The only thing that's guaranteed in life (besides taxes) is death. It's safe to say that we all have most likely flirted with death at some point in our lives, and some of us came a little closer to kicking the bucket than others. Here are some of the most insane near-death experiences that Reddit has to offer.
u/ITotallyDoNotWhale asked: [Serious] What is your "I was THAT close to dying" moment?
Theatre is a deadly sport.
Was a theatre tech in high school. One of the techs was showing the new girl how to use the fly system (a hanging pipe that you hang things on, clouds, airplane, etc). When you bring the fly down, you yell "fly down!" and everyone who hears it echoes it, so everyone quickly knows it's coming down. You also drop it slowly.
Well, I was working center stage, right under the fly. She didn't say "fly down!" until she had already dropped it, and she just let it fall really fast until it was hip height from the ground.
If I would have stepped forward or back, instead of right, I would be dead. Luckily I stepped right and just stared at her. She knew.
Where's that Disney magic when you need it?
GiphyWhat I remember: I'm 11 yrs old, playing outside, and it starts to rain. I wake up in the hospital 3 days later.
What happened: Lightning struck the ground next to me. I was knocked unconscious, thrown into the air, my heart stopped, paramedics used CPR and a defibrillator to bring me back.
I'm all grown up now with the only long term effect being I have no memories of that summer before being struck. Which kind of sucks because that was the summer we went to Disneyland.
Ouch.
A car almost drove me over intentionally when I was cycling. I sprinted out of there as fast as possible and to this day I have no idea why he did it.
Oh my god. I have a friend who was cycling on a side road in my rural town. Someone rear ended him, then slammed on the breaks before running him over. Then they just reversed and went on their way without stopping at all. Had he been badly injured he would've been in A LOT of trouble and might have even died.
Enjoy every day.
05/10/2019 I was rear ended by a dump truck. In a coma for 42 days and now I can't walk. I'm immuno suppressed and breathing is compromised so who knows what the future holds. Life is good people so enjoy every day.
Sh*t, I remember when I was almost rear ended by a dump truck. I looked in my rear vision mirror to see one coming at me at like 80kph while I was stopped in a traffic queue. I just stared and assumed I was about to die. He slammed on his brakes and swerved into the next lane, tyres smoking. I feel so lucky. I wrote an email to the company outlining what happened and telling them to thank the driver for his quick reaction.
I hope it gets better for you, mate.
That must have been terrifying.
GiphyI was 8 years old and it was mid summer and it felt great out in the mornings, so I decided to go do kid stuff outside. I started climbing a tree in my front yard up to the point I had always gone to, but for some reason that day I decided to go as high as I possibly could. The tree was on the part of my lawn past the sidewalk and against the street, and at this point I'm 25 feet above the pavement.
I go to grab a branch that was too brittle and fall all 25 feet onto the concrete, snapping my left wrist (CF), getting holes and tears on my lungs, and rupturing my spleen. Before I went into surgery (keep in mind I was EIGHT), I overheard the doctor tell my parents they didn't think I'd survive through the surgery. One of the scariest things a kid could possibly hear.
How agonizing.
Almost ten years ago I was suffering from stomach pain. At the time I was drinking vodka daily and didn't have any direction in my life. I was still living at home and it finally came to the point where it was obvious that the drinking wasn't the problem. I went to the hospital and was diagnosed with diverticulitis. I waited so long to be treated that I was as pale as a ghost and required emergency surgery to correct the problem.
After all that happened I took better care of myself but just recently I was taken to the hospital again for severe stomach pains. I required emergency surgery again to correct a hernia that formed and was cutting off blood to my lower intestines. I had to have more of my lower intestines removed to get rid of all the dead tissue.
Both experiences were terrible and I felt like I was on my deathbed for both of them.
What an a**hole cousin.
So, when I was about six, I was at a pool with my mom, aunt and entitled cousin. He wanted to swim on a inflatable alligator I was on, so he just pushed me off it and I was there, drowning at the bottom of the pool. He didn't give a flying f*ck about me dying down there. Thank God, my aunt noticed I was gone and that bubbles coming out from water. She then realised what was going on and saved me.
