My father and one of his sisters both died in their sleep at home. One of my cousins died while napping in a poolside chair. And another cousin pretty much dropped dead as he was walking out of the bathroom. All of the above were due to MIs.
I once heard that, in 50% of Heart Attacks, the first symptom is death.
Not a bad way to go. Except, perhaps, in the eyes of the passengers…
So many things depend on that silly little pump…
My mom was unconscious when she died (I’m positive, because I was there) so it was a sleep-like state and there was no sign of distress, but it might have been more accurate to describe it as a coma rather than sleep. My dad was similar, according to my sister. One of my nephews laid down to take a nap one afternoon and didn’t wake up.
Yeah, you can die your sleep. You can die a lot of other ways, too, but while asleep seems a pretty quiet way to go from what I’ve seen.
My dad fell asleep and never woke up, though it took him several days to die. When he finally passed, it was just one last deep breath. He displayed no signs of distress during any of this. He did open his eyes, sit up briefly, and raise his arms above his head during one of my “shifts” when I played some Johnny Cash music for him, but he didn’t say anything or even look at me. He just sat there a moment, lowered his arms, lay down, and closed his eyes again. As bad as his last few years were, I don’t know that he even had the capacity to hurt any more than he already did.
This thread is reminding me of a line from a Freddy King song:
“…Wake up one of these mornings and find your own self dead…”
(I realize this is a serious and rather sad thread, but Colibri was funny already so I’m taking a chance.)
When she was old, my great-grandma lived with my grandparents. My mother once told me that grandpa used to give great-grandma a scalp massage if she was trying to nap and was having trouble drifting off. The massage would relax her. Mom said that one day, during a scalp massage, she just relaxed all the way and died. From Mom’s voice when she said it, I think she considered it a gift.
From John Prine, though at least he got his slippers on:
"Woke up this morning
Put on my slippers
Walked in the kitchen
And died
“And oh, what a feeling!
When my soul
Went through the ceiling
And on up into heaven, I did ride”
My father had cancer, and slipped into unconsciousness from which he could not be awakened. He was put on oxygen, which probably kept him alive for several hours longer than otherwise, but it was deemed a comfort measure, and that was part of his advance directive. The hospice called me at home, because they couldn’t get my mother, who had taken a much-deserved day for herself, and my father had been alert the day before-- we thought he had like a week left-- anyway, they wanted to know if he should be put on IV fluids because the oxygen would dry him out. I asked if they thought he could perceive thirst, and they said no. So I said No IV, but ask my mother again when she checked in.
I went over to the hospice and sat by my father four several hours, then after my mother got there, I left to go to evening minyan. He died while I was gone, and never regained consciousness.
I don’t know if he was in a coma, or a vegetative state, or a deep sleep, or drugged out of his mind. His eyes were closed, and he never showed any signs of distress.
I have had a few animals die while asleep. They never seized or had difficulty breathing. They just didn’t wake up. They were all very old, except for one, whom the vet hypothesized had a heart problem, because he didn’t have an infection of any kidney problems, or FeLeuk, or anything. We couldn’t afford a necropsy, and the vet was positive he didn’t die of something communicable, so we just buried him, but the point is, he never seized or opened his eyes, or anything. When I found him, he looked peacefully asleep.
I’m grateful for the animals who died in their sleep, because the ones I have watched put to sleep (all had end stage cancers, except one very old cat who had a stroke, and lost the use of one side of her body) seemed to suffer a little, albeit, not as much as they were suffering from their disease, and I don’t regret any of those decisions, but I think it would have been a blessing if they had passed away a little earlier in their sleep.
Unless we start attaching electrodes to end-of-life patients, and measuring brain activity at the moment of death, and look for pain responses, we won’t ever really know. However, lack of oxygen to the brain does produce a euphoria, so it’s possible there’s a moment of a sort of high, and then nothing.
My grandfather died peacefully while I was administering oxygen and we were waiting for an ambulance to take him to the hospital. He had had a heart attack that morning, the doctor came over (this was in those bygone days that doctors made house calls) and set him up with oxygen. Sleep or simply unconscious, hard to say, but he just quietly slipped away.
One item I read about this said that typically, when you wake up, the body pumps out a shot of adrenalin to get you moving - heart pumps faster, etc. For people on the brink, this could be the extra bit that pushes the heart too far.
Of course, as many anecdotes above show, it’s also possible for the heart to fail at any time - so presumably 1/3 to 1/4 of such occurrences will be during sleep time. Plus, lack of oxygen - slow heart - can lead to feelings of tiredness, necessitating some sit down or lie down while on the way out.