There is still a lot that we don’t know about death. Sure, it’s easy to write it off as a state of non-existence, at least in the physical form, but then we have the entire philosophical part attached to it.

So, it should come as no surprise that people continue to ask questions about it. One Redditor by the nickname of u/Aidanmartin3 recently asked a death-related question on r/AskReddit.

In particular, he asked people who were pronounced dead and ended up being resuscitated what they went through mentally whilst being pronounced dead—whether they had some sort of dream or there was a light at the end of the tunnel or something.

Redditors flooded in to respond to Aidan’s question, sharing stories of their own near-death experiences, or those of the people they know. Bored Panda has collected some of the most intriguing and best ones and made it into a list which you can read through, vote and comment on below.

#1

Yea they told me i was dead for 3 minutes, i remember those clips of people saying they experienced some kind of near-afterlife, but for me it was like sleeping, i woke up, they told me how i almost died, i said oh yeah? they explained a bunch of stuff and then offered me a grilled cheese.. i had doritos too. 10/10 would die again, it’s just nothingness, not scary at all.

Image credits: zackkorth

#2

One of my best friends almost died giving birth to her daughter. She was bleeding out and the doctor and nurse had summoned the priest to perform last rites. She basically made a plea to god that if he let her live, she would make her life’s mission to save other people on the way to emergency surgery.

Says she blacked out and thought she was dead. She woke up with her Mom and doctor standing by her bed surprised she had survived.

She felt she had been given a mission and went back to school to be a nurse. She eventually got a job as an ICU nurse on the code team. In short, when people are dying, its her job to save them, which she’s done for more than 20+ years now.

Image credits: platinumgulls

#3

A frat brother was clinically dead forty five seconds. Overdosed on Xanax. The experience changed his life. He never used drugs again. He said he saw himself over the hospital bed and the nurses working. He said as he slowly floated through the roof a peaceful feeling better than any drug took over. He said you feel free of all worry and regret. He saw the white light allegedly and a few family members before they said it wasn’t his time. He floated back to his body. He was never the same again and used to be atheist.

Image credits: DownvoteDaemon

#4

I wasn’t pronounced dead but from what I was told I wasn’t far.

I experienced nothingness. Like when you black out from drinking. Or when you get home from a super long day to fall on the couch and just fall asleep. it was like absolute restfulness and peace, but in absolute darkness. It’s not scary at all, and it’s really eliminated my fear of dying. The only thing I worry about are those that love me after I pass – otherwise I could really go at any point and I wouldn’t mind. It made me stop thinking about good and evil and made me think more that people are just human.

Image credits: mmm-pistol-whip

#5

Not me but my husband. This happened just a few weeks ago on December 6th. We were in our room chilling and talking about going to lunch and doing some Christmas shopping. As I got up to get dressed he started breathing funny. I look over and his arms are seized up and eyes wide. He’s not responding to me at all. As I’m on the phone with 911 he stopped breathing. I preformed CPR with the helpful instructions from the dispatcher for 7 minutes until the paramedics arrived.

Once they got here they continued CPR and had to defib him twice. When they finally got him in the ambulance they had him intubated and a pulse going again. He was in the Cardiac ICU for 5 day. Only intubated for about 24 hours before they woke him up from heavy sedation.

They did loads of tests. Nothing wrong with his heart but it was ruled a sudden cardiac arrest. On that 5th day he went in for surgery to have an ICD put in and was transferred out of ICU. He was release on the 6th day.

He remembers very little of the whole ordeal. Doesn’t remember it happening or how long he was there. His memory of being in the hospital is hazy. But he’s doing great. Tired and healing but alive and I had him home for Christmas.

He may not remember but I always will. Scariest 6 days of my life. Having my healthy 31 year old husband, the love of my life, almost die in front of me is something I’ll never forget.

Image credits: TinyDancerKelsey

#6

I don’t remember any of them. been declared dead 3 times and not once did i remember anything during death.

Image credits: Amihuman159

#7

My buddy had heart surgery last year that got complicated, to the point where it took about triple the time it was supposed to. (He has spoken at length with me about the experience because it was so traumatic.) He did require resuscitation from a full arrest mid-surgery, which sadly (fortunately?) he does not remember.

