The topic of today's article will be difficult, but vital ... or rather, deadly. Deadly and vital, because, as you know, life and death are two sides of the same coin, and, as you know, death befalls everyone.

Words from the film under the article: " Death is always near .. it haunts us. Maybe it will happen tomorrow, maybe in a few years... Usually we are not given to know the cause and time of our death.

We are afraid of many things, but the fear of death is the strongest. Perhaps because there is uncertainty.

No matter how extensively and ambiguously someone does not understand the concept of death, as a rule, death is understood as the end of the life of a living organism.

“Death (death) is a cessation, a complete stop of the biological and physiological processes of the organism's vital activity. The most common causes of death are aging, malnutrition, disease, suicide, murder, and accidents. Shortly after death, the bodies of living organisms begin to decompose.

Death has always carried a certain imprint of mystery and mysticism. The unpredictability, inevitability, unexpectedness and sometimes insignificance of the causes leading to death brought the very concept of death beyond the limits of human perception, turned death into a divine punishment for a sinful existence or into a divine gift, after which a happy and eternal life awaits a person.

From the point of view of medicine, the end point of the transition from life to death is biological death; informational, or final death implies the beginning of the process of rigor, decomposition of the corpse. Biological death is preceded by a pre-agonial state, agony, clinical death.

About 62 million people in the world die every year for a variety of reasons, the main of which are diseases of the cardiovascular system (stroke, heart attack), oncology (cancer of the lungs, breast, stomach, etc.), infectious diseases, hunger, poor sanitation. That is, despite all the mystery, death is a concrete phenomenon that claims tens of millions of human lives.

And if many more valued the shortness of life (for example, would not smoke, do not drink alcohol, do not drive drunk and drive), the days of their stay on earth would be extended. However, people, perfectly understanding the finiteness of life, very often seem to burn it through the last holes ...

But no one knows what is there after death ... maybe life on earth is an exam, passing which we will go to a good or bad place. And whether there will be another life in reincarnation or not ... That's why there are so many assumptions that no one knows exactly what will happen there. Everyone is just guessing. However, Christians believe in the singularity of life and salvation through faith and good works.

“Despite the complexity of the problem of death, in medicine there has long been a clear specific classification that allows the doctor in each case of death to establish signs that determine the category, type, type of death and its cause.

In medicine, there are two categories of death - violent death and non-violent death.

The second qualifying sign of death is gender. In both categories, it is customary to distinguish three types of death. The types of non-violent death include physiological death, pathological death and sudden death. The types of violent death are murder, suicide, and death by accident.

The third qualifying feature is the type of death. Establishing the type of death is associated with determining the group of factors that caused death, and united by their origin or impact on the human body. In particular, brain death is considered as a separate type of death, which differs from classical death with primary circulatory arrest.

The main cause of death is considered to be a nosological unit in accordance with the International Classification of Diseases: an injury or a disease that itself caused death or caused the development of a pathological process (complication) that led to death.

In our country, a death certificate is issued on the basis of a statement of the death of the entire brain. There are a number of difficulties here, because when the brain dies, the so-called “vegetative state” is possible, when a person exists only as a biological organism, his personality is not preserved, doctors often suggest that relatives of patients who have been in a coma for a long time be disconnected from the apparatus, because the laws are as follows, that the person is actually already dead.

But besides all these papers, diagnoses, formalities - what remains of a person after his death? There was a man - there is no man. And what was his life? Why are we born? “Like this, a star will light up and fall asleep, a trifle.” And after all, many billions of people have already died. The trail of not just mystery, but a mass of questions leaves the finiteness of life unanswered.

Death is something that everyone will go through in due time, because "no one has yet come out of life alive."

Death is not the opposite of life, although there are many works like Fromm's treatises where biophilia is opposed to necrophilia. Life is the end point of life, death is the end point of the segment called life, and its starting point is birth. Whoever was born will surely die... Such is the truth of this mortal earth. Everything here is perishable, perishable and eternal...

Death in the modern world is either bypassed, preferring simply not to talk about it, or they convince us from all sides that death is like a cold - it happens to everyone, and you should not worry. It is rather a protection of consciousness from a breakdown, an escape of a frightened person in an attempt to defeat the finiteness of life.

Death, as they want to hammer into our heads, is a natural physiological process, the same as birth, aging ... just yesterday a person’s heart hurts, and the day before yesterday he was covered with wrinkles ... and today he died - and this is all normal, you should not kill yourself. Until the Middle Ages, they even tried not to draw a clear line between the world of the dead and the world of the living, they held meetings in cemeteries, walked, later, closer to the Middle Ages, cemeteries began to be taken out of the city limits, they tried to bury the dead, forever seeing them off to the world from which they do not return.

They are trying to convince us that death is like inhaling and exhaling ... it’s just that someone is born, someone dies .. and the birth rate in our world is now good: after all, 7.5 billion people already, and all 6.5 billion were born only in the last two hundred years (by 2024 there will be more than 8 billion people).

In such a string of lives and deaths, it is very difficult to think about what death is, it becomes uncomfortable in the soul, and you know, there is not enough time for this philosophy - you have to have time to live, therefore it is very logical to make the final result of life a physiological norm, or rather to convince yourself and others because death is a mosquito bite.

It is easier to live this way, accepting death as a matter of course helps to keep the psyche stable, not to suffer in search of the meaning of life and fear of inevitability. Something like a samurai calm: "death is just part of the samurai's path, where just a new life awaits him behind the next door."

Tinsel, vanity, a lot of people around, a million melodies in life, high-rise buildings, a career, the growth of megacities, traffic jams, dynamic progressiveness - all this sometimes does not even leave a modern person time to sit down and think about what is there, beyond the line of his destiny .. to think about God ... or about the devil .. about the end of his life.

By the way, have you noticed how much fuss and noise is around now? Those who remember, even as children, a period of 10-20 years ago, will note that it was quieter on earth .. The abundance of cellular phones, information technology, tablets, gadgets, players, cars - all this makes noise, fonit, poisons the air. The number of people on earth has increased. Against the background of all this, much is depreciated, questions about life and death fade due to lack of time to search for answers to them, and the noise of the progress of mankind, which stands in traffic for hours, greets the 7th iPhone with applause, interferes with focusing on such a serious matter.

But be that as it may: death is scary, and it is impossible to get used to it! Even pathologists, police officers, investigators, doctors, people who, on duty, had to see a lot of deaths and corpses - they seem to learn over the years of practice to perceive someone else's death without strong emotions, but none of them can calmly endure the death of a loved one and they are all afraid of their own death .

Conclusion: it is impossible to get used to death, you can live in the illusion that a lethal outcome is a continuation of life or justify everything with science, medicine, but death is what makes a person a small insect and absolutely powerless in front of nature, which is stronger than us.

According to Christianity, death is the punishment for sin., and through Adam and Eve who sinned, all became mortal, just as everyone ate this forbidden fruit. That is, if we take into account the plan of God, death is already abnormal and unphysiological, since it was not like that in Paradise. Let's leave the scourging about the fact that a person chose it himself. But the talk that we all grow old by the will of God is absurd. In general, we, being on earth, knowing our mortal nature, seem to be constantly called to some kind of choice: either to evaluate life and do deeds worthy of life, or to salute God, whom our ancestors disobeyed ...

However, in the end (as it is written in the Bible), death will go away again: “The Revelation of the Apostle John the Theologian says that death will cease after the Last Judgment, in the coming Kingdom of God: “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death; there will be no more mourning, no outcry, no more pain” (Rev. 21:4).

The same doctors who seemed to have learned cynicism and indifference to other people's pain at one time (19th and 20th centuries) conducted research: they weighed dying people on a special bed (from diseases that were common then - tuberculosis, for example), fixed the moment of death, such in this way they established the approximate weight of the “soul”, or some substance that, in their opinion, left the body ... The weight of the soul was about 2-3 grams.

Later, these studies were questioned, since the weight of 2-3 grams is so negligible that it is absurd to attribute their loss to the departure of the soul, besides, physiological processes occur directly during cardiac arrest, which just can slightly lighten the weight of the deceased.

But even if the weight of the soul is really a couple of grams, where does the soul go after death, what is death - not a single doctor could answer ...

The extinction of life processes, the onset of irreversible processes almost immediately after death, a few minutes after cardiac arrest, very rarely after a few hours (after all, in extremely rare cases, resuscitation is carried out up to 2 hours), decomposition of the body to dust as a result puts a seal on a person’s earthly life frailty. It was as if life was a one-time rental of a body with subsequent disposal. We will no longer see the soul, and where it goes is a mystery under thousands of seals, and everything that we loved in a person has become ordinary dust ...

And when people say that they are accustomed to death, it seems that they have anesthetized their soul, moved away from thoughts, it is impossible to get used to death.

In philosophy, the problem of death is highlighted, but still there are few specifics, basically all dogmas are built on the value of life due to death. The famous thesis “To live is to die” implies both the inevitability of the death of any living organism and the melancholy of philosophers who reflect on rhetorical questions through the prism of the finitude of the mortal world. That is, it is quite sad (but for sure, unfortunately): even the very fact of birth already implies death in the future ... Parents give birth to a baby, but do they think that, in fact, they gave birth to his death?

