What it's Like to be Dead

There's something unmanly about passing out in our culture. It's normally portrayed as the stuff of the meek or anemic, bringing to mind images of ladies in large feathered hats falling into someone's waiting arms when a mouse is spotted in the kitchen. But I'll be man enough to admit I do it all the time.

It happened when I had my tattoo. It happened one New Year's eve as my broken scapula was being set in the emergency room. It happened when I had a grout splinter pulled from beneath my fingernail. To be fair that last one would have probably made anyone's reptile brain reach for the emergency brake. It even happened to me before surgery after my IV line was inserted. The thing that pissed me off in retrospect was that they actually revived me before administering the anesthesia.

So of course if blood is being drawn, get ready to test your strength catching 210 pounds of my lifeless ass. I warn all my phlebotomists beforehand. I learned to do this after a panicked RN summoned an ambulance when the local she administered before removing a biopsy sent me into dreamland. Most shrug my warning off with a laugh and tell me I have nothing to fear. It's as if their skill has been called into question and now they need to show me just how talented their light touch can be. There is no one so prideful in their work as a phlebotomist.

I can usually even make it through the entire procedure before I feel the dizzy warmth start to creep over me. When it happened yesterday we had completely finished the draw. More than a minute had passed and 'Ms. Pearl' had labeled the sample and filled out some form. I had even complimented her accent as something that brought to mind Ms. Cleo. But once I feel that harbinger of the certain unconsciousness to come, there's nothing more you can do but tell them to get ready to test their strength. Even still they always assure me, no honey you did great, everything is fine, just take a few deep breaths. How about a cookie? I make a few jokes and then comes the nothingness. Once my body senses even the slightest drop in blood pressure, the shutdown sequence begins and there is no turning back. It's like sugar in the gas tank.

There is nothing and I mean nothing so utterly peaceful as when you're out like a light. And nothing so utterly confusing as when you're coming out of it. The first time I can remember taking an involuntary nap was in the fifth grade. We were outside for recess and I was standing against the wall. You stood against the wall of the schoolhouse and watched the other kids play if you had done something bad and had the misfortune of getting caught. That spring I seemed to spend a lot of time against the wall, though the reason is now lost to the ages. Two other kids that did the same were Mac and Alison. That afternoon Mac and Alison were having an argument about something, but for some reason I ended up getting stood between them. Probably to keep them from each other's throats. At some point Mac said something that must have really gotten the girl's goat, because the next thing I knew a melon-sized chunk of asphalt was hurtling our way. And then I found myself opening my eyes and wondering why I had been sleeping on the playground on such a lovely day. The letter of apology Alison had to write my mother was priceless. “Dear Mrs. Soyke, I'm very sorry I hit Eric in the face with a rock. I was aiming for Mac.” I hope my mother still has it.

Yogis practice all their lives to shut out external stimuli. I can do it before you can say “pass the smelling salts”. I've been through the routine so many times now you'd think it would be routine. But waking up on a hard lab floor as panicked nurses slap wet paper towels over your face can get old.

I'm tempted to conclude from my manifold pseudo-near-death experiences that there is no afterlife. I base this on the fact that when I'm out, there is nothing. No dreams, no beckoning lights with robed figures, no sound of harps or visions of myself floating through the ceiling. Just nothing. In the incident in the surgery room, the doc told me he'd never seen anything like it before, that my pressure had bottomed so low he was worried he was going to have to fetch the electric paddles. I think he just wanted to test the things.

Over the years I have become convinced that the brain is just a machine. A computer. And you can track the progress of your booting sequence as each system comes back online. Slowly, very slowly, the first system to come back online oddly enough is intuition. This probably wasn't what you were expecting, but thinking back it's a common thread. You just sense that something is wrong. Like you've forgotten something as you're leaving for vacation times ten. Or if you've ever woken up first thing in the morning and had that feeling like you're not sure if you should feel joy or dread for the day to come, that's what I'm talking about. Then you decide on dread. There's an unmistakable feeling that something is terribly wrong with this world and it's starting to make you mad, but you can't put your finger on it. I guess this is the id beginning to stir.

Next come your senses. Hearing is first, though speech recognition isn't up just yet. After the ringing begins, you'll soon be able to hear other noises that after 10 or 20 seconds you will recognize as human voices. They'll be very faint and you will wonder why you are hearing them. Eyesight comes up soon after. But now even though you can technically hear and see, you have no idea what on Earth you are hearing or seeing. Those faces hovering far, far above you are still just distant shapes that make no sense, just like their words. You can't but wonder if this what stroke victims feel. Or maybe insects. You have no idea what year it is, who you are, or why there are so many wet paper towels on you. This is when the weirdness begins.

Did they say something about someone passing out? Sucks for that guy, as you can't remember ever feeling so relaxed before. Soon comes understanding. After catching a few more words you slowly gather you're the guy everyone's talking about. A few pieces of the puzzle click into place. The urgent need to remember something important is overpowering now. And then you have it, the riddle is solved. You had a blood test today. You are now lying on the floor. You're soaked with sweat. Dammit.

Next online is speech, and the very first thing you will want to say is how perfectly fine you are. No need to worry ladies, I'm perfectly, perfectly fine. I do this for kicks sometimes. Of course other than your eyelids and vocal cords you still can't move a muscle, that doesn't come for another twenty helpless seconds or so.

I've never seen myself during or after one of these slips, but apparently you turn whiter than an Elk's Lodge in Utah. By the time they're lifting your head off the linoleum, you've already sweated more than if you had just spent the past hour on a stair master. In the Mohave. And even though the entire ordeal lasted maybe two minutes you would swear you had slept a solid two days.

When you've blacked out so many times that you begin to consider yourself a connoisseur, there comes the realization that our consciousness is quite probably just an illusion, cooked up by too many synapses and tiny squirts of dopamine. That even our most involved dreams and spiritual experiences are nothing more than an extremely confusing sequence of chemical reactions. Maybe Einstein was right and we are just finely crafted timepieces created by a watchmaker that decided on a permanent vacation once his shift was over, and we are all just ticking away until the tiniest of springs goes pop. Or maybe death is the beginning and those who have never passed that door have no idea of the kingdom to follow, etc. Either way, next time I'm giving blood laying on a couch.