Does anyone have experiences that have made them believe in life after death?

[Magicpaintbrush]

My DH died in April. He had bowel cancer and was only 46 years old and not ready to die. I made the mistake today of picking up the photo album I made full of photos of him and I am having a really tough morning, my heart is absolutely broken. The only thing that gets me through the days is talking aloud to him and hoping that he is somewhere 'else' and can hear me or see me, but then I have moments where I think I am kidding myself and I am just a sad, grieving woman talking to thin air. I don't know what to believe, I hover between the two. But today I absolutely cannot and do not want to believe that there is nothing after death, I can't cope with the thought that he exists nowhere at all anywhere. He was so strong and had so much personality, it makes no sense. Does anybody have any personal experiences or know of any true stories that have led them to believe there is 'something' after we die? I would find it really comforting to hear from people that believe and have a reason why they believe. To those who believe we are just dust after death, you may be right, but today I can't hear that, and I don't need to be told that as I already know that is possible - which is why I haven't posted this in AIBU as I know the first 30 replies would be people rushing to tell me I'm deluding myself by hoping there is something more than darkness after we die. If anybody has anything to share that would bring some comfort today I am very ready to listen x

Thank you all, the things you have experienced are reassuring and comforting. I'm just sorry you have all had so much loss as well. None of us can escape it x

The only comforting thing I can tell you is that according to latest science: information is never lost.

Also, everything on this planet is recycled.

And one strong theory is that we're all living in a block universe. Everything has already happened, it's all planned out.

From personal experience, it helps to remember that grief is (naturally and normally) selfish. It's focused on you. So, what have you lost. What can't you do. What are you missing etc. Switch your thoughts to him-centric, like: he is not suffering now. He doesn't have to work anymore... No matter how trivial or silly the thoughts, keep them to him. At the very least, it's a useful distraction.

Please don't hope that deceased people are sitting about 24/7 watching you. That's not healthy and as you say: it isn't realistic.

I died briefly and while I dont know what would have happened, I do know for certain it was a completely peaceful and beautiful experience. Nothing dramatic, just slipping into pure serenity. Hard to explain though.

I lost my DH very suddenly and unexpectedly nearly 7 months ago.
I have received so many signs, some whilst on my own, some when I was with others (so not my imagination). My children have also had some signs. There were also weird happenings before he died.
I'm sure that he is with us.

So sorry for your loss OP and all the other posters, i have not experienced anything personally other than a VERY accurate visit to a clairvoyant 30 odd years ago and that alone convinced me that our souls live on but…i just wanted to add what a spiritualist told me after losing dad five years ago, she could see i was upset talking about him so she hugged me and said not to cry, he hasnt gone away, he’s just walked through a door into the next room…i found those words so comforting

Im so sorry for your loss. It must still be very raw for you. I’m sending lots of love your way and also, to say I 100% believe in something after this life.

Unfortunately, I’ve suffered quite a bit of loss in my life. But I know each and every one is still around me and I get reminded quite often. Sometimes it’s something small, sometimes something bigger, but I know. And I’ve been getting these signs for many years.

I was with my mum when she passed (she also had bowel cancer) and as she did, a tear appeared in her eye and rolled down her cheek, and I remember gently dabbing it away. The nurse told me that that was supposed to mean someone was there, on the other side, to meet her and I’m certain that is true. It brought me a great deal of comfort what that kind lady said.

I had a good friend who died at only 50 from cancer. The gap from diagnosis to death was only 8 weeks so we were all reeling. I asked ‘her’ for a very specific picture afterwards. A little while later I was walking around my area and there was a random few bits of amateur photography covering a building site and there the thing I’d asked for was.

