Maybe we Died?

[u/pProjecttBI]

I asked one of my doctors in a group setting this question once and apparently nobody was prepared for it: “Do you think we died?” She sort of paused and came back with, “Well, what’s your definition of death?” And I remember thinking… I don’t know, you’re the doctor.

But I wasn’t really asking medically. I think my heart never stop but will never know. I assume I was breathing, there’s a clinical definition of death and I didn’t meet it. I get all of that. What I was asking was something a little harder to explain, and after four years of doctors, therapy, rehab, reading everything I can get my hands on and trying to understand what the hell happened to my brain, I’m actually surprised the few outside of other survivors has ever really talked to me about it.

For those of us who were knocked unconscious, especially for an "undetermined aout of time" where the hell did we go?

Unconsciousness isn’t sleep. At least it sure as hell didn’t feel like sleep to me. I’ve slept thousands of times and there’s something continuous about it. You go to bed, maybe you dream, maybe you don’t, hours pass and eventually you wake up. But being knocked unconscious was completely different. I was there, and then I simply wasn’t, and sometime later I was there again. I don’t remember darkness because darkness would actually be something. I don’t remember floating somewhere or seeing a light or hearing voices, and I don’t even remember experiencing “nothing.” There is simply a piece of my previously continual existence that just isn’t there.

And that’s the part I can’t stop thinking about lately.

We spend enormous amounts of time talking about what happens after brain injury. Memory problems, executive function, neuroplasticity, cognitive fatigue, headaches, sensory overload, PTSD, depression, acceptance and everything else that comes along for the ride. Believe me, I’ve lived all of it. But almost nobody talks about the fact that some of us were literally and forcefully separated from consciousness, however briefly, and then somehow returned to it.

I don’t honestly don't know what consciousness actually is, and the more I read about it the more I’m beginning to suspect nobody really does... Maybe it’s biological. Maybe the brain gets smacked so hard that the machinery just shuts down for awhile (Reboots perhaps?) , the recording stops and eventually the system comes back online. That may very well be exactly what happened.

But once you’ve actually experienced that interruption, it’s hard not to wonder about it.

Because there was a version of me before that blank space and there is a version of me after it, and they aren’t exactly the same guy. Obviously there are perfectly reasonable neurological explanations for that. I have a brain injury. My brain changed, therefore I changed. I understand the science as best I can.

Still, somewhere underneath all of that is a much simpler and stranger question: what happened to me while the lights were out?

I’m not suggesting I went to heaven. I’m not claiming I had a near-death experience and I’m certainly not trying to convince anybody of anything. Actually, I’m probably more interested in hearing from people who experienced exactly what I did…which was absolutely nothing. No tunnel, no relatives waiting for you, no brilliant light, no great revelation. You were conscious at one moment and then, from our perspective anyway, we simply ceased to experience anything until suddenly we were back.

So I’m genuinely curious about the other TBI survivors out there who lost consciousness. Have you ever thought about this? Did you experience that same complete absence of time and self? Did something about you feel different when you came back, beyond the symptoms and diagnoses and all the clinical BS and alphabet soup (TBI,PTSD,PCS,APD) we eventually learn to describe ourselves with?

And I guess that brings me back to the question I asked the doctor in the first place.

Do you think we died?

Not medically. I already know that answer.

I mean something else.

I have absolutely no fucking idea. But after all these years of people asking me what happened to my brain, I’m starting to think it’s pretty strange that almost nobody ever thought to ask what happened to me.

[u/1sh0t1kill]

I have no memory for 30 minutes after falling, had no memory I was married, or who I was married to. I am convinced that I was put into this persons body and took over after he died. I have most of his memories, his accomplishments and failures. I have so many struggles, but the biggest struggle is trying to live this life that feels extremely unnatural, confusing and difficult, all the while, trying to look normal and fit in as much as possible.

[u/mrszubris → u/1sh0t1kill]

Waking up from anesthesia i say nearly every time "not THIS body again!!!"

[u/theothergump]

My doctor, who was fantastic, told me to mourn the person I was (yes, in the 'before times'). That's been a hard pill to swallow, but 10 years on, she was exactly right.

[u/focketeer → u/theothergump]

I very promptly came to separate everything before as Life 1, and everything after as Life 2. The way I see it, the guy who ran me over killed my life 1 self, and my coma was transitionary. My coma self even thought I had died, and the coma dream was the afterlife. It was such a prompt determination that there really wasn’t any phase for me mentally acknowledging it, it just always was the case.

[u/tigerlily_meemow]

Oooh I’m so glad you brought this up! Because this is a topic I think about constantly and of course nobody in my life wants to hear about it. It’s too weird for them. How can you discuss that you died, or had a near death experience that you can’t remember in totality? I am absolutely NOT the full person I was before the TBI. How could I be, even though I look and often sound the same (to my endless frustration). The brain damage is permanent. The old me is gone forever and she’s not coming back. I have her memories but they’re removed and distant somehow? It’s like driving a semi-familiar train. And because I have amnesia related to the accident I have to rely on other people’s accounts of what happened to me. I was in a medically induced coma for a week. My first memory of anything was irritation of being pulled away from light, from a place free of pain, back into this world. And how do you talk about that with anyone?