Fun fact: My cousin didn't even get grounded for that.
That's so scary.
GiphyCaught in an avalanche and trapped under snow for ~6 hours.
As stupid as it sounds, I was able to get to my cell phone in my pocket (took me about an hour to get to it though), and call 911.
My battery was low, but I was able to tell them where I was. They sent search and rescue who came and dug me out.
Considering chance of survival past a few minutes is exceptionally low, I got super lucky.
The nurse is a hero.
I was born with a cleft palate, which is a birth defect that can prevent a child from eating and talking properly and can cause the child to starve to death if the birth defect isn't identified and the child isn't given the correct feeding equipment. The doctor on staff to identify my birth defect had left to play golf right before I was born, and the nurses weren't qualified to diagnose me with a cleft palate and give me the proper feeding equipment.
I guess the organization at the hospital was horrible, because about 2 and a half days after I was born no one had diagnosed me, and thus I had not been fed. Eventually one of the nurses found out what was going on and fed me using the proper equipment, but because she was not qualified to make that decision she was fired. If I had been allowed to starve for just a few more hours, I would have died.
That nurse's decision cost her her job but gave me my life, and any time I'm considering suicide I remember that. Thank you, whoever you are, for the gift of life. It just shows you how important doing the right thing is, no matter what the repercussions are.
TheMostMajesticSquidThat's brutal.
A few years ago, I thought I got a bad case of strep throat, the usual: felt like swallowing razor blades. Figured I could just muscle my way through it, so I waited it out for a few weeks until it became so severe it was impacting my ability to make it to my college courses. So I finally swallowed my pride, put my wallet on the line, and went to the doctor; turned out it wasn't strep, I had a peritonsillar abscess at the back of my throat. The doctor said it was the clearest she'd ever seen one, even asked me to let her nurses take a look at it so they could identify it later. Then I got sent off to a doctor in the ER, two of his nurses diagnosed it as an abscess, he said it wasn't an abscess, gave me a shot in the butt and sent me on my way.
Two days later, I had to go see an ENT specialist who, again, reiterated that it was one of the largest, ugliest abscesses he'd ever seen and that I was lucky to have made it in in time: another day or two and he told me the abscess would've swollen enough to clog my throat and I would've suffocated. Got it drained, but the abscess became recurrent and I had to get it drained multiple times, more difficult each time.
At last, the doctors decide to just cut out my tonsils, and recovery from that was brutal. A few times, I start to cough and bleed out of my throat, try to muscle through it, each time I call the doctor to make sure I'm alright. Finally, they tell me if it happens again, I need to make sure I come in to see the doctor, as it'll be dangerous.
Well, less than twelve hours later, my tonsils start bleeding again. I don't have many of the pictures anymore, but my bathroom looked like a murder scene: I was coughing up huge amounts of blood, it got all over the walls, all over the sink, all over the counter and the floor. The ambulance showed up and brought me to the hospital and they had to give me bags to spit the blood up into, and I filled up like 5-6. They had to put me on fluids because it was so bad. Every time it started to coagulate, I'd cough, and the blood would start flowing again, and let me tell you: it's awful. You can feel, and taste, the blood coming up your throat, and the little coagulated chunks only make it worse. They ended up having to put me under and cauterize the wound, and it was a brutal experience all around.
Yikes.
GiphyIt's not dramatic as you think, but also crazy af. When I was in high school, I got choked unconscious by another girl.
Some people would refer to her as a yandere or stalker. She would catch my bus home and catch the same bus to school by staying at her friends house even though she lived on the other side of the city 10+ km away. One day I rejected her, and the next day she came in with a ribbon. She said she had something to show me, and took me to this underpass at school that was relatively unpopular. She then fiber-wired me with the ribbon. I didn't know what was going down or if this was some sort of joke so I froze.
Next thing I know I'm in the nurse's office and a friend is standing over me. Apparently she found me just after I fell unconscious, because she got curious as to what was happening. If she hadn't I don't know what would've happened. The stalker got suspended for a few weeks. The found out she had high-functioning autism, and heard more stories about her from there. After everything was done, she came out relatively unscathed, although she did move to a specialist school after.
