What happens when we die? It’s a question that’s been asked throughout time and it remains one of life’s great mysteries. There are some people, however, that are certain they know the answer. These are the stories of people who’ve had a near-death experience (NDE) and what they reportedly felt and saw during those moments.

“Redditors: What did dying feel like? Did you see anything whilst passed on?”

A Reddit thread asked the question to those who have been clinically dead, but then later revived or resuscitated. The post received more than 1,000 responses. While some answers should undoubtedly be taken with a grain of salt, the responses did seem to fall into three different groups:

• Some described an out-of-body experience.
• Others said they felt nothing at all.
• Some responders describe their experience as seeing some sort of light and having an interaction with an unknown presence.

Here are a few of the responses:

“I was getting an angiogram done, wide awake watching the screen and talking to the doctor. Alarms started to go off and everyone became panicked. My world became soft and foggy and everything faded to black. Next thing I remember was opening my eyes and hearing a [Dr.] say “we got him back”. It was really a peaceful feeling more than anything.”

“I do remember a little bit of the ambulance ride, but not from my own body. It was seriously the strangest thing I have ever experienced. It could have been a dream, but I saw my own unconscious body, completely flatlined, in the ambulance. I remember the EMT who was in the ambulance with me (whom I did not see before I passed out) had mint green hair and I couldn’t remember his name, but I asked for him when I regained consciousness about three days later.”

“I saw nothingness. Black, long empty, but I had a feeling like everything was great and nothing was wrong at all. Imagine how preexistence felt, much the same as post existence.”

“Anyway, I was standing somewhere. There was a fog all around me, and I saw my best friend (who at the time I’d been fighting with and he’d stopped talking to me) come out of the mist. He told me that I couldn’t go yet, that I have to keep trying, and if I promised not to give up, he’d see me back on Earth. I wordlessly agreed, and I was instantly pushed (into?) my body.”

Other NDE Anecdotes

That’s not the first time the question’s been asked on Reddit or other social networking sites. Here are a few more stories people have shared about their time in limbo.

Anita Moorjani shared her story with NBC’s Today. After being diagnosed with cancer, Moorjani eventually slipped into a coma. She told today that’s when she felt she had died and crossed over.

“I felt as though I was above my body. It was like I had 360-degree peripheral vision of the whole area around. But not just in the room where my body was in, but beyond the room.” Moorjani said during her “crossing over” she was reunited with her late father, who said she should turn back because it wasn’t her time.

In another Reddit post, one user described said they didn’t see anything, but felt a sense of peacefulness.

“Mild accident in the snow and I wasn’t getting much air into me. It was a very peaceful experience, there was little to no pain and there were bright swirls of light in the sky, similar to watching the reflections of a lake. I felt my vision go darker at the edges (vignetting?) [sic] and a floating feeling. I just felt my limbs fall away, like when you lie in bed with everything relaxed completely. Even in the falling snow I felt warm.”

Studying NDEs

There have been several studies on NDEs. And while nothing conclusive has been found, there are some interesting facts about NDEs. For one thing, people’s descriptions of NDEs are somewhat similar.

Dr. Jeffery Long, who has studied thousands of NDEs, said that a lot of these stories share similar elements. There’s the floating, out-of-body vision. The sense of peace and tranquility. The ability to have total clarity of thought. And there’s one more similarity. According to Long, a majority of people that have an NDE report feeling forever changed. He said in an interview with Goop that “unlike virtually every other transformative human experience or life-changing event of earthly origin, the changes in their life actually seem to become progressive and more notable the longer they live.”

What are your thoughts on near-death experiences? Share with us in the comments below!