What happens after death? This is something we have been trying to answer for centuries. These 17 lucky people who momentarily died and were resuscitated are sharing their unbelievable experiences.
“I knew there was light and love somewhere nearby, but…”
“I always get nervous about having surgery, but this time I knew something was going to go wrong. It sounds silly but I felt so strongly about it that I wrote a will and left it on my dresser just in case. Anyway, things go wrong during the surgery and I start to bleed out and then my heart stopped beating. I was dead for several minutes. I woke up in what looked like space but there weren’t any stars or light. I wasn’t floating, I was just there. I wasn’t hot/cold, hungry, tired, just a peaceful neutral kind of thing. I knew there was light and love somewhere nearby but I had no urge or need to go to it right away. I remember thinking over my life, but it wasn’t like a montage. More like I was idly flipping through a book and snippets stood out here and there. I don’t remember making a decision to stay or go back, I just woke up in the ICU two days later.” source
“Like someone pressed the start button…”
“When I was a kid I needed eye surgery a few times. The last time I, at 7, told the doctor I couldn’t do it today because my asthma was acting up. The doctor ignored me and put me under anesthesia regardless. I had an attack, while under anesthesia and my heart stopped. I remember the anger at the doctor, and then feeling something soft on my hands upon waking up with absolutely nothing in between. It was like waking up from a deep sleep, the kind you get after a hard day at work in a nice comfy room. One moment you’re just awake like someone pressed the start button on the controller that is your mind and body.”
“It’s like waiting to hit the snooze button on your alarm.”
“I was 15, had been through about 3-4 months of chemotherapy. I’d had a nosebleed all day and when I went to bed it just kept on going. At about 2am I started to feel sick so I reached for the trash can and threw up. It was a thick, dark red. After that I only remember what happened in short bursts. I managed to hit the wall loud enough for my mom to hear, she came in and there was blood everywhere. Then I was in the hospital, surrounded by about 6 doctors with these huge lights on me to keep me warm since I lost so much blood. The worst part of it all, is how peaceful it can seem. When the doctors were trying to save my life, I just wanted to black out again. The unconsciousness seemed easier. It’s like wanting to hit the snooze button on your alarm at 7am. And maybe you do hit it once or twice but then you remember that you have work or school and that sleep can wait because you’ve still got sh*t to do.”
“All those regrets crashed through my mind.”
“It was a really bad car accident where I went through the windshield and became trapped between the two vehicles. I was fading in and out and heard the scene get more and more chaotic as EMT’s and cops showed up. Then everything started sounding far away, like I was disappearing. Then all those regrets (right down to not wearing a seatbelt that night) crashed through my mind. Probably hundreds but only a few really stick out now. Then I “woke up” in the ambulance.” source
“It was the most vivid, intense memory I’ve ever had.”
“When I was having my baby, I had a full abruption, meaning the placenta completely disconnected from the uterus, which causes an enormous hemorrhage. The little fetal monitoring alarm started going crazy and the nurse hit the emergency button on the wall. All of a sudden, I was surrounded by 20 doctors and nurses. They were all shouting out orders. Nobody would tell me what was going on though. I started screaming just out of fear and adrenaline. Then without wanting it to, all my fear just disappeared in an instant and I had this amazing peace I have never felt before or since. I didn’t see my life flash before me, but I did have a memory of a day about a year before where I was just playing in a field with my little boy. I hadn’t thought about it before then, but now I kept seeing him, clear as day, laughing in the sun. It was the most vivid, intense memory I’ve ever had of anything.”
“I needed my mom.”
“I had to have my left hip replaced when I was 17. I had an accident combined with my genetic joint disorder and it needed to be done. I didn’t do well with the anesthesia and I ended up dead for about two minutes. All I remember is thinking that I needed to see my mom. Everything spun, there was a buzzing in my ears and I needed my mom. Next thing I remember was waking up in a new room with a tube in my throat.” source
“You know when you turn off an old TV…?”
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“I got stung by a nest of wasps right next door to my home. They stung me 39 times, all over my head and neck. Told my mom I got stung by some bees but I thought I was ok. I decided to go take a shower. In the shower I began feeling dizzy and my back started hurting. When I came out of the bathroom my mom looked at me and had a look of horror. My face and head had swollen hugely. Between my house and the hospital I started losing consciousness. I suddenly felt very heavy and tired. My breathing got very labored, but I didn’t care. I felt like I was slipping away into sleep. You know when you turn off an old TV, the screen would be engulfed in black and the light shrank down into a pinpoint before disappearing? My vision slowly started feeling like it was doing that. And then nothing. I felt kind of peaceful and wasn’t really thinking about anything much at all.”
“I don’t know if the nothingness was comforting or terrifying.”
“Two months ago I OD’d on anesthesia in an oral surgeon’s office. Coded in the ER and was dead for under a minute. Between me going out and me waking up in the ICU there was nothing. No black void, lost loved ones, messages from the other side. Nothing. Processing it since then, I don’t know if the nothingness was comforting or terrifying.” source
“I was met with blinding light.”
