What Happens When You Die? — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00What happens when you finally kick the bucket, so to speak?
2. 0:02Despite our mostly science-grounded views on death these days, it seems many of us believe
3. 0:07in life after it.
4. 0:08In 2014, UK citizens were polled by the Telegraph, and just under 60 percent of respondents said
5. 0:14they believe some part of us lives on.
6. 0:16In the U.S., still a very Christian nation, Pew Research in 2015 asked people what happened
7. 0:22after you die.
8. 0:23The survey found that 72 percent of Americans believed you go to heaven, which was described
9. 0:27as a place “where people who have led good lives are eternally rewarded.”
10. 0:3154 percent of U.S. adults replied that they believed in hell, which was described as a
11. 0:36place “where people who have led bad lives and die without being sorry are eternally
12. 0:40punished.”
13. 0:41With that in mind, welcome to this episode of the Infographics Show, What happens when
14. 0:45you die?
15. 0:45Don’t forget to subscribe and click the bell button so that you can be part of our
16. 0:48Notification Squad.
17. 0:49It seems a lot of people do believe that after death we might be ensconced in some cloud-strewn
18. 0:54paradise, or conversely, if we haven’t adhered to the ethics prescribed to us by our chosen
19. 0:59religion or denomination of that religion, we might be faced with eternal hellfire and
20. 1:04the prospect of groveling to a bearded red man who hardly ever puts down his pitchfork.
21. 1:08But let’s start with some empirical realism and what actually happens to the body when
22. 1:13we die.
23. 1:13Physicians know your dead because the heart
24. 1:15stops beating and there is  no longer any electrical
25. 1:18activity in your brain.
26. 1:19Brain death equals dead, although machines can keep you going a little bit longer.
27. 1:23You can also have what’s called a cardiac death, which means the heart stops beating
28. 1:28and blood no longer flows through your body.
29. 1:30The strange, even wonderful thing is, people that have suffered cardiac death but have
30. 1:34been brought back to life have said they were aware of what was going on around them.
31. 1:38Others have talked about walking towards a light in such a near death experience.
32. 1:42You can be brought back from what we call clinical death, but you only have a grace
33. 1:46period of about 4-6 minutes.
34. 1:47But let’s say you get to the light and pass through; this is what we call biological death
35. 1:51– game over, the final whistle, dead as a dodo.
36. 1:54This is where it gets kind of undignified, but what do you care, you’re dead.
37. 1:57Once you’re definitely no longer with us, your muscles relax, and this means your sphincter
38. 2:02will too, meaning that triple Whopper and large fires you had for lunch will spill out
39. 2:06of you – the gas you have in you may also leak out and cause a stink.
40. 2:10The same goes for the pee you’ve got in your bladder, so dying not surprisingly is
41. 2:15a bit of a messy affair.
42. 2:17And men, you might even ejaculate.
43. 2:19As for women, you may give birth after you have died if you were pregnant, which is something
44. 2:23called “coffin birth”.
45. 2:25It doesn’t happen often, though.
46. 2:26Instead of pushing, it’s the gases in the abdomen that squeeze the newborn into the
47. 2:31world.
48. 2:31As the body gets rid of what is trapped inside, noises may be emitted from your mouth as air
49. 2:36escapes.
50. 2:37Nurses and people working close to dead bodies
51. 2:39have regularly reported  hearing very alive-sounding
52. 2:42moans and groans coming from dead bodies.
53. 2:44You may twitch, but this doesn’t mean there
54. 2:46is life in you, these are  just muscle contractions.
55. 2:49You could also soon get an erection if you died lying on your stomach and the blood flowed
56. 2:53down there.
57. 2:54All your blood will pool to a certain area of your body.
58. 2:56This is called “livor mortis” and it’s the reason parts of you will have that dark
59. 3:00purple color you have seen on TV.
60. 3:02These are the lovely things that can happen quite shortly after you go.
61. 3:05With no blood flowing through your body, it will begin to cool down, known as “algor
62. 3:10mortis”, or simply “death chill”.
63. 3:12It will keep cooling until it is the same temperature as your surroundings.
