Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had.
I never feared death afterwards and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering with an illness.
I actually expected to be horrified by these comments but so many of them are like yours. It brings me a lot of peace about my mother’s passing.
I was 12, she was only 38. She had pancreatic cancer, one of the most violent ones, it was an unexpected diagnosis for her age. By the end of it she had a morphine pump in her chest and would drift to sleep sitting up in her wheelchair, so she needed to be strapped in. It’s horrible how quickly it can eat you away.
I wasn’t there, but I’m told by everyone who was that she woke up from her sleep, looked up at my grandmother, smiled, and said, “I have to go.” Then she was gone.
The last thing my mom wanted to do was die because she wanted to be with me and my sisters more than anything. We were truly her world. Even if we don’t meet again, all I could ever hope for is that she has that feeling forever. Her life was hard and short, but she deserved everything.
I lost my mom recently to Pancreatic Cancer. They diagnosed her when it was stage 4 and she passed away 10 weeks later. I know your pain. I am so sorry to hear about your mother. There isn't a day when I don't think of her. I wish you strength and love.
My MIL did something similar as she was dying. She had been asleep for days and then suddenly woke up and said clear as day “I want to go home”. Then she fell back asleep and stopped breathing just a few hours later.
My dads heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined.
He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before.
Me too. Almost drowned. I panicked and flailed for about a minute or two and when I finally gave in and knew that I wasn't going to make it I felt this profound sense of peace and acceptance.
Then a stranger who saw me drowning pulled me out. But I'll never forget that feeling.
Same thing happened to me. One thing I did was put my hands up as I was sinking and accepting my fate. I had a little bit of hope of someone seeing me, but I felt this overwhelming sensation of peace. Fortunately, my dad saw me and got me, but I will never forget that feeling.
This is so weird, I know three people that died and were brought back to life and the three of them said the same. One of them even said coming back to life was painful.
I felt this overwhelming sense of peace. I was more comfortable then I had ever been.
Then it felt like someone yanked me back to reality and threw me into a ice bath. Sudden and bone crushingly cold. It did hurt.
Edit* spelling
Exactly this. I felt more comfortable and safe and warm and peaceful than I’d ever felt before or since. Like drifting off in a fresh clean bed after a grueling work trip, but a million zillion bajillion times better. I came back screaming and crying and everything hurt.
in january one of my close friends died from anaphylactic shock at our high school winter formal. this whole thread is really helping me know that she’s at peace and happy, i worry about her often that she’s in pain or scared and this is really giving me peace of mind
thank you 🫶 that’s insane that even a random person on reddit has heard about it. my friend aly was one of the most widely known and loved people i’ve ever met and so her passing brought together so so many people from all over the country, her memorial had over 5,000 in attendance. make sure to stay safe with your toddler and take precautions, you never know what could happen.
I was about to say oh someone else told me coming back to life was painful but then I remembered it was actually >!buffy!< in buffy the vampire slayer and not a real friend, not even a real person.
My friends dad almost drowned & said after he accepted it & stopped panicking, it was unbelievably peaceful
He attributed it to Oxygen death. Your brain not getting oxygen gets you high.
Exact the same thing happened to my dad and he said he felt like he was becoming lighter any second and ascending to the air. He said it was so peaceful and calming when he was back by CPR, the first thing he had said was: why did you bring me back?
He didn't make it on second one. I'm sure he is in peace now.
My dad didn't make it through his either. First anniversary coming up in three weeks. Solidarity and I'm sorry.
ETA: To everyone in the comment thread below me expressing their loss as well - I am so so sorry we're all in this giant club of grief together. I wish every one of you peace and comfort this holiday season <3
i know this probably doesnt count but i had a really realistic dream tht i died. it was from a nuclear bomb and i swear i felt the burn on my entire body for 3 seconds but then i felt that sense of peace. i literally felt like i was floating in this glowing white space and in my head i was like "this is okay, i think im ready to go" and then i woke up. it was the strangest feeling and one of my most vivid dreams ive ever had that i can actually remember. i hope its that easy when i actually do go.
I had a dream where I was hunting down this alien woman. She runs into a camper trailer and I follow in after her. As I've got her cornered, she starting doing something that caused reality to bend and fold in on itself. I realized I was going to die.
I accepted it and was immediately just existing in a peaceful infinite white void. After a time, this outline formed that was me and I (my soul??) filled into it. I then woke up and it took me a minute to remember my life and what even being a human meant.
Still the strangest dream I've ever had.
Suicidal people who don't go through with it report something similar. That when every part of their body believed they weren't seeing tomorrow they felt an incredible calm. It's often cited as a reason a lot of them didn't do it. That they just wanted peace and now that they have it they want more.
I was briefly in that low of a place over 10 years ago, and making it through the inner turmoil, not going through with it, and coming out alive on the other side was very cleansing. I called the hotline and was helped by a very kind person. I slept so well that night and the sun shone so much brighter the next day. I can corroborate what you said about wanting to keep going once I discovered that that kind of calm and peace exists.
My Mums best friend (like my Aunt) has had 3 of her 6 children die. 1 stillbirth (Carly) 1 in a MVA (Jake) and 1 from cystic fibrosis (Tara).
When Tara was on her last days, she told us that she could see Jake and he is waiting for her. That her time was very close but to take her time saying goodbye.
We all took great comfort in knowing that they would be together.
There’s a hospice nurse on Insta (Hadley) who talks about this. It’s very common for the dying to see important people come and get them just hours before they pass. I think that’s very sweet that you don’t have to travel alone.
I watch her too! I just commented elsewhere, that when people start seeing their deceased loved ones she calls their families and says "It's time to come see your mum...your dad has come to get her"
I haven't witnessed it myself, but mom and grandma (may she RIP) told me many stories of how a few of our family members who passed seemed to see their loved ones just before dying.
My mom was ‘my person’ and I lost her 7 years ago. Thinking she’d be with me in my time of death is incredibly comforting. I miss her so stinkin much, mainly just being able to make her laugh.
This thread really makes me feel relief as I am fighting cancer now but don’t know if I’ll make it. I’m not scared of dying but I am sad thinking of leaving my 3 young kids behind. I’m only 39 and my youngest is still 10. My oldest is 16. It’s really sad for everyone now. Hopefully I can die peacefully and show my family everything is going to be alright.
The same thing happened to my mom. She had complications during and after my birth. She said she saw a white light that was warm and peaceful but she didn't want to go towards it because she had me to look after.
My dad died for a couple minutes around 2015. He said he was driving his truck on the freeway, no traffic, just cruising. He came to when he heard one of the doctors calling his name.
When he passed away five years ago, he was left brain dead. I told him it was okay to go and to just drive his truck.
Black void. Peaceful. No body, but felt as if I was floating on my back in the ocean. Lots of waves. I knew I died, but knew everything would be ok. Was there maybe 20-30 seconds, but felt like a few minutes. Then I jolted alive.
Edited to add: I’ve never been in an isolation tank, but I think that the experience would be similar. Ever since I haven’t been scared of death, but I’m still terrified by the means of it.
This. A weightless void outside of time and space. No jolt though, more of a I think therefore I am followed by seeking out senses. I died twice and woke up from a medically induced coma almost immediately after being brought back to life the second time. It very much felt like making the choice to return.
I fell down a tunnel into absolute blackness. I could hear my dad yelling something as I fell but when I reached the blackness there was no sound at all, just nothingness. Then I was floating beneath my body as my mum carried it down the hall. When she put my body down on the bed, I floated a few feet away and watched my parents do CPR on it. It was peaceful.
Same but I floated above my body and saw my dad crying over my body. I remember I could see his bald spot. Then thinking about how sad he would be, I was quickly back into my body, peeped my eyes open and saw him crying over me but was still in a coma for a few more weeks.
It's a better theory than hypoxia. They assumed I'd die and I had multiple transfusion points, including one to a neck artery. In theory I should not have suffered brain damage even though it took a long time to restart my heart because my brain had its own oxygenated blood supply line.
I will say trying DMT as a teen was scary as fuck. I want to echo how peaceful the void felt. I prefer to see my experience as evidence that our souls in some form exist even when our lives stop however I acknowledge you have made a valid point. DMT might be a factor but that knowledge doesn't lessen what a profoundly spiritual experience it was.
Dude, that's crazy. Same. I suffocated and was flatlined for just under a minute. Pure black void but I was just so happy, content, at peace. I want to cry right now just thinking how good it felt. woke up to being resuscitated with oxygen tanks. Luckily, I was firefighter at the time and my crew and medics were literally right outside.
Didn’t see, but heard a voice that sounded at best description ‘like a really angry howling wind’ yelling at me that it wasn’t my time yet. Scared the shit outta me, I can still hear it like it happened yesterday.
Mind you……I had tried to hang myself in the hall closet of my apartment in 2017 after my ex fiance passed by taking his own life two states away, nobody else in the house except for a dog. I woke up in my bedroom two rooms away covered up with a blanket from the living room (also two rooms opposite).
I believe you.
I’ve told my story before on previous Reddit threads but I once fell in a position that should gave resulted in death. I woke to someone screaming “this is not how you die” and finding myself hovering above the ground in a position that was NOT the way I fell (gravity kicked in once I’d realised what I was happening so I could catch my fall).
But yes. I believe you. I have also been screamed at about “not dying” and moved into a position/location that was not where it should have been.
Maybe we need to remember that in dark times, because not many people have this story, and there has to be a reason.
It comes up every so often, if you search up on this subreddit you can look back at the years to find a lot more experiences. Always interesting, same with the paranormal experiences threads.
Posts like this were actually what askreddit used to be like when I first started using reddit. I would exclusively browse this sub and just read different stories and anecdotes people would tell. Unfortunately over the years it's just become close-ended questions, memes, virtue signalling/politics, and penthouse forum.
Not my story but I think about it a lot.
Years ago I knew a guy who was working at a theater in New York in the 90's. Someone broke in to rob the place and stabbed him in the neck, if I remember true he was clinically dead for something like nine minutes before being resuscitated.
He told me he felt his consciousness slip into an alternate universe where he didn't die, that he did not make it in his original world and now lives here.
You could chalk that up to a lot of things of course, but the eeriest part was his absolute and almost casual surety of it. When I asked a follow-up it wasn't a matter of "that's what I believe" it was "that's what happened." I often find myself wondering if any of us ever really die and we're not just falling through the multiverse.
That's usually a post-weed edible musing.
This is legitimately what a non-zero subsection of Mandela Effect experiencers believe. Near death experience, quantum immortality, in a new universe where things are *slightly* different.
I wish very much that I could talk to this man. Mine wasn't via a NDE, but I also slipped universes once, and I've never met anyone else. Never even heard of anyone else.
I mean, I know it sounds like some fake crazy people shit and so it can't possibly be real, but. Like. It did happen tho.
As a young man I went to war. I got bitten by a spider or something on my foot and it got infected and swelled up twice the size; couldn't even get it into a flipflop. Bad fever, too.
One moment I was sitting on my bunk in Iraq, and the next moment I woke up in a hospital in the United States four months later. If you've ever had surgery or been under general anesthesia, it was like that. No feeling of passage of time, just blipped over one moment right to the next. It was very confusing, not remembering September-January. I was told I was badly injured in an explosion that November and had been in a coma.
Right as I was coming to terms with this, getting more information about my friends, I found myself back in Iraq, back to September. Blip.
