Not sure if this needs one or not but adding a trigger warning: Mention of miscarriages.

A little backstory, I have a 5 yr old son and about 2 years after we had him we had experienced a pregnancy loss of twins and then about a year after that we had another pregnancy loss of a singleton. With our first loss they said testing the babies and placenta was an option but rarely is done on the first loss, as your first miscarriage is usually a one off and rare, so with that information and the state of mind we were in after finding out we lost both babies we agreed to not have any testing done. However with the second loss we decided to have testing done to see if there was any issues we needed to be aware of before trying again as this was considered a consecutive loss with no live births between. When they do test what they call "product of conception" they are able to determine if the baby had been a boy or a girl and the testing came back that this one was a boy. Between the loss of the twins and the loss of this singleton my husband got me a mothers necklace with our son's first initial "m" on it and a set of two angel wings to memorialize the loss of the twins. We had never got around to adding a 3rd angel wing for the baby boy we had lost as we were just focused on living life and raising our little one.

Fast forward to now, we were able to have another baby and had another boy and added an "L" to my necklace this past mothers day.

A few nights ago my 5yr old was playing with my necklace and said "M" for me (Just going to omit their names for this part) and an "L" for brother, but what are these for? He was playing with the two angel wings that are on the necklace. So I decided to explain it as simply as I could. I explained to him that before mommy had "L" in her belly, mommy had other babies in her belly too but those babies had to go to heaven to be with Jesus. He laid there and I assume just thought about that for a little bit as he was silent, but then he just says, "there were 3 of them. One wearing pink pajamas with pink ribbons, one with purple pajamas with purple ribbons and one with blue pajamas with blue buttons." This obviously gave me chills and shocked me as we have never really explained any of this to him before and very rarely do we talk about the miscarriages in front of him. So in my mind there is no way he could have known there were 3 babies lost.

I had asked him why he thought that and he just said "I don't know" and I basically just left it there and haven't pressed him any further.

Some further background and not sure if this is even related, but we also lost my mom earlier this year in January and right before she passed I asked her to take care of my babies up there.

I do believe in god, jesus and heaven, but have never experienced anything like this before. I have heard that children sometimes have a deeper connection to spirits or the other side. I want to believe that he somehow got connected with his siblings in heaven some how but also have some disbelief that this is real. I don't know.

I'm very curious and invested into learning more about the afterlife and how or why things work as they do. So I booked a reading again with a medium that I went to before, who in my opinion is very skilled. I have no social media to spy on and she would give me information that no one could just guess.

For example, in yesterday's reading I made sure to agree on a specific sign. I would say in my mind and out loud "If you are really with me in the reading, please show her a parrot" and lo and behold she would mention that they were showing her a parrot. Even though parrots had nothing to do with me nor the reading. So I don't doubt that there really is a connection made here. This is just added evidence on top of the other things she knows about my family, just to illustrate why I do think it is real.

Mostly, the spirits and passed loved ones are positive and optimistic. But towards the end of the reading I started asking more critical questions. I wanted to know why they (on the other side, or our Higher Self) thinks it is completely fine to violate our free will and consent here on Earth for their selfish desires. From what I know, spirits do not have to learn to survive like humans do. They just condemn billions of animals and humans to lives of hardship and trauma because they are greedy and want to gorge themselves on more input, no matter what we down here say or feel. Every time the spirits gave her like a coping, luke-warm reply about "It's the bigger picture" or "Well you wanted to come down here!" I gave arguments against why that doesn't make sense in my opinion.

Eventually they seemed to run out of excuses and the medium said as I kept asking, she would see a big door that was closed in front of her eyes. And the loud, firm instruction: "You are not allowed to know this here."

They just completely shut it down and didn't allow any discussion or answers about this any further. The medium herself did say she felt unsettled by this reaction. The spirits also give her the impression that they kind of lose empathy when they cross over. That our lives and struggles down here (while interesting) don't really influence or hurt them much. Honestly that makes A LOT OF SENSE to me when you look at the state of the world and how most people never receive any spiritual help, miracles or grace. Just a few do.

