I Was in a Month-Long Coma and Died 3 Times AMA (Verification Inside)

[deleted]

comment of the thread right here

"I've only been revived more than Jesus Christ, no big deal"

Meanwhile the rest of us have to settle with nobody ever wanting to resurrect us.

...well, shit

well to be fair, he was dead for like a day and a half

Pretty sure Christianity is pretty hardline on it being 3 days

At what point did your sex drive catch back up to afterwards? Are girls fresh out of a comma in heat, or pretty much cold and dry?

hahah I was actually expecting this question, believe it or not! I have a friend who is a heart doctor at a respected hospital and he asked me something to this effect because he had a male nurse that asked not to be assigned to a bed-ridden patient because he felt that she was making sexual advances. He asked me if I had a sex drive while in the hospital because he kind of forgot that his patients are sexual creatures.

The answer is absolutely. I probably would have masturbated if my mother or father wasn't with me 24/7 or if I had more stimuli. I was in a children's hospital, so it's kind of creepy to think about sexual stuff there. Kids with cancer kind of kill it.

Edit: Why are people downvoting this guy? It's an AMA! I get that the tone/wording is kinda jerky, but don't take shit so seriously. I died a few times, and I don't.

So what I think we can take away from this, is that the hospital, and more specifically, the recover ward is a great place to get some strange.

hahaha I would not be surprised, just maybe not the pediatric hospital...

I've read that there's a hands-free technique…

Care to elaborate?

you're just asking for creepy pms with that question.

nothing so far crosses fingers

I think THE question has got to be, do you remember anything from when you died? Did you see, hear, feel anything?

Sorry I am kind of avoiding this question. It's a hard one for me to answer, but I will answer it, just got to formulate my thoughts. This question gives me anxiety.

Edit: I think I am ready for this now.

I don't know at what point in my dreaming I died, but I have a feeling I kind of know, or at least have a hypothesis. I had periods between coherent dreams sometimes that were just void and floating and being. I also had a super hyperreal interface with fourth dimensional beings who "played" the universe to some extent. Able to go between the two. Have you ever seen Enter the Void? Think a more calm and less ego that with more ability to intervene to some extent. I have done my fair share psychedelics since then and had semi-similar experiences, contact with other-worldly entities or even just presences. Honestly, I am not sure what I believe happens after you die. All I know is that I felt very at home, very curious, exploring everything, so much to know, so many interesting "people". I think I believe in something, but if it was just nothingness I don't know how surprised I would be. I just know I feel something present. Something eternal.

I don't know how you wanted this answered, feel free to ask more.

What do you mean by "Fourth dimensional beings"?

First of all, MUSTY_BALLSACK, I'm a huge fan of your work. It's an honor to have you commenting on my thread.

Secondly, I mean people that were not human, or maybe they were, but in a different form. They just knew so much. They had a community that seemed super compassionate and orderly. It reminds me of the Elven people in almost every series but less political. I've encountered what I believe them to be while tripping, but somewhat different. In my coma dream/death they could communicate in a more traditional way. In my other encounters they communicated more via thought or images, etc.

Edit: DMT

I've heard some users of DMT remark they synthesize objects from language and speaking. What did they speak or communicate about?

e: and were the dream beings the same as the DMT beings?

More just flashes of things. The overall message was the illusion of separateness as well as the certainty that there is so much more than what I understand.

They felt the same, but they didn't look the same. But, then again, what are appearances worth?

Your answer to this question is giving me anxiety.

Dude, tell me about it. Hard to live with so much uncertainty while simultaneously KNOWING that there are things beyond my comprehension. This is all going on and I know my body is finite, and how do I grapple with what I know and don't know or couldn't know. It gives me a good set of values, I think. Appreciate life, try not to judge, most of the shit doesn't matter as long as your treat living beings and the Earth/Universe/Multiverse well.

You may have just given me a new perspective on life.

Happy to help :) Good luck on living

I just kinda look at it all and smile at how much there is to it all. Is it weird that the void calms me? There's just SO MUCH to it all and it's glorious in every sense of the word and thensome.

Sometimes it makes me tilt my head back and laugh at the sky, and sometimes it makes me want to curl into a ball with someone patting my back saying, "Everyting's gonna be alright".

BOOM. Buddha (yes I know it's probably a fake Buddha quote) and Bob in one comment

What do you mean by separateness?

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the Weather.” ― Bill Hicks

and now i want to listen to tool

I had a huge multicolor spiral in washable crayon on my wall with "spiral out" written over the top when most of this drug use occurred haha

People see themselves as not connected to the Earth, to animals, to the universe/multiverse, to each other. That's an illusion.

I've reached similar conclusions after LSD.. beautiful stuff.

What are some of the differences between interacting with the fourth dimensional beings and humans? What do you think about human existence now that you've interacted with these beings?

They just had so much more wisdom. Even without speaking, I just knew that they had so much power, but were so kind. They were kind of like The Doctor. I felt like they could feel my feelings an hear my thoughts. They just seemed like they had infinite compassion.

It's nice to know we're not the only intelligent beings in the multiverse. I see people, and I think I should act more like the beings.

you should try dmt and see how it relates to your dreams in the coma :p

Did you even read this thread? It has the letters DMT in it haha

Tralfamadorians

Honestly, I can barely read Slaughterhouse 5 anymore because of my experience. I have to read a few pages and put it down. It hits too close to home and I get panicky.

Edit: also upvote for Beyonces_Booty, GODDAMN

sounds like your pineal gland dropped a whole bunch of DMT on your brain as you died.

Sounds about right

Did the "Forth Diminutional Beings" ever try to make contact with you in any way? If so how, and what did they say.

