What could it be like to die?

This book is mainly about what it might be like to be dead. Obviously it could not be like anything if one were altogether dead, rather than just dead to this world – which strictly speaking is all that ‘being dead’ denotes. If we survive death, however, there would be something it is like to be dead. But to be dead, you first have to die. So I begin, in this chapter, with the experience of dying.