What he does slightly remember, is the THREE DAYS of post-surgical psychosis as the specific cocktail of sedation played poorly with his personal brain chemistry. For him it was a relentless stream of horrible hallucinations, demons, fighting monsters, quicksand, carnivorous hospital beds, being swallowed by the orderlies who morphed into tentacle monsters, pulling out his own Foley catheter while it was still inflated, all sorts of terrible, horrible memories he wish he could erase.

So if he even remembered specifically the being dead portion of the program, it is unlikely that would even compare to the subsequent 3 days of his life.

Image credits: Khayeth

#8

I don’t remember anything from the whole day. It happened one afternoon. Only thing I remember is waking in the hospital two days later to a surprised nurse. Turns out they thought I was going to be in a coma.

Image credits: GozerDGozerian

#9

I got hit by a car. I could still see with my eye that didn’t have blood in it. I could hear all the commotion. I felt getting forced into my back and then cpr. I felt my first heartbeat and then blood flowing through my body and at that point I felt all the pain took a deep breath and then everything went black

Image credits: outsider531

#10

As My family was saying goodbye to me I remember seeing 3 shadow people at the foot of the hospital bed (me thinking it was family) I asked “who are they” my mother then proceeds to tell me they were angels but I perceived them as my dead relatives there to bring me to the other side. The nurses then proceeded to put me under anesthesia so the doctors could hopefully get my brain to stop bleeding. They were successful and I’m still here! I was told later on that they lost me during the surgery but I would have never known that on my own. I went under then woke up, that’s all I knew.

Image credits: Magicman0181

#11

I was around 5 years old when I almost internally bled to death from a bad virus. I experienced what I could only describe as maybe some weird limbo in between heaven. It’s weird because i don’t think I even had a concept of heaven at that point unless it something I saw in a cartoon.

I was transported to my grandparents house except there was no walls. Everything was hanging on the walls like normal but it was floating in midair. No one was home but I remember just wandering around the house looking at everything floating. Then it switched to me at my elementary school. Again, there was no one around. Almost abandoned. Except I saw another girl around my same age. My memory is a bit foggy of what she told me but I know she had passed away and I think she was trying to get to heaven. We ended up being in some beautiful area, gorgeous hills with green grass and beautiful trees everywhere with blue skies. I was standing next to a tree and kept rubbing the leaves, as long as I kept rubbing the leaves I wouldn’t pass away completely. I remember then being almost literally in the sky. There was a huge giant tree log that I wasn’t allowed to pass unless I was ready to leave earth. If I decided to go over it, I would basically be with “God” although I don’t remember thinking that word as a kid. It was just like you would be with some loving energy. I remember not wanting to cross because I didn’t want to leave my parents yet. And that was it. I woke back up from falling unconscious suddenly as I was hemorrhaging

Image credits: shainajoy

#12

I was about 15. Climbed on top of the kitchen counters to grab something from the top cabinet, slipped and fell head first on the marble floor. Next thing I knew I was walking in water barefoot. I look up to my upper right hand side and there’s a BRIGHT light with a hand poking out making the come here gesture. I walk towards it. Meanwhile I realize the PEACEFUL and relaxed state I’m feeling. Like the best deep sleep ever and I say to myself “man this is awesome I never wanna wake up” then all of a sudden a jolt and I wake up to my mom wailing her lungs out. Apparently I was stiff, cold with no heartbeat and managed to piss my pants. As an atheist that doesn’t believe in heave it’s def something I think about often.

Image credits: cule4444

#13

Died from an overdose for a few minutes.

there really wasn’t anything. just blackness and a vague lapse of time. it was almost like waking up from a s****** night’s rest and feeling like a horse had kicked me in the chest.

Image credits: th30xygen

#14

My dad died briefly and said that he went down a long hallway to a door. When he was going to open it he felt himself being sucked back into his own body

#15

I was in a motorbike accident in 2013. It eventually resulted in internal bleeding from damage to my spleen and liver (plus more – I was pretty messed up. Just the spleen was really bleeding though). I ended up with 13 units added to me over multiple transfusions.

