Ever had the experience of life flashing before your eyes?

Have you ever had the experience of ‘life flashing before your eyes’ when in danger? Perhaps in an accident, combat or a life threatening event?

If so I’d love to hear from you for a book I am writing on hallucinations, altered perceptions and how the brain constructs reality.

If so, feel free to drop me a brief email through this webpage as I’d be keen to hear more.

53 thoughts on “Ever had the experience of life flashing before your eyes?”

      1. I have went through an experience. Im 15, and i had this vision when i was, i dont know mabye 6. This happened to me while i was asleep, or a dream if you would. I wasnt dieing or anything I just woke up and had no memory of having a subconsious before that time. My whole life flashed before me, but unlike most dreams where its third person point of view, it was first person point of view. When I woke up I didnt know who I was nor what I looked like. I’ll never forget that day and the words I said when i woke up. “Wow” and then I walked over to the mirror beside my bed and I said “Damn I’m ugly”. I constantly get dejavoos more then most people and I think because my flash showed me the future as well. I always wonder if anyone else has had this experience.

      2. yeah i had images in there ( people ) that i had never seen before. I think that the new wife of my dad was in it. They met each other like 5-8 yrs after my experience. I’m not sure tho because i had this like 12-14 yrs ago when i was between 10-12 , now i’m 26.

      3. I know this post is five years old, but I’m seeking answers. When I was trying to go to sleep last night I literally had photo/video images of different times and places and events fly in front of me! Like 70 mph fast, but yet I could see and disquish them all. I had to try very hard to wake myself. It really scared me; I’ve never had this happen.

  1. Very much looking forward to the book as I can guess the general contents from your blog posts. Out of about 40 blogs I follow, this is in my top 3.

  2. Had been in danger. Just saw stars, that too, florescent in color, just like in cartoons. How did they know? Is there any research on that? If so, could you please post? Love your work. Keep going.

  3. So is it only vision-based? I.E. A high speed vision of your entire life?

    And does your life necessarily have to be in danger at the time?

    I have had an experience like this, but not when my life was in danger, but at a moment when I realised that my life might change permanently in a very dramatic way.

  4. This is going to be fascinating.

    It would be interesting to compare people in events that resulted in hallucinations with similar events that didn’t, two people in the same event that had different reactions and different cultures. Tribal/shamanic initiations would seem to have a version of life threatening events leading to recalling life events.

  5. The link you post doesn’t seem like it’ll get info/e-mail to YOU, so I’m reluctant to pass it along to the one person who’s possibly experienced something along the lines of what you’re looking for/interested in researching.

  6. For the part 10 years I’ve experienced simulated psychosis
    which includes simulated auditory hallucinations, 24/7. Have even
    had a few tactile and visual “spiritual” experiences that were, not only not real(HA!), they were caused to happen not by my imagination, not by drugs or God, but by the next best thing. A delivery system called the
    Microwave Auditory Effect.

    (And no, I didn’t keep these
    fancy terms handy just to sound
    amusing or to get attention.)

    MAE or “Voice of god” technology
    is not new, not an urban legend,
    has been around long before the registered patent date, is not part of Tea Party paranoia that the “government is out to get me” that used to be an indicator of paranoia and psychosis but has now been relegated to just being something worse, republican.

    No, unfortunately, I’ve gone
    through all the stupid diagnoses,
    many antipsych drugs, all my $,
    read and saw all the articles on
    the internet and YT on mind
    control etc. 1) I don’t talk
    like them and 2)most of those sites including the ones on YT are not as Dr Bell reported, done by psychotics or paranoids.
    They are made by the same ppl
    who do what these sites purport
    and pretend to be exposing.
    Why? Controlling the argument
    from all sides. That comes in
    handy when what your doing is

    I know, that’s crazy and also
    true, but that’s beside the point
    b/c I can’t prove any of it.

