“The Very Worst Horrors”: 68 People Who Have Been In A Coma Reveal What It Was Really Like

This past July I was in a terrible car wreck. Immediately after arriving at the hospital they put me in an induced coma which I remained in for one full week. I was hallucinating a lot thanks to the medicine they were giving me. I didn't realize that I was in a hospital. I actually thought that I was in a facility where you could make yourself younger by using other people's lives as fuel. Obviously using someone's life as fuel means that they [perish]. I was afraid during this entire week and a few days afterwards that they were going to use my family as fuel for someone else's life to make them younger. I was also afraid they were going to use my life as fuel as well. I felt so helpless. Because of the tubes going down my throat I wasn't able to speak so I couldn't tell anyone in my family what was going on while they were visiting me. A very frightening experience to say the least. Luckily the [medicine] wore off after a few days and once I was coherent I started to calm down.

Hit by a car, ran over by a truck. Anesthetic coma for a month. Lots of nightmares of being ripped apart over and over. Lots of nightmares of various types of imprisonment.

I'm pretty sure I felt them remove my left leg, because of a nightmare about being in an ambulance and Robin Williams was cutting into my left [bum] cheek and singing songs from his movies.

I read all the stories here of just deep sleeping through it and I'm jealous honestly. Among amputees, my story seems common for those who went under. I don't wish it on anyone.

For a month I faced the very worst horrors my mind could concoct and loop me through. I [perished] time and again. I woke up a different person. There are fates worse than [demise]. I know that as a stone cold fact now.

Got ran over by a big truck on my motorcycle. Girlfriend was on the back. We were both in a coma. She eventually [passed]. I spent 8 days in a coma. No dreams, no thoughts, no pain, just nothing. It was like a wormhole, one minute I was riding my bike, then I woke up briefly in the ER when they shoved a tube into my face, then I woke up 8 days later, disoriented and in a lot of pain. It took me awhile to remember what happened. Ended up losing a leg, but I'm lucky to be here, so no complaints. Big shout out to EMT's and doctors and nurses everywhere, you guys are awesome :)

I got hit by an underage drunk driver while I was biking home from work in college. It was a hit and run. I got hit pretty hard and broke a lot of bones, even knocked my teeth out when I slammed my face on the handle bars. I was in a coma for 12 days. I woke up in a lot of pain and very confused. Thankfully, they did all the surgeries on my bones while I was out cold.

I remember my family all standing around me staring and crying and then the doctor coming in to check my pupils. The doctor asked, "Do you know what day it is?" and before I could answer I heard my mom say, "Ask her a question she'd know even if she hadn't been unconscious" with sarcasm.

The last thing I remember is the feeling of the air streaming across my face as I flew forward on impact, even though the paramedics said I was awake when they got there. Apparently I kept telling them I was fine and just wanted to go home but as soon as they got me in the ambulance I was out cold.

I didn't hear anything even though my loved ones were talking to me. I woke up thirsty and sore and just so confused. I kept asking, "What the hell happened?" as I stared at my limbs which were in casts and hanging from contraptions on the bed. I had no concept that any time had passed. Then I relearned to walk and life went on with lots of problems but as my doctors always say I should have [be gone] or at least be paralyzed so I'm incredibly lucky.

I crashed my motorcycle early this year at a roundabout, I went to give way to a car and as a braked the front wheel lost traction the bike went sliding and I went right into a pole and snapped my femur. I had a fat embolism, which is when some of the fat from the bone marrow gets into your bloodstream it went through to my lungs and brain. I had to be put into an induced coma. I was under for 12 day breathing on machine while my lungs cleared up and I could have been severely brain damaged, the coma itself was very vivid and I was super confused when I woke. I dreamt I was working as a nurse in a plastic surgery which was under the hotel I was staying at in Bali. I thought I had been in Bali for a good week after a woke up and couldn't remember that I had a crash, unless someone told me about it which I would forget by the next day, it made for a very confusing time. All the people I met and worked with in my dream felt as real as my family and sometimes it actually makes me feel a bit down that I will never see them again.

