Robert Krulwich consults Montaigne, Tolstoy, and the poet Mark Doty on what death might be like. Montaigne, who had a near-death experience after getting thrown from his horse, described it this way:
He was looking down from a higher, tranquil place from which he could, painlessly, slip away. "It seemed to me that my life was hanging only by the tip of my lips; I closed my eyes in order, it seemed to me, to help push [life] out, and took pleasure in growing languid and letting myself go." It was, he wrote, a "feeling that people have who let themselves slide into sleep."
He concluded:
If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.
The Dish 