The most I've heard from her since is she disappeared from a police report.
It's a miracle they got out.
I live in India. Here we have geysers installed inside the bathroom which burn LPG to heat the water. The window in the bathroom has a net attached to it. My house was being cleaned so someone sprayed water on the net. Water bubbles formed on the net stopping ventilation.
I went to take a shower. The LPG burnt all the remaining oxygen in the bathroom. When LPG is burnt with insufficient presence of oxygen, Carbon Monoxide is released. Started feeling dizzy and fell on the bathroom floor. Somehow crawled my way to the door and opened it. Passed out seconds after that.
How strange.
I'm going to start this off by saying that I don't know for sure if I was close to dying or not, but it felt like it.
When I was a kid, maybe around 8-10, I got really sick. I lived beside my grandmother and I remember sitting on the floor in her living room and suddenly feeling very nauseous and dizzy. My parents thought it was the flu but I progressively got worse. I couldn't lay down because I would immediately vomit, my sleep was suffering as a result. Sometimes it was hard to breathe. I could barely keep food down. My temperature was constantly elevated.
My local doctor had no idea what it was, I remember them running a bunch of tests. This next part is all a blur because of how sick I was. But I remember going from doctor to doctor, even going to my state capital to find a doctor there. No one knew what to do. At one point I was prescribed Robitussin (maybe why I still hate it today.) One doctor said it might be whooping cough even though I had been vaccinated, they gave me an inhaler. Nothing was working. At this point, I had been sick for almost the entire duration of summer break from school. I know I had been given other treatments as well but I was so sick I was just doing whatever they told me, I don't remember a lot of it.
Then...it just went away. I don't know if we ever got answers for what it was, but I got my appetite back one day and 3 days into the school year, I was ready to go. I have never been so sick in my life and I maintain to this day that I thought I was dying.
Sounds like a curse.
GiphyI'm going to preface this by saying my dad's family is known for having weird accidents and health problems. This has been passed on to me.
- fell when carrying one of those trophies with an angel on it and punctured my neck when I was 5. Missed the jugular by less than half an inch
- anaphylactic shock due to an antibiotic. It was so bad my immune system had to reboot itself, and I was on the verge of multi-organ failure
- chronic appendicitis that got dismissed at the ER... it had switched to the acute phase by the time it got removed
Non-health related include: 3 gas leaks in the new house, being evacuated from a building because the IRA threatened to bomb it, having a plane I was in skid on the runaway when it landed, and others...
Those fair rides are no joke.
I am a woman. I was on a fair ride. Looked like an airplane and rose and spun in circles. As it rose I I ended up standing. The force took me right out of my seat. I am forever grateful for the man behind me that grabbed the back of my jeans and pushed me back down in the seat. I was thin back then they are always aware of height and if someone is too big. But there should be a check if someone weighs enough to ride safely. It had a lap bar that remained locked the whole time.
These workers and the world already has enough trouble without my stupid.
"So... was she impressed?"
Idiot Reaction GIFGiphy"Kid driving his new truck down a residential street, wet from a recent rain, lost control and hit a parked car, overcorrected and rolled it once back onto its wheels up onto a lawn. He told the fire chief he had gunned it to impress his girlfriend and the chief just looked at him and asked 'So... was she impressed?'"
AntiMacro
Ricky
"I had a client once who was basically Ricky from Trailer Park Boys, loud, obnoxious, hilarious and every second word was some Maritime slang or a derivative of 'f**k.' He has been on daily eye drops for decades for dry eyes, sure ok cool. I hear screaming down the hall and run in and he's wedged against the wall and the bed just screaming 'I f**ked up boys, I dunno what the f**k is f**king happening but It's f**ked."
"Turns out he mistakenly put Jublia which is an antifungal ointment for toenails in his eye thinking it was his eye drops. The strangest part was the bottle has this miniature sponge at the end so you soak the sponge then paint it on like a gel...he painted this antifungal ointment onto his eye which immediately went red and angry then proceeded to do the other one."
