People Share What It’s Like to Be in a Coma

Being in a coma or even being unconscious for a while has to be absolutely terrifying…when you finally wake up.

And that’s something you can never really understand unless you experience it yourself…and today we’re gonna find out what it’s really like.

AskReddit users who have been in comas talk about what they experienced.

Let’s see what they had to say.

1. Car accident.

“Brief 36 hour coma after a serious car accident when I was 16.

Absolutely no memories at all of my time in the coma. When I woke up, I was very confused for a number of days. The accident erased my memory of the month prior to the wreck.

Gradually (over the next year or so) those memories all came back up until the point I turned onto the road the accident happened on.”

2. Don’t remember…

“I don’t remember any dreams. I also don’t remember removing my IV needle – twice!!

Serious car accident when I was 9. My father sat in a rocking chair for 3 days waiting for me to open my eyes.

When I did I asked about a new friend my father didn’t know (she was in the car). He thought I’d lost it for sure.”

3. Pitch black.

“I was in a medically induced coma for 7 days, and I don’t remember anything at all. The entire week is just pitch black. I was awake for about half a day before memories started to form.

The following few days I would have crazy hallucinations that felt more real than actual reality. The weird thing is that I still remember most of my hallucinations vividly, but I can barely recall anything that actually happened.”

4. A strange dream.

“A couple years back I was only in a coma for two weeks, it wasn’t due to an accident or anything it was medically induced.

I did have a strange dream though, turned into a reoccurring nightmare for a little while afterwards, basically I had to climb up this black staircase that curved out of sight further up, as I started to climb water started pouring down the stairs making it difficult to go up it.

Eventually I’d hear noises behind me, sorta like heavy machinery but distorted to hell and back, that made me climb harder and faster but more water came down the stairs. As a kid it was absolutely terrifying. Couldn’t tell you what it meant but it still haunts me thinking about it. As for waking up though it wasn’t too bad, quite a shock sure, but honestly not too bad for me.

Weirdest thing that came from it all was how tired I felt, for weeks I couldn’t seem to get any energy. Definitely a 2/10 at best, LOL.”

5. Religious in nature.

“In coma for two weeks – lots of wild visions/experiences that were very religious in nature. Time went by quickly.

Was told I flatlined nine times and had to be resuscitated each time and remember (or dreamed?) hearing the steady beep of the heart monitor twice. Very confused when I came out of it.”

6. OD.

“I was in a two week coma after a h**oin overdose about a decade ago.

A couple of months after waking I was able to recall the days leading up to the incident vaguely. Naturally, there was just blackness and nothing once I had OD’d.

I then recall waking up while being intubated (f**king nightmarish experience), surrounded by nurses and doctors pinning me down by my limbs, bright lights, noise. Unable to scream. Unable to breathe. People yelling. Machines pinging. Then blackness.

After waking 13 days later, it was as if I’d awoken from a single night’s sleep with no dreams, no consciousness whatsoever. Just time-travelled basically. Took me a few hours to comprehend who and where I was. But I reckon I’d have been none the wiser if I had d**d that day.”

7. Small pieces.

“I was out for a week when I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

I remember very small bits and pieces, but not sure if they were from coma time or from the wake up process.

No concept of time, no consciousness, no dread, no pain. Just felt like being asleep for me.”

8. Intense.

“I was in a medically induced coma for 6 days.

Iwas just about to turn 16 that month, we were out riding dirt bikes that night and I just so happened to run around a corner just at the exact moment my best buddy was riding his dirtbike around said corner going like 35mph or so, the dreams were insanely long, intense and I woke up thinking they all were real.

I freaked out and threatened to k**l everybody, because in one of my dreams I saw my mom get ripped limb from limb and I saw the people that did it, standing around my hospital bed smiling. They had to restrain me and put me back out, when I came to again i was more calm and my mom was trying to talk to me.

But I just wouldn’t look at her because I didn’t believe she was real because it felt so real watching her d** in that dream. I thought I only slept for a day at first until my dad told me it had been six days. In one of my dreams i got shot, when I was in the middle east somewhere fighting in the military, and he asked me if I knew why I was in the hospital, I said, “yeah…. I got shot”.”

9. Twice!

“I’ve been in a coma twice, both after delivering my children.