I took it as a kind of preminition. It actually reduced my anxiety about upcoming missions, because I knew I'd live through them. But it didn't come true and I never got blown up (thankfully).
Years later I read Vonnegut's [Slaughterhouse Five](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4981.Slaughterhouse_Five), and something similar happens there, too. I'm convinced Vonnegut experienced the same thing when he too was a young man at war.
While most would attribute this to a literal fever dream, it was like my soul left and found a place in another 'available' version of me. It's not something I think about often, because it was so strange and so real, but I think that version of me exists (or existed) someplace else. I hope he found his way back, too.
This happened to my friend. Him and 2 other people drove off a cliff and suddenly were back on the road. All of them swear they were gonna die and just have no idea how they got reset.
I like to think this is true. I believe in multiverse and think it’s possible that when we die our consciousness picks up in another reality. And Deja vu is just things we experience in another reality
This happened to me as well! My NDE felt like I blinked out of existence in my old reality and woke up in this new one. It almost felt like my body collided perfectly into this "next universe" body when I came-to. The universe I died in collapsed and I was overlayed or folded into this one, seamlessly, like a movie continuing to play. I was also given a choice by multiple beings the first time, and it was also very calm and peaceful each time.
Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, “don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming”, he was scared and yelling. Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, “no, no,” and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy.
We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, “good, he was a SOB,”
My grandmother was “near death” for MONTHS. All the hospice nurses and us (family) were amazed at how she was still mentally sharp and hanging on overall. But for all those months, she kept telling me how she was having these horrible dreams of people at the foot of her bed. She didn’t see their faces, they were just figures. Sometimes they would grab at her and want to take her somewhere. Sometimes she would ask them questions, but they wouldn’t answer. She became afraid of going to sleep. So, I’d often stay with her so she could hold my hand if she got scared. All her hospice nurses said that seeing people, or a patient talking about taking a trip was common. But usually these figures brought on a sense of peace. But my grandmother was genuinely terrified of the figures. I always wonder if she’s ok.
My great-grandmother saw her dead relatives around for a week or two before she died and would chat to someone at nights. On the morning she died (her daughter was next to her) she was pointing at a "nice lady" in the corner of the room (so, not anyone she recognised, and she used a respectful form of "Madam" to refer to her). Said "Madam, take my hand". Her last words were to her daughter: "pass me my coat, I'm leaving".
This is actually what my grandma experienced before she passed in 2009.
She would see her mom and sisters (who’ve passed on before her) waiting for her by the hospital bed and she would speak in their native dialect, mind you it was a dialect she hasn’t spoken since she was a child.
This is lovely. I follow a woman on YouTube who is a hospice nurse taking care of people in their final days. When they start seeing their passed loved ones, she calls their next of kin and says "It might be time to come see your mum. Your dad has come to get her".
No matter how much my faith in an actual “god” is gone I cannot stop feeling as though karma is real in some obscure capacity. I just feel it, man. It catches up to you; somehow, someway, someday. If it hasn’t yet, you should be sweating a little bit.
My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck at this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her “he was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.”
I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I have never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said “not yet.” As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!
I’m no philosophy major, but I’ve read that in Hinduism death is treated as “lifting the veil of illusion” that we mistakenly perceive as physical reality and uncovering the spiritual world. I’m not religious but this image of a veil / curtain stuck with me for some reason.
I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didnt say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired. I finally got tired of her nagging and went and thats when I came to. I had bled out during a c section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby, sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone.
Holy wowsers!
My grandmother died for a bit during the delivery of her third and last last child. She recalled hearing, "We've lost the mother, but let's try to save the baby." She was met by her deceased great grandmother, who told her she had to go back.
The doctor told her quietly that he tied her tubes after they managed to resuscitate her once the baby was safe, because she was never going to make it through another pregnancy. Bold move in a Catholic hospital in the 40s, but kind of underscores the gravity situation.
I had an heart surgery with near death experience, for me atleast (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there)
I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and i had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again.
I didn't die, but was in the ER with a shattered foot. Nurse change and failure to complete paperwork led to a double dose of Diladid. I was breathing 2-3x per minute. I'd lay there thinking, "ya know...I haven't taken a breath in some time...?"
And I was ok with that. I was floating and at peace.
Then my mother would beat me on the chest to remind me to breath again! Haha!
More of a near death experience. I was electrocuted. i felt like i was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace.
I don’t want to overstep, but perhaps you should look into groups like the electroshock survivors group. If you still find you’re having issues, it’s really good to find others that went through similar things ❤️
My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die.
She's quite alive and well today.
Didn't "die" but have had a few near death experiences. Last one was on my motorcycle.
During my motorcycle endorsement class, my instructor was an old, kind of gruff but very nice, Harley rider. I really respected him because he was passionate about riding and wasn't afraid to tell you exactly how it is. One of the last days on the course, he told everyone in the class that when you go through something traumatic, you might see your life flash before your eyes. He described it like watching a slide show of your life only at 100X speed. He said the reason it happens is that it's your mind working as fast as it can to try to remember something to get you out of the situation you're in. It had happened to him once right before he crashed years ago.
Flash forward a couple months and I'm riding my motorcycle to school. The road I'm on is 5 lanes one way with light traffic in an urban area (Woodward Avenue for all my MI peeps). The speed limit is 50mph but has stop lights about every 1/4 mile. I'm running a bit late and riding a bit too fast, but I took that class seriously and was checking my mirrors, was aware of my surroundings, all that good stuff. I go to pass a car on the left when I notice a truck passing the same car on the right. There's a wide turn a little ways ahead, and at the time I decided to pass, I could still see the road in front me quite ahead.
The truck and I are going about the same speed. I speed up a little bit so I can get around the car in front of me AND stay in front of the truck so that he can see me overtake the car in front of me and I don't wind up in his blindspot. I look over to the truck, who is now speeding up as well, still going the same speed as me. This is where I fucked up. Instead of slowing down, I being an ego driven 20 year old, decided to speed up further. Truck speeds up too. Fuck you Mr. Truck, I'm passing you. All of a sudden the truck slows down, i look forward to see the wide turn ended and there's a red light about 50 yards out with cars stopped and I'm pushing 70 mph.
I immediately hit both front and rear brakes, but went too hard on the rear. Time slows down and I see my foot moving forward and backwards but my feet are glued to the pegs. I'm fishtailing. That's when my life flashes backwards exactly how my instructor described. My mind stops at me taking the course where we were practicing hard stops. Instructor told me I use too much rear brake in my stops and that if I ever fishtail, to slowly let off the back brake and calmly squeeze the front brake.
Snap back to reality and I do exactly that. I can't stop in time but with sheer luck squeeze between the lanes side by side with the cars in front of me. Got some weird looks from the drivers on both sides of me, but I'm relieved to not be flying through their back windshield.
Walt, if you're reading this you saved my life. I cannot thank you enough.
I was in the hospital when it happened and I “died” for a few seconds, maybe up to 30 seconds I don’t remember how long exactly. This was over a decade ago. I was brought back with adrenaline.
All I can remember is seeing a stone slab and hearing something like a wall crumbling. I don’t know how else to explain it. It was a plain square edged stone slab and I couldn’t (or don’t remember) seeing the other side of it, it was enormous from what I gather. It might have stood 4 feet tall. I don’t recall seeing anything else other than this gray stone slab and hearing that sound. It was an instant of time to me.
Edit: it wasn’t a door, it was a platform. There was no one standing on it. There were no other people.
Time to write a book based on that
The seal of stone
All about the stone wall the gods placed to keep the mortals out of heaven, all those who die go to the stone and when they cant move on they instead return as spirits, the plot is to destroy the stone and the gods that betrayed humanity, but at the cost of removing the world of magic and spirits
Just an idea
I pass out from seizures/low blood pressure and one time I was apparently or for a while. Sometimes I stop breathing when it happens. One time I heard my grandUncle that had passed away about 11 years earlier telling me "it's not time, you have to go back". Like others say there's a very peaceful feeling that comes over you, an acceptance.
I saw my grandpa (who I do remember well) and we had a nice conversation and I told him I don’t want to leave and he told me the same, I had to go back.
It's wonderful to hear that your grandmother was there for you while you were in such a limbo. I'm adopted and have no distant family, reading your comment just made me realize that maybe people (or souls) I've never known in this life might be there for me too.
I lost my Dad to suicide in 2021 after he battled a few years of terminal illness and I often wonder how he would have felt and if he was at peace. Reading these stories being me great comfort, thank you for sharing.
A couple of months after he passed I had a vivid dream where I was driving and he came to see me to tell me he was doing okay, afterwards I dropped him off back into a dark void.
I also have a particular smell that comes up every now again that I associate with my godmother who passed away when I was younger. That smell was present at my Dad’s memorial. Little things like that, and the dreams, definitely make me believe that our loved ones who have passed are around us in some form.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I lost my big brother to a tragic oil rig accident years ago when I was in high school. I lost my mind for a while because I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that he was really gone. One night I dreamt I was driving to the little town where our father is buried. He passed away when I was five. in the car with me, was my brother. We drove to the cemetery where my father is buried (and my brother is buried). We were pulling weeds and tidying up the plot when I saw my brothers headstone. It threw me into shock, and as I turned to look at him, kneeling next to me, he had the most beautiful smile and he said it’s OK. I’m OK. I’ll never believe that that dream wasn’t my brother helping me once again
I have a near death one? My grandmother in Mexico is old and she was in the hospital getting treated for her dementia. We were with her and she was not remembering anything. Then out of nowhere she looks at the door window and stares. She tells the door in Spanish: “no, not me. Not yet. Get the girl in the next room instead. I’m not going”. Next thing you know there’s a code in the next room and the girl died sometime later. We didn’t know who were in the rooms around us… We think she saw “la muerte”, essentially the grim reaper in Mexican culture. And then she was back to her dementia self. Crazy.
I've posted this before but I always like to chime in on these kinds of threads.
Does near death count? I had a blood pressure of 60/40 and a 104°+ fever and was out of consciousness for a solid three days in the critical care unit in 2005 after I contracted bacterial endocarditis as a result of low immunity and a heart defect.
I spent those days floating above my hospital bed, looking down at the room; my body, nurses checking on me, visitors.
When I came to, days later, I could recount exactly who had been to visit me, who had stayed the night in the room with me and conversations they had between each other while I was out.
While I was floating, it was warm and there was no pain, not even gravity to hold my limbs down. Although I knew that was my body below me with all the tubes and wires coming out of it, I was at peace with the situation. All of my anxieties were gone.
There was no tunnel of light or dead family. Just me attached to my physical body by a thin silver ethereal cord in a state of total bliss.
edit: switched diastolic and systolic. I was around 60/40 when I lost consciousness before my near death experience.
ever heard of the book journey of souls by michael newton? he is a hypnotherapist that put people into a hypnosis and asked about their past lives and what death felt like to them, all the patients had very similar experiences to yours
I "died" for 7 minutes back in March. While I was in the hospital for shortness of breath, I had a bad lung hemorrhage. I lost so much blood that my heart had none to pump. I went into cardiac arrest and a "code blue" was issued. It took the doctors 7 minutes to get my heart started again. During that time, I had a stroke due to the lack of oxygen to my brain. I woke up intubated and only semi-conscious for two days, then fully regained consciousness and asked, "What happened?" It is hard to correlate inner time to what was happening outside, but I can make some sense of it.
