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In January, 2022, I experienced a 100% blockage of my Left Anterior Descending artery (a "widowmaker" heart attack), and I experienced cardiac arrest for a minu

In January, 2022, I experienced a 100% blockage of my Left Anterior Descending artery (a "widowmaker" heart attack), and I experienced cardiac arrest for a minute or two while on the exam table in a local emergency room. CPR was administered, and I was shocked back into rhythm, whereupon I regained consciousness immediately. During the time I was dead, I have a memory. It is a singular experience of non-existence. Everything was black, and warm, and comfortable. It was silent, and there was no pain or concern for anything that had been going on. I didn't even think about it. It was as though I were in the most effective sensory deprivation tank ever. Then they shocked me, and it hurt like hell. I woke up, looked at the doctor, and he said, "you went away for a few there", and I said, "Oh, did I?". A couple minutes later, they "lost" me, and I went back to the blackness, but for a much shorter period of time, and I was shocked almost immediately. I had the wherewithal, upon being shocked, to say, in a very annoyed voice, 'Ouch.' which apparently caused some people in the ER room to laugh. I ended up crashing 6 times that day, and each time I underwent cardiac arrest, it was like slipping back asleep into the deepest dream. I used to be afraid to die. Now, I'm not, but I'm afraid to leave behind the people that I love, because I want to spend time with them, and I don't want them to have to go through me leaving them again. Update: Here's a link to my tweet when I first talked publicly about it - https://twitter.com/standaloneSA/status/1478436334347816960 https://twitter.com/standaloneSA/status/1478436334347816960

metamet 3y ago
> I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. In the face of such evidence and against such powerful and widespread belief systems of the afterlife, I occasionally think of the possibility of an afterlife, but there is no hint that I will see anyone I know, or even continue to exist in any form, but rather a long dreamless sleep. - Carl Sagan, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
- 7thaccount 3y ago
  My father is in pretty good shape (very active), but also very religious these days and he's basically told me nothing in this life matters and he's ready for the afterlife which he believes will be a paradise. The Sagan quote is ironic as he was a huge fan as a younger man. It's always saddened me that he has trouble focusing on the joys in this life. There's a lot to be grateful for, for those of us lucky enough to live in a secure country with food on the table.
  - dilawar 3y ago
    No wonder most if not all religions deny death but promising afterlife or via some other ideas.
    - maushu 3y ago
      It's much easier that way to make people self sacrifice for the religion, gives a meaning to their life and pacifies their fear of death.
      - inglor_cz 3y ago
        Plenty of religions don't demand self sacrifice from their adherents. Polytheist and animist creeds are very different from the Abrahamic faiths that we tend to think of when we speak about religion. For example, the Tlingit in Alaska believe in reincarnation, but in their tribal way of life, there really isn't any compelling "use" (in the Machiavellistic sense) for that belief.
  - ddj231 3y ago
    There is no evidence of Sagan’s theory though, that in death we will be in a long dreamless sleep. In fact, I would argue that the beauties of this life (suggested in his quote) point to an afterlife. To say that our experience here has much love and moral depth, leads one to ponder, why is there anything at all? And on top of that, why do morals and love exist? And why are these things good? The Christian perspective is that “the heavens declare the glory of God”, extrapolated to this discussion, the very things we marvel at in this life should lead to pondering what lies beyond.
generalizations 3y ago
Did you experience brain death? Because that kinda sounds like the sensation of losing all contact with the peripheral nervous system, without actually losing consciousness.
- MPSimmons 3y ago
  Don't know. There was no brain monitoring going on. When I crashed, the tech was still trying to put on the EKG leads.
- wutwutwat 3y ago
  If they had experience brain death they wouldn’t be here talking to you. > Death is the permanent end of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. It is no longer defined as the cessation of heartbeat (cardiac arrest) and breathing, as CPR and prompt defibrillation can sometimes restart both. In modern medicine, when a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death" to define a person as being dead; brain death being defined as the complete and irreversible loss of brain function (including involuntary activity necessary to sustain life). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_after_death#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_after_death#Deat... TL;DR - you don’t come back from actual death, or you didn’t actually die. There’s no coming back from all biological function ending.
just_1_comment 3y ago
I was present when someone else went through the same experience but they reacted slightly differently than you did…”Please don’t stop CPR! There’s nothing there! Whenever you stop and I die, it’s all black!” His last horrified words were “There’s nothing there!”
- MPSimmons 3y ago
  wow, that's really unfortunate for him. I don't know why I reacted so positively when he reacted so negatively, but I didn't find it disturbing at all. It was a palpable feeling of being "okay" for me. I take it that person didn't make it?
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  I wonder if this reaction was because his brain hasn't yet entered the stage where NDEs normally occur - ie. he was still somewhat conscious and expecting an NDE at this early stage where they don't yet occur?
  - timeon 3y ago
    NDE, also as what I get from the article, seems to be just hallucination. I also have experience of void, but from serious surgery. It is hard to describe something as simple as absence. But it left deep impression on me that there can be true emptiness. And as other have said here, I'm now not that worried about it.
mrtksn 3y ago
> During the time I was dead Thanks for sharing. Very interesting experience however, I don’t think that you were dead. IMHO, you were in a state where your brain was not functioning properly due to lack of blood flow or maybe external input. All death experiences seem to be something of that sort and I suspect if body transplant was a thing, the experience would have been similar. I think the correct description of the experience would be pre-death or something similar and would not be a glimpse into the “life beyond death”.
- MPSimmons 3y ago
  I don't think I have grounds to argue against this take. I think the definition of death changes over time as medical technology advances in its ability to return someone to "life".
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    If your brain is working well enough to have thoughts about its experiences, I don't see how you could call that death when people whose brains are not working that well at all, are alive.
    - Buttons840 3y ago
      It's also important to remember that we don't know what we experienced in the past, only what our fallible memories of the past are. This applies to more than just near-death experiences.
    - nativeit 3y ago
      It’s an open question in many (most?) of the reported NDEs as to whether their experiences were contemporaneous with their “deaths”, or rather their brain’s retrospective backfilling of the period when it was oxygen-starved and neurotransmitters lacked the ability to regulate their concentration and flow. I’m not a neuroscientist (or any kind of scientist) but I don’t think the consensus involves approaching reported subjective experiences from a presumption that they reflect the literal experience of death in the more permanent sense.
nelblu 3y ago
I had similar experience where my heart stopped beating and went into complete darkness, apparently it was a reaction to something they were doing a tissue sample. Nonetheless the experience was very similar but I was only 14 then, so I didn't think much of life or death then. Now almost 3 decades later, I really don't think that dying is what I'm most worried about, really I just don't want to die before my dog or my wife. That said, being quite influenced by stoicism I do remind myself that I could die any second and I always live such that I won't have any regrets if I die any minute. Memento Mori.
interfixus 3y ago
> During the time I was dead Semantic correction for this and all similar recollections: You are alive to tell the story, so you were, in fact, not dead.
- MPSimmons 3y ago
  I got better. ;-)
wutwutwat 3y ago
Loss of consciousness is not death, your brain was alive the entire time. It takes upwards of 10 minutes before the brain dies, usually longer, and each minute approaching those thresholds has a high probability of severe brain damage. Check out cerebral anoxia or brain death to learn more.
- ASalazarMX 3y ago
  If you were expecting actual death, then no revived person has ever experienced death because they weren't completely dead to begin with, even if tissue damage happened. Let's compromise on near death experience.
  - wutwutwat 3y ago
    I’m basing it off of people saying they died, and they didn’t, because like you said, you literally can’t come back from death. What was described was loss of consciousness/passing out, and it’s odd so many people pass out and claim they died.
nirui 3y ago
I read quite a few reports claiming the similar experience, a deep sleep. That's how I view death now, a sleep so deep that no one can wake up from it. With all external inputs are muted, the brain left itself alone in the "void", doing what brains do, fade to "dreaming". But then again, I imagine one could experience almost the same when under anesthesia or just regular sleep, so I guess you don't really have to do it the hard way :)
- ASalazarMX 3y ago
  They say life is the space between two black eternities. I suppose we already know what death is like: exactly the same than before we were born, vast non-existence.