“I had bacterial meningitis, and died on the helicopter ride to the hospital. After I died I was in a coma (medically induced) for a while. All I remember is the dream or ‘Out of Body Experience’ I had. During the dream I was a younger child. In my grandfather’s truck, and we were driving to his office, a route I was very familiar with. We were listening to the radio, after a while we pulled up to my grandpa’s office. I heard my grandpa’s voice. “Time to get out Bowie.” I looked over, and to my surprise, and almost horror, it wasn’t him. It was a man who had all the trademarks of an older man. He was smiling at me but he had not a wrinkle on his face. His face was young. And quite honestly it looked a lot like me (well, me today.) He kept smiling and said again, “Time to get out.” To which, I very confusedly opened the door to exit the truck. As I opened the door, I was met with blinding light, then the light faded. I was laying in my hospital bed. The doctor walked in and said “OH HE’S UP!” and ran off to go get nurses.”
“It felt like floating on a warm sea.”
“When I was 15, I ended up developing septic shock and multiple organ failure. Before I was rushed to hospital I had very vivid hallucinations. I remember being asleep on my parents’ bed facing the wall furthest from the door. It was around 6pm and the lights were off, but for some reason the wall I was staring at was perfectly lit, enough to cast a shadow of anybody trying to enter the room. I saw the figure of man carrying a large bulky object standing at the doorway, he said in arabic (my family’s Egyptian) “I know your father and mother” and then proceeded to place the object on the bed and sit down. I asked my mom who the person was that visited me earlier. Dying itself was strangely peaceful. I could hear my heart rate decreasing on the monitor and time seemed to slow. It felt like floating on a warm sea.” source
“It was beyond peaceful.”
“I got sepsis from tools used at a dentist. I felt fine after the procedure, but around 7PM I started feeling dizzy. I had just flown in from Japan, so I assumed it was jet lag and fell asleep. I woke up in the middle of the night with a 42 Celsius fever and I couldn’t lift my head high enough to puke on the floor, so I puked all over myself. I tried to yell out to my mother but I didn’t have the strength. Luckily, the sounds of me vomiting was enough to wake her up. Once arrived at the hospital, I couldn’t stay awake. I saw nurses and doctors around me injecting me with things and shouting. I remember thinking that it must be serious if a doctor was shouting, as they usually don’t show panic. I was lucid enough to laugh internally thinking “Wow.. I must be really sick if I don’t even freak out over all of these injections” and then it happened, I saw my mom crying and I thought “Holy sh*t.. this must be for real” and as soon as I thought that, I died for 2 minutes. It really feels like falling asleep, but for me, it was beyond peaceful. It felt like you didn’t really have to worry about anything anymore.” source
“Eventually the room went black…”
“I was 16 years old and encountered tachycardia for the first time. Went to the ER with my mom, not really thinking it was a big deal. I didn’t realize how intense the situation was until two cardiologists and several nurses rushed me to an OR. Fast forward to the doctors trying (and failing) to slow my heart down. Last resort is a drug that stops your heart and resets it at a normal beat. Right as they’re giving me the drug, they warn me I might feel a heavy weight on my chest. What a f*cking understatement. Felt like someone was squeezing all the air and life out of me. Eventually the room went black and a feeling of peace came over me, like I was going to sleep. I didn’t see anything good or bad, just emptiness. When I awoke, I assumed only a few seconds had passed. Instead, the drug caused my heart to stop for 10 minutes before the doctors could revive me.”
“I had accepted that this was probably it.”
“I was up late watching hockey in my room when I fell asleep. I awoke 30 minutes later with a dull pain in the “funny bone” area of my elbow. Thinking I had just slept on it, I started flailing it around trying to get some feeling back. The dull pain turned to numbness of the arm. So I stood up, silently panicking to myself. Flailing my arm around, the pain abruptly shot up my arm into my heart. The pain I felt was absolutely indescribable – inhuman almost. My vision tunneled, and everything went numb. I could barely see, the ringing in my ears was loud, and sweat was pouring off me. Then, I collapsed. My mother heard the crash, came down and decided to drag my dazed self to the car. I remember fading in and out in the car. Listening to the radio, feeling the cold air on my face from the open window. I was so at peace in the car. I had accepted that this was probably it. I remember mumbling to my mother how much I loved her and thanking her. Then I woke up in the hospital.” source
“My heart stopped 3 times.”
“I had a heart attack last year and my heart stopped 3 times in the ER. Apparently, each time they shocked me, I “woke up” and told the staff a different knock-knock joke each time. No lights or whatever, just felt like sleep.” source
“I do remember feeling very warm..”
“I was in a serious car accident (hit by a drunk driver) a week before my high school graduation. Without going into all the gory details, I lost so much blood that they declared me dead. Although I do not remember much, between the rescue workers extracting me from my car and a tree and waking up three weeks later, I do remember feeling very warm and seeing lights.”
“No dreams, no visions, just nothing.”
“I was in a motorbike accident two months ago. I don’t remember anything from 30 minutes before the accident and some time after, I woke up in a truck on the way to hospital. My friend said when he got to me after the accident I wasn’t breathing and he couldn’t feel my pulse. I was lying there completely still and stiff. He started CPR and after around two minutes I started breathing on my own. For me it was just a blackout. No dreams, no “visions”, just nothing. I remember being very confused when I woke up, like ‘Why am I lying down on my back? Why is it so dark? Why does my body hurt all over?'” source
“Being dead was like being asleep.”
“When I was 14 and at a party, I drank way too much. I woke up on the bathroom floor vomiting my guts out, in and out of consciousness. I could faintly hear my brother in the background, calling for an ambulance. Woke up in a hospital bed where the doctor said I had been dead for 2 minutes, but they managed to revive me. My BAC was 0.56. In my experience, being dead was like being asleep. Absolutely no difference. No flashbacks, no afterlife that I could recall… It was exactly like sleeping. Very peaceful.” source