posted
I could've put up thirteen lines of my latest over in the other forum for comments, but this is more in the way of another technical puzzle than anything else. Besides, the opening is by no means polished enough to put up for consideration.
Right now, in the opening, I have a character revived from death: the real thing, not some mistake in medical diagnosis or coming out of suspended animation, but the actual end of life. (Never mind the details, though I'm sure some of you will.)
Right now I also have my character's perception of death postulated as THE VOID---it's dark, there's no sensation and no thought. All is black. The character isn't even really there, and doesn't show up as a character until the revival (explained in other terms) starts rolling.
But I've wondered whether "black" is an appropriate choice of color. Maybe it should be "white"---near death experiencers often talk about "going towards the light"---or maybe it should be "gray," as in "neutral." Maybe it should be something else altogether.
I can also accept that any account is likely to be garbled in some way, which, as I see it, is simply an attempt to interpret the unfathomable in terms of the familiar.
Having no near-death experience of my own to fall back on, I can only rely on published opinions and accounts. Anybody got anything?
posted
When you go to sleep and don't dream, you have no memory of being asleep. I've fallen asleep several times and not realized it until I looked at a clock, or if the radio was on, a different song was on. He might not remember anything of the time between. He might remember the act of dying, then he is suddenly awake.
Also, going through surgery, one does not remember much. I do remember things just starting to go "black" with spots appearing before my eyes, then woke in recovery.
How he died might make a big difference too. In an accident, he might have "blacked out" and that is all he knows.
posted
When you sleep (at least, a normal night's sleep) you don't have a memory of the sleep but your body does have a memory of the passage of time. That's why it feels so weird when you wake up and you *haven't* felt like time has passed. I wonder if the same would be true for death?
As to the black/white/etc question... People with near-death experiences have sometimes described things from their own memory (life flashing before their eyes!), or being in a place or with people, or other such things. So you don't necessarily have to limit yourself to a single color. Unless, of course, that's what you're going for with your story. If not, perhaps the "experience" he remembers, could become a signficant element to his character as it ties into the story. Just an idea.
posted
Well, the neumber of people who have experienced death and lived to tell about it is fairly slim, so I think you're safe making up whatever you want it to look like. The vast majority of potential readers will not know whether you are right or wrong.
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posted
On the jaded side of the discussion - the whole "going into the light" is described by many scientists as cerebral anoxia - lack of oxygen to the brain. So whether your MC would have this sensation/experience would depend on how he dies. If there is a restriction of blood to the brain then the whole light idea might work.
In Defending Your Life the MC is fiddleing with his new CD player in his car and hits a bus head on. The scene shows him looking up with the CD in his hand, the grill of the bus coming closer, black out, and then his sitting on a bus dressed in a white outfit.
The short answer is you could get away with a bunch of different ways to handle the death/revival. Just make sure the approach is consistent with the story.
posted
The few patients whose care I've been involved in who survived a cardiac or respiratory arrest and lived to tell the tale, didn't remember much of it. None really. There was no big bang and suddenly they were awake. Most were in medically induced coma for some time afterward and had no concept of the time that had lapsed since the last time they were conscious. Also most of the patients I get a chance to talk to after their surgery don't remember anything after the initial sedative is given. Usually the first thing they remember is waking up in recovery room, despite being actually "awake" and conversing for quite awhile prior to the moment they are able to recall.
I don't know if this helps at all or not, but none of the real near-death accounts I actually personally heard from the sources remembered a white or black light, just nothing. I guess that is the true "void" so to speak. I know of a guy who suffered a cardiac arrest while under the anesthesia and because of serious complications of surgery was in coma for a month afterwards. When he slowly became aware of his surroundings (according to him) he had no idea anything had happened, and he was very upset that people were telling him that a month of his life had gone by without him knowing about it. Amnesia is also a real consequence of such events.
In the end, I'll agree with the folks who said that you can probably paint the picture however you would like, and nobody will say you're wrong. Every person's experience is different. Shape it in a way that best fits your story. Good luck.
posted
I think the main issue is what you're trying to say about the time during which he was dead.