"So he's at the eyewash station and I'm talking to poison control and they are pretty stunned because they have zero data on what happens to a human eyeball when it's painted in antifungal. I can hear the staff at the other end kind of snickering under her breath and she asks can you compare and contrast the eyes? Well... he put it in both eyes. The line goes silent because I can tell she is howling. Guy was totally fine but it was a standout for sure."
krzysztoflee
Will they show?
"Responded to a call of two minors being kidnapped and their parents being beaten in front of them and then taken someplace else. One was around three years and the other one was six. They were held captive in an apartment out of hundreds of residential apartments which not easy to locate, upon reaching there we found out that the boy six was just playin' with us to see if we would actually respond. Their parents were so embarrassed by all of that and vowed to not give them mobile until they are adults."
erectilereptilelol
Bowled Over
"When I was an EMT in NYC years ago we had a call for a man 'unresponsive.' We entered an upscale apartment that was a hoard: floor to ceiling newspapers and magazines, just a mess. The woman who called said her brother was in his bedroom sick."
"We entered his room and it was pretty obvious that he had already passed away. She had placed a bowl under his mouth because he had hemorrhaged which had coagulated the day before it was crazy. We asked her why she hadn’t called sooner and she said thought he’d get better?!"
"The joke around the house was 'if you have to put a bowl under a relative who is bleeding from the mouth, call 911. Don’t wait.' Never thought we’d have to advise anyone to do that. But there ya go. Also, it was Thanksgiving. Didn’t eat any cranberry sauce that year."
Sufficient-Swim-9843
God Only Knows
Married At First Sight Lol GIF by LifetimeGiphy"Had a guy call because he had the cure to Covid and needed a ride to the local education hospital so he could share it. Dude was so high on meth He ended up having 4 or 5 binders worth of scientific looking notes. God only knows what was actually in them."
Flame5135
Wow, people really need to get a grip. Of their minds.
"Sparky"
on fire GIFGiphy"One of my old bosses once built a new shed in his back yard, to replace his old, worn-out one. He moved everything from the old one to the new one, then decided that the best way to remove the old one was by burning it down. He ended up with no sheds and the nickname 'Sparky.'"
Wadsworth_McStumpy
Dead in the living room...
"Paramedic here. We responded to this 54 year old having chest pain. Man was having a heart attack. Dude didn't want to go to the hospital because it too early in the day. That's it. We tried to convince him to go. Got the ER doc to talk to him and he wouldn't budge. He signed a Refusal. Later that same night, his family found him. Dead in the living room. We got to him and started CPR, meds, everything. Dude didn't make it. When we advise you to go to the hospital, go."
Chaprito
Bad Ideas
"Got called to a shooting. A guy says he received a text message from an anonymous number saying his brother has been shot. He checks all the hospitals with no luck. He goes to his brother's apartment but gets no response at his door but sees his car and can hear the TV on. We get there, attempt to get an answer at the door."
"Eventually we kick the door in to make sure he wasn't dying in his apartment. We boot the door, announce police, and find him asleep in his bed. The guy tells us that he got a new phone number and decided to mess with his brother by texting him he had been shot. He then fell asleep and forgot about the text and was woken up by us. So many wasted resources on his idiotic prank."
TheDOC816
The Swimmer
"Got called to a priority job. The caller was kayaking in a lake and said that there was an unresponsive male in the water. So off we went, lights and sirens. We requested paramedics and fire to attend as well for the rescue operation. There were about 6 emergency vehicles attending including a rescue boat. We got there within minutes and met the caller who showed us where the guy was."
"He was just swimming, minding his own business. The caller said he was unresponsive, but really he was just ignoring her. Had a chat with the guy, he seemed alright, said he swims here every day and likes the quiet. No issues. Would have been nice if the caller told the operator that he was still conscious and swimming rather than 'unresponsive.'"
amazingbecauseitis
Chew Slowly
Snl GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphy"Well, I was taking a lady home from dialysis and she decided to eat a snickers in the back of the ambulance, and she started choking. Had to do the heimlich, and tell her to finish her food at home."
HotSoupInYourA**
If it's not a true emergency dial 311. Please.
