Despite the fact that we know we can't live forever,
death is something it is pretty much impossible to get your head around. Even dealing with grief as loved ones pass away don't necessarily give you insight into what it must feel like to meet your end, or whether there is anything beyond the lives we live on Earth.
Yet there are some people who have had
brushes with death that left them certain it was all over, or even became legally dead for a short period before being brought back. So how do they feel? Recently a user on Quora posed this question to others, asking "How do people feel in their last minutes of life?" and their answers are fascinating.
1. Not ready to go
"I was 29. I suffered an anaphylactic shock. My heart stopped for just shy of 2 mins. I was defibbed & fell into a 2-day coma. While my body was being completely tortured from the inside out (throat closing/tongue swelling/fingers & lips turned black/massive hives everywhere/liquid coming out of EVERY orifice dispelling everything in my body/eyes glued shut…) the pain shut itself off for the last couple of minutes.
"I was still making the appropriate sounds & physically reacting, but I was already gone. I remember just accepting that it was over. I also (like a previous response) felt the irony- I suffer from mental illness/addiction & had spent so much of my time wanting to die. Here I was, the universe finally granting me my long wished-for final escape, and I wasn’t actually ready.
"I felt more alone than i can describe- and the feeling has been etched in my brain for over a decade. it was a dark, empty space where gravity didn’t seem to exist or questioned. I was calling out for friends & family who’d passed on, already. I was surprised no one came to comfort me. I was regretful about the things I hadn’t yet done. It wasn’t terrible-not purgatory. I was simultaneously enlightened and deeply confused and upset. My experience is that my body turned off. It just shuts down, like a machine running on a dying battery. I couldn’t actually feel- physically speaking." - Kiara St. Clara
2. A new lease of life
"In 1974 I was 24, and in Mexico riding a motorcycle near Cozumel. The remote jungle road twisted between three foot high boulders that had been cleared in the making of the road. I'd sped ahead of the two riders I'd been running with. Alone with the wind in my face."
"The front tire blew going into a turn. I lost control, and flipped through the rock berm and into waist a high pile of boulders at 40 miles per hour…without a helmet. In mid-air, flipping over the handlebars my last thought was 'So this is IT'."
"When I came to, completely numb, bloody, ears ringing, weak and unable to move, my thought was 'So, you didn’t die yet'. An incredible peaceful feeling came over me. I laid my head back and drank in the conclusion of my adventurous life. All the aspirations, regrets and expectations of my life melted in the face of impending stillness. I was in some other place so calm and peaceful. In the face of this inescapable and immutable fact… it was…just my turn."
"No one ever did find me. I do remember reaching out with one numb arm to the other numb arm and realized I had one good arm. At that exact moment hope barged in. Inner peace fled. I stopped the bleeding and did a broken parts inventory. I could breathe alright. It would be several hours before a doctor would pronounce "no lasting after effects", but I knew differently. From that day forward, each day would be a bonus day. And from that day forward I would know the calm that comes with death. I knew I how I would feel in my last minutes of life." - Austin McCormack
3. Peaceful and calm
"I believe I had a near death experience in open heart surgery. It was a calm peace. No drama, no pain. When my 7 hour surgery was over. I was in ICU, but had not woken up yet. I saw a football field, like at a college, not a professional stadium. It was night, the lights were on and the grass was wet. I told myself, oh, it looks like maybe a game was played here, but everyone has gone home.
"As I floated across the field, and I came to a dark tunnel. I kept floating through it. I saw a bright light as I got to the end. I know it sounds commercial, like a lot of people, but there was an awesome bright light beyond where I was. I stopped there. In front of me was a silhouette. I assume it was a figure, couldn’t tell if it was male, female, or angel, etc. I didn’t see the face cause it was shadowed. But, I heard all this music, felt love, and saw light behind the figure. It was peaceful. Something I never ever felt in this life.
"I moved up and down to see what was going on over there, but the figure kept blocking my vision. I said, hey, I want to see! I saw some people passing by me on the right. I tried looking again, and then I came back here. I was strapped down in ICU. My surgery was successful, but I didn’t come back until that time. My family explained to me the doctor’s said it took a long time for me to wake up; longer than usual.
"I can’t say if I was going to die at that time. However, the experience was a peaceful process. I’m glad I’m still here, but won’t forget the experience." - Kevin Curt
4. Not wanting to go
"I didn't feel anything the first time. I was in the ER, connected to an EKG, where my Mom and I were talking. She said I just stopped talking and closed my eyes like I'd gone to sleep. She said alarms went off and they ran her out of there to jump start my heart. I didn’t even know what had happened. I got scared when they put me on a helicopter and we landed. They moved so fast. I asked the nurses ripping my clothes off and grabbing cathetars, etc.. if I was going to die. Neither would make eye contact with me, or answer me. I knew things must be very bad by then.