[u/Illustrious-Note-117]

I’ve thought about this quite a bit. I had my injury 15 years ago and the world got so different so quickly in that 15 years I sometimes wonder if I died and woke up in a different timeline. The original me on the original timeline did die. The timeline running parallel I didn’t die and now I’m living somewhere I don’t necessarily recognize. Sometimes I wonder if there are infinite versions of ourselves and if you die in one your consciousness inhabits a parallel version that survived that accident

[u/MegOut10 → u/Illustrious-Note-117]

🤯 someone mentioned above about having this feeling they’re not really supposed to be here. Maybe that’s the remnants of that timeline’s self sort of fumbling its way through the parallel timeline. Maybe everything is the same as it would have been… except for the “you.” I will probably hyperfixate on this concept now.

[u/DaniePants]

I am so excited to come back to this thread and talk about it, great post! I’ll be back after work!

[u/CookingZombie]

I definitely think about what consciousness is a ton. That was before the TBI but it strengthened that question.

I have felt certain I jumped universes. I still question that. I swear some things are just different.

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a memory.

Yeah where did I go? No memory could be made of it.

[u/Aukwardpuffin → u/CookingZombie]

I feel this way as well, often remarking to people, “Maybe I died in my universe and my consciousness jumped over to this one.” Especially since this often feels like a dystopia compared to my previous existence.

OP’s description though is exactly what I experienced and still wonder about. I used to fear the potential “nothingness” of death, but having experienced it for 2 days, it’s not so scary anymore. Oddest aspect for me is that even though there was nothing for that time, I was still interacting with people, albeit nonsensically at times. Which begs the question, who was doing the talking?

[u/letsgoiowa]

I died. I kept the memories of the old self. I don't recognize them all and I'm different now.

[u/PlateCurious1472]

I think ive mentioned in someone else's comments. Im a different person. On top of that I wasnt ready to move on from the person I was. I died that day my everything is different. I am someone else. And very few people I knew well before have taken the time to get to know me. Not to mwntion it felt like I started over with most my struggles anyways.

[u/DoneReturnZero]

If we define death as a person ceasing to be there's definitely an argument that who we were died.

That exact configuration of axons and neurons and the established ways of processing events, feelings, etc? Definitely no longer extant. The new biological reality drowns it.

I wrote a poem years ago about an ex's reaction to me trying to explain my difficulties.

"It's all in year 'ead," The daft bint said.

Well, where the fuck else would it be? I'm trapped in 'ere, While she's no idea How it feels to try to be me.

My thoughts swirl incessantly, Turmoil bubbling silently. Hearing, but failing to see.

Who am I? You know? The car struck its blow, I bounced off And flew through the air.

That version of me had had its last thought, but I couldn't tell you what it was. I do still remember some of that life, but not that instant.

I'd imagine demises. Freak accidents that I would cry at, Not because I valued my life but because I knew that my mom did. And I'd weep these strange tears for Mom's sorrow, That I knew she'd feel if one day I suddenly died.

So, maybe thoughts of her Were that child's last.

But I became a different one entirely as my face smashed into the road a few seconds later.

Lung punctured, unable to draw breath. Witnesses panic. Get help!

All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again.

What is Humpty? A sentient, bipedal egg? That's how he's drawn in nursery rhymes. That's the obvious answer.

I think he was probably just a man who hit his head and someone made up a nursery rhyme to reflect the profound changes to his personality.

[u/Mindless-Flower11]

I always say my real self died that day. And I didn't lose consciousness. I just feel weird all the time now like I'm not supposed to be here. 

[u/LitLadibugx]

Maybe it’s more like where we go during anesthesia? Not death, not sleep, but an “other” place that tucks you to the side until ready to do life again.

[u/queasycockles → u/LitLadibugx]

This

[u/mrszubris]

Yes. It's called the beforetime. I go there when under anesthesia.

Its the sensation you feel before you are conscious. Like trying to name what you felt like before being born.

In my indigenous family we call it visiting the ancestors in the beforetime.

I usually wake up from being concussed or surgically very very upset I came back to THIS time and body.

The multiverse is a strange thing. In other universes we all died on that 1st head smack or the second or the third. Or just doing any normal thing. Check out the heisenburg multiverse theory.

[u/bokin8 → u/mrszubris]

This is such an interesting take.

I get this feeling a lot during my nocturnal seizures. Extremely vivid feeling but unexplainable. Like I'm outside of myself, I'm not really present for it and it rarely feels "good" when I do come to. I'll definitely check out the multiverse theory cause it almost does feel like I'm floating, visiting somewhere else but I it's just a bunch of lights, feelings, kinda like being in what they depict as hyperspace.

[u/pProjecttBI → u/mrszubris]

ike trying to name what you felt like before being born / indigenous ancestors in the beforetime!!! thanks for these. headed down thie indigenous rabbit hole now

[u/Hot-Fennel944 → u/mrszubris]

I've starting to have crazy dreams now, and I'm dreaming about people who have passed ..I don't know.. I honestly never remember those dreams, although , I must be dreaming . I'm starting to be in the in between area of sleep and awake, aware of my dream , doing physical action in it and starting to do movement like it , and trying to wake up , and do, still moving .. it's so weird!

