6 People Who ‘Came Back To Life’ Describe What They Experienced

Mysterious visitor

One of the Reddit users who faced their own mortality was Schneidah7. He is a motorcycle rider who got into a major crash while traveling at 50 miles per hour. By the time he was taken to the hospital, he was medically dead.

What did he see while dead? “I just remember being on the pavement and things slowly going black and quiet,” he wrote. “The only reason I didn’t fall asleep was because of a bizarre moment where I heard someone yelling, ‘Ranger up you candy f***! Come on man, get up. Get up. GET UP!’”

What happened next is quite shocking. He describes someone slapping his helmet, and this was someone important from his past! “When I opened my eyes I saw my brother squatting on the pavement next me to. This was odd because my brother died from an overdose several years ago.”

If that wasn’t spooky enough, he added “The only other thing I remember is him glancing at his watch and saying something like ‘They’ll be here soon’ and then walking away.” Considering that he was found and brought back to life, it turns out his mysterious visitor was correct!

Death of a bookworm

Thanks to movies and TV shows, many of us think our lives will flash before our eyes like we are watching a montage of our lives. However, Reddit user monitormonkey bled out and died during major surgery, and he reported a very different experience.

“I woke up in what looked like space but there weren’t any stars or light. I wasn’t floating so to speak, I was just there,” he wrote. “I wasn’t hot or cold, hungry or 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.”

And he discovered firsthand that the flashback experience is quite different in real life. “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.”

Interestingly, his story ends on a note of hope. “Whatever it was, it changed my thoughts on a few things. I am still afraid to die, but I’m not worried about what happens after that.” Sounds like some real peace of mind.

One last snooze alarm

Some of the accounts of death and dying are morbidly funny. For example, TheDeadManWalks was undergoing chemotherapy when he faced a nosebleed followed quickly by sepsis and Clostridium difficile infection. The result is that he kept slipping between life and death, and his experience is something all of us can relate to.

“The worst part of it all, looking back, is how peaceful it can seem,” he wrote. “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 s*** to do.”

Fortunately, he realized he still had things to do and came back to us.

Back into the green

Pop quiz: what do you think you’ll see in death? Some people imagine an empty void while others imagine an elaborate kingdom. But when the aptly-named user IDiedForABit had an allergic reaction that stopped his heart, he discovered the answer was something else entirely.

“I remember a feeling of being sucked backwards, extremely slowly, like being pulled through water and this blackness fading in and out,” he wrote. “At one point it faded back in and I was staring out at a garden. It wasn’t filled with flowers, just dust and patchy grass. There was a playground with a merry-go-round in the middle and two children running around it. A boy and a girl.”

Perhaps the most intriguing part of his tale is that he felt he had a choice about whether to return to life or not. “It’s difficult to describe but I got the feeling I could choose if I wanted to stay or leave, but every time I tried to go back I was held in place,” he wrote. “I went through all the reasons I wanted to go back, and when I told the presence I didn’t want to abandon my mother whatever held me finally let go.”

His story of this mysterious garden is quite vivid. And his story of realizing he had more to live for seems to line up with some of the other tales of those who have died before.

Emptiness and nothing more?

Are you expecting to see something really cool after you die? Sadly, Rullknuf is here to rain on your parade. He was only dead for two minutes after a motorbike accident. His friend soon revived him, but the crash victim didn’t have much to share.

“For me, it was just a blackout. No dreams, no visions, just nothing,” he said. “Apparently I asked over 10 times what happened and said I shall be happy to be alive today.”

Honestly, given a choice, we would definitely take the spooky garden over the void any day of the week.

RELATED: Dating After Death

A truly deadly joke

What if death is just an opportunity to workshop your standup routine? Sure, that may sound crazy, but it lines up with altburger69’s experience after his heart kept stopping due to a heart attack.

“Had a heart attack last year and my heart stopped three times in the emergency room,” he wrote. “Apparently, each time they shocked me back I ‘woke up’ (how it felt) and told the staff a different knock-knock joke each time.”

In retrospect, telling the ultimate captive audience knock-knock jokes is pretty funny. But what was the actual experience of death like for him?

“No lights or whatever, just felt like sleep.”