Oh yeah, I became one of them. Just kind of lived in there society and popped in and out back and forth to the "real" dream world. It was kind of inception-y worlds, within a universes within a dream. Mostly they taught me to look for patterns in things. Very hard to put into words because they didn't, but they just showed me how to look at things and put them together.

[deleted]

I had bacterial meningitis. There is a 10% death rate, so I am lucky to be alive. I did end up losing 2 toes though.

Do you know what bacteria it was?

One of the kinds that the vaccine would have prevented.

I think this is the most significant comment in this entire thread.

Yeah I have done a few interviews telling people to do it, super important, especially for people going into college dorm life

Where do I go and what do I ask for? I work in hospitals, mostly their IT departments, and they make me get TB shots, but I haven't heard about bacterial meningitis. I kinda don't want to lose toes.

Haha yeah I didn't either. Ask for the meningococcal vaccine.

Go to your pcp and ask for it. If you don't have a pcp then just any family practice should be able to help you out. It's a vaccine thousands of young adults are required to get (i.e. college students), so it has to be easily accessible to them

Thanks for this info! I'll post it in the description

I nearly had meningitis. Luckily I had gotten a vaccine and only got a major sinus infection (~103-104 fever for about a week).

Congrats on the near miss

YOu are lucky. I went to a benefit last weekend for a good friend. She contracted(?) bacterial meningitis and lost both legs and all of her fingers. She is a badass though and I look forward to the day she gets her prosthetics

Good luck to her! I love hearing these kind of stories. It makes me feel privileged and kind of like an ass that I was not only in the 90% of people that survived, but in the ~10% of people that keep all your limbs and mental faculties. My mom got a call from a moms-of-bacterial-meningitis-contraction-children and it was hard for her to have her daughter alive and well when some of their children died. I am so happy for her. Have her contact me if she wants to talk o someone with similar experiences about anything.

I contracted bacterial meningitis in high school. I went to urgent care with a stiff neck and the doctor acted like I had leprosy; he wouldn't come near me. Went to the ER and luckily was able to get by with a bit of nasty arm scarring and two days of IV's. I can't imagine if it had gotten as far as yours. I'm glad you had a full recovery!

Thanks, I am glad too. I'm happy you had a mild case, it can get rough real quick. And yeah, sorry about the doctor thing, it's pretty rare so people are super careful

You have 10. You've got a few to spare

have

had FTFY

haha I know, it's vain and egoist, but they were MY toes, and I wanted to keep them. The most insensitive remark I got at the hospital was when one doctor told me I would probably lose two toes and my face dropped, and he said, "Don't feel bad, models in Manhattan pay to get their pinky toes removed so they can wear smaller shoes". I asked him to leave.

Do you mean a 10% survival rate?

No, I mean 10% death rate. But even those who survive rarely do so with limbs and brain function.

I understand that, but you should clarify this sort of thing. I wouldn't necessarily call it lucky to survive something when there is a 90% chance of survival - that's pretty damn good. Saying something along the lines of "regardless of mortality, many difficulties can arise" is much more along the lines of what I think you were trying to say.

I just don't think the fact that you are alive is necessarily a lucky thing. The fact that you are alive AND have limbs/brain function is a lucky thing, however.

What fucking difference does it make? Seriously. Look up Bacterial Meningitis. She IS lucky, regardless of the survival rate.

I'm not saying she's not lucky. In fact, in my post, I agree that she IS lucky. I understand how serious meningitis is. However, speaking and writing in a clear and precise manner and providing good information at the same time is an important part of communication.

Objectively, living through something with a 90% chance of NOT dieing simply isn't lucky.

On the other hand, having something with 90% chance that you will live, with an equal chance of that life being seriously fucked up, and coming out relatively unscathed IS lucky.

OP is a very lucky person. However, the 10% death rate post is confusingly constructed - leading to a misunderstanding on the seriousness of the disease and/or OPs own success story.

Stop trying to look like tough shit just because someone tried to clear up misunderstandings or misleading writing, and try to look at the world in a more objective manner. Just because I don't immediately fall for or get emotional over stories describing an unlikely success doesn't mean that I am an idiot or that I don't feel.

The Internet is how a LOT of people learn new information these days, and it is our duty to keep each other correctly informed.

TL;DR Just because you want to make me look like an asshole so that you get more fake Internet points doesn't mean I am an asshole.

ALSO, all the upvotes for OP

I understand, man. For me though it's just thinking in human terms, 90% chance of survival fucking sucks. One in ten die. Think about that. Ten people, one dead. I do get emotional and lose logic about shit like human lives, it's tough not to. But to get away from that, that is only for the disease as a whole, my situation, specifically, was a very bad one. Especially when doctors told my parents that I had a 10% chance of living to the next day. Then when I did they would say it again. And again. And I have to imagine my parents and friends and family's faces hearing that every day. I tear up, even now, thinking about it. People I haven't seen in years tell me how it felt when they got the news passed along to them that I probably wasn't gonna make it. Recently I got drunk with my uncle and he got emotional talking about that time saying, "I took time off for your funeral." That hit me like a kick to the face.

Sorry to get emotional and ramble on when you're trying to talk about logic, but sometimes logic doesn't get to the meat of it.

Are you dead again right now?

I'll never know

Do you now chuckle condescendingly when you see Death personified in TV and movies?

hahaha I am actually more frightened of death now than ever because I am so aware of how much a reality it is. I usually get scared, sadly enough.

Surviving death three out of three times would make me less afraid of it. Grim reaper can't catch you.

It also means I feel most safe hospital and slightly unsafe in other places.

I completely understand this fear. I've never had a near death experience but i have suffered through the loss of many close people in my life including my mom and aunt. Losing so many people starting at such an early age has definitely made me scared regarding death and dying.

Thank you for being so willing to share your story with this community.