When my aunt died she was talking about relatives she hadn't seen for many years an old aunt who had come to meet her, she was climbing a ladder, lots of things that made even my cousin who's an atheist question what was going on. When my MIL died the day of the funeral her favorite song came on the radio. The two horses of funeral carriage had names of the sister and grandchild they weren't given the horses names beforehand. Everytime we go there the keyboard, which is unplugged goes off, two notes it's like she's saying hello. Our wardrobe used to keep opening but I said please stop and it did as it was getting annoying! Partner swears he saw her in the living room once. My dd just after she died had a really vivid dream about her she said it felt so real and she said the phrases she always said to her and that she loved her so much. Some may chalk it all to coincidence but I don't. I am a Christian anyway so I do believe in life after death and it confuses me exactly what a ghost is and weather it's a good or bad thing, I like to think they sometimes come to visit to comfort us in grief. I'm sorry for your loss. Pray for him to go to heaven. x

I cared for my Mil. Before she died we talked about life after death. She promised to visit me after she’d gone, if it was possible.

Six months later I was sleeping in the room she died in. A ball of light was floating randomly around the room. It came towards me and bounced around I filmed it on my phone.

My husband’s uncle, not long before the end, reached over, sat up and grabbed his sister in law’s hand and said with perfect clarity and conviction ‘Joyce, I’ve seen the other side and it’s glorious’. Neither of them was religious.

There’s a book by an American author called ‘Proof of Heaven’. It’s by an American doctor who died ( temporarily) and his experience.

No personal experience, but a few of other people’s. We moved house when my younger sister was only 3. We heard not soon afterwards that one of the former owners, a young woman, had sadly died in childbirth.

At around the same time, or a little later, my little sister used to talk of ‘a lady’ who sat on her bed and smiled at her. She wasn’t in the least bothered, let alone frightened.

The sister of a friend, and her dh, bought a house that seemed very cheap - the owners were keen for a quick sale. Not long after they moved in, the dh started leaving very early in the morning for work. His wife, left half asleep in bed, soon became aware of ‘somebody’ in the room. After a while she ‘felt’ him - she sensed it was male - sitting on the bed, and gradually moving closer to her.

Unsurprisingly she was by then freaking out, and they called in someone reputed to be a medium.
The woman said simply, ‘His name is Albert and he’s an old soldier.’

She asked him to leave, and he left.

The books of physicist Carlo Rovelli eg. ‘Seven brief lessons on physics’ may bring you some comfort too. Absolutely beautiful prose which seems to me to link physics with the divine.

I had a few instances that make me believe.

When my Mum passed away suddenly, I started seeing small white fluffy feathers everywhere. I mean, EVERYWHERE! I started to take these as a sign from my Mum telling me she was with me.

One day, before her funeral, deep in grief, I was up in my room going through my Mums photos and I was bawling my eyes out. I was talking to my Mum and I said to her that if the feathers were REALLY signs from her, could she prove it and show one to me. Make me see one today, then I will believe she is with me.

I pulled myself together and went downstairs to do some housework. I was dusting and I had a media unit shelf which had a photo of my little boy that died at birth. I picked it up to dust it and behind it, on the shelf, was a small white feather. I kid you not. It was there. I went straight away to tell my DH and DD and just check that neither of them had put it there. They hadn't. How the hell it got there I have no idea. No windows where it could 'blow in' so how the hell did that small fluffy white feather get behind my sons photo?? To this day it blows my mind and I can't explain it.

I have never been a 'woo' person but this is just not something I can even try to explain. I took it as the sign from my Mum that I had asked for.

My dad was an atheist. Had no beliefs at all. A few months after he’d died on a Sunday , I was in the lounge looking at old photos in an album of me as a child with the worst hair cut in the world. I said, in my head, dad what were you thinking letting mum cut my hair like that. I finished looking at the photos and put the photo album in the corner of the room. On Wednesday morning, I got up went into the lounge and in the middle of the room on the carpet was the picture of me with the awful haircut not in the album. I asked my husband if he’d seen the photo the previous day as he’d been last up and he said no . He had no clue what I was talking about. That Wednesday was 6 months to the day that my dad had died. I took it as a sign that he was letting me know he was ok.

