I used to "practice dying" all the time previously when I was a buddhist through the practice of meditation.
Through focussing on the breath, "thought" or the sense of "self" began to fade away and we can begin to understand that in each moment there is only the breath that exists: thoughts, sensations, emotions, sounds and images arise and past away, nothing is permanent, everything is void. Focussing on that breath moment by moment we understand the impermanence of life, hence birth and death.
Buddhists often go on and say that this state of bliss or nirvana is all we need... I no longer hold that view though.
I remember reading some books for my course on philosophy. One great philosopher dedicated quite a lot of work to describing how it feels to die of suffocation in an avalanche. . . . referring of course to that whole sense of Nirvana that roughly equates to a street kid huffing on spray paint fumes while writing profound stuff on railroad cars in the railroad yard. . . .