64. 3:15You will become stiff within about 2-6 hours, and this we call “rigor mortis”.
65. 3:20This is because calcium is getting into your muscle cells.
66. 3:23Cells break down without blood flow and this leads to bacteria growth, and that’s why
67. 3:27you start to decompose.
68. 3:28You may look like your hair or your nails have grown, but that isn’t the case.
69. 3:32What is happening is that your skin is receding, giving the impression of growth.
70. 3:36The skin will loosen, too, and blisters will appear on the body.
71. 3:40The next stage is putrefaction, when bacteria and microorganisms start feasting on you.
72. 3:45You’ll soon start to stink as bad as anything you could have imagined while you were alive.
73. 3:49One person described the smell as: “Rotten eggs, feces, and a used toilet left out for
74. 3:54a month x 1000.
75. 3:56It is unholy.”
76. 3:58Soon everything that is soft becomes liquefied, with things like bones, cartilage and hair
77. 4:02remaining strong.
78. 4:03You’re already well on your way to decomposing by the time you are being put in the ground.
79. 4:07But if embalmed and buried, decomposition could be a slow process.
80. 4:11Left above ground, you’ll be a liquefied mess within about a month, feasted on by insects,
81. 4:16maggots, plants, and animals.
82. 4:17Underground, some experts say it might take 8-12 years before you are reduced to nothing
83. 4:22but a skeleton.
84. 4:23After around 50 years, even your bones will become part of the Earth.
85. 4:26We should add the rate of decomposition depends on all manner of factors, too many to list
86. 4:30here.
87. 4:31But we think you get the picture.
88. 4:32While some people report that their near-death experience was a scene to behold, that’s
89. 4:36not always the case.
90. 4:37One person writing on Reddit said his experience was as follows: “It was just black emptiness.
91. 4:42No thoughts, no consciousness, nothing.”
92. 4:45French philosopher Rene Descartes (Renee Day-cart) believed the soul was separate from the body,
93. 4:50as many religions will tell you, and perhaps when we die something lingers on.
94. 4:54Friedrich Nietzsche talked about the concept of eternal recurrence, or eternal return,
95. 4:58meaning all existence or energy in the universe has forever and will forever keep repeating
96. 5:03itself ad infinitum.
97. 5:05You live the same life, again and again, forever.
98. 5:08Now doesn’t that make you want to live well?
99. 5:10Here we could make similarities to the Buddhist belief of the “Wheel of Samsara”, wherein
100. 5:14all souls, lives, will begin a cycle again after death, except not the same exact life.
101. 5:20Something we call reincarnation, which some people say is connected to what we sometimes
102. 5:24call de ja vu.
103. 5:25Buddhists believe we can end this vicious cycle if we can become truly enlightened,
104. 5:29therefore achieving nirvana.
105. 5:31Or do we make our way to heaven after our bodies stop working, tipping our cap to St.
106. 5:35Peter at the Pearly Gates, hoping he won’t deny us entrance for stealing that candy bar
107. 5:39when we went on a school trip to Niagara Falls?
108. 5:41Will we be taken into paradise, a place replete with excellent foods and gorgeous maidens
109. 5:45that make your dead knees go weak?
110. 5:47Or will we simply seed the Earth, our souls nothing more than a worldly fancy that took
111. 5:51our minds off our cosmic insignificance and the feeling of futility that we sometimes
112. 5:55experience here on tera-firma?
113. 5:57That’s something we can’t tell you, but we would love to know what you think.
114. 5:57Share your thoughts in the comments and please don’t die on us!
115. 5:57Also, be sure to check out our other video called This is How You Will Die!
116. 5:57Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
117. 5:57See you next time!
118. 5:57While this video was pretty grim, let’s for a second step away and think about your
119. 6:01life NOW and how you can make it better.
120. 6:03If you are one of the many living people who are running a business or thinking of starting
121. 6:07one, you probably need a website.
122. 6:09But since we all have limited time on earth, you don’t want to spend too much time figuring
123. 6:12out how to set everything up and then keep on worrying about maintenance.