Man-on-the-street interviews are so common these days, it’s becoming increasingly rare to hear someone’s story that genuinely stops you in your tracks. But that’s what happened when TikToker GloJays stopped a random man to ask how he broke his glasses, only to get hit with what he calls one of the most interesting stories he’s heard yet.

@glojays

one of the most interesting stories i’ve heard yet

♬ original sound - GloJays

The man explained that his glasses are broken because he had a seizure last week after literally dying last year. He had a blood clot in his brain that eventually grew so large it popped his skull open while he was at work, leading medics to pronounce him dead. Fortunately, his vitals came back online in the ambulance, and he underwent a six-hour craniectomy. Somewhere, in all of this, he was also in a coma for two weeks.

Holy shit.

GloJays asked the guy what we were all thinking: What did it feel like to die? His response was simply, “Peaceful,” before adding, “You don’t see anything. I’m not saying nobody sees anything, I did not see anything. I’ve always thought that stories like that are BS, but now that I’ve been through it, what I can say is true is life flashes before your eyes.

“Every memory, I’m telling you, every single memory you’ve made in your entire life will rush past you at light speed and you get to a point where whatever pain you might be feeling, you don’t feel it anymore, and you’ll kind of just start to not even understand what’s going on and then either you’ll be back or you won’t.”

He concluded, “But it’s very peaceful, and honestly one of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with is accepting being back alive.”

His story sounds similar to many other people’s near-death experiences, right down to the difficulty some have with coming to terms with being alive after feeling so at peace (there’s even a plotline on the 1990s classic TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer about this very struggle).

Either way, it’s kinda crazy that such a story — and deep convo — came from such a tired format and straightforward prompt. Or as one commenter put it, “And to think, if you didn’t ask about his glasses he woulda never said a thing.”