What do you think?
Rate this book
The Day I Died: Remarkable True Stories of Near-Death Experience
The Day I Died brings together 10 profoundly moving testimonies from people who have passed through the limits of human endurance and beyond. Around the world, ordinary people go about their daily lives convinced they've had a glimpse into the afterlife. Their eyewitness accounts often share uncanny similarities, and this book does justice to this beguiling subject by analyzing narratives and shedding light on a phenomenon at the crossroads of the medical and the mystical. Tammy Cohen presents several intriguing real-life accounts, including a man who "died" on the operating table and awoke with increased psychic abilities, a victim of domestic abuse who had a life-changing unusual out-of-body experience, plus stories from people who had "drowned" and "died" of heart attacks. Powerful, challenging, and endlessly fascinating, The Day I Died celebrates both pleasurable and distressing near-death experiences.
- GenresNonfiction
242 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2006
6 people are currently reading
153 people want to read
About the author
Tammy Cohen
23 books451 followersTammy Cohen (who was previously published under her formal name Tamar Cohen) is a freelance journalist. A late starter to fiction - and to other things besides - she has now written four novels. The Mistress's Revenge, The War of the Wives, and Someone Else's Wedding. The Broken was her first pyschological thriller, followed by Dying for Christmas. Her brand new hardback novel, First One Missing is out now.
She lives in North London with her partner and three (nearly) grown children, plus one very badly behaved dog.
She lives in North London with her partner and three (nearly) grown children, plus one very badly behaved dog.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 30, 2014
This is not the end. There is more to our existence than what we are experiencing in this life. This book details the experiences of some of the people who had a glimpse of what lies beyond this life. The messages are all positive which aligns with what I’ve learned from other books on this topic.
Yes, I’m at that age--the age where I am beginning to suffer the loss of my parent’s generation and even some of my acquaintances with increased frequency. It naturally leads you to question your own mortality. Reading this book and others like it continue to give me a sense of peace and comfort in knowing those who have passed will be alright and happy—as will we all someday. Although death is never easy (especially for those left behind), this knowledge will make it a little easier to help me “let go” of loved ones when that unfortunate time comes. I know it is not an end but rather, an until we meet again.
Yes, I’m at that age--the age where I am beginning to suffer the loss of my parent’s generation and even some of my acquaintances with increased frequency. It naturally leads you to question your own mortality. Reading this book and others like it continue to give me a sense of peace and comfort in knowing those who have passed will be alright and happy—as will we all someday. Although death is never easy (especially for those left behind), this knowledge will make it a little easier to help me “let go” of loved ones when that unfortunate time comes. I know it is not an end but rather, an until we meet again.
April 28, 2013
This was a very entertaining read, but I just wish the author would have taken the time to seek out those stories that were genuinely a NDE. At least two of the stories in this book were most definitely drug induced nightmares. That's my only complaint really! I enjoyed hearing peoples stories of their brushes with the afterlife, and really hope that their experiences are what we all go through in the end.
July 30, 2013
Recently I'd been lamenting my aging, my lack of having done anything of any great import so far in this life and my eventual death and had posted such on a social media site. One of my friends suggested this book. I put it on my list and ordered it. It sat on a shelf for a couple of weeks before I looked at it. Imagine my shock when I opened the book and read the table of contents and saw the name of that friend in the list. That friend had died and returned to tell the tale. I felt it a great gift from him to have shared his story with me, even if it was in a roundabout way. It left me curious to say the least.
October 28, 2013
"The Day I Died" is a terrific book for anyone with a curiosity around what happens when you die. If you have an open mind, and you're not afraid of the truth, this is a great primer. Cohen shares several short stories from NDE experiencers, from all walks of life.
April 20, 2023
I had always known about these encounters, but I had never looked into it that much. This book was very insightful and interesting to read for that reason.
June 27, 2016
Nothing in this book would convince a sceptic that NDEs were real. There are certainly similarities between the experiences, although this could be a cultural thing since all the stories are effectively from the Western World. As another reviewer commented, at least a couple of the experiences can probably be traced back to the drugs that were administered to them. I was also concerned that no reference was made to the fact that NDEs are not always pleasant.
http://iands.org/distressing-near-dea...
Some stories are really too brief to be even described as an NDE, in all honesty. In Gloria's story, she claims to have been floating above her body while her midwife dealing with her haemorrhageing body, yet she completely misses her husband passing out and is only told about it when she 'returns'. This is also the only story on which I can pass personal comment - my mother suffered a similar ordeal on the birth of my sister at about the same time, although in a different part of England. She lost enough blood that a mobile blood van attended, so I wonder why this did not happen in Gloria's case?
However, my main feeling about this book is that the longer the story the less convincing was the experience - the teller comes across as desperate to believe they had this special event happen to them. I had particular problems with Rene's story. This lady suffered an appalling accident which undoubtedly had an adverse effect on her life going forward. Because of this, I feel guilty admitting that she did not come across well to me. She lost me right at the start of her experience when she claims that a nasty remark she made to her nursery worker as a child led said worker to cry when she arrived home. Now Rene claims to have 'seen' this in the review of her life but she cannot possibly know it to be true - my take is that Rene tells us that she is originally from Manchester and lived her first 16 years there, so I am assuming that this where the incident took place. I would truly doubt that a Manchester nursery worker is going to be reduced to tears, even in private, by a remark from what appears to be a spoiled brat in a tantrum. The same applies to an incident with a traffic cop, although that was probably not in England. She admits she was let off a ticket - yet still she seems proud to have made some unpleasant remarks to him and is apparently so 'speshul' that she cut him to the quick, although in his job foul-mouthed drivers are probably an everyday occurrence.
