Some people say death is the great unknown. Others insist that, for a fleeting moment, they’ve glimpsed what lies beyond.
Across cultures, centuries, and belief systems, stories of death experiences have stirred fascination, fear, and faith in equal measure. Now, more survivors are speaking openly about what they saw, felt, or didn’t see at all – offering startlingly different accounts of what it means to die and come back.
For some, the experience is marked by calm simplicity. Matthew Allick said ‘everything was peaceful’, a story which resonates with those who believe that death may be nothing more than a final rest, gentle and dreamless.
Others, however, describe something far more complex – visions that blend science, spirit, and surreal imagery. Brianna Lafferty, for instance, recalled traveling through a numeric tunnel which she interpreted as a symbolic reminder of the universe’s hidden mathematical structure. To her, death was not an end, but a revelation.
Nicole Meeuws’ memory carried her to a place that felt otherworldly yet oddly familiar. She claims to have been greeted by blue-skinned beings with human faces. Whether her mind conjured the figures or she truly stepped into another realm remains impossible to prove, but her conviction is unwavering.
For some survivors, what they encountered was not peace, but terror. A 68-year-old great-grandmother claims she was shown the extremes of both Heaven and Hell. ‘After seeing the beauty of Heaven, the contrast of seeing Hell is almost unbearable,’ she said.
Such accounts blur the line between belief and biology. Scientists argue that oxygen deprivation, chemical surges, and neurological shutdowns can trigger hallucinations that feel intensely real. But for those who lived them, the memories are more than mere tricks of the brain – they’re proof of a larger truth.
What emerges from these vastly different testimonies is not a single answer, but a mosaic of possibilities. Peaceful sleep, mathematical tunnels, celestial beings, or the terrifying edge of Hell – each account offers a new layer to the mystery.
A peaceful sleep
Matthew Allick, 42, started feeling unwell at the end of August 2023, dealing with symptoms including shortness of breath and swollen feet.
Since the father-of-two from Romford, East London, was generally fit and healthy, he put his new health issues down to his body adjusting to working night shifts.
Matthew Allick (pictured) suffered a major heart attack and was clinically dead for several minutes
But when Matthew was unable to climb a single step at his workplace, he told a colleague to call an ambulance.
Shortly after arriving at hospital, the then 40-year-old actor and care line officer collapsed following a cardiac arrest caused by a pulmonary embolism.
Scans revealed he had blood clots the ‘size of a cricket ball’ on his heart and lungs and so surgeons performed several procedures in an attempt to remove them.
This included using a catheter to ‘cut away at the clots’ and multiple blood transfusions, which Matthew credits with saving his life.
His family were warned that if he ever awoke, he may be brain dead – because of the length of time his brain was deprived of oxygen.
He was deemed clinically dead for several minutes before medics resuscitated him and placed him in a coma.
When Matthew came round after three days, he didn’t remember anything – but said it felt like he had awoken from ‘a peaceful sleep’.
‘I don’t remember anything from when I was dead,’ he said. ‘But what I do remember is coming out of the coma and it felt like I had been sleeping. Everything was peaceful. It felt like a peaceful sleep.’
Matthew said that while he was recovering in hospital, doctors called him ‘a miracle man’ – because of how unexpected it was for him to survive such an ordeal.
A white room with no windows or doors, just numbers
Brianna Lafferty, who lives in Colorado, had battled a rare genetic brain disorder since childhood called myoclonus dystonia. It caused painful muscle spasms and nerve pain that made sleeping – and living – difficult.
But it was in 2017 when things got so bad her body gave out.
She had been suffering from extreme insomnia, sometimes going four days without a single minute of sleep, and had come down with the flu. Her sodium levels plummeted to a critically low 115 milliequivalents per liter (normal range is 135–145).
When someone’s organs start failing, their ability to regulate fluids and electrolytes, leading to sodium imbalances. ‘My body had basically just given out. I was incompatible with life.’
Lying in a Texas hospital bed with her mother by her side, Brianna stopped breathing. Her heart stopped. But eight minutes later, ‘miraculously,’ it began to beat again.
Brianna, who is based out of Colorado , started suffering from poor health at the age of 10, with some of her debilitating symptoms including painful muscle spasms, nerve pain, anxiety, depression, and insomnia
What happened in between, she says, changed everything. As she lost consciousness, Brianna heard a voice ask if she was ‘ready.’ When she said yes, she slipped into what she calls ‘complete darkness.’
Instead of panic, there was clarity. ‘I was completely still, yet I felt fully alive, aware and more myself than ever before. There was no pain, just a deep sense of peace and clarity.’
In this other realm, she no longer remembered her human self. She was weightless, detached from her physical form – and aware that what we experience on Earth is fleeting and fragile. ‘Everything happens at once there, as if time doesn’t exist, yet there was perfect order.’
Brianna found herself traveling through a bright blue tunnel ‘filled with ones and zeros,’ which she believes was symbolic of the universe’s mathematical structure.
That tunnel opened into a white room with no doors or windows – just more numbers – before she entered a series of vivid, surreal landscapes.
In one scene, beings she didn’t recognize (but felt deeply connected to) were sliding down snow-covered trees. When she thought about how she disliked snow, the scene immediately shifted into a lush, spring-like setting.
At one point, she learned to fly – only to hurl herself into a pole and lose an arm.
But unlike when she was alive on Earth, Brianna did not experience pain when she was injured and she was fascinated to watch as her bloodied limb grew back.
Her journey eventually brought her to a barbed wire fence. On the other side stood a mountain, a farm, and a house. The other beings passed through the fence – but Brianna couldn’t follow.
Her final stop was a room where a scroll was presented to her by seven powerful beings. But before she could unravel its contents, her ego returned – and so did her consciousness.
Back in her body, it felt like she had been gone for months. But in reality, just eight minutes had passed. ‘It changed the course of my life.’
Pulled into a tunnel of blue and white light
A woman who was officially pronounced dead for two minutes before coming back to life revealed the shocking things she endured during those 120 seconds.
Nicole Meeuws’ heart stopped after she suffered from a series of serious complications while giving birth.
She recalled being ‘pulled’ from her body and entering a tunnel of light while her physical form was laying lifeless on a hospital bed.
The 49-year-old said both time and fear didn’t exist after passing over to ‘the other side.’
She explained: ‘I found myself passing through a tunnel of blue and white light, not a beam, but a corridor that felt alive.
‘It didn’t feel frightening. it felt like I was being called home. The light had a temperature, a tone, almost like music made of water.’
After passing through the ‘light,’ she said she came to an ‘immense glowing space.’
‘The colors were not of this world, they were luminous tones of silver, soft violets, deep radiant blues – and they didn’t strain the eyes,’ she continued.
Nicole Meeuws recalled being ‘pulled’ from her body and entering a tunnel of light while her physical form was laying lifeless on a hospital bed
‘The chamber was vast, larger than any earthly structure, and everything pulsed gently like a heartbeat. And then I saw them.’
Nicole recalled being greeted by blue-skinned beings with human faces, similar to the creatures in the film Avatar.
While she didn’t understand their language, she said they made her feel at home and gave her the message telepathically that life is actually an illusion – and we only start living when we die.
‘Two towering beings seated on marble-like thrones, shimmering with energy,’ she shared. ‘Their eyes were large and indigo, filled with kindness and recognition. They looked human, but had gentle gills on their cheeks.
‘I remember seeing their fish-like tails, rather than legs, covered in scales. They were both male and female intertwined and didn’t speak in words – but I understood everything they had to tell me.’
Visiting family who lived over 200miles away
A neuroscientist who described herself as ‘a loser’ revealed how an out-of-body experience while she was clinically dead changed her life forever.
Anna Stone was a 38-year-old with two children in 2016 when she died for six minutes during a sudden medical episode.
That’s when Stone said she left her body and actually watched as doctors gave up on her in the emergency room.
Before re-entering her body, the young mother said she also visited her daughters – including her oldest who was in school over 200 miles away from her hospital bed.
During this near-death experience, Stone added that she believes she discovered a higher version of herself in another realm and came to the realisation that God and the afterlife were real.
After coming back to life, Stone said the experience propelled her to completely change who she was as a person – finishing school, getting a PhD, and even starting a podcast.
‘That’s what my life has been, all about serving, service to others, and service to myself and being a better mother,’ Stone said.
As for her out-of-body experience, the mother now believes that God is ‘definitely not a person, and time is definitely not linear. Everything is happening now.’
Anna Stone said she was able to visit both of her children while having a near-death experience
A trip to Heaven and a tour to the edge of Hell
A Kansas woman came forward with her harrowing personal story of literally going to Hell and back during an 11-minute near-death experience.
Charlotte Holmes – at the time a 68-year-old great-grandmother – said her journey to the other side began during a routine heart check-up with her cardiologist in September 2019.
As her blood pressure rocketed up to 234 over 134, her doctors told her, ‘Either you’re having another stroke, or you’re about to have a heart attack,’ as she recalled.
What followed was a trip to ‘Heaven’ and a tour to ‘the edge of Hell’ led by God himself as a lesson, according to Holmes, that she was asked to pass on to the living.
Holmes explained that her journey began as a classic ‘out of body experience’ before she was led by angels into Heaven.
‘I was above my body,’ as she remembered the ordeal. ‘I could see them doing chest compressions. I could see them, all the nurses around. I could smell the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever smelled. And then I heard music.’
In a flash, Holmes said, ‘When I opened my eyes, I knew where I was. I knew I was in Heaven.’
Holmes described her journal to Heaven as one of ‘no fear’ and only ‘pure joy.’
As she told the Christian news broadcaster, she was greeted by younger healthier versions of deceased family members as well as historic saints from history.
‘I saw my mom. I saw my dad. I saw my sister. I saw family members standing behind. I saw saints of old,’ Holmes recalled. ‘They didn’t look old. They didn’t look sick. None of them wore glasses.’
‘Standing behind my mom and dad was a light so bright,’ she continued. ‘I couldn’t look upon it. So bright. But I knew it was my Heavenly Father.’
After being briefly reunited with a child that she had lost when she was five-and-a-half months pregnant, Holmes recalled that God then took her on a darker, but more educational detour.
‘God took me to the edge of Hell,’ the 68-year-old great-grandmother professed. ‘I looked down and the smell – rotten flesh – that’s what it smelled like,’ Holmes recalled. ‘And screams. After seeing the beauty of Heaven, the contrast of seeing Hell is almost unbearable.’
Holmes told The 700 Club that God had a purpose for showing her the horrors that follow a life lived outside of morality: ‘He says, ‘I show you this to tell you if some of them do not change their ways, this is where they shall reside.’ I heard my Father say, ‘You have time to go back and share.”
Charlotte and her husband Danny said that she made a full recovery and was released from the hospital after two weeks of observation.
A Wichita, Kansas woman – a 68-year-old Charlotte Holmes (above) – has come forward with her harrowing personal story of literally going to Hell and back, all in the space of an 11-minute near death experience. ‘God took me to the edge of Hell,’ Holmes told The 700 Club
Travelling weightless over the moon alongside meteorites
An actor who was brought back to life by medics seven minutes after suffering a massive cardiac arrest in 2013 shared what he saw before being resuscitated.
Shiv Grewal, 60, had just finished starring as Don Pedro in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Much Ado About Nothing when he had a massive heart attack at home in Peckham in South East London, after a meal out with his wife Alison, 50.
Shiv, who was put in an induced coma for a month after being revived by emergency service workers, said of the several minutes during which his heart had stopped beating: ‘It was like I was in a void but I could feel emotions and sensations.’
He described seeing ‘meteorites and space’, all of which went on to inspire his work, which he said aims to capture ‘what a person experiences when they cross the threshold of the non-living’.
Shiv’s abstract pieces all featured vibrant colours and blurred lines, and depicted the ‘cosmic journey’ he experienced when his heart stopped, during which he recalled being ‘weightless’ and ‘travelling over the moon’.
‘Despite knowing I was dead, I also knew that there was a chance of coming home,’ Shiv said. ‘I also understood that I’d be reincarnated, but I didn’t want that just yet. I wanted to return to life, to the material world and to my wife. I demanded that I was coming back and I got my wish.’
The whole experience was ‘like a waking dream,’ said Shiv, who met his wife in 2004 while starring in a West End production with a friend of hers.
He said his highly personal artwork is an effort to offer other people a glimpse of what awaits us all when we die.
‘I had no body as such,’ he said. ‘I suppose it was a bit like swimming through water, you feel weightless and disconnected from the physical world’.
