Was Your Loved One’s Death Painful, Scary, or Dark?

What the evidence reveals about the experience immediately following death.

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In my Tuesday articles on Bob Olson Connect, I often write about the experience following death from a variety of angles. I’ve written about pre-death visions, the life review, and even why spirits attend their own funerals. However, a lot of people have asked me about the experience immediately after our consciousness leaves our body. Specifically, people have asked whether death is painful, scary, or dark.

Based on my own findings along with the research of other experts, this is what twenty-six years of afterlife investigation has taught me about these important questions about our immediate experience following death.

Question One: Is death painful?

It’s helpful to make a distinction between the word “dying” and the word “death.” Dying (a physical event) can be painful. Death (a spiritual event) is not.

Death is the state where you are physically dead, but your consciousness survives. Many people who have died for a few seconds or minutes and then revived said that they were fully aware of their body and surroundings while dead, only they were not in their bodies during these experiences. These are called near-death experiences (NDEs).

For many, the initial stage of the NDE is called an out-of-body experience (OBE). In many cases during near-death experiences, people found themselves floating up by the ceiling above everyone else in the room (for example, above the doctors in the emergency room). If they were outdoors when they died, they floated freely above their body. Many who have had this experience said the transition was natural: “One second, I was running for shelter across a field during a lightning storm. The next second, I was floating above my body as it lay on the grass.”

Regardless of the state of their physical bodies, there was never any pain felt while floating in this observer position separated from their bodies. Even those who were struck by lightning or hit by a train, for instance, had no sensation other than weightlessness, freedom from the confines of their dense physical body, and a deep sense of inner peace. Most people who have experienced these near-death experiences admit that they felt so absolutely wonderful while out of their body that they did not want to return to it. That’s how blissful it feels to leave our bodies and exist in spiritual form.

Of course, anyone living who has told us about their near-death experience (NDE) obviously did return to their body, and that is when they felt the pain of the harrowing experience that caused them to leave their body for a brief time in the first place, if there is any pain associated with the experience that caused the NDE.

While the terms near-death experiences and out-of-body experiences have similarities, it’s important to know that these terms are not synonymous. Many people have had out-of-body experiences without being near death. In fact, some people have learned that they can intentionally leave their body so that their consciousness travels around while their body remains stationary. How cool is that?

Just as commonly, folks who have had near-death experiences have not always hovered over their body to observe it (the typical first stage of the OBE). These near-death experiencers instantly found themselves in some spiritual realm upon leaving their bodies, completely skipping the stage of seeing their body altogether.

Question Two: Is death scary?

Once again, while dying can be scary for most people due to fear of the unknown, death itself is not scary. Those who have died and returned to tell us about it say that they felt nothing but love, warmth, and inner peace during their near-death experience. And once they left the vicinity of their physical bodies and gravitated toward the brilliant light of the afterlife, these feelings of love, joy, peace, and safety grew more intense the closer they got to the light. Then once they entered the light (what some call heaven or the spirit world), they were indescribably steeped in these blissful feelings.

There are some near-death experiencers who described one point where they felt fear. It was at the moment when they were floating above their body and realized that no one around them was aware of them. Imagine being in the room at the moment of your death. People are looking at your physical body and saying that you’re dead, but you’re there trying to tell them, “I’m not dead. I’m right over here. Just look up toward the ceiling. I’m still alive!” Yet nobody hears or sees you.

This is the point where some people reported feeling fear. Yet the exact moment that these people became fearful is the moment when a spiritual being came into their awareness. And just as swiftly as this spiritual guide, angel, or being of light appeared, their fear disappeared. Furthermore, the closer this spiritual being got to them, the more comfort, love, peace, and security they felt. So even in these cases, the fear lasted only for a brief moment before it was replaced with feelings of safety and tranquility.

Question Three: Is death dark?

Some people might describe death as dark, but death is not dark in the way that we know darkness. In the darkness of our physical world, we can’t see anything—it is total blackness. As a result, our darkness can be frightening because we don’t know what is before us. Evidence indicates that this is not true in the spirit world.