How was he experiencing this "void"? After all, his body was dead, any changes in the brain during that time wouldn't have been memory formation but general decay (loss of memories, as well as personality and basic neural functions). If his brain is preserved perfectly (or brought back to the exact state at the moment of death, whichever you like) then it will contain no evidence of the period during which he was dead.
So we're talking about an alternate mode of experience. Memories experienced and recorded somewhere other than his physical body. If that's the direction you want to go, then you can make up whatever you like, there are enough competing ideas of what happens to the "spirit" after death that none of them currently claim the status of facts (unless you are writing to a specific audience, and even then you probably have a good bit of leeway).
posted
Did you ever read the _Riverworld_ series by Philip Jose Farmer? Maybe you could get a copy of the first book and see how he treated the subject. It has been a lot of years, but I seem to remember that for most characters there was no memory of the period of death itself at all; in fact, the protagonist was unusual in that he had a memory of... well, that would be telling.
Good stories, whether you let them influence you or not.
posted
I figure the experience was the complete and utter absence of any experience, or sensation. But how to portray that? Or how to describe it in terms that relate only to experiences? Or maybe I should just start with the character waking up from it, and ignore the issue together.
I'm more than slightly amused by all the talk of my character as "he" or "his." She's a woman---a seventeen-year-old girl, in fact, and the protagonist of the tale.
(Oh, yeah, and I've read the Riverworld books, up through (I think) the fourth one---but only liked the first two and a story that wasn't part of the main sequence. I also read the ur-Riverworld novel, the one written (and rewritten) in the fifties that finally got published in the nineties.)
posted
I'm a believer in spirits and God, but I am skeptical about "The Near Death Story." I think the uniformity of such experiences is akin to the uniformity that comes about in the description of alien abductions. I don't disbelieve that people may have such experiences, but the uniformity that is reported is a source of suspicion and not validation for me.
Here's an excerpt I wrote about a friend's reported death and return:
quote: He gathered his papers and went to the elevator. The disagreement with the cheeseburger had sharpened into a stabbing pain. As he approached the exit, a peculiar black spot began to float before him. This couldn't be from that one time he had tried LSD.
The next thing Erol knew was a sensation of being kicked in the chest by a kangaroo. A man in a white shirt and a badge was lifting two paddles away from his chest.
"We have a pulse" Another voice said. Someone shone a pen light in his eyes. "Equal, round and reactive to light. He's trying to talk." The man lifted the mask from his mouth. "Mr. Lewis?"
"Dr. Please."
I'm Dr. Sims."
"No, I'm Dr. Lewis." Erol whispered.
Dr Sims smiled. "I think you're going to make it."
"What happened?"
"You were clinically dead for 27 minutes. You are stabilized for the moment, but apparently have internal bleeding. We'll need to get you into surgery."
My description of the floating black spot is actually from my experiences with passing out.
[This message has been edited by pooka (edited September 06, 2006).]
posted
pooka, I'm led to wonder a) how Erol knows what it feels like to be kicked in the chest by a kangaroo, and b) how a cheeseburger can cause internal bleeding. Both rhetorical questions, of course.
Back on topic... Robert, a question: Is the fact that your character has no experience (or memory thereof) significant? If not, then you could just skip over it with a "the next thing she knew..." such as the one pooka used. However, if it was expected that she would have some kind of experience and she doesn't, then it is noteworthy to her and/or other characters, and so you can proceed accordingly. Or perhaps later on, after she has 'recovered' and has her wits about her and learns what has happened to her, she can remark to herself that she has no memory of it.
An example of that last one: In high school a 1000lb theatre crane fell on me and broke me quite a lot. If I had been standing about a foot to my right, my head would have been crushed and I would be dead. Of course, at the time all I could think was, well, GET IT OFF!!!!! Then I was at the hospital and all I could think was OW OW OW OW OW OW!!!!! Finally, when I got home that night and was alone in the dark in my bed, I started thinking about what had actually happened and what could have happened and what didn't happen, and I had a huge panic attack as a result of my own thoughts. So perhaps your characters delayed thoughts can be used to powerful effect later on after the actual event.
posted
It was a bleeding ulcer. I'm kind of amused by the kangaroo kick thing now, since in the year in between, I had an experience similar to being kicked by a mule. I should figure out what the approximate PSI of that impact was, just for fun. It has made me much more sensitive to any depiction of trauma since then.