  7. During my first near-death experience many years ago (a near drowning) I actually expected to experience a life review of some type, but it never came. Before I lost consciousness,my last thought was that I hadn’t expected to die this way. Last December, when I nearly died in childbirth, there were some flashbacks of a sort, rapidly cycling through memories of loved ones and profound regret that I would die without ever seeing my child’s face. I was frightened during the ordeal, but the over-riding emotion was sorrow.

    In both cases, I recall seeing “stars” like another poster mentioned above.

  8. I often have lucid dreams, that are so mundane, and ordinary. And then within a few days or weeks I experience extreme deja vu, like the dream was a preview. And it’s not simple deja vu, as in one or two things are similar, but word for word conversations, surroundings and other sounds.

  9. most flashbacks/ hallucinations are caused by a dmt fluxuation in the brain reasulting in seeing ur life or a white light or in rare cases some people clame seeing alternet universes. DMT is also what causes u to dream reasulting in those dreams that make no sence. i have never seen my life flash but i have seen reality slow down to microseconds and seen my self falling like i was watching from 20ft away (out of body) all these are chemical reactions from dmt in your brain as well as dreams portraying the future although rare and generally not belived by the public these different reactions caused by circumstances and dmt

  10. i was on google when i found this page due to what happend to me a few hours ago on7/22/12. I was with 3 friends in the car driving down 50 (a road in bithlo florida. As we are driving at 60mph we see a car come flying out of the gas station it felt like in less than a second the car was right infront of us head on. This is when i blacked out and saw my entire life (even the smallest things i would never think of any other day) literally flash befor my eyes. it all happend in lest than a second because i still remember the girl who was driving barely miss a pole in the median and still almost go into on comming traffic. the people in the other car were two black males who i was then scolding but they just looked at us and sped off again. Me and the girl in the back seat were not wearing seatbelts so it really did make me realize how lucky i am to still be here right now and this has changed my perspective on many things. i know someone was lookin out for me from up above today.

    1. the same thing happened to me i was being stupid after a shit day at work i over to cars was going about 180 kms i an old car with bouncy front suspension pulled in and started drifting side to side across the road and i saved it people that saw it were pale, like you i know someone that day was watching out for me and i believe ever since,and my life flash before me in a second every little event up until then in great detail it was programed into my brain il never forget that day either!!

  11. Growing up I lived in a very small town. There wasn’t much to do but drive around and find your friends and just hang out in a parking lot. Well some of us had a very adventurist attitude and were always doing crazy things. Like jumping from one vehicle to another while moving at 50+ miles an hour. When we got older we didn’t have much time to hang out anymore because we had jobs. It was especially hard for me because I had two jobs at the time of the accident. I was working one job in the morning for eight hours then another in the evening for another eight. The day of the accident I called out of work so I could hang out with my friends and girlfriend at the time. The day stared out great but people started to leave and then it was just me and a buddy sitting in my apartment watching TV. We were board until a commercial for Mountain Dew came on with people climbing a Mountain. We knew then what we were going to do next. We have been climbing an old rock quarry for years. It was about 65 ft. high and in a horse shoe shape next to a road. It takes half an hour to get there. I drove and parked the car next to the road. We started climbing opposite sides of the rock quarry. He was almost at the top and I was a little over 45 Ft. There was this big boulder sticking out of the cliff. I thought I would try standing on it to rest awhile. I had my two feet on the boulder but was still hanging on the side of the quarry with my hands. It seemed to hold my weight so I let one hand hold go and then slowly the other. About five seconds after that I heard a noise and then it was like one of the Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner cartoons. I looked down and could see the boulder falling away from me. I know it’s weird but I swear that I hung in the air just like in the cartoons. I don’t know for how long but to me the time seemed significantly long. If I had a sign that said “YIKES!” I would have held it up. Even stranger was what was going on in my head. I started remembering things that I was sure that I had long forgot. I even started having images in my head of my life and it was so crystal clear, almost like I was reliving it, like a movie. I have always heard the saying “Your life flashing before your eyes.”