Tldr: coma was great fun would do again.

Then-husband beat me unconscious with an iron.

I started coming out of the coma about 3 weeks later. I can vaguely recall a few moments of awareness - I could tell it was bright in the room, I could hear voices, but nothing made sense, and then it would go back to darkness. The first clear memory I have is of nurses talking as they were changing the dressing on arm, and I can remember panicking, not really knowing what was happening. I was too weak, and beat up, to really do much, and the one nurse talked to me until I calmed down. After that, I was still sleeping a lot, but I was awake and aware every day.

I have no memory of the coma itself, but my mother visited me every day, and says the staff would talk to me when they were in the room. Apparently they knew I was going to come out of it a day before I started coming around.

5 roll over car accident, no seat belt, ejected, car rolled over me and broke my bones head to toe. Picked up by emergency helicopter on the side of the ZYZZX freeway. Was in a coma for 2 1/2 weeks I believe from a mild head concussion, but of course the other injuries may have helped. I believe I woke up at one point in agonizing pain, they then put me in a medically induced coma and put me on a boat load of [meds].

I spent 2 1/2 months in the hospital. It's actually amazing that for maybe the first few weeks I barely asked what happened.

The one and most MAJOR memory of coming out of this coma was when they removed the catheter from my privates. Apparently I went from half consciousness to eyes wide open and I turned and slapped the nurse. After hearing this I apologized multiple times, she said "No worries! That actually happens a lot!" What a job that must be.

I have no memory of anything whilst in the coma, also the last memory I have pre-accident was the car jerking around a bit as the driver was falling asleep and veering off the road.

Don't remember much only that I was rushed to hospital with SAH (brain hemorrhage from burst aneurysm) Doctors decided to induce coma due to the amount swelling. I was in coma for about a week. I only remembered hearing familiar voices and calling out to them, but they could not hear me. I drifted in/out of my unconsciousness trying to get someone to talk back to me, it was totally black, I realized that I was not awake. Every time I heard a voice whether familiar or not I would start to talk....no answers...I cried screaming but still they could not hear me. "Why?" I asked myself. I was on a life support. I could feel the pain in my head. I woke up with hospital staff asking me if I knew where I was.

I was in a really bad accident when I was 12 and don't want to make this long so if you want details I will tell you. Anyway I ended up falling into a coma and had no response they said that because there was a 90% chance I was going to [perish] with my injuries that there was really no point in keeping me alive when I still needed to have a lot more major surgeries done. A day and a half later I woke up.

My accident happened on 12/15/06 in Mexico. My family and I went down for Christmas and because my dad wanted to buy land to make a vacation home. My dad's best friend invited us to go to the river and BBQ so we did. Around 8-9pm we left and like 25 minutes later a diesel truck hit us head on. The road was narrow and it was a two way so when we went around a corner the drunk truck driver merged into our lane and hit us. It dragged us a few meters and while being dragged the truck was rolling and it ended up rolling upside down to the side of the road. I remember when we got hit my mother screamed and I saw our headlights flash some trees. After it stopped rolling I had a feeling they had all died which was right but my body was in shock It did not process. I heard my sister cry and I told her everything would be okay. My dad, my pregnant mom, and my older sister passed away.

I went to 2 hospitals in Mexico and both told me I would die then I get brought back to California and 1/2 told me I wasn't going to make it. 16 surgeries in my stomach (seatbelt almost cut me completely in half and also cut my throat), 25 blood transfusions, both collapsed lungs, kidney exploded in the accident, lost a few inches off my intestines, lost my spleen, neck/ head/ spinal injuries, and gained a metal hand. My right hand so I had to become a lefty. Lucile Packard children's hospital saved my life. I am 21 now and next years will be 10 years. My family was buried in Mexico and I'm planning on visiting.

When I was in Mexico's hospital I had 5 major surgeries I needed because everything in my abdominal area tangled up together. My stomach was opened and needed to be bandaged up for 2 years after so it would slowly heal by itself without them having to close it up because of infections. The first few days is when I fell into a coma after the 2nd surgery.

