"My brain was getting on with rebooting. They’d ask what I wanted for lunch, it’d arrive and I’d be staggered and say ‘How did you know?’ and I’d read the same copy of the newspaper several times a day — Mindy took it away in the end as it was too painful for her — but it was all new to me.... A dear friend’s mother is becoming very confused and I always say, ‘Is she happy?’ You can be confused and happy."
Says Richard Hammond, about his experience right after waking up from a coma, in "Deep in a coma I dreamt I was dying. Then my wife woke me up/Unconscious after his crash, in his mind the TV star was walking in the Lake District. Now he no longer fears death" (London Times).
As far as what it was like inside the coma — and approaching death — maybe you have already seen the fantastic (and viral) video he made:
"We’re all aware of our mortality — it’s a curse and it’s terrifying," he says. "But I hope it’s helping people deal with losing loved ones, letting them think, ‘Well at that moment, they are drifting off to their happy place.’ For me, the key bit of it is that last thought resonating forever. From the moment it [death] happens, you’re no longer constrained by the passage of time, and so your last thought is eternal."
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36 comments:
My Mother died of Demetia. It was difficult to hear her ask me where I lived now five times in a row. My sister, God bless her, moved in to take care of her after she caught the help stealing from her. I was convinced that the real her was in there somewhere & that it was frustrating for her. I have no knowledge of the science, but just felt it. On one visit, my sister asked me to take her for a ride. I said Where? she said It doesn't matter. She won't remember. You had to laugh to keep from crying. we were driving down the beach access road & came on a purple & pink monstrosity with towers posing as a beach house & said, That looks like a Chinese whorehouse. She said: I wouldn't know. :-) I guess you wonder how I know Mom. It just seemed like the real Mom was in there somewhere.
The Hammond - Clarkson - May team of Top Gear and now Grand Tour are the best presenters on TV. True Renaissance men. My favorite episode was when they walked thru an abandoned British car factory (MG?) and genuinely, quietly wept.
JSM
Even though I love reading the clever, astute, snarky or whatever comments from your readers, I am not going to let anything take away from how moved and touched I was by the contents of this video.
He loves loves loves the lake district.
Last I checked you had to nick his smallest cog show in the us
John. The best thing on TV.
Well...it's a beautiful video and beautiful thought. I guess we won't know until we get there. But FWIW, I do have places that are special to me, and would not mind a whit if I could meander around either of those places until time itself wore out. Or until the Lions won a Super Bowl. Whichever comes first.
Just kidding. We all know that time itself will wear out first.
Isn't there an Althouse tag for "Lightweight Religion" or something along those lines?
Some people believe your dog dies and crosses the Rainbow Bridge and waits for you there but no one knows for sure and no dog has ever come back to say one way or the other so maybe it's more like a tree.
I know for a fact my dog would spend a great deal of time sniffing at it and eventually add his own contribution to what amounts to a collaborative project of demarcation as well as explanation.
Everyone please have a nice Sunday.
I find this to be very comforting.
“Now, he no longer fears death”
You wouldn’t know he feared death, before the accident that put him in a coma.
Or, it was a meticulously choreographed tv show. It wasn’t as dangerous as it was made out to be.
Or, both. He always feared death and the show was meticulously choreographed.
Thank you for linking that video.
rwnutjob
thanks for sharing your story
josh mosby, I agree - they have made some of the best television out there over the past 15-20 years. My boys love them, and I have to confess to re-watching some of my favorite episodes alone when the boys are back at school. Clarkson's Farm is a delight, and through that show and his continued speaking out on the impossibility of being a farmer today, Clarkson is doing British agriculture a huge service.
What's interesting to me is that as Clarkson becomes more aware of his own mortality and has admitted to being afraid of death, Hammond obviously has a different take on the subject. Is that just their (very different) personalities or is it the age difference - I wonder.
the funniest things about dreams are how real they seem to us while we're in a dream
Just the other day I had a dream, I was going back to high school
repeating it, at my age
and I got really worked up
"Why the fuck am I doing high school again? I don't want to do high school again. This is a horrible idea! So stupid!"
and I woke up pissed off at myself
and it took me a minute or two to realize that I was not, in fact, going back to high school again
but while I was dreaming, the feeling that this was really happening was strong
dreams are a fascinating phenomenon and we still don't understand them
there are any number of people who are unconscious and have near death experiences
the idea of shared dreams is interesting
don't know if it influenced Jung or not
I'm glad somebody at a university is collecting data on this
good for them
My mother and aunt were both young girls who found themselves by their aunt's bedside when she passed. Just before the woman took her final breath, she turned to the youngsters and said, "Hurry up, girls, it's beautiful over here." They both were very impressed by that statement, but waited until 92 and 101 to make the journey...
Someday I'll tell you about my one mystical near death experience, which remains the central event in my life. Happened when I fell off a cliff and broke my neck. Nothing life this one, but equally comforting.
I’m reading “At Heavens Door” by William J Peters. It’s about shared death experiences. There are people who have claimed to have been with their loved one through the very end of the dying process right up to the point where the dying person crosses beyond a point that they cannot turn back. They report joy, peace and surprise that dying and returning “home” is what is real, more so than even our life here on earth. I’ve read about this phenomenon of a shared death vision in some accounts of near death experiences, but not much of this shrared death experience has been written about until recently. There is so much we don’t know about dying, the afterlife and eternity.
