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Death is something we often shy away from thinking about, yet it is something each of us must face. It's a thought that can strike us with fear and anxiety. It’s easy to stay up at night wondering what it will truly feel like. Will it hurt? Will we be frightened? Will there be relief or only panic and suffering?
Until we experience it ourselves, the moments after our final breath are a mystery. However, we can gather insights into the experiences leading up to that moment. Many individuals who have come close to death and returned have documented the sensations they encountered along the way.
10. Shot In The Throat - George Orwell
In 1937, the renowned author George Orwell was shot while fighting in the Spanish Civil War. A bullet struck his throat. After the event, Orwell reflected on his experience, writing, “The whole experience of being hit by a bullet is very interesting, and I think it is worth describing in detail.”
He described the feeling as if he were at the center of an explosion. “There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of light all around me, and I felt a tremendous shock—no pain, only a violent shock, such as you get from an electric terminal; with it, a sense of utter weakness, a feeling of being stricken and shriveled up to nothing.”
It wasn't until he tried to move his arm, only to find it unresponsive, that he realized the severity of his injury. He attempted to speak, but no sound came out. It was then that a soldier mentioned that the bullet had passed completely through his neck. Orwell understood that he was dying.
“My first thought, conventionally enough, was for my wife,” he wrote. “My second was violent resentment at having to leave this world.” He was frustrated by the senselessness of his fate. “The meaninglessness of it!”
Despite the situation, he couldn’t bring himself to feel anger toward the man who shot him. “If he had been taken prisoner and brought before me, at this moment I would merely have congratulated him on his excellent marksmanship,” he reflected.
9. Death By Drowning - Grant Allen
Grant Allen came close to drowning in a skating accident. In that moment, Allen believed he was dead. “As far as consciousness goes,” he wrote, “I was then and there dead, and I never expected to be any deader.”
While skating, the ice beneath him cracked, and Allen plunged into the freezing water below. He attempted to swim up but collided with the solid ice above.
Allen’s mind was clouded. “I was numbed by the cold and shocked by the suddenness of the unexpected dunking,” he wrote. Instead of searching for the hole he created, he began banging his head against the ice, hoping to break through.
“I gasped and swallowed a lot of water. I felt my lungs filling. A moment of suspense, during which I knew I was drowning, intervened; and then—I died.”
His life didn’t flash before his eyes. “Instead, I only felt the cold, the damp, the breathlessness, a fierce struggle, a choking sensation, and then it was all over.” His friends eventually rescued him and revived him. But up until that point, Allen was clinically dead.
“The process of dying itself, as dying, is completely painless—as painless as falling asleep,” Allen reflected. “It is only the prior struggle, the awareness of its arrival, that is uncomfortable.”
8. Death By Snake Venom - Karl Patterson Schmidt
In 1957, renowned snake expert Karl Patterson Schmidt was bitten while attempting to identify a snake. Over the following 24 hours, he meticulously documented his experiences as the venom slowly took its toll on him.
“4:30–5:30 PM,” he wrote after getting home. “Strong nausea, but no vomiting during my trip to Homewood on the suburban train.”
An hour later, he wrote, “Strong chills and shaking, followed by a fever of [38.7 degrees Celsius (101.7 °F)], which did not persist (with blankets and heating pad). Bleeding from the mucous membranes in my mouth began at about 5:30, primarily from my gums.”
He managed to sleep for a couple of hours but woke up at midnight. “Urination at 12:20 AM,” he recorded. “Mostly blood, but in small amounts.” Shortly after, he woke up again, violently vomiting.
His final entry came at 6:30 AM. “Slight bleeding is now occurring in my bowels, with frequent irritation around the anus,” he wrote. “Mouth and nose continue to bleed, though not excessively.” By lunchtime, he had called his wife in a panic. When the doctors arrived, he was sweating, unable to respond to any questions. He was declared dead at 3:00 PM.
7. Death By Tuberculosis - H.G. Wells
H.G. Wells, the famous science fiction author, came close to death in his youth during the late 1800s. Diagnosed with consumption, which we now call tuberculosis, no one thought he would survive.
It all started during a game of football. “A sharp pain shot through my side. I lost my courage. I couldn’t run, couldn’t kick,” he recalled. Wells excused himself and went inside. “Once inside, I became violently ill. I went to lie down. Then, I felt an urge to urinate and looked down to see a chamber pot filled with dark red blood. That was the most terrifying moment of my life. I didn’t know what to do, so I lay back down and waited for someone to come.”
Later, Wells was informed by the doctor that he had, at best, six months left to live. Despite his failing health, he continued attending school. But at night, the thought of his impending death kept him awake.
“In my bones, I despised the idea of dying,” Wells wrote. “I was frustrated not to have gained fame, not to have explored the world.” What bothered him even more were the desires of a young man, still unfulfilled. “More deeply frustrating was the feeling of being bound by restrictions that threatened I would die without ever experiencing intimacy.” He harbored an intense anger towards women for not being with him.
The greatest fear for Wells was the thought of nonexistence. “Even though I didn’t believe in immortality, I couldn’t grasp the idea of myself being nonexistent,” he wrote. “I had a terrifying sense that this conscious nothingness was closing in on me.”
Wells, naturally, survived. His body managed to fight off the illness. However, his fear of vanishing into oblivion profoundly impacted his life. This was the turning point that ignited his determination to leave a legacy as a writer.
6. Death By Poisonous Gas Kassem Eid
In 2013, Kassem Eid, a Syrian rebel, was in Damascus when the city was struck by sarin gas. He heard a rocket land, but it didn’t explode as he had anticipated. Instead, a toxic gas began to leak out.