The most compelling evidence of this comes, once again, from near-death experiences (NDEs). Many people who have had NDEs describe their initial transition into this alternate dimension as being in darkness but say that there is light within the darkness. Rather than describe a frightening blackness, they experienced a soothing darkness that illuminated whatever was within it. They added that it was a comforting, peaceful darkness because they could still see in it. One near-death experiencer described it to me as a soft velvety darkness where light radiated wherever she focused her attention. Others who have had NDEs told me that they agreed with that description considering human words can only be so accurate.

Other people who have experienced NDEs described the initial act of leaving their physical bodies as traveling through a dark tunnel. However, in her book Near-Death Experiences: The Rest of the Story, NDE researcher P. M. H. Atwater says that the tunnel experience is actually quite rare. Her findings indicate that many people say they had a tunnel experience when they didn’t because they worry people won’t believe they had a near-death experience without adding the “tunnel” experience to their story.

My investigation has led me to believe that the experience that people are having is vaguely similar to seeing or traveling through a tunnel, but not exactly like a tunnel. Like all spiritual experiences, what they truly experienced is so difficult to describe in human terms that the “tunnel” is the easiest way to describe it, even though that description is not precisely accurate. Perhaps it’s why some children say they went through a “noodle.”

Many people who attempted to illustrate their tunnel experience said the tunnel had beautiful lights and colors within it (some said on the walls of it), and the bright light of the spirit world was at the end of that tunnel, which they traveled toward without any effort on their part (they were drawn to the light naturally). And the closer they got to this light, the more they felt the love, joy, peace, and security of the bright, luminous spirit world.

So this darkness seems to have no resemblance to what we know as darkness. It’s probably more accurate to describe it as a muted or vacant visual that illuminates only those beings who are present—or whatever we happen to focus upon.

It’s important to remember that near-death experiences (which are a temporary death) are not entirely the same as the experience of being permanently dead (never coming back into your physical body).

Of course, I’m using the word “dead” the way the general public uses it. Anyone who is reading my articles quickly learns that we don’t really die; we merely transition to another dimension—the spiritual dimension, which is eternal.

The point I’m making here is that a near-death experience is only a glimpse of the spirit world. It is not the same experience as being a spirit in the spirit world who will not be returning to her physical body. So people who have had NDEs cannot tell us exactly what the spirit world is like for our deceased loved ones in spirit because near-death experiencers are sent back to their human bodies before they get very far. Therefore, we must consider other evidence that helps us answer this question about death being dark.

People in spirit who have communicated through mediums and people who have communicated with spirits during their deathbed visions have described the light of the spiritual dimension as being 100 times brighter than the sun, yet it never hurts their eyes (no sunglasses necessary).

Just imagine sitting on a beach in the warm sun and soaking in the rays on your skin. According to these spirits, this imagery barely touches upon the actual magnificence of the light of the spirit world as there are no human words that can fully describe it with any sense of accuracy and justice. Yet despite the fact that words don’t exist to properly describe it, I think we all get the idea that the spirit world offers a brilliant and wonderful luminosity that is nothing like the darkness that we know here on the earth plane and probably nothing like the darkness of the early NDE stages either.

My conclusions are that the velvety darkness that has light within it is what we experience during our transition back home to the spirit world. It’s not frightening in any way but rather beautiful and comforting. And perhaps this velvety darkness helps us to recognize and be drawn toward the luminous light of our final destination, the spirit world, that is described by spirits through mediums.

I hope this article provided you with insight, comfort, and a peaceful view of life after death. I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

With love,
Bob

Bob Olson is the host of Afterlife TV, author of two books, Answers About The Afterlife and The Magic Mala, and creator of the reputable directory of vetted psychics and mediums, BestPsychicDirectory.com. His newest venture is Bob Olson Connect, a Substack newsletter where you can read his stories, listen to an audio of each article, and ask him questions or share your otherworldly experiences.

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