My best friend from high school was in a coma for about 90 days. They called him “The Miracle Man” when he came out of it.
His roommate at Notre Dame is now a Jesuit priest and he was in charge of some Novices at the time. They were ordered to pray for him.
My friend runs a big nursery here in Omaha. One of his sons works there. He was at his Dad’s bedside and he then woke up and said, “Mick, I’m really unhappy with our annuals program.” They’d been talking about that very thing the day of the accident.
He later complained to me that the coma diminished his math ability. He graduated from Notre Dame, with honors, and a Math major.
Not much of a star. Not in the US. I only caught bits of his show, but the other two guys seemed more colorful and memorable.
Sorry about the snark. Maybe I'll get around to watching the video and be moved by it.
He always seemed like a nice guy...
My wife had a near death experience about 15 years ago. She was driving down a mountain and felt dizzy. She saw a turnoff and took it, then parked and turned off the car. She passed out and saw her ancestors welcoming her. Then she heard her grandmother say, "She needs more time with Claire." Our daughter who was then about 20. A moment later she woke up with four paramedics looking at her through the open door of her car. They took her to the nearest hospital where she had three stents placed in her right coronary artery. The nurses told her she had had a seizure while there.
She stopped smoking after that.
my happiest time, was in the brain rehab ward too! (after My Coma, after MY TBI)
There were ALWAYS interesting and new things happening. New People, Every day
my mom said, that when i was in the coma; when she'd talk to me (not yelling at me.. At least she wouldn't admit it if she did).. My EEG brain scanner thing would light up.. Which made her her feel better.
So, apparently, some people receive some sensory input while in their comas.
But jeeze! you're having a relaxing dream about a pretty hike;
and The Whole Time, your old lady is nagging you to come back :)
Touching and insightful video. I'm not remotely religious,but have thought that, wished that after dying there could or would be something else, more. Seemed to me a bit of a waste, loss to have it all come to an abrupt end. After losing both parents and a sibling, I've said that they have begun a different journey. Hammon's story would seem to be along those lines. There is some comfort in that, and is as likely an accurate possibility as any.
But Hammond didn't actually die, so his experience tells us nothing about dying.
Good for Hammond--I don't know him or the show, but he has a great philosophy of life (as Edgar Derby put it in Slaughterhouse-5).
Personally, I don't fear death. I fear dying.
I've dealt with senile and demented old women, and just hope I don't go messily like they did.
I used to have bad dreams about high school too, especially when I was still in high school; I dream less and/or remember less about my dreams nowadays.
[Blogger being a jerk this morning. Afternoon.]
“ But Hammond didn't actually die, so his experience tells us nothing about dying.”
It tells us about dying. It doesn’t tell us about death.
I had a heart attack and passed out at the gym. I was in the void. I was out for several minutes before being resuscitated. No lights. No heaven no hell. It was nothingness. I no longer fear death. We go back from whence we came.
My exit ramp is coming up pretty soon. I doubt that it will be as scenic as that hill in the Lake District..... Well, I'm just glad that he had a good life and a comforting death experience. It's not for everyone, but you have to have a few people hit the jackpot to keep the players in the casino.
Neural dysfunction, perhaps death... Not viable. Freedom. #Wait #MindysRevenge
The Lake Country looks nice, almost as good as Devils Lake. It’s a bit too disorganized. Wisconsin is very tidy.
It doesn't tell us about dying, it tells us about being a coma- nothing more.
I have known exactly one person personally who was clinically dead- no heartbeat for 3-4 minutes before being revived (she had drowned in a pool after passing out underwater). She told me that she had no memories at all between changing into her bathing suit in the locker room and beginning the walk to the pool area and waking up in the ambulance. She said the same thing as Lawnerd above- nothingness, no dreams, no visions. I have heard the same thing from people who have been under general anesthesia, and have experienced it myself twice for dental procedures when I was a pre-teen/teenager (I had to have 4 teeth removed prior to getting braces, and then all my wisdom teeth removed a few years after). The first procedure, I wasn't completely under- I distinctly remember the pulling of the teeth, though there was no pain at all- it was all fuzzy. However, the removal of the wisdom teeth, I went to sleep and woke up with nothing at all in between- no dreams, no visions- it was like no time had passed at all.
https://video.vermontpublic.org/video/soul-of-the-soil-jqhbix/?fbclid=IwAR1GRYibLQZQyLiBImXuQR8z9nIqc-Wj7D4-dp0ody5WzkyGDyMi17qWs3g
These people are neighbors. More than neighbors.
Jack passed away about a month after the little documentary was made.
When we lose a little calf- which happens sometimes- I pray I have a herd to go to in Heaven. Rather than a dog at the gate- I’d love a little herd of the ones I never got to see grow up.
It’s there.
I’ve watched a number of the Hammond-Clarkson-May shows, both Top Gear and the more recent one. I can tell Richard is not afraid of dying because I saw him take a $980,000 electric supercar just a touch past its limit of adhesion and into another thoroughly flamboyant crash. Totaling a million dollar supercar, one of (IIRC) only 8 made, must be a sobering experience.
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