As if knowledge isn't scary enough, let's her more...
Hello Terry
paint surgery GIF by gifnewsGiphy"Some tumors have teeth, hair and even eyes."
Twat_Waffle_Stomp
"My sister had one minus the eyes! It was cantaloupe sized on one of her ovaries before it was found. She named it Terry the Teratoma."
Karina_is_my_cat
Hungry Bacteria
"Brain-eating amoebas."
dark_n_lovely_qu33n
"My best friend and bunk mate from summer camp died from one of those when I was in 7th grade. Happened so quickly, we were a week into camp and he got really sick. They gave us all heavy meningitis shots because they didn’t know what it was and within a few days he was dead. Turned out to be a brain eating amoeba."
"Edit: strangely enough on the same day he started getting sick one of the lifeguards that was sitting out in a boat waiting for the next group of kids for what we called Trojans Vs. Spartans day had a seizure, fell off the boat and drowned. Only deaths they’d ever had in the 50+ years the camp had been open."
Csharp27
Far Far Away
"The size of our galaxy, how many other galaxies there are and how far away they are. When you can actually see something that incomprehensible.."
Jfonzy
"The nearest star to us would take the Voyager 70,000 years to reach. The nearest galaxy to ours would take the Voyager 749,000,000 years. If we some how managed to take on the monstrous task of speed of light travel it would still take 25,000 years to reach the nearest galaxy. And it's even further apart after you read this. Wild stuff!"
ConqueredCorn
Head Changes
"How the brain is literally rewired and chemically altered by childhood neglect and abuse."
petalumaisreal
"It's genuinely kinda freaky, playing a puzzle game, and noticing how quickly you're getting better at it. The kind of puzzles that were a real blocker in the beginning become baby-easy after like an hour of playing puzzles like it."
LtLabcoat
"My sister faced horrible abuse at the hands of our father, and she has been working through it with multiple therapists over the last 10 years and she is only now starting to get her life back. I feel like she was robbed at a fair chance at life because of our a**hole father."
Pehdazur
Awake
Bill Murray Im Here GIF by Groundhog DayGiphy"Prions, horrific and totally unpredictable."
geordiesteve520
"Fatal familial insomnia is a prions disease where you can't sleep anymore, you just stay awake until your brain deteriorates and you die."
DrinknEspresso
Now I can never UNKNOW about prions. Perfect.
Days gone by...
Aging Matt Damon GIFGiphy"Ageing. I'm content with death but the idea of my body growing old, frail and eventually falling apart before the end game gives me goosebumps."
EvidenceOfInnocence
Bursts
"Gamma ray bursts. No warning, no escape, no defense, no survivors."
Swampwolf42
"If you're talking about supernovas if the star isn't too close the gamma burst would probably only destroy some part of our ozone layer. And gamma radiation is actually the least lethal out of all types of waves."
Broccoli_sauce24
Sizzle
"Entropy. Time shall consume all things. Inevitable heat death of the universe."
Revolutionary_Elk420
"I personally want the 'Big Crunch' to be true. That instead of fizzling out it all gets sucked back into an infinitely small/dense particle and then another Big Bang happens. It’s my explanation for the multiverse. It’s all one timeline. Just infinitely long."
ChoppyWAL99
They're Watching
"More like a theory, the 'orangutan paradox,' when we film a documentary on orangutans, they can’t realize that we are observing them, yet they are the most intelligent species of their category, so aliens might be watching us and we are as oblivious as an orangutan."
Time_Succotash
Fade 2 Silent
Listen Scooby Doo GIF by MashedGiphy"That hearing is the last sense to leave, when dying."
User Deleted
Well that is the antithesis of comfort. Life is so fun.
Redditor Ebo8000 wanted to know:
"What is your most controversial take on Star Wars?"
Doors
"LASERS LOCK DOORS. LASERS OPEN DOORS. LASERS KNOW WHAT YOU WANT THE DOOR TO DO."
- SlamVanDamn
"But if you get past the door and close it behind you and you don’t want anyone to follow you through it…"
"…you shoot the bloody door panel!"
