# People Who have Emerged from Long Comas