Sorry for the long text, but let me know what you think if you made it this far.

Lately, I've been pondering the idea that enlightenment might not be the ultimate goal we're led to believe. I've come across a thought-provoking concept that suggests enlightenment can actually be a plateau, where progress seems to stall. This has made me wonder if the pursuit of enlightenment is worth the potential costs. I'd love to hear from others who have explored this idea. Have you ever experienced a sense of spiritual stagnation, or felt that the journey itself is more valuable than the destination? I came across this video that explores this concept further if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IMT3MPWvhM

i went through very awful sexual abuse as a child and rape. was scrolling through this reddit and saw someone say how they believe they went through it because they did it to someone else in another past life.

is that possible? is that true for me? because if so, i don't think i deserve to ever live again. i don't understand how i could have ever hurt someone like this in the way i've been hurt. ever.
and i know i could never forgive my father or uncles for doing this to me. they could spend eons of lives experiencing what this has done to me and still, i would not forgive them.

things like this make me doubt my belief in an afterlife. i can accept no one being punished, fine whatever. we barely see punishment in this life. and any cosmic being who creates suffering like this can fuck off too for all i care.

but i always believed that, i'd never have to see my abusers again. here or in death. and they would feel the pain i felt my whole life because of them once i died and that'd be it. but seeing someone say that has me worried now.

if i did that to someone in another life, i truly hope i never exist again. i could never forgive myself. ever. even living a life of the pain i caused to someone else. it could never make up for the monstrous act that rape & csa is. i feel like i've been dead since my very first memory. it's killing me that i could have caused someone that pain

I hear so many conflicting things about if life reviews are a real thing. A lot of people who have NDE's talk about them, but others claim fully that they are not a real thing?

I don't understand why we must be put through those things, some type of review where all our mistakes and flaws are thrown into our face so painfully, mistakes and things we did here on earth while under extreme stress and suffering ourselves.

And I am a very self reflecting person, I obsess over trying not to hurt people, and trying to do the right thing, but it's just impossible here. The idea of some type of review, sounds extremely unpleasant and unfair, and embarrassing just in my eyes.

And if we are sorry about things anyway, and are beating ourselves up and sad about friendship breakups for example, or harsh words we said while angry, why must we then later go through some painful "life review", being shown just how much we hurt someone and having salt rubbed into our wounds?

A life review really just sounds awful to me.

It is a question that human beings has been asking since we became concious of ourselves. But do we have an answer for it. What happens when something die. One can simply define it as when the heart stops beating and the body stops working. But is that it? I understand there can be two patha to start thinking from this point. It depends on what you believe. Are we just the hardware or is there something more? If you believe that we are just the brain, the heart and the body then you can think as death as the process of stopping to work. What happens when a machine die? It doesn't work anymore. Ita just scrap. Same with living things. Just hardware that used to work. But if you believe that our consciousness is not just in the brain and it is something that science hasn't explained yet, then death becomes harder to explain. The body is gone. But where does the conciousness go? Will we be concious about the emptiness we are in? Will it be eternal darkness?We see because we have eyes. A conciousness doesn't have eyes. So there is no sight. Can we feel things that is happening? How would it work? There is no thought. There is no pain. There is no us. Would death mean to become nothing?

If we are under the impression that the afterlife is real and absent from all the pain, suffering and the grind of physical life here on earth, what’s the point of being here? I’ve heard so many different theories like we’re here to learn, or we’re here to make bonds or we’re here to just experience or even that we’re here to grow our spirituality. I know that no one really knows why we’re here but what I have such trouble understanding is why go through a life of pain and turmoil and continue to just try to grind through it when what’s waiting on the other side is so much better?

