Have you ever been in a coma? Do you hear the people around you talking?

Question

I've always wondered if the person who is in a coma can hear and/or understand what is going on around them but it just feels like they are dreaming. Can you tell me anything about your experience?

Answer 1

I was on life support in a vegetative coma! Much to the surprise of the medics I came out after five days but was paralysed with complete amnesia.

Although I had amnesia and was allegedly in a vegetative state ie no brain activity, I had vivid memories of a spiritual experience (HOW??? I had no brain activity!!!) and could remember that I had stood among the doctors and looked at my own lifeless body watching the doctors and students discussing me and waiting for me to die.

The first half an hour is crucial in head injury cases treatment must be immediate for a good recovery however because they thought I would die I apparently had no treatment food or water until I'd survived on the machines for three days so my parents tell me.

I had no pain relief in all that time and when I came out of coma because I was paralysed I could not communicate that I was out of coma.

Yes you can hear when you are in coma the senses become quite acute the hearing is always the last thing to go and when you are under anaesthetic in surgery the patient can hear what is being said, this can cause emotional trauma if they are careless what they are saying and can set up post hypnotic suggestions as in hypnosis!

I am a hypnotist btw and I have clearly recovered despite being told that I would never walk again but I chose not to listen to them and made my own future and overcame it despite them giving me psychiatric counselling to help me accept the inevitable.

I am no longer paralysed as you can see and I had to learn how to talk again indeed I was like a baby having to re-learn how to control every bodily function even had to learn how to talk.

I am fully recovered except for epilepsy and the plague of crippling migraines 3 or 4 times a week!

If you know somebody in coma I suggest that you talk to them conversationally and treat them with the respect and dignity you would any normal person. When they are in coma it may be that all it takes them to come out of the coma is to find their way back along a very confused route in their mind your voices will help them find their way out!

If the medical professionals tell you that there is no hope they say it with your best interests but their understanding does not go beyond their text books! Remember they said I was a vegetable and that I wouldn't last the first night, that I would never walk again. Nevertheless I made a miracle return and walked out of Atkinson Morley Hospital Wimbledon after eight weeks which was yet another miracle.

Miracle One I survived
Miracle two I was no longer a vegetable
Miracle Three I walked again using hypnosis to rewrite my mind maps and neural pathways
Miracle four I learned how to control all bodily functions
Miracle Five I learned how to speak
Miracle Six I learned how to read
Miracle Seven It all took only eight weeks

It happened In 1978

I hope that this helps

Answer 2

I have heard people in a drug-induced coma say they were aware of conversations around them while they were unconscious. I have had patients who were clinically dead - from sudden cardiac arrest - say they saw a bright light or that they saw dead friends and relatives. My father suffered a witnessed cardiac arrest in 1983. He said he saw himself on the ER stretcher and was aware the ER attending was using a defibrillator. He said his point of view was ABOVE the bed, as if he was looking down at himself. Was he dreaming? I don't know.

Answer 3

I was in a coma for 24 hours following a suicide attempt and I did not have any awareness at all. (and I did not see a tunnel or a bright light either)