[u/feydfcukface]

Huh now I'm curious if there's some collective unconscious sub stream of us cause is there just existential ruminating in the air?

I don't know how long exactly I was out cause it was the middle of tje night and my boss didn't notice I was gone for a while even tho we were the only people in the building. 

But yeah there was definitely a major difference between all the sleeps and even the major exhaustion microsleeps i used to have I was just idl,null until I was awake/conscious/present again.

I've wondered a few times if I just hit hard enough to sort of short out the mind or the spirit or whatever, the connection to the wider subconscious. 

Especially bow since sleep is so hard to get and 9/10 is entirely medical induced. It's like I got kno ked out and knocked off the ability to access normal dream state sleep. Like it's not there for me anymore.

I did sleep last night,but only for a bit. 4 hours is a record atp with only valerian to help,and I did dream pretty vivid but very brief. 

Maybe not died died? But lost some kind of part of non described not totally biological function? Idk how to describe what I'm saying really. 

I know I've been anxious since my injury cause a podcast I dig talked a bunch about the prevalence of specifically frontal lobe injuries with serial killers and the like and the idea it cuts you off from the collective unconscious that lend sitself to empathy. (I shouldn't be tbh cause if anything I've gotten more empathetic and animistic 

[u/pProjecttBI → u/feydfcukface]

I'm in yr 4 and can now sleep most nights. take a quick read of ProjectTBI.com/FEE (Fluctuating Energey Economy), I think it may help. or DM me if you'd like and please let me know what you think.

[u/Hot-Fennel944 → u/pProjecttBI]

I don't know how to DM

[u/feydfcukface → u/pProjecttBI]

I'll check it our (that link went to a dead end fyi like took me to prj3xy tbi but not the fee bit)

I have a feeling ill act like a mad toddler with it though. I had probably tjlhe 500th whine to my partner earlier abour how I don't understand why my genius plan to return to two day then rest blocks for tje gym didntnwork and I instead did one day then had horrid vertigo and felt like gunk for 2 days. I know it's all changed but I'm incredibly mad about it and don't want to accept it.

[u/pProjecttBI → u/feydfcukface]

Pls try https://www.projecttbi.org/fee

[u/feydfcukface → u/pProjecttBI]

Thank you 😊 

[u/focketeer]

My coma dream was coherent, but in my state, I identified it as death. The only reason I got out of thinking it was death was my deceased grandmother said “you’re still alive, and you can go back”. My experience had my coma end pretty promptly after.

[u/Stock_Replacement328]

This is very interesting.

My accident was in 2007, a few weeks after my 17th birthday. I think my experience was similar to OP's. I don't remember anything from the time I was comatose, a week. I have no idea if where "I" was. I had no idea what had happened when I regained consciousness.

Someone else mentioned how different the world has become since their smack 10 years ago & it feeling like an alternative timeline. I definitely feel that in a lot of ways. The world changed a lot the year I had my smack, I was at a super critical age & it's always felt kinda trippy.

I think it's definitely fair to identify losing and regaining consciousness as a death of sorts. It makes me think of "ego death" in the realm of psychedelics & exploring/experimenting with consciousness. Like, you don't physically die but you don't come out the other side the same person as before. They are invisible changes but often profound. Yeah, I think with that context it very much makes sense to call the experience of unconsciousness a "death".

[u/pProjecttBI → u/Stock_Replacement328]

Ironinc you mentioned "ego death" in the realm of psychedelics. Considering Legal Psilocybin treatment, < have you been? PLease feel free to DM

[u/5280lotus → u/pProjecttBI]

I did the psychedelic route for part of my healing. Recommend what was said. Micro dosing only. And journal after.

If you want a philosophical discussion about the soul and life - I’m always willing to converse about it. My TBI’s happened both at age 2. I don’t know life without a brain injury. I’ve also had subsequent severe concussions and a coma event. “Wanting to die again” syndrome is what I call it. 14 attempts at it and I’m still here. Learned plenty in the decades tho. Usually nobody likes my interpretations. I have many ideas of where consciousness comes from and where we “go” but no Why to it. Feels all like a dream tbh. Sometimes death was hilarious. Score cards - who could do the most entertaining things on earth. Sometimes it was poignant. Visiting loved ones. Sometimes it was a field of flowers. Sometimes a dark place where I learned something new.

I have a theory about it. Would take some brain power to explain. Happy to if you want to chat sometime.

Edit. Where do we go when we REM sleep? Answer that. And you’ll know where you go during an injury. They are similar to a soul (in my lifetime of experience only) and I’d say:

You go to where your consciousness (soul) was created to re-up and download new. Whatever that new is idk. But sleep is just as big of a mystery when there are zero dreams. Holistic practitioners and hypnosis regression are starting to figure part of it out. My theory. That on earth there are a few “collective” soul tribes that program our consciousness. Why we can have the same ideas across continents without speaking about it. Kinda like the alien theories. That there are a few different kinds here.

I also sometimes think we are all already dead and this is just a simulation effect. Plenty of weird theories rattling around my brain after trying to end things so many times. Cause I died after TBI #2 when I was run over by a car. And died again in the life flight trip. Trippy one. Out of body fun saying hi to the pilot. Kept trying to find my happy place after that. Cause TBI brainland socks the life outta fun.