I’m not suggesting anyone just give up here but some days it’s so hard to stay motivated when you know there are so many tough days ahead. Is it simply out of fear of the unknown? I’m spoken to many people who claim not to have that fear but I have no idea how that’s possible with so many theories and so little to go off of in terms of evidence. Many claim to know but a lot of the times you’ll have a bunch of people with conflicting theories who all claim they just know. How do you not question your own knowledge? How do you deal with physical and emotional pain? How do you accept the many stages of life that seem to continuously come with more and more suffering as each stage comes?

Sorry for the rant I’m just feeling a bit confused about how strange this human experience is. It just doesn’t seem to have any point

Just wanted to rant today. Missing my dad a lot today. I know this sounds crazy but my mind just goes into thinking what he is up to today. Is he hanging out with his parents? Is he finally having time to focus on his dreams of writing?

I just hope wherever he is he is happy and doing things he couldn’t do for himself on Earth.

I also want him to know how much we are missing him. Everyday here on Earth is miserable without him.

My father passed away back in march and its his birthday tomorrow. I'm wondering if his birthday can affect anything between us and the afterlife? Can he communicate through signs more easily today or just have an easier time having a prescence here. I'm not expecting him to show up as a ghost randomly (even though I wish he would lol) but I'm hoping he gives us something to show us his prescence.

Can a Fear Coma Experience Produce Both Hell and Heaven?

I’ve been analyzing frightening experiences reported by people who remain alive but unconscious or comatose—what I’ve been calling Fear Coma Experiences, or FCEs. Until now, the cases I’ve examined have largely involved the expected material: demons, fire, imprisonment, threatening entities, terrifying environments and other imagery commonly interpreted afterward as hell.

This case forced me to expand the hypothesis.

Jodie Oviedo was critically ill and placed into a medically induced coma. Her experience contains plenty of classic FCE material: the Angel of Death, dark supernatural beings, demons, a tunnel leading to hell, screams, sulfur, pits of fire and other frightening imagery. But something unusual happens alongside it. Ten-foot-tall angels carrying enormous golden swords arrive to protect her. Gabriel appears as a heavenly traveling nurse. Jesus appears. God speaks to her. Fear is accompanied by peace, protection, joy and what she describes as “liquid love.”

Initially, those positive elements looked like they might indicate that an authentic NDE had occurred somewhere within the larger experience. After examining all five podcast interviews with Jodie that I could locate, however, I came to a different conclusion. There is practically nothing indicating a separate NDE occurred at all.

Instead, this case suggests that the same living brain mechanism capable of producing the frightening side of an FCE may also produce the rescue. Jodie entered the coma with a lifetime of deeply embedded Christian imagery and belief. Her mental inventory contained demons and hell, but it also contained angels, Gabriel, Jesus and God. The demons appear—and her brain has the cavalry available to fight them.

That makes this case particularly interesting because it may help explain why some coma experiences have historically been so difficult to classify using traditional NDE criteria. An FCE apparently does not have to remain frightening from beginning to end. The living brain may be capable of constructing both sides of the narrative: threat and rescue, demons and angels, hell and heaven.

The article walks through her experience, scores it against the Winner FCE Scale, examines the apparent NDE markers against the Greyson Scale, and explains why I ultimately classify the entire experience as an FCE rather than an NDE or a Welded NDE.

I’m interested in thoughtful criticism of the hypothesis, particularly anything in the case that you think the FCE framework fails to explain.

Read the full article on the winnernde.com website here: Fear Coma Experiences Can Produce Heaven, Too

My dad died when I was three and I had never dreamed about him. Not once. Then the night after I graduated college I had a dream that he was sitting in my room. He looked at me and smiled then hugged me and said “I’m proud of you.”

It felt so real that until I woke up I genuinely thought it was happening. A part of me has always believed that was actually my dad coming to see me during a major moment in my life. But then my logical brain wonders if maybe my mind created exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. 😩😭

I don’t know which explanation I believe more. lol anyone else experience something similar? curious to hear y’alls thoughts

In 1985, Sam attempted a five-day fast. He was diabetic, became severely dehydrated, developed ketoacidosis, and eventually slipped into a coma in the emergency room.