“It only took seconds before I lost the ability to breathe,” Eid recalled. “It felt like my chest was on fire. My eyes were burning like hell. I couldn’t even scream or do anything.”
He began to pound his chest, desperately trying to force air into his lungs. “It was excruciating,” he said. “It felt like someone was ripping my chest apart with a knife made of fire.”
His neighbor knocked urgently, pleading for help. Her children were dying, vomiting a white substance. She, along with most others nearby, didn’t survive. “I watched hundreds of people suffocate and die. My heart nearly stopped. I was left among the corpses.”
Eid was pulled from the pile of bodies after he managed to show a sign of life. He survived, but the journey to that point was tormenting. “Dying like this,” he said later, “is one of the most horrific deaths anyone could experience in history.”
5. Visions Of Heaven Anita Moorjani
“It was incredible,” Anita Moorjani reflected on her near-death experience in 2006. She had been battling cancer with no chance of recovery when she slipped into a coma. However, Moorjani believes that what she experienced was more than just a coma—she believes she actually crossed over to the other side.
“It’s hard to put into words,” Moorjani shared. “It felt as though I had left my body, and my consciousness had expanded. I was everywhere, in a godlike state, able to see my loved ones and feel the presence of other souls.”
“In this other realm, I was overwhelmed by an immense feeling of love and peace. There was no pain. I discovered my purpose in life and what I was meant to do. I realized the cure for my cancer had always been within me.”
When she awoke, her body began to heal in a miraculous way. Within four days, 70 percent of her cancer had vanished. In just five weeks, she was completely cured.
4. Visions Of HellMatthew Botsford
Not every experience of the afterlife is filled with serenity. Like Anita Moorjani, Matthew Botsford fell into a coma and experienced what he believes to be a vision of the other side. However, his glimpse wasn’t quite as comforting.
He had been shot in the back of the head. “I felt a sharp, needle-like pain, excruciating for a fleeting moment at the top of my head,” he recalled. “Then complete darkness consumed me, as though thick, black ink had been poured over my eyes.”
For the following 27 days, Botsford’s body remained in a coma, but he believes his soul was trapped in hell. “Whenever I tried to reach out, I realized I was enclosed in some sort of cell,” he explained. “A chill seeped into my bones, as cold as if it had reached my very marrow.”
He felt exposed, vulnerable, and engulfed by an overwhelming demonic presence. “I could sense the actual weight of evil pressing against my body,” he described.
Beyond the sense of evil, there was very little else he could feel. “There was no breath, no thoughts at all,” he said. “All I had were feelings of despair and fear, an all-consuming sense of doom and hopelessness.”
3. Death In Palliative CareThe Scientific Community
The fascination with death has grown so strong that it has become a field of study in itself. A dedicated community of experts has delved into it, examining each person’s unique experience to gain a clearer understanding of what dying may truly feel like. While their knowledge is secondhand, it is based on the real-life accounts of those receiving palliative care.
“Hunger and thirst fade first,” explains Dr. James Hallenbeck. “Next, speech disappears, followed by the loss of vision. The final senses to go are typically hearing and touch.”
In most cases, it’s painless. According to scientists, when death occurs slowly and naturally, there is no distress. Dr. David Hui notes that as we near death, our awareness diminishes. “You might not even be conscious of what’s taking place,” he says.
Dr. Jimo Borjigin shares that seeing a light is a common experience. “Many survivors of cardiac arrest describe having an extraordinary experience during their time of unconsciousness,” she says. “They see lights, and then they often describe it as ‘more real than real.’”
But what follows the light is the one mystery we cannot solve. “Most people nearing death then close their eyes and seem to fall into a peaceful sleep,” Dr. Hallenbeck says. “From this point on, we can only make educated guesses about what truly happens.”
2. Death From CancerCris Gutierrez
As Cris Gutierrez faced the end of her battle with pancreatic cancer, she kept a blog to document her experience. When it became clear that survival was no longer possible, she wrote a final post sharing the anguish of dying. “You don’t want to die like this,” she said.
“I’ve had my lungs collapse twice. I’ve dealt with edema so severe it made me look like a figure from a Botero painting. The swelling is agonizing to walk on. My knees barely bend when trying to descend stairs. It leads to tissue damage and the risk of sepsis. Some days, I’ve woken up feeling like I was drowning with bile filling my throat and a burning stomach.”
She still held onto her anger. “I confess to being frustrated,” she wrote. “I had plans for a real estate investment business, modest but with a vision. Now, I will never achieve this.”
Her biggest concern, however, was for her loved ones and those who held her dear. “I just want to die with as little pain as possible, surrounded by the people I care about,” she said. “The ones who will carry the pain are those who love me.”
1. Oldest Description Of Near-Death ExperiencePierre-Jean du Monchaux
The earliest account of a near-death experience was written in the 18th century by Pierre-Jean du Monchaux, a French physician. He was attending to a man suffering from a fever who briefly lost consciousness. Du Monchaux recorded the man’s recollections.
“He claimed to have lost all external sensations,” du Monchaux noted. “He witnessed such a pure and intense light that he believed he was in Heaven. He remembered the experience vividly and stated that he had never experienced a more delightful moment in his life.”
Du Monchaux had previously encountered similar accounts. He noted that references to such phenomena could be traced back to at least the 12th century, when a theologian wrote, “At the moment approaching our body and soul dissolution, the latter is lit by a primary light ray.”
Despite this, Du Monchaux did not interpret it as a spiritual experience. “As the blood and humors flow abundantly,” he wrote, “it is precisely this blood flow that triggers these vivid and intense sensations; the calm and even distribution of this blood is what makes the sensation pleasurable.”