I had a few small incision surgeries to try to stop the bleeding before they really opened me up. The morning I was supposed to have a big surgery I was waiting in the ICU.

I am told that I “coded” one morning. Effectively I was on the edge of death and my heart stopped. It was definitely not so far as to be pronounced dead but I guess it was closer than most people prefer.

Between physical trauma, massive blood loss, and massive-er pain killers my memory of the time in the ICU is spotty at best. I have absolutely no memory of coding. It isn’t very exciting from my prospective, but my brother says it was pretty intense for everyone else in the room.

Luckily I have a totally normal life now. If I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt all my scars are hidden and no one knows any different. In the pool, there are a lot of scars to see. Kids stare. It doesn’t bother me.

Thanks to all the medical staff out there that do so much to keep people like me alive!!!

Image credits: neisenkr

#16

I had an employee of mine get very sick over a period of time, I won’t go into the details of his illness. He had been in the hospital for a week before I was allowed to see him. I was visiting him in his hospital room and his wife was also in the room. He kind of blanked out and then the equipment hooked up to him started beeping, alarms were going off. He flat lined. Many doctors and nurses rushed into the room and they tried to resuscitate him. We were eventually ordered out of the room. They came out about a half hour later and told us that they were successful in resuscitation. I wasn’t allowed to see him again until several days later. At that time he told me what he observed during the ordeal. He said that he observed the entire episode from a third person point of view, he saw the whole thing including me and his wife in the room. He no longer works for me but we still stay in touch.

Image credits: Hamfiter

#17

Not me but an ex girlfriends mother.

Her heart stopped for 28 minutes. They told the family she was gone and they brought a priest to bless the room. She ended up coming back.

She said she remembers running through a field with a little girl that she believes was her niece(I could be wrong about who she thinks it was it was a few years ago that I was told) wearing the dress that she was buried in.

#18

I was somewhere else. I was warm and safe and in no pain. I knew everyone that I cared about was just fine. Somebody / something patted me on the back and whispered, “You haven’t been here in a while. Would you like to stay or go back?”

My kids were toddlers at the time. They needed me to come back. Then EVERYTHING hurt, even my hair and the world was loud and blindingly bright and harsh

#19

Felt like third person security camera footage of my body, then slowly zooming out and rising up, felt really really cold and then I started hearing really loud clanging sounds and woke up in the ambulance to the sound of the gurney bouncing on a rough road. It was surreal, haven’t feared death since then tbh. It was almost 6 years ago and I still think about it a few times a month.

#20

Not my experience, a friend’s.

My friend was pronounced dead about 6 times I believe, but only told me two of the experiences.

Just pure blackness in an empty space.

Their grandfather told them to go back.

#21

It felt like I was in a long tunnel, just floating and feeling very tired. I remember falling asleep and having a dream that I was in the kitchen in the house where I grew up in and my dad was cooking breakfast. I could hear a commotion and chaos at one end and at the other end there was a warm light that felt peaceful. Then all of a sudden I was abruptly in the chaos of an emergency room.

#22

I don’t remember my heart stopping cause it was during surgery but I definitely remember being in life support. I thought I was in some weird handmaid’s tale type situation and I was in the hospital for them to take my baby out of me. I wasn’t pregnant can’t get pregnant. I was in the hospital due to a kidney stone and I went into septic shock. They did a couple different surgeries for it and the 2nd one my heart stopped for a while. I’m going to edit and add that during my 10 days stay in the ICU. I was ready to die. Knew it was my time. It really didn’t click how sick I was until day 9 and I was up walking the floors and a nurse who took care of me in the beginning, got very excited and came and hugged me. In my head I was like ok I’m just out of bed. Then it hit me that she didn’t expect me to make it.

#23

I’ve died once. I don’t remember much about it except there was a nice, dark nothingness which I guess felt kind of cozy, but I also knew it was the end, so I’d better not … I don’t know, I knew I wasn’t supposed to go into the dark. Like I was in the dark, but I wasn’t supposed to be enjoying it, because if I embraced it too much I would die. I’m generally not that scared of death these days.

