Near death experiences: visions of the afterlife from people who have been brought back

What happens after a person dies remains a mystery – from religion, science and philosophy – is one of humanity’s great unanswered questions.

But some near-death experience survivors can provide fascinating insight into what we can expect on the other side of life.

From seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, floating over the slopes, hallucinations, and demonic renditions of Rhianna’s music in Hell, people who have returned from the brink have revealed all sorts of bizarre answers about what it’s really like to die.

Gerald Johnson: “There was a section in hell where music played”

Pastor Gerald Johnson, 49, of Texas, said Rihanna’s hit song ‘Umbrella’ rang through the gates of hell during his bizarre visit to purgatory.

Johnson said: ‘It just blew me away, it still baffles me to this day. There was a section in Hell where music played.

‘It was the same music we heard on Earth, but unlike the artists who sang it, the demons sang it.

“While you’re here, you can listen to breakup music like ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ or ‘Umbrella,’ but down there every lyric in every song is to haunt you.”

He took to TikTok to explain his 2016 journey into the abyss that he said he “wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”

In addition to being forced to listen to fan-favorite hits in the burning hell, he also claimed to have witnessed the gruesome scene of a man being burned alive.

“The things I saw were indescribable, it moves me,” he said.

‘His eyes were bulging and worse than that, he was wearing chains around his neck… it was a demon holding the chain.’

In his viral clip, the pastor warned others how to avoid the same hellish fate, as he claims it is now clear to him why he was originally doomed.

“The root of this is that although I did good and gave a lot to people, what I had in my heart was the lack of forgiveness towards people who had done me wrong,” he said.

‘That’s my experience with Hell, it’s a real place. God doesn’t send people to Hell, people send themselves to Hell.’

Duncan Seth-Smith: ‘I remember floating up a hill’

Duncan Seth-Smith, 67, from Lincolnshire, has a vivid memory of floating over a hill when he went into cardiac arrest on Boxing Day 2005.

Mr Seth-Smith, 50 at the time, recalled hearing doctors prepare the defibrillator while he was unconscious in hospital, with one saying ‘again’ when he was ‘attacked’.

He was in the ICU for four days and just before he was allowed to go home, he felt dizzy and collapsed, needing CPR again after going into another cardiac arrest.

Recalling his second test, Mr Seth-Smith said: “I have a vivid memory of floating over a local hill and watching the people sledding.

“It was a local rural hillside, but it wasn’t known for sledding and it wasn’t a place I would have spent any time other than driving.” At the time of cardiac arrest there was no snow.

“I woke up in bed with a cut on my face where I had hit a cart/bed when I passed out. The nurses said it took three defibrillator shocks for my heart to fire up and get back into rhythm.

“That’s all I can remember, apart from asking my wife if it was snowing, to which she said no.”

Mr. Seth-Smith received three shocks from a defibrillator and was then fitted with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD).

Kevin Curtis: “I was zooming in from a dark place”

After being stung multiple times on the face and neck by bees 21 years ago, 50-year-old Kevin Curtis was rushed to hospital.

Mr Curtis, now 71, was suffering from anaphylaxis and was unconscious but “aware of my surroundings”.

His blood pressure had plummeted dramatically, and he heard a doctor say that if they didn’t get an epi-pen soon, “I’m most likely going to die.”

During the ambulance ride to the hospital, Mr. Curtis, of Lincolnville, Maine, recalls seeing a bright light to the side before he sensed the vehicle had stopped.

The grandfather-of-two said he could hear paramedics discussing his ‘imminent death’ and then ‘felt the pain in my face’ as he was carried out of the ambulance.

Curtis, a retired financial information architect, described the feeling as “approaching from a cold, dark area” to reality.

‘Serene, non-threatening, sort of out of body, calm, love is the best I can describe the overall moment. As a result, I have no fear of death per se,” she added.

“I worry about the path to get to that place, but death itself doesn’t seem as scary as an ending.

“I don’t know what was on the other side of the light or what thoughts I might continue to have and for how long, but it wasn’t a place to be afraid to go.”

Caroline Ghyselen: “She was in the air looking at me from above”

Caroline Ghyselen was 19 years old when she nearly died after going through the windshield of a car.

While being treated by A&E doctors, Miss Ghyselen said she had a “strange feeling of despising myself”.

She said: ‘He seemed to be in the air, literally looking down. I thought to myself, wow, this is weird.

‘The predominant factor was the most amazing sense of calm and serenity and the feeling of pure joy.

Ms Ghyselen, who also sometimes talks about her TikTok experience, realized that she “would have to go back.”

She was ‘not happy’ about having to return to her body because she knew she would be in pain and face a long healing process.

She added: “I started arguing the point and saying over and over again ‘I don’t want to go back, I don’t want the pain.’

‘The next thing I knew, the nurse was rubbing my arm and saying ‘don’t worry love, we’ll give you something for the pain.’

Martin Holloway: ‘I had visions while in surgery’

Martin Holloway, from Colchester, ended up needing 70cm of his intestine removed in 2019 after being rushed to hospital critically ill.

The 64-year-old man’s wife was told to take his relatives to the hospital to prepare to say his last words.

While “near death” and undergoing surgery, Holloway recalled what he described as “visions or memories” of what was happening in the operating room.

When he woke up from the operation, the surgeon told him ‘You won’t recognize me’ but he said yes.

The warehouse operations manager said he knew her name, remembered her standing over him, looking at him and others around the room, and talking to other doctors.

Holloway said it “scared the hell out of her” because she was worried he had been awake during the surgery.

He added: ‘She asked ‘How do you know?’ and I told her that she remembered that she was there, but she didn’t take it any further at the time.

“I knew where she had been and I recognized her, but I had never seen her before.”

Holloway added: “I thought the visions were my imagination under the pain drugs, but after waking up and recognizing her I wasn’t so sure.”