From the comments. Opinions on what death is:

“According to the theory of biocentrism, death is an illusion that our consciousness creates. After death, a person passes into a parallel world.

Human life is like a perennial that always comes back to bloom again in the multiverse. Everything we see exists because of our consciousness. People believe in death because they are taught so, or because the mind associates life with the functioning of the internal organs. Death is not the absolute end of life, but is a transition to a parallel world.

In physics, there has long been a theory about an infinite number of universes with different variations of situations and people. Everything that can happen is already happening somewhere, which means that death cannot exist in principle.

Let us return to Fromm's biophilia and necrophilia mentioned above. If philosophy suggests not to oppose death to life, since death is the end point of life, and not its opposite, then Erich Fromm nevertheless opposes death to life, more precisely, love of life is love of death.

In his opinion, love for life underlies the psyche of a normal person, while love for death (and Fromm worked with criminals, murderers, etc.) makes a person dead already during his lifetime. A person makes a choice towards, so to speak, darkness, is drawn to evil, for example, a classic case of necrophilia according to Fromm is Hitler.

Erich Fromm wrote that the cause of necrophilia can be "an oppressive, joyless, gloomy atmosphere in the family, drowsiness ... a lack of interest in life, incentives, aspirations and hopes, as well as a spirit of destruction in social reality in general."

It turns out that death is equal to destruction, someone dies after cardiac arrest, his body begins to decompose, the soul, if a person was good, his soul is alive (assumption according to religious versions), and someone’s soul is already dead despite the liveliness of the body and subject to destruction just as a dead body decays...

What is death is a question to which there is no specific answer ... But no matter how we say that there is no death, that the whole world is an illusion - our loved ones die, we ourselves are mortal, and tombstones in cemeteries tell us clearly that death is not at all illusion. And why all this - our life, as a result of which everyone dies - is a mystery even greater than death itself. Too short a life, often in a too evil world... is it really the will of God? Maybe there really is another world after death, much better, more just than our perishable one?..

“Death is worth living” ... (V. Tsoi)

Memento mori… or, as they say, “remember that you are mortal!”…

Since the appearance of man, he has always been tormented by questions of the mystery of birth and death. It is impossible to live forever, and, probably, scientists will not soon invent the elixir of immortality. Everyone is concerned about the question of what a person feels when he dies. What is happening at this moment? These questions have always worried people, and so far scientists have not found an answer to them.

Interpretation of death

Death is a natural process of ending our existence. Without it, it is impossible to imagine the evolution of life on earth. What happens when a person dies? Such a question has interested and will interest humanity as long as it exists.

Passing away from life proves to some extent that the fittest and the fittest survive. Without it, biological progress would be impossible, and man, perhaps, would never have appeared.

Despite the fact that this natural process has always interested people, it is hard and difficult to talk about death. First of all, because there is a psychological problem. Talking about it, we seem to be mentally approaching the end of our lives, so we don’t feel like talking about death in any context.

On the other hand, it is difficult to talk about death, because we, the living, did not experience it, therefore we cannot say what a person feels when he dies.

Some compare death to ordinary falling asleep, while others argue that this is a kind of forgetfulness, when a person completely forgets about everything. But neither one nor the other, of course, are right. These analogies cannot be called adequate. It can only be argued that death is the disappearance of our consciousness.

Many continue to believe that after his death, a person simply passes into another world, where he exists not at the level of the physical body, but at the level of the soul.

It's safe to say that research on death will continue forever, but it will never provide a definitive answer about how people feel at this moment. It is simply impossible, no one has yet returned from the other world to tell us how and what is happening there.

What does a person feel when they die?

Physical sensations, probably, at this moment depend on what led to death. Therefore, they may or may not be painful, and some believe that they are quite pleasant.

Everyone has their own inner feelings in the face of death. Most people have some kind of fear sitting inside, they seem to resist and do not want to accept it, clinging to life with all their might.

Scientific data show that after the heart muscle stops, the brain lives for a few more seconds, the person no longer feels anything, but is still conscious. Some believe that it is at this time that the summing up of life results takes place.

Unfortunately, no one can answer the question of how a person dies, what happens when this happens. All these feelings, most likely, are strictly individual.

Biological classification of death

Since the very concept of death is a biological term, the classification must be approached from this point of view. Based on this, the following categories of death can be distinguished:

1. Natural.
2. Unnatural.

Physiological death can be attributed to natural, which can occur due to:

• Body aging.
• Fetal underdevelopment. Therefore, he dies almost immediately after birth or even in the womb.

Unnatural death is divided into the following types:

• Death from disease (infections, cardiovascular disease).
• Sudden.
• Sudden.
• Death from external factors (mechanical damage, respiratory failure, from exposure to electric current or low temperatures, medical intervention).

This is how you can roughly characterize death from a biological point of view.

Socio-legal classification

If we talk about death in this perspective, then it can be:

• Violent (murder, suicide).
• Non-violent (epidemics, industrial accidents, occupational diseases).

Violent death is always associated with external influences, while non-violent death is due to senile flabbiness, diseases or physical disabilities.

In any type of death, injuries or diseases trigger pathological processes, which are the direct cause of death.

Even if the cause of death is known, it is still impossible to say what a person sees when he dies. This question will remain unanswered.

Signs of death

It is possible to single out the initial and reliable signs that indicate that a person has died. The first group includes:

• The body is without movement.
• Pale skin.
• Consciousness is absent.
• Breathing stopped, no pulse.
• No response to external stimuli.
• The pupils do not react to light.
• The body becomes cold.

Signs that speak of 100% death:

• The corpse is stiff and cold, cadaveric spots begin to appear.
• Late cadaveric manifestations: decomposition, mummification.

The first signs can be confused with a loss of consciousness to an ignorant person, therefore only a doctor should state death.

Stages of death

Departure from life can take different periods of time. This can last minutes, and in some cases hours or days. Dying is a dynamic process, in which death does not occur immediately, but gradually, if you do not mean instant death.

The following stages of death can be distinguished:

1. preagonal state. The processes of blood circulation and respiration are disturbed, this leads to the fact that the tissues begin to lack oxygen. This state can last for several hours or several days.
2. Terminal pause. Breathing stops, the work of the heart muscle is disturbed, the activity of the brain stops. This period lasts only a few minutes.
3. Agony. The body abruptly begins the struggle for survival. At this time, there are short pauses in breathing, a weakening of cardiac activity, as a result, all organ systems cannot carry out their work normally. The appearance of a person changes: the eyes sink, the nose becomes sharp, the lower jaw begins to sag.
4. clinical death. Stops breathing and blood circulation. During this period, a person can still be revived if no more than 5-6 minutes have passed. It is after coming back to life at this stage that many people talk about what happens when a person dies.
5. biological death. The body finally ceases to exist.

After death, many organs remain viable for several hours. This is very important, and it is during this period that they can be used for transplantation to another person.

clinical death

It can be called a transitional stage between the final death of the organism and life. The heart stops its work, breathing stops, all signs of vital activity of the body disappear.

Within 5-6 minutes, irreversible processes do not yet have time to start in the brain, so at this time there is every chance to bring a person back to life. Adequate resuscitation actions will force the heart to beat again, the organs to function.

Signs of clinical death

If you carefully observe a person, then it is quite easy to determine the onset of clinical death. She has the following symptoms:

1. The pulse is absent.
2. Breathing stops.
3. The heart stops working.
4. Strongly dilated pupils.
5. There are no reflexes.
6. The person is unconscious.
7. The skin is pale.
8. The body is in an unnatural position.

To determine the onset of this moment, it is necessary to feel the pulse and look at the pupils. Clinical death differs from biological death in that the pupils retain the ability to respond to light.

The pulse can be felt on the carotid artery. This is usually done at the same time as the pupils are checked to speed up the diagnosis of clinical death.

If a person is not helped during this period, then biological death will occur, and then it will be impossible to bring him back to life.

How to recognize approaching death

Many philosophers and doctors compare the process of birth and death with each other. They are always individual. It is impossible to predict exactly when a person will leave this world and how this will happen. However, most dying people experience similar symptoms as death approaches. How a person dies may not even be affected by the reasons that provoked the beginning of this process.

Before death, certain psychological and physical changes occur in the body. Among the most striking and frequently encountered are the following:

1. There is less and less energy left, often drowsiness and weakness throughout the body.
2. The frequency and depth of breathing changes. Periods of stopping are replaced by frequent and deep breaths.
3. There are changes in the senses, a person can hear or see something that is not heard by others.
4. Appetite becomes weak or almost disappears.
5. Changes in the organ systems lead to dark urine and hard-to-pass stools.
6. There are temperature fluctuations. High can be abruptly replaced by low.
7. A person completely loses interest in the outside world.

When a person is seriously ill, there may be other symptoms before death.

Feelings of a person at the time of drowning

If you ask a question about how a person feels when he dies, then the answer may depend on the cause and circumstances of death. Everyone has it in their own way, but in any case, at this moment, there is an acute oxygen deficiency in the brain.

After the movement of blood is suspended, regardless of the method, after about 10 seconds the person loses consciousness, and a little later the death of the body occurs.

