17 Former Hospital Patients Reveal What It Felt Like To Be In A Coma

1. He’s now paralyzed
I was in a near-fatal motorcycle accident. I was never really in a “coma” but I was out for a few days. Mainly because of trauma, surgery and drugs. I don’t know if I had just listened to this song before my crash or something, but I was living a version of the song “Pursuit of Happiness” by Kid Cudi.

They were giving me large doses of dilaudid nonstop because of all my injuries and the pain I was in. I would hallucinate that I was walking out of the ICU and suddenly the walls would turn to stars. Then I would see people just doing weird stuff. I would start walking again and realize that I couldn’t walk (I was paralyzed) and I would feel like I was falling, but instead I was trying to get up in bed.

This happened all the time and felt like it lasted forever. It was kind of cool and sad at the same time. The “dreams” were incredible and made me feel good, but then I would feel sad because I would remember I was paralyzed. I would keep thinking I was getting up, but would end up just remember I was in bed and it was impossible.

2. Neighbor’s kid was in a medically-induced coma
Neighbors kid was in a bad accident and was in a medically-induced coma. The doctors said that he might be able to hear what they said so sound upbeat, talk to him, play his favorite music, sports, etc. He liked Elvis so they played his CDs almost non stop. When he finally awoke from the coma he thought he was Elvis. It took a long time for him to accept the truth. He had a very long recovering because of his traumatic brain injury. He now works as an Elvis impersonator. 100% the truth. Everyone thinks I’m making it up when I tell them.

3. Car accident
I was in a coma after car accident. I only remember one thing: I was walking down a street. I fell to my knees while coughing. I grabbed at my throat. I look down and saw my esophagus on the ground. I then fell onto my side. I learned later that was probably my vent tube coming out of throat.

4. Three months had passed
Not me, but a friend of mine had some serious complications due to his chemo therapy so they had to induce a coma for a few months when we were both 16. I asked him if he dreamed when he was in the coma and he said the following.
“I remember it was a very long dream. First it was a nightmare, I was being chased by all these Chucky dolls with knives who were trying to murder me. Eventually though, the dream shifted and Jesus came to me. He explained that he would take me to heaven if I was ready. My parents were there and they were very sad that I was going to leave them and I remember thinking about it a lot and weighing all the options, but I finally decided I was going to go with Jesus. When I told Jesus I was ready he smiled at me and said “Sorry it’s not your time.” He then went up into the sky and disappeared into light. I was very upset because I was ready to go. Then I remember waking up and 3 months had passed.”

Should also be noted that he and his family are Catholic and very religious. This obviously reaffirmed everything he believes. He went on to be a Doctor.


5. Can’t tell if it was a dream or not
I spent ten days in a medically induced coma following the birth of my youngest son. He will be three years old this September. When I woke up I remember being very upset about a conversation between two nurses that took place in my hospital room while I was sleeping. I’ve always wondered if that conversation really happened or if it was a dream/nightmare.

6. The Grudge
Before I entered a coma (fell from the second story of a gym under construction and landed on my head), I had watched The Grudge. So during the whole coma, I dreamed that I was trapped in a completely white room with the grudge girl. She never moved and just stood there, but when I woke up from that coma, I refused to close my eyes for a couple of nights from fear.

7. Dying dreams are not fun
I was in a chemically induced coma for two weeks. My situation wasn’t normal. They didn’t know what was wrong with me other than that my lungs were totally full of fluid and that my brain was on the fast track to shutting down. They told my mother I was going to die and they couldn’t do anything about it. My blood oxygen saturation was something like 29% when I came in. They said over and over that I shouldn’t be alive. They kept telling me that. The nurses, the doctors, the girls in the ambulance. I remember fading away while staring at the freakishly bright lights in my face in the ER.

If others dreams were anything like mine, they won’t want to tell you about them. It’s not “dreams” so much as it is another reality. I remember meeting people that I’d never seen nor heard of, becoming really good friends with them, then watching one of the girls die in a horrific car wreck. Apparently I came to at some point and started asking, “The girl, is the girl ok?” It was the most vivid thing I’ve ever been a part of.

I remember there was a party where people were covered in animal shit. There was some really dark stuff that I really don’t want to talk about, much less write down. I have “forgotten” some of it I suppose. It was terrible for me. Some people’s experiences may be different, but mine was drug induced and I wouldn’t wish those dreams on anyone. I spent 14 days under. I was not aware of anything on the outside. It never occurred to me that I may have been dead or dying. I never once thought I was in bad shape. Hell, I WALKED into the hospital with less than 30% blood oxygen concentration. All this happened on Christmas eve night. I’m like 6 years past that now and I was told that the only lasting damage was some scar tissue on my lungs that may or may not go away with time.

