A Dead man's eyes tell a strange tale

Dead eyes tell a tale

After my husband passed away, I felt led to check his eyes. I had not done this with my mother when she died, but something in me wanted to know what his eyes looked like. His lids were half open as my mother's had been, and I lifted the left one. That old saying about curiosity killing the cat came to mind, only I did not die, but I was startled by what I found beneath his eyelid.

I saw something that no one had ever told me about and that I had never read in any literature regarding the deceased. I heard stories about people who were taken to funeral homes and were still alive, and realized that if they had checked for what I had just seen, there would be no doubt whether an individual had passed on or not.

I lifted my husband's right eyelid and saw the same thing that was in the left, and I knew he was really gone. When I checked his eyeballs, I saw that they were flat as pancakes.

The above image is similar, but not exactly what I witnessed. His eyeballs were no longer shaped like balls but looked like a tire where the air had been let out. The sclera (the white part) was overtaken by the dark brown iris.

What the eyelids hide

The above is a forensic photo that resembles how my mother's eyes looked after she died. It just looks like she is weary and not deceased, and does not give the full picture of flaccid eyes after death.

I felt certain there must be a scientific explanation for why the whites of my spouse's eyes, and his pupils, had gone completely flat. It was several months before I began researching and talking to medical personnel.

It took about a week, but I found out that human eyes naturally sink/deflate when you die. I wondered why this was not listed as a method of detecting death to prevent living people from being taken to the morgue.

I also took note that with all of their technology and special effects, Hollywood has not produced anything that looks close to the reality of the eyes of the deceased.

Michael Jackson's transformation in Thriller does not even come close. Jackson's eyes are widened but still retain their shape. With my husband, it looked as if the flattened iris spread and covered most of the white area. it looked like two large black buttons.

Why do dead eyes deflate?

Without active muscles, the eyes have nothing to retain their natural shape, so they become flaccid. The whites and the colored part of the eye both become completely flat. This is supposed to take place over time, but I noticed my husband's eyes were deflated within about 10 minutes after he died.

I have a personal theory that others may not agree with. I think of the phrase "the eyes are the windows to the soul." I wonder if the difference between animals and humans happens because animals don't have souls, and the eyes of humans deflate because their soul or life force is gone.

Animals do not share this trait because the muscles in their eyes don't deflate upon death. Could it be because they have no soul to leave their bodies?

I am curious as to why the pulse being checked continues to be the determining factor for death. There have been numerous cases of people who were pronounced dead because there was no pulse, but later began breathing.

It would seem to me that once you lift the eyelid and notice the eyes are deflated, that this would be proof positive someone is no longer living. But what do I know, I'm not a medical professional.