If drowning becomes the cause of death, then at the moment when a person is under water, he begins to panic. Since it is impossible to do without breathing, after a while the drowning person has to take a breath, but instead of air, water enters the lungs.

As the lungs fill with water, a burning sensation and fullness appears in the chest. Gradually, after a few minutes, calmness appears, which indicates that the consciousness will soon leave the person, and this will lead to death.

The life expectancy of a person in water will also depend on its temperature. The colder it is, the faster hypothermia sets in. Even if a person is afloat, and not under water, the chances of survival are decreasing by the minute.

An already lifeless body can still be taken out of the water and brought back to life if not much time has passed. The first step is to free the airways from water, and then fully carry out resuscitation measures.

Feelings during a heart attack

In some cases, it happens that a person falls abruptly and dies. Most often, death from a heart attack does not occur suddenly, but the development of the disease occurs gradually. A myocardial infarction does not strike a person immediately, for some time people may feel some discomfort in the chest, but try not to pay attention to it. This is the big mistake that ends in death.

If you are prone to heart attacks, then you should not expect everything to go away on its own. Such hope can cost you your life. After cardiac arrest, only a few seconds will pass before the person loses consciousness. A few more minutes, and death is already taking a loved one from us.

If the patient is in the hospital, then he has a chance to get out if the doctors detect cardiac arrest in time and carry out resuscitation.

body temperature and death

Many are interested in the question of at what temperature a person dies. Most people remember from biology lessons from school that for a person, a body temperature above 42 degrees is considered fatal.

Some scientists attribute death at high temperatures to the properties of water, the molecules of which change their structure. But these are only guesses and assumptions that science has yet to deal with.

If we consider the question of at what temperature a person dies, when hypothermia of the body begins, then we can say that even when the body cools down to 30 degrees, a person loses consciousness. If no action is taken at this moment, death will occur.

Many such cases occur with people intoxicated with alcohol, who fall asleep in the winter right on the street and no longer wake up.

Emotional changes before death

Usually, before death, a person becomes completely indifferent to everything that happens around. He ceases to navigate in time and dates, becomes silent, but some, on the contrary, begin to constantly talk about the upcoming road.

A close dying person may begin to tell you that he spoke or saw dead relatives. Another extreme manifestation at this time is the state of psychosis. It is always difficult for loved ones to endure all this, so you can consult a doctor and consult about taking medications to alleviate the condition of the dying.

If a person falls into a state of stupor or often sleeps for a long time, do not try to stir him up, wake him up, just be there, hold your hand, talk. Many even in a coma can hear everything perfectly.

Death is always hard, each of us will cross this line between life and non-existence in due time. When this will happen and under what circumstances, what you will feel at the same time, unfortunately, is impossible to predict. Everyone has a purely individual feeling.

Any person who is faced with the death of a loved one wonders if there is life after death? In our time, this issue is of particular relevance. If a few centuries ago the answer to this question was obvious to everyone, now, after the period of atheism, it is more difficult to solve it. We cannot simply believe hundreds of generations of our ancestors, who, through personal experience, century after century, were convinced of the presence of an immortal human soul. We want facts. Moreover, the facts are scientific.

Where do you meet such optimism, which in death wants to understand and fully reveal the meaning of life? It's such courage and such optimism. After all, we sometimes, being doctors and having seen more than one death, sometimes give in and bow our heads before this heroism of small people who suddenly show such beauty in life.

A unique experiment is currently taking place in England: doctors record testimonies of patients who have experienced clinical death. Our interlocutor is the leader of the research team, Dr. Sam Parnia.

Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

The testimony of common sense undoubtedly assures us that earthly existence does not end the existence of man, and that in addition to this life there is life after death. We will consider the proofs by which science affirms the immortality of the soul and convinces us that the soul, being a being completely different from matter, cannot be destroyed by that which destroys a material being.

Osipov Alexey Ilyich, professor of theology

There is something in common that unites the searches of people of all times and views. It is an insurmountable psychological difficulty to believe that there is no life after death. Man is not an animal! There is life! And this is not just an assumption or an unfounded belief. There are a huge number of facts that indicate that, it turns out, the life of an individual continues beyond the threshold of earthly existence. We find amazing evidence wherever literary sources remain. And for all of them, at least one fact was indisputable: the soul lives after death. Personality is indestructible!

The fear of death is only the consciousness of the unresolved contradiction of life. Life does not end after the destruction of the physical body. Carnal death is just another change in our existence, which has always been, is and will be. There is no death!

What is death

The question "What is death?" worries more than one generation, which is absolutely understandable - a person is born, lives and ... leaves. Where? What for? Why? Believers of various faiths have an ambiguous attitude to this issue, but the fact that after the end of earthly life a new life begins is a fact that modern scientists do not completely reject.

Everyone is interested in what death is, because sooner or later we will all die, which means it is pointless to be afraid of this, because as long as we are alive, we live, and when this “lady with a scythe” gets close to us, we will already be dead.

Why are people afraid of death?

Death, an unexplored phenomenon, it bears the imprint of mysticism and mystery. The inevitability, unpredictability and unexpectedness, and sometimes insignificant reasons that take a person’s life, take the concept of death far beyond the boundaries of human perception, turning this physiological process into a divine punishment for our sins, or they are a gift from God, as a reward for a worthy life, and portends eternal life.

• An Orthodox person accepts death as a natural phenomenon. As long as he has the opportunity to be saved, the Lord will grant him this opportunity. We are born only by the will of God and die when we most do not expect it. That is why the Orthodox do not think about what death is. It is important to be ready for this event and live your new day as if it were your last - only then life becomes meaningful;
• Science believes that death is the cessation or suspension of vital processes in the body. A person lives - all organs and systems function, a person has grown old, cells, organs, etc. have worn out - it's time to find out what physiological death is ... Death due to illness is also explainable. Nevertheless, despite such an explanation, it is scientists who distinguish several types of death: clinical, when a return to life is still possible, the death of individual organs, the brain ...
• Philosophy sees death as the end of life. Birth is opposed to death. Everything is much simpler here, death is explained as a natural process of transition from one state to another - from inanimate to living.

Of course, there is nothing in the world that would happen just like that - meaninglessly, on its own. Any blade of grass sprouts from a grain, a house from bricks, a person from a cell, etc. What is death really? Is it a normal physiological process? If everything on Earth were so simple and understandable, such questions would not bother us. Many scientists, theologians, philosophers and simply wise people know that death is the moment at which a person ceases to exist. That is why even in relation to the living one can hear bitter words: "This person is dead for me."

Death is a transition into a new life, a life unknown and unknown. If we follow the logic that we always get what we deserve, and life really places its accents and stresses in its own way. In search of an answer to the question: "What is death?" it is important to think about how we live now, what we think about, whether we care about our future, which definitely awaits all of us ... And most importantly: do not die for others, being alive.

death of a man

Death- this is the cessation of all biological functions of a living organism. The phenomena that cause death usually include aging, disease, hunger, and various injuries. Shortly after death, the human body begins to decompose. So far, there is no evidence that the human mind remains alive after biological death.

The nature of human death has been of great interest to religious and philosophical communities for many millennia. This is due to the belief in life after death, reincarnation and that consciousness is immortal.

The most common causes of human death are heart disease, stroke, and lower respiratory tract disease.

Around 150,000 people die every day around the world. Of these, two-thirds die of natural causes.

It is believed that death occurs at the point in time when brain activity stops. This may suggest that death is the cessation of consciousness, but this contradicts the understanding of death in unicellular organisms, which have no consciousness at all. Previously, cardiac and respiratory arrest was considered death, but at present, with the advent of defibrillators and artificial life support systems, such definitions of death have become irrelevant. Currently, death is defined by the cessation of brain and electrical activity. The absence of consciousness in this case should be permanent, in contrast to the time of sleep. A more accurate definition of the moment of death is the cessation of electrical activity in the entire brain, and not just in its cortex.

Distinguish between biological and clinical death. clinical death is a reversible stage of the dying of the organism and it lasts only a few minutes after the complete cessation of breathing and blood circulation. The time interval of clinical death depends on the external conditions in which it occurred. In particular, ambient temperature affects the duration of clinical death, since the consequences of oxygen starvation depend on it. Under normal conditions, clinical death can last from 4 to 15 minutes; at low temperatures, this time can increase to several tens of minutes. Nerve cells are most sensitive to hypoxia.

biological death is an irreversible cessation of physiological processes in the body.

There are several external signs that indicate the onset of the biological death of a person.

1. Stop breathing.

2. Cardiac arrest.

3. Paleness of the skin.

4. Outflow of blood to the underlying parts of the body, the appearance of cadaveric spots.

5. Decrease in body temperature.

This applies both to the processes and objects of inanimate nature, and to living organisms, and to social organizations, for example, states and civilizations. Nothing in the physical world lasts forever.

Man as a living being is not an exception to the laws of the universe. We are all born, grow, develop, age, and eventually die.

Death is not the opposite of life. Death is its end. If we talk about the concept opposite to the concept of death, then it will rather be the concept of birth.

