Near Death Experiences?

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This is a personal interest of mine and want to know from nurses; have any of your patients reported having a Near Death Experience, where they had to be revived and then shared stories of seeing loved ones or reporting that they have seen and heard the conversations of those physicians and nurses that have tried to revive them?

One of my interests has been to hear stories of things like this and wanted to know if anyone has ever heard of such. What reminded me of this is I head from a friend that had an ectopic pregnancy 10 years ago, and she still speaks fondly of this phenomenon. While speaking with her, it hit me that I can communicate with nurses and ask. This woman continues to speak to people about this to whomever will listen and I always listen with rapt attention. Thanks... :0)

Specializes in Med/Surg, Geri, Ortho, Telemetry, Psych.
Basically, I guess I was inquiring does the experiencer believe in life after death in the form that is meaningful to them. Some come out of it believing that they are in spirit form close to us, others believe in heaven, nirvina, and reincarnation. Some have seen their personal religious icons, may it be Jesus, Buddha, Mary, etc... and others have seen those religious icons or representatives that they would not expect to ever see. For example, I had one Christian share that she saw Zen-like images, which sort of confused her. It is a fascinating phenomenon to me. Thank you so much for sharing your mother's story.

Your welcome. I hope it helped. :kiss

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Specializes in Pulmonology/Critical Care, Internal Med.

My mom tells me this story of my grandmother i was too young to know her when she died, I was only 2. But when my mom was like 16/17 her mom had exploratory surgery, and while she was on the table she "died" the doctors tried to revive her and eventually were able too. Well when she woke up she told my mom what happened. She said the following. I found myself at total peace and there was Jesus, he said Mary Jo its time to go. I told him I couldn't leave my children and then he let me come back. After all of my grandmothers kids were grown up and on her own she died shortly thereafter.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
My mom tells me this story of my grandmother i was too young to know her when she died, I was only 2. But when my mom was like 16/17 her mom had exploratory surgery, and while she was on the table she "died" the doctors tried to revive her and eventually were able too. Well when she woke up she told my mom what happened. She said the following. I found myself at total peace and there was Jesus, he said Mary Jo its time to go. I told him I couldn't leave my children and then he let me come back. After all of my grandmothers kids were grown up and on her own she died shortly thereafter.

There are many that see their beloved religious icons, such as Jesus, Buddha, the Virgin Mary, and such. What a beautiful story!

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
When my great-grandmother died, she said, "There's nothing to be afraid of..it's very beautiful, there."

Awwww, how sweet! I do hear stories like that as well, where they see beautiful places of lush grass and blue skies, loving people. Did she say that just before she passed away...like she had a vision of where she was going to? Thanks for sharing.

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Specializes in Pulmonology/Critical Care, Internal Med.

I'm curious if anyone here has any experiences from patients who were not chrisitan, but Jewish/Buddhist, etc. What have the patients said when they "came back" Iv'e become pretty interested in all of this since we started Hospice clinicals this week.

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Specializes in NICU, peds CICU.

Can I still post in this forum as an RN? I hope so, because I think I have a good near death story for you.

In the ICU I work in, we had a really nasty code in a teenager who had come in for elective surgery. It was ugly, but we got him back, and better than that, he was neurologically intact. Absolutely a miracle.

Anyway, afterwards, one of my coworkers who had also been involved in the code asked this kid if he remembered anything. He said he remembered lots of yelling, go get this, I need that, that sort of thing.

Then he said he couldn't hear the yelling anymore because he was with God. And he asked God, did I die? And God said, no, watch, they're going to save you... and he and God watched the rest of the code. After he recovered, this kid would identify members of the staff and say, I saw you there saving me! He had been on our unit about an hour pre-arrest (postop patient), and we were all strangers to him when the code began. But he knew who was there, and could recognize faces and voices from the time he spent watching us with God.

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Specializes in Pulmonology/Critical Care, Internal Med.

Thats awesome, truly awesome

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
Can I still post in this forum as an RN? I hope so, because I think I have a good near death story for you.

In the ICU I work in, we had a really nasty code in a teenager who had come in for elective surgery. It was ugly, but we got him back, and better than that, he was neurologically intact. Absolutely a miracle.

Anyway, afterwards, one of my coworkers who had also been involved in the code asked this kid if he remembered anything. He said he remembered lots of yelling, go get this, I need that, that sort of thing.

Then he said he couldn't hear the yelling anymore because he was with God. And he asked God, did I die? And God said, no, watch, they're going to save you... and he and God watched the rest of the code. After he recovered, this kid would identify members of the staff and say, I saw you there saving me! He had been on our unit about an hour pre-arrest (postop patient), and we were all strangers to him when the code began. But he knew who was there, and could recognize faces and voices from the time he spent watching us with God.

Of course, you should feel comfortable posting here...we are ALL nurses, and enjoy hearing from each other. I do appreciate your story. I am getting more responses now than when I first posted the question. Thanks for sharing this. I'll share this with my friends that had NDEs.

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Specializes in pre hospital, ED, Cath Lab, Case Manager.

There was another thread about this topic at least a year ago.

Yes, I have had several patients express their experiences. Some as short as feeling that they fell into a void w/ a light at the end, others much longer ending with bright , warm loving light they thought was God and speaking w/ deceased family members.

My father had a life after life experience when he coded during his cardiac cath. He was very descriptive about his expeirence and anilitical as well in the begining. Now, years later he doesn't really remember it. I described his experience in the other thread.

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Specializes in Pulmonology/Critical Care, Internal Med.

CCL Babe, can you give us the link to that thread?????

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I just finished reading a book about a near death experience. I highly recommend reading it. It is called "90 minutes in heaven" by Don Piper. It is a true story about a man that is declared dead at the scene of an auto accident. He tells in great detail about what he experienced at what he calls heavens gate and his recovery after his heaven to earth experience.

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i'm sorry to rain on everyone's parade here,but you guys do realize that near death experiences are just a chemical hallucination reacting of the brain. our brains are so powerful that when they realize that something is wrong,the go into this mode and you have lots of people seeing these sort of things. and what do all these people have in common. they were alive afterward,they were not dead dead! trust me,when a person dies,it is game over. i know what real life is,and i have studied enough to know that our brain produces conscious awareness and when the brain does,so does our consciouness. i am suprised that some of you believe in life after death. i guess it is to feel sort of comfortable and not get scared of death.

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