metamet 3y ago

> I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. In the face of such evidence and against such powerful and widespread belief systems of the afterlife, I occasionally think of the possibility of an afterlife, but there is no hint that I will see anyone I know, or even continue to exist in any form, but rather a long dreamless sleep. - Carl Sagan, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium

7thaccount 3y ago
My father is in pretty good shape (very active), but also very religious these days and he's basically told me nothing in this life matters and he's ready for the afterlife which he believes will be a paradise. The Sagan quote is ironic as he was a huge fan as a younger man. It's always saddened me that he has trouble focusing on the joys in this life. There's a lot to be grateful for, for those of us lucky enough to live in a secure country with food on the table.
- dilawar 3y ago
  No wonder most if not all religions deny death but promising afterlife or via some other ideas.
  - maushu 3y ago
    It's much easier that way to make people self sacrifice for the religion, gives a meaning to their life and pacifies their fear of death.
    - inglor_cz 3y ago
      Plenty of religions don't demand self sacrifice from their adherents. Polytheist and animist creeds are very different from the Abrahamic faiths that we tend to think of when we speak about religion. For example, the Tlingit in Alaska believe in reincarnation, but in their tribal way of life, there really isn't any compelling "use" (in the Machiavellistic sense) for that belief.
- ddj231 3y ago
  There is no evidence of Sagan’s theory though, that in death we will be in a long dreamless sleep. In fact, I would argue that the beauties of this life (suggested in his quote) point to an afterlife. To say that our experience here has much love and moral depth, leads one to ponder, why is there anything at all? And on top of that, why do morals and love exist? And why are these things good? The Christian perspective is that “the heavens declare the glory of God”, extrapolated to this discussion, the very things we marvel at in this life should lead to pondering what lies beyond.

generalizations 3y ago

Did you experience brain death? Because that kinda sounds like the sensation of losing all contact with the peripheral nervous system, without actually losing consciousness.