For unbelieving people, death is the end of a person's existence, a transition into complete non-existence, nothing. And life is just a fleeting flash in eternity: we come into this world from nowhere and go nowhere. What is the meaning of our birth and our existence, an unbeliever can hardly explain. Death, from the point of view of science, is a mechanism that protects against overpopulation of the planet, ensures the change of generations, each of which moves forward in its development, and everything old gives way to the new, remaining in the past.

From the point of view of religious teachings, death is not the completion of a person's personality. All world religions assert that there is something eternal, indestructible in man. This is the soul of man. The physical body is only its shell. Each person comes into this world to fulfill his destiny, which each has his own. And then it goes back to the Creator. Death is only the moment of transition from earthly existence to another life, the moment of birth into this other life. The soul does not end its existence after death - the destruction of the body shell, but continues it outside the body. All religions have ideas about the afterlife, that is, about what happens to a person after death. These ideas differ quite significantly, but religions are unanimous in that death is not the end, but only the completion of earthly life.

Death is the door to eternal life. .

What happens to us at the time of death? Where does the soul go after death? Where do those we love go after death? Why is a newly born child already showing his special character, because he has not yet studied anywhere and has not been brought up by anyone?!

One famous American author, Raymond Moody, has collected a lot of evidence of this phenomenon in his book Life after death. He has studied over 5,000 people for 20 years. All these people are talking about the same thing. They say that an operation is underway, he is under anesthesia, he begins to realize himself and suddenly sees himself lying on the operating table. He sees himself, the doctors who fuss over him. And suddenly the thought comes to his mind: And if I'm lying there, then who is watching? There are even people who practice this out-of-body experience. And if you are not familiar with this, then we will all go through this experience at some point.

Sources: www.boleem.com, allmake.ru, anatomus.ru, allforchildren.ru, blog.cattba.com

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Life and death

Is death a dream?

« The fear of death comes from what people acceptfor one small life, their own false idealimited part of it. (L. N. Tolstoy)

What death? Few of us seriously think about the nature of this phenomenon. Most often, we superstitiously avoid not only conversations, but also thoughts about death, because this topic seems to us very bleak and terrible. After all, every child knows from an early age: “Life is good, but death .... death - I don't know what, but definitely something bad. It's so bad that it's better not to even think about it.

We grow up, learn, acquire knowledge and experience in various fields, but our judgments about death remain at the same level - the level of a small child who is afraid of the dark.

But the unknown is always frightening, and for this reason, even for an adult, death will always remain the same unknown, frightening darkness until he tries to understand its nature. Sooner or later, death comes to every home, and every year the number of relatives and friends who have gone into this obscurity is growing and growing ....

People leave - we grieve and suffer from parting with them, but even in these periods of another loss that has befallen us, we do not always try to figure it out and understand: what is this - this death? How to perceive it? Is it only as an incomparable loss and blatant injustice of life, or is it possible to have a completely different perception of it?

We will try to sort out these issues in a conversation with the head of the Orthodox Center for Crisis Psychology, created with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia, psychologist Mikhail Igorevich Khasminsky.

— Mikhail Igorevich, what do you think death is?

- Let's start with the fact that, in accordance with the traditions of Orthodoxy, a person who had gone to another world was called not dead, but deceased. What does the word "deceased" mean? A dead person is a person who has fallen asleep. And Orthodoxy figuratively speaks of the one who ended his earthly life human body which after death will rest until it is resurrected by God. The body can fall asleep, but is it possible to say this about the soul? Can our soul sleep?

In order to answer this question, it would be good to first understand in the nature of sleep and dreams.

- A very interesting topic. There is probably no person on earth who would never ask himself the question: “Why did I dream about this?” Indeed, why do we dream? What is a dream?

- People spend about a third of their lives in a dream, and if this function is inherent in our very nature, then it is very important for us. We fall asleep every day, sleep a few hours and wake up rested. Let's look at modern ideas about the nature of sleep and its meaning. Scientists in their research, based on methods for recording the bioelectrical activity of the brain, muscles and eyes, found that sleep can be conditionally divided into several phases, the main of which are the phase of non-REM sleep and the phase of REM sleep. Slow-wave sleep is also called slow-wave sleep or orthodox. Fast - fast wave or paradoxical. We see dreams in the phase of REM sleep - this is the stage of rapid eye movement (abbreviated - REM - sleep). From now on, for convenience, we will call our dreams simply dreams.

If someone believes that he does not see dreams, then he is mistaken. Dreams are seen daily by all sleeping people, and more than once a night. Only some people don't remember them. And, it should be noted that we not only see dreams, like, for example, movies, but also participate in those plots that we dream about. That is, during sleep, we live for some time completely in Another reality. And very often it is experienced by us much brighter and richer than the reality of reality (for simplicity, we will call it this reality).

It can be said that a sleeping person lives through short-term fragments of another life every night. It must be borne in mind that very few of the sleeping and dreaming people feel that they are sleeping. In most cases, a sleeping person does not understand that everything that happens to him is only a dream, and is completely drawn into the events of another reality. The fact that at this time he feels this Other reality as a reality is a fact scientifically proven and repeatedly verified by each of us from our own experience.

It turns out that we are in the course of our entire lives every day in two realities. Therefore, it is not surprising if we have a paradoxical, at first glance, question: “And which of these realities is real, and which is a dream? After all, we alternately perceive both of these realities as true and the most, that neither is, real.

- Of course, the real reality is when we are awake! After all, we spend much more time in it.

- Well, you can count it that way. Only then does it turn out that for an infant who sleeps much more time than he is awake, the Other Reality will be real. In this case, the mother will sing him a lullaby and breastfeed in a fake reality for him, but an imaginary one. Will one reality be true for a child, and another for his mother? This paradox can only be resolved if we recognize both of these realities, as true and parallel.

But, in order not to get completely confused, let's conditionally accept as a fact that the reality in which we adults spend more time is true. We will assume that if we constantly return to this reality after sleep, work, study and solve various life tasks in it, then it is primary for us. But we must, nevertheless, not forget that she is not the only one.

— Well, we sort of figured it out: we live in two parallel realities. What then are the differences between these realities?

- They differ significantly from each other. For example, in the Other Reality, time flows differently: there, in a few minutes of sleep, we can see so many events that simply do not have time to happen in the same time in reality. For such a number of events in our reality, it would take not a few minutes, but several days or even more. We can participate in a completely extraordinary dream, the bright and incomparable colors of which you will not meet in reality. In addition, all the events that happen to us in the Other Reality are often inconsistent and even chaotic. Today we see one plot in a dream, and tomorrow - a completely different one, logically unrelated to yesterday's dream. Today, for example, I dream of a village and cows, tomorrow - that I am an Indian on the hunt, and the day after tomorrow - a completely incomprehensible futuristic heap .... And in this reality, all events develop sequentially: from childhood to old age, from ignorance to wisdom, from the basics to more complex structures. Here we usually have everything logical and constructive, as in a long "life" series.

- Tell me, what does modern science say about the nature of sleep? Why do we need it and what happens to us when we sleep?

- What does science say? Science says that sleep is a natural physiological process during which there is a minimum level of brain activity. This process is accompanied by a reduced reaction to the surrounding world. In addition, the vast majority of scientists agree that sleep is a special state of consciousness. Just to the question, what is consciousness and what is his special state during sleep, scientists cannot give an answer.

There is a special area of ​​medical science that deals with the study of sleep and the treatment of sleep disorders. It is called somnology. Based on the results of numerous scientific studies, we can now learn about the benefits of sleep, the stages of sleep and sleep hygiene. Science can tell us about what sleep disorders are (bruxism, narcolepsy, Pickwickian syndrome, restless leg syndrome, insomnia, and others) and what methods a person can be treated for. But there is still no single plausible theory about the nature of sleep as a phenomenon. There is no clear scientific explanation: what really is this phenomenon that we all face on a daily basis. Science in our enlightened age is not able to determine why we need sleep and what mechanisms are involved for it. It well describes the functions of sleep: rest, metabolism, immunity restoration, information processing, adaptability to the change of day and night .... but it's all about the body! And where is ours at this time "altered mind" about which scientists are still talking? They speak but do not understand. But, if scientists cannot answer the question, what is consciousness, then what success can they have in understanding the nature of sleep?

We are very accustomed to being proud of science, to consider ourselves advanced, and even in some cases to repeat the common nonsense that "science has proven the absence of God." In fact, science not only failed to prove this crazy hypothesis about the absence of God, but also failed to understand a million times simpler problem: what is sleep.

- Why do serious and numerous scientific studies lead nowhere and cannot explain the nature of sleep? It seems that everything has long been studied, many methods and diagnostic tools have been invented ...

- Yes, you can describe in detail the process of falling asleep and the dream itself, you can study what it is connected with. But no descriptions will help explain its nature. There is a way to diagnose sleep, which is called somnography. It consists in the continuous recording of various indicators of body functions, on the basis of which sleep is analyzed, and all stages characteristic of it are distinguished. The data obtained during this registration are thoroughly signed, studied, and as a result, the entire physiology of the sleep of the person being examined becomes visible. Based on these indicators, sleep disorders and its pathologies can be determined, the necessary treatment can be prescribed ... but how to explain the nature of sleep and the reality in which a sleeping person is? No analysis of impulses can achieve this, because the altered form of consciousness is not recorded even by the most modern sensors.

