After someone dies, you're supposed to open a nearby window to let the person's soul leave and go up to heaven.
Denmark. When a loved one nears the end of his or her life in Denmark, a special tradition unfolds. It's a simple act – a swift gesture that takes little effort, but says so very much: the opening of a window for “the soul” of the loved one to pass through once they have died.
As the blood pools, patches appear on the skin within 30 minutes of death. About two to four hours postmortem, these patches join up, creating large dark purplish areas towards the bottom of the body and lightening the skin elsewhere. This may be less apparent on darker skin. This process is called livor mortis.
Visions and Hallucinations
Visual or auditory hallucinations are often part of the dying experience. The appearance of family members or loved ones who have died is common. These visions are considered normal. The dying may turn their focus to “another world” and talk to people or see things that others do not see.
They Know They're Dying
Dying is a natural process that the body has to work at. Just as a woman in labor knows a baby is coming, a dying person may instinctively know death is near. Even if your loved one doesn't discuss their death, they most likely know it is coming.
In time, the heart stops and they stop breathing. Within a few minutes, their brain stops functioning entirely and their skin starts to cool. At this point, they have died.
For the first few minutes of the postmortem period, brain cells may survive. The heart can keep beating without its blood supply. A healthy liver continues breaking down alcohol. And if a technician strikes your thigh above the kneecap, your leg likely kicks, just as it did at your last reflex test with a physician.
The brain lives on for 30 seconds after death.
Although death has historically been medically defined as the moment when the heart irreversibly stops beating, recent studies have suggested brain activity in many animals and humans can continue for seconds to hours.
Leave the area untouched apart from any attempt at resuscitation. If the death was expected, perhaps due to a terminal illness, you should contact the deceased's GP or nearest doctor. If it happened during the night, you do not need to contact the doctor until the following morning unless you want to.
If the person dies at home unexpectedly without hospice care, call 911. Have in hand a do-not-resuscitate document if it exists. Without one, paramedics will generally start emergency procedures and, except where permitted to pronounce death, take the person to an emergency room for a doctor to make the declaration.
A Filipino superstition holds that you should not go straight home after a funeral. If you do, death may follow you. So stop off somewhere else first.
The Irish wake is a well-known funeral tradition where the family of the deceased covers all mirrors in the home. To hide the physical body from the soul, the family turns mirrors to face the wall. Some Irish superstitions say that if you look in a mirror long enough, you'll see a devil looking over your shoulder.
When someone dies in their sleep, the on-call hospice nurse is notified who comes to the home to verify that they have died. The nurse will notify the physician and fill out the paperwork to obtain the death certificates. If you would like them to, they will also inform the mortuary and make those arrangements.
The brain and nerve cells require a constant supply of oxygen and will die within a few minutes, once you stop breathing. The next to go will be the heart, followed by the liver, then the kidneys and pancreas, which can last for about an hour. Skin, tendons, heart valves and corneas will still be alive after a day.
There may be some compacting—holding down of energy—in the heart center, to avoid energetic interaction with people” and that “At the beginning stages of death, the energy field starts to separate. The lower three bodies (layers of the energy field) break up and dissolve.
Hearing is widely thought to be the last sense to go in the dying process. Now UBC researchers have evidence that some people may still be able to hear while in an unresponsive state at the end of their life.
Agonal breathing or agonal gasps are the last reflexes of the dying brain. They are generally viewed as a sign of death, and can happen after the heart has stopped beating.
What Happens One Hour After Death? At the moment of death, all of the muscles in the body relax (primary flaccidity ). The eyelids lose their tension, the pupils dilate, the jaw may fall open, and the joints and limbs are flexible.
“First hunger and then thirst are lost. Speech is lost next, followed by vision. The last senses to go are usually hearing and touch.”
Physical signs
Facial muscles may relax and the jaw can drop. Skin can become very pale. Breathing can alternate between loud rasping breaths and quiet breathing. Towards the end, dying people will often only breathe periodically, with an intake of breath followed by no breath for several seconds.
What Is the Burst of Energy Before Death Called? This burst of energy before death is also known as “terminal lucidity” or “rallying.” Although there is considerable, general interest in this phenomenon, unfortunately, there hasn't been a lot of scientific research done on the matter.