OP. I hope the 2 prayers I have posted bring you some comfort

The second one

I can’t share my experiences because people would recognise me but after I lost my husband suddenly and very young I’ve had quite a few experiences even though neither of us believed in an afterlife and we were both very scientifically minded. But the really funny thing is that my experiences have been unlike anything I’ve heard from others.

My husband had a very particular sense of humour which I shared, but would seem quite strange to anyone else. Many of the experiences I’ve had have been exactly the weird and daft kind of thing we would have noticed and commented on that to others might not even be worth mentioning. So like I would suddenly “know” something quite mundane about a neighbour or the butcher or something that I couldn’t possibly know and it is just like he’s come home and passed on a bit of gossip just like he would. And then later I discover that it’s true.

And I was in hospital for quite serious surgery last year, and I was a bit upset because no one was able to visit me and I knew he’d have been by my side. I went to get a book out of my bag, that I’d packed myself, and inside like a bookmark was an item I know I hadn’t put there, that he had bought for me. But as previously mentioned it wasn’t a little love token, it was a credit-card sized emergency kit with a compass, screwdriver and so on that I’d completely forgotten about.

I’m sorry for your loss and I hope soon you’ll be in a better, more positive place.

I’m going to lower the tone slightly. My DB died shortly before Christmas 2024. A few days later I was walking home and a pigeon dropped a huge dump on my coat! I can’t remember the last time that happened. My DB had a great fondness for toilet humour - I just looked up at the sky and said “thanks, you bastard!”
He was also an amazing pool player, taught me how to play when I was young. I’m nowhere near as talented as him but whenever I play I always get a couple of amazing unlikely shots and feel like he’s holding the cue for me ❤️

Sending so much love to you OP.
I absolutely believe in life after death and I think quantum physics helps explain a lot. Massive hugs xxxxx

Yes, they're still here. All the atoms that made up their bodies are still here, they're in the trees and the birds and the air we breathe and the ground beneath our feet. I am both a non believer and at the same time have had the experience - my stepfather came to visit me a few days after he died, and talked to me. It was real. I don't care if other people believe it, I don't need them to.

I'm so sorry about your husband, OP.

We've a couple of instances of odd things happening the day before a death in the family. My aunt saw the ghost of an old lady in her house just before her mother (my grandmother) died.
The morning my grandfather died, an object in my house moved on its own. I don't know if someone "came to get" them and decided to pop in on the rest of us en route and make their presence felt.

ETA I'd class myself as an atheist, but I've had a few really bizarre things happen to me, and I know people who I trust utterly who have also experienced things that they couldn’t explain. I think we just don't know everything yet.

I lost my beautiful mum in 2019 after a short battle with cancer. It was her wish to pass at home and so I, along with my dad took care of her. She remained completely lucid the whole time. A few days before she died she said to me "there's been people popping in and out all day". I asked her who (as far as I knew it was just me and my dad). She replied "well my mum, then named three people she used to work with who has all died and her sister who was also dead". The day after she kept smiling at "nothing" so I asked her who she was smiling at. She said that they were all there again, waiting for her. It gave me so much comfort and she wasn't one bit frightened. For a few weeks following her passing my dad felt her cuddle into him in bed and also shake him awake when he nodded in the chair (she hated him sleeping in the day 🤣).

Dr Tara Swart (a psychiatrist and neuroscientist) wrote a book called The Signs about her experiences after losing her husband. It might interest some of you she was a non believer but her one experiences and research led her to change her mind. She's on quite a few podcasts and worth listening to.

So sorry for your loss. My brother died 2 years ago, it was very sudden and unexpected. About a year ago I was stood in my kitchen not near to anything and something hit me in the middle of my shoulder blades. When I turned around there was nothing near me to explain what hit me, it wasn’t gentle either. I was also alone in the house. My other brother has also felt something/someone blowing on his face and more than once. My dear Dad when he was near the end said that his Uncle was waiting for him, it bought him a lot of peace. Even though it’s been over 20 years I still speak to my Dad, less these days but it still helps to chat things out, esp after my brother died. I like to think they are somewhere out there looking out for us.