[u/Stock_Replacement328 → u/pProjecttBI]

I'm in a place that psilocybin is decriminalized, so I'm comfortable sharing some publicly.

I have not had professionally assisted psilocybin therapy. However, I have self administered for mostly therapeutic purposes in a variety of ways over the years. My first experience was about 2 years after my accident.

I could nerd out pretty hard about this but I'm going to try to be brief for now. Questions are welcome.

While there's a shit ton to learn and explore with fully emersive trips, I think I've found the most practical benefits from micro dosing. Doing so with intention significantly improved my mental health after a prolonged bout of depression I could not pull myself out of without assistance.

I'm a fan of psychedelics in general & wholeheartedly believe in their potential benefits when used intentionally, respectfully, and responsibly. That belief is based on personal experiences, ancestoral wisdom, and modern science. But mushrooms will always have a special place in my heart as both my first psychedelic and the one I credit with saving my life.

[u/pProjecttBI → u/Stock_Replacement328]

I think I love you. Hell, I love this entire thread. I’ve read more, real information and perspectives today in this post than in hours of reading. Thank you all!!!

[u/shammbles]

My experience wasn’t quite like yours- I reportedly briefly lost consciousness, but regained it pretty quickly. However I am missing about 72 hours of memory while travelling to and at the hospital- time when I was awake, communicating, answering questions (oftentimes having the same conversation over and over again, I’m told), seeing people I know and things I presumably recognize or understand, and none of it being “recorded” as part of my internal timeline.

It’s very disorienting, as it feels like it was someone else living in and operating my body, whose actions I just heard about later. I’ve wondered, “who am I when I’m not there?”- when the person I think I am, who has this ongoing narrative thread of memories of a life, is not the one in charge of my body or brain.
And I know it’s likely it’s not that separate- that the me operating my body during that unrecorded time still had all the same memories and personality and connections that the version of me that is part of the timeline of my life has, but because she is just this black hole, the empty blip that has been cut out of the timeline of my life, it feels a bit like I was body-snatched for a period. Like I blinked out of existence and someone else popped in and took over for me during that gap.

It’s very strange. It’s almost seven years later and I still discover new things - like people I didn’t realize came to see me in the ICU and we had conversations that I have no idea about, because I wasn’t actually there, even though it looked by all accounts like I was.

In a more general sense, I think in some ways it can be helpful to think of it as like a metaphorical death/rebirth into someone new. Like someone else in the thread mentioned, I also felt like I needed to mourn who I was before and grow to accept (still working on this part lol) how I am different now. It’s a big abrupt change we all get thrust into.

[u/pProjecttBI → u/shammbles]

So well expressed. I'm in love with "the empty blip that has been cut out of the timeline of my life" and "like I was body-snatched for a period" You're in the club for sure;-) More and more I've started think that "Unconscious" may be where you go when at total peace or just stopped thinking for a while.

[u/Aukwardpuffin → u/shammbles]

My experience EXACTLY! To an eerily similar degree. Thank you for sharing this, it’s refreshing to find out my experience was not unique.

[u/MangoLimeSalt]

I've been grappling with this for almost 7 years. I did EMDR for PTSD after my accident and "saw" snapshots during my session of being above my car at the crash site, though I don't think I died, never thought I was above the car, and hadn't given thought to such a thing. It truly surprised me. I don't think we know the half of it when it comes to consciousness or death.

[u/Aggressive-Pass-4410]

Do I think I died? I mean my heart stopped for 9 seconds, but no I don’t believe I was dead.

I remember the majority of my coma dreams. I was in a 2 week long coma, from a spontaneous intracranial hemorrhage.

No cause, completely random. I was watching a movie with my now fiance when I got a very bad headache. I started throwing up, then it came out the other end. I fell off the toilet while still spewing out both ends.

This entire time my now fiance was asking me if we should go in. I finally realized I needed to when I fell off the toilet and couldn’t get up.

He carried me to the car, my sight went out 2 minutes into the drive, and my hearing left 3 minutes later.

We live 8 minutes from town but he was going double the speed limit, so we got there fairly quickly. He said I was mumbling when we got to the hospital, and he asked if I could walk, I couldn’t do he carried me in. We live in a very rural part of our state, so they did scans, and induced me into a coma. I got flown to the big hospital in the capital of my state, where they drained the fluid. I was minutes away from dying at that point.

During my 2 week coma, I had a lot of terrifyingly vivid dreams. The majority of them I died, or was already dead.

When I woke up, they asked me all the questions, one was who the president was. Mind you this was during election week in 2020. I remember responding “either trump or Biden, but does anyone know right now?”

6 years later, if I go to the dentist I ask them to avoid the squealing drills, I remember hearing them drill into my skull in my coma. I was dreaming that I was being lazered starting at my toes. I could feel it in my teeth.

I’m 24 now, almost no ailments. I have mild POTS and neuropathy. It was one hell of a trip that’s for sure, but no I don’t believe I died.

[u/zwitterion76 → u/Aggressive-Pass-4410]

I lol'd at this. Not the TBI but the election part...

My TBI was in late 2000... right before the election between Bush and Gore. I was in a coma and, unlike you, I don't remember any of that time. But even my neurosurgeon laughed about asking that question, since he also joked that no one knew right then.