    1. This happened to my sister and I. I was 18 and she was sixteen at the time, I am now 41. We were heading home around midnight after going out for a cup of coffee. A train was heading across the road with no lights on, I slid to a stop about a foot from hitting the train. Both of us experienced our life flashing before our eyes. It was also like a very fast slide show, but mine started from birth. My sisters did as well. I have also had several dreams that predict the future with great accuracy and I can tell a regular dream from something more meaningful upon wakening. I also have a strong urge to relay the message to whomever it was about or write the “dream” down. I have left my body three times during my sleep, once completely to visit with my grandmother who passed on, and two other times I partially left my body to received messages from two other loved ones who passed on. Both of these times I looked back and seen myself sleeping and it scared me, I fell back in my body very quickly and awoke startled.

  12. Similar to what Shippo said. Expect I have these dreams frequently and my life flashes backwards starting with most recent events to least recent events in my life. I have also had the near-death life-flashing-experience but to me that was my fears recalling everything i held dear and loved before my life (or so i thought) was going to end… so idk..

  13. R u still writing your book? I’d like to read it if you have finished. I’m searching for occurrences similar to my own. While my life has never flashed before my eyes, other people’s lives do. I’ve always been like this but I rarely speak of it. I’m an average person. I’m married with 2 kids and my family is great. I was raised in a loving home, went on to college, started a business…. I’m very average. I have no history of abuse, mental illness or drug use. Sometimes, when I look into someone’s eyes, I see their life flash in my head in one quick second. The images are usually horrific. Usually, I politely avoid these people. But sometimes, I swear they know what I’ve seen. Have you come across this while writing your book?

  14. I had an accident in the coal mines I worked at probably 25 years ago. A piece of machinery pinned me against the rib(coal wall). The accident happened so fast that my brain must have thought I was going to die because my life flashed before my eyes. I don’t know how long this went on but the next thing I know, my co-worker was backing the piece of machinery off of me. The only thing that was actually hurt was my leg. The machinery had trapped me against the rib and had my leg pinned. So it wasn’t like I was really in any danger of dying. However I think because it happened so fast and my brain didn’t realize what had happened it assumed I was going to die. Anyway, there is no denying that I did see very clearly different pictures of all these different times in my life and events that had happened starting from an early age and up. So I know for a fact that we do have something in us that triggers that affect and it has to have something to do with some kind of chemicals that are released when you think you are dying. I have no idea if this happens right before you actually die or not but I do know it happened to me when my brain evidently thought I was dying.

  15. I experienced this phenomenon when I was a young child, approx 6. I was stepping off a “tall” wood deck. No steps had been built yet. Anyhow, I was just about to step off the deck when I had the experience, it was definately a replay of my life to that point as far as I can recall. I also felt I stopped in mid-stride and set my foot back on the deck rather than stepping down. When I did look down I saw a cat-sized rat, almost dead at my feet and two more in the yard. My dad had put rat poison by the barn and they apparently fled the barn area towards the house as they died. I am curious still about the incident. I am currently 36. 🙂 -JJ

  16. I almost drowned when my nephew pushed me under water for a long time when i was between 10-12 yrs old. I remember it like yesterday , images flashing before my eyes , even persons that i didn’t know were in it. I agree with the part that your brain doesn’t get enough oxigine and probably starts to tilt but it’s weird none the less right.

  17. I’ve had my life flash before my eyes. It happened when my friend and I were on our way to work at 0400 in the morning. We almost hit one of those cement dividers on the highway. (not sure the real name for those) My friend was driving and dropped her pack of cigarettes by her feet. She leaned over to try to find them an I leaned over to help. As I sat up, all I saw was the cement barrier RIGHT in front of us. Then that’s when it happened. My life flashed before my eyes. I always imagined when I heard this happening to people, that it would start out when you were a baby to present time. Mine went backwards. From then, present time to when I was a baby. It flashed before extremely fast. Like a slide show or one of those viewfinders, clicking it very fast. Even though it went by me really fast, I clearly saw and was able to recognize myself at certain ages and the people who are closest to me. People don’t believe me but it’s an experience I will never forget.