As is usually the case with this sort of subject, the two stories which do make you wonder whether there is any truth in NDEs happened to the subjects when they were children, one of them only 6 years old. Their experiences match the others pretty closely and it is hard to see how they could have have been subject to the cultural influences which may have affected the adults.
This is not a bad book, despite my comments. It is an easy introduction to what is a rather complex subject and the author does provide a book list at the end for those who wish to delve deeper. My own view is (and like several reviewers, I am of an age and a medical history where I think of the subject of death a fair amount) is that when we die, we die - and death is the only inevitable thing to happen in our lives. It would be lovely to think our consciousness makes us special - but it doesn't, it just means we spend too much time agonising over the one thing which will definitely befall us in our lives - the end. These 20 stories have many things in common but only ONE thing they all share - the subjects are alive. They all underwent an unpleasant experience of some kind - but they all survived.
http://iands.org/distressing-near-dea...
Some stories are really too brief to be even described as an NDE, in all honesty. In Gloria's story, she claims to have been floating above her body while her midwife dealing with her haemorrhageing body, yet she completely misses her husband passing out and is only told about it when she 'returns'. This is also the only story on which I can pass personal comment - my mother suffered a similar ordeal on the birth of my sister at about the same time, although in a different part of England. She lost enough blood that a mobile blood van attended, so I wonder why this did not happen in Gloria's case?
However, my main feeling about this book is that the longer the story the less convincing was the experience - the teller comes across as desperate to believe they had this special event happen to them. I had particular problems with Rene's story. This lady suffered an appalling accident which undoubtedly had an adverse effect on her life going forward. Because of this, I feel guilty admitting that she did not come across well to me. She lost me right at the start of her experience when she claims that a nasty remark she made to her nursery worker as a child led said worker to cry when she arrived home. Now Rene claims to have 'seen' this in the review of her life but she cannot possibly know it to be true - my take is that Rene tells us that she is originally from Manchester and lived her first 16 years there, so I am assuming that this where the incident took place. I would truly doubt that a Manchester nursery worker is going to be reduced to tears, even in private, by a remark from what appears to be a spoiled brat in a tantrum. The same applies to an incident with a traffic cop, although that was probably not in England. She admits she was let off a ticket - yet still she seems proud to have made some unpleasant remarks to him and is apparently so 'speshul' that she cut him to the quick, although in his job foul-mouthed drivers are probably an everyday occurrence.
As is usually the case with this sort of subject, the two stories which do make you wonder whether there is any truth in NDEs happened to the subjects when they were children, one of them only 6 years old. Their experiences match the others pretty closely and it is hard to see how they could have have been subject to the cultural influences which may have affected the adults.
This is not a bad book, despite my comments. It is an easy introduction to what is a rather complex subject and the author does provide a book list at the end for those who wish to delve deeper. My own view is (and like several reviewers, I am of an age and a medical history where I think of the subject of death a fair amount) is that when we die, we die - and death is the only inevitable thing to happen in our lives. It would be lovely to think our consciousness makes us special - but it doesn't, it just means we spend too much time agonising over the one thing which will definitely befall us in our lives - the end. These 20 stories have many things in common but only ONE thing they all share - the subjects are alive. They all underwent an unpleasant experience of some kind - but they all survived.
March 19, 2017
This book is about Near Death Experiences. It shares stories from people who have had these experiences.
A wonderful book on a topic that I'm really interested in.
Each story is told by the person who had the experience and it was interesting to read about each person's experience and how they dealt with it.
I found the book to be very inspirational and uplifting.
I really think that these people are awesome for being willing to share their experiences with the public when there is still such disbelief and even ridicule out there to do with this topic.
Really glad I read this, I can tell that it will stick with me for a long time.
A wonderful book on a topic that I'm really interested in.
Each story is told by the person who had the experience and it was interesting to read about each person's experience and how they dealt with it.
I found the book to be very inspirational and uplifting.
I really think that these people are awesome for being willing to share their experiences with the public when there is still such disbelief and even ridicule out there to do with this topic.
Really glad I read this, I can tell that it will stick with me for a long time.
November 8, 2019
Interesting
March 31, 2015
(Audiobook) Interesting stories of those who have found themselves on the other side of life and have come back. There are so many similarities to these stories, some of the most common is of seeing a bright light, meeting deceased relatives and friends on the other side, hovering above your body and watching people attending to you, visiting other countries in an instant and a feeling of being home. Certainly a concept to think about 'the spirit lives on'.
November 16, 2014
The book was of interest to me as one of my relatives had an out of body experience and I found her story of this fascinating!!!!
as u get older and lose friends etc you bein to think more and more about death although i enjoyed the book at times found it monotonous sometimes as the stories seemed to repeat the same story over and over
as u get older and lose friends etc you bein to think more and more about death although i enjoyed the book at times found it monotonous sometimes as the stories seemed to repeat the same story over and over
February 6, 2017
This book had some really awesome stories of people's experience of NDE. Some of them were similar despite the fact that these people were on the other side of the world and didn't know each other. it was a very interesting book.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews