There aren't many people out there who can describe the experience of being dead - for obvious reasons - but one Reddit user who died and was revived has opened up about the unusual experience.
In their post, the user, who works in healthcare, explained they were 'on life support for quite some time' after the incident, which saw them pronounced dead 'for a couple of minutes' before being placed on a mechanical ventilator for several days.
Having had a first-hand experience of what it's like to be both a patient and healthcare professional, they said the ordeal 'really heightened' their perspective on life.
The Redditor offered other social media users the chance to ask them anything about their near-death experience, prompting one person to ask for more details about what it was like.
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The healthcare worker responded: "The experience was humbling. I felt absolutely no pain. I was comfortable even though my body was fighting hard against everything physically. I remember vomiting a few times while on the ventilator and aspirating... but, it didn't hurt."
Being 'surrounded by [their] family in the ICU', the patient felt comfort from their loved ones and even heard conversations happening between them.
"It was a bit like an out-of-body experience... I can still recall conversations my family had in the ICU room but no matter how much I wanted to reply to them or even interact with them, I couldn't. That was the weird part for me," they said.
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Things only got more unusual, however, when the patient spotted someone who couldn't possibly have been in the room with them.
They explained: "Upon extubation (removing ventilator from lungs), I remember seeing my grandmother who passed away in 2004. She told me to 'turn around... my time here is just beginning'. Then... I felt the tubes slide out of my lungs and the nurses yelling my name."
In another comment, the poster said they were 'blessed' to see their grandmother's face, adding: "She basically told me that my time here on earth wasn't finished."
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"I like to refer to her as my genuine guardian angel," they continued. "I do not really know if she came to me or not... or whether it was the medications. However, it was comforting and opened my eyes to the real possibility of seeing my loved ones who have passed on again."
Reddit users described the story as 'wild', with one writing: "I love reading about stuff like this. Sure, the brain is powerful and it’s entirely possible that was a hallucination of some kind. But it’s also possible it wasn’t."
Other users shared their own experiences with people who have been close to death, with one Redditor who worked in a brain trauma unit explaining that staff 'always talked to patients in vegetative states because we know that you can never tell with 100% accuracy whether or not a person can perceive anything at all.'
Emily Brown