    1. i had the same experience happen to me , only it started from my birth to date at that time, it was like a super fast slide show of things that happened in my life. some good some bad, although the images were flashing very quickly , i could still see them all. some of the things i had forgotten , some were so long ago to remember but must be stored in my brain somewhere, i never mentioned this to many people but i have related the story to a couple of people over the years. This happened to me over 30 years ago and i still think about it today.

  18. Several years ago I was almost hit by a car. In the moments before the surely fatal impact, I was frozen and everything went silent. Time seemed to slow down and images began to flash through my mind. I do not remember any of the images, nor did I feel anything about them…meaning not happy or sad or regret. I was in a panic inside and I yelled out in my mind that I wasn’t ready to die and begged for a second chance. Even though the scene with the car coming at me was still there, it was like a window was opened in front of that scene where I viewed the images and reality continued in slow motion in the background. I instinctively knew those images were my life in review. Suddenly, I felt I was jolted back into the moment and I could hear again. It was chaos. The car came skidding to a halt inches from my knees and I rested my hands on the hood of the car and breathed a huge sigh of relief as I stared into the eyes of the equally terrified driver. Although, I am not particularly religous, I believe I spoke to God that day and I was granted a second chance. It is hard to think any other way about it.

  19. When i was a little girl, i can’t remember how old, i had my life flash before my eyes. I was just riding my bike down the road and a car came around the corner a bit faster than it should have been. I just remember everything going silent and seeing flashing images of events that happened throughout my life. In those couple seconds I didn’t have any recollection of the real world, just those images. But I don’t remember feeling judged or seeing any friends or family smiling at me or saying they loved me- just seemed to be me living my life. But then again I can’t seem to remember what I had seen very well, just the experience… Also, I had this experience before I’d even seen the car coming at me, it seems like once I came back to reality I saw the car and they had already stopped so I just carried on with my day not feeling any real sense of danger.

    1. Jenny,
      What you experienced…I too also experienced something like what you described. My friend and I were going

  20. When I was ten years old, I suffered a broken arm. I was alone and while trying to get help I was fighting loosing consciousness. I sat down, attempting to remain alert and suddenly began seeing my life memories flash (as described above in a sort of slide show format). I believe the memories were presented in a 3rd person point of view.

    I never did loose consciousness and was able to walk to seek help. The injury I sustained was a simple fracture to my left wrist.

    As an adult, I’ve become familiar with the near death syndrome that includes “life flashing before your eyes, the white light and/or the idea of family/loved ones interaction.” I’ve always wondered if others had the same type of experience in far less traumatic situations, such as I experienced.

  21. I had life flashes once…saw early childhood to real-time – just before I had a bad injury to my arm…if my skin didn’t hold the blood in I would have bled out. I made a rash choice from those flashes to save two people from getting hurt or killed. If I didn’t do anything they would have died as I also saw in my life flash. Shortly after this, I was like in a semi-coma. I could see with my mind… people around me, hear them talking. I knew what they were wearing and doing. I tried to talk to them but I couldn’t get out of my mind to communicate. I SCREAMED and know one heard me.

  22. I had a flash before my eyes experience when I was 19 years old
    My boyfriend became angry and choked me til I blacked out and while I was blacked out I started to see photos of myself back and forth scenes of my life while I was a little girl til older I pulled myself back cause I was confused and scared but I will never forget that experience after that experience it made me not afraid to die after that but now I am still afraid.

  23. I did not have my life flash before my eyes, but once when i got run over i saw music notes floating around and a specific song playing in the backround.

  24. Today at school i passed out and a bunch of old memories started flashing before my eyes! it was super scary, does anyone know why?

  25. happened to me when I was about 7 years old, I was very sickly when I was young. I was looking at a candle my mother put in my room. I saw the flickering candle slowly go out. I believed I was dying, just then God showed up. I cant describe his voice because it seemed like the life giving waves of thousands of beaches but definitely the most powerful force Ive ever experienced. The msg was (Be of good cheer, you will recover and live to be a very old man) I did see an image of a mans face like lightning. I noticed the candle in my room coming back into focus. I got better and I praise his name and that of his son evermore. Gods loves all of us.