Absolutely. Death is on of the universal experiences of all life. Sad, but undeniable. All we can do is hope that we did well and that there is a purpose to the suffering.

How did it feel to be rejected by St. Peter at the pearly gates?

St Peter's a dick

Edit: I am surprised by people's hatred for this question!! Lighten up, people haha

I am generally uninformed when it comes to what occurs when in a coma. So I'll ask some questions here.

• Were you able to hear people while in a coma?
• Are you aware of what is going on around you? I.E. the presence of people, doctors doing tests or giving medicine?
• What is the process of coming out of a coma?

I couldn't hear in the traditional sense, like auditory processing as normal, but I must have processed something because of these kinds of coincidences:

• I dreamt I was a seal at Sea World and something went wrong with an orca and I had to be helicoptered out of there with my 2 parents (who were not seals). The helicopter ended up crashing, but that's kind of irrelevant. In real life, my parents were watching the news in my room and this was when that orca drowned its trainer with the ponytail in its teeth.

• I dreamt that my sister died in a plane crash. Since I controlled space and time (but moreso time), I kept going back to try to fix it. Every time I failed. I still cry thinking about those dreams, how REAL they were. In reality, my family is from Arizona and I got sick at school in NY. My family flew out to be with me, my sister took off school and my parents took off work. After a week, they had to go back, so my mom stayed behind but my sister and dad left. My sister was in my room crying hysterically repeating, "Don't make me get on the plane. Don't make me get on the plane."

• I said somewhere else in the thread that they had to give me more and more medicine to keep me under when I was fighting. To me, that seems a lot like me trying to get untrapped from a lot of the situations I was in in my dreams.

Absolutely NOT aware of anything going on around me.

I guess they just stop giving you the medicine haha I never asked

What kind of physical therapy follows a full month of doing absolutely nothing except breathing and staying alive (for most of it, anyway)?

When I woke up, it was all I could do to lift a single finger. No exaggeration. They told me it was possible I could not walk and that I might have brain damage and that they wouldn't know until I tried to do things. I had to slowly try to sit without support and work from there. It took probably a week before I could do that. Probably 2 weeks until my first step. This was complicated by the fact that all my skin was brand new, I basically shed like a snake. At one point my legs and arms were black half way up (as in dying tissue) so they put on nitroglycerin to spur blood flow which caused my top layer skin to harden and fall. Most of the tissue came back, except my smallest toes on my right foot, which stayed black and eventually fell off (think frostbite). So, walking felt awful because my feet were so soft, but I was determined. They told me I might not be able to walk, so I made it my mission to prove them wrong. They would only let me walk to the nurse's desk and back, but I would never listen and pull them with me further (I had to have a spotter at all times).

Beyond the physical therapy I had occupational therapy. So I had to relearn to brush my teeth and hair, to write, to feed myself. After waking up I was in the hospital for a whole other month. By then, I could walk pretty well. When I got out I had to use a scooter like this for my leg with the foot that lost 2 toes. But I was fully recovered about 2 months after I woke up.

I also went to a hyperbaric chamber 5 times a week for four hours each time for 10 weeks to try to get circulation back in those 2 toes as well as heal my foot wound. I forgot to tell you about my foot wound! I had 8 IVs in the hospital, one in each elbow, one in each hand, one in each thigh, and one in each foot. The one in my right foot backed up and the medicine was so strong that it gave me a chemical burn from the vein through my skin. I still have the scar 3 years later and it will be with me for the rest of my life.

Edit: Sorry that this was a kind of wandering answer!

Wow. You've come a long way. You get my respect for that.

Thank, I appreciate that. Gives me great respect for the elderly and disabled. I was in a wheelchair for a month and it was very hard, cannot imagine a lifetime of that. Upside: I got priority seating in movie theatres! The front row with the bar to put your feet up on for me and my 10 friends at a midnight showing? Yes, please!

I hope you've come out with an appropriate amount of confidence having made so much progress. You should be proud.

It makes me, to some extent, unrelateable to my peers. I'm 21 and routinely think about death and the afterlife all day. I hear people talking some bullshit and I'm just thinking, "I ALMOST DIED YOU FUCKERS". It's also hard because people treated me so nicely when I got better, and now if people exclude me from something or are being dicks, I can't help but want to tell them, "You'll regret this if I died." Super fucked up thinking, but it makes me more aware of how I treat people. If I am annoyed with my sister, I think about how it felt in my coma dreaming when she died over and over and I couldn't save her. Sure makes me a helluva lot nicer to her.

I can imagine that you have a much greater awareness of what is truly important, making it seem like the bullshit is amplified and truly futile. I can empathize because I got to a point in my life, where everybody's everyday bullshit was just something I did NOT want to deal with. I still have trouble, and I've been pretty antisocial and nervous until recently, because I just didn't feel like I could relate when all people seem to do is talk bullshit constantly. Especially when people are hateful and spiteful. I just didn't want to be around them anymore, even if it's not directed at me. I had to see my doctor and get on some medication because I didn't want to just be a hermit. Now it's better and I'm learning to express myself and be more assertive, not just let people walk all over me and avoid life.

Good to hear you're doing something about it. I get in funks too, where nothing seems like something I want to do. There are people that I avoid deeper conversations with just because I know that they will have no idea about the concepts I am talking about. I probably drink more than I should for a combination of these reasons.