Despite the fact that all the functions of the brain have now been thoroughly studied, in no textbook or monograph, as well as in any scientific journal in neurophysiology or neuropsychology, you will not find a mention that our consciousness is the result of brain activity. None of the scientists found such a relationship between the brain and the very center of our personality - our "I". Based on many years of research, the largest experts in these fields of science have come to the conclusion that Neither consciousness itself nor its altered forms depend in any way on the activity of the brain. The brain in this case is just a repeater (antenna), and not a signal source.

It is quite obvious that while in another reality called sleep, our consciousness maintains contact with the body, sending it certain signals. These signals are picked up by the brain like an antenna, and it is they that are recorded by scientists during his scientific research. The problem is that all these studies are focused only on brain - antenna, and not on the source of signals - Consciousness (You can read more about this). Scientists study and record only the external manifestations of the phenomenon, not even trying to look deeper and understand its hidden essence. Therefore, all the successes of the science of somnology in studying the nature of sleep do not explain anything at all. With such a simplified, one-sided approach, it is not at all surprising.

“But there is also such a science as neuropsychology, which studies the connection between the work of the brain and the psyche, the brain and human behavior. Maybe she is already close to unraveling the nature of sleep and consciousness?

- Yes, there is such a science, and many discoveries have also been made in its field. But only she did not succeed in the study of the nature of sleep and human consciousness.

This science is necessary, but when it tries to pretend to understand the most complex transdental processes, it looks absolutely ridiculous. Let us take for clarity a simple metaphor that reflects such unsuccessful intellectual attempts of scientists studying these phenomena.

Imagine that waves wash a boat on the shore of an island inhabited by wild Papuans, in which they find a radio and a flashlight. Delighted and surprised by an incomprehensible find, the Papuans immediately call their most intelligent fellow tribesmen to explain what these things are and what can be done with them. After some time, one group of Papuan "scientists" makes the first discovery: without round shiny sticks (batteries), neither the receiver nor the flashlight work. General rejoicing on the occasion of this scientific discovery! The second group of "scientists" makes another statement: if you turn the wheel on the receiver, then quiet and loud voices of ... different spirits will be heard from it! Again jubilation…. Then a whole "scientific institute" of the Papuans finds out that the light in the flashlight is on only if you press the button, and if you do not press it, then it does not light up. In the end, the wisest and greatest Papuan scientist makes a sensational statement: “He who shines without fire (a flashlight) cannot breathe under water! If you put him in water, he dies!” Solemn presentation of the "Golden Banana" for an outstanding discovery!

As a result of all these "achievements", the Papuan "scientists" begin to feel themselves experts in the secrets of the Universe. Yes, but there is one catch... If you ask them what sound is, where its source is and how it is transmitted, then they will not be able to answer you .... The same thing happens if we ask about the nature of the light in a flashlight. They, just like modern scientists, will explain to you with a smart look about how to turn the wheel and why the flashlight does not want to shine under water. Not understanding the essence and not realizing the naivety of their discoveries.

— It is regrettable to realize that in the study of sleep we are the same Papuans, but it is very likely that this is the case ....

- Exactly. The situation is similar, by the way, with the successes in the fight against mental illness. The nature (etiology) of most of them is still not clear. For example, schizophrenia. The treatment of this disease, which is (often relatively successfully) used in psychiatry, is similar to how the Papuan "scientists" intelligently shake a broken receiver when the signal disappears: suddenly it's lucky that after a good shake it will speak again (if the contacts accidentally connect) …. but you might not be lucky. Over time, the Papuans become more experienced and shake more successfully, but this cannot fundamentally change the situation - they do not understand the nature of the signal and the role of contacts!

Similarly, our scientists do not understand the spiritual basis of human nature. And this situation has developed in many sciences. In almost every branch of it, some scientists behave in much the same way as those Papuans. In pursuit of the next “important” discovery for humanity and the prize that is due to it, they act like savages shaking the receiver. Moreover, just like the Papuans, they are in full confidence about their greatest practical achievements, without knowing anything in essence. And this, as they say, would be funny if it were not so sad.

“But why do scientists not take into account this interdependence between the effect and the cause?

– Because for this it is necessary to be able to see not only our material three-dimensional world, but also to understand the influence of another – much more complex, multidimensional world – the spiritual one. Only the spiritual world can give us answers to the questions: what is consciousness, soul, life, death, eternity, and many others.

People for knowledge of the world order thousands of years ago inherited a huge spiritual experience of our ancestors. And, besides, the Christian Commandments and the Holy Scripture - the Bible - were left for eternal use to the descendants; and then also an explanation to it - the Tradition of the Church.

If all scientists worked taking into account the knowledge acquired in these spiritual treasuries, based on the rules prescribed in them, understanding the basics of human existence, and only with such spiritual baggage they undertook serious research, then their results would look completely different. Under such conditions, it would be much more useful and meaningful in their scientific research and discoveries.

It must be said that among scientists there are also people who think deeply in this regard, who are aware of the complexity of comprehending the nature of man, as a part of the universe created by God. Such scientists do not limit themselves in their efforts to comprehend this nature by studying the physiological functions of man and do not renounce the experience and wisdom of religion.

– Yes, if you don’t understand the fundamentals of the universe, then the study of the nature of sleep will remain at the level of “naked” physiology alone... And the human brain, as you say, is not just an organ of the body, but something like an antenna for tuning to the desired reality ?

“To put it figuratively, it is. A radio receiver without an antenna does not work, and if brain functions are impaired, then communication is also disrupted - the signal does not pass as expected. And what is very interesting: this property of it is confirmed by those phenomena that occur in altered states of consciousness! Let's, for example, remember how sometimes we wake up and cannot understand: are we still or already awake in a dream? This can happen to us when “a wave in our receiver is knocked down” - if it has not yet had time to reconfigure from sleep to wakefulness. Very often this happens in young children - after waking up, they can “reconfigure” for quite a long time after vivid and interesting dreams to this reality.

Moreover, the emotions that we experience in a dream persist for some time in reality: if something good is dreamed, then after waking up we experience joy (it is even very annoying that this happened in a dream), and if some kind of horror is dreamed, then and the emotions with which we wake up will be appropriate.

Again, children perceive the Other Reality more sharply and clearly. When they dream of something terrible, from which they run away in a dream, it happens that their legs “run” in bed (many have probably seen the same movements not only in children, but also in sleeping cats and dogs). What explains this? The danger signal in a dream triggers the same physiological mechanisms that are triggered in such a situation in reality. In extreme cases, a child who has a very scary dream may even begin to stutter! And, of course, everyone knows about cases of nocturnal enuresis.

As for adults, they sometimes have such a disease as "Pickwick's syndrome", one of the main symptoms of which is poor orientation between realities, not only after waking up, but also during sleep. This disease is still incurable, and, unfortunately, it is now not as rare as in the old days. If such a patient dreams that he is fishing, then in a dream he will, as it were, “hold a fishing rod”, and if he dreams that he is eating, then he will reproduce the corresponding movements. “After waking up, such a“ fisherman ”is not able to immediately figure out where the magnificent pond overflowing with carps has gone. And the “diner” wonders why all the food was taken away so quickly, because he has not yet been satisfied.(According to the book "Sleep Disorder. Treatment and Prevention" compiled by Rashevskaya K., "Phoenix", 2003)

This is nothing but "wandering" between the Realities and gradually attuning to one of them. A similar mechanism of "delayed reconfiguration" can be observed in patients with somnambulism (sleepwalking). Somnambulism translated from Latin: Somnus - sleep and ambulare - to walk, walk, wander. This is a form of pronounced sleep disorder when a person gets out of bed and unconsciously moves, as they say: "in a twilight state of consciousness." Somnambulism occurs if the inhibition of the central nervous system during sleep does not extend to the areas of the brain that determine motor functions. An example of incomplete, shallow inhibition is when a sleeping person talks in his sleep, sits up in bed. Episodes of somnambulism usually begin 1-1.5 hours after falling asleep during "slow" (shallow) sleep or during incomplete awakening from REM (deep sleep); while the brain is in a state of half-sleep-half-wakefulness. In other words, a person in this state is, as it were, between two realities, because his brain cannot normally tune in to either of them.

- And what happens in this regard with mentally ill people or, for example, with alcoholics?

— Violation and distortion of signal transmission. If we again take the analogy with the receiver, then outside of tuning it to a certain wave, only whistling and hissing will be heard from it, occasionally replaced by obscure signals from neighboring stations in the range. There will be no clear signal. The same thing happens in people with a damaged psyche. Many objectively thinking experts believe that incorrect relaying of brain signals manifests itself in a person in a distorted, painful consciousness.

- What happens? If after death the brain does not function, then it becomes impossible to “reconfigure” from one reality to another?

— Of course. Now we come close to the topic of death. Based on all of the above, we can conclude that after death, the "reconfiguration" of realities will no longer be possible. Our "antenna" - the brain ceases to function along with the death of the body, and therefore the Consciousness remains forever in the Other Reality.