I slipped and banged my head while hiking about a decade ago. I was out for about a day and a half. To me, I went straight from the sensation of falling on the trail being awake in a hospital bed.

I'd liken it to a light switch flipping my consciousness off and then on.

I had a very serious head injury. I don't quite recall the specifics of the swelling, but I was out for a little over 3 days, they said. I woke up as if someone had turned a light back on. I immediately tried to get up; I thought I was still on the mountain I was skiing.

I fell off a 5-story building. I was in a coma for two weeks. I was mostly dreaming very strange dreams induced by the morphine. I do remember glimpses of nurses. But not really.

Waking up two weeks later is what really shocked me. I tried to get up like nothing had happened. Then I realized I had a broken foot and a body brace. And I was tied up. I had yanked the tunes and IV several times and even scratched the doctors and nurses. The whole situation overall just gave me a shock when I woke.

Idk how I woke up though. I just did. I was 15.

I was in a medically induced coma with full medical paralysis for about a month after coming down with ARDS, a raging case of sepsis, multiple organ failure and as an added bonus, necrotizing fasciitis (flesh eating bacteria).

Most of the time, I was unconscious and had some wild, vivid dreams that are still like reality to me to this day. However, there were a handful of times that I woke up in my head. This was not good. I had no idea what had happened to me, what was happening to me and if I was ever going to be OK again. I could hear everything around me during these times and feel when people would touch me, but I couldn't open my eyes, move a muscle or speak. It was beyond terrifying.

In spite of everything and all of the doctors thinking I was going to die, I'm totally fine. A little scarred from where the flesh eating bacteria treated me like a buffet, but other than that, no long term consequences that I am aware of.

I had a colectomy (large intestine removed) a couple of years ago. 8 weeks after (I was already home, and had been given the 6 week post op all clear from my surgeon), I suffered a complication. I started throwing up constantly and was in some pretty severe pain. I was admitted back into the hospital, and my surgeon came into the room to speak with me and my husband. He said it looked like there might be a blockage, and that they wanted to run some tests the next day. He didn't seem particularly concerned. That conversation is the last thing I remember clearly. I woke up 5 days later in the I.C.U. Apparently as they were taking me down for the test I went into septic shock. My husband remembers clearly me asking a nurse if I was [perishing]. Her answer of something along the lines of "we're doing the best we can", scared the [hell] out of him. He said that's the most frightened he's ever been.

They ended up rushing me to surgery. I couldn't get a straight answer from anyone after the fact, but a nurse led me to believe I coded at some point. The first surgery was done by laparoscopy, this one was completely open. They cut from my belly button to my pelvis, and across my bikini line.

After the surgery I was placed in an induced coma. I remember very small snippets. A sentence here or there. My husband took a picture...it's nothing like the movies...I was attached to a bank of machines, with tubes everywhere. Now I suffer from PTSD. I think it has more to do with losing the day before everything went [wrong]. I don't remember what it felt like to go into sepsis. I don't know if there were any warnings. So every time I have a twinge, or I don't feel well, I worry that the same thing is happening again. It's been two years, it's getting better, but I cry almost every time I have to talk about it.

Editing to actually answer your questions: Coma was medically induced. Remember hearing a sentence or two throughout the 5 days. They brought me out of the coma, and the recollection is fuzzy, but I believe it was a gradual awareness. Everything around that time is fuzzy even beyond the coma as I was also on HEAVY antibiotics and pain medication.

Edit to the Edit: I do clearly remember being absolutely flabbergasted that 5 days had passed.

I had attempted [taking my life]. I was nearly successful and was in a coma for about three weeks, then it took me a while longer to fully come out of it.

When I was passing out, I remember everything felt white-ish and fuzzy and light, like I had put down a burden I had been carrying for ages.

While I was out, it was nothing. I don’t remember the ambulance or getting to the hospital or being intubated or anything like that.

Coming out of it was super slow. It took weeks, apparently. I remember it was like swimming below water. The surface of the water was consciousness. And I would be just floating under there. There was nothing I could do about it an no place I could go. I could sometimes hear people speak - but muffled, as if I were under water; and perceive dim light on the surface, but that was it. And it was only for a short period of time, and then I would slip back down deeper again, and it was nothing again.

