Usually people will say, when asked about how they want to go, that they’d want to go in their sleep. I truly don’t understand this line of reasoning.
Most people also have certain landmark things they want to accomplish before their big day comes; children’s weddings, grandchildren, travel etc.
I say that really each of our goals are personal ones so what good is accomplishing them if you’re going to die “peacefully” in your sleep? Aren’t the goals we have nothing more than a collection of experiences we can take out when our time comes and relish them collectively, for our own satisfaction before we go? …Like looking into one of those snow globes with little sceneries inside, custom made snow globes. Each building or mountain stands as an experience.
I think about death every day. I’m not afraid of it and I’m not waiting for it, and I’m not ready for it either but I think about almost all of my experiences and sort of hold them up to my last day (whenever that will be) and wonder what importance it might have then. I am usually dissatisfied when I do this.
On preview, this is kind of rambly and meaningless, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.
I’d say that a desire to die in your sleep would indicate a fear of death. We all go to sleep all the time, and anything we do while asleep happens unconciously. So you wouldn’t feel yourself going, I guess.
Personally, I’d just want to feel that I’d lived a complete life. Then again, maybe it won’t be my whole life that matters. Maybe it’ll just be one of those little things. Like when you finish a really good book and you think, “Oh yes. I can die happy now,” and you don’t really mean that, but if you’d gotten some of the big things out of the way (like the things you mentioned) then maybe that last little thing would be enough, and you would truly be able to die happy.
I hope I contribute one great thing to the world. Just one. But something that will really matter. And then maybe I’ll die right as it’s finished.
I’ve often thought that right before you die, you suddenly understand everything. You understand how the entire universe functions, and you want to tell everyone, but you can’t put it into words, and besides, you’re going to be dead in a few seconds.
I think at least part of the wish to die in one’s sleep is not to be in pain, or at least not suffering. Not having to thing about what’s happening. Dropping dead instantly from a massive stroke is a close second. Nobody wants to die the way most people do, after lingering for some time in some degree of pain or discomfort.
Yeah, I agree that most people do not want to know that death is a certainty for them in the near future. Pain isn’t necessarily going to be a factor as intense pain will likely last a very short time and pain over a long period of time can be medicated away. It’s the knowledge that death is inexorably approaching because of a medical condition that scares most people.
Me, I plan on dying by jumping out of an airplane and parachuting to Earth and masturbating furiously until I spontaneously combust. People will be talking about that for years.