Have you ever wondered what it feels to die and What happens when people close their eyes in death, find out what people with near-death experiences have to say about it.
Whether you expect to be reunited with lost loved ones in a heavenly place, or don't believe anything awaits once you have passed away, what really happens after death remains one of life's great mysteries.
But now a group of people who have experienced death and believe they can offer an insight to what it's really like have taken to the question and answer site Quora to explain how it feels.
Their experiences range from 'blissful' feelings to disappointment at not reaching personal goals to terrifying emptiness.
In answer to the question, 'How does death feel?' users responded with tales of near-death experiences and coming back to life after being declared clinically deceased.
Megan described her near death experience as 'blissful, serene, exciting, peaceful and relaxing'.
'I feel like there isn't an accurate word in English that describes how truly wonderful it feels,' she said.
The users' accounts of their glimpses of what happens after death have racked up more than 948,000 views and Vera's story was one of the most popular.
Almost 16,000 people read her account of being poisoned by carbon monoxide from a faulty water heater when she was 11 years old and living with her mother in the former Soviet Union.
'I can just see it now, lulling me to sleep, covering me with its heavy and invisible blanket of death,' she recalled. 'Next, I felt my heart racing, my head literally buzzing as if there were a bee hive inside it, and it felt as if there were two knives stuck in either side of my head. I
knew that I was going to die right then, right now.
'It was a certain feeling of total emergency one gets, like an internal alarm that screams and hijacks your mind, and I knew that I only had moments to save my life, if only I could figure out what to do.'
Clinging to consciousness, they tried to call for help but ended up blacking out.
'We were dying. And nobody, nobody in the world could hear us,' Vera explained. 'Next, I remember seeing something like a plasma of colors all around me, with a very strange visual perspective. It first looked like liquid clouds, something like the telescope pictures of galaxies, with colors melting into each other, neither far, nor near, and all around me and "through" me, in a pan-vision.
'I thought that was so beautiful. I felt a certain lift all over, like my body was a huge lung and it just inhaled and disappeared, and suddenly, an instant release from what now I constantly feel - gravity. It felt like being rising up, with a definite sense of direction, and inhaling and expanding. I tried to look at myself, but I was not there.
'That shocked me, but did not scare me. Also, I did not feel alone. There were "others" whom I could not see, but only knew that they were there because they "talked" to me. It was as if they were encouraging and welcoming me. I felt this infinite vastness, but also the absence of time, like everything was collapsed into a zero and happened at the same time.
'The last thing I remember is wanting to be somewhere else and being instantly there, and that surprised me and delighted me. I was so infinitely happy.'
Vera was saved by her father who called an ambulance when he found the pair of them collapsed. Doctors told him it was too late to save her, as she had been clinically dead for between 15 and 45 minutes.
But her father insisted that they try to revive her and medics managed to bring Vera back, and she said she's now at peace because she knows there's a heaven.
'Even when I die someday and change my physical shell to something else, there will always be an I, and the I will never be alone,' she concluded.
Barbara shared her story, saying she'd had not one but three experiences of death when her heart stopped during various operations, due to a rare drug intolerance.
'Although I could hear perfectly - the beeping of the monitor as I flatlined, the code on the PA, the squeak-squeak of the crash cart wheels, everyone talking at once - I had no other sensation,' she explained.
'As I was sinking into unconsciousness, I felt very cool, relaxed, no need to breathe, no cause for alarm, no pain of any kind, totally peaceful. Everything grew dark around the edges until there was only blackness.
'And then, they revived me, each of three times, the first time by adding Narcan to my IV, the other two times with CPR, after which I spent the night in the cardiac unit at the hospital.'
Lori had also been through more than one experiences of being clinically dead, and like Barbara she had a positive experience.
'I died at the age of six on the operating table during a surgical procedure, and was revived 10 minutes later. I do remember being at peace,' she said.
'I felt comfort. I felt like I was not alone. I saw many colours. Not light, but color like my eyes were covered with a tie-dyed t-shirt or something.'