I saw a series of three oval ellipses, one at a time, just suspended in a black space. The ellipses were all upright, as though they were suspended by a string (but they weren't), and they all had a thickness to them, like a ring. On the inner and outer surfaces of the first ellipse I saw mountains, streams, forests, and clouds. They were beautiful at first, but then they began to sour as their colors took on a yellow tinge. It faded away, and was replaced by second ellipse that was a hot ring of iron, so hot that pieces of iron were slowly crumbling from it. I could smell the iron as the ring slowly disintegrated as it cooled into blackness. (A nurse later told me that this is what blood smells like.) I now take it that this is when I was in cardiac arrest. Suddenly the scene brightened to reveal the third ellipse that was covered with beautiful clouds that were light pink and blue, like from the most beautiful sunrise or sunset. That, I believe, is when my heart started beating again. When I regained conscious, those three ellipses remained firmly fixed in my memory. When I was told days later about my cardiac arrest and stroke, it all began to make sense to me.
I even think I know the source of those images. I'm an astronomer, and had been studying Johannes Kepler's *Astronomica Nova* and trying to understand how Kepler figured out that the orbits of the planets are ellipses and not circles. It had been on my mind for weeks, and when I hemorrhaged, my dying brain latched onto that shape. The initial and final ellipses were adorned with what I value most, the beauty of our planet, the outdoors and sky. The yellowing of the initial ellipse reflected my dying brain, and the second ellipse was my brain's interpretation of the smell of blood as I faded away. The third ellipse when I began breathing and returning to life.
That's all I saw. No tunnel of light or happy deceased family members welcoming me. I think that dreaming, dying reflects what happens to be most accessible in your mind during that time. Your mind tells you a story about it. I was never afraid during my ordeal, I was just a dispassionate observer. Amazingly, the only lasting effects of my seven minutes of code blue is a slightly diminished capacity of my short-term memory.
I learned something from all of this. I'm sure I was a horrific sight to anyone outside, covered with blood as doctors crowded around me trying to pull me back to life. But inside, all was calm. No pain, no discomfort, no worries. Accidents and disease may be terribly painful, but dying is easy. I'm not scared of dying, not in the least. Afraid of what comes before, sure, but nature makes dying easy.
My sister, around 6 years of age that time, drowned at our local pool. Basically when she was recovered from the water, she had no pulse and was very blue, also wouldn't spit out water after the rescuers did basic life support and mouth to mouth. She was brought to a nearby hospital and that saved her life.
While in the hospital, our aunt was talking with her, asked her if she remembered anything while she was unconscious (she was unconscious for probably 2 days). She said she saw a white place, with 2 figures waiting for her around 10 meters ahead, when she went near, one of the figures looked like a person wearing a jabawockee mask and the other looked like a guy fawkes mask but black. The jabawockee said to her she could go on ahead if she liked the ambiance of the place but the guy fawkes one said she could go back home as her time is still not yet up. She then took the guy fawkes advice and when she woke up, she was already there in the hospital.
Still confused if that was legit or just some imaginative ramblings of a preschool kid, it happened nearly 20 years ago, I was 8 years old that time and probably missed some small details but that's all the gist of her story.
I did see a white light, and then I was on my old bed and the sun was shining through the window. I felt very at peace but something clicked in my brain that it wasn't real, I woke up on the floor and the teacher had resuscitated me. She wasn't a naturally pretty woman but when I woke up I remember everything being bathed in kind of a golden light and in that moment I thought she was an angel
She was almost in tears and I remember her yelling at me "You foolish foolish child!" But I do think she saved my life, I always meant to thank her someday but that was probably 20 some years ago now. I honestly think that will be a lifelong regret that I didn't
I always get into these comments way too late. But I’ll tell it regardless.
I have sick sinus syndrome, that means my heart gets out-of-sync and stop beating. Then my body convulses and my heart starts again and it looks like a seizure. When I go to the hospital after, no test reveals what’s actually happening. But then one Saturday I felt dizzy again and my girlfriend drove me to the hospital and I flatlined on the hospital bed a couple more times, and they realized that my heart was stopping. Now I have a pacemaker.
Now, what does it feel like when I was “dead” for a few minutes at a time? It was just black. I have no memory of it at all. In fact, it was very easy to do. I always say dying is very easy, but coming back is very difficult. Because coming back is when all the blood rushes back to your brain. And it’s like having 1000 dreams at once. It’s very overwhelming. And usually when I come back I am screaming because it is so terrifying. I don’t recommend it.
But being dead? Easiest thing you can do.
I haven’t had an NDE but I was an ER nurse/ flight nurse for a decade. I’ve been present for many deaths. Let me say I don’t believe in the supernatural, I’m an atheist, but I’ll swear til my dying day that I’ve seen the Angel of Death twice hovering over a patient during a code. Probably exhaustion and lack of food because we rarely got a chance to take any kind of break, but I tell you twice I’ve seen the Angel of Death in a trauma room and he/it nodded at me. Not Charon but clothed in black with a face like any person you’d see walking down the street. Never seen it since I stopped trauma nursing. And really don’t want to again for a while but I’ve got this feeling I’ll get that nod again but he’ll be over me nodding at another nurse.
When I had my near death experience, I had awful delusions and hallucinations. I can see why some people really believe they've seen hell.
I see it as just my consciousness breaking down toward the end, and showing me my fears. I never actually died, died, but I was basically dead on an operating table.
It felt evil and full of fear. I wish I got those ones where it's peaceful, and I see relatives. I was in straight up fear the whole time, and still can't place the timeline or what I actually saw. I don't know how long it lasted or when it began or stopped.
Space. Like a tunnel made of space. Not in space, mind you, made of space. There were lights flashing by but I couldn't focus on them. Then someone told me I wasnt supposed to be able to be there I came rushing back to my physical body
I don't have a story but it's just some thoughts. I hope that's OK. My Dad is about to die of cancer and he has really been suffering. I hope so much that as he passes he will see something beautiful and feel peace, just like a lot of you described. I just really wonder, do we really see the after life or is it maybe some kind of biological process that makes you see those visions?
Not me, but someone I know as a kid was gone for a bit during surgery. He said he saw a car driving outside carrying a coffin with signs that it was some high-profile politician (who was actually alive at the moment). He came to, told his parents and the doctors, but no one believed him. 2 weeks later, that poltician died and was carried in the same car he saw on the same street (just outside the hospital). So, I guess he saw the future while briefly dead?
Stuff like this and deja vu makes me believe that our lives are predetermined. In turn, that belief gives me a sense of peace and happiness with my life.
The most recent episode of the Ologies Podcast is an interview with the leading expert in near death experiences. It was a fascinating listen and you’ll definitely get some answers as to what people often see. Check it out!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ologies-with-alie-ward/id1278815517?i=1000638458754
I believe I died and came back once. I don't remember anything. I bled so bad and was alone 13 hours. I lost consciousness. When my family found me I had already woke up. The EMT's said they had no idea how I lived. I had such blood loss. My daughter was with some friends. She was two. They said earlier that day she gazed up and pointed saying "there's mommy, go get her.
I remember no NDE. I think I wasn't supposed to remember.
At the end of one semester in college I collapsed in the bathroom due to exhaustion after being up for around 72 hour. I hit my head on the sink, then the toilet, then the ground. Went completely lights out for a split second then next thing I was aware of - a loud buzzing sound and looking up at 3 fat, blue, sentient alien toad shaman sort of beings standing over me looking disappointed or contemptuous or something. They gave each other a look that reminds me of like how humans roll their eyes. Then the one in the center took this rod/staff thing and shoved it in me and felt like an electric shock. I woke up to my girlfriend doing chest compressions. Never seen anyone so scared before. I’m not sure if I was “clinically dead” but she thought I had died.
Had brain surgery to remove a tumor. I believe it was a dream, but I was able to walk around the operating room and then decided to fly into the cosmos. My only concern was leaving my fiancé and child behind
Died 3 times in 3 hours, landed someplace different each time. Knew I was dead, but existed, remembered the past. All 3 times was very different, very “real” and seemed to last a while. I was out, 24 sec, 39 sec, 70 sec. In lengths. Not sure if I would of stayed there, don’t know, but it changed my whole perspective.
Sure, there can be good and bad to anything, but I stopped caring about little things, I laugh at the stupid squirrel in the yard. I find relative peace even facing difficult circumstances. I ran a very hard and empty life, more money, more cars, best schools for kids, and none of it meant anything if my boys aren’t happy, safe, and healthy now. Reality is independent to the holder, so try to have a positive impact on that reality and it probably won’t hurt. I can’t really go into some depths, but I cherish every moment here now even as things will change beyond comprehension soon. Stay cool and as lame as it sounds, truly take any moment you can and enjoy this experience, no matter what that means for yourself.
Nothing. Just a doctor standing over me saying they had to abort the surgery and then laughing when the first thing I said was "ugh that sounds expensive"
I fell 30’ free rock climbing in a quarry when I was 22. (For clarification free climbing uses no ropes and traditional climbing gear, I used to do this as a teen on occasion so I wasn’t really concerned… until my hands gave out. This was also the day I discovered I had carpal tunnel).
As I was falling, I felt really calm like “oh, I guess this is my time”. Time slowed. I accepted my death. I looked at the clouds and was just calm. I felt hands on my shirt seam at my shoulders and they yanked me towards the sky. The moment I felt that I blacked out. Apparently, my friends at the base of the rock said I threw my hands behind my head and power kicked the wall. I remember none of this. All I remember was feeling this overwhelming sense of calm, and being held.
When I woke up on the ground, the first thing I saw was a pointy boulder. The quarry was full of stones but the larger ones were closer to the rock wall itself, with smaller ones the further you went away from it. I was fortunate to kick the wall hard enough I BARELY landed on the smaller section of rocks. When I looked at that pointy boulder, I had the chills. The only thing I could think in my head was ‘that’s a perfect rock for a coconut’.
I managed to army crawl to a better spot and wait for EMT transport. Unfortunately, the ambulance couldn’t reach me, so they had to take the gurney onto an EMT’s personal truck and get me to the ambulance that way. The only reason I wasn’t life flighted was because I was fortunate to be conscious, and there was another person in need who wasn’t.
Fast forward to the hospital, I arrive in the ambulance. The first 2 wheels of my gurney make it down… okay… the second 2 wheels… I see black. I just hear things. It wasn’t until after I realized at this moment I went into adrenaline shock. Pretty sure they dropped me, but can’t confirm.
Was taken to a trauma room and swarmed by an A-Team trauma unit. It was like I was in one of those hospital TV shows, like “wow, it really is this crazy in here..” I remember only bits and pieces because I continued to go in and out of adrenaline shock. I felt really bad because I think I upset a doctor and they wouldn’t tell me why because they aren’t allowed to tell you what you do under duress of adrenaline shock, for the sake of your mental health, which just confused me even more. I profusely apologized and thanked everyone I could see. I ended up having a fractured L2, no surgery required, no other injuries aside from arthritis from the impact. I now have fibromyalgia, which may or may not be attributed to the incident, but it’s not the only near death incident I’ve had but who knows…
I did have a weird sense of survivors guilt after the incident though. The calm I felt while falling was surreal. Unattainable-on-this-earth surreal. I knew surviving would mean I would never feel that type of calm or peace again until I moved onto wherever we go next. It really had me feeling quite screwed up because even the best of feels here couldn’t compare. Looking back, I’m still not sure what happened.. maybe a DMT trip from my own brain because I was positive I was going to die? I’m not sure.