“And so after death we will never be able to return to our reality, as it always happened after awakenings?”

What is "our" reality? We agreed to consider this reality as “ours” conditionally only because we stay in it longer and return to it after every dream throughout our lives. But, based on this basis, then, as we have already discussed, for a very tiny baby, just another reality will be “its own”, because he sleeps almost constantly (by the way, science cannot explain why babies sleep so much). And for an alcoholic, “his” reality will also not coincide with ours. Because he is most often in an alcoholic dope, which means that he is on a wave that is very far from the wave of sober and awake people.

From all that has been said, it can be concluded that death is such a change in the state of consciousness, at which it is no longer able to function in the same way as it functioned during the life of the body. It can no longer pass from another reality to this one, as it did after sleep.

I will quote the words of Archbishop Luke Voyno-Yasenetsky (St. Luke). In his book Spirit, Soul and Body, he wrote: “The life of all the organs of the body is needed only for the formation of the spirit and stops when its formation is completed or its direction is fully determined.”

This quote is very accurate and, in my opinion, explains a lot.

“Still, how scary it must be for a person who cannot wake up ...

- When we sleep, we rarely think about the possibility or impossibility of waking up. Moreover, if we have a wonderful, marvelous dream, then we don’t want to wake up at all. How many times did we get up with irritation at the sound of the alarm clock! Do you know where the irritation comes from? We just felt good in that reality, where this annoying alarm clock pulled us out of! And vice versa - we wake up in horror if we had a nightmare, and we think: "It's good that it was only a dream!". So awakenings, like dreams, are very different.

The same applies to our final, posthumous transition to another reality. Leo Tolstoy wrote: “It is not because people are horrified at the thought of carnal death that they are afraid that their life would not end with it, but because carnal death clearly shows them the need for true life, which they do not have.”

All of us would not refuse to stay forever in a beautiful, marvelous, wonderful reality, but we would not at all want to be in a terrible dream, without the possibility of awakening.

“Very similar to the biblical description of hell and heaven!” So it can be said that heaven and hell are only different states of the soul?

This is what the Church has been teaching for centuries. Here you can draw an analogy with sleep, when sweet, calm, good dreams give us a state of bliss, and nightmares torment and torment. But which of these states we fall into after death depends only on ourselves!

- After your words, I remembered the expression "I fell asleep forever." To what extent is it true?

- First of all, we need to figure out - WHERE the dream actually is. In the history of mankind, all the world's traditional religions have always considered the state of sleep (Another Reality) to be very important and true, and reality (This Reality) to be much less significant. And until now, all the major religions of the world look at earthly life as a temporary stage, and consider this reality to be much less important than the one into which we pass after death. If there is no time in the Other Reality, but there is Eternal Life, then it is much more logical to call our temporary stay in This Reality a dream. After all, unlike eternity, it is limited by strength to only a few decades.

— But, if compared to eternity our life is like a short dream, then, probably, our well-being and well-being in the Other reality will depend on how we live it?

- Certainly! You have probably seen from your own experience that very often in a dream we live what worries us. If, for example, our child falls ill, then the dream will be disturbing, with worries about this sick child, and if your wedding is approaching, then the dream will be associated with this joyful event. This happens very often. Sleep in such cases is a continuation of life in reality. We dream about what excites and cares us, or what causes the strongest feelings and emotions.

Saint Simeon the New Theologian wrote: “What the soul is busy with and what it talks about in reality, it dreams or philosophizes in a dream: it spends the whole day worrying about human affairs, and it fusses about them in dreams; but if she learns all the time in things divine and celestial, then even during sleep she enters into them and manages to see visions.

Consequently, the scenarios of our dreams most often directly depend on real life. The conclusion suggests itself: “eternal sleep” (which is actually eternal life) also directly depends on how we live our temporary life in this reality. After all, we carry with us everything that has accumulated in our souls into the Other Reality.

“It seems that Christianity is talking about the same thing, isn’t it?”

Yes, Christianity has been talking about this for more than two thousand years. How will we live this life, how will we enrich our immortal soul, or how will we stain it; how we fight with passions, unproductive desires, or how we learn mercy, love - all that we will take with us. So it is said not only in Christianity, but also in Islam, and, to some extent, in Buddhism, and in other religions.

Here are some quotes from the Holy Gospel:

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Mat. 6:19-20).

“Do not love the world, nor what is in the world: whoever loves the world does not have the love of the Father in him. For everything that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but from this world. And the world is passing away, and its lust, but he who does the will of God abides forever.” (1 John 2:15-17).

And the Holy Quran in Islam teaches the same:

“Know that worldly life is only fun, vanity and vanity, bragging among you, and passion in increasing wealth and children. Like rain, that shoots will grow for the joy of the sowers (sinners), then [the plants] will wither, and you see how they turn yellow and turn into dust. And in the next life, a severe punishment is prepared, and [those who believe] - forgiveness from Allah, and goodwill. After all, life in this world is only a seduction of transitory blessings. (Sura Al Hadid, 57:20)

Think about it, why do we need wealth or fame, if all these values ​​are temporary and have no meaning for eternal life? If you lose all this, how do you lose all the joys you dreamed about? To wake up later in eternal life with an empty soul of an egoist - a consumer, and a bitter, dreary disappointment?

The Church has been preparing human souls for the new Reality with all its commandments since ancient times. The Church constantly calls on its parishioners to take care of their immortal soul, and not about the temporary and transient.

So that death does not become a terrible disappointment for us, but becomes an awakening to the joy of eternal life. And so that this eternal life turns out to be a reward, not suffering. But, in spite of everything, we do not always listen to the wise voice of the Church and continue in our earthly temporary "sleep" to spend all our strength on the acquisition of illusory benefits and pleasures. These earthly pleasures will dissipate after a while, like empty fascinating dreams, and there will be nothing to go to another world with. After all, our souls can take only spiritual values ​​there and take absolutely nothing from the material and sensual.

- What will manifest such a "terrible disappointment"? Will it be the torments of the hell described in the Bible?

“The torments of hell are mental torments, not physical ones. Bible texts about material and de, are an attempt to describe it with the help of human-readable illustrations from material his life. The physical pain of fire is given in the Bible as a metaphor illustrating mental anguish. Only in such an allegorical way could it be possible to convey mental anguish to people who had forgotten about the existence of an immortal soul. non-material hell - hell for a sinful soul.

Archbishop Luke Voyno-Yasenetsky (St. Luke) wrote: “The eternal bliss of the righteous and the eternal torment of sinners must be understood in such a way that the immortal spirit of the former, enlightened and powerfully strengthened after liberation from the body, receives the possibility of infinite development in the direction of goodness and Divine love, in constant communion with God and all incorporeal forces. And the gloomy spirit of villains and theomachists, in constant communion with the devil and his angels, will forever be tormented by his estrangement from God, whose holiness he will finally know, and by that unbearable poison that evil and hatred conceal in themselves, infinitely growing in unceasing communion with the center and source of evil. - Satan.

Each of us has experienced some kind of horror in a dream. So here it is: hell is a nightmare from which one cannot wake up. This is the eternal "outer darkness" - remoteness from God, from his Love and Light - one on one with all your sins and passions.

Hell is darkness and horror without end. It is in such an endless horror that one can “wake up” if one does not follow the commandments and destroy one’s soul in all ways.

- Yes, a rather bleak picture .... Horror without end and you do not wish the enemy. Moreover, you will not wake up from such a nightmare. But let's continue our conversation about dreams. Is there any evidence that the Dream is another reality? And that we need periodic transitions to this reality for some reason?

- The evidence of the existence of another reality can be at least the facts of prophetic dreams. Thanks to such dreams, the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God and hundreds of other miraculous icons were found at one time. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, far from home, while spending the night in the forest, the Holy Great Martyr Catherine appeared in a dream and announced the birth of his daughter. Later, the Catherine's Monastery was founded on this site (now this monastery is located in the Moscow region, in the region of the city of Vidnoye).

In the book of Alexander Yakovlev "The Age of Philaret" there is a story about a prophetic dream that St. Philaret of Moscow had a dream about shortly before his death. Here is a short excerpt from this book:

“... He was now calmly thinking about his departure. Two days earlier, at night in a dream, his father came to Filaret. At the first moment, seeing a bright figure and clearly distinguishable facial features, the saint did not recognize him. And suddenly an understanding came from the depths of my heart: this is a father! How long, how soon the visit was, Filaret could not understand, captured by the unusually pacifying peace emanating from the priest. “Take care of the 19th,” was all he said.”

The saint understood that the father had come to warn that his earthly journey would end on the 19th in the coming months... For two months on the nineteenth, Metropolitan Philaret took communion of the Holy Mysteries and departed to God right after communion on November 19, 1867.

Visions and predictions at the moment of "thin" (shallow) sleep were with St. Sergius of Radonezh, St. Seraphim of Sarov and many other saints.

And not only the saints. The mother of the Decembrist Ryleev prayed for him in childhood from death during a serious illness, although she was predicted in a dream that if the boy did not die, then he would face a difficult fate and execution by hanging. That's exactly how it all happened.