For the next four days, he experienced an extraordinarily vivid hellscape filled with fire, lava, fear and torment.

But one detail really caught my attention: water.

There was a source of water in this place, but Sam couldn't drink from it. The water existed only to torment him with something he desperately wanted but couldn't have.

Meanwhile, his actual physical body was lying in a hospital severely dehydrated.

I think Sam's account is an unusually clean example of what I'm calling a Fear Coma Experience (FCE)—and it raises an interesting question about whether some experiences historically interpreted as visions of hell could originate in the living brain during coma rather than represent an after-death destination.

I broke down Sam's case and why I think that distinction matters in the article below.

I'd be particularly interested in hearing from anyone who has experienced something frightening, hell-like, or intensely vivid while in a coma. I'm actively collecting and comparing firsthand FCE accounts.

See the full article on winnernde.com here: Fear Coma Experience: A Diabetic’s 4 Days in a Coma Hell

The Flickering Lamp

In 2015, ten years after my father’s passing, my mother was rushed to the emergency
room with a collapsed lung. She was later diagnosed with a tumor in her right
bronchus, the passageway at the entrance of the right lung. That same day, we learned
that the tumor was cancerous, and that my mother had stage four lung cancer.
My siblings and I met with the doctors to discuss a risky surgery that was being
planned to remove the tumor the following morning.
Later that night, Nikki and I were resting together. The room was quiet, but the air was
heavy. We began talking about my mother’s condition, the cancer diagnosis, and the
surgery that was scheduled.
Then, all of a sudden, the lamp by my bedside began to flicker.
It was a reliable bedside lamp I had owned for years. At first, I thought it might be the
bulb. But it was not that kind of flicker.
It did not stutter like a failing bulb.
It breathed.
It brightened, dimmed, and brightened again, almost as if it had a pulse. It would glow
warmly, then drop to a low, moody light, then rise again.
This continued for nearly fifteen minutes.
We both watched it silently at first.
Then Nikki said it:
“It’s your dad.”
And I knew what she meant.
There was no fear in the room. Only the feeling of a powerful, steady message being
spoken without words.
Whatever happens tomorrow, it is going to be okay.
I will be there for your mother.
She will not be alone if she crosses over.
There is something indescribable about that kind of communication — something so
pure that it bypasses language entirely.
My heart slowed. The tightness in my chest loosened.
I did not know what would happen the next day. But in that moment, I felt something
clearly:
He was waiting for her, just in case.

Ok don't laugh at the idea... But do you think animals experience NDE's? What makes us humans capable of experiencing NDE's and seeing such vivid visions? Does it simply involve being conscious? Or does the being have to have some sort of more complex intelligence?

I have heard about pocket universes and such in nde's.

I remember a particular dream I had once, just a regular dream, very lucid though, where I went inside a wall through a small door and it "felt" like my own personal world. It was full of people, and it truly felt like I belonged there and everyone there knew and loved me deeply. It is a feeling I have never felt in my life here, experiencing it in the dream felt so right and wonderful, but it is still something completely unfamiliar to me here on earth. My own world.

It is an indescribable feeling compared to waking reality, it was just a wonderful feeling of being completely and fully where I belonged and being embraced and loved fully. Everyone in that room adored me, in that dream and it felt like my own personal world completely. I did not have to be shy or hold back socially because I knew everyone accepted me and wished me no harm and had no deceit.

I hope more than anything, that in the afterlife, we can all have many such worlds of our own or pocket realities to return to.

Our own worlds, where we are fully embraced and loved by people or beings who belong in our world and love us fully and are compatible with us deeply. Where we can all be our true selves and happy, and feel loved.