You sound like you have come through a hell of a lot and you just need a bit more help to get over the final few hurdles, remember one thing above all else you are in control now , nobody else, what you do matters and makes a difference to your life. Don't go off the deep end please, that would be the saddest thing after coming so far, don't be scared to ask for help , i am sure there are many around you that will do almost anything to help you if you tell them how you are feeling and why you do some of the things they might not understand. I just wanted to say that, you are an amazing person for coming on here and dealing with what you have experienced out in the open, You are so lucky that technology has come so far that millions of people around the world can interact with you and that you may be able in some way to help just as they help you in the mystery we call life. I wish you the best and hope you manage to settle your mind and get through these last stages of recover, they are probably the hardest but don't give up now you have come so far and should be so proud of yourself. And yes i know people have probably said this to you over and over again and it is probably frustrating , but i am a total stranger to you and i feel your pain and want you to get through it and come out at the other side a healthy and good person. When things irritate you, just walk away , don't explode , don't lose it, look at a flower for a while, look at an ant or other insect, just appreciate what you have around you, life is a gift and it takes something like what you have gone through to appreciate it, and those that do not have your experience are not to blame they have not had the opportunity to learn, you can help them but think about yourself before anyone else, you are the most important person in your life, other peoples problems are nothing. I had a friend that died during a kidney transplant operation, a few days before the operation he was talking about two nurses bitching about there work and responsibilities at the hospital, he blew up and let them know how unprofessional they were for talking about there problems when they were so irrelevant in life. Remember not everyone knows what you know , and even less have experienced anything in their lives that can come close to what you have experienced, but that does not mean you know everything and that people should respect you, that means that you can teach them by being the person you know you can be.

Sorry for the rant, i don't know where this came from, if it helps in any way let me know.I know you do not know me from adam, but if you want to pm me and rant and rave and just get it all out , please do.

You seriously made me cry in a good, self-reflective, I-really-want-to-try-to-be-a-good-person-but-it's-SO-fucking-hard way. I love you, man. I really do. I am screenshotting this so I can read it when I think the world should conform to my values and they're not doing it quick enough. I'll read this when I am about to send an angry text to someone who just doesn't get it. I'll read this when I feel like my problems are so small in comparison to other people's that I fall back on my pride and don't want to ask for help.

I am really sorry about your friend, but thank you for sharing that. It's easy to get bitter when you're in that position. I got angry at my parents more times than I would like to admit when I was stuck in the hospital. I look back in shame on those moments of weakness when I reflect on my life.

Seriously, just thank you.

This question is probably too late, but I'm so curious. When people suffer brain damage (or experience some sort of trauma like you), they often say they had to "relearn" many tasks. What I am curious about is this; during this "relearning" process, did you understand in your mind what you had to do, but physically doing it was the difficult part? Or did you truly not remember how/what to do? Now that I type it I'm guessing it's the former, but I've always wondered. Thanks and congrats on your recovery! Awesome stories by the way!

For me it was just a muscle memory issue. I knew how to do it, but just didn't have the physical ability to do it. I am not brain damaged though, so I dont know how it is for other people. Like I didn't have to relearn how to read or anything, I knew how to do everything, just couldn't.

Thanks for answering! That's kind of what I figured. I bet that was a super frustrating time for you to go though.

It was probably the most frustrated I had ever been in my life. It was especially hard because I was in a pediatric hospital and constantly surrounded by kids with chronic illnesses (think 3 year olds running about with shaved heads that bear scars from brain surgery). It's hard, but inspirational as well.

Don't apologize - it's an awesomely thorough answer!

It's awesome that you pushed yourself so that you could prove them wrong. Do you think that maybe they told you it was possible you would never walk again specifically so that you would push yourself so that you could show them they were wrong?

I only thought about that when I was writing this, but I doubt it. I think it's more that if they say you'll be able to walk and you end up not being able to, that's fucked up. It would also be fucked up to tell my mother I might be mentally or physically disabled just to make me try harder.

[deleted]

Millions. I was in 1 hospital for a month and another for a month. The first one waived their fees because it was so surprising that I survived; so, it was fewer millions. I have insurance, which brought it down to many thousands. People donated money and now we're fairly ok on it, but this was also 3 years ago... My insurance had a lifetime cap on it, which I would have exceeded had the health care bill not have passed.

[deleted]

Not even close to a joke. I was in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit for a month. A room in there costs at least $25,000 a night. That's $100,000 every 4 days just to stay there, meaning that is a million in itself. Add on top of that another month on the normal floor of the hospital, which isn't all that cheaper, and the cost of my machines and tests and medicine and doctor's consultations and every napkin and gauze, I could go on.

And no problem about the time. I'm not going out tonight so I'm watching tv and have my laptop on in front of me, this is fun! I've never done anything on here that got so much feedback.

Wow Obama really did make things better for people.

For me at least, and anyone who will ever need to go to the hospital and doesn't have a lot of money. Now if we can just fix the tax system...

"What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger"

I'm on A Storm of Swords. Yes I already know it's the best one...

So, what's your favorite ice-cream flavor?

Rocky Road with cookie dough and peanut butter.

That sounds delicious :) I may now have a new ice cream flavor. Previously, it was chocolate chocolate chip cookie dough.

Get an imagination, dude(ette)!!

Omg this exists?

Cold Stone Creamery hustle

why were you put in a coma?

did you have any dreams or out-of-body experiences?

did it feel like a month long coma?

sorry for all the questions but I am pretty curious about this

I had bacterial meningitis and had to be intubated (the hose down your throat to keep you breathing), and I would have choked on it if I had been awake. Actually, they say that I was fighting the medicine to wake up a bunch of times and had to medicate me more to keep me under.

So so sooooo many dreams. At one point I had the power of space and time and was going back and forth between "reality" and a fourth dimension changing things and playing "reality" on a DS type machine. Mostly my dreams were of being trapped. I was trapped on ice in the middle of a bay without being able to get off, I was in a sinking boat and locked in a cabinet, I was in a helicopter crash, I was in a room that was filled with furniture and I was trapped on top of it all and could not maneuver down, I was in an abandoned hospital with my legs not working... I could go on. A lot of these dreams were of the cold, so I must have been cold! I also dreamt that I was homeless.

