Out of body expierence

[villagegirl127]

Has anyone had for lack of a better term, an out of body or surreal experience when they see their first (or subsequent) DOAs?? I just had my first ride out and noticed that when I examined the pt I felt a very surreal feeling come over me...just curious if it was just me, or if it happens to others... (whoops sorry typo: experience)

 

[mycrofft]

That's a vasovagal response probably.

Next step is passing out.
That's called an out of consciousness experience.

 

[villagegirl127]

HAHA you so funny

 

[mycrofft]

I get that feeling when I'm about to be fired.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Didn't mean to detract from the question.

 

[villagegirl127]

So you've never had one????h34r:

 

[mycrofft]

No sorry. Maybe others have.

PIpe up sportsfans

 

[SEBeast]

V127

Been doing this for seven years. Seen many ugly things. I'm not kidding you when I tell you that I saw the last doa I encountered standing in my living room a few nights ago. Out of body? I don't know.

 

[cm4short]

I always wondered about this until recently. This summer while in my clinicals; I had the chance to talk ans assess a patient what was a revived cardiac arrest. He recently coded in the ER 3 weeks earlier and was revived after suffering from an AMI. He had been discharged and came in because of CP.

I spoke with him and asked him about his experience. He said "he had an out of body experience." He said he was kinda floating/wandering aroud the ER watching the staff as the "worked" on him. he said he mostly saw the backs of people; but he did remember a few key faces. He said he remembered the doctor who intubated him by face and a few of the nurses.

 

[Onceamedic]

Sounds like a dissociative response. This is common in times of personal stress, especially with individuals that have suffered trauma.

By the way (off topic but interesting), there are patients that are considered "faking" who may in fact, be suffering from dissociative disorder. Google it if you are interested.

 

[villagegirl127]

Sounds like a dissociative response. This is common in times of personal stress, especially with individuals that have suffered trauma.

By the way (off topic but interesting), there are patients that are considered "faking" who may in fact, be suffering from dissociative disorder. Google it if you are interested.

That is it! Disassociative response...but from me! not the pt (who was def. DOA). I'm curious if this is something that subsides as a new EMT or if it is present on every DOA call to experienced medics/emts/first responders. I'm just an inexperienced newbie trying to figure this all out....any kind responses would be appreciated. :unsure:

 

[Seaglass]

Sounds like a dissociative response. This is common in times of personal stress, especially with individuals that have suffered trauma.

Yep. Look up derealization, or depersonalization. It's pretty common as a reaction to stressful or traumatic events, and usually harmless if you remember what happened during it and it goes away in a reasonable amount of time. If you start missing periods of time or it doesn't go away, you might want to see a doctor or shrink.

By the way (off topic but interesting), there are patients that are considered "faking" who may in fact, be suffering from dissociative disorder. Google it if you are interested.

Seconding this. Try "conversion disorder" and "somatoform/somatic disorder" for search terms. I have a frequent flier diagnosed with conversion disorder. She always presents with stroke symptoms.

 

[firetender]

Try to make it real, compared to what?

This may get a little trippy, but if you loosen your gears a little, you might enjoy the ride.

When you work on the edge of life and death, you're working on the line between here and there. Here (life) is something we know about and are familiar with. There (death)is the world of speculation. In a sense, death is somewhere anything can happen.

Our imaginations can take us anywhere. But they are also where our creations originate. What the mind sees, we can create. Take a walk around and through your rig...uh, I'm sorry, truck. There's not one thing you see that did not originate in someone's imagination. Thoughts are real, and do take physical form; even if we can't see it; take electric current for example.

Everybody has tried to take a crack at defining there. When people get together and agree on what a there looks like, what happens? A bunch more people start seeing the same things! Literally! So the spirits and other manifestations of there that they see are real. They DO happen to someone. As a concept to play with, let's call them thoughtforms, as in the appearance of an image of the Virgin Mary materializing on a refrigerator door.

Most people I know have had an experience or two that could roughly be described as stepping through a crack into some other plane, some other reality, maybe even someone else's reality. Can you honestly say you never have? I'd be interested to hear.

It's my position that when any one of us begin to participate in the life and death struggle, we are exposed to different planes of existence. It could be nothing more than being in the middle of the belief systems of those people who surround a dying person as we work him or her up. Or even the belief system of that very person!

Could you accept that sometimes, doing this work, we get exposed to such forces, and that such forces are real? The idea is, HERE you can help each other find metaphors to describe and make sense of your experiences.

I hope this turns into an exceptionally FUN thread, where without judgment or derision, room can be made to broaden our experience of the work we do. Thank you for bringing this up!

(For clarity's sake, I left the field in 1985, but the things I was exposed to in the back of an ambulance opened my eyes to many different levels of experience. I've been exploring them since, and am happy to share and learn more.)

 

[villagegirl127]

This may get a little trippy, but if you loosen your gears a little, you might enjoy the ride.

When you work on the edge of life and death, you're working on the line between here and there. Here (life) is something we know about and are familiar with. There (death)is the world of speculation. In a sense, death is somewhere anything can happen.

Our imaginations can take us anywhere. But they are also where our creations originate. What the mind sees, we can create. Take a walk around and through your rig...uh, I'm sorry, truck. There's not one thing you see that did not originate in someone's imagination. Thoughts are real, and do take physical form; even if we can't see it; take electric current for example.

Everybody has tried to take a crack at defining there. When people get together and agree on what a there looks like, what happens? A bunch more people start seeing the same things! Literally! So the spirits and other manifestations of there that they see are real. They DO happen to someone. As a concept to play with, let's call them thoughtforms, as in the appearance of an image of the Virgin Mary materializing on a refrigerator door.

