As a health care worker (registered nurse and paramedic) I've worked in intensive care and on the streets in EMS-- I've come to think about death a good deal. I've watched many people die.
The conclusions that seemed evident to me included the fact that God has mercifully created us in such a way that after so much pain, we faint, we loose consciousness.....when we can't "take it any longer" ...we don't! We faint. (*not referring to the "faint not" clauses in scripture, either, btw! LOL!) but we do...we just faint. And if we are not in pain at death, sometimes there are those that seem to struggle with their breathing for a while at the end....but it always eases up at the last of it. As the brain is deprived of oxygen, God has mercifully, once again, included in the package a fail-safe method of getting us out of here under the least amount of necessary suffering. I'm not sure if I worded that the best way...but you know what I mean!
As the brain is deprived of oxygen, it QUICKLY changes in its perception of pain and sound and reality. A person having a seizure, for instance, sometimes experiences euphoria so intense that they loose the memory of any struggle or pain during the seizure.
Now, I don't know exactly how Ray defines O.B.E.'s but people who claim to have experienced them during a near death experience often say things like: "I was IN my body one second, and BOOM! I was OUT of my body the next." So, this led me to think about a child being murdered, for instance. One of the most awful cases that we deal with in this world! God has the ability to pull that little one out of his body before it ever experiences the full force of whatever pain its being put through. I know for a fact that at the moment of death, many times, I've sensed the person being "gone" before the heart stopped altogether or the brain waves ceased. It just happens....they are there....and then they are GONE! ANd you can almost pinpoint the second it happens. But we are left with the shell.
And when we finally breathe our last, we can no longer "screw up" or hurt others, or blaspheme, or make mistakes....
we will at last have reached the end of being responsible, because in death, we know nothing. I'm faced everday with leaving behind a child that cannot fend for himself, is totally dependant on me for his every need. Who will fill my shoes? Who will wipe his tears and feed him the little bites of food that he now takes so carefully from the spoon I put in his mouth at every meal? Who will care for a deformed little boy who cannot speak a word? My fear is not in the dying.....its in the leaving behind of one who is so helpless. I can attest to the fact that I am in the process of God changing me in the way that I think even about this, however!! I can tell you all that even this fear is slowly being taken from me, day by day. Because He knows what is most important. He's our Father!
I hope my words have not offended anyone. I only mean to bring some little bit of relief to others who are in fear of dying. As you have, so have I ...thought about these things....and the above is just my opinion.
Joyce