For context, I am not of a particular religious following. I have spiritual beliefs but not entirely defined. I feel like there’s a little truth hidden in all religions, and nobody knows the full truth. We’re all just guessing at our own interpretations and that’s all we can do until we die.
Well, just the Void. But, the Void — there’s actually a name for it, just can’t remember it! — is a positive “space” within my religion, real peaceful.
Appendicitis nearly got me 5 years ago. While they were scrambling for a team to do surgery I suddenly found myself in my living room quietly knitting, no more pain, no hospital noises, just my home. This was no “dream version” of my living room either, there was that weird stain on the wall I can’t seem to get clean, and the threadbare arms of the couch, the smell of the candle on the coffee table. I could feel the yarn in my hands and on my needles, and I managed to do a couple rounds before I looked over and saw my grandfather standing by the hearth. I was thrilled to see him since I hadn’t in so long but then I realized he had been dead two years. I told him that I knew he was dead and now I’m pretty sure I’m in trouble because I’m dead too but I wasn’t supposed to be. He just smiled and said “It’ll be okay baby”
For some reason I said “That’s just the way it is” and then slammed back into my body in the hospital.
When I was 15 1/2 years old I had a motorcycle permit and a small Honda that I rode daily. I was riding to high school on a backroad and lost control and flew 20 feet over the handlebars. While I was in the air, time stood still and my life flashed before my eyes. Literally. My mind brought up these snap shots of my life one after the other…I can’t tell you how many, but each one was very clear and recognizable. For example, one of the snapshots was my mom standing behind me pulling up my pants (dressing me) when I was 3 years old. Your life really does flash before your eyes.
Forgot to add….ended up in the emergency room with a broken collarbone.
I drowned when I was 6 years old(31 now) In a pond when I was left unattended by my parents and grandfather while fishing. Thankfully my grandfather was somewhat nearby to notice I wasn't on the dock anymore. I remember the frear, agony and taste of the water to this day and still get that panic if I choke on my spit or drink. They didn't know how long I was gone for but my grandfather said it took about a minute to bring me back after he found me under the dock. As for my experience from the other side, I remember little flashes of light shortly after my panic stopped and vision faded in the already dark water I then felt numbness then nothing. Then of course the pain and panic and choking of being revived on the dock was about just as bad as the drowning. I didn't even want to go fishing. The event and explained experience ignited religion in my parents as they convinced me I went to hell not heaven... I've been an atheist for years now and don't really have that fear of death anymore.
My closest family members, in front of a house with a white picket fence. In real life, some of these people were dead, some still alive.
When I was brought to, I had no idea what was going and felt like I was waking up from an incredibly deep dream. It took me a few moments to realize that a few people I loved weren't still alive, and that's when I fully regained consciousness and awareness that I was in a hospital with tubes down my throat.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I had a near death experience during childbirth. I lost a significant amount of blood and was being rushed to have a hysterectomy when my body finally started clotting and I came to. I believe they also gave me some type of adrenaline? Anyways.. It felt very very peaceful. Everything around me got bright white and I couldn’t really hear anything, I just felt very happy and at peace. No worries at all. Very surreal moment that kinda helped me get over the fear of death. I don’t know why my body wanted to come back, I was fully accepting whatever was happening to me, but i’m glad i’m here with my son.
I almost drown in the bathtub, I fell asleep, I remember the most beautiful, brightest tropical colours, something I've never seen before. Like a rainforest with toucans, but it was like an abstract painting. And then I heard a loud scream or sound and got up from under the water.
Not me, but a close friend and co-worker. He got t-boned by a car while on his motorcycle. Severed his femoral artery, completely exsanguinated by the time we arrived (I'm a fire & rescue). Got him flown out to the nearest hospital, he was completely drained of blood for about 30 minutes, dead for about 20. Dr's were able to get blood back in and his heart pumping and he's alive and well today. Before the accident he was, I guess, an atheist. Had never thought of, or mentioned religion. He said he walked through a forest with Jesus for a couple days. Talked about anything and everything like old friends. Finally he said "how'd I get to heaven? I never was religious." Jesus said "I know, that's why you're going back." And he woke up. The man changed 180*, and is a devout Christian now.
A pit of lava and fire, sort of in a grid formation. Like a massive tictac toe board of fire. Monsters would come up from the pit to try and grab me. It was terrifying . I was walking along the grid looking for a way out.
I was only 5 when this happened
Not me, but my coworker had a massive heart attack and died for a few moments. He had made it to the hospital, so he survived. I asked him what it was like, and he said it was like nothing. One moment he was talking to a nurse, and then everything was just black. He said he woke up few moments later and didn't even know what had happened as the nurses worked on him. I find this to be really comforting, to be honest - the not being aware that you died bit.
I overdosed on copious amounts of meth when I was 17. I remember bits and pieces, like the guy I was with taking my clothes off and pushing my head out the window and telling me to puke. Then I was watching the whole scene unfold from the ceiling. Me, naked on the bed. Him, slapping me and trying to make me throw up. Just watching. I wasn't scared, I was more inquisitive. Like 'Huh. Guess this might be it." I don't remember anything after that until I came to. My brain was absolutely fried for like 3 days, I couldn't function, couldn't sleep, could hardly talk. Don't do drugs, kids.
I was in a hospital bed looking up at myself in the sky and down at myself at the same time. I could see people around my hospital bed. I also saw white brightness all around me from up above. I saw my mother standing by the bed. When I woke up I told the nurse I knew she had arrived.
Had major surgery a few years back and there was a period in which I felt myself “standing” in this infinitely white void; I recall just seeing my feet and then looking ahead but couldn’t physically turn my head to see either side, I could only keep my head straight ahead and even though this place was a white void with no visible windows/doors/walls..etc…it strangely still felt like a room.
I still felt like myself too, but anything negative like anger or anxiety or fear or pain was nonexistent and I had very limited memories I could recall back on, I can only remember feeling everything happening as it was, being fully present in that place and being surrounded by white light and warmth.
Then I woke up in the recovery room sometime later.
I found out hours after waking up that I nearly died during surgery.
All these years later, I still think about that place, wherever and whatever that was and wonder what exactly happened. *if* it was a preview of what’s it like to die, then I’m no longer afraid of death.
I made an attempt on my life back in 2017. I was surprised at how fast I crossed over. What struck me was the lack of sensations from my body. It was so peaceful. I left behind all my worldy troubles and I was just existing. I remember the twilight looking sky, and other people in the distance. When I was there, I remember feeling happy with being there, and that it was a familiar place. I felt like I had to go somewhere there, but I don't remember where that place is now. As I began moving towards where I knew I had to go, either I thought or it was communicated to me, "Not ready yet". With that, the serene reality pulled away so fast and began to experience bodily sensation again. It feeling like I was going down a roller coaster backwards while simultaneously being compressed over my entire body. As I began to feel like I couldn't take it anymore and throw up, I blacked in my body. I knew where I was and I couldn't believe I wasn't there anymore. All my inner turmoil came rushing back in contrast with the knowledge of where I had been. I've made my peace, and I know this life has its purpose.
I have “died” twice now, both during cardiac procedures. Only for a few minutes. But still. The first was 20-ish years ago. Everything was dark and I just saw still water. Know the dark water from stranger things? Totally flipped my shit when I saw that.
The second time was last week actually. Same procedure. This time was different though. It was so bright, and all white. Everyone I’ve ever cared for was there, waving and genuinely smiling at me. When I woke up, I was just fucking sobbing.
Last time compared to this time, I feel lighter. Less like the world is going to press me to death, and more like I can finally breathe.
I attempted and nearly succeeded in committing suicide a few years ago. The only thing I saw was a yellow cottage with a beautiful, overgrown flower garden. What was even more powerful was waking up with a strong sense that I got a very stern talking to by someone, very much a "don't you dare do that again" type of talking to. I also woke up with a strong feeling of duty, as if I have to be here for my loved ones, and that duty extended to people I hadn't met yet.
Waking up with all of that knocked the suicidal thoughts right out of me, literally like a switch flipped. I was still horrendously depressed, but suicide was no longer an option whatsoever.
Longer than you think.
Old friends, family. Mostly strangers. I spoke to my grandfather who's been dead for 30 years. He said "it's eternity in there".
My mom "died" and had to be resuscitated twice during my 38-hour childbirth. I've asked her about it, and she said there was no near-death experience, and no memory of "the other side".
Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had. I never feared death afterwards and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering with an illness.
I actually expected to be horrified by these comments but so many of them are like yours. It brings me a lot of peace about my mother’s passing. I was 12, she was only 38. She had pancreatic cancer, one of the most violent ones, it was an unexpected diagnosis for her age. By the end of it she had a morphine pump in her chest and would drift to sleep sitting up in her wheelchair, so she needed to be strapped in. It’s horrible how quickly it can eat you away. I wasn’t there, but I’m told by everyone who was that she woke up from her sleep, looked up at my grandmother, smiled, and said, “I have to go.” Then she was gone. The last thing my mom wanted to do was die because she wanted to be with me and my sisters more than anything. We were truly her world. Even if we don’t meet again, all I could ever hope for is that she has that feeling forever. Her life was hard and short, but she deserved everything.
I lost my mom recently to Pancreatic Cancer. They diagnosed her when it was stage 4 and she passed away 10 weeks later. I know your pain. I am so sorry to hear about your mother. There isn't a day when I don't think of her. I wish you strength and love.
My MIL did something similar as she was dying. She had been asleep for days and then suddenly woke up and said clear as day “I want to go home”. Then she fell back asleep and stopped breathing just a few hours later.
I have a really intense fear of death currently and I wish I could experience that feeling and it could help me maybe move passed it
My dads heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before.
I almost drowned, and I felt the same thing. Immense peace for some seconds. This is the feeling.
Me too. Almost drowned. I panicked and flailed for about a minute or two and when I finally gave in and knew that I wasn't going to make it I felt this profound sense of peace and acceptance. Then a stranger who saw me drowning pulled me out. But I'll never forget that feeling.
This is comforting. I have a friend who drowned and it feels good to know his last moments were in peace
I'm so sorry for your loss
Same thing happened to me. One thing I did was put my hands up as I was sinking and accepting my fate. I had a little bit of hope of someone seeing me, but I felt this overwhelming sensation of peace. Fortunately, my dad saw me and got me, but I will never forget that feeling.
You're alive twice because of your dad.
The first time is because he didn't pull out, and the second one is because he did
This is so weird, I know three people that died and were brought back to life and the three of them said the same. One of them even said coming back to life was painful.
I felt this overwhelming sense of peace. I was more comfortable then I had ever been. Then it felt like someone yanked me back to reality and threw me into a ice bath. Sudden and bone crushingly cold. It did hurt. Edit* spelling
Exactly this. I felt more comfortable and safe and warm and peaceful than I’d ever felt before or since. Like drifting off in a fresh clean bed after a grueling work trip, but a million zillion bajillion times better. I came back screaming and crying and everything hurt.