Most people I know have had an experience or two that could roughly be described as stepping through a crack into some other plane, some other reality, maybe even someone else's reality. Can you honestly say you never have? I'd be interested to hear.

It's my position that when any one of us begin to participate in the life and death struggle, we are exposed to different planes of existence. It could be nothing more than being in the middle of the belief systems of those people who surround a dying person as we work him or her up. Or even the belief system of that very person!

Could you accept that sometimes, doing this work, we get exposed to such forces, and that such forces are real? The idea is, HERE you can help each other find metaphors to describe and make sense of your experiences.

I hope this turns into an exceptionally FUN thread, where without judgment or derision, room can be made to broaden our experience of the work we do. Thank you for bringing this up!

(For clarity's sake, I left the field in 1985, but the things I was exposed to in the back of an ambulance opened my eyes to many different levels of experience. I've been exploring them since, and am happy to share and learn more.)

Very cool, thank you for sharing. I hope to hear more replies...

 

[Eydawn]

Wow! That had to be trippy, seeing a DOA standing in your living room. I'd like to hear more about that one.

I've definitely had that detached sort of feeling... like I've done this before, or like some part of me is not operating at the conscious level. I wouldn't say it was out of body or fully dissociative, but definitely partly dissociative.

I would agree... we work between the here and there. I do in a less crisis-focused fashion working with hospice patients in the assisted living I'm currently employed at... and I definitely get a feeling of something else being present when I'm working with those patients.

Wendy
CO EMT-B

 

[HotelCo]

Nope, never have. But then again, I don't believe in ghosts.

 

[MikEMS]

This may get a little trippy, but if you loosen your gears a little, you might enjoy the ride.

When you work on the edge of life and death, you're working on the line between here and there. Here (life) is something we know about and are familiar with. There (death)is the world of speculation. In a sense, death is somewhere anything can happen.

Our imaginations can take us anywhere. But they are also where our creations originate. What the mind sees, we can create. Take a walk around and through your rig...uh, I'm sorry, truck. There's not one thing you see that did not originate in someone's imagination. Thoughts are real, and do take physical form; even if we can't see it; take electric current for example.

Everybody has tried to take a crack at defining there. When people get together and agree on what a there looks like, what happens? A bunch more people start seeing the same things! Literally! So the spirits and other manifestations of there that they see are real. They DO happen to someone. As a concept to play with, let's call them thoughtforms, as in the appearance of an image of the Virgin Mary materializing on a refrigerator door.

Most people I know have had an experience or two that could roughly be described as stepping through a crack into some other plane, some other reality, maybe even someone else's reality. Can you honestly say you never have? I'd be interested to hear.

It's my position that when any one of us begin to participate in the life and death struggle, we are exposed to different planes of existence. It could be nothing more than being in the middle of the belief systems of those people who surround a dying person as we work him or her up. Or even the belief system of that very person!

Could you accept that sometimes, doing this work, we get exposed to such forces, and that such forces are real? The idea is, HERE you can help each other find metaphors to describe and make sense of your experiences.

I hope this turns into an exceptionally FUN thread, where without judgment or derision, room can be made to broaden our experience of the work we do. Thank you for bringing this up!

(For clarity's sake, I left the field in 1985, but the things I was exposed to in the back of an ambulance opened my eyes to many different levels of experience. I've been exploring them since, and am happy to share and learn more.)

I found this to be a very thought provoking post. I guess we are always curious about the things that are "beyond" what we as humans can see literally. From experience I wouldn't know about the "beyond" but have read a bit about others experiences and I do believe it exists and that somehow we are in touch with those whom are "beyond" whether we know it or not.

Anyways I was reminded of an intriging bit of information that correlates to what you said about thoughts being real, and eveything that ever took form, was a though. Perhaps maybe of topic, but Einstien said, (not a direct quote here) everything in the universe is a form of energy, and energy can never be created or destroyed, but merely energy is just transformed...SO if that is true then somewhere somehow people who pass on must exist, and must be able to communicate and act in their existence as beings. Perhaps EMTs/Paramedics, Doctors, ect, over a period of time become aware of the principles of the existence of what is beyond...

I'd like to know more about your experiences, or the things you have heard from others.

 

[SEBeast]

Doa

Wow! That had to be trippy, seeing a DOA standing in your living room. I'd like to hear more about that one.

I've definitely had that detached sort of feeling... like I've done this before, or like some part of me is not operating at the conscious level. I wouldn't say it was out of body or fully dissociative, but definitely partly dissociative.

I would agree... we work between the here and there. I do in a less crisis-focused fashion working with hospice patients in the assisted living I'm currently employed at... and I definitely get a feeling of something else being present when I'm working with those patients.

Wendy
CO EMT-B

Responded to a call, turns out it was a DOA. A few days later I woke up around 3 A.M cause I heard what sounded like a knock at my back door. Walked into the living room, looked towards the back door.....Nothing. Turned around and looked toward the front door and there towards the front of the house, was this person. It was the same DOA from a few days prior. There was no mistaken the identity. I knew who I was seeing. In the blink of an eye, it was no longer there. Stood there for a moment, then I went to bed. I specifically remember walking back to my bedroom. Before getting into bed I took a pillow off the bed, and threw it on the floor under the bedroom window. When I woke up in the morning, the pillow was where I threw it, but I didn't know if the whole living room incident was a dream or not. I still don't know....