In February 2003, Vladyka Anthony of Surozhsky, who was ill with cancer, dreamed of his grandmother and, turning over the calendar, indicated the date: August 4th. Vladyka, contrary to the optimism of the attending physician, said that this was the day of his death. Which came true.

How can such phenomena be explained if not by the merging of two realities?

But the existence of another reality can also be judged by other phenomena not yet unraveled by science. These include a lethargic dream, which everyone has probably heard of. Word lethargy translated from Greek means oblivion and inaction (Greek "lethe" - oblivion and "argia" - inaction). There are many theories about the reasons why people fall into a lethargic sleep, but so far no one knows exactly why a person suddenly falls asleep for a period of several days to several years. Nor is it possible to predict when awakening will come. Externally, the state of lethargy really resembles a deep sleep. But the "sleeper" is almost impossible to wake up, he does not respond to calls, touches and other external stimuli. However, breathing is clearly visible and the pulse is easily felt: smooth, rhythmic, sometimes a little slow. Blood pressure is normal or slightly low. Skin color is normal, unchanged.

Only in exceptionally rare cases, in people who have fallen asleep in a lethargic sleep, a sharp decrease in blood pressure is observed, the pulse is barely detectable, breathing becomes shallow, and the skin is cold and pale. One can only guess about what happens to the consciousness of a person who has fallen asleep in such a dream.

Another phenomenon of this kind is the prolonged sleep of newborns. After birth, babies sleep almost around the clock, which means they stay in Another Reality for a long time. Why? Why do they need to contact her? They are not tired, because they still do not walk, do not run, do not play, but only lie down and practically do not spend energy. What do they receive from the Other Reality during this dream? Information, strength for growth? Again, we have no answer, but the conclusion, nevertheless, is unambiguous: this state is very necessary for them.

The need for periodic stay in Another reality can be traced on the example of such a phenomenon as sleep deprivation. This term refers to an acute lack or complete lack of satisfaction of the need for sleep. This condition most often arises from a sleep disorder, but can also be the result of a conscious choice of a person or the consequences of forced sleep deprivation during torture and interrogation.

Sleep deprivation can cause many diseases and has a very negative impact on the functioning of the brain. Among the many painful consequences for the body, lack of sleep can lead to the following manifestations: a decrease in the ability to concentrate and think, loss of personality and reality, fainting, general confusion, hallucinations. The consequences of prolonged sleep restriction can even lead to death.

From all these examples it is clear that a change in the state of consciousness with its transition to another reality is really vital for us.

“Does that mean that both sleeping and dead people fall into the same reality?” If so, is it possible, perhaps, in a dream to communicate with those who have left?

- Many people want to meet their deceased loved ones in a dream. This is a very understandable desire: to see and talk with your loved one again. There are simple dreams that realize this unrealizable desire in reality at the subconscious level. But there are also real meetings in Another reality, in which the deceased can tell the sleeping person something important - these are prophetic dreams, which we have already talked about. In the reality of sleep, communication between our two worlds is possible, and such phenomena, as we have said today, often happened to the Holy Fathers. But in most cases, such communication does not bring joy to ordinary people, but on the contrary, it only harms them. Because people who have lost a loved one want him to come to them in a dream again and again. And if this happens, then they become dependent on these meetings in a dream, while moving away from their lives. It becomes easier and happier for them to live in another reality, and they themselves do not notice how their whole life, all their plans and relationships with people are collapsing. But the worst thing is that in the guise of a loved one in a dream, dark entities can come to us, attracted by our dark energy of despair.

My advice to everyone: you should never call a departed loved one into your dreams. God willing - he will dream himself. Much more important is a prayer for the repose of his soul and being with God, and not life in communion with an unknown entity that has taken the form of your deceased.

- But, if people want to see a loved one in a dream, because they didn’t have time to say something to him during his lifetime or want to ask him for forgiveness ...

“It is important to understand here that the deceased is already in another reality, where there is no place for earthly insults. Therefore, he has already forgiven you for sure. And you, of course, must forgive him. For any Orthodox Christian, forgiveness is a duty not only in relation to the deceased, but to all people in general. If you go to confession and want God to forgive you your sins, then you must forgive any person. And you don't have to tell him personally. After all, it happens with the living that a person leaves for no one knows where, leaving neither a phone number nor an address. We don’t know where he is, but we don’t rush around in a desperate search all over the world just to ask for his forgiveness or say something unsaid ... It’s the same with the dead - it’s not at all necessary and even harmful to disturb their souls, calling dream to say something to them in the end.

- So you can’t do practices related to sleep? What does it threaten?

- Now this theme is in vogue. Although there have always been and will be occultists who practice out-of-body experiments. It really can be learned. But just for what? Remember: a dream is a gateway to another world, another reality. Even in our world, there is a danger of unwanted meetings: you can leave the house and meet good friends, or you can run into evil and dangerous bandits. We do not let three-year-old children who are not only helpless, but also do not know how to distinguish a good uncle from a bad uncle, alone on the street. Because we know about the likelihood that something terrible could happen to him. Although the kid himself may naively believe that every passerby is kind and good.

Calculating the probability of an undesirable and dangerous situation is logical for any adult and mentally adequate person. But it is only in the physical plane that we can be adults and reasonable, but in the spiritual plane, we are all at the level of three-year-old kids. Such curious "kids" strive to go to the unknown and dangerous spiritual Other World in order to get to know and communicate with everyone there. And it could end very badly.

Everyone knows that in history there were Holy Fathers who could go out into the Other World without fear. But only unlike many ordinary people in this regard, they were much more mature spiritually - they were there "adults". Therefore, they had the gift of reasoning about what world they got into and with whom it was possible to communicate in it, and with whom it was impossible.

The rest of the naive "researchers" who learn all this or call spirits for conversations are like youngsters who open wide open windows and doors to everyone. Then, naturally, various vile entities break into all these “windows and doors” and begin to manage in full. And it is not in vain that the Church has always called and calls: do not engage in practices of communication with otherworldly forces! Do not rush to "walk" in the Other World, where, as here, in addition to good, there is also evil. Spiritually immature people are unable to distinguish one from the other. You can be deceived: they give you an attractive "candy", for which you will later have to pay the most priceless - the soul. They can, like a child, be taken away forever, or simply even scared so that later on all your life you will simply be afraid to fall asleep, and not that “walking” in another reality.

So do not trust people who offer you to master any practice of communication with the other world, be reasonable - such "entertainment" is completely unsafe.

- I heard that special prayer services are held in monasteries, which are called "midnight". Why at night? Maybe because the night prayer is more effective? After all, they say that in a state of half-asleep, when a person is already almost falling asleep, he feels the world more subtly, and that at such moments revelations can come to him. This is true?

— Yes, that's what all the major religions of the world think. We already talked about revelations when I gave examples with prophetic dreams. A person sees the majority of prophetic dreams precisely at those moments when he is in a state of half sleep and is already approaching another reality with his consciousness. As for night prayers, I can say that many Fathers of the Church called night prayer the most powerful, and spoke of it as “night standing before God.”

Saint Isaac the Syrian wrote about the night prayer: “At night, the mind soars for a short time, as it were, on wings and ascends to the delight of God, it will soon come to His glory and, due to its mobility and lightness, floats in knowledge that exceeds human thought ... Spiritual light from night prayer gives rise to joy during the day.”

In Islam, as well as in Orthodoxy, special attention is paid to night prayers. In the month of fasting, believers perform an additional prayer at night. And at ordinary times, in addition to the obligatory night prayer, which is performed before going to bed, there is an additional Tahajjud prayer, which is recommended to be performed in the last third of the night. That is, a person must sleep for a while, and only after that get up to communicate with the Almighty. In a reliable tradition it is written about this: “Every night the Lord descends into the lower heaven after the first third of the night. He exclaims: “I am the Lord! Is there anyone who calls [to Me]? I will answer him. Is there anyone who asks me? I will give it to him. Is there a penitent so that I can forgive him?

Perhaps the special power of these nightly prayers is connected precisely with the fact that a person performs them in a state when the mind is practically turned off, and the gates to another world open before him. During night prayers, a person communicates with God on a deeper, unconscious level.

— It turns out that prayer also brings us closer to the Other Reality?

“That's right, and it's even being proven by some of the latest brain research.

Not so long ago, a group of scientists from the St. Petersburg Psychoneurological Research Institute. V. M. Bekhtereva set up an experiment on the influence of prayer on the biocurrents of the brain. For this, believers of various concessions were invited. They were asked to pray fervently, and during the prayers, an electroencephalogram was taken from them. The head of the laboratory of neuro- and psychophysiology of this institute, Professor Valery Slezin, speaks of the state of prayer as a new phase of the working brain. " In this state, the brain actually turns off, "active mental activity stops, and it seems to me - although I cannot prove it yet - that consciousness begins to exist outside the body", he says.