  26. Once when I was 8,I was choking on food because I was laughing incredibly hard.Don’t even remember was it was but I started dying and blacking out.My body kept shaking I couldn’t really feel myself choking anymore, I literally felt like a spirit in a body and it was the body dying. I saw a blinding white light and I began seeing moments of my life, my baby pictures,I heard my mother laughing,I heard birds,rain,a bunch of sounds from my life,at the same same I was seeing black, then my surroundings,then the flash backs again.Then I just ended up seeing a blinding white light but before I could react I was successfully stopped from choking by my aunt who luckily knew the Heimlich

  27. I got tangled up in my parachute when skydiving and I literally had 5 – 8 seconds to get out of that mess in order for me to open my emergency so I could land safely. I thought I was going to die. At first everything went into slow motion as if time stood still and I thought of so many things in my life, including family and friends and situations (can’t recall any of them now). It is basically impossible to think of all that in those seconds of time-frame, so I do question weather there are more than one dimension and if there was a reason for slow motion kicking in? I still question it 20 years later, would love to know more about it!

  28. I’m my 20s a can of paint hit me on top of the head. As I stood there events of my life came back from youth up to my age then. It was like flashes. For moments in time I was seeing everything in perfect detail as when the events took place. Color, smell everything in perfect detail. I had no control of what events came up, but I did know that I was flashing my life. I wish I had control to do it on my own, it was great. They were just random thoughts, things I had never thought of after the original event. It was nothing like dreams.

  29. Just ran across this and the date is 5 years ago but I wanted to share my experience. I suppose it was a near death experience …I was being choked after a fight. Anyways I remember my life flashing back from the present to when I was a baby. Weirdest thing to ever happen to me. Shoulda left then. At the time I remembered several details but years have gone by now.

  30. It was 30 years ago but I was in a car accident and as the car was spinning on the ice, I became very calm. Everything went to slo-mo and i saw family members and friends who had passed, and visions of my childhood. It was very eerie. I closed my eyes waiting for the impact, but the car ended up in a ditch which probably saved me.

    So yes, this does happen!

  31. Never do my life flashes come in my dreams, never been in an accident or near death. These flashes are all day every day. What does this mean . I can see them and they come and go, leaving me frustrated. I have had them so many times, I think about planning my funeral

  32. Well i never had a near death experience but one time i took a tab of lsd and when i hit the peak i felt like my whole life flashed before me all leading up to me taking the lsd tab, as soon as i snapped out of it i said “i understand now”. I have no clue what it was i understood but at that split second i knew. Its strange and kinda hard to grasp but i felt like i had all the answers to life at that very moment in time and lost it just as fast as it came.

  33. When I was 16, I had a boyfriend threaten me by hanging me over the roof of a tall building. I fought him until his strength over shadowed me and when I looked down I realized I had no control over my life. Then, I froze up and I saw my entire life in about 5 seconds flash before me. Everything I ever did and every person I ever met were there. It was in chronological order. It was in thousands of segments that all joined together.

