Whether it’s from some kind of traumatic injury or being medically induced, being in a coma is an experience I never want to go through. Today, we’re delving into the unsettling world of post-coma revelations.
In this post, we’ll be counting down the top 10 disturbing things people have said after waking up from a coma. So, let’s get started.
1. A Story of a Haunted Monster
We’re all familiar with sleep paralysis demons, right? Well, imagine encountering one during a coma. A Reddit user named GW_throwaway451 shared their experience after falling from the second story of a gym under construction, resulting in a coma. Before the accident, they had watched the movie “The Grudge.” In their coma, they dreamed of being trapped in a white room with the Grudge girl, who never moved, just standing there. Upon waking up, the fear was so intense that they couldn’t close their eyes for a few nights, fearing the presence of the Grudge girl. I can’t blame them; that sounds absolutely terrifying.
2. A Medically Induced Nightmare
in 2016 after a seizure caused them to fall and hit their head on the sink in the bathroom. Quote, “It was like the longest, scariest dream of my life. I was medically induced by a fentanyl drip for about a week at first, and let me tell you, fentanyl is a demon.” They go on to explain that it was essentially non-stop wacky dreams about fighting corrupt hospital officials and so on, which is strange because the brain clearly had some idea about where they were, but the drugs they were given were making them hallucinate while they were in the coma, causing our Reddit friend to believe they were in some kind of extreme danger. I mean, I’ve had some weird dreams before, but imagine one lasting for a month and a half straight.
3. Mermaid Tea Party
You know how in horror movies, every little girl happens to be the creepiest character? Well, this next story has that same vibe. According to one dad who posted online about his young daughter’s coma, when she awoke, she told her parents about all the strange things she had done and seen while she was out. One of those things was apparently playing a Mermaid Tea Party with her deceased grandparents. It’s sweet on one hand, but also a little creepy. Another experience she shared with her father was being denied entry into the Gates of Heaven. According to her, St. Patrick told her it wasn’t her time yet. The dad jokingly mentioned that he knows it’s supposed to be St. Peter, but he was wearing a shirt that read, “St. Patrick is my homeboy,” and his daughter got excited, claiming she had met him. So, if what this girl experienced really happened, it seems like she had a close call with death, which might explain why she was able to have a tea party with her deceased grandparents. It’s still kind of creepy, but at least she came out of it alive.
4. A Financial Mess
You would expect that if someone was in a coma, any bills they missed during that time would be overlooked and there would be a grace period to help them get back on track. However, according to a now-deleted Reddit account, companies don’t seem to care at all.
The post explains that after waking up from a coma, the person found their finances in such bad shape that they are unsure if they will ever recover from it. They express frustration, saying, “There is no forgiveness for us.” They had a heated exchange with a debt collector, shouting, “Do you think I planned this? What part of zero dollars do you not understand?”
Due to complications from their coma, they are unable to work and receive disability income. However, the state insists on taking a significant portion of their pay for missed child support payments that were not made during the extended period they were in a coma. What makes this situation even more unbelievable is that both of their sons are now adults and in the Marines. Yet, the state still demands payment for the arrears.
The person concludes their story by saying, “Some days I think about just robbing banks to get out of this.” Hopefully, they can find a better solution than resorting to such desperate measures.
5. It Feels Real
You know when you have a really lucid dream and when you wake up there’s that half a second where you have to remind your brain that what just happened didn’t actually happen. Well, according to this next story, that is exactly how their coma felt. Quote, ‘I was in a medically induced coma for two weeks about three months ago. I had open heart surgery, it didn’t go well. I had trouble coming off the ventilator, so they just put me into a coma to try and give me some time to heal. But sadly for them, it was anything but peaceful. Quote, ‘I had nightmares the entire time from the medicine they were using to knock me out. I thought I’d been kidnapped by a nurse and was a victim of sex trafficking. I thought my drug-addict aunt had her friends rob my sister and her husband, killing my brother-in-law and a young member of his family. And I thought I was constantly being grabbed by people under my bed. It was not fun. I can’t say that I knew I was in a coma or anything. I’m usually one of these people that when I have a bad dream, I can tell myself it’s just a dream and wake myself up in order to end it. This was not like that. I was convinced it was all really happening. I can only imagine the relief they felt when they woke up, but man, that would…”
6. A Nightmare
This next one was posted to Reddit by chocolate milkshark, and they explained what being in a coma was like for them. They start off by explaining they had a six-day coma because of a car accident, and that while they were out, they remember being in a room adorned in a medieval fashion. They said, and I quote, “I don’t remember the details, but the wall had this really weird painting. I don’t even remember the specifics, but it depicted an unsettling horror. I remember that it was satanic, yet it depicted something that was very real, something that anyone that didn’t believe in that sort of thing, i.e., me, couldn’t deny or refute.”