The world famous physician, Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine for his work on vascular suture and transplantation of blood vessels and organs, Dr. Alexis Carrel said:

“Prayer is the most powerful form of energy emitted by a person. It is as real a force as the earth's gravity. As a doctor, I have seen patients who were not helped by any therapeutic treatment. They managed to recover from diseases and melancholy only thanks to the calming effect of prayer ... When we pray, we connect ourselves with the inexhaustible life force that sets the entire Universe in motion. We pray that at least some of this power will be transferred to us. Turning to God in sincere prayer, we improve and heal our soul and body. It is impossible that at least one moment of prayer does not bring a positive result to any man or woman.

Remember, at the beginning of our conversation, I spoke about babies who, after birth, spend most of their time in a dream - in another reality? It turns out that small children and praying people are closest to God.

“Tell me, is it possible to believe in dreams?” What does the Church say about dreams? After all, there are prophetic dreams, how to distinguish them from ordinary ones?

God Himself admonishes people through Moses "not to guess by dreams" (Lev. 19:26): “Reckless people,” says Sirach, “deceive themselves with empty and false hopes: whoever believes in dreams is like one who hugs a shadow or chases after the wind; dreaming is exactly the same as the reflection of a face in a mirror ”(34, 1-3).

The Scriptures say about them that: "... dreams come with many worries" (Eccl. 5:2) and what: “In the multitude of dreams, as in the multitude of words, there is much vanity” (Ecclesiastes 5:6). This is what applies to ordinary dreams.

But in Scripture there are also teachings that God sometimes tells a person through a dream His will or a warning about future events.

Saint Theophan the Recluse writes: “Historically, it is confirmed that there are dreams from God, there are our own, there are from the enemy. How to find out - do not apply your mind. Peephole lookout. It can only be decisively said that dreams that are contrary to Orthodox Christianity should be rejected. Also: there is no sin not to follow dreams when there is not enough confidence. God's dreams, which must be fulfilled, were repeatedly sent.

Sleep, death, prayer... how it's all connected!

- Yes, there is such a connection, we have already seen this in the many examples given here.

It is also interesting that in Islam sleep is called a small death. The Prophet Muhammad greeted his companions, who woke up from sleep in the morning: "Indeed, the Most High took your souls when He willed, and returned them when He willed."

Agree that such a religious judgment is in close proximity to the concept of sleep, as a short stay of the soul in another reality.

As you can see, the main traditional religions since ancient times have been closer to understanding the nature of death and the foundations of the universe than the entire modern scientific world. Not only do most people remain ignorant on this issue all their lives and die in complete ignorance of what awaits them after death, but the media also do their bit - they “catch up with fog” with false information.

The well-known psychotherapist, doctor of medical sciences, professor, head of the department of psychotherapy of the Kharkov Institute for Advanced Training of Doctors T. I. Akhmedov spoke well about this: “The media, instead of using their enormous educational potential to disseminate useful information about death and dying, contribute to the dissemination of misconceptions about these phenomena…”.

“So what is death?” Where do dead people go?

Let's now sum up all of the above. We have already found out that during our life we ​​are alternately in two parallel realities: in This and in Another. Sleep is a special state of our consciousness that temporarily takes us to another reality. When we wake up from sleep, we return to this reality every time. And only after death we pass into Another reality forever.

Saint Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) spoke about death: “Death is a great mystery, the birth of a person from earthly life into eternity”.

As I said above, many scientists have already come to this opinion. But if we consider the issue much deeper than science does, and be guided by the Bible, comprehending the secrets of the universe, then the following can be said about life and death: our life in the body is like a short, at best, lasting several decades, sleep. But, besides the body, we all have an immortal soul given to us by God. So, from the point of view of Orthodoxy, for the body, death is an “eternal sleep”, and for the soul, it is awakening in another world(in another reality). Therefore, the deceased person is called deceased that his body fell asleep, i.e. rested, ceasing to function without the soul that left him.

It must be said here that the concept "eternal sleep" somewhat metaphorical, because the sleep of the body will last only until the Last Judgment, when people are resurrected for eternal life. The soul after death remains either with God or without God - it depends on how a person lived his life and how he managed to enrich his soul: goodness and light or sins and darkness. In this regard, prayers are of great importance for the soul of the deceased. For a person who has died in sins and is far from God, forgiveness can often be begged if you pray for him with a loving heart, because God is Love.

Death is not "nothing" - not emptiness and oblivion, but only a transition to another reality and the awakening of the immortal soul into eternal life. The phenomenon of death should be perceived only as the completion of bodily life and, at the same time, as the beginning of a new state of the human personality, which continues to exist separately from the body.

Death- a consequence of the fall; the sacrament of separation and, after which the body is committed to the earth, and the soul, having passed through the test of the air, is determined to its proper place until the general resurrection of the dead in incorruptible bodies and, on which the eternal fate of man will already be decided.

In the Christian understanding, death is primarily a spiritual phenomenon. One can be dead while still living on earth, and be innocent of death while lying in the grave. Death is the separation of man from life, that is, from God. The Lord is the only Giver of life and Life Itself. Death is opposed not to immortality, but to true Life, which was the “light of men” (). It is from this true life that a person is free to refuse and, thus, die in such a way that his very “immortality” becomes eternal death.

Despite the unnaturalness of death, it is allowed by God so that evil does not become immortal: “For this reason, so that the evil that has settled in us is not perpetuated ... the vessel is destroyed for a while by death, so that, after the expiration of evil, human nature is transformed and, pure from evil, restored to its original state" (St.). But such a restoration is possible only on the condition of the resurrection from the dead: "For if there is no resurrection, the nature of the whole man will not be preserved." According to the teachings of St. Since God’s mercy could not allow “that once created rational beings and His participating Words perish and through corruption again turn into non-existence,” God the Word became a man so that “people who have turned into corruption, again return to incorruption and revive them from death, by appropriating the body to Himself and by the grace of the Resurrection, destroying death in them like straw with fire.

At all divine services in litanies, a petition is raised up for the gift of a Christian death to the members, i.e. death with parting words - Repentance, Communion and Unction. Therefore, if the dying person wishes to receive these sacraments, and also if he is not baptized and wishes to be baptized, a priest should be invited to him without delay.

In order to alleviate the dying languor of the dying, it is necessary to place him so that he sees the holy icons, the cross, the fire of the lamp, light a candle near the icons. Facilitates the transition to eternity by reading over the dying, popularly called waste. (If death occurs during the reading, then the canon is read with the refrain: “Rest, Lord, to the soul of your departed servant”).

In the case when the near-death illness lasts a long and painful time, with the blessing of the priest, a canon can be read containing a petition for a speedy and peaceful death -.

Perception of death

Sermon by Hieromonk Methodius

Death is perceived differently. See how she comes.

She can be a terrible guest, suddenly coming with her chilling breath to where life has just flourished joyfully and stormily.

She can be a comforter when she comes to a person after long and severe bodily suffering.

Finally, she can be God's messenger, who flew in for a human soul when a person completed his work on earth.

She comes in different ways... She comes quietly, imperceptibly, unexpectedly... She comes after a long and agonizing wait. But what it has in common is that it is always something new.

New in its great antiquity. A person does not remember himself outside the last dream of a mortal, but he, this dream, always frightens him, always reveals before him the abyss of non-existence and the end of life. And hence the cowardice before death, animal fear at the mere thought of it, at the thought that you will not escape from it.

And only one faith in Christ, the living and life-giving Christ, through Himself and in Himself trampled down death by death, is the only strength for a Christian in the inevitable meeting with the visitor of the last hour.

Only a Christian can face death with open eyes. For it is only in the Christian hope that it is overcome by an effective and invincible victory.

Grant, Lord, that we also live like a Christian in our lives and at the hour of the last trial not to doubt the hope of a bright future life, but with a contrite heart and a humble spirit to stand before the Judgment of God's Truth and God's Love that awaits each of us.

Christian teaching unequivocally indicates that the human body was created by God to be potentially immortal. So the Council of Carthage says: “If anyone says that Adam, the primordial man, was created mortal, so that, even though he sinned, even if he did not sin, he would die in his body, that is, he would leave the body, not as a punishment for sin, but according to the necessity of nature, let there be anathema. Aging is a property that appeared after the fall of the forefathers.

As the separation of the soul from the body is the death of the body, so the separation of God from the soul is the death of the soul.
saint, Omilia 16.

“So, most beloved brothers, the Kingdom of God is near: with the passing of the world, the reward of life will already come, the joy of eternal salvation, everlasting security and possession of paradise, once lost; the earthly is replaced by the heavenly, the small by the great, the temporal by the eternal. Where is the place for melancholy and anxiety? Who will worry and grieve at the same time, if not the one who lacks hope and faith?
Only those who do not want to go to Christ can be afraid of death; and not wanting to go to Christ is characteristic only of those who do not believe that they will begin to reign with Christ.”
holy martyr

We always think of death as separation, because we think about ourselves and the deceased, we think that we will never hear our beloved voice again, we will never touch our beloved body again, we will never plunge our gaze into the eyes that are dear to us, which reveal the whole depth of the human soul, we will never again live together with a person that simple human life, which is so dear to us, which is so precious. But we forget that death is at the same time a meeting of the living soul with the Living God. Yes, a departure from the earth, a departure from us, at least relative, but a departure in order to become face to face with the Living God, with the God of life, and enter into such a fullness of life that is not available to anyone on earth.
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