To ask if you've ever had a near death experience and what went through your mind?

During childbirth with DC1. As everyone around me panicked and my DH cried, I turned to the midwife and said “don’t worry about me. Please just save my baby”. I felt oddly calm and was thinking how my DH would look after the baby. They then put mask over my mouth (general anaesthetic) and I woke up hours late and was handed a baby.

I too had a really horrendous birth experience, massive PPH that they couldn't get under control and all sorts of associated drama, I too was very calm as it was very much like my body had taken over and any outcome was well beyond my control, I honestly just thought 'oh well, this is what it's like at the end then...' Very odd indeed.

@TheRealKatnissEverdeen

You Rock !!!

I cannot thank you enough. My elderly dad is terrified of dying and I'm going to read him your experience.

Yes. I'd always been terrified of death to the extent that it had an impact on my living. I'd had a headache for a week which kept getting worse, the night before I'd been unable to sleep and was listening to the news coming out of Norway about Anders Breivik which felt unreal both because it really should have been and my lack of sleep. I woke up and got ready because I was going to be moving the next week and a friend was coming to help me with some packing. She arrived and I wasn't making any sense. I was to me, of course, but. I had a major seizure at home, paramedics came, blah.

Later in A&E I continued having seizures, was given a CT scan - which I don't recall, I don't recall much about that day, was still making little sense and then the headache got worse and worse. I'd been very cheerful, which I do remember, thinking that it was nothing to serious, but as the pain got worse I knew it was. I lay there thinking that not only was I going to die but that I couldnt' bear the pain any longer so I wanted to die. As it turned out I was closest to death at home. If my friend hadn't arrived before the first massive seizure and the paramedic not been there to inject me, with I'm guessing adrenaline, I would have died at home. It was full on, I was in hospital for a month and eventually got "better", but the wanting to die/ thinking that I would die because how could I not, was ultimately a "good" experience. I no longer felt afraid of dying. I currently have a relatively unusual cancer although more common in men. I want to survive, I hope I will survive but I'm also pragmatic about it. If it turns out that treatment doesn't "cure" me and I'm going to die then I'll face it because there is nothing else you can do. Being close to death and surviving can be a really positive thing in your life. Also, if you're scared of dying, honestly, it's not the worse thing. It's sad, you'll be no more but if you allow the fear of death to be too much a part of your life then you won't appreciate and enjoy your life as much as you can and really, really should.

I had gas too, several times. It was one of the most terrifying things I've ever endured. I didn't know kids died under it.

I went to A&E with a dvt and ended up collapsing with a PE while I was there. I could hear everything but couldn’t move or make any noise. I was completely calm. I wasn’t scared or panicked. It was just dark and peaceful. I remember then that I stopped hearing anything, like falling asleep, and then being wide awake, wearing an oxygen mask, surrounded by doctors and being hooked up to all sorts of machines. The consultant told me I only survived because I’d collapsed in the right place, but it wasn’t until a while later that it sunk in how lucky I’d been.

I was in my early 40s, and I had a very severe asthma attack - thankfully I was put on better/stronger meds for it after. And I have never had one since - in over a decade. But DH had to call 999 and it was established (when the paramedics came) that my lung capacity was down to about 15%. I fought to breathe and felt like I was being strangled. It was terrifying. Only my blue inhaler stopped me from dying.

I did NOT feel at peace and think 'well this is it!' I was fucking terrified, I was scared I was going to die, and I was determined I wouldn't. There was no 'acceptance' or 'peace'' or 'hey what the hell, y'all die eventually right?!' I did NOT want to die. No way would I have been at peace with dying, in my early 40s, with 2 school age children!

That film is called Touching the Void. It's brilliant.

I collapsed with sepsis 12 years ago and was admitted into a ICU. I am not sure if I was close to dying, I don’t remember the first 10 days in hospital. I don’t think I was but I do remember this awful feeling of impending doom before I collapsed. I remember saying or maybe I imagined saying it ‘oh no, oh no’ over and over again. For some reason this has played on my mind far more than the 6 weeks I was ill in hospital, I got over the sepsis and recovered fine but I do get scared even now years later that when it is time I will have that feeling again. Apparently this feeling is common with sepsis and anaphylactic shock so I am hoping it’s not a death thing. Very disturbing.