It was kind of like falling asleep and kinda vaguely remembering a dream when you wake up. All I really have are feelings, not a solid picture or an image or anything like that.

#24

Anaphylactic reaction to an already deadly irukandji jellyfish sting. I coded. Saw this white light and could see my myself “floating upwards” saw my family and the drs and nurses who were working on me. Came back and was in intense pain

#25

Back when I was a kid, I was mauled by a dog. I ended up literally scalped and was rushed to the E.R. Back then, there wasn’t a priority rush, but rather first come-first serve mentality. Mom argued with the nurse about getting me into surgery, however there were other people ahead of us, so she was ordered to sit and wait for our turn. I remember being completely mummified in towels in an attempt by my mom to stop the bleeding. I remember just feeling warm and fuzzy, like I was wearing a fleece robe over my entire body. I felt at peace. There wasn’t anything on my mind; no thoughts or worries. Just darkness. I couldn’t really hear anything except muffled talking even though one of my ears were uncovered. The warmth eventually turned to a chill, similar to the feeling you get standing in front of a hotel air conditioner in the Summer (weirdly specific example but it’s the closest thing I can compare it to) After a few hours (it only felt like minutes for me!) I was moved onto a gurney and remember seeing blurry people around me like I was squinting my eyes. The hospital lights were really intense and bright. I swear at one point I saw a ghostly image of one of my grandparents just smiling as I was wheeled past them. Then, I just passed out like I’d run the most exhausting marathon of my life. In the end, I had a blood transfusion, died once, received 300 stitches on my scalp, and 4 reconstructive surgeries.

#26

I heard a loud pitch noise telling me that I had a lot left to live for as it got higher pitched. Then I saw a bright light and woke up but I think that was the ambulance driver shining the flashlight in my eyes

#27

The story I have is from my great aunt. She was in the hospital before I was born with heart failure. She died three times (the third time she failed to resuscitate). She told my dad after the first time she died, she saw a man she didn’t recognize. The man asked if she was ready to go. She told him that she wasn’t. He said okay, and she woke up to the hospital staff above her. The second time she died, her health had gone downhill even further. She said she saw the same man and she said she was ready to go with him. This time he said no, it wasn’t her time, and he sent her back. The final time she died stuck.

#28

I died from anaphylactic shock when I was 6. Flatlined for almost 3 minutes. I remember looking at myself in the ER with a stuffed bunny someone had put on my bed by my feet. My next memory is the next day in ICU when I woke, I was reaching around asking for my bunny. Supposedly it freaked out my mom and the nurses, because the bunny never made it into the ICU.

#29

I went to the “space place” twice.

Every dead soul was just kind of orbiting around a bright light. Perfectly content, all connected with this weird and sudden understanding. Every fiber of existential dread was dissolved. Almost laughable.

Then I felt the tug of a heartbeat, and a frantic pull of my lungs and I was back again.

#30

Not me, but I used to know a guy who had been shot in the back of the head in a drive by, he was pronounced dead and then he came back. When I asked him what it was like, he told me a bright light was holding onto him, carrying him up somewhere. He said he was asking “why me, why me?” and then he was dropped.

#31

Tunnel of light, my grandfather and a ‘presence’ told me it wasn’t my time

#32

I was dead for a bit over four minutes. I saw my dad give my brother my glasses, but it definitely wasn’t a 100% accurate memory of how it went down because they were in a family waiting area and I saw it happej in my hospital room. Other than that I just remember darkness and comforting warmth, like when you’re being held as a small child while you fall asleep.

After that, the first thing I remember is waking up in recovery.

#33

My grandpa was pretty much dead. They said to say our goodbyes etc because he wasn’t going to wake up. There was little brain activity, machines were breathing for him, the whole nine yards. I spent most of the time talking to him, because somewhere Id read that people could still hear so I told him to have strength and to come back because we needed him. It was a bad time.