During the first one, my boyfriend had driven me to the ER and as soon as I walked in the door I was out. At some point, before they moved me to a room, I could hear my mom asking if I was d**d. I wanted to yell out “I can hear you”….but I couldn’t.

I don’t remember anything after that. After the birth of my second child my boyfriend made them keep me an extra day because he didn’t want a repeat of the last time. They said I must have tried to get myself up because they found me on the floor between the bed and the door during rounds.

A couple of days before I woke up they sent me for a CT or MRI or something and I could feel them wheeling my bed down the hall and being agitated when the wheels ran over rough seams (like moving from the floor to the elevator) making the bed slightly shake.”

10. Waking up.

“It’s a slow processing coming out.

It isn’t like the movies where you just wake up and then go k**l some zombies. Even after just a few days of not moving at all, all of your muscles begin to deteriorate. They waste away to nothing very quickly. People who have been in a coma for longer than a few days often can’t even lift their head up.

They often have to relearn how to move and even talk or eat. It’s definitely not a restful situation. Also… There’s a reason they were in a coma and they still have to recover from that.”

11. What happened here?

“I was in a coma for a few days.

The dream I had I was just floating around in the dark having having a heart to heart with myself about what I did to wind up in that position.”

12. Heard everything.

“I was in a coma due to a drug interaction after surgery.

I could hear everything my doctors and family were saying and was trying to communicate but couldn’t.

They finally gave me Narcan, which brought me back with it’s own special kind of hell.”

Have you or someone you know ever been in a coma?

If so, what was it like?

Talk to us in the comments and let us know!

The post People Share What It’s Like to Be in a Coma appeared first on UberFacts.

If You’ve Been in a Coma, What Happened? People Shared Their Stories.

I have a friend who was hit by a car while he was riding his bike and he was in a coma for a bit.

Luckily, he woke up and is doing great…but still, I think that kind of experience has to change a person in some way…

So, what is being in a coma really like?

AskReddit users opened up and talked about their experiences.

1. No concept of time.

“I was in a coma for 6 weeks with double pneumonia, sepsis and kidney failure.

I have very few vivid memories from being under but had some very strange visions once I woke due to the ammount of drugs I was pumped full of.

I had no concept of time and thought I had only been out for a day or so.”

2. Short blips.

“It was only a few days in a medically induced coma.

But I just remember it being dark, short blips of family being in the room, and when the doctor first tried telling me where I was and asking me if I knew my name, I was tempted answer it as Brittney Spears.

But I didn’t want my parents freaking out.”

3. Five long days.

“Five days in total.

They pulled me out of it after two or three days and I extubated myself, ripped out my IVs and punched a nurse before they sedated me again and restrained me. Day five I woke up and the first thing I remember is not knowing anything. Had to describe, but my brain was basically at a primal level.

The only thing I could process was fear. Then I “remembered”I was human. At that point it was “okay, my name is X, I’m alive. I’m in a hospital. Those are nurses. Holy s**t I fell off a cliff!” and I calmed down. After that things are blurry. I think they pushed something to relax me after my initial panic. I apparently signalled to ask for a pen and paper(I was retubed so I couldn’t speak) and wrote “can I have a whiskey IV?” And “I feel like a salad.”

As far as while I was under, my last memory was being loaded into a helicopter and the medic asking “X, you’re in the bird it’s gonna be okay. Do you understand?” And me saying “yeah, this s**t hurts, knock me the f**k out.” And something got pushed in my IV and next thing I know I’m experiencing what I said above. No dreams, no locked in syndrome, nothing.”

4. Out cold.

“I was in a diabetic coma for 2 days. No dreams, no nothing, just out.

When I (slowly) woke up I had some kind of mild / minor amnesia. I didn’t know where I was, or who I was, but I recognized my mom immediately when I saw her.

TMI but the doctors were just about to put in a catheter when I woke up, then I peed for like 2 minutes straight. The nurse was impressed.”

5. Wow.

“I had a C-section and woke up 4 days later in ICU. Amniotic fluid leaked into my lungs during the C section. I also lost a lot of blood and needed 3 blood transfusions.

I was only in a coma for 4 days. It was black, no dreams, no time passing. My memories of before the coma don’t have a timeline nor make any sense. To me it happened in surgery, I was fully awake and started getting tired and then black.