They then go on to say, and I quote, “I remember being in that room with the painting while in a cage. The cage was too small for me, it was like a cartoon. Like I’d been crammed in there. I could only look in one direction because the cage was too small for me to turn my head. While I could only see one side of the room, I knew, knew for sure there were people behind me. Not just one either, every once in a while, I heard a whisper or a faint set of footsteps. I was so scared of them. At one point, I felt like I was drenched in sweat. I was scared because I heard a deep, dark, raspy voice that said, ‘Alright, it’s time.’ All at once, I heard people running towards me. When I realized what was happening, I struggled to break free from the cage. I was trying to push it over for some reason, thinking that it would somehow do me good. It was futile. I remember people just circling my cage, looking down at me. Then, I remember a hand as black as night with white nails putting its hand through the holes of the cage, reaching in to touch my face. And that’s when they came to. They were in the hospital, and their niece was waving their hand in front of their face. I mean, talk about a weird experience.”
7. Coma Purgatory
This next story is not as horrifying as some of the others on this list, but it’s still a strange and rather inexplicable experience. So, well, here it goes:
“This is really bizarre, but my uncle, a very serious, strict, and rather dry man, had an accident and went into a coma a few years back. He never believed anything he couldn’t touch, no talks about souls or anything similar. But he was in a coma for a few weeks until he woke up and had this crazy AF story.
He said he saw himself in a bubble, floating around in a white place, and it was peaceful and beautiful. But then, he said there were other bubbles he could see around him, and they had other people in them. He distinctly remembered a black-haired woman singing in the bubble closest to his until one day her bubble burst, and she disappeared.
When he woke up, he could give a very clear description of her body, age, and all that. Now, here’s the wild part: there was a woman one floor below him in a coma who sadly had passed away before he woke up. You guessed it, black hair, age, body—all correct. He had never met or seen this woman in his life, but knew she had died. So, did this guy somehow witness her death while in a coma? Is there some kind of bubble purgatory in another plane of the universe? Who knows.”
8. Fully Paralyzed
“I was in and out of a coma for about a week, and I don’t remember much. But when I first woke up, I was fully paralyzed from the neck down. My wife came to visit me and told me I smelled like urine because they didn’t give me a catheter or help me to the bathroom. So, I just laid in bed and urinated myself over and over. By the time I fully woke up a few days later, I had very little feeling in my legs and had difficulty walking steadily. I couldn’t fully stretch my arms without severe pain in my hands.
When I asked why no one helped me, they said they don’t assist patients because many people fake symptoms to avoid training. They sent me back to basic training, where I slept for three days straight, only waking up to eat. After those three days, they gave me all my gear and sent me on a four-mile forced march. During that march, I tripped 74 times and fell down six times. But because I didn’t quit, they kept me in training, and I graduated with the same class I started with, which is unheard of and completely insane.
I couldn’t even complete the final fitness test, so they just falsified the records. All of this because they didn’t believe someone could be faking a coma and made me finish my training, despite waking up paralyzed. It’s hard to imagine such a situation.”
9. Out of Body Experience
This next one comes from another deleted Reddit account, and it’s about a man who says he had a literal out of body experience during his coma. Well, my dad was in a coma for about a week after riding his bike headfirst into a telephone pole. He says that he remembers the accident itself, followed by an out of body experience. He remembers flying high above the scene of the accident and looking down at his body laying there lifeless. He remembers seeing a woman from the neighborhood rushing over to see what happened, and other neighbors brought out a flat beach chair to put him on while waiting for the ambulance.
After he woke up from the coma, he immediately broke down crying as the influx of stimulation and confusion poured into his brain. He was stuck about five or six years in the past. He remembered his phone number, address, etc., but from years ago, and he couldn’t remember the current info. It took about two weeks after coming to for his brain to catch back up to the current day. But the craziest part of this whole story is that after he woke up, he went to the house of the woman who he had seen first from above and asked if she had been the first to get there and other info about what he saw from the outside his body. And she confirmed all of it.”
10. Locked-in Syndrome
One of the biggest fears I have is suffering from Locked-in Syndrome, which, if you don’t know, is a condition where the body is completely paralyzed, so you are literally just trapped inside your own mind. Now, there are ways to function with this condition, but when staff don’t know you have it, it would be truly horrifying. Quote, “There was a kid named Martin Pistorius who fell into a coma for 12 years, but his mind woke up two years into it. However, he was unable to speak or move, and everyone believed he was a vegetable at best. This wasn’t the case. His mind was fully there for over a decade. He was mistreated in facilities that played Barney repeats every single day for years without him being able to look away. He was also hurt by staff who thought he was in a coma and a victim of SA. On top of that, at one point he couldn’t stop throwing up, so the nurses tube-fed him his own vomit. His parents were unaware of all of this and tried adapting the best they could, but Martin feared this would be his whole life. Now, the good news is that eventually someone realized he was responsive and got him the help he needed, and now he has a wife and kids, talks with a computer, and is a programmer. This man has now done TED Talks, written books, and lives a really full life. So, thankfully, he has a happy ending. But I just can’t imagine being trapped and abused for 10 years while everyone thought I was in a coma.
You have to wait 30 seconds.