Recently, Reddit user u/AlaskaStiletto asked the good people of r/AskReddit, "Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?". Here are some of the most-upvoted replies:
Of course, all of these are subjective experiences, not scientific fact. Also, as you'd expect, there's a lot of discussion of death in this post, so you might want to give it a miss if you're not keen on reading about that ATM.
1. "My dad's 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."
2. "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."
3. "I have had my two grandfathers pass away recently. Both of them said on their deathbed that their mothers were there to take them."
4. "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 I also knew everything would be okay. I was there for maybe 20-30 seconds, but it felt like a few minutes. Then I jolted alive."
"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."
5. "Years ago I knew a guy who was working at a theatre in New York in the '90s. Someone broke in to rob the place and seriously hurt him. If I remember correctly, 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.
You could chalk that up to a lot of things of course, but the eeriest part was his absolute and almost casual certainty of it. When I asked a follow-up question, 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."
6. "My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but 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."
7. "My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful."
"She said it was very loud, like a train station, with lots of talking. She was stuck in 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, apparently."
8. "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. It might have stood four feet tall. I don’t recall anything else, other than this grey stone slab and hearing that sound. It was over in an instant."
9. "I saw my grandmother (who none of us ever knew... she died in 1930). She told me to go back. I was in a coma for two weeks."
10. "I had a near-death experience from heart surgery. Of course, it's possible that this was a moprhine-based hallucination, but I just saw black and nothing else. It was warm and I had such inner peace."
"It's weird as I sometimes still think about this feeling of being so light and free."
11. "Does near death count? I was unconscious for a solid three days in the critical care unit after I contracted bacterial endocarditis."
"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."
12. "My mom said she was floating above her body and looking down at it."
13. "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. When I woke up, I remember everything being bathed in a kind of golden light and at that moment I thought she was an angel."
14. "I died three times in three hours and landed someplace different each time. I knew I was dead, but I also knew I existed, and I remembered the past."
"All three times were very different, felt very 'real,' and seemed to last a while. I was out for 24 seconds, 39 seconds, and 70 seconds respectively. It changed my whole perspective."
15. "I don't remember anything. I lost consciousness. When my family found me, I had already woken up."
"The EMTs said they had no idea how I lived because I had such extreme blood loss. My daughter was there with some friends. She was two. I remember no near-death experience. I think I wasn't supposed to remember."
16. "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."
17. "Not a thing. I just woke up in the hospital with a whole day lost."
Shout out to u/AlaskaStiletto and r/AskReddit for having this discussion.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.