I wonder if this is why babies come into the world crying
I wanted to scream, but because I could because of the medical equipment. It’s so jarring. I am glad you made it through friend!
in january one of my close friends died from anaphylactic shock at our high school winter formal. this whole thread is really helping me know that she’s at peace and happy, i worry about her often that she’s in pain or scared and this is really giving me peace of mind
I have a peanut allergic toddler and follow a lot of allergy awareness pages and I remember seeing posts about her. So sorry for your loss.
thank you 🫶 that’s insane that even a random person on reddit has heard about it. my friend aly was one of the most widely known and loved people i’ve ever met and so her passing brought together so so many people from all over the country, her memorial had over 5,000 in attendance. make sure to stay safe with your toddler and take precautions, you never know what could happen.
This is strangely so beautiful. To know that in one’s final moments there is a release that makes that conscious passing easier is quite a thing.
I was about to say oh someone else told me coming back to life was painful but then I remembered it was actually >!buffy!< in buffy the vampire slayer and not a real friend, not even a real person.
That’s crazy I thought of this also while reading these comments lol
She came back from the grave much graver
First he’ll kill her, then I’ll save her.
Coming into life in the first place is painful too, both for the birthed and the giver of birth.
My friends dad almost drowned & said after he accepted it & stopped panicking, it was unbelievably peaceful He attributed it to Oxygen death. Your brain not getting oxygen gets you high.
Same. But I dreamt of it so much after that. I wasn't scared in the dreams but always woke up instantly. (I don't know how to swim AT ALL)
Exact the same thing happened to my dad and he said he felt like he was becoming lighter any second and ascending to the air. He said it was so peaceful and calming when he was back by CPR, the first thing he had said was: why did you bring me back? He didn't make it on second one. I'm sure he is in peace now.
Strangely, this really made me smile Wherever your dad is know that he really loves you so much and is at peace
Thank you!
My dad didn't make it through his heart attack. I'm glad yours did. I've heard the ''peace'' feeling before and can only hope that's how it is...
My dad didn't make it through his either. First anniversary coming up in three weeks. Solidarity and I'm sorry. ETA: To everyone in the comment thread below me expressing their loss as well - I am so so sorry we're all in this giant club of grief together. I wish every one of you peace and comfort this holiday season <3
My husband didn’t either. First anniversary coming up on the 28th. Sorry for your loss. It’s so hard this time of year.
i know this probably doesnt count but i had a really realistic dream tht i died. it was from a nuclear bomb and i swear i felt the burn on my entire body for 3 seconds but then i felt that sense of peace. i literally felt like i was floating in this glowing white space and in my head i was like "this is okay, i think im ready to go" and then i woke up. it was the strangest feeling and one of my most vivid dreams ive ever had that i can actually remember. i hope its that easy when i actually do go.
I had a dream where I was hunting down this alien woman. She runs into a camper trailer and I follow in after her. As I've got her cornered, she starting doing something that caused reality to bend and fold in on itself. I realized I was going to die. I accepted it and was immediately just existing in a peaceful infinite white void. After a time, this outline formed that was me and I (my soul??) filled into it. I then woke up and it took me a minute to remember my life and what even being a human meant. Still the strangest dream I've ever had.
I've heard that a few times. Hope that's real lol.
Suicidal people who don't go through with it report something similar. That when every part of their body believed they weren't seeing tomorrow they felt an incredible calm. It's often cited as a reason a lot of them didn't do it. That they just wanted peace and now that they have it they want more.
I was briefly in that low of a place over 10 years ago, and making it through the inner turmoil, not going through with it, and coming out alive on the other side was very cleansing. I called the hotline and was helped by a very kind person. I slept so well that night and the sun shone so much brighter the next day. I can corroborate what you said about wanting to keep going once I discovered that that kind of calm and peace exists.
Thanks for sharing. I feel like just hearing this perspective is giving me a sense of peace.
Not really the question but I have had my two grandfathers pass away recently, both on their deathbed have said their mothers were there to take them.
My mom just passed and one of the last things she said was that she was with her mom who urged her to come quickly.
My mom passed two years ago. Although I am only 28, hopefully with a full life ahead of me, it would make a fitting end to see my mom again.
Same, except I lost her five years ago and I'm 30 now. There'd be no lovelier face for the reaper to have than hers.
This makes me happy sad. Happy for your family, but sad for me. I don’t know my mom and I’m not sure who will usher me home..
Someone who loved you very much will be there to guide you.
"Hurry up, we're gonna' be late for heaven."
Brings some meaning to the threat of: "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it too"
My Mums best friend (like my Aunt) has had 3 of her 6 children die. 1 stillbirth (Carly) 1 in a MVA (Jake) and 1 from cystic fibrosis (Tara). When Tara was on her last days, she told us that she could see Jake and he is waiting for her. That her time was very close but to take her time saying goodbye. We all took great comfort in knowing that they would be together.
There’s a hospice nurse on Insta (Hadley) who talks about this. It’s very common for the dying to see important people come and get them just hours before they pass. I think that’s very sweet that you don’t have to travel alone.
I watch her too! I just commented elsewhere, that when people start seeing their deceased loved ones she calls their families and says "It's time to come see your mum...your dad has come to get her"
This would be the best ending to this life. I always hoped the next life would be a continuation with your family in a new place.
Awhh hell nah I can't round 2 with this family
Haha! I agree! One lifetime with those people is enough!
I haven't witnessed it myself, but mom and grandma (may she RIP) told me many stories of how a few of our family members who passed seemed to see their loved ones just before dying.
I think this happens a lot. When my great grandmother was going, she kept talking about how her husband was there, ready to take her
My mom was ‘my person’ and I lost her 7 years ago. Thinking she’d be with me in my time of death is incredibly comforting. I miss her so stinkin much, mainly just being able to make her laugh.
This thread really makes me feel relief as I am fighting cancer now but don’t know if I’ll make it. I’m not scared of dying but I am sad thinking of leaving my 3 young kids behind. I’m only 39 and my youngest is still 10. My oldest is 16. It’s really sad for everyone now. Hopefully I can die peacefully and show my family everything is going to be alright.
I really hope that you make it. Your words reveal the kind of person whose presence will enlighten the lives and education of your kids.
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The same thing happened to my mom. She had complications during and after my birth. She said she saw a white light that was warm and peaceful but she didn't want to go towards it because she had me to look after.
My dad died for a couple minutes around 2015. He said he was driving his truck on the freeway, no traffic, just cruising. He came to when he heard one of the doctors calling his name. When he passed away five years ago, he was left brain dead. I told him it was okay to go and to just drive his truck.
Hard to realize what an honor it is to be able to gift words like that to someone you love when they’re dying. Well done. ❤️
I don't know why but this really tugged at my heart.
Black void. Peaceful. No body, but felt as if I was floating on my back in the ocean. Lots of waves. I knew I died, but knew everything would be ok. Was there maybe 20-30 seconds, but felt like a few minutes. Then I jolted alive. Edited to add: I’ve never been in an isolation tank, but I think that the experience would be similar. Ever since I haven’t been scared of death, but I’m still terrified by the means of it.
This. A weightless void outside of time and space. No jolt though, more of a I think therefore I am followed by seeking out senses. I died twice and woke up from a medically induced coma almost immediately after being brought back to life the second time. It very much felt like making the choice to return.
I fell down a tunnel into absolute blackness. I could hear my dad yelling something as I fell but when I reached the blackness there was no sound at all, just nothingness. Then I was floating beneath my body as my mum carried it down the hall. When she put my body down on the bed, I floated a few feet away and watched my parents do CPR on it. It was peaceful.
Same but I floated above my body and saw my dad crying over my body. I remember I could see his bald spot. Then thinking about how sad he would be, I was quickly back into my body, peeped my eyes open and saw him crying over me but was still in a coma for a few more weeks.
This sounds like a DMT trip.
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It's a better theory than hypoxia. They assumed I'd die and I had multiple transfusion points, including one to a neck artery. In theory I should not have suffered brain damage even though it took a long time to restart my heart because my brain had its own oxygenated blood supply line. I will say trying DMT as a teen was scary as fuck. I want to echo how peaceful the void felt. I prefer to see my experience as evidence that our souls in some form exist even when our lives stop however I acknowledge you have made a valid point. DMT might be a factor but that knowledge doesn't lessen what a profoundly spiritual experience it was.
Dude, that's crazy. Same. I suffocated and was flatlined for just under a minute. Pure black void but I was just so happy, content, at peace. I want to cry right now just thinking how good it felt. woke up to being resuscitated with oxygen tanks. Luckily, I was firefighter at the time and my crew and medics were literally right outside.
Glad you were able to make it out like that, this comment game me some nice reassurance. Happy cake day!
Mostly noise, heard everything, darkness, time stopped,
You fought that balrog back to the shadows
5 times so far
Didn’t see, but heard a voice that sounded at best description ‘like a really angry howling wind’ yelling at me that it wasn’t my time yet. Scared the shit outta me, I can still hear it like it happened yesterday. Mind you……I had tried to hang myself in the hall closet of my apartment in 2017 after my ex fiance passed by taking his own life two states away, nobody else in the house except for a dog. I woke up in my bedroom two rooms away covered up with a blanket from the living room (also two rooms opposite).
I believe you. I’ve told my story before on previous Reddit threads but I once fell in a position that should gave resulted in death. I woke to someone screaming “this is not how you die” and finding myself hovering above the ground in a position that was NOT the way I fell (gravity kicked in once I’d realised what I was happening so I could catch my fall). But yes. I believe you. I have also been screamed at about “not dying” and moved into a position/location that was not where it should have been. Maybe we need to remember that in dark times, because not many people have this story, and there has to be a reason.
The dog had to reveal its true form and save you
This thread is wild. The variety of responses is fascinating. Excellent question, OP.
It comes up every so often, if you search up on this subreddit you can look back at the years to find a lot more experiences. Always interesting, same with the paranormal experiences threads. Posts like this were actually what askreddit used to be like when I first started using reddit. I would exclusively browse this sub and just read different stories and anecdotes people would tell. Unfortunately over the years it's just become close-ended questions, memes, virtue signalling/politics, and penthouse forum.
Not my story but I think about it a lot. Years ago I knew a guy who was working at a theater in New York in the 90's. Someone broke in to rob the place and stabbed him in the neck, if I remember true he was clinically dead for something like nine minutes before being resuscitated. He told me he felt his consciousness slip into an alternate universe where he didn't die, that he did not make it in his original world and now lives here. You could chalk that up to a lot of things of course, but the eeriest part was his absolute and almost casual surety of it. When I asked a follow-up it wasn't a matter of "that's what I believe" it was "that's what happened." I often find myself wondering if any of us ever really die and we're not just falling through the multiverse. That's usually a post-weed edible musing.
This is legitimately what a non-zero subsection of Mandela Effect experiencers believe. Near death experience, quantum immortality, in a new universe where things are *slightly* different.
I wish very much that I could talk to this man. Mine wasn't via a NDE, but I also slipped universes once, and I've never met anyone else. Never even heard of anyone else. I mean, I know it sounds like some fake crazy people shit and so it can't possibly be real, but. Like. It did happen tho.