He “woke” up a couple of hours later. Doctors said it was a miracle. He says he remembers us talking to him when he was “in there” and how there was some sort of light but our voices kept bringing him back.

He’s doing good. Can talk and is slowly gaining strength a year and half later. He will be on a ventilator for the rest of his life but hey he’s here.

#34

Got hit by a car when I was 14, was dead for about 2 minutes. It pretty much felt like falling asleep, just heavier if that makes sense. From the time I was out, I have a vague memory of a walking towards something in a flowery field and feeling really peaceful, then a jerk and a falling sensation until I woke up in the hospital and the doctors were like “you died for 2 minutes” and I was like “what the f***.”

I don’t believe in any sort of afterlife, I’m fairly certain what I remember was just something my brain dreamed up while I was unconscious. Either way, I’m not too scared of dying, it wasn’t so bad. Hurt like a b***** before I blacked out though.

#35

I could not believe it. I thought I was just sleeping. It was creepy watching everyone around me gasp when I opened my eyes. Lots of puking an hour later.

#36

I attempted to overdose a few years ago, but was able to be resuscitated.

I remember that it was dark. I was alone, but caught glimpses of people I knew before they disappeared into the darkness. After a short while of trying to make sense of it, I realized I’d never see my dog again, felt really sad and just sort of felt like I fell into a deep sleep.

#37

I saw heaven or at least what my brain perceived heaven and some of my ancestors and dead pets. I didn’t talk to anyone. I just saw them smile and acknowledge me and then I was resuscitated. I had a accidental prescription drug overdose.

#38

I drowned once, feel nothingness between being dead and resuscitated. However, the few months just before dying and accepting that it’s happening were profoundly peaceful to me. It’s like you know when you’re doing something crazy and then mid-air/mid-action you know that if you get it wrong you’re just dead, or whatever happens it’s out of your control… It’s that feeling but more. Well at least to me it was.

#39

Absolutely nothing. Woke up in recovery room to nurse telling me, “Hey, you’re back. We thought we’d lost you for a while there!”

Being dead holds no fear for me now. Don’t want to do it soon, but the whole process is no big deal

#40

I was out for 13 minutes, all while being barely resuscitated, when I came to and all I remember, then and now, is extreme darkness, just black. No emotions and definitely no emptiness. Just a vast space. Almost comforting.

#41

Not me, but a childhood friend of mine.

They went into cardiac arrest and were technically dead for roughly 2.5-3 minutes before successfully being resuscitated.

Years later, I asked them if they ever saw anything and they said that it was nothing but black. Just empty darkness. I believe they said that they heard some faint, muffled voices briefly but couldn’t actually make out what was being said. Once they were awake and alert again, that’s all they had any memory of.

Afterwards, they dealt with brain damage and their personality/set of emotions completely changed. They were just a complete other person after it all, partly due to trauma and partly due to the actual physical effects of it all.

#42

I saw the light receding instead of coming towards me. I was spiraling down to a pinprick sand that was fine. But no welcoming family or anything. I was being reduced to the nothingness. As a Christian this was (eventually) distressing.

#43

I overdosed combined with alcohol poisoning. I experienced nothing. Like being asleep but deeper. The only crazy part was coming to while they were using the cpr thing on me, and feeling like I got slammed downward back into my body.

#44

I was shot in Iraq 2006. Pronounced dead by the medic once airlifted back to Kandahar. It was basically like being put down for surgery. No memory no nothing. But I do remember the pain of being shot. A horrible burning sensation. It was excruciating.

#45

I ODed and died and was resuscitated. It’s nothingness only thing I can compare it too is you know after a night of drinking, when you close your eyes then open them again and somehow 4 hours passed, but it feels like no time has passed at all, that’s what it was like.

#46

Flatlined in the OR, just dreamed of blackness, nothing else

#47

Both times I’ve flatlined in my life, nothing happened. It was just nothing? I didn’t dream or go anywhere and it felt like sleeping.

#48

It was my mom but she just said she felt nothing. She didn’t even know she died, she thought she just passed out.

#49

Had my heart stopped for open heart surgeries, I was put under and I woke up some time later. Felt like sleep.

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