Redditors that have had near death experiences, what happened and how did your life change, if at all?

I'm 35 years old and I've had 3 (what I would say are) near death experiences.

The first two were all about pain...

1) I was beaten up by two bullies using brass knuckles. They followed me through a shortcut through a park and shattered my eye socket and cracked my skull.

2) My burst appendix was misdiagnosed as Chrons disease for two months.

... While maybe not what the OP meant by the question as I did not lose consciousness and see any pearly white gates I will still maintain that these two things changed my life dramatically. Afterwards it was like I wasn't afraid of pain anymore. I knew I could handle it and I experienced an instantaneous surge of confidence and bravery because of it.

But more to what the OP is getting at with 'what happens when you die'...

3) I have Addison's disease which is a rare deficiency of the adrenal gland. My small town family doctor wasn't able to diagnose it and declared me healthy time-and-time again. My family and teachers just assumed my symptoms were just me being a lazy teenager who loved sleep. One year after being kicked out of high school for poor attendance (due to lack of energy) I had what's known as an Addison crisis. My parents found me unresponsive and my vitals stopped in the ambulance enroute to a hospital in a neighbouring town. Once there the ER doctors managed to revive me and I spent two weeks recovering in ICU on a cortisol drip having finally been diagnosed with Addison's.

... Now as to what I remember about that window of time when I was unresponsive. It's obviously very hard to describe because it was a very abstract feeling of absence of everything but the inclusion of everything. By absence I mean that there were no worries about anything. No negative feelings of any sort. Nothing mattered in the slightest. And by inclusion I mean that there was still the presence of thought and emotion. I don't feel like I was in control of these two things but if I was I don't think I could have manifested anything more sublime. It felt like all of the love and good vibes the people in my life had ever felt for me made up this fabric that was wrapped around me like a warm blanket. I also saw the black dog. Later I found out that it's commonly reported that people see a black dog. It walked around me and watched me around corners and sometimes it was like I was the black dog and looked through it's eyes.

Call BS if you like. I'm not religious. All of this might have been brought on by delirium. Who knows? It doesn't matter. The end result is that I'm not afraid to die because of it.

TL;DR: Great love, peace of mind, no fear, and that big black dog.

/r/AskReddit Thread