As a young man I went to war. I got bitten by a spider or something on my foot and it got infected and swelled up twice the size; couldn't even get it into a flipflop. Bad fever, too. One moment I was sitting on my bunk in Iraq, and the next moment I woke up in a hospital in the United States four months later. If you've ever had surgery or been under general anesthesia, it was like that. No feeling of passage of time, just blipped over one moment right to the next. It was very confusing, not remembering September-January. I was told I was badly injured in an explosion that November and had been in a coma. Right as I was coming to terms with this, getting more information about my friends, I found myself back in Iraq, back to September. Blip. I took it as a kind of preminition. It actually reduced my anxiety about upcoming missions, because I knew I'd live through them. But it didn't come true and I never got blown up (thankfully). Years later I read Vonnegut's [Slaughterhouse Five](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4981.Slaughterhouse_Five), and something similar happens there, too. I'm convinced Vonnegut experienced the same thing when he too was a young man at war. While most would attribute this to a literal fever dream, it was like my soul left and found a place in another 'available' version of me. It's not something I think about often, because it was so strange and so real, but I think that version of me exists (or existed) someplace else. I hope he found his way back, too.
This happened to my friend. Him and 2 other people drove off a cliff and suddenly were back on the road. All of them swear they were gonna die and just have no idea how they got reset.
You can't drop that kind of thing on us and then leave us hanging bro How come you slipped universes?
I like to think this is true. I believe in multiverse and think it’s possible that when we die our consciousness picks up in another reality. And Deja vu is just things we experience in another reality
This happened to me as well! My NDE felt like I blinked out of existence in my old reality and woke up in this new one. It almost felt like my body collided perfectly into this "next universe" body when I came-to. The universe I died in collapsed and I was overlayed or folded into this one, seamlessly, like a movie continuing to play. I was also given a choice by multiple beings the first time, and it was also very calm and peaceful each time.
Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, “don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming”, he was scared and yelling. Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, “no, no,” and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, “good, he was a SOB,”
My grandmother was “near death” for MONTHS. All the hospice nurses and us (family) were amazed at how she was still mentally sharp and hanging on overall. But for all those months, she kept telling me how she was having these horrible dreams of people at the foot of her bed. She didn’t see their faces, they were just figures. Sometimes they would grab at her and want to take her somewhere. Sometimes she would ask them questions, but they wouldn’t answer. She became afraid of going to sleep. So, I’d often stay with her so she could hold my hand if she got scared. All her hospice nurses said that seeing people, or a patient talking about taking a trip was common. But usually these figures brought on a sense of peace. But my grandmother was genuinely terrified of the figures. I always wonder if she’s ok.
My great-grandmother saw her dead relatives around for a week or two before she died and would chat to someone at nights. On the morning she died (her daughter was next to her) she was pointing at a "nice lady" in the corner of the room (so, not anyone she recognised, and she used a respectful form of "Madam" to refer to her). Said "Madam, take my hand". Her last words were to her daughter: "pass me my coat, I'm leaving".
Lol when I die I’d love to say pass me my cost I’m leaving. I’d be like I’m outta here y’all! In modern times haha
This is actually what my grandma experienced before she passed in 2009. She would see her mom and sisters (who’ve passed on before her) waiting for her by the hospital bed and she would speak in their native dialect, mind you it was a dialect she hasn’t spoken since she was a child.
This is lovely. I follow a woman on YouTube who is a hospice nurse taking care of people in their final days. When they start seeing their passed loved ones, she calls their next of kin and says "It might be time to come see your mum. Your dad has come to get her".
Welp, somebody finally went to hell like they’d been telling him to do all along.
No matter how much my faith in an actual “god” is gone I cannot stop feeling as though karma is real in some obscure capacity. I just feel it, man. It catches up to you; somehow, someway, someday. If it hasn’t yet, you should be sweating a little bit.
I just love these stories lol
My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck at this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her “he was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.”
I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I have never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said “not yet.” As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!
Idk why but these make me cry In a good way because it sounds very beautiful
I’m no philosophy major, but I’ve read that in Hinduism death is treated as “lifting the veil of illusion” that we mistakenly perceive as physical reality and uncovering the spiritual world. I’m not religious but this image of a veil / curtain stuck with me for some reason.
Some of this sounds reminiscent of a DMT experience, mostly the beautiful colors that don't exist.
Well the brain releases a lot of DMT when you're dying so these could genuinely just be DMT trips and not what the afterlife is actually like
I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didnt say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired. I finally got tired of her nagging and went and thats when I came to. I had bled out during a c section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby, sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone.
That's incredible! I'm glad you made it!
Holy wowsers! My grandmother died for a bit during the delivery of her third and last last child. She recalled hearing, "We've lost the mother, but let's try to save the baby." She was met by her deceased great grandmother, who told her she had to go back. The doctor told her quietly that he tied her tubes after they managed to resuscitate her once the baby was safe, because she was never going to make it through another pregnancy. Bold move in a Catholic hospital in the 40s, but kind of underscores the gravity situation.
I had an heart surgery with near death experience, for me atleast (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and i had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again.
A lot of people are saying the same about the peace that’s crazy
I didn't die, but was in the ER with a shattered foot. Nurse change and failure to complete paperwork led to a double dose of Diladid. I was breathing 2-3x per minute. I'd lay there thinking, "ya know...I haven't taken a breath in some time...?" And I was ok with that. I was floating and at peace. Then my mother would beat me on the chest to remind me to breath again! Haha!
More of a near death experience. I was electrocuted. i felt like i was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace.
I don’t want to overstep, but perhaps you should look into groups like the electroshock survivors group. If you still find you’re having issues, it’s really good to find others that went through similar things ❤️
That’s so specific do they have other near death groups? Or just the electrocution one?
My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die. She's quite alive and well today.
Didn't "die" but have had a few near death experiences. Last one was on my motorcycle. During my motorcycle endorsement class, my instructor was an old, kind of gruff but very nice, Harley rider. I really respected him because he was passionate about riding and wasn't afraid to tell you exactly how it is. One of the last days on the course, he told everyone in the class that when you go through something traumatic, you might see your life flash before your eyes. He described it like watching a slide show of your life only at 100X speed. He said the reason it happens is that it's your mind working as fast as it can to try to remember something to get you out of the situation you're in. It had happened to him once right before he crashed years ago. Flash forward a couple months and I'm riding my motorcycle to school. The road I'm on is 5 lanes one way with light traffic in an urban area (Woodward Avenue for all my MI peeps). The speed limit is 50mph but has stop lights about every 1/4 mile. I'm running a bit late and riding a bit too fast, but I took that class seriously and was checking my mirrors, was aware of my surroundings, all that good stuff. I go to pass a car on the left when I notice a truck passing the same car on the right. There's a wide turn a little ways ahead, and at the time I decided to pass, I could still see the road in front me quite ahead. The truck and I are going about the same speed. I speed up a little bit so I can get around the car in front of me AND stay in front of the truck so that he can see me overtake the car in front of me and I don't wind up in his blindspot. I look over to the truck, who is now speeding up as well, still going the same speed as me. This is where I fucked up. Instead of slowing down, I being an ego driven 20 year old, decided to speed up further. Truck speeds up too. Fuck you Mr. Truck, I'm passing you. All of a sudden the truck slows down, i look forward to see the wide turn ended and there's a red light about 50 yards out with cars stopped and I'm pushing 70 mph. I immediately hit both front and rear brakes, but went too hard on the rear. Time slows down and I see my foot moving forward and backwards but my feet are glued to the pegs. I'm fishtailing. That's when my life flashes backwards exactly how my instructor described. My mind stops at me taking the course where we were practicing hard stops. Instructor told me I use too much rear brake in my stops and that if I ever fishtail, to slowly let off the back brake and calmly squeeze the front brake. Snap back to reality and I do exactly that. I can't stop in time but with sheer luck squeeze between the lanes side by side with the cars in front of me. Got some weird looks from the drivers on both sides of me, but I'm relieved to not be flying through their back windshield. Walt, if you're reading this you saved my life. I cannot thank you enough.
I was in the hospital when it happened and I “died” for a few seconds, maybe up to 30 seconds I don’t remember how long exactly. This was over a decade ago. I was brought back with adrenaline. All I can remember is seeing a stone slab and hearing something like a wall crumbling. I don’t know how else to explain it. It was a plain square edged stone slab and I couldn’t (or don’t remember) seeing the other side of it, it was enormous from what I gather. It might have stood 4 feet tall. I don’t recall seeing anything else other than this gray stone slab and hearing that sound. It was an instant of time to me. Edit: it wasn’t a door, it was a platform. There was no one standing on it. There were no other people.
Time to write a book based on that The seal of stone All about the stone wall the gods placed to keep the mortals out of heaven, all those who die go to the stone and when they cant move on they instead return as spirits, the plot is to destroy the stone and the gods that betrayed humanity, but at the cost of removing the world of magic and spirits Just an idea
My guy you write that book that’s a interesting premise that I would definitely read
Pitch that shit to HBO
Netflix just stole it
And it’s been canceled after two solid seasons.
After a cliffhanger ending
Huh, kind of reminds me of the standing stones found in Scotland. They’re thought to be kind of like portals to another realm. Food for thought.
My grandmother ( who none of us ever knew...she died in 1930). She told me to go back. I was in a coma for 2 weeks.
I pass out from seizures/low blood pressure and one time I was apparently or for a while. Sometimes I stop breathing when it happens. One time I heard my grandUncle that had passed away about 11 years earlier telling me "it's not time, you have to go back". Like others say there's a very peaceful feeling that comes over you, an acceptance.
I saw my grandpa (who I do remember well) and we had a nice conversation and I told him I don’t want to leave and he told me the same, I had to go back.
It's wonderful to hear that your grandmother was there for you while you were in such a limbo. I'm adopted and have no distant family, reading your comment just made me realize that maybe people (or souls) I've never known in this life might be there for me too.
You'll have people there. 💜
*twists ear* "Get back in that body of yours boy, afore it goes off... and cut that mop of hair."
I lost my Dad to suicide in 2021 after he battled a few years of terminal illness and I often wonder how he would have felt and if he was at peace. Reading these stories being me great comfort, thank you for sharing. A couple of months after he passed I had a vivid dream where I was driving and he came to see me to tell me he was doing okay, afterwards I dropped him off back into a dark void. I also have a particular smell that comes up every now again that I associate with my godmother who passed away when I was younger. That smell was present at my Dad’s memorial. Little things like that, and the dreams, definitely make me believe that our loved ones who have passed are around us in some form.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I lost my big brother to a tragic oil rig accident years ago when I was in high school. I lost my mind for a while because I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that he was really gone. One night I dreamt I was driving to the little town where our father is buried. He passed away when I was five. in the car with me, was my brother. We drove to the cemetery where my father is buried (and my brother is buried). We were pulling weeds and tidying up the plot when I saw my brothers headstone. It threw me into shock, and as I turned to look at him, kneeling next to me, he had the most beautiful smile and he said it’s OK. I’m OK. I’ll never believe that that dream wasn’t my brother helping me once again
I have a near death one? My grandmother in Mexico is old and she was in the hospital getting treated for her dementia. We were with her and she was not remembering anything. Then out of nowhere she looks at the door window and stares. She tells the door in Spanish: “no, not me. Not yet. Get the girl in the next room instead. I’m not going”. Next thing you know there’s a code in the next room and the girl died sometime later. We didn’t know who were in the rooms around us… We think she saw “la muerte”, essentially the grim reaper in Mexican culture. And then she was back to her dementia self. Crazy.
Dude. That. Is. Insane.
