Why Your Brain Makes You See This If You're About to Die

Grappling with a near-death experience, you are calmed down when a kind soul decides to help you, aiding in your rescue. When the authorities arrive, you turn around to thank them, but there’s no one there. Sounds familiar?

The third man syndrome is actually a shared human experience, where an invisible entity is there for support and guidance in dire situations. So, why is this such a common theme? How did people experience it?

Let’s get into it!

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[lisapop]

I watched a story yesterday about a 6 year old girl who was lost in the wilderness. She said that a 4 year old girl had helped her stay safe for the 3 days it took to find her. She described what she looked like, her clothes and name. But no one was there. Crazy story

[AlexRising_]

So l had this happen as a child.

I was actively drowning, and began to panic, as someone had pushed me in the deep end despite repeated warnings not to from my mother because I was a weak swimmer.

It hurt the whole time, and I began to feel sleepy. Suddenly, I couldn’t see her, but I heard a friend of mine right in my ear, the way she had been when she was trying to teach me to swim. It’s been 21 years and it still sounds clear as a bell in my head.

“Stop panicking. Open the book, tear it in half, throw it down. Kick kick kick. You’re almost there. Control your breathing when you surface so you don’t panic again.”

I surfaced, the lifeguard blew the whistle, my mother snatched me out of the pool before he could get there. I kept telling her “Vicky helped me!”

I have no relatives named Vicky. My friend Vicky moved away earlier that year, and I haven’t contacted her since.

So if you ever went by the name Vicky, lived in Virginia Beach, and taught a girl named Erica to swim, thank you. You saved my life.

[Magic_Wesley]

Wow.. 30 seconds in and I had the almost exact same experience when I was very young and almost drowned in the ocean.
Was pulled under, felt a hand on my back/shoulder pulling me back which I thought was my father but when my head reached above the water there was nobody there..
That was a moment I'll never forget.

[winteryuki_onna]

Imagine seeing a person who wasn't there saving your life, but years later you meet the person who looks like the "third person".

[RadenWA]

In other words, this is the angelic counterpart to the sleep paralysis demon.

[argentandroid]

I wonder if this is connected to imaginary friends? We typically just write it off as a normal imaginative play, but maybe some kids are experiencing a form of third man syndrome.

[azuroslazuli]

Thank you for being respectful on this topic, Brew. I’ve seen takes on near death experiences that are incredibly insulting to anyone who’s actually been through them, so thank you for not trying to mock it or rationalize. It can be hard enough to share something like this when you know people will just say you’re crazy, or you imagined it. Thank you for not adding to that.

[rwmack]

A dissasociative survival mechanism to prevent complete emotional collapse during a time when failure means death so it isn't a viable option? Sounds about right.

[teaburg]

The subconscious can sort out information rapidly if needed, and has a strong desire to survive. It can even subdue the conscious mind, as with the window washer dangling from a rope at a high rise in Toronto who thought he was rescued in minutes. (I have experienced a similar loss of awareness during a life threatening situation).
It doesn't surprise me that one could survive with two minds operating. Subconscious and conscious working with equal clarity. It would certainly feel as if another person was there.
For all its faults, the brain is amazing.

[Arc_Viper]

I’ve had an intense experience with this “third man syndrome” years ago in my college days. Heavy depression. Dark thoughts. She came to me in a dream. She was an Asian girl with long black hair and straight cut bangs, looked about 12 years old. She was wearing a bright white dress. Never seen anybody like her in my life. She embraced me and said, “everything is going to be alright.” The moment she touched me I felt engulfed in the warmth of 1000 suns all at once. Every sad thought I had vaporized. I don’t remember the exact words she said because I was so overwhelmed, but she said our souls are bonded forever and she is waiting for me, but now is not my time. She said she had to go and I’ll never forget when she turned around she had soft rays of light emanating from her upper back that distorted the air around them. Since that day not once have I felt depressed.

If any of you ever have this “third man syndrome” ask them for a hug. As soon as they touch you it will be absolutely life changing.

[ravent]

My granma told me about a time when her dad was travelling during winter. He had picked up a hitchhiker others had passed for a while. The man told my great grandpa that there was a dangerous driving situation ahead (he came from the direction grandpa was going). They stopped at a rest stop, where my grandpa said he'd drop the man off so he could have shelter, and when he went to thank the man for his warning, he had disappeared. He believed the man was an angel, trying to warn others of the danger ahead.

[erictaylor]

Not sure if this counts, but when I was little I had some medical issues that required a series of painful surgeries. I was in and out of the hospital and I was in a body cast from age 18 months to 3 years old. Then just after my 3rd birthday my leg was amputated.
From as far back as I could remember to about age 5 or 6 I had an imaginary friend (at least I think he was imaginary) called Uncle Nobody.
My mother was an only child and my dad only had a sister. My only real uncle was Uncle Bob, my dad's sister's husband, so I don't have an uncle who is blood related. Or so I believed.
Not very long before my grandmother passed, I was 13 or 14 when I was in the kitchen doing homework and half listening to my mother talking to her mother.
My mother said that she always felt like she had a big brother. This sparked something in her and she started talking about something I don't she had mentioned in 40 years.
Before my grandmother was pregnant with my mother she was pregnant with another baby, a boy. But the baby was stillborn.
My grandmother finished, "We were expecting a baby, but nobody came.
I have experienced this this 3rd person syndrome a few times in my life. I have no idea what it actually might be, but ever since I heard my grandmothers tell about her stillborn baby, to me that presence has a name. Uncle Nobody.

[nekokid]

Had a similar experience when I was a child, I was playing at a public pool with my family. Once I went to a slide without my parents to a 1 meter pool (I was smaller than that at the time it was too deep for me), and I was drowned. I remember trying to grabbed anything with my hand, when suddenly I felt a leg. I pulled the leg and my head came to surface then I shout for my mom. When I was taken to safety I told my mom I pulled someone's leg and asked her whose leg it was. She said I was in the middle of the pool with no one near me. I was actually floating/swimming to surface on my own. It was my first time going to a pool, I didn't even know what's swimming.😅

[CoolCademMAnimates-fzui]

8:35
There’s this man who I sometimes see at the bus stop directly across the street from my house who looks eerily similar to my great-grandfather (from a distance) who passed away in 2021. Brings back happy memories from the times I visited him and my great-grandmother in the short time we had together.

[andreacamacho]

Hum, could it happen in less extreme situations? When I was younger I was kind of neglected, whenever I went out to different places I used to see the same old lady. She was just there, we never talked or anything. At the beginning I thought she was a neighbor, but then she also started appearing in other places which where really far from my house. As time passed and I was able to take care of my own, she stopped showing up.

[jordanjohn]

When I was five, I had a very traumatic life and my brain developed another person to help me through it. I’m certain she would’ve been temporary like the ones in this video, had the trauma been temporary too. Eventually, she was joined by more people with each new trauma I/we went through. The proper name for my permanent helpers is called dissociative identity disorder, in which the brain creates another person/presence to get through a traumatic event, and that person/presence stays permanently following the event. It’s comforting to know that other people have helpers too, albeit for a short time.

[burninglettuce]

my friend has described something similar to this before, a girl named briar who warns her when shes about to make a horrible decision. so far, it hasnt failed.

[d]

this happened to me.

I fell of the stairs but I felt someone holding my arm. When I turned around to say thank you *no one was there helping me*

[andrewpatton]

I'm going with the guardian angel interpretation. That would explain how the third man would know things the distressed person couldn't know.

[TrinhNguyen-shfj]

The only person I have heard from those who are about to die from my family members that they see is their mother. My grandmother who passed at 100 saw her mom a few days before she passed.