I don't know how long it felt. It was like sleeping. When I woke up I was on all kinds of drugs (methadone and ativan among the most narcotic) so that could have skewed my perception as well.

do you remember the event's leading up to the point where you were put into a coma?

I was in my dorm, preparing to go to Boston for the weekend. I started to feel like I had the flu, so I laid down. I was so tired. Could barely keep my eyes open, but I was supposed to be getting on a bus soon so I couldn't fall asleep. Both my roommates had already left for home for the weekend so I was alone. I didn't feel good so I went to the school Health Center with a friend. The nurses told me I had mono. I knew I didn't have mono. I felt so sick that I cancelled my trip to Boston and asked a friend if I could go home for the weekend with her so she could watch after me. Really didn't feel right on the drive to her house. I was lying in the seat so uncomfortable. We get to her house, her mom makes me hot cocoa, but I am feeling even worse. My body is in a lot of pain. Pain everywhere. I tell them I need to go to the hospital. I call my aunt who lives semi nearby and ask what hospital to go to that's halfway so she can meet me. I get there and give my insurance card and my history blah blah. Go out to the waiting room and see my aunt. My friend and her mom leave and I'm sitting with my aunt. That's the last thing I remember. That would have been my last memory of this Earth had I died, I think about that a lot.

Here's what I don't remember, but have since heard/gathered:

• I was really thirsty but the doctors said I couldn't drink anything. I told them they were lying and fought them. I was yelling and going crazy. Ripping out IVs, and being violent.

• Peeing orange

• Skin turning orange

• Calling my parents to tell them Im in the hospital and when they say they're gonna jump on a plane I say, "Don't bother, I'll die before you get here." Probably the most emotionally scarring thing for them to ever hear. I still can't believe I said that, but it sounds so much like something I would say, always practical, worrying about their finances.

• On a lighter note, I was tweeting! I tweeted about how my kidneys were failing. I must have been really out of it because it looks like a drunk text.

Fun fact: They have a medicine that gives you amnesia. They purposefully gave that to me so I won't remember the pain.

My Aunt was in a surgery once when, she claims to remember the doctor saying to someone else, "It'll hurt, but this will make her forget." Don't recall whether this happened in America or Brazil (she has lived in both), but that scares me a bit.

What kind of surgery?

That's scary, ever seen "Awake"?

Fun fact: They have a medicine that gives you amnesia. They purposefully gave that to me so I won't remember the pain.

Why? It's not like it hurts to remember physical pain.

I hurt thinking about some of the pain that I endured after coming out of the coma (coming off of methadone and ativan will fuck your week UP!) so I can't even imagine what the height of it was like if I got violent.

I was in a coma for 6 weeks and had the same experience. I dreamed I was trapped on ice, dreamed I was trapped in a freezing cold warehouse, dreamed I was on the doctor's houseboat in a harbor. I never felt panic and somehow knew I was sick and there was always someone with me helping me. Several times I dreamed that my friends had pulled some kind of prank on me that went horribly wrong but they were there with me to get me through it.

In many of these dreams I can connect the people helping me to the staff in the hospital. There were always these two 12 year old Pakistani boys who were very short with very dark skin and long flowing auburn hair either helping me out or trying to shove something into me. After I became more coherent they turned out to be my two Pakistani doctors with very thick accents. I imagine the dreams came about when they were doing uncomfortable procedures to me while I was out.

The thing that continues to disturb me is that none of my dreams involved my dad or my son who were in the room with me and talking to me the entire time. They were not in any of my dreams and I have no memory of them being there. That makes me sad.

They were probably the calmness you felt

Have you changed any part of your lifestyle due to "getting a second chance"?

I did a lot of drugs. Psychedelics really helped me put into perspective what happened. They also made me confused though, I guess that's what happens when you go too deep down the rabbit hole. I appreciate my parents, my sister, my family, my friends more. The people that helped me, seriously, I cry thinking about it.

Did you find any similarities between what you have experienced during coma and under the effects of psychoactives?

Absolutely. So much so that I have thought I was dead or in a coma a few times. It's harder than you might imagine to tell the difference. (DMT)

so THAT's what you meant by four-dimensional beings :)

And space and time control! I had similar experiences too :)

Nice, what'd you do?

Some years ago, I did mescaline with a couple of friends. We were near the ruins of a castle, on a late summer night (in central italy). One of my friends was having a very bad trip, like fearing he was going to die.. I was totally in control of the events, and I started having this sensation of seeing things before they actually happened, so I "showed" him what was going to happen and calm him down. Did you ever read any Frank Herbert's book? I really felt like Paul Muad'Dib in Dune!

I haven't ever read that before but I totally get what you're saying, the "showing" thing is kind of how the beings talked for me. That's awesome. I'm glad you got to help your friend out.

I know what you mean when you say you have gone too deep down the rabit hole. I was hospitalized after I was sold Bromodragonfly instead of LSD. I can relate with so much of the things you are saying when it comes to 4th dimensional beings, space time. There is severe emotional and philosophical damage. You kind of have to start life over with this one profound experience as the building block for life. Don't give up on your search for what it all means. There is a happy ending. Good Luck.

You kind of have to start life over with this one profound experience as the building block for life.

Boom. You got it. Good thing I already had most of the beliefs already or the switch would have been very sudden and maybe too much to handle. Thank you so much for your kind thoughts, I appreciate them. I wish you smooth sailing.

Now that you are missing two toes, do you have any balance issues? Do you miss them, or were they worthless

No balance issues. I do "miss" them, but they were worthless. My feet give me character now. Another fun thing to show to people you just met haha Most people don't notice until you point it out. I work a lot with kids and when they say something about 10 fingers, 10 toes, I like to show them how I cant count to 20 anymore.

What do you mean by "died 3 times"?