If you’re dying, your dreams are fucked up. Nothing good or fun took place.

8. Dreams telling you reality in weird ways
I was in the hospital for 3 months with bacterial pneumonia. I had renal and pulmonary failure. There was not much hope for survival. They had me in a medically induced coma in order for my body to have a shot. Apparently I fought it with everything I had. I tried to rip the breathing tube out of my mouth and had to be tied to the bed so I wouldn’t succeed.

When I came to, I wrote welcome to Jeopardy on a pad of paper with my limited motor skills at the time. I was terrified that they were going to amputate my leg and I was convinced that it was going to happen or had already happened but the doctor’s and my parents were afraid to tell me. I tried to be strong and not upset anyone else because my family had been through enough so I was going to accept the amputation and I would be okay. It took me 3 days once I was awake to ask about my leg. They all looked at me like I was crazy, no they were not going to amputate my leg, why would they do that? I found out that in the next room over, there was a gentleman who was diabetic and they were going to amputate his leg and I heard that when I was in the coma and assumed they were talking about me. (Had surgery to fix my collapsed right lung, no amputations.)

Also I dreamt that I was in jail for a DUI in Virginia and I was in a car accident after hitting a cow so that is why I hurt.
Another dream was that God and Satan were battling for my soul but it was all in anime. It was in black and white as well. Oh and there was a bunny rabbit that wanted to kill me that lived in the television and it would attack if the tv was on.

And the final dream I remember was that I was in Ocean City, MD and I went on the Haunted House ride. Well the ride was a front and they would kidnap random people on the ride. I was kidnapped and they forced me to lay on the cold cement floor wearing a backless latex jumpsuit. The pain and ache of being on the cold floor gives me chills to this day. I was then sold to a graduate student who was doing some sort of 24 hour a day weaving. The weaving was on my back and it was in public for everyone to see me suspended while they wove thread through my back to make a weird design. I was suspended from hooks into my skin while this was happening. I assume that this was due to the doctors stitching me up after the surgery.

9. Beloved potato chips
Not me, but my father. My father was in a coma for three months and had a repeated “dream” of a bear stealing his potato chips.

10. Something beautiful
Years ago, my brother was in a coma for 2 months after a horrible car accident.
One night while my mom was in the room watching over him, she noticed his hand moved a little. When she got close, he woke up in shock, and desperately asked my mom, “Mom, where are the kids?! They helped so much where are they?! I couldn’t speak to them and say thank you! Where are they?!” I was the only kid that stepped into his room the whole 2 months.

After calming down, he told my mom that he saw himself from an aerial point of view laying on the hospital bed, in a tremendous white room. Beside him were two kids, one on each side of the bed. On the right was a little boy, that would always tell him, “Remain calm my boy… everything is going to be okay I promise. I’ve never left your side after all these years. You’ve grown into a fine young responsible man. I love you.” On the left was this little girl, that would tell him stories about my brother’s best childhood moments to keep him entertained. He said he felt like the boy was our grandpa from my mother’s side, which is a man I personally didn’t have the honor to meet due to being a baby. My grandpa has the most profound love for us grandchildren and visited everyday to see us. He lived across town and had no car or bike. He also said the girl was probably his best friend, who was in the backseat during the accident and died due to not wearing a seatbelt.

I believe my brother was taken to a part of heaven, but it wasn’t his time so my grandpa and his best friend watched over him as he recovered enough to wake back up and join us. Everyone has their time to leave the earth, I’m glad it wasn’t my brothers time and he’s still with us.

11. “Pump it up!”
I was in an medically induced coma for almost a month due to Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. I had a lot of dreams while under. I got sick very very quickly, 1 week sore chest pains next week having CPR for 20 minutes. Everything a few days before I crashed is very cloudy.
Anyway the dreams, Everything I dreamt was revolved around me being sick or in hospital, so I knew that much. I had a dream about getting dragged under the ocean, they were taking me somewhere I could be fixed and that was the best mode of transport. I remember being in a hospital out in the desert and a army of bone/poverty stricken people invading the hospital wanted to be helped, banging on doors yelling to be let in. I dreamt that the light fixture they could move around above the bed was what was feeding me pills, I could see them falling down the arms of the light.

I also dreamt that I was in a room with a pyramid of boxes that I could walk up and choose and each one took me to a different time/place with one of my friends or family and I could watch over what was happening.
I also remember this one with a big buffed up black guy all oiled up yelling “Pump it up” while exercising trying to keep me alive.

A day after one of my surgeries to have an LVAD implanted I came out of the operating room and I had developed a clot in my left leg that day (still under) I dreamt about some big machine getting close to my leg and it was going to cut it off if I didn’t get out of the way but I was stuck and couldn’t move. I don’t remember what happened with that dream, but when I finally woke up my family said that I got the clot and if the surgeon couldn’t remove it I was probably going to have to have my leg amputated.