- treeonwheels
"Also, f*cking hell, we're in the future (or in the past), whatever, and people have better technology."
"Why put the door control RIGHT NEXT to the door? Put the door control system in a breaker box."
"Build every door so in case of malfunction they all shut closed (after all, they're in space and you don't want to lose air in decompression, do you?)"
"Shoot the breaker box, now the whole floor is closed until someone can figure out what happened."
"Almost look like those doors just exist as dramatic elements..."
- smegma_yogurt
GiphyThe Past
"I’d like a film about when the Republic was at its height. 1,000 generations is 25,000 years and we’ve had 9 movies about the last 60."
- Musickat18
The Future
"Not sure if controversial but they need to take the franchise and yeet it 200 years in the future."
"I'm tired of the Empire era where they need to justify why more than 2 Jedi and 2 Sith exist at one moment alongside knowing everything is pointless until Luke leaves the farm."
- Alandrus_sun
Design Fail? No!
"The Death Stars weren't badly designed they were just badly managed."
"Yes, designing them assuming large scale assaults was stupid given the political state of the galaxy but the second Death Star wasn't even finished so that doesn't count, it's all Palpatine's fault. As for the first one that was finished, the Alliance made three runs on the exhaust port."
"The first was called off before they made it to the trench, the second failed and the third was carried out by space Jesus which isn't exactly fair."
"All in all it sounds like a fairly effective defence when you consider the design philosophy."
- Engeneus
GiphyCool Factor
"The entire universe has a cool factor that outweighs the atrocious storytelling."
- Ozty
"Bro imagine the following movies, but if they were in Star Wars universe."
"Magnificent 7 - A Jedi, Bounty Hunter, Ex-Imperial, Pilot, Wookie, a Droid, and Lawman team up to defend a town against pirates"
"Dredd - Two Jedi climb up an apartment block to confront a new dark side user who has mental control of the entire apartment block"
"Supernatural (T.V. Show) - A Jedi and their apprentice go around and solve and defeat Dark Side Force spots—where the Force consolidates from emotions and creates foul creatures to fight"
"Top Gun - But it's you know, Wedge or something"
"Ford versus Ferrari - But it's podracing or swoop racing"
- BoutsofInsanity
Ships
"Something about the ships in the original series always felt more like real ships than in any of the later movies, despite the objectively better effects of the later films."
"Some of this is probably the use of models (i.e. actual three dimensional objects), but I think there is some critical difference in the design that makes them feel more real (probably because they were designed to be things that would actually work as models)."
"Whatever it is, I LOVED the ships in the original series and never really liked any of the new ones."
- UnspecificGravity
"The original trilogy changed the world by showing a universe in space that was dirty and lived in. The special effects from the later movies did not recognize this."
GiphyBoba who?
"Boba Fett is an oddly overrated background character, and even after watching The Book of Boba Fett, I don’t really care about him."
- imidoesonlyfans
"He was never a character. He was a cool helmet."
- JimPlaysGames
"He was a cool jetpack too."
- RipperFromYT
GiphyTime for the weather...
"Han is actually older than Obi-Wan due to Time Dilation."
- Snowbofreak
"Time dilation in a universe where every planet and moon has the same gravity and atmosphere?"
- suman_issei
"And just 1 biome."
- DogShampoop
"That way they only need one Weather Channel per planet."
- The_Most_Superb
"And over to Klaatu for the Tatooine weather report. Klaatu?"
"It's still sunny."
- Budsygus
GiphyThese are the droids we're looking for.
"Star Wars is actually the life story of C-3PO—think about it."
- jonguy77
"I disagree. I think its R2-D2's story. He had a much greater presence in Episode 1, 2 and 3, and got the same amount of screen time as C-3PO in 4, 5 and 6."
‐ MacGregor_Rose
GiphyFan is short for fanatic.
"Fans ruined the whole franchise."
- SeaworthinessNo5209
Ouch...
So, did your controversial Star Wars opinion make the list?
Hollywood hasn't helped, as movies and TV have typically portrayed death as something sinister and violent.