I mean, I had to be resuscitated thrice. I actually only very recently found out about this. I was asking my mom about stuff that happened with my coma when talking to her about my anxiety and she kind of mentioned it in passing and I was like HOLD ON WHAT? You never told me I died!

well, technically you didnt die, your heart just stopped beating.

Isn't that dying?

Technically, death is when the bodies brain functions and physical systems stop working. Your brain can stop working while your body powers on (brain death), but if your physical body stops working your brain quickly follows.

It's very possible you actually died three times (as in no detectable brain activity/body functions), and it's equally possible that your body called it quits before getting restarted but your brain still had measurable activity (not quite the definition of death, but like horseshoes and hand grenades, close enough counts).

Well then I don't know, I'll have to ask my mom. But something tells me my heart probably just stopped for a little, so maybe just physical death.

A person also has to be brain dead to be pronounced dead.

Well I was never "pronounced dead" because I was successfully resuscitated.

You say you had bacterial meningitis, that can be prevented. Are kids not given shots to prevent this before starting school/required immunisations?

I didn't get the vaccine. Very unfortunate decision

How was it when you woke up?

I was on a lot of drugs. I was really out of it. I was in the Pediatric ICU and my mom could only be in the room 23 out of 24 hours and the hour she wasn't there I would cry and ask the nurses how long until she would get back. I didn't want to cry in front of her, but I was just so scared when she was gone.

The doctors would ask me questions to see how my mental capabilities were. My answers to those and conversations with my friends who visited are kind of hilarious in retrospect.

****Doctor "Do you know where you are?"

Me "Yes"

"Where are you?"

"The airport"

****Me "You should go, I have a test to study for"

Friend "What test? You're not in school"

"A swallow test"

Note: this is only funny if you know what a swallow test is. When I woke up, they would not let me drink water because of the risk of choking. So, they do a test where you sit in an xray and they feed you different things with radioactive tracers so they can see if it starts to go down the wrong way. I did everything fine, except for the water. So I had to drink thickened water =/ It tastes like goop. It was their fault for giving me the test too soon, I couldnt even sit up still.

****I asked my mom who she was at one point after coming off of a valium IV

Mostly, things just didn't feel real. It felt like everything they were telling me happened to someone else.

Edit: Messed up formatting.

How was your sense of time while in a coma?

Absolutely warped. I had dreams that lasted for days and weeks, it seemed. When I woke up I had no concept of how long I had been under

[deleted]

I think the people I was around knew I was conscious before I did. I was still living in a semi-dream state. All I wanted was to have my mom by my side every second, and I am sure your father is glad to have had you guys there for him. They played me music and read to me, and I think it calmed me and my dreams, not on a conscious level, but everything is subconscious at that point so I do not discredit it. I am sorry about your dad, but I really do believe in something beautiful after death and the fullness of an afterlife. I hope this helped.

I had a friend in high school who passed out suddenly one day, and was rushed to the hospital. They discovered he had some sort of heart condition. His heart stopped twice while he was under and they revived him both times. I, of course, asked him what it was like when he was "dead" and he said that there was just nothing. It's interesting to me to read your description in comparison to his.

To be fair, I have no real proof that the times that I thought I died in my dream are the actual times. Could be that it was "nothing", and I just don't remember those parts.

How does it feel knowing people stared/moved/did procedures on you when you were floating in the cum of the cosmos...

I spent a lot of time even conscious having people manipulating my body. But I don't have any shame normally, and when you shit yourself and people have to help you out you lose whatever shame you had left.

But "cum of the cosmos", that's a good one.

Wow! I had the exact same disease about a month ago (first case in Australia this year) while i didn't go into a coma i was still extremely sick and was in hospital for a week and a half! I know what you went through and i to encourage people to get your vaccines its truly not worth it! Ill try and find a picture of me in hospital.

edit: Photo!

Wow, that's great that you're doing better. If you were only in the hospital for a week did you have any lasting damage? Did you have viral or bacterial?

How had this positively affected you? If you are religious, has it changed your views in any way?

I am Roman Catholic. As for religion, I always felt that whatever traditions that make you feel connected to the brahman are totally fine. I think of God more in these terms than anything. I think my coma did affirm these feelings because in my dreaming I felt sometimes like I was really a part of everything, kind of just one star in the sky. There was no ME.

I feel really blessed to have "the fear of God put into me" as it were. I was just turned 18 when it happened and I, of course, felt invincible. After that experience I am much more aware of how sad and truly final that death is. I used to think about it like "I'm lucky that I survived," then 2 years later I started thinking about it as, "I'm unlucky that I almost died." That is a powerful change of attitude that has given me anxiety for the last year. I am doing this AMA, in part, to empower myself to try and get over that fear. I almost wrote irrational fear, but I'm not far enough down the road to consider my fear of death, as a 21 year old, "irrational" just yet.

If nothing else, it always makes for a good party conversation. "You're gonna die one day, you know that right? Like totally dead. Nothing."

Nice to see a proud Catholic on here for once.

Not to participate in ingroup/outgroup shit, but HIGHFIVE haha

Your heart stopped three times?!

I guess I have to ask - any kind of out of body experience?

I didn't look down and see my body or anything, but definitely some out of this world type shit

How do you feel about the book Proof of Heaven by Dr. Eben Alexander? Were your experiences similar in any way?

I have not read it, but I think there is definitely some merit to the idea. Just to me, heaven seemed like oneness with everything, no identity really. That's how death felt to me

If you ever get a chance, read it. It's not a long book and I think his near death experience and the way he wrote about it has reaffirmed my faith in there being something beyond this plane of existence. His biggest takeaway was a feeling of love and not being alone. Also he experienced other beings there and came away with the knowledge that our Earth is an infinitesimal speck in the grand scheme of things.

