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

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.