One that really hit that I can’t remember if I’ve told anyone but I just remember being in a coma for over 9 years and finally waking up to my wife and seeing my 9 year old son for the first time while in an ambulance and I kept dropping in and out of the coma not being able to communicate with them.

12. Absolute hopelessness
When I was considered medically “dead” I couldn’t hear anyone, I was in a huge white room with no walls, just a floor. The floor would occasionally sparkle far off. I could not move, I could just look around, it was completely empty. I could still feel emotions, I had a heavy feeling of being nervous/worried. It felt like I was sneaking into a place where I did not belong, like a part of the house that was off limits to me as a kid. Time went by so slowly, I felt every second of it. It was only for 4ish minutes but it definitely felt that long. I could not think, I just felt. It was the most terrifying experience of my life. I felt helpless, everything was out of my control, I felt trapped. I don’t remember but when I was revived I screamed for minutes, I just screamed and cried.

13. Terror, fear, and evil
It was a short coma, a couple days, following a craniotomy. A lot of the dream/terror was a linear progression of time. All of the people had emotionless faces with dead eyes, no personality or life behind the eyes. Oddly, a lot of those people I saw in the terror/dream were random people from my past. An example? some guy I never talked to but often saw on campus 25 odd years ago kept popping up. I never met anyone I knew well such as friends or family and as I said no one interacted with me (Although they would look me in the eye…with their empty eyes).
I wandered down endless hospital corridors of my mind trying to get out. They were freaking long, epic hallways with locked doors. I would struggle past these random people from my life trying to find a way out of the endless, bland, white corridors. One time I got through a door that led up steps which opened onto the roof of the hospital but then I trapped on the roof with a starless night, no way off the roof and more of those soul less bit players from my life.

I also recall feeling the forces of good and evil fighting over me. I really hated that. Once, during a ‘battle’ I looked evil full in the eye in order to understand what it really was…and it was ignorance.
Hospital drugs and a damaged brain made for interesting terrors that I never want to deal with again. I wouldn’t recommend it.

14. Remembers it just like yesterday
I spent 3 months in a coma due to hitting a goal post during soccer practice. The coach had put the goals closer together for more physical contact and technique training. Their goalie had a wicked shot and could reach our goal with ease from theirs so he gave it a shot. I ran as fast as I could backwards while keeping an eye on the ball. The last thing I personally remember is thinking :”I wonder where the goal is..” and then turning my head. According to my team I ran straight into the post and flopped over like a dead fish, no reaction, nothing.
The impact of hitting the post with that speed and me turning my temple into it caused my brain to expand, they drilled a hole in my head to relieve pressure. When I awoke the doctor told me around the 2 month mark it wasn’t looking promising. Month 3 I woke up. recalling exactly how practice went. The headaches afterwards of trying to process that “yesterday” wasn’t actually yesterday but 3~ months ago were awful.

I have no recollections of any dreams during that time. Its very cliche but during my slow process of waking up my mom’s yelling still sounds like it was yesterday sometimes, I remember it very vividly.
Doctor came and told me that if I hadn’t turned my temple I wouldn’t have been there 3 months out cold, but that I was lucky to be alive. In the process I destroyed several eye nerves and the Snail shell shaped thing in your ear that keeps fluids that control your balance. It got damaged and I lost 2/3rds of the fluid. Other than a week or so of physio therapy I had no damage to my brain or memory

15. Trauma
Not me, but a relative of mine dreamed he was locked in a pillory in a medieval town square and hundreds of townspeople took turns pissing on him.
Traumatic brain injury. About a month out cold. Don’t remember if it was induced or not.

16. Morphine dreams
I was in a medically induced coma for a week and a half courtesy of a car accident. My family was at my bedside the entire time. Whenever I would move they would calmly say to me that I had been in a bad car accident, I was ok, and I was in a hospital. In my dreams I was going about my daily business of college classes and coffeehouses, the twist would be that I was introducing myself as having been in a bad car accident but I was ok and in a hospital, or in class I dropped a pen because my arm hurt and the student in front of me says that of course my arm hurts because I was in a bad car accident and so on.

These morphine dreams varied and were many, from the surreal to the mundane, then I had the realization that if I’ve been in a bad car accident that I should go to the hospital. So, in my dreams I walk into the local college town’s hospital, politely check into triage saying hi, I’ve been in a bad car accident but I’m ok and I wanted to get checked out. That’s when the nurses and doctors descended upon me in a life-saving frenzy. After that I opened my eyes.

17. This guy
I was in a coma for 8 weeks. I remember nothing.



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