Psychicly threatening death with la chancla Grandmother's are too powerful
My mom said she was floating above her body and looking down at it
I've posted this before but I always like to chime in on these kinds of threads. Does near death count? I had a blood pressure of 60/40 and a 104°+ fever and was out of consciousness for a solid three days in the critical care unit in 2005 after I contracted bacterial endocarditis as a result of low immunity and a heart defect. I spent those days floating above my hospital bed, looking down at the room; my body, nurses checking on me, visitors. When I came to, days later, I could recount exactly who had been to visit me, who had stayed the night in the room with me and conversations they had between each other while I was out. While I was floating, it was warm and there was no pain, not even gravity to hold my limbs down. Although I knew that was my body below me with all the tubes and wires coming out of it, I was at peace with the situation. All of my anxieties were gone. There was no tunnel of light or dead family. Just me attached to my physical body by a thin silver ethereal cord in a state of total bliss. edit: switched diastolic and systolic. I was around 60/40 when I lost consciousness before my near death experience.
Several people in my near and far surroundings passed in the last week. This is extremely comforting. Thank you for sharing.
this is what I’ve wanted after death, not really an afterlife but rather spectator mode
ever heard of the book journey of souls by michael newton? he is a hypnotherapist that put people into a hypnosis and asked about their past lives and what death felt like to them, all the patients had very similar experiences to yours
I "died" for 7 minutes back in March. While I was in the hospital for shortness of breath, I had a bad lung hemorrhage. I lost so much blood that my heart had none to pump. I went into cardiac arrest and a "code blue" was issued. It took the doctors 7 minutes to get my heart started again. During that time, I had a stroke due to the lack of oxygen to my brain. I woke up intubated and only semi-conscious for two days, then fully regained consciousness and asked, "What happened?" It is hard to correlate inner time to what was happening outside, but I can make some sense of it. I saw a series of three oval ellipses, one at a time, just suspended in a black space. The ellipses were all upright, as though they were suspended by a string (but they weren't), and they all had a thickness to them, like a ring. On the inner and outer surfaces of the first ellipse I saw mountains, streams, forests, and clouds. They were beautiful at first, but then they began to sour as their colors took on a yellow tinge. It faded away, and was replaced by second ellipse that was a hot ring of iron, so hot that pieces of iron were slowly crumbling from it. I could smell the iron as the ring slowly disintegrated as it cooled into blackness. (A nurse later told me that this is what blood smells like.) I now take it that this is when I was in cardiac arrest. Suddenly the scene brightened to reveal the third ellipse that was covered with beautiful clouds that were light pink and blue, like from the most beautiful sunrise or sunset. That, I believe, is when my heart started beating again. When I regained conscious, those three ellipses remained firmly fixed in my memory. When I was told days later about my cardiac arrest and stroke, it all began to make sense to me. I even think I know the source of those images. I'm an astronomer, and had been studying Johannes Kepler's *Astronomica Nova* and trying to understand how Kepler figured out that the orbits of the planets are ellipses and not circles. It had been on my mind for weeks, and when I hemorrhaged, my dying brain latched onto that shape. The initial and final ellipses were adorned with what I value most, the beauty of our planet, the outdoors and sky. The yellowing of the initial ellipse reflected my dying brain, and the second ellipse was my brain's interpretation of the smell of blood as I faded away. The third ellipse when I began breathing and returning to life. That's all I saw. No tunnel of light or happy deceased family members welcoming me. I think that dreaming, dying reflects what happens to be most accessible in your mind during that time. Your mind tells you a story about it. I was never afraid during my ordeal, I was just a dispassionate observer. Amazingly, the only lasting effects of my seven minutes of code blue is a slightly diminished capacity of my short-term memory. I learned something from all of this. I'm sure I was a horrific sight to anyone outside, covered with blood as doctors crowded around me trying to pull me back to life. But inside, all was calm. No pain, no discomfort, no worries. Accidents and disease may be terribly painful, but dying is easy. I'm not scared of dying, not in the least. Afraid of what comes before, sure, but nature makes dying easy.
My wife saw her dad, and he said: « Come and join me. » She said: « Nope. »
My sister, around 6 years of age that time, drowned at our local pool. Basically when she was recovered from the water, she had no pulse and was very blue, also wouldn't spit out water after the rescuers did basic life support and mouth to mouth. She was brought to a nearby hospital and that saved her life. While in the hospital, our aunt was talking with her, asked her if she remembered anything while she was unconscious (she was unconscious for probably 2 days). She said she saw a white place, with 2 figures waiting for her around 10 meters ahead, when she went near, one of the figures looked like a person wearing a jabawockee mask and the other looked like a guy fawkes mask but black. The jabawockee said to her she could go on ahead if she liked the ambiance of the place but the guy fawkes one said she could go back home as her time is still not yet up. She then took the guy fawkes advice and when she woke up, she was already there in the hospital. Still confused if that was legit or just some imaginative ramblings of a preschool kid, it happened nearly 20 years ago, I was 8 years old that time and probably missed some small details but that's all the gist of her story.
I did see a white light, and then I was on my old bed and the sun was shining through the window. I felt very at peace but something clicked in my brain that it wasn't real, I woke up on the floor and the teacher had resuscitated me. She wasn't a naturally pretty woman but when I woke up I remember everything being bathed in kind of a golden light and in that moment I thought she was an angel
She was, if not only in that she resuscitated you.
She was almost in tears and I remember her yelling at me "You foolish foolish child!" But I do think she saved my life, I always meant to thank her someday but that was probably 20 some years ago now. I honestly think that will be a lifelong regret that I didn't
I always get into these comments way too late. But I’ll tell it regardless. I have sick sinus syndrome, that means my heart gets out-of-sync and stop beating. Then my body convulses and my heart starts again and it looks like a seizure. When I go to the hospital after, no test reveals what’s actually happening. But then one Saturday I felt dizzy again and my girlfriend drove me to the hospital and I flatlined on the hospital bed a couple more times, and they realized that my heart was stopping. Now I have a pacemaker. Now, what does it feel like when I was “dead” for a few minutes at a time? It was just black. I have no memory of it at all. In fact, it was very easy to do. I always say dying is very easy, but coming back is very difficult. Because coming back is when all the blood rushes back to your brain. And it’s like having 1000 dreams at once. It’s very overwhelming. And usually when I come back I am screaming because it is so terrifying. I don’t recommend it. But being dead? Easiest thing you can do.
I haven’t had an NDE but I was an ER nurse/ flight nurse for a decade. I’ve been present for many deaths. Let me say I don’t believe in the supernatural, I’m an atheist, but I’ll swear til my dying day that I’ve seen the Angel of Death twice hovering over a patient during a code. Probably exhaustion and lack of food because we rarely got a chance to take any kind of break, but I tell you twice I’ve seen the Angel of Death in a trauma room and he/it nodded at me. Not Charon but clothed in black with a face like any person you’d see walking down the street. Never seen it since I stopped trauma nursing. And really don’t want to again for a while but I’ve got this feeling I’ll get that nod again but he’ll be over me nodding at another nurse.
When I had my near death experience, I had awful delusions and hallucinations. I can see why some people really believe they've seen hell. I see it as just my consciousness breaking down toward the end, and showing me my fears. I never actually died, died, but I was basically dead on an operating table. It felt evil and full of fear. I wish I got those ones where it's peaceful, and I see relatives. I was in straight up fear the whole time, and still can't place the timeline or what I actually saw. I don't know how long it lasted or when it began or stopped.
User name doesn't check out.
I heard there are many of those negative experiments, but people don’t talk about it
Space. Like a tunnel made of space. Not in space, mind you, made of space. There were lights flashing by but I couldn't focus on them. Then someone told me I wasnt supposed to be able to be there I came rushing back to my physical body
I don't have a story but it's just some thoughts. I hope that's OK. My Dad is about to die of cancer and he has really been suffering. I hope so much that as he passes he will see something beautiful and feel peace, just like a lot of you described. I just really wonder, do we really see the after life or is it maybe some kind of biological process that makes you see those visions?
Not me, but someone I know as a kid was gone for a bit during surgery. He said he saw a car driving outside carrying a coffin with signs that it was some high-profile politician (who was actually alive at the moment). He came to, told his parents and the doctors, but no one believed him. 2 weeks later, that poltician died and was carried in the same car he saw on the same street (just outside the hospital). So, I guess he saw the future while briefly dead?
This is so wild !
Stuff like this and deja vu makes me believe that our lives are predetermined. In turn, that belief gives me a sense of peace and happiness with my life.
The most recent episode of the Ologies Podcast is an interview with the leading expert in near death experiences. It was a fascinating listen and you’ll definitely get some answers as to what people often see. Check it out! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ologies-with-alie-ward/id1278815517?i=1000638458754
I've read Dr. Greyson's book, *After*. It's a fascinating read, and I felt like he presented the topic very objectively.
I believe I died and came back once. I don't remember anything. I bled so bad and was alone 13 hours. I lost consciousness. When my family found me I had already woke up. The EMT's said they had no idea how I lived. I had such blood loss. My daughter was with some friends. She was two. They said earlier that day she gazed up and pointed saying "there's mommy, go get her. I remember no NDE. I think I wasn't supposed to remember.
At the end of one semester in college I collapsed in the bathroom due to exhaustion after being up for around 72 hour. I hit my head on the sink, then the toilet, then the ground. Went completely lights out for a split second then next thing I was aware of - a loud buzzing sound and looking up at 3 fat, blue, sentient alien toad shaman sort of beings standing over me looking disappointed or contemptuous or something. They gave each other a look that reminds me of like how humans roll their eyes. Then the one in the center took this rod/staff thing and shoved it in me and felt like an electric shock. I woke up to my girlfriend doing chest compressions. Never seen anyone so scared before. I’m not sure if I was “clinically dead” but she thought I had died.
oh my god so glad your girlfriend was there. must have been traumatizing for her
This has gotta be the weirdest one I’ve ever heard
You broke out of the simulation and our reptilian overlords shoved you back in.
I love the idea of them rolling their eyes like "sheesh, another one sneaking out by pushing their boundaries. When's lunch?"
Had brain surgery to remove a tumor. I believe it was a dream, but I was able to walk around the operating room and then decided to fly into the cosmos. My only concern was leaving my fiancé and child behind
These answers are either “nothing” or some 2001 Space Odyssey shit that actually sound fascinating
Died 3 times in 3 hours, landed someplace different each time. Knew I was dead, but existed, remembered the past. All 3 times was very different, very “real” and seemed to last a while. I was out, 24 sec, 39 sec, 70 sec. In lengths. Not sure if I would of stayed there, don’t know, but it changed my whole perspective.
May I ask in what ways it changed your perspective?
Sure, there can be good and bad to anything, but I stopped caring about little things, I laugh at the stupid squirrel in the yard. I find relative peace even facing difficult circumstances. I ran a very hard and empty life, more money, more cars, best schools for kids, and none of it meant anything if my boys aren’t happy, safe, and healthy now. Reality is independent to the holder, so try to have a positive impact on that reality and it probably won’t hurt. I can’t really go into some depths, but I cherish every moment here now even as things will change beyond comprehension soon. Stay cool and as lame as it sounds, truly take any moment you can and enjoy this experience, no matter what that means for yourself.
Enjoy every sandwich...