Family says it happened differently, that it was after and had visitors for those days. I don’t remember any of those days at all. I still have issues with short term memory.”

6. Scary.

“I was in an induced coma for 6 weeks due to pancreatitis.

What I remember was so scary. I guess it was a nightmare or something but I dreamed I was being held in a basement by demons. It felt so real.

When I told the doctors they said it was the Propofol that made me hallucinate.”

7. Brain virus.

“I was out for six weeks due to a brain virus (I wasn’t expected to survive). I had no concept of how long I was out when I woke and the first couple of days are very sketchy.

I don’t remember any dreams, but I do have memories of what happened in the room around me. So I can confirm that it is very important to talk to people in a coma.”

8. Lost time.

“I also don’t have any memory of being unconscious after passing out from high or low blood sugar (usually in my sleep). Just suddenly came to, sweaty, disoriented, or in the ER.

It’s really scary to see how much time you’ve lost, wonder why you’re so sore (seizures), and sometimes hear about what you said or did that you don’t remember at all. Other times you do remember the lead up to unconsciousness but you were too sick or confused to help yourself.

Fortunately with new continuous glucose monitoring technology I haven’t had any major issues for a few years now. It’s a huge relief!”

9. Vague dreams.

“I was in a coma for about three days back in 2018 and I don’t remember much, but I do remember having vague dreams? Like a whisper of 1-2 dreams the entire time and then I woke up as if only 5mins had passed.

It really just felt like I’d been asleep for a few minutes and teleported from my bedroom to a hospital bed but instead of a few minutes elapsing, it was three days.

Whatever meds they gave me wiped the vast majority of my memory all the way through about a week after I woke up though.

I did feel like a different person somewhat after the coma, like I was me but as if I’d been reset? Idk how to describe it well enough to make sense, but it was a very strange experience.”

10. Stuck in a loop.

“My husband was placed in an induced coma following a motorcycle accident.

He said it was like time stopped in his mind, and he was stuck in a loop of the accident.

He was conscious and remembers when he was loaded onto the flying doctors plane at the scene of the accident, but he doesn’t remember arriving at the hospital.”

11. Drugs.

“For me, the drugs were the most memorable part of the whole experience. They are very good drugs.

I remember nothing of being in the actual coma, and I know I was awake (conscious) at least half a day before any memories started to form.

There was no sense of panic or alarm when I was told what happened. My emotions were very much blunted by the benzos. You could have told me the doctors removed both of my legs at the hip and I wouldn’t have cared.

I wasn’t sure how long I had been out, but it certainly didn’t feel like “days.” I knew instinctively that the drop-panel ceiling tiles above my hospital bed that I had been staring at for hours were just standard rectangular drop-panel ceiling tiles, but I simply couldn’t make them appear that way, no matter how hard I tried. The ceiling looked like a Picasso painting to me. Also, I remember all the colors around me in the ICU unit were incredibly vivid; the bluest of blues, the yellowest of yellows.

The whole experience of “waking up” is not instant; it takes a couple days to become aware and functional again, like a computer rebooting after a power outage. Overall, it was like a foggy mushroom trip.

It does weird things to your memory that you don’t discover until after the fact. At the time it happened, I had a job operating a specialized piece of machinery, and I was pretty good at it. I spent months learning how to use it. When I returned to work after eight weeks recovering, I could remember my co-workers and the layout of the building and stuff like that no problem, but the machine I had spent the last year operating every day was completely alien to me. I couldn’t remember how to load it, how to turn it on, which button controlled which function, etc.

I’m a huge football fan but I have no recollection of my favorite team literally winning the world championship earlier that year, despite having rooted for them my entire life. Certain compartments of my brain have been zapped while others have been left unscathed.

During the time I was out cold, Donald Trump won the 2016 election. I had no memory of him even campaigning for president, much less winning, until my brother told me in the hospital. Like, how do you forget something like that? What the f**k? I should have told the doctors to put me back under until 2020.”

12. Sounds rough.

“I was in a coma for over 3 days, but was in the hospital for over 2 months. The doctors were trying different procedures for my brain to kickstart the short term memory.

I literally couldn’t remember anything. I would routinely reintroduce myself to nurses, not remembering them from a few minutes prior. I would start a conversation, only to forget what I was saying mid sentence, and just stop talking. It was so frustrating. I don’t remember anything from that time, but I remember how I felt about certain situations when they are brought up by others.

