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Frighteningly candid, refreshingly poignant, and fascinatingly alluring, In My Time of Dying is a confirmed atheist’s unrelenting search to find meaning in the mysterious workings of life and his meditations on the inevitability of death. New York Times bestselling author and winner of a Peabody Award, Sebastian Junger wrenched himself out from the gaping jaws of death multiple times. Putting himself in the line of fire as a war reporter, almost hacking himself to death with an electrical chainsaw while discharging his responsibilities as a tree worker and miscalculating the ferocity of a wave during a surfing episode, Junger frequently put his life at risk. However, the closest death came to claiming him was when a latent abdominal aortic aneurism ruptured.
When one of the doctors in charge, Dr. Dombrowski, in a final act of desperation, slid a micro-puncture needle into the radial artery under ultrasound guidance before inserting a #6 French sheath into the abdominal aorta, Junger’s chances of survival were as infinitesimal as man’s stature in the cosmos. However, the dexterity of the doctors and the will of the patient himself contrived to bring about a miraculous cure. However, as Junger explained, the nerve-racking episode in itself, while traumatic, was overshadowed by an extraordinary event that occurred in the operating theatre.
To the left of Junger’s table, amidst an enveloping darkness, his departed father appeared out of nowhere and in a reassuring manner, instructed Junger to “join” him. A theoretical physicist by profession and rationalist by nature, Junger’s father was a man whose belief in science overwhelmed any degree of faith in divinity. Rattled by this event, Junger then embarks on a search to understand the scientific, moral, and impartial examination of mortality by taking recourse to medicine and cosmology.
Coalescing the theories of some of the giants in the field of Quantum Physics such as Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Louis de Broglie, Ludwig Boltzmann, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger with collections of Near-Death Experiences as recorded by physicians and surgeons, Junger strives to make sense of his medical emergency. As an interesting point of digression, Schrödinger, in his heyday, had a fleeting affair with Junger’s own aunt while she was a young teenager.
Similar to how his long-departed father seemed to be both dead and alive, electrons in the incredulously complex domain of theoretical physics seem to appear simultaneously in more places than one. Physicists have observed electrons existing in multiple states simultaneously. In fact, in a theory known as Quantum entanglement, the effect on a single proton, neutron, photon, or electron is replicated to its “entangled” twin even when such a twin is a universe away. The more intrepid reader can also refer to the extraordinary experiment by Schrödinger, that is now immortalised in science folklore under the moniker “Schrödinger’s Cat“.
At no point in time, does Junger argue that there is indeed life after death. Instead, adopting an arresting narrative he urges his readers to be unbiased and impartial. “It’s not remotely likely, but then neither is anything.” Junger does painstaking research in unearthing authentic chronicles of Near-Death Experiences. For example, he collates nineteenth century examples of dying men and women coming face to face with apparitions of the recently deceased. In fact, in some of these cases, the dying had no foreknowledge of the decease of the individuals appearing as apparitions.
In My Time of Dying is an impassionate plea to acknowledge the element of uncertainty. A great degree of knowledge can be gleaned from the uncomfortable facet of the unknown. If one chooses to treat uncertainty not as a threat, but as a pathway to illumination, the seeker is bound to come away much the wiser. “Is mystery a necessary element of the universe?” Mr. Junger wonders, and the reader is spurred to accompany him on this esoteric journey of introspection and reflection.