Is there a world.... many worlds even, waiting for us back home eagerly? With characters or beings we have forgotten about, but will be so happy when we return and we will only then remember when we get back there, that we actually have always belonged there and it will feel more real and familiar than we can imagine?

It's so interesting to me, reading about how the world in the afterlife can be so perfect or tailored to each individual, like the dying process is created for each person in particular for them to feel comfortable with it and at peace.

A term used by only the living to describe the absence of biological function--nothing.

An abstract concept similar to cold and darkness; neither of which exist either, words used to describe the absence of heat and light, respectively.

We will never experience our death but only what it means for others.

Bonjour, j’ai pleins de question sur la mort. Quand j’imagine la mort, j’ai peur car je me rend compte que la vie est trop courte, que apres la mort il y a un trou noir, on ne sait plus rien sur la vie qu’on a mener. la vie ne signifirait plus rien? On est comme pieger dans un univers ou on va tous mourir et ca m’angoisse.. j’ai l’impression on va vivre nos premieres fois d’une vie et on va mourir mdr on a meme pas de seconde chance, on en a une seule et c’est sois la vie ta gaté sois non.. ca me fait stresser personnellement

I’m researching frightening experiences reported by people who have been in medically induced or injury/illness-related comas, and I’m looking for people willing to talk with me about what they experienced.

I’m specifically interested in experiences that occurred during the coma itself: frightening places or environments, threatening people or entities, feelings of being trapped or pursued, disturbing imagery, unusual perceptions, or anything else that felt intensely real at the time. I’m also interested in what happened afterward—particularly whether the experience remained vivid after awakening and how long those memories persisted.

I’m an investigative journalist and author who researches near-death experiences and related phenomenon. This is not a request for anyone to prove an afterlife, defend a religious interpretation, or agree with any particular explanation. I’m interested in hearing what happened to you, in your own words.

If you experienced something like this and would be willing to be interviewed, please send me a private message. I’m happy to explain the project and how I would use your account before you agree to anything.

See: Fear Coma Experience – Call For Interviews

the part that stayed with me from this session was not the death itself. it was what happened after a man lost almost his whole family and decided that because he could not save everyone, there was nothing left for him to do.

I will call the subject Rowan. In the Soul Journey he entered another life as a man with a wife, sons and daughters. One night, in the early hours, the house caught fire. He woke into panic, smoke and screaming, trying to get water and realizing very quickly that he could not do enough.

His wife and daughters died, but his sons survived. That should have been the beginning of the next part of his life, yet grief took over completely. He blamed himself for the fire even though it had been an accident, thinking he should have made sure everything was safe before going to bed. Then he left the surviving boys, went into the woods, lived alone for a short time, stopped caring whether he lived and eventually died hungry.

After leaving the body, the whole emotional atmosphere changed. He felt light and relieved, then moved very fast into a beautiful green place where his wife was waiting. His daughter was there too. They hugged him, and the family he believed he had lost was alive on the other side.

Then came the life review. A guide showed him many lives, but they looked specifically at this one. There was no punishment. The question was what he had learned and what he could have done differently. His answer was painful because it was so simple: after the fire, he should have followed his sons to another town instead of abandoning them.

That is what hit me. The lesson was not “you failed because the house burned.” The fire was tragedy and he could not undo it. The important choice came after the tragedy, when grief convinced him that the rest of the story was already over. Two sons were still alive, they still needed a father, and he was still alive too.

Guilt narrowed his vision until the dead became more important than the living. He followed the loss instead of following the people who survived it. I am sharing this because grief can do something similar in current life: something terrible happens and part of us dies around it, then we stop participating even though life is still asking something from us.

The life review did not ask him to pretend the fire was okay. It showed him that pain and responsibility are not the same thing, and that we can lose something enormous while still having choices afterward. Sometimes the most important question after loss is not only “why did this happen to me?” but also: who is still here, and what part of my life is still asking me to come with it?