@SerenityNowInsanityLater thank you for sharing that, it’s made me cry but I’m not sure what emotion is actually making me cry. But it’s reassuring to read your experience.

I am also not afraid of dying, due to nearly dying. It's an odd thing, in my case I felt peaceful the whole day before, even though I didn't know it would happen- I had the thought 'if this is the last day of my life, it's been a lovely day'. I don't believe it was a premonition as such, but I was very centred and calm, and I didn't feel so bad when I eventually woke up to be told I had to be brought back. I can't explain it, but I know I'm not scared. In some ways, I almost find living quite hard afterwards, it just felt like a lovely long rest.

I've had CPR and prior I don't remember anything.

Oh my word- how terrifying.

I too am saddened by all the people choked to near death by a partner

Don't know if this counts, but I did something stupid as a teenager. I knew that was it, that I was going to die. There was a feeling of great peace, love and compassion, that everything was going to be alright.

It felt like someone - a being - god? - was with me, and they let me know I had a choice. I could stay where I was and die and stay in that warm, peaceful place and whatever, whoever it was that was with me was so reassuring that if that's what I wanted, if I couldn't carry on living it was ok - and I saw it all play out, what would happen. Or I could choose to get up, to get help, and I saw how that would play out as well.

I went for the second option.

As a child my dad used to lift me off the ground by my neck and strangle for what felt like a long time. I remember thinking "is he going to kill me?" Over and over and just struggling to breathe/panicking.

So scary!

I had a condition causing chronic, debilitating pain. I’d built up a massive tolerance to codeine and regularly took a lot more than prescribed. One morning I took double my prescribed dose then lay on the sofa. I suddenly felt very, very tired, all I wanted to do was sleep but it wasn’t like normal falling asleep. I could feel myself being dragged under and kept trying to stay awake. Then I started to think it felt quite nice but realised something wasn’t right. My heart rate was under 40 and something told me that if I went to sleep I wouldn’t wake up, as much as it felt nice. I probably should have rung an ambulance but instead made myself take a tiny nibble from the biscuits next to me every time I felt the going under feeling and slowly I retuned to normal!

I was lying in bed one night on the ground floor of a converted 3 storey house when the ceiling started to collapse directly above me. I knew I was about to die, the sequence of events then went:

I screamed a noise that I've never made before or since and couldn't recreate if I tried.

I thought, oh my god, I scream like a cave man when I'm about to die

I then thought, really, that's the last thought you're going to have before you die is it?

Then the ceiling came down.

I got out mostly unharmed, the whole thing made me completely unbothered about dying. At the time I knew for sure that was the end, and my brain just resorted to piss taking and sarcasm much as it has always done. Comfort zone I guess.

Mine was horrible, I was in my twenties still living at home and I woke up after a night out choking on my own vomit. I remember the feeling of utter terror, running down the hall in the middle of the night and just as I went to open my mum and dads door to get help it suddenly cleared and I could breathe. It was so scary. The scariest thing was it was silent, no sound and everyone was asleep and I remember just thinking I'm going to die here and nobody will know. It's a horrible memory, choking is s

It's also worth remembering that hearing is usually one of the last senses to go, and so to be always mindful of what we say around someone who might appear to be unconscious or unresponsive.

I remember thinking during my own experience, being able to hear things around me, about how sometimes people in comas report hearing things too. It gave me comfort that when my dad was on his deathbed and very out of it, he might have been able to hear me.

@SerenityNowInsanityLater Thankyou for sharing, i read a previous thread last year, in which the peace you have described featured also. That feeling of peace sounds wonderful, i remember the pp responding described the feeling of loss when she awoke to consciousness, and took her a few years to recover from the sense of loss, but now she is less afraid of dying.
@MoonlightMemories

I also live alone, and have had a similar choking fright while eating a sweet, absolutely terrifying, was about to knock next door and signal I needed help, but managed to cough this sweet up and breath again.

I had sepsis and was slipping in and out of consciousness on a bed in a&e and all I could think about was that my not quite two year old son wouldn’t even remember me, he wouldn’t remember how I felt to cuddle and how I smelt and how my voice sounded and just how much I loved him. That and just how much he needed me to get out alive. Also about my husband, how I needed to stay with him, that he needed me too. Awful panicky helpless feeling.

Sorry to all the ladies who almost died at the hands of exes