"I coded again after I got settled in ICU. That one was terrifying before my heart stopped. I couldn’t catch a breath, and managed to say 'Help me.' My last thought was 'I don’t want to die!'. The last thing I remember was my nurse sticking his head out the door and repeating what I said. Both times there was nothing-ness once my heart stopped." - Michelle Fisher
5. Reflecting on life
"I had a near death experience once, when I was pretty sure I was 20–30 seconds away from the end. Like, I mean, I was completely sure I was about to die. I remember my feelings at the time, vividly. How could you forget.
"1: I actually felt very calm. People are scared of death. But once you know it’s happening, and you can’t do anything about it, you find peace. It was actually one of the calmest, most peaceful moments I can recall in my life.
"2: I was very very reflective. When you hear the stereotypes of 'your life flashing before your eyes', that’s exactly how I felt. I reflected on my life, and who I was, and if I could have done anything better.
"3: It sounds funny, but I also really had this 'well, this is just my luck!' kind of feeling. I actually found it kind of humorous. I was kind of laughing a bit, about how unlucky I was!
"This experience, actually helped me find a lot of faith. Because, although I was an atheist at the time, I didn’t actually feel like it was the end. I wasn’t thinking in terms of my existence being over. I was almost feeling like I was just moving on from one part of my life, to the next.
"I, kind of, had no fear, because I didn’t think it was that big a deal? I know this sounds crazy, but all I can say is, that when the moment came, my mind was completely prepared for it. My brain kind of changed, and I understood everything, and was prepared for everything. It’s almost like the human body/brain is completely prepared for it’s demise, but you don’t get to access this skill until you really need it?" - Christopher Mooney
6. Victim of a knife attack
"I was on the top of a low grassy hill. A girl was holding my hand and we walked down towards a small wood where I could hear people splashing in a pond although I couldn't see them. It was a lovely sunny day without a care in the world but as we approached unease set in and I quickly became quite distressed, something was wrong, I didn’t want to be here, I had to get away, I began screaming.
"I was lying on the floor and my body was jerking and bouncing. A voice was shouting at me to calm down and I found myself looking up at the ambulance men who I found later had just resuscitated me. I was put on a stretcher and carried down stairs wondering why they hadn’t put the lights on until I saw the bulb was actually shining with an intense white light. Looking around the whole room went black and white as if in monochrome while someone turned the brightness down and contrast up until everything became a blinding white light. Then I was in the back of the ambulance shivering so much I thought I might bite my tongue off and found out later I had been resuscitated again. Fortunately they managed to stabilise me and I did not go off again until the hospital but I don’t remember that. The ambulance trip was the worst part, I was absolutely frozen, very uncomfortable and began feeling the pain.
"I was told I had lost about 4 pints of blood, I can be precise about the slashes in the pillows as that came out later in court. It was 10 years ago and something I have moved on from to a very large extent although I doubt it will ever go away. I continue to see death as annihilation but no longer fear it." - Joe Foster
7. Horseback riding accident
"In 2014 I had been close to dying following a horseback riding accident and I will never forget those few minutes before I received the life saving morfina injection. I was laying on the rocks face up to the sky in a wood so I could see all the trees from below. My heart was close to a halt for three times, I could actually be aware of it. Each time I felt like myself raising from my body, like detaching from it and kind of being drawn towards the light.
"My first thought was: that’s it, nothing to be afraid of, if only people would know this is how you die there should not be so much need for worries around this. My second thought was: I am dying doing something I love and this is like dying like a hero so I will behave like that and face it and enjoy it. Then I saw my three year old coming back the same day from nursery school looking for me and I felt suddenly very sad. I then decided to live and started breathing in and out to help the heart not to explode.
"My third and last thought was: so that’s all bullshit waiting for external things to change so that your life improves: I am dying now and if I survive maybe at some point soon my child will die. I said to myself 'if I am going to survive this, I will never ever wait for external things to change and I will enjoy life a little bit every day starting from the hospital'. It’s been three years since and I am still rehabilitating so it’s not a piece of cake but I keep remembering my last minutes before dying because they were actually great" - Lucia Arrigucci
It seems like the usual response is to feel peaceful and have a good view on life, though there are some exceptions. Hopefully, if this ever does happen to any of us, it will be on the calmer side of things more than anything.