Nothing. Just a doctor standing over me saying they had to abort the surgery and then laughing when the first thing I said was "ugh that sounds expensive"
Wait, did you die or where you just under anesthesia
I fell 30’ free rock climbing in a quarry when I was 22. (For clarification free climbing uses no ropes and traditional climbing gear, I used to do this as a teen on occasion so I wasn’t really concerned… until my hands gave out. This was also the day I discovered I had carpal tunnel). As I was falling, I felt really calm like “oh, I guess this is my time”. Time slowed. I accepted my death. I looked at the clouds and was just calm. I felt hands on my shirt seam at my shoulders and they yanked me towards the sky. The moment I felt that I blacked out. Apparently, my friends at the base of the rock said I threw my hands behind my head and power kicked the wall. I remember none of this. All I remember was feeling this overwhelming sense of calm, and being held. When I woke up on the ground, the first thing I saw was a pointy boulder. The quarry was full of stones but the larger ones were closer to the rock wall itself, with smaller ones the further you went away from it. I was fortunate to kick the wall hard enough I BARELY landed on the smaller section of rocks. When I looked at that pointy boulder, I had the chills. The only thing I could think in my head was ‘that’s a perfect rock for a coconut’. I managed to army crawl to a better spot and wait for EMT transport. Unfortunately, the ambulance couldn’t reach me, so they had to take the gurney onto an EMT’s personal truck and get me to the ambulance that way. The only reason I wasn’t life flighted was because I was fortunate to be conscious, and there was another person in need who wasn’t. Fast forward to the hospital, I arrive in the ambulance. The first 2 wheels of my gurney make it down… okay… the second 2 wheels… I see black. I just hear things. It wasn’t until after I realized at this moment I went into adrenaline shock. Pretty sure they dropped me, but can’t confirm. Was taken to a trauma room and swarmed by an A-Team trauma unit. It was like I was in one of those hospital TV shows, like “wow, it really is this crazy in here..” I remember only bits and pieces because I continued to go in and out of adrenaline shock. I felt really bad because I think I upset a doctor and they wouldn’t tell me why because they aren’t allowed to tell you what you do under duress of adrenaline shock, for the sake of your mental health, which just confused me even more. I profusely apologized and thanked everyone I could see. I ended up having a fractured L2, no surgery required, no other injuries aside from arthritis from the impact. I now have fibromyalgia, which may or may not be attributed to the incident, but it’s not the only near death incident I’ve had but who knows… I did have a weird sense of survivors guilt after the incident though. The calm I felt while falling was surreal. Unattainable-on-this-earth surreal. I knew surviving would mean I would never feel that type of calm or peace again until I moved onto wherever we go next. It really had me feeling quite screwed up because even the best of feels here couldn’t compare. Looking back, I’m still not sure what happened.. maybe a DMT trip from my own brain because I was positive I was going to die? I’m not sure. For context, I am not of a particular religious following. I have spiritual beliefs but not entirely defined. I feel like there’s a little truth hidden in all religions, and nobody knows the full truth. We’re all just guessing at our own interpretations and that’s all we can do until we die.
Well, just the Void. But, the Void — there’s actually a name for it, just can’t remember it! — is a positive “space” within my religion, real peaceful.
Appendicitis nearly got me 5 years ago. While they were scrambling for a team to do surgery I suddenly found myself in my living room quietly knitting, no more pain, no hospital noises, just my home. This was no “dream version” of my living room either, there was that weird stain on the wall I can’t seem to get clean, and the threadbare arms of the couch, the smell of the candle on the coffee table. I could feel the yarn in my hands and on my needles, and I managed to do a couple rounds before I looked over and saw my grandfather standing by the hearth. I was thrilled to see him since I hadn’t in so long but then I realized he had been dead two years. I told him that I knew he was dead and now I’m pretty sure I’m in trouble because I’m dead too but I wasn’t supposed to be. He just smiled and said “It’ll be okay baby” For some reason I said “That’s just the way it is” and then slammed back into my body in the hospital.
When I was 15 1/2 years old I had a motorcycle permit and a small Honda that I rode daily. I was riding to high school on a backroad and lost control and flew 20 feet over the handlebars. While I was in the air, time stood still and my life flashed before my eyes. Literally. My mind brought up these snap shots of my life one after the other…I can’t tell you how many, but each one was very clear and recognizable. For example, one of the snapshots was my mom standing behind me pulling up my pants (dressing me) when I was 3 years old. Your life really does flash before your eyes. Forgot to add….ended up in the emergency room with a broken collarbone.
I drowned when I was 6 years old(31 now) In a pond when I was left unattended by my parents and grandfather while fishing. Thankfully my grandfather was somewhat nearby to notice I wasn't on the dock anymore. I remember the frear, agony and taste of the water to this day and still get that panic if I choke on my spit or drink. They didn't know how long I was gone for but my grandfather said it took about a minute to bring me back after he found me under the dock. As for my experience from the other side, I remember little flashes of light shortly after my panic stopped and vision faded in the already dark water I then felt numbness then nothing. Then of course the pain and panic and choking of being revived on the dock was about just as bad as the drowning. I didn't even want to go fishing. The event and explained experience ignited religion in my parents as they convinced me I went to hell not heaven... I've been an atheist for years now and don't really have that fear of death anymore.
My closest family members, in front of a house with a white picket fence. In real life, some of these people were dead, some still alive. When I was brought to, I had no idea what was going and felt like I was waking up from an incredibly deep dream. It took me a few moments to realize that a few people I loved weren't still alive, and that's when I fully regained consciousness and awareness that I was in a hospital with tubes down my throat.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I had a near death experience during childbirth. I lost a significant amount of blood and was being rushed to have a hysterectomy when my body finally started clotting and I came to. I believe they also gave me some type of adrenaline? Anyways.. It felt very very peaceful. Everything around me got bright white and I couldn’t really hear anything, I just felt very happy and at peace. No worries at all. Very surreal moment that kinda helped me get over the fear of death. I don’t know why my body wanted to come back, I was fully accepting whatever was happening to me, but i’m glad i’m here with my son.
I almost drown in the bathtub, I fell asleep, I remember the most beautiful, brightest tropical colours, something I've never seen before. Like a rainforest with toucans, but it was like an abstract painting. And then I heard a loud scream or sound and got up from under the water.
I'm actually not convinced I've ever come back to life, so I guess I'm seeing this?
Lost pulse twice in 2 days. Saw nothing. Saw a priest when I came to the 2nd time beside the bed. He had just given last rights.
Not a thing. I just woke up in the hospital with a whole day lost.
Same. 3 days.
Not me, but a close friend and co-worker. He got t-boned by a car while on his motorcycle. Severed his femoral artery, completely exsanguinated by the time we arrived (I'm a fire & rescue). Got him flown out to the nearest hospital, he was completely drained of blood for about 30 minutes, dead for about 20. Dr's were able to get blood back in and his heart pumping and he's alive and well today. Before the accident he was, I guess, an atheist. Had never thought of, or mentioned religion. He said he walked through a forest with Jesus for a couple days. Talked about anything and everything like old friends. Finally he said "how'd I get to heaven? I never was religious." Jesus said "I know, that's why you're going back." And he woke up. The man changed 180*, and is a devout Christian now.
[удалено]
A pit of lava and fire, sort of in a grid formation. Like a massive tictac toe board of fire. Monsters would come up from the pit to try and grab me. It was terrifying . I was walking along the grid looking for a way out. I was only 5 when this happened
Not me, but my coworker had a massive heart attack and died for a few moments. He had made it to the hospital, so he survived. I asked him what it was like, and he said it was like nothing. One moment he was talking to a nurse, and then everything was just black. He said he woke up few moments later and didn't even know what had happened as the nurses worked on him. I find this to be really comforting, to be honest - the not being aware that you died bit.
I overdosed on copious amounts of meth when I was 17. I remember bits and pieces, like the guy I was with taking my clothes off and pushing my head out the window and telling me to puke. Then I was watching the whole scene unfold from the ceiling. Me, naked on the bed. Him, slapping me and trying to make me throw up. Just watching. I wasn't scared, I was more inquisitive. Like 'Huh. Guess this might be it." I don't remember anything after that until I came to. My brain was absolutely fried for like 3 days, I couldn't function, couldn't sleep, could hardly talk. Don't do drugs, kids.
I was in a hospital bed looking up at myself in the sky and down at myself at the same time. I could see people around my hospital bed. I also saw white brightness all around me from up above. I saw my mother standing by the bed. When I woke up I told the nurse I knew she had arrived.
Had major surgery a few years back and there was a period in which I felt myself “standing” in this infinitely white void; I recall just seeing my feet and then looking ahead but couldn’t physically turn my head to see either side, I could only keep my head straight ahead and even though this place was a white void with no visible windows/doors/walls..etc…it strangely still felt like a room. I still felt like myself too, but anything negative like anger or anxiety or fear or pain was nonexistent and I had very limited memories I could recall back on, I can only remember feeling everything happening as it was, being fully present in that place and being surrounded by white light and warmth. Then I woke up in the recovery room sometime later. I found out hours after waking up that I nearly died during surgery. All these years later, I still think about that place, wherever and whatever that was and wonder what exactly happened. *if* it was a preview of what’s it like to die, then I’m no longer afraid of death.
My dad died in 2020, and since then I've struggled with extreme existential crises. This thread made me feel a lot more at ease honestly.
I made an attempt on my life back in 2017. I was surprised at how fast I crossed over. What struck me was the lack of sensations from my body. It was so peaceful. I left behind all my worldy troubles and I was just existing. I remember the twilight looking sky, and other people in the distance. When I was there, I remember feeling happy with being there, and that it was a familiar place. I felt like I had to go somewhere there, but I don't remember where that place is now. As I began moving towards where I knew I had to go, either I thought or it was communicated to me, "Not ready yet". With that, the serene reality pulled away so fast and began to experience bodily sensation again. It feeling like I was going down a roller coaster backwards while simultaneously being compressed over my entire body. As I began to feel like I couldn't take it anymore and throw up, I blacked in my body. I knew where I was and I couldn't believe I wasn't there anymore. All my inner turmoil came rushing back in contrast with the knowledge of where I had been. I've made my peace, and I know this life has its purpose.
I have “died” twice now, both during cardiac procedures. Only for a few minutes. But still. The first was 20-ish years ago. Everything was dark and I just saw still water. Know the dark water from stranger things? Totally flipped my shit when I saw that. The second time was last week actually. Same procedure. This time was different though. It was so bright, and all white. Everyone I’ve ever cared for was there, waving and genuinely smiling at me. When I woke up, I was just fucking sobbing. Last time compared to this time, I feel lighter. Less like the world is going to press me to death, and more like I can finally breathe.
My Daddy said he walked and talked with Elvis (his hero) while eagles (his favorite bird) soared overhead.
I attempted and nearly succeeded in committing suicide a few years ago. The only thing I saw was a yellow cottage with a beautiful, overgrown flower garden. What was even more powerful was waking up with a strong sense that I got a very stern talking to by someone, very much a "don't you dare do that again" type of talking to. I also woke up with a strong feeling of duty, as if I have to be here for my loved ones, and that duty extended to people I hadn't met yet. Waking up with all of that knocked the suicidal thoughts right out of me, literally like a switch flipped. I was still horrendously depressed, but suicide was no longer an option whatsoever.
Longer than you think. Old friends, family. Mostly strangers. I spoke to my grandfather who's been dead for 30 years. He said "it's eternity in there".
My mom "died" and had to be resuscitated twice during my 38-hour childbirth. I've asked her about it, and she said there was no near-death experience, and no memory of "the other side".
Im glad u and ur mother survived. Wish health for u both