As an example, a person who I’m no longer with, yelled at me, with nurses present, and was banned from visiting. I don’t remember that exchange, but I remember feeling extremely hurt and sad, but don’t know why. When I was speaking with a relative, she brought up the “yelling situation” and the feelings came flooding back, but not what was said or who was there.

I’m getting better and I’m able to retain new memories, overall … just not during any extremely stressful moments. My brain protects itself and stops “recording” when I find myself in a stressful situation. It’s really not fun and can be truly challenging.”

Have you ever been in a coma?

If so, tell us what it was like.

Do it in the comments! Thanks!

The post If You’ve Been in a Coma, What Happened? People Shared Their Stories. appeared first on UberFacts.

15 People Who Have Been in Comas Describe Their Experiences

How terrifying it must be to wake up from a coma. And what an experience to go through.

In this AskReddit articles, people who have survived comas open up and describe their incredible experiences.

1. Nothing

“I was in a coma for about two weeks following a cardiac arrest as a teen. I was technically dead for over an hour, in fact. People often ask me if I could hear my family talking to me or if I was dreaming. The answer is “No.”

There is a huge hole in my memory beginning about two weeks before the coma through a week after “waking up.” And waking up is in quotes because I would wake up, ask a bunch of semi-incoherent questions, fall back under, then wake up again and ask the exact same questions, in the exact same order. Repeat six or seven times.

The coma was not even blackness. It just does not exist. I remember having the hardest time believing it was actually mid-October when the last day I remembered was late-September.”

2. Zero recollection

“I was in a coma for 3 days following a serious cycling accident, medically induced. I woke up with zero recollection of why I was there or what was said while I was out. It is easily the scariest situation I’ve found myself in, but I can’t say I remember it. I woke up to my mom and dad in the hospital with me and my body in traction of some sort and that was way scarier to me.”

3. Blackness

“I had a seizure and was in a medically induced coma for 3 days when I was 17. To be honest I don’t remember anything. I remember fading in and out of the anesthesia trying to pull my breathing tube out and and that my hands were restrained to the bed so I couldn’t.

When I woke up and was coherent I couldn’t recall anything from actually being in the coma. They had even moved me to a hospital over 100 miles away. It was really just nothing but black. No dreams, no lights, no voices, just nothing.”

4. Different personality

“Dunno. I was in a coma for 11 days, severe brain injury. I don’t remember being in a coma or waking up from a coma. I lost several years of memories prior to the coma, and my brain didn’t really start to “retain” information again until ~6 weeks after I came out of the coma.

I’m told that my personality changed afterwards. I had to rebuild most areas of my life. It sucked, but it was probably a good thing.

Although I’d be lying if I said I never wondered what my life would be like if I’d never had the coma.”

5. Whoa!

“When I was a kid, my best friend got hit by a car at age 12. She was in a coma for I think a little over a year. She said she felt like she was asleep but was most freaked out when she woke up and saw that she had gone through puberty while in the coma.”

6. Car crash

“My girlfriend of 6 years and sort of fiance was in a severe car crash when she was 16. Both of her best friends died instantly. She was the only survivor but they didn’t think she would make it. She was in a coma for 9 months. She was in what is called a waking coma. She retained normal periods of sleep and open eyed wakefulness, but no higher brain functions.

Here are some things about her experience.

She doesn’t have any memories of the year prior or the year and a halfish after her coma and obviously no memories of the car crash.

She suffered a TBI and when she first got out of the coma she would get naked and sexual with people and anger very easily. These are common problems of people who suffer a TBI.

She went back to school after the coma, but her brain was still healing a lot. She was held back another year because her brain was still not retaining anything.

Today she is a wonderful, bright 30 year old with a college degree. She has a slight speech impediment, gets frustrated easier than most, and it took her a while to get driving down. Honestly, she still scares the hell out of me when she drives, but there are worse drivers out there.”

7. Positivity is important

“After being in a really bad accident that left one of my good friends (the driver) brain dead, they put me into a chemically induced coma for under a week to prevent brain damage due to swelling.