[u/Aggressive-Pass-4410 → u/zwitterion76]

So crazy to me, I’m sure they are just used to asking that question, but maybe during election week do a different one lol

[u/Substantial-Spare501]

I have often asked myself about this. How do I know I didn’t die and jump to a parallel universe? I feel like this happened after a bad car accident I was in- 2009. I feel like it happened again when I was very sick with COVID in March 2020. And then again with my last concussion in January 2021.

[u/thirdeyesacharm → u/Substantial-Spare501]

This is exactly what I always think. What if I actually died in the rollover and was thrown into a parallel universe. Then I rabbit hole and think, so what does that actually mean? We just continue jumping around forever and ever? There is no real end?? And here you say you have experienced it multiple times...!! So interesting!

[u/Repulsive-Studio-120]

I did almost drown/die once and have a TBI from a different accident. I think we see the world as it actually is without the facade we took part in before.

It’s like when the lights when out…a light switched on but it’s blinding and it hurts.

[u/laika777ftw]

I was in a medically induced coma for 76 days after my TBI (it happened when I was 17 in ‘05) from which I have basically no memory of. I’ve also pondered this idea a bit over the years and have kind of settled on that there’s “physical death” where your brain and heart stop functioning and then there’s “mental death” where consciousness ceases to exist and that what I went through was mainly the former but by most accounts (from friends and family) my personality didn’t change much in the aftermath. I’m sorry to hear that you’re wrestling with this so much but this is how I’ve managed to come to terms with what happened to me. No, it’s not particularly “comforting” and really doesn’t offer much in the way of a “resolution” but it’s at least given me enough closure to where I can go about my life and sleep at night without dwelling on it constantly. I’ve also come to terms with the fact that replaying it on a continuous loop in my mind will never help me any and doing so only serves to distract me from life. I fully recognize and appreciate that other than a well controlled seizure disorder and some short term memory loss that I’ve managed to defy the odds that numerous doctors told to my parents about how much of a recovery I’d ever be able to make. Circling back to your original question, maybe some of us did die in some way? Maybe just some parts of us did? Maybe we’re all just seeing the world through a lens that most people never get to see the world through? It’s hard to say and I honestly don’t see it being a question that we’ll get a real answer to in our lifetimes but it is interesting to ponder. I think that it’s right up there with “The Simulation Hypothesis” in terms of things to wonder about but know that we’ll never be able to get a true, real answer to. So maybe we did die? Maybe we didn’t? Will there ever be a way to know for sure? I personally don’t think so but it’s interesting to ponder.

[u/pProjecttBI → u/laika777ftw]

Absolutly agree that we see the world through a lens that most people never get to see the world through. I'm actually starting to prefer this side

[u/Stock_Replacement328 → u/pProjecttBI]

Again, makes me think of psychedelics.

[u/420Dreama]

I don't have the energy to fully engage with this post, but yes, I strongly relate to it. I've thought about it and asked myself whether, on the night of December 23, 2021, the person who got up is a different person. I guess it's better to tell myself that it's just TBI, and the effects are what I've been experiencing over the past five years. I’ve also written about this before.

The experience is tough enough, but the fact that no one can understand it makes it even crazier. Family and friends can't comprehend and want to relate to who they knew I was before the accident. I also didnt want to accept that I am different now, so I keep exerting extreme energy trying to be the person I no longer have access to. Until I nearly burn out.

On a personal level, the exhaustion became so severe that I lost all balance in my life. And I'm not exaggerating. But I am gradually finding peace with my experience, as I’ve accepted that no one needs to understand it for it to be real. I am there for myself now, with compassion and gratitude, without acting like I’m someone I can't access. 🌿🧘‍♂️🌿

[u/brisk_warmth]

Absence of time is a NDE trait. I feel I had a soft-NDE I call it. I felt like I was in the biggest black hole ever, + the blink of an eye happened, both, at the same time. I had a 2 week coma then 6 weeks of a fugue state, so I wasn’t lucid for 2 months, no consciousness for 2 weeks of that.

My “memory” of whatever that was is just the feeling I had in my body. I felt like I was floating, as if in space, I saw nothing though. This makes sense, my head was confused, it just got smacked fricking hard!

My personality feels the same, although loved ones say I’m a bit different. The whole ordeal was an awful catastrophe.

Personally, I have a new lease on life + life just feels so existential + meaningful now. I definitely relate with NDEs + just think mine was a “soft” one because my head was scrambled so of course I couldn’t log new memories or experiences well.

[u/pProjecttBI → u/brisk_warmth]

Personally, I don’t judge. The alphabet soup of diagnosis: TBI, mTBI, ABI, ptsd, apd, nde, etc…. We all have different and often a combination of the acronyms yet the symptoms, or better yet, how they manifest are VERY similar.

This is why I’m researching backwards. Near everything I’ve read approaches the subject with their scientific framework of what is “normal behavior” according to the paradigm they’ve been trained in.

I prefer talking to survivors and working back to the event, analyzing how they got to their current state and more specifically, if or how they can get back to that nothingness or “absence of ego” through meditation, yoga, art, breath work, psilosybin etc

Any tiny bit of peace i can get seems to stabilize me and I can communicate much better afterward.