  34. I have a lot to tell of my experience. It started off as i had a dream and when i woke up i forgot all about it and never thought anything of it, the dream was that i was hanging out with my friend Lucas it was dark and another person was in the car idk who she was at the time and we were in his car in Tahlequah Oklahoma, we were heading to drop me off at this store called hill top because my mom was picking me up and on our way we stopped for gas and they were laughing i was looking at his side rear view mirror watching them laugh she goes in to pay for gas and she comes back out and gets in so does he we start going to hill top and suddenly we get their I have my guitar with me and I grab it when im getting out i hit my head on the top of his car by accident and say see ya man and get in my moms vehicle as were going to my house im just looking around out of my side window and we get to my place and i go inside my room and my younger brother walks in and were talking well as he’s walking out i tell him to stop and he stands on one foot and looks at me with his hands in a waving still moment and says yay with a smiling face and i said never mind then my dad walks in drunk does some weird stupid dance and i try to pass out then i wake up well i never thought anything of this dream. Well 30 to 40 days pass by after my dream and my friend Lucas calls and asked do i want to hang out by this time i forgot about the dream and it started off as a normal day i brought my guitar with me and as were hanging out it gets kinda late he asked do i want to go to Marleanas this girl we knew from high school i said yea we go over to her place and its around 8:00 and its dark well its time for me to go to the store hill top because my mom was picking me up their well we start heading that way she tags along with us and she seemed so familiar for some reason and when we get on the road were the same store we got gas at this vision hits me and i start to get scared well i said in my head to myself if we keep going straight im good and this vision means nothing so i tried to get it off my mind well as were driving i get calm and i thought we were going to keep going no we stop at that same store and then my heart starts pounding really fast and they start joking and laughing well he gets out to pump gas and shes goes in to pay for the gas and i’m looking through his side rear view mirror and she comes back and gets in the car so does he well we start going down the road to hill top im scared out of my mind wondering what the fucks going on excuse my language but im telling you its something you dont want to experience because i thought after this is over im going to die and i say in my head im going to try and prevent that event were i hit my head because everything i seen in that dreams was happening right in front of me and when i we get to hill top finally and I have my guitar with me i grab it and as im getting out i hit my head the exact same way and for some reason i say see ya man and i turn around to face my moms vehicle and im like really scared i get in well on my way home all i was thinking how could this have happened i pinched my self in the arm thinking i was dreaming and also i hit my slef in the arm saying wake up i felt the pain of the pinch and hit and i remembered were i told my brother to stop well i wanted to put that to the test as we got home i go to my room and he walks in as he did in my dream well i ask him to stop when he was leaving my room and at that moment he looks at me while on one foot with his hands in the same position as he was in my dreams and says ya i just started to get even more scared well my dad then walks in my room hes drunk and does that same stupid weird dance i just lay down and start to cry myself to sleep because its so real to be true i just couldnt understand why this has happened to i just need answers can someone plz help me

  35. Yes, i can say i have seen my entire life,up to that point -flashed before my eyes.
    I was a student then..nearly 30 years ago.On George st, Sydney Australia, as i stood in the middle of the road when 2 buses on opposite direction sped past.
    For that single moment, I drew in breath sharply in sheer terror,as i watched the side of the big bus wizz within inches off past my face and suddenly i saw it…
    Every minute detail of my life.From the day i was born right to that minute where i stood in the middle of the busy road.Every little detail- even the useless, forgotten ones.All in a matter of 2 seconds like a pre-recorded video in crazy hyper speed !
    Ironically, whenever i think back of that scene, i now see the bus moving in painfully slow motion…
    So surreal.

  36. Today I have had a odd experiance. I was dragged by a car about thirty feet and i saw my own death. I saw my head dragged under the tire. Yet that did not happen. Instead i walked away with bruses and road burn. I have always been a christian and born to belive in the lord jesus christ. I have been through many trials and tribulations in my life yet never like this. God had his protective hand around me. I felt it i even feel it now. It is real i tell you all real. If it is not real how on earth am i typing this? Is science inertia and gravity with newtons law involved? Of course it is and where did all this come from? THE Creator. Something comes from something nothing comes from nothing.

  37. Some believe that the reality we live in is a run through of some cosmic software — it’s like the glimpses we have to all our lives are like a video tape that can be run forwards or backwards, so it is more of a simulation; others say it like we peer into another dimension of our lives, which may be slightly different depending on what choices we make. Seeing your whole life pass by may mean you were on one of those decision points where the different realities that could play out for our lives. Like a point where something major could occur. Facing sure death if you move on foot either way, now that could be the connecting point. Suppose in another reality you step in front of the bus — bingo, you’re dead, and the simulation is over. Who knows, the brain is obviously more perceptive than our conscious minds can comprehend.

  38. Yeah I had this experience as a child. While rollerskating for the fist time as 11 year old i rolled down a hill. My feet flew out under me, hit the back of my head on the cement sidewalk. Instantly saw a purple flash as well as my life up to that point it was very fast but i could see and distinguish everything like a recording. I woke up as soon as the images ended, it was trippy will never forget.

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