I have faith in something more. I feel it when I am alive, and I felt it when I died. Good luck on your spiritual journey

[deleted]

To some extent I think I was the same way. I had always been interested. Like when you're a kid and they're like, "Acid makes everything go rainbow colors and you love everyone, DONT DO IT", that made no sense to me. I think my experience made me interested in 2 ways. 1) Directly because I felt like I had psychedelic experience already and wanted to try again and 2) Indirectly because I just became an over deeper person more committed to expanding my spirituality.

Did you experience any sort of afterlife? Did you come into any contact with beings or persons that you felt to be on the other side?

Kind of fourth dimensional alien type people who "played" the universe. Still very confused about all that.

How do you see life and death now that you've experienced these things? How long has it taken you to regain your normal life? Are you still recovering in any way physically? Mentally?

Physically I am fine. I'm not sure I will ever mentally recover, but I think that's kind of the point. I am glad that I have been changed, but that doesn't make me any less anxious. I see life as amazing and beautiful and so so so confusing and confusingly final. Though I think that the afterlife exists and is very possibly wonderful, that does not make me want to go there. I feel very comfortable in this life and would be sad to leave it soon. Maybe one day I will feel different, I hope I do. My life is normal for me, but I don't think it's normal in an objective way.

Wow, WOW. You are one strong young lady! Please stay strong and keep that positive attitude you have. The part that struck me most was that you basically had to re-learn a lot of things. That must have been hard and you are one awesome person for keeping it cool. Pat yourself in the back and enjoy this short beautiful life we all have been given.

Question: What is the craziest thing you have done after this whole experience? Have you checked off a lot of things on your bucket list after this?

Haven't crossed anything off the bucket list, but to be fair my bucket list is short and kinda sucks. Didn't think a lot about it when I wrote it.

I've been to more festivals and talked to more strangers and am a kinder person, I think.

First, congratulations on surviving and looking at this situation optimistically. I'm very interested in the continuity of consciousness and what the affects are if/when it is disrupted, as in the case of coma and/or brain death. If you don't mind, will you consider my questions:

• At any point during your coma, did doctors describe you as being brain dead or having irregular brain activity?
• Has anyone mentioned that your behavior or personality is different than before you were hospitalized?
• As a result of being in a coma, do you feel like you're still the same person as you were before. Not in the manner that you've changed a little, but that you're a very different person completely or that something's a little off.

I am sorry that my answers are probably super boring on this front in advance!

I think my brain was normal the whole time.

No one has mentioned anything to me about being changed.

I am the same as I was before with some minor philosophical differences.

Minor philosophical experiences? Care to elaborate please?

No big changes, I just believe things more deeply now.

Did it feel like you were dreaming the whole time? Any sense of time passing in the real world?

Looking back it does, but while I was dreaming I only had a few lucid points. I didn't think about the real world at all, but time in the dream seemed like a LONG time.

Did you feel well rested when you finally woke up? Or was it more of a stiff, achy, uncomfortable feeling?

I was on muscle relaxers (ativan) and opiates (methadone) so I felt very out of it mentally, but uncomfortable physically. And since I could not move my self I had to have my mom or nurses position me with pillows so I could sleep or lie comfortable.

You were brought back 3 different times. Do you feel (I see below you said you were Catholic) that God has a plan for you and that it's the reason you pulled through?

Did you ever feel like this was a test of your strength?

If your faith now stronger, weaker, or about the same as before you went into a coma?

A lot of people prayed for me, and I believe of the power of positive thinking. I do think I have a purpose, hopefully to help people, and I think that I survived to fulfill that purpose.

I do think it was a test of my strength, still is.

I think my faith is more deep now, I see God in the small things.

Besides the 2 toes, did you make a full, or are you expected to make a full recovery

I'm totally fine. In all this they found out that I have a rare blood condition that makes my blood thicker than most, predisposing me to clotting, but I'm all good.

Good to here. Also, at least now you have a promising career in bieng a psychic detective.

My dreams are all coming true

So you're like Jesus x3.

I didn't wait 3 days, never did have any patience

Can you describe your experience in more detail?

What do you remember from your time in a coma?

Were you aware that you died three times?

What did you experience when you died?

My liver failed, my kidneys failed, my lungs failed, and they put me down.

I remember dreams, a long time in my dreams.

Not until recently, but it makes a lot of sense now that I think about it.

Oneness and maybe aliens.

When you were in a coma, did people talk to you and could you hear them? You know, kinda like how you see on TV when people will sit bedside and talk to loved ones that are in a coma. Anything like that happen?

I answered that here

Were you in a month long dream? Or was it just all black?

Month long dream

• How long were you in the coma?
• What was your experience like while you were under? (dreams, vague awareness, "trapped in a dream", etc.)

Technically 3 and a half weeks, so it's easier to say a month.

Almost all dreams, being trapped a lot. No awareness really

Do you know what they isolated in the culture? Do you wish you got the vaccine?

I do wish I got the vaccine because hospital bills are expensive. On the other hand, I gained SO MUCH from this experience. Most people never know how much the people around them love them or how many people they are connected to until they are on their death bed, and maybe not even then. I had people I barely knew donating money for my parents to stay at the Ronald McDonald house at the hospital. My facebook page BLEW THE FUCK UP. To this day, if I am at a party with kids I knew in high school, even if we weren't good friends, they will make a point of coming up to me and saying, "I am glad you're alive" "I prayed for you". That's beautiful.

To answer your question, maybe yes, but the vaccine was $90 and I didn't have the money. I dont even know what you mean about the culture, I am not a science student.

Don't you miss your toes?

I do, but not a lot. I get phantom limb sometimes, and that's kind of like having them back!

Died? http://i.imgur.com/yiurMTD.gif

...and here come the memes =/

What were your dreams like?