Her second experience was at 23 when she had an allergic reaction to a prescription drug, and was revived within six minutes.
'I experienced the exact same thing. A feeling of being surrounded by something familiar. A feeling of peace and safety, and those colours. I do not care if anyone does not believe me or my statements. This was my experience,' she stated.
Scott also had a feeling of peace when he flatlined during a cardiac arrest.
'I just drifted off. No pain, nothing bad,' he said. 'As far as what happened once my heart stopped -- I have no recollection. When I eventually die on a more permanent basis, I can only hope it's as peaceful as the first time.'
Aaron described his brush with death as 'remarkable and unforgettable', but didn't have the same feeling of peace.
'The moment I realised I was on my way out was sad. Particularly because I was aware my mother was in the room watching as medical professionals did their best to keep me alive,' he explained.
'I felt guilt, shame, and profound disappointment for not achieving my personal goals. I accepted my fate in some way. The physical sensations were almost nonexistent. I wasn't scared. I was just disappointed.'
He also described how all his senses disappeared one by one, followed by the ability to move.
'First thing I noticed gone was my sense of touch. Followed by hearing. At this time my sense of smell and taste could also have left me. I simply have no idea,' he recalled.
'The last thing to go was my sight leaving me with a field of whiteness, and thoughts which seemed to be further and further apart as my only perceivable experience. Suddenly I felt a tremendous pressure against my chest. All senses came rushing back to me only to drift off into white nothing again. This pattern repeated three times to my memory, but who knows, until my heart was able to continue beating on its own.'
Dea added that she had died back in 2009, although she didn't give much detail about how it happened.
'My first thought after I saw a gorgeous white light at the top of a mountain in front of me was, "Oh my God. I'm dead",' she said.
'There were many other people walking up the mountain towards the light. But I was furious. All I could think about was how I had been to the emergency room so many times and had been blown off and "now I'm dead."
'I did not look down at my own body unfortunately, but the other dead people just looked like regular people. I had for the first time in many years absolutely no pain at all. I was just angry.
After a few minutes, my cousin sort of popped right in front of me and told me, "Deanne, go back." I haven't been called Deanne since I was a kid and she was one of the few people who knew me as Deanne.
'When I turned around to see what she meant by "back," I was slammed into the bed at the hospital with seven doctors and nurses all around me yelling at me to "stay with us". The pain returned. I was in shock. I'll never forget my two and a half minutes being dead, though, and I am lucky to have been brought back to life.'
Emmanuel, however, offered a bleaker picture to some of his fellow posters. He said that a few years earlier he'd been suffering a severe case of pneumonia which had gone untreated and undiagnosed for several weeks.
He ended up in intensive care and believes he experienced near death while he was there.
'There wasn't anything even remotely exciting in what was coming. In fact, it wasn't even anything. No light, no hope, no nothing. Only darkness and loneliness,' he said.
'There was no pain, just darkness, extreme vulnerability, extreme fragility and nothing. It wasn't even revolting or scary, just infinite sadness and nothingness.
'After a while in intensive care, my life came back to me, and then it was another story entirely. - I learnt that excruciating pain is actually a very good sign, something that belongs to the living and that welcomes you back to life.
'I have actually quite a cheerful memory of it, even though it was horrible. But at least, "horrible" exists. Based on this experience, I'm inclined to feel that there is nothing after our life.'
Terence explained that he'd had 'an experience' although it sounded as if he was merely close to death as opposed to dying and being brought back.
'There's no bright light, Jesus didn't appear through the fog. It's just an acceptance of reality, a definite end - like finishing a book,' he said.
'Also it depends on the speed of dying mines was slow, so I felt body parts numbing the lost of motor skills, people telling me the changes in my skin color.
I just laid there waiting for or shall I say holding on for an ambulance, I can feel life slipping away, getting real tired and all can think of is the things I didn't accomplish, the real important things like watching my son grow.'
Source: Daily Mail