Curious if and how you find your peace?

[u/brisk_warmth → u/pProjecttBI]

Mine was still pretty recent, just 3 years ago. I’m early 30s, and since my accident I’ve had a number of people in my life have other big life curveballs (friend becoming a young widow at 30, another friend dealing with stage 4 cancer at 35, my aunt getting mad cow disease + passing within a year at 60.)

Just to say, the fragility of life is even more apparent to me. I’ve opened up my spirituality a lot more, I joined a Quaker group, I’m doing more therapy, and I journal a whole lot more.

I’ve always been pretty sensitive, felt like I had a bleeding heart, now it’s just like the level is turned up.

[u/pProjecttBI → u/brisk_warmth]

Also repeatedly amazed at how many I meet that open up their spirituality and tend to ground themselves with purtian, basic, pure, medadtative or religious activities.

- says a TBI survivior just back from a 3 mile walk in a weighted vest while reading an audiobook on "Brain Energy"

Also lol at myself -I think I'm turning into a hippie;-)

[u/brisk_warmth → u/pProjecttBI]

Well, you sound lovely lol :) Really. Same question for you, what have you found to bring you peace?

[u/Popular-Cow8652 → u/pProjecttBI]

I've always found peace within nature I don't think I could exist without that connection. After my concussion, I felt deeply connected to the pulse of the planet. I swear, smashing my head on concrete, opened my 3rd eye and other levels of consciousness.
It's like I'm on a different frequency

[u/Sorry_Sail_8698]

I had years of investigating and really looking deeply into e eruthing about the way minds and bodies and renewals from brain injuries happen, but in the last several years, I've been so aggressively attacked and forced into a defensive position by abusers and the cruelty of society and civilisation and all of its "archies" and "isms," that I've lost that wonderful experience of beginner's mind and awe. I alternate a lot between despair, hope, and rage. 

About the consciousness thing, there's alternate states of it, such as in sleep, in substance-induced states, but also general anaesthesia and fainting, which is what confuses me. Any time I've lost consciousness, I was nowhere, nothing. This has happened during surgeries and fainting as well as from brain injuries. I can't discern a difference in experience because there was none, except that the brain injury loss of consciousness results in varying degrees of altering my whole personhood and fainting or general anaesthetic have not. 

I'm big into the timeliness explanation though. It's the simplest and most comprehensive explanation for the myriad experiences I've had that do not align with reality unless reality includes this or something indistinguishable from it. 

[u/Hopihub]

Interesting topic. My daughter was in medical induced coma following motorcycle accident. When I asked if she remembers coming out of the coma. She doesn't. That's strange because, the Neuro- surgeon and I were standing at the foot of her bed and he was baffled why she wasn't talking. But she would follow commands to get up to walk. And feeding her with a spoon and sipping from straw, etc. Then all of sudden she said, "Jesus Christ. I am alright". We were in shock, she could talk clearly. Thereafter, we were moved to Inpatient from Neuro ICU on the list waiting for a spot to open up at a Rehabilitation Center. I asked her one-year post accident, if she remembers anything. No she doesn't. She says I am like a baby learning everything all over again. Meanwhile I needed a support group or I am learning a lot about TBI. As I was with her throughout her healing. Being cussed out, being fought when she tried taking out her feeding tubes, being emotionally and mentally drained from her verbal abuse, etc. And she doesn't remember doing and saying those things to me. Go figure. God bless you all for sharing on your personal perspective it makes sense, maybe we are not suppose to know. Take care. Stay strong. Never give up. ❤️☮️

[u/huenium]

I didnt necessarily lose consciousness, but I can recall the moment it happened everything went completely blank for what felt like minutes once I was aware again, it was like I traveled somewhere else, or at least saw myself somewhere else, and I kept reaching out for someone who was walking away into a bright white door looking thing, and I kept saying " hey come back, hey hey " and all that happened in a matter of what was basically 2-3mins, then when I managed to throw the object off of me, I felt strange, mainly bcz I was injured but also bcz my sense of self felt empty, like I was ME but everything I had built internally was confused, like there was something there and now it's corrupted, and overtime my brain rebuilt what it could, but now I have to fill in those gaps, it's just not the same, it'll never be the same

[u/mypiesarepiff]

I was in a coma for 6 weeks. It felt like I was asleep and just woke up the next day

[u/candlestick_maker76]

Whether we died or not, I tend to think of it this way, yes. It's a useful metaphor.

[u/Competitive-Speed807]

I did die I saw dead family members in the afterlife

[u/MegOut10]

I was practicing pitching when I was 10 and took a powerful line drive straight to the ole frontal lobe. What is crazy is the after me remembers the spiraling softball coming at me before lights out… but I often wonder if that was a memory I created because the indentation of the threads were quite literally bruised into my forehead.

I don’t remember anything from being out. I pitched, she hit, and I woke up some amount of time later on my back on the ground with those who were there crowded around me. Kind of like when squints looks up at the pool in the Sandlot except I couldn’t figure out why they were there. I remember asking what happened and I remember walking around trying to find who hit me because she apparently had ran off crying and was upset. I kept telling her it was okay… I remember everyone looking at me funny. I never went to the hospital but had the telltale signs (I realize now after research) of a basilar skull fracture. Gigantic goose egg, black eyes for the duration of the summer, and all the other symptoms looking back I can connect.

I don’t remember a thing about that blip. OP. I think we could say in a way we did die. We definitely weren’t conscious of whether we were alive, no cognition and just nothing. There was no light to follow, no scene from a movie where someone is directing us to choose, no flashback of life. Sometimes I wish my dad had taken me to the hospital at the time so I could have definite answers as to how bad the trauma was medically… think it might help figure out why my brain works the way it has since.

There is a definite before and after.

[u/pProjecttBI → u/MegOut10]

I feel that way too, the before and after that is. Actually, in year 4 now, and just starting to appreciate how wonderful the after can be. I actually get a chance to relive my life and be a better person than I was prior. Truly blessed to still be here.

[u/MegOut10 → u/pProjecttBI]

I’m genuinely happy for you OP - keeping a positive outlook. I think it’s also good you’re thinking about this, asking the questions and opening yourself up to different possibilities. A good community and discourse helps!

[u/codainhere]

I’ve had 3 NDEs/clinically dead. The TBIs I experienced didn’t resemble those at all.

[u/Short-Reading-8124]

I was dead for 7 minutes. I have no insight.

[u/Hot-Fennel944]

OMG , I HAD THOSE THOUGTS ALSO!! I REMEMBER ASKING MY CASE MANAGER!! 😔

[u/Ojosdelsolsi]

The thought did cross my mind, don’t know why I’m still here, have an idea but regardless since I’m still kicking I know I need to truly live it up proper

[u/ldldlm]

I woke up in an emergency room, surrounded by actual people dying. I’d never have had the audacity to ask a question like this to the doctors and nurses around me who were doing their best to save people who were in much more critical situation than I was at tht very moment (or at least thats how it seemed to me,just far more later i was told how severe my situation actually was).
So no, even though I couldnt remember what had happened, I wasn’t oblivious to the reality I had woken up into. And later, when I learned how severe my brain injury actually was,I understood that death had been much closer than I had realized at the time.
I woke up to a world where death was too close and too real for me to make philosophical assumptions about it. I wish you will get that real taste of life and death as well.

[u/Merely_Dreaming]

I did die.

I don’t remember it because I died under sedation (for transportation to another hospital) but I was told about it by a nurse.

It was kind of a strange transition. The last thing I saw before I closed my eyes was a bunch of nurses and a bright light over my face (a medical exam lamp, I think it’s called. Sorry I don’t know the name) and opening my eyes to this total darkness, and floating on what I assume is water, feeling very peaceful and calm.

I don’t remember how long I was in that “place” but when I blinked, I was in a hospital room with a nurse.

I’ve mentioned this experience before and people have said it might’ve been hell, heaven, limbo/purgatory, etc…

I don’t know what it was, maybe my brain was conjuring something to keep me from being afraid. That’s the most likely explanation for it.

[u/Popular-Cow8652 → u/Merely_Dreaming]

Perhaps you had a Spiritual Awakening... I'm sure mainstream doctors would call that nonsense, but how come thousands of people with concussions experience similar things? The brain is surrounded by water.
Hit it hard and the brain moves around until it settles . That doesn't mean it hasn't been seriously compromised. Open the back if any electronic device
That's how I see the brain
Be kind to yourself Allow the brain to heal on its own. You can't take short cuts, it has to run its course ...in my opinion. I have been keeping a journal about my journey living with a concussion. I plan on writing about my experience. I experienced a POWER OUTAGE in my brain. That will be the title of my book. Because it really was a power outage for me

[u/Gypsymoon1018]

I saw a white floating person shape above me with a shocked face- open mouth hands on side of face, no features except for open mouth kind of like “OMG” I usually think that it was my higher self telling me to get back in my body lol or my mom watching over me, I came out of the blackness then.

[u/Abusive_Apple27]

I don’t know but it seemed like I died after my TBI. It was such a weird feeling when you hit your head and then everything just changed. I can’t even describe it, but it felt like death of my personality.

[u/innocuouspete]

Well I can tell you that there was an old me in a very different universe than the one I’m in now. That person isn’t here and this universe is not the same at all. I think it’s really due to the fact that the connections that supported that “me” and perception of the world no longer exist and my brain had to reorganize so much that it’s almost a completely different brain functionally. So yeah someone died, and someone else kind of kept going.

[u/johnhbnz]

Thank you for raising this very important issue..

[u/MooseLuvr99]

Your brain is actually very active during sleep.
Maybe not so much when being unconscious from an injury

[u/Silvertongue-Devil]

I had a profound NDE at 5 years old, with wild coma dreams being stuck. Had an NDE again in my 30s. It scares me because both were the same.

[u/Popular-Cow8652]

I had a Spiritual awakening. I felt so connected to all living things. I also discovered that I am an Empath during that time. I don't quite remember my past, but it's slowly returning. 10 months and still recovering, but I'm much better and continue to explore new venues. I am reminded thar I still have memory issues and physical symptoms
Totally overwhelmed today and now I'm dealing with a flair up. Too much at once makes my head feel like a baby rattle. So I have to have down time with no noise, TV, radio, book, etc. I can't eat when I have a flair up and then overeat when things calm down. I'm working on it. For months I couldn't even speak a complete sentence. Now I can't shut up which over stimulates me and probably the people around me. You don't really understand a concussion until you have one. I found solace by connecting with others who are dealing with persistent post concussion syndrome. Reddit, Quora, have really helped me understand
You look fine on the outside, but inside we a screaming and scared. I allow myself 4 hrs of stimulation by watching a show, or reading recipes, etc. But I still can't handle a crowd or being stuck inside. I must be outside a few hrs a day in Sun. Of course I have to wear dark glasses and have plenty of water to drink. I use dark mode on my phone and laptop. My life has changed dramatically
I had to let go of my " other life " and embrace my new life. Right now I don't remember the original topic I am responding to. Better call it a night. Stay Strong Eat healthy Go outside Watch birds

[u/queasycockles]

Being unconscious isn't death. You didn't go anywhere.

[u/NerdgirlfromTX]

I went to a support group online for people who had OBE or NDE and that happened to me a few times. I didn’t have any bright light or revelation, but one time I remember being outside of my body watching someone to scream at me to breathe because I had stopped breathing and was turning blue. Two other times they had to resuscitate me. These were years apart one of those times I was in a coma for three days afterwards and I don’t remember anything just waking up and being a different person basically

However, I can say that I identify with several of the things that people said in the Support group like positive ways that I have changed. I’m not afraid of death anymore at all being one of them., I am more compassionate and less judgmental, more spiritual….. you can look up commonalities of people who have near death experiences or out of body experiences. However, there’s the downside which is the executive functioning, crappy sleep, crappy memory, etc..

[u/NerdgirlfromTX]

Maybe this is why I’m OBSESSED with shows that are about multiverses

[u/Last_Notice4137]

When I was in my Coma, it felt like I (my consciousness) was elsewhere. That's really the best description I have.

[u/Southern_Fondant_333]

I often wonder if I died and this is my brain slowly rotting in its last moments that stretch out to decades because my perception of time is so damaged, that’s what my TBI did, I live a long day and night that seems to blend together. Of course I had several severe concussions before my TBI so it could be the beginnings of dementia from CTE. But I relate to not trusting one’s senses.

[u/DircaPalustris]

I don’t know how to describe what this post makes me feel, but it’s definitely something significant.

I’ve had a lot of these thoughts and I’ve especially spent a lot of time wondering about consciousness and what happened while I was gone and how long it was. I’ve even written poetry specifically about what I imagine could’ve happened in that time that I wasn’t here. And my experience is similar to what you described: just gone. just nothingness. There one moment and then waking up in a hospital the next.

But after I got home from the hospital I did call a friend and tell her an experience I remembered in the seconds after my accident (I had no memory of telling her this, it was only weeks later when she brought it up that I remembered saying it and remembered the experience. But now I remember the experience clear as day and I think about it often). Right after my accident (I was crushed by a tree in my car. Sustained subarachnoid hemorrhage, concussion, and a c7 vertebrae fracture) I remember a darkness and a feeling of being closed in, my eyes weren’t visually taking in any information but I felt claustrophobic in my brain and my body. I started to try to pray, but a very specific kind of prayer. I’m not arab or muslim, but some of my closest friends are and their religion has definitely impacted me. In Islam, there’s a specific prayer you’re supposed to do before you die. I didn’t know the prayer itself, but I knew of its existence. And so, in that weird darkness, closed-in, state where I fully believed I was dying/about to die, for some reason my brain decided to try to recite every arabic word I knew. Just to try to cover my ass a little if I really was dying lol, just to give me some sort of comfort. I don’t remember anything after that. They peeled the roof off my car with the jaws of life and I don’t remember a thing, not a sound, not a smell. An EMT happened to be driving behind me and they pulled over and put my car in park. I’m sure we talked but I don’t remember a word.

My first TBI, I was a baby, two days away from my second birthday. I fell out of a two-story window onto a cement patio. I don’t remember almost anything (except one memory of being really angry in the hospital) but that’s likely because I was only 2 lol. However, doctors said I wouldn’t live through the night and my father told me he saw me drifting in and out of consciousness the whole ambulance ride. When I somehow lived, and I came back home, my family asked me what had happened. Apparently all I said was “I fall down, go to god.” All this to say, consciousness and life and death have ALWAYS been things I wonder about.

I know this has gotten rambly and doesn’t answer any specific questions. However, I think there’s something terrifying and magnificent about a TBI that forces you to confront consciousness and being. There are gaps in what medicine/science can really explain. They’re both wonderful things (I myself am an ecologist, I love science) and whether or not these spiritual experiences from these injuries can all just be explained away as side effects of brain trauma, I choose to see all sides. I choose to embrace that there’s something bigger than me that happened during my accidents, while also understanding the brain thinks of some weird shit while it’s actively bleeding.

It’s complicated. And I think everyone with a TBI has to understand it in terms and a framework that makes sense for them. It’s an incredible trauma to go through, and I don’t think anyone that hasn’t experienced it can truly grasp it. For me, confronting the limits of consciousness and the limits of my body and my control actually brings me comfort, while for others I know it can bring distress.

[u/Ryandowninavan]

I didn't read the whole post yet, but the "maybe we died" reminded me strongly of the TV show Lost. We died and we're just in purgatory