MPSimmons 3y ago
Don't know. There was no brain monitoring going on. When I crashed, the tech was still trying to put on the EKG leads.
wutwutwat 3y ago
If they had experience brain death they wouldn’t be here talking to you. > Death is the permanent end of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. It is no longer defined as the cessation of heartbeat (cardiac arrest) and breathing, as CPR and prompt defibrillation can sometimes restart both. In modern medicine, when a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death" to define a person as being dead; brain death being defined as the complete and irreversible loss of brain function (including involuntary activity necessary to sustain life). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_after_death#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_after_death#Deat... TL;DR - you don’t come back from actual death, or you didn’t actually die. There’s no coming back from all biological function ending.

just_1_comment 3y ago

I was present when someone else went through the same experience but they reacted slightly differently than you did…”Please don’t stop CPR! There’s nothing there! Whenever you stop and I die, it’s all black!” His last horrified words were “There’s nothing there!”

MPSimmons 3y ago
wow, that's really unfortunate for him. I don't know why I reacted so positively when he reacted so negatively, but I didn't find it disturbing at all. It was a palpable feeling of being "okay" for me. I take it that person didn't make it?
Nextgrid 3y ago
I wonder if this reaction was because his brain hasn't yet entered the stage where NDEs normally occur - ie. he was still somewhat conscious and expecting an NDE at this early stage where they don't yet occur?
- timeon 3y ago
  NDE, also as what I get from the article, seems to be just hallucination. I also have experience of void, but from serious surgery. It is hard to describe something as simple as absence. But it left deep impression on me that there can be true emptiness. And as other have said here, I'm now not that worried about it.

mrtksn 3y ago

> During the time I was dead Thanks for sharing. Very interesting experience however, I don’t think that you were dead. IMHO, you were in a state where your brain was not functioning properly due to lack of blood flow or maybe external input. All death experiences seem to be something of that sort and I suspect if body transplant was a thing, the experience would have been similar. I think the correct description of the experience would be pre-death or something similar and would not be a glimpse into the “life beyond death”.

MPSimmons 3y ago
I don't think I have grounds to argue against this take. I think the definition of death changes over time as medical technology advances in its ability to return someone to "life".
- whatshisface 3y ago
  If your brain is working well enough to have thoughts about its experiences, I don't see how you could call that death when people whose brains are not working that well at all, are alive.
  - Buttons840 3y ago
    It's also important to remember that we don't know what we experienced in the past, only what our fallible memories of the past are. This applies to more than just near-death experiences.
  - nativeit 3y ago
    It’s an open question in many (most?) of the reported NDEs as to whether their experiences were contemporaneous with their “deaths”, or rather their brain’s retrospective backfilling of the period when it was oxygen-starved and neurotransmitters lacked the ability to regulate their concentration and flow. I’m not a neuroscientist (or any kind of scientist) but I don’t think the consensus involves approaching reported subjective experiences from a presumption that they reflect the literal experience of death in the more permanent sense.

nelblu 3y ago

I had similar experience where my heart stopped beating and went into complete darkness, apparently it was a reaction to something they were doing a tissue sample. Nonetheless the experience was very similar but I was only 14 then, so I didn't think much of life or death then. Now almost 3 decades later, I really don't think that dying is what I'm most worried about, really I just don't want to die before my dog or my wife. That said, being quite influenced by stoicism I do remind myself that I could die any second and I always live such that I won't have any regrets if I die any minute. Memento Mori.

interfixus 3y ago

> During the time I was dead Semantic correction for this and all similar recollections: You are alive to tell the story, so you were, in fact, not dead.

MPSimmons 3y ago
I got better. ;-)

wutwutwat 3y ago

Loss of consciousness is not death, your brain was alive the entire time. It takes upwards of 10 minutes before the brain dies, usually longer, and each minute approaching those thresholds has a high probability of severe brain damage. Check out cerebral anoxia or brain death to learn more.

ASalazarMX 3y ago
If you were expecting actual death, then no revived person has ever experienced death because they weren't completely dead to begin with, even if tissue damage happened. Let's compromise on near death experience.
- wutwutwat 3y ago
  I’m basing it off of people saying they died, and they didn’t, because like you said, you literally can’t come back from death. What was described was loss of consciousness/passing out, and it’s odd so many people pass out and claim they died.

nirui 3y ago

I read quite a few reports claiming the similar experience, a deep sleep. That's how I view death now, a sleep so deep that no one can wake up from it. With all external inputs are muted, the brain left itself alone in the "void", doing what brains do, fade to "dreaming". But then again, I imagine one could experience almost the same when under anesthesia or just regular sleep, so I guess you don't really have to do it the hard way :)

ASalazarMX 3y ago
They say life is the space between two black eternities. I suppose we already know what death is like: exactly the same than before we were born, vast non-existence.