Many people who claim to have visited the afterlife have shared their tales about what happens to us when we die, from bright lights to conversations with loved ones
Over the years, many people who have claimed to briefly die and return to life have shared similar experiences: visions of bright lights at the end of a tunnel, conversations with deceased loved ones, and the widely discussed “seven minutes after death” phenomenon — the idea that brain activity can persist for several minutes after clinical death, potentially allowing a person to relive their happiest memories.
As new theories continue to emerge, we explore several first-hand accounts of those who have purportedly visited the afterlife in an effort to piece together an understanding of what truly awaits us all…
‘Never be the same’
Meanwhile, a neurosurgeon who once dismissed near-death experiences as the “brain misfiring under stress” had a change of heart after nearly losing his life. Harvard-educated Dr Eben Alexander claimed that his “world will never be the same” after he supposedly visited the afterlife during his own near-death experience in 2008, and he has shared his visions from his time on the brink of death in hospital.
His remarkable case has been analysed by hospice nurse Julie McFadden, who often discusses death to alleviate people’s fears. In November 2008, Dr Alexander contracted a lethal bacterial meningitis and fell into a deep coma within four hours. He spent the following seven days in a coma while connected to a ventilator.
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According to the medical expert, the combination of bacterial meningitis and his rapid neurological deterioration meant there was a 90% chance he would die. However, as his body and brain were failing him, he claimed something extraordinary happened.
In his eye-opening memoir Proof of Heaven, Dr Alexander shared his journey into what he describes as The Gateway Realm, a place of awe-inspiring vistas.
He vividly remembers: “The Gateway Valley was filled with many earth-like and spiritual features: vibrant and dynamic plant life, with flowers and buds blossoming richly and no signs of death or decay, waterfalls into sparkling crystal pools, thousands of beings dancing below with great joy and festivity, all fuelled by swooping golden orbs in the sky above, angelic choirs emanating chants and anthems that thundered through my awareness, and a lovely girl on a butterfly wing who proved months later to be central to my understanding of the reality of the experience.”
In this otherworldly landscape, a woman conveyed to him, without words, that he was deeply loved and had nothing to fear, before guiding him to another dimension known as The Core. There, he felt enveloped by what he described as the “heart of the divine”, a space devoid of conventional orientation but brimming with an infinite, boundless love.
Dr Alexander recalls being serenaded by the most exquisite music and, despite not fully grasping the entirety of his experience, he knew there was nothing to fear due to the overwhelming sense of tranquillity. He also reportedly met the creator, not in the form of a figure but as an overwhelming force that felt like home.
After being told by the creator it was not his time to stay there, he traversed spiritual realms before returning to life. His astonishing recovery left doctors bewildered.
‘Heaven and hell’
One woman detailed her astonishing journey to ‘heaven and hell’ after she clinically died for 11 minutes. At the age of 68, Charlotte Holmes had a brush with death during a standard heart examination. She was at her cardiologist’s when her blood pressure shot up to an alarming 234 over 134.
The medical team warned her that hospitalisation was necessary until they could manage her dangerously high blood pressure. During a chat with The 700 Club, Charlotte shared the details of her near-death experience. She remembered being told: “It’s got to come down. You’re having another stroke or you’re going to have a heart attack.”
Charlotte then described how she felt detached from her body, observing the resuscitation efforts from above. She explained: “I could see them, all the nurses around, I could smell the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever smelled and then I heard music. When I opened my eyes I knew where I was. I knew I was in heaven.”
Charlotte miraculously came back to life after 11 minutes, during which time she claims to have had a glimpse of the afterlife. She recounted: “I was above my body. I could see Danny standing in the corner. He had backed up. I could see them, all the nurses around then I opened my eyes. I looked around at the beauty. I could see the trees, I could see the grass and everything was swaying with the music because everything in heaven worships God.”
She expressed awe at the indescribable beauty of heaven, saying: “I can’t convey to you what heaven looked like because it’s so above what we can even imagine, a million times. There’s no fear. It’s like pure joy when the angels takes over there’s no fear when you’re going home. It’s pure joy.”
Her otherworldly journey included emotional reunions with loved ones who had passed away, as she recognised her parents and sister among others. She says she also “saw saints of old”. She said: “They didn’t look old, they didn’t look sick.
“None of them wore glasses they looked like they were in their 30s but yet it says in the scriptures we will be known as we were known. I knew them, there in their new bodies. They looked wonderful.”
In the midst of these encounters, Charlotte experienced an overwhelming presence. “Standing behind Mom and Dad was a light so bright I couldn’t look upon it. It was so bright but I knew it was my Heavenly Father,” she said.
“I couldn’t understand and I can remember thinking who is this and I heard my Heavenly Father said to me, ‘it’s your child’. I lost that child I was five and a half months pregnant.”
Recounting her profound experience, Charlotte recalled: “I can remember them holding the baby up and saying ‘Charlotte, it’s a boy,’ then he was gone.” She says she sought answers about her child from a higher authority and shared the response: “He says they continue to grow in heaven but there’s no time it’s eternity. So 48 years and here my child, our child, is a toddler.”
Continuing with her detailed narrative of the spiritual journey, she stated, “God took me to hell. I looked down and the smell and then rotten flesh – that’s what it smelled like – and screams. After seeing the beauty of heaven the contrast to seeing hell is almost unbearable.”
Charlotte conveyed her stern warning, noting how he had shown her these visions as a caution to some, saying: “This is where they shall reside.” Elaborating on her other-worldly encounter, Charlotte said: “I heard my father say ‘you have time to go back and share.'” She described her return to life, mentioning, “I felt the pain where I hadn’t felt pain. I felt the sorrow.”
‘Learned things I wish I hadn’t’
One man posted on Reddit an eerie tale of what he claimed occurred during his own near-death experiences, and while anonymous social media posts like this aren’t verifiable, his story captured the attention of hundreds of readers.
The user claimed that at age 15, he suffered from ventricular fibrillation on what was just a normal day, causing his heart to stop for six minutes, and in that time had a terrifying vision of what he believes awaits us in the afterlife.
“During my visit, I learned things about our universe that I wish I hadn’t,” the user wrote. “It began with light. Blinding, white, pervasive. It bathed me, calmed me. It was everything they tell you about. Beatific, welcoming, the stuff of spiritual experiences.”
However, things quickly took a turn for the young man, who felt as though he was being lifted upward and entering a series of gates. “I arrived in a place without dimension, a place beyond reality. It only made sense while I occupied it. I don’t believe a corporeal being can make sense of the astral plane, something about its intangible existence defies translation.
“So what I came away with were more impressions than images. I was not alone. Several life forces enclosed me upon my arrival. At first, because of my Christian upbringing, I believed them to be angels. In my incorporeal form, I made the spiritually-equivalent gesture of opening my arms, anticipating their embrace.
“Instead, I felt myself shackled by their powers, like a collared dog. Humiliation and terror came over me. These were not the ethereal beings I’d been led to believe await us. These were cruel, unsympathetic overlords by whom I was fettered.”
The man claimed the creatures mocked him and informed him that the human world was something of a ‘soul-farming’ exercise for a kind of higher being, that then upon death used human souls as ‘slaves’ in their dimension – all while toying with and torturing the man.
Eventually, his heart was restarted by the doctors working on him in the hospital he had been taken to, and when he told his loved ones about his vision, they told him the likely cause was trauma from the near-death experience, which combined with his young age was likely heavy.
Despite not being listened to by those around him, the man never stopped believing in what he saw.
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