Deathbed visions and near-death experiences
Visions seen by the dying, or the storyteller's own near-death or out-of-body experience.
Letter: A cardiologist's notes on a patient's near-death experience
The host reads a letter from a listener whose uncle is described as a cardiologist. The listener asked him about near-death experiences (NDEs) in his patients, and the letter relays the uncle's notes on one case. According to the letter, a 23-year-old male patient awaiting a pacemaker implant had an NDE during a resuscitation. He described being struck on the chest, then floating in blackness. He saw a conveyor belt of puzzle pieces fitted [quote withheld] a blazing light and tunnel, a burning black lake, figures moving aimlessly, and a dead friend who did not greet him and was dragged away screaming. The letter ends with the patient saying he kept repeating “Jesus is God” and returned as stitches were being placed. The host calls it the NDE of someone who “went to hell.” No names, dates, or locations are given.
A sensed presence with a tail and blunted nails during an out-of-body experience
A live caller, introduced by the host as being [quote withheld] says they have been a spiritual person since the age of two. They say an “essence” came around them about twelve years ago when their sister died and has come and gone since. They say the one time this presence turned angry and violent was as they were returning from an out-of-body experience in their bed. It disappeared into “some hole,” leaving a long, heavy, grayish tail in view. They say it still visits and presses long, sharp nails into their back at night. They report feeling only blunted pressure and take that as a sign they are protected.
Daytime sleep paralysis, a woman speaking in a man's voice, and nails in the head
A caller named [name withheld], speaking from L.A. and formerly of the Truckee area near Donner Pass, reports a series of daytime nap experiences over about two and a half weeks. The caller describes waking up paralyzed and feeling someone sit on the bed. It ended one afternoon, they say, when they saw a woman on the bed who spoke in a man's voice. She told the caller to pull out three nails they felt in their head, and she showed the caller their own body lying beside her. The caller says they refused, returned to their body, and the experience never happened again.
Struck by a hearse at six, an out-of-body experience, and later night visitations
A caller who gives her name as [quote withheld] tells Art Bell that at about age six she was hit by a hearse while crossing a street. She then found herself floating above her own body, looking down at herself on the ground. She says this was the start of recurring nighttime “visitations by ghosts” that came before a close friend or relative in her family died. She describes one night when she felt fingers crawling up her neck and grabbing her hair while she lay in bed beside her sleeping husband. The story ends with her reporting later visitations in which she saw shadows moving on the wall. The host then comments generally on near-death experiences and the events that follow them.
Agnostic caller’s near-death experience and beings they call alien-like
A caller named [name withheld] tells Art Bell that they were clinically dead in their twenties after a heart attack. They say they experienced a light-filled dimension with telepathic beings who refused to let them stay. They report waking in an ambulance and a life afterward of lost looks, career, and money. They remain agnostic. They describe the beings as not angels but something like aliens playing a game.
Caller's friend's mother revives in a body bag after a birth hemorrhage
The caller, whose name and location are not given, tells Art Bell a secondhand story. The mother of their best friend from high school hemorrhaged badly after her last child, was pronounced dead in the hospital, and was placed in a body bag. The caller says the husband insisted on going back in to see her. She began moving in the bag and was found to have come back to life, reportedly describing a frantic sense that she was not really dead. Asked whether the woman saw herself placed in the bag, the caller says they are not sure.
Family friend's reported vision of devils and fire during clinical death
[name withheld], calling from Chicago on WLS, tells Art Bell about a family friend they say was pronounced clinically dead. According to [name withheld], the friend later told [name withheld]'s parents he had seen devils, fire, and tortured souls during the experience. He remained afraid that this was what awaited him at death. [name withheld] adds that he became “very pleasant” afterward.
A coma, three selves, and walking with Jesus after a 1980 car crash
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld] describes a December 1980 car accident in which they were thrown through the driver's window and lay unconscious for thirty-three days. They report regaining consciousness in a Utah hospital and perceiving three versions of themselves in the room. The room then darkened, and shadow-like objects seized one of the figures. After that came a bright place in which they walked hand in hand with Jesus Christ. They say they woke up after thirty-three days. Art Bell calls it [quote withheld]
Caller reports praying and seeing a stabbing victim’s spirit in an emergency room
[name withheld] in Florida, a caller, says they were watching a TV news report about a local high-school stabbing when they began praying and felt transported to the emergency room. They report seeing the 15-year-old victim’s spirit standing beside his body and speaking with him. He said he was afraid to die, and the caller reassured him. The host cuts the caller off before they say whether the victim survived.
Out-of-body experience and light while drowning at Jones Beach
A caller named [name withheld], speaking from Richmond, Virginia, tells Art Bell they nearly drowned at Jones Beach on Long Island at age 16, around 1969, during a church beach party. They report going too far out while jumping waves, being thrown around in the water, and then watching themselves drown from outside their body. They then had an experience of light and music that they describe as beautiful. They say they told no one at the time. They later found a description of the music in Betty Eadie's book Into the Light. They are now 51 and have no fear of death.
Caller reports seeing a smoke-like form leave their father’s body at death
[name withheld], calling from West Dundee, Illinois, tells Art Bell that in 1997 they saw what they took to be their father’s soul leave his body at the moment of death. [name withheld] describes a small smoke-like form coming out of their father’s chest, floating to the bedroom door, and dissipating. [name withheld] says they were not afraid and later returned to church.
A hospital legend of the “Gray Lady” who offers tea to dying patients
A caller the host introduces as “bill” from Texas, who says they are a 67-year-old doctor, tells a story they heard as a medical exchange student at the University of London's Middlesex Hospital in the 1970s. The caller says hospital staff shared a belief that a ghost called the Gray Lady, dressed as an old-style nurse, appeared to patients shortly before they died and offered them tea. The caller reports that staff told of apparently well patients who saw her and then died within 24 hours. The caller passes on the staff's theory that she was a former nurse making amends for a forgotten cup of tea.
16 more stories
- Caller recalls being born dead and watching from the ceiling4 min
- Caller describes seeing themselves from the corner of their ICU room after flatlining2 min
- Near-death caller recalls watching their ER resuscitation from the ceiling4 min
- Near-death experience in sleep ended by a neighbor's barking dog2 min
- Florida caller on being pronounced dead at 16 in a head-on collision (part 1)2 min
- Caller describes a month-long coma and a feeling of having been somewhere else3 min
- Near-drowning in an underground water tunnel and a warming light5 min
- Caller’s medical commentary on a reported near-death experience during surgery3 min
- Clinical death and an out-of-body experience during childbirth in Germany7 min
- Childhood near-death experience under ether after a horse wreck9 min
- An out-of-body view of themselves after smoking a found cigar (caller, Salinas, California)4 min
- Caller reports a card-and-dice vision during a clinical death in surgery4 min
- Near-death experience after a penicillin injection in 19744 min