Gradually, it was like I would get closer and closer to the surface and almost wake up. But I didn’t know what that surface was. I didn’t know what was “up” there and I really didn’t care. It was just a fact of my existence that didn’t seem to affect me much, and I didn’t pay much attention to it until I got REALLY close to being awake, and it started to intrude on my little underwater float-y world.

Apparently, I would finally flicker in and out of consciousness - I don’t remember this part at all, and apparently I wasn’t actually self aware. Like, I could start responding to people - sort of, then increasingly intelligibly - but it didn’t make all that much sense, esp. because I had tubes and all that stuff, I guess. Most of this time for me was just that floating thing.

They must have taken the tube out at some point, because my husband told me that I spoke to him a lot - and told him what had happened and why I had attempted to [end my life]. But again, I don’t remember.

When I gained consciousness, I was more surprised than I think anyone else, as they were expecting it for days.

And then “why does my throat hurt so much?”

I couldn’t walk or move my arms or anything for a while after that and had to stay in cardiac ICU for a while. I remember my aunt and uncle being there and my in laws and my husband, and having lots and lots of tubes and wires and stuff being attached to me.

It wasn’t so bad, really. But, waking up all the way was a bit of a bummer.

Car accident, severe head injury. I was out for a week or so. It isn't at all like movies or TV shows - you don't just wake up as you do from sleep. It's a very gradual process, over days.

I remember only coming to partially a couple of times. My family had a radio playing constantly in my hospital room. Once when I woke up partially I remember thinking we were in the radio station and the male nurse was the DJ.

A few other images like that, much like from dreams. I don't remember the accident itself and was told that is normal. The mind erases or represses extreme memories like that. I do remember everything until the day of the accident though. Was told accident patients often can't remember days or weeks prior to their accidents.

Overall it was much like being asleep but there was little to no sense of time having passed.

No light at the end of the tunnel or suspension in mid air looking down on my body. Mostly nothingness. SorryNotSorry.

Open-heart surgery patient checking in.

Bit of a SNAFU during surgery caused me to be in a medically-induced coma for two weeks. I'd love to tell you all about how I saw a bright light, and heard angels singing and whatnot, but the truth is it was just like a really long nap, from which you occasionally wake for a second, feel tubes sticking out of every orifice, and nope back to sleep.

I was in a coma for about 3 weeks as the result of being hit by a car. Many broken bones...Quite a strange experience...I remember coming out of it and having a thirst like nothing I have ever experienced. They wouldn't let me drink anything for two days either...just ice chips...it was really frustrating:).

One I can answer!
I was in a coma for a little over 3 weeks, I had a blood infection (Strep Group A) which was pretty bad. Early on during it, they called the family in to say goodbye kinda stuff. The short of it is, no, I don't remember much, I kinda remember when I was coming out of it, being pretty pissed off at my dad for not letting me go see my dogs or not bringing my dogs up to see me or something like that, called him [a jerk]...he took it well though.

My wife was there almost the entire time, she believes prayer & a positive energy pulled me though. I'm not a believer though, my $$ is on medical science and the care of professionals (especially the nurses!). Other than that slight memory at the end, there was NOTHING, no bright light, no memory of people talking to me (which my wife tells me was constant), nothing at all. I woke up and was transferred to a normal room (out of the ICU) and tried to get up & walk to the bathroom one night right after getting transferred, they told me not to, but dummy me thought I knew better...I didn't. That made for a very embarrassing episode that I was sure to not repeat. I didn't get back up until I was up on the rehab ward and the professionals there were assisting me. All in all I spent almost 3 months in the hospital with me loosing nearly a month out of that time, just GONE. It was quite the humbling experience.

Male (31). At age 3 I took a dive Into a sidewalk from a 2.5 story balcony head first. Was in coma for 3 months. Mom said it was like I woke up a newborn at age three. To this day I still have fragments of memories before, during, and after it happened up until I went out to the balcony.