacks and strokes lose consciousness before they have any sensation of pain. This is, of course, information from people who have recovered, but there is no reason to think that it’s different when the outcome is fatal.
Most of the time, people don’t die writhing in agony or screaming in pain. They just slip into unconsciousness and stop breathing. Why would there be pain at that point?
My own anecdotes: I worked for some number of years as a home nurse, and took some Hospice patients, too. Between my home nursing, and my own personal experiences, I’ve seen maybe 8 people die. My mom was not asleep when she died, and was uncomfortable because she couldn’t draw a deep breath (Congestive Heart Failure), so she went kind of hard. Two of the others were somewhat lucid just prior to death, but showed no signs of distress. The others were all asleep and showed no signs of wakefulness. As for my own personal story, I had a blood infection about 6 years ago that came damned close to killing me (how close, I’m not sure; I was too sick to know how sick I was. I do know that hubby had been trying to figure out how he was gonna tell the kids that their Mom had died). I was sort of uncomfortable due to a high fever, but if I had died at any point during that week, I don’t think I’d have been in any pain at all.
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that all major heart attacks are painful. Hence my careful use of a restrictive clause.