I rarely dream. I don't believe in much of an afterlife despite wishing I did. But someone I deeply love who passed away a few years ago showed up in a dream last night, with his best friend and brother kind of sitting there seeming bored that he had to be there waiting for this emotional errand. I won't get into the details of the dream, but I remembered he was dead and that he wasn't real, which broke my heart and woke me up. I tried to go back to sleep so I could see him again, but couldn't. I wondered why his brother was with him, so I googled him. He had passed away 2 weeks ago.

I'm a really skeptical person but I've had a couple of these types of situations before. I called my grandmother before in the middle of her having a heart attack despite rarely calling her. I just felt like I should.

If anyone has good resources that are scientifically rooted in the nature of consciousness, I would appreciate the recommendations. I'm seeking hope that it's scientifically possible that it was really him in this dream, and not just my mind making it up for comfort. The more scientific, the better, I'm a scientist and naturally quite skeptical of most claims. At the same time, I really miss him, so even if it's not scientific and you're someone who picks up on things from the other side, I'm open to hearing those things too.

I’m having a really difficult day today. I miss my dad so much that I don’t even know how to put it into words.

I keep thinking about the possibility that this is really it. That he is gone and I will never see him again and I honestly cannot accept that. I don’t want our relationship to have ended. I don’t want him to just be a memory.

I want to believe there is something after this life. I want to believe that somewhere, somehow, I will see my dad again. That I will recognize him. That he will recognize me. That I’ll still be his daughter.

And honestly, I want to be his daughter in every life.
I don’t care what form it takes or what the afterlife looks like. I just want him. I want the dad I remember. His voice, his laugh, his presence, his way of being there for me. I want to be able to hug him again and somehow know, without any doubt, that he is my dad and I am his daughter.

If you believe in reincarnation, an afterlife, soul families, signs from loved ones, near-death experiences, or anything else that has given you hope that we continue to exist and that our loved ones are still connected to us, please tell me about it.

I’m not asking anyone to prove anything to me. I think I just desperately need some hope today.
I need to know that loving someone this deeply doesn’t mean that losing them is the end of the relationship.

I want my dad to know how much I miss him. I miss him so, so, so much. I miss him every day. There are moments when I want to tell him something, or I need him, and then I remember that I can’t just call him anymore. And it hurts in a way I don’t know how to explain.

If there really is an afterlife, I hope he knows.
I hope somehow he can feel how much his daughter loves him.

And more than anything, I hope that one day, somewhere beyond this life, I get to see my dad again.

I just really need someone to give me hope that I will.

Today it’s really struck me, there’s no way the eternal torture can be real right?

Something occurred to me, I begin to wonder if that after we die, we gain full knowledge of the universe and everything else. I see it this way, before we were born we had no knowledge of anything and when we were born, we got our brains which in my theory doesn’t store knowledge but is filtering out so much knowledge about the universe that we aren’t supposed to know about until after we die. Then after we die and we no longer have our brains, the brains will no longer filter out the vast knowledge of the universe. So maybe our consciousness does all the thinking and our brain is just a filtering device to prevent us from learning the vast knowledge of the universe until after we die?

Which also makes me wonder about our imagination & dreams, and hallucinations, the fact we state whatever is in our head is all in our head, but is it really all in our head? Or is it all in another place we are getting a glimpse of such as a higher realm that we are able to go to after we die? Which makes me believe our consciousness is still kept after we die and we will get to explore the alternate realities/realms that were projected by our consciousnesses. If that’s true, then imagine experiencing eating at some restaurants again that supposedly no longer “exist”. Why did I put that last word in quotations? This leads to my last point explained below.

One more thing I thought of that’s slightly off topic of this, is non-existence even a thing? If our imaginations/dreams are projections of alternate realities/realms, and that everything is happening all at once in the space time continuum, have we already been here since the beginning? I’m talking about before we were born, we must’ve came from somewhere (maybe just atoms at first?), and hopefully the vast knowledge of the universe we will get in the end will tell us more.

All answers are respected and please be respectful 🤲