When I first woke up, my memory was much better than it was as it gradually faded in the days to come. I have a journal my mother recorded things in, and I recalled many things I shouldn’t have been able to immediately after waking up. Today, I have very little memory of it all, but I can definitely say that having positive people around you definitely helps when you’re in a situation like that.

If you have a friend in this situation, don’t disregard them. Even though your life has moved on, they may wake up one day, and in their mind, not a day has passed since the last conversation they had with you.”

8. A little humor attempt

“I was in a medically induced coma following a self-inflicted gunshot wound. I don’t remember much but my family described moments of me appearing to be awake. Most notable, an apparent attempt at humor.

Apparently they put these mits on my hands to prevent me from ripping my ventilation tubes out over and over but I pretended they were my lobster claws. I have no recollection but it’s a real me move.”

9. Bad dream

“I was put in an induced coma when I was 9 years old after a pretty bad car accident which left me with a fractured skull. All I remember is a bad dream about having a bad headache, and hearing my older sister telling everyone, including my parents, to get the f*ck out of her way because she wanted to see me. I found out later that this was on the night it happened, and they were trying to calm her down before she saw me.”

10. Kaleidoscope

“I was in a coma for three days after an emergency C-Section (thanks eclampsia). They actually lost me for a couple of minutes after they delivered my twin boys. I remember hearing the sound of my dad crying close by. I could hear people talking around me, but any time I would try to focus on what I thought I was seeing it was like looking in a kaleidoscope.”

11. Words from Dad

“About 3 years ago I overdosed on sleeping pills and it caused me to go into a coma. I remember a lot of what my family said but one thing stood out, my dad’s voice. I remember him saying “I love you and I know you miss your mom and brother but I still need you”.

I was in that damn coma for a month and I woke up five minutes after he said that. I couldn’t speak because I had tubes down my throat and I was non verbal for a while after because the pills messed up my brain, I don’t know how I remembered but I remembered the slang sign for I love you.

I still struggle with suicide but any time I think about it I remember what my dad said and I try to do the opposite of what I was going to do.”

12. Nightmares

“I was in a medically induced coma for two weeks, about 3 months ago. I had open heart surgery, it didn’t go well, had trouble coming off the ventilator so they just put me in a come to try to give me time to heal.

I had nightmares the entire time from the medicine they were using to knock me out. I thought I had been kidnapped by a nurse and was a victim of sex trafficking. I thought my drug addict aunt had her friends rob my sister and her husband, killing my brother-in-law and one of their children, and I thought I was constantly being grabbed by people under my bed. It was not fun.

I can’t say that I knew I was in a coma or anything. I am usually one of those people that when I have a bad dream, I can tell myself it is just a dream and wake myself up in order to end it. This was not like that. I was convinced it was all really happening.”

13. In and out

“A few years ago my dad was in a medically induced coma for about 2 weeks. Everyone thought he was completely unconscious the whole time until he woke up and started mentioning conversations people had around him while he was under, this even surprised the doctors.

He said that from his perspective it was like he was asleep most the time but he would occasionally “wake up” and could hear what was going on around him without being able to move or do anything before he would eventually drift back to sleep.”

14. Confused

“My husband was in a coma for a couple weeks. He got pneumonia his freshman year of college, the coma was medically induced because he had a really bad immune system or something.

He told me all he remembered was waking up really confused and with a really full beard. Amd when he did wake up, he was still in a lot of pain so they gave him a ton of medicine and it made him kinda high and he wasn’t all there when his friends visited.”

15. Interesting

“My brother-in-law was in a coma for a month after a car accident in which he lost his eye and almost died.

He’s said that he had a vision of “God” holding him underwater three times, almost drowning him the third time, then him giving up and finally being let up into his home town.

He’s had one almost fatal accident after that, and while I’m not superstitious, I do believe sometimes reality can echo the future in ways which our minds can perceive sometimes, even if we can’t fully interpret those echoes. Well, I simply believe he’s eventually going to have a third accident. I fear for him.”

The post 15 People Who Have Been in Comas Describe Their Experiences appeared first on UberFacts.

In 1937, Angelo Hays was declared dead…

In 1937, Angelo Hays was declared dead and buried 3 days later. 2 days after that, an insurance investigation exhumed him and found him in a coma. He made a complete recovery. He later invented a coffin complete with upholstery, a food locker, chemical toilet, library, and radio transmitter.