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

[Flufferblub]

I have a medical condition that sometimes brings on seizures. I have stopped breathing a couple of times in the past. I felt really unwell in a hospital waiting room one day (best place to be I suppose), and after waiting hours, I got up to speak to the receptionist to tell them I was feeling really unwell. I collapsed in the middle of the waiting room. I was aware, but things around me seemed a little distant. I noticed that I wasn't breathing, and I really thought that I was going to die. My mind was very calm and willing to go along with it. I thought Oh well, that's that. I was 32 at the time.

Any way, the doctors rushed over and got me breathing again. I find it a little bit reassuring how calm I was. But also a little bit scary how little fight I have to survive.

Has any one had any experiences like this they want to share?

Another car crash one. I can remember thinking that this was real, not a dream as the car was spinning, but like so many others it was actually a wonderful experience and I tried very hard to hold onto the feeling when it was over. Sadly I lost it within a few days but Im not scared of dying any more. It was just so peaceful and calm, the opposite of what I’d have thought.

@Daz57, so sorry for the loss of your daughter.

Yes, I was in a near fatal car crash so it wasn't really a calm environment but I have a few memories - my first was utter panic that the car would catch on fire (I was stuck inside) and so I just kept asking the paramedics if it was going to blow up. The second was a bit more 'out of body' ish - I couldn't be sure if the crash was real, and I kept thinking 'but I have plans tonight, this can't be right, must be a dream' (starting to lose rationality).

That was about it until they put me under but I woke up briefly when they got me out of the helicopter at hospital and I was just conscious enough to ask if I was going to lose my legs. This was probably when I was closest to death because I had lost many pints of blood at this point and was on my way to the operating theatre. Nothing too mystical or anything, just a lot of confusion, panic and nonsense.

I remember a woman who was passing and very kindly stopped to help, she was talking to me while the ambulance was on its way and trying to keep me conscious. She kept asking me if I had any pets and I was getting so confused and annoyed with her (unreasonably!) I was just like - 'no I don't have any pets thanks for asking, do you know if this car is going to burst into flames?!! 😂

C sec last year, nearly had a cardiac arrest. I remember feeling funny and the anesthetist calling out my name. I couldn't answer him or move my head and my heart had slowed right down I could feel my self going. I couldn't answer anyone but I could hear everything. The concerned faces looking down at me and then a consultant anaesthetist came in saying has she arrested but I was just coming back after being injected with something in my cannula. I've had spinal but nothing like this. I was on my way out, but I guess it wasn't my time.

My brother died last year and reading these experiences are giving me comfort that he felt peaceful at the end. Thank you.

I’m so sorry this happened to you, but also your last line made me laugh out loud 😂

Yes, almost drowned in a swimming pool when I was 6, I remember it very clearly. Once I realised I was dying and there was nothing I could do, I felt quite relaxed and peaceful.

Thank you, OP, for this discussion.

I've lost too many people in the last few years, one to a horrific suicide, and I'm finding this oddly comforting reading about people's calm, happy and peaceful last moments.

As a young teen I would climb everything and once on a beach holiday I climbed up a steep folly like castle keep structure that was partly submerged in the sea. Having climbed up it I suddenly looked down, realised it was going to be v hard to get down and that if I slipped then it could be lethal. I just thought 'oh, this is how I die', matter of factly.
Obviously I managed to get back out ok.

Wow, what happened OP? Did you actually drown before you were brought around?

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

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.

I'm glad that some people are finding comfort here, and I honestly did not expect this.

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 collapsing in town as a teenager, and I could hear a woman saying She was fitting! Did you see her? She was fitting! (I wasn't apparently)

I stayed in hospital for a few days for observations. They put it down to a surge of teenage hormones in the end. I had the kind of periods that were heavy and flooding, so they thought that probably caused me to faint that day 🤷

@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.

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.

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

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!

So scary!

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.

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.

Oh my word- how terrifying.

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

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

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.

@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.