Warner Bros.For millennia humanity has been obsessed with the idea of an afterlife and the question, ‘what happens to us when we die?’
Do we go to heaven and live among the angels, are we doomed to a fiery pit where demonic beings will torture us until the end of time or do we simply cease to be?
Some people however claim to have seen the other side of this mortal coil, having had strange visions during near-death experiences which are pretty spooky sounding.
FlickrSome brave Redditors have described their own traumatic experiences with the Grim Reaper, and they’re pretty scary and a little reassuring at the same time, The Mirror reports.
User ‘monitormonkey’ bled out during major surgery a few years ago leaving him dead for several minutes had an out of this world experience.
He claims to have woken up in ‘what looked like space’ but there were no stars or light. He wasn’t floating either he was just there.
PixabayHe said:
I wasn’t hot or cold, hungry or tired – just a peaceful neutral kind of thing. I knew there was light and love somewhere nearby but I had no urge or need to go to it right away.
Monitormonkey added that he remembers thinking over his life like he was ‘idly flipping through a book’ and the landmark snippets stood out here and there.
Despite his experience the Redditor says he’s still afraid to die, but that he’s ‘not worried about what happens after that’.
IDiedForABit had a very different experience to monitormonkey after an allergic reaction caused their heart to stop.
wikimediaThey said:
I remember a feeling of being sucked backwards, extremely slowly, like being pulled through water and this blackness fading in and out.At one point it faded back in and I was staring out at a garden.
It wasn’t filled with flowers, just dust and patchy grass. There was a playground with a merry-go-round in the middle and two children running around it. A boy and a girl.
They then described how they had a strange feeling they could choose if they wanted to stay or leave, but couldn’t leave of their own free will.
PixabayIt was only when the Redditor remembered their mother that a ‘presence’ let them go.
User chneidah7 didn’t meet an intimidating presence when he was thrown from his motorbike and pronounced medically dead as he was taken to hospital he met an old friend.
He says he remembers the world growing black and wanting to close his eyes however he didn’t because he could hear someone yelling, ‘Ranger up you candy fuck! Come on man, get up. Get up. GET UP!’
FlickrWhen he opened up his eyes he could see his dead brother squatting on the pavement next to him who looked at his watch and said, ‘they’ll be here soon’.
Not everyone has such a happy story though and user Rullknuf’s who nearly died after a motorbike describes his experience as a blackout ading: ‘No dreams, no ‘visions, just nothing’ which is just terrifying.
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.