Very very very real

What was it like returning to your normal life after the coma? Did you view the world differently?

People are very concerned over petty bullshit.

Edit: I mean that was my impression of other people, not of this question

Whats your opinion on public healthcare?

How heavy are you?

Do you have a bucket list after this experience?

Would you rather ride a giant wolf or a giant lion?

I think public healthcare would be awesome. I was in my hospital bed watching CSPAN as politicians debated about health care. They were right then deciding if my lifetime insurance cap would hold or not. If it had, I would owe a million dollars right now.

I'm chubby. Not sure what metric you were trying to get here...

Yeah, but it sucks (copy and pasted below) and some of these I dont even want to do anymore. Now I think my main think is to raise kids and work with public policy.

1. GET MARRIED TO A STRANGER IN VEGAS

2. HOLD A BABY PLATYPUS

3. SKYDIVE

4. MEET ALL LIVING PRESIDENTS

5. GO TO THE OLYMPICS

6. DO A BEAUTY PAGEANT

7. BUILD A HOUSE

8. MAKE A DRESS FROM SCRATCH

9. TAKE IN A HOMELESS PERSON

10. WIN A CAMPAIGN

11. BE A PART OF A SONG

12. GET AN ONLINE MINISTER DEGREE

13. PUBLISH A BOOK

14. VISIT JERUSALEM AND MECCA

15. INVENT SOMETHING

16. GO TO THE OSCARS

17. LEARN HOW TO PLAY AN INSTRUMENT (THE DRUMS)

WOLF ALL DAY, I'm a Stark for sure

Was on a mobile before and didn't look at pictures. Now have realised you're of the female persuasion. Many apologies about the forthrightness of my second question.

I like your bucket list, I can say I've done 1 and want to do 3 others, isn't it interesting how much we differ.

Wolves are way better than lions. For one thing you don't have to live in Africa which by all accounts is hot enough to melt your shins. Plus they seem to be a tad more intelligent.

No worries, I just want sure if you wanted me to put my measurements or something on here haha

This list is old, but some things I still want to do. What have you done? Or want to do?

Wolves are pretty badass. And their howl is way better than a lian roar. Plus they have a pack.

1. How did you "die"?
2. What did it feel like to be in a coma ex. dreams, after death experience?

Thank you! :D

My heart stopped.

Answered the rest already.

When you went into the coma, did it feel different from regular dreaming?

It felt like it was more my life, if that makes any sense. Like it was continuous and there was a sense that things had happened before and would happen after. I made plans for the future in my dreams and lived them out to some extent. I met people and discovered things. I feel like I lived 40 years in there.

Atleast one thing you can take out of all of it is that you're still really pretty :)

Thanks, that's sweet.

Are you a religios person

Fairly religious, yes. Why?

when you were in your coma, did you realize it? Did you think you were dreaming at any point?

I think at a few points I kind of thought I was dreaming, but it didn't matter because I couldn't wake up, and then I would be in a different dream and would forget all about it.

You didn't die.

Au contraire, I died more than most people.

were you ever aware of being in a coma ? what was your first reaction when you finally awake from being in a coma?

Not aware.

I don't remember my first reaction because I was super drugged up and could not distinguish real from not real. I remember kind of waking up then having a dream/daydream/hallucination that I was peeing and as I peed the pee filled up the curtains of my hospital room. They were like pee pouches. Just realized that this is probably because I was actually peeing myself.

This really isn't a question, but I just wanted to say that I had written a story where a dude fell into a coma and stayed there for about two months. When he woke up the first thing he did was actually try to get up out the bed by himself, all while yelling and cursing and whatnot.

After reading this thread, to see that that story is inaccurate would be a huge understatement, lol.

haha yeah if he was in a coma for two months he probably wouldn't even be able to lift a finger! But sounds like an interesting story.

Do you think your belief of God changed the way you perceived your death?

I don't, oddly enough. I don't believe in the traditional heaven/hell/purgatory thing really, so I perceive the afterlife as either nothingness, nothingness with a pulsing essence of energy, ghosties, or a total other dimension (with or without links to this dimension).

Were the 4th dimensional beings scary?

They were the kind of eerie scary where it's not really SCARY but you're uncomfortable, but like a curious uncomfortable.

Were your dreams like normal sleeping dreams? Were they more detailed? Less detailed? Do you remember them? Did you have any councious thought? Like did you know that you were in a coma?

The dreams were fairly normal in terms of feeling, except some of them got hyperreal, like that TOO real spine-tingling feeling that makes your skin crawl and your back ache. I don't think they were more detailed, they just seemed to last a lot longer. I can remember at least 20 discrete dreams (This gives me the idea to write them all down in as much detail as I can so I will remember them forever. I already know I have forgotten a few and that saddens me). I only had some conscious thought (I think) when I was in the waking up phases. I think I may have guessed a few times that I was sleeping or dead, but I don't think "coma" was ever a thought I had.

What was the first thing you ate when you woke up? Not tube-fed hospital shit food, but the first real meal you had when you could operate at full capacity?

I think if I was in a coma, I'd want some god damn pizza when I woke up. You know what I mean.

Why are 2 people smiling in that second picture?

And what are the causes of your 3 deaths?

I actually had basically zero appetite, but when they sked what I WOULD eat, all I wanted was Taco Bell hahahaahahah so sad, but so true. It took me about an hour to eat 2 bean and cheese burritos, but damn it's the one food I could stomach.

Because it's a picture and people don't like to look bad in pictures, especially my sister and my mom. Clearly my dad is not pleased.

Heart failure, I assume.

Glad to hear your doing better!

Thanks :)

Are you religious at all? Previously or as a result of this experience? I mean, this is so incredible hearing about what you saw.

I cover that here, here, and here