It was apparently quite common even in the time of the ancient Greeks. This figure of speech occurs very commonly in everyday thought and language, as well as in the literature of many cultures and many ages. Dying, we tell ourselves, is like going to sleep.
Perhaps the most common analogy of this type is the comparison between death and sleep. We compare death or dying with more pleasant things in our experience, things with which we are familiar. What we often end up doing is talking in euphemistic analogies. Hence, if we are to talk about death at all, then, we must avoid both social taboos and the deep-seated linguistic dilemmas which derive from our own inexperience. Death, though, is something which lies beyond the conscious experience of most of us because most of us have never been through it. For the most part, the words of human language allude to things of which we have experience through our own physical senses. The second reason it is difficult to discuss death is more complicated, as it is rooted in the very nature of language itself. So, to spare ourselves this psychological trauma, we decide just to try to avoid the topic as much as possible. No doubt many people have the feeling that to talk about death at all is in effect to conjure it up mentally, to bring it closer in such a way that one has to face up to the inevitability of one's own eventual demise. In some way, if only pre-consciously, the thought must have been in my mind: "That will happen to me, too." Likewise, talking about death can be seen on the psychological level as another way of approaching it indirectly.
What I was seeing on that table was a symbol of my own mortality. It has occurred to me in retrospect that it wasn't entirely concern for the person whose remains I saw there, although that feeling certainly figured, too. In my own case, the reason for this response now seems quite obvious. We feel, perhaps only subconsciously, that to be in contact with death in any way, even indirectly, somehow confronts us with the prospect of our own deaths, draws our own deaths closer and makes them more real and thinkable.įor example, most medical students, including myself, have found that even the remote encounter with death which occurs upon one's first visit to the anatomical laboratories when entering medical school can evoke strong feelings of uneasiness. One of them is primarily psychological and cultural: The subject of death is taboo. Yet, despite all this interest it remains true that it is very difficult for most of us to talk about death. On the basis of this exposure, I can safely say that this topic excites the most powerful of feelings from people of many emotional types and walks of life.
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These groups have ranged from classes in psychology, philosophy, and sociology through church organizations, television audiences, and civic clubs to professional societies of medicine. Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to raise this question before a sizable number of audiences. What is it like to die? That is a question which humanity has been asking it self ever since there have been humans.
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