How could anyone be convinced death is a peaceful transition, and that what awaits on the other side is actually an unimaginable utopia?
Curious to hear strangers' thoughts about death, Redditor GoodNess2020 invoked a quote by an iconic literary figure and asked:
"Mark Twain once said, 'I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.' Why do you agree/disagree with his statement?"
People clarified what actually terrified them most about death
The Process
"I don't fear being dead. I fear dying."
– magicbluemonkeydog
"Yeah, that's usually the issue. It's why that quote doesn't mean much, to a lot of people."
"It's not a fear of eventually dying and not existing anymore. It's the act of dying itself. He didn't constantly die for all of time. He just wasn't alive."
– appleparkfive
Concept Of Loss
"To have not existed for billions of years is to have spent billions of years never knowing loss. To die is to know loss."
"If you look into a new bank account and see zero dollars, it’s nothing. If you look into a bank account that once had a million dollars and see there’s nothing in there, you’ll know it’s absence."
– -CrestiaBell
People provided an analogy to articulate what ceasing to exist must feel like.
It's About Time
"Time is only relevant to you when you are alive. He is right. Have you ever been sedated for surgery? You go under, and then instantly wake up and procedure is done.... or you died so no worries."
– 20190419
Consciousness Is Life
"You won’t be feeling anything in death though is the thing. That infinite/instant sensation was a living feeling, you just weren’t conscious for it - your body experienced it anyways. No body, no experience."
– Parradog1
Like Being Under
"That is very true, but for me, that's the closest amalgamation of what it probably feels like."
"No one can tell you what actual death will be like. It's impossible for you to experience nothingness."
"Thinking about death can be paralysing sometimes, and when I remember that the closest thing i can link as an experience I had, being put under, was actually sort of pleasant. I then think maybe death will be like that, and honestly it doesn't seem that bad."
– IamEclipse
When In Deep Sleep
"Yeah in contrast to sleep where you can actually feel like time has passed when you wake up."
– GreyFoxMe
Think Line Between Death And Slumber
"As CGPGrey puts it, your bed might very well be a suicide machine."
"Given our lack of understanding for the fundamental processes of our sentience, it's entirely possible that when you fall asleep, your mind is functionally killed, disassembled, analyzed, sorted, tweaked, and adjusted by your biology, before being reassembled when you wake. Every night."
– Mazon_Del
People opened up about their insecurities around the concept of death.
Fear Of What Comes Next
"I’m just paranoid that something does happen after death and it’s just based on one thing that you didn’t know about."
– PsychoDog_Music
The Circle Of Death
"There’s nothing to fear in oblivion. Unless, of course, your consciousness survives death. If so, it would be reasonable to fear the sensation of consciousness without senses, suspended alone in the cosmos, with no one to hear you, and no way to make yourself known. No reference point for counting time – a count that does not matter anyway in a literal eternity."
"You might wish that you still had a corporeal form, only so that you could make your mouth move to express your terror, to make the universal form of a terrified scream – the form of a letter O."
"But you won’t be able to. You just won’t!"
"This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. Brought to you by shame, loneliness, and the letter..."
"O....."
– CecilSpeaksInItalics
When Faith Fails You
"what do you mean I'm going to hell?! I was a good person and attended church regularly!"
"Ah yes, but you failed to put a blue feather in your hat and then turn in circles the times praising God Almighty on the fifth Sunday after your twelfth birthday. To the pit with you!!!"
– phormix
There is an poignant episode from the Twilight Zone that brought me a sense of peace surrounding the concept of death.
Death was embodied by a handsome police officer who had been shot–played by a young Robert Redford–and begs to be let into the home of an elderly woman who had been living in perpetual fear of meeting "Mr. Death."
As the episode continues, she discovers much to her dismay that she welcomed Death into her home, but he warmly reassures her there is nothing to fear.
The episode ends with her finally offering her hand to Death after much protest, and they peacefully walk out together, arm in arm, into the light.
It was sweet and beautifully done. The 1962 episode was titled, "Nothing in the Dark."
That's how I imagine it to be.
A dashing Prince of Darkness telling me it's time to join him in guiding me to the other side.