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posted
I managed to leave out any reference to identity in the first paragraph...then it was "then she realized" or somesuch. (The nuisance of working on a computer is that you can't just thumb through your manuscript till you find the page you want.) I figured, right off, that sense of self would be absent, too. It's all very preliminary (despite moving over thirty thousand words downstream from it so far).
Acutually, her death (and resurrection) is important to the plot, but her death experience (or near-death experience), come to think of it, isn't. Just something to help frame a colorful "first thirteen."
posted
Hi, This is responding to your color question. Somebody posted a comment about being suspicious of similarities that exist between near death experiences. I think the shows are sometimes fun to watch, but also watch them with very large grains of salt. But that's another topic. I seem to recall a man with a near death experience who went into a blue light, and it seemed to coincide with his belief system. I don't remember what he practiced. Judaism? Maybe. Anyway that's all.
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posted
Could an altered perception of time also factor into this, somehow? As in some of our dreams (well...my dreams, anyway), where dream-state experiences seem to last either a very short or very long time...or a duration of indeterminable length? It seems that the mind can trick itself quite easily in this regard. I see it as similar to high-stress situations, where reflexes are heigtened and time seems to slow down, perceptibly. Hmmm. Not sure if this contributes to the color issue...but without any concept of time during which to contemplate a 'color' associated with death or near-death (or come to the realization of its very existence), how could such a color/sense be described? Description denotes thought, and thought (no matter how fast neural transmissions are) subsequently 'takes time'. I dunno. Just some senseless rambling on my part.
Inkwell ----------------- "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
posted
For three nights before my grandpa died he saw his mother in the house. He was lying in bed each time. The first time he looked over his toes and saw her down the darkened hallway. The next night she was at the door. On the third night she was at the foot of his bed and the following night he died.
Maybe she scared him to death.
I don't know about near death experiences either. Never had one so am unprepared to criticise or dismiss them. Whether it 'really' happened or not is immaterial, these people clearly 'experienced' something. Whether these memories were fabricated after the event kinda like dejavu or actually occurred seems like a diversion. It is the perception of an experience that counts. Catch my drift?
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited September 11, 2006).]
My "grains of salt" comment was not regarding whether or not the near death experiences were legit, it was regarding the show's producers and what they decide to air, etc. Sorry to be off-topic, but didn't want to upset anyone and my message was pretty short and vague. I just remembered the 'blue' and wanted to pass it on. Probably makes no nevermind.
[This message has been edited by Sunshine (edited September 11, 2006).]
posted
Well, you can take an example from the gamut of perceptions that exist about birth (from the mother's perspective.) Some people just want to be drugged, and some people think it's the greatest thing that ever happened to them. Me, I don't get drugs but I can understand why people do. I just fear the pain less than the drugs.
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posted
Robert, what mode of perception was active when the character experienced this "void" of which you speak? That is the paramount question you must address if you want to have her experience something while she is dead. If she is not still capable of perception, despite being dead, then she will not percieve anything happening during the time that she is dead.
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posted
No mode of perception would have been active...I'm assuming all the senses were shut down with the brain. And it's distinct from sensual activities before death, which (right now) is a blur of sudden activity, followed by nothing, followed by revival, and all of it off-stage and described after the revival.
I'm mostly concerned about how the absence of experience and sensation are interpreted after-the-fact---with the intent of making a compelling first couple of paragraphs, with maybe some bounceback commentary further on in the story. (I've got a tabloid reporter pursuing my lead character about the experience, so at some point the perceptions---or perceptions of the perceptions---will likely come up.)
posted
Black, white, grey, colorless, all sound like cliche. Since you're the one making this up, why can't it be something else? Dark blue, turquoise, or if it goes with the character, maybe even pink. Posts: 507 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
what, no meeting with god? or spaghetti? much of this should depend on your character, since we project our desires unto what we cannot know. this is a great opportunity to tell us about your guy. nothing would make for pretty dull reading, if you're actually going to spend some ink on it. i wouldn't belabor the point, unless he's a nihilist or becomes one. see what i mean? it's not the what, or even the how. it's the why.
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posted
Since you don't want to suggest that some extraordinary form of consciousness was present, you have no choice but to stick with mundane modes of perception. That's why I've been asking about what you're trying to say about what happens to the mind at death. There is no point in exploring how to describe this void if describing it will suggest something you don't wish to suggest. Your entire point, that she was clinically dead for a long time but didn't experience anything is considerably weakened if you feel the need to describe some kind of experience taking place. Her experience is one of having missed out on the experience, and takes place after she is revived (the term "resurrection" would be inaccurate unless she were dead and buried/cremated/whathaveyou).
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posted
It would work for me if she were just dead 36 hours and embalmed. That is, "resurrected" and not the whole void thing. If she lost time, she lost time. She has a reaction to it, but not a peception of it. I lost a couple of weeks once. I'm kind of bitter that I apparently had a Roy Roger's strawberry shake during that time, which I have no memory of.
[This message has been edited by franc li (edited September 21, 2006).]
posted
Well, in a manner of speaking, my lead character was basically reconstructed from the elements that made up the character that died (offstage before the action started). Flesh and blood (both cooling), memories (recaptured and played back into her). Part of the payoff towards the end is her realization that she's not who she thinks she is. (I didn't take it as far as embalming---I may even yet reduce the elapsed time between death and resurrection.)
So if we talk about, say, "soul," it's possible that the soul of the first character went to the Great Beyond---but the soul of the revived character may be starting off fresh---if a soul is even involved.
posted
At forty-five thousand words and maybe a third of the way through, I have my doubts. My lead character has been in two scenes that are outright science fictional (the opening and a fight scene at Point Thirty Thousand). The rest seem like slice-of-life with occasional science fictiony overtones. I should do better as I move on, but haven't reached that point yet---I plan to slow down and take stock at the end of the first chapter after Point Fifty Thousand.
On the other hand, it doesn't seem like any science fiction I've written before, though it does have a certain family resemblance to the Internet Fan Fiction I was working on not long ago (minus any reference to anybody's copyrighted material, of course).
I'm torn between "this is absolutely no good" and "this could be my Harry Potter"---along with an ongoing "I've got to rewrite this thoroughly."
posted
After almost a day has passed...boy, it sure doesn't take much to get me talking about my own work, does it, now? It's going so well for me it's hard to restrain myself...but I'll try to keep my bragging to a minimum...
(Bragging about how well it's going, not how well it's written, of course.)
posted
So you haven't decided if their are souls? How would this book be interesting if you weren't postulating that a thing such as a soul exists? And then we get into the area of where the soul came from. Another dying body? An "unclean spirit" as the bible calls them? Or for the really weird, a new spirit that was supposed to go into a baby? An animal spirit?
Or it may just be that you are dealing with a "soul" that is missing things the scientists didn't know how to capture, like the transmission of sub-conscious cues. (Sort of like how Chinese medicine didn't comprehend the central nervous system). She got the perceptions of the 5 senses from the prior life, but not anything beneath them. She doesn't have the web of connections between memories that accumulate over time.
So maybe when a man hits her, she doesn't have the accumulation of remembering the first time a man ever hit her and transfer all the emotion of that event to the new event. She does start doing that fresh from the memories she does have, but not the memories in between. I'm just trying to figure out ways of describing what a soul might be considered if you were trying to get away from actually talking about the soul.
posted
I figure my character has a soul---just not the one she thinks she has. I also added an enhanced, better-than-photographic memory---just one of a series of superpowers that emerge from inside my character without warning---usually without warning to me, either, 'cause I'm still making it up as I go along.
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posted
Since the how of the resurrection seems to be interesting, then the experience of it could effectively reflect and amplify it in some way. That's always a good thing in fiction, right? So, if the resurrection includes a heat source, for instance, the color would be in the warm range. If the method is quick, the experience would be quick. Maybe describing the experience of synesthesia would be appropriate. At any rate, it may be more important to maintain verisimilitude within the story than to worry about the reader's pop sci or new age background.
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If not, perhaps the "experience" he remembers, could become a signficant element to his character as it ties into the story. Just an idea. 
