Does a thing ever reach the event horizon in its own reference frame? I'm an EE who took modern physics 17 years ago, so please forgive if this question is dumb.
From time to time, I see questions such as, "What happens when you fall into a black hole?" and I'm wondering if the question means anything to the person who is supposedly falling in.
Let's say that a telescope on Earth looks at a black hole and sees Fred falling into it. In our reference frame, we might see Fred, see Fred spaghettified, and then stop seeing Fred. We might say that he fell into the black hole.
But does Fred ever experience such a moment? (Ignoring biological phenomena such as death.)
I ask because as the radius between Fred and the black hole approaches zero, he experiences an ever stronger gravitational field, one approaching infinity. Therefore time dilation approaches infinity. If Fred's experience of the universe is ever slower as he gets closer and closer to the black hole, does he ever hit it? Is there any experiment Fred can do that says, "You have just hit a black hole" or does Fred forever feel heavier and heavier but otherwise nothing has changed?
 A: No, because the EH is a coordinate singularity, that only exists in the frame of an observer who is always outside the BH. To the "raindrop" observer falling into it, the EH does not exist, and the only singularity he registers is the one at the center (true singularity). He also does not experience feeling "heavier," as he is always in freefall.
In addition, recall that time dilation is never observable to someone in his own local vicinity.  One's local clocks always tick normally, while ones far away can appear slowed down or sped up if they are in a different gravitational potential or moving relative.  In particular, if Fred is locked in an elevator looking at his own watch and immediate surroundings, his first sign that he is anywhere but interstellar space will be when he and his elevator box get spaghettified by the tidal forces (when the change in gravitational potential over the course of inches or cm becomes significant).  For a small BH, this will happen when (from an outsider's standpoint) he is outside the horizon, but for a supermassive BH, it will happen when he is well inside.  For him, crossing the EH is undetectable, and indeed the EH does not exist in his reference frame.
Now, if the elevator is transparent (made by Willy Wonka?) Fred will see objects far away (outside) the black hole behaving strangely, and he will see blackness in the direction of the BH, but it will not look any different before or after he (according to an outsider) crosses the horizon.
Here is a good and accurate visualization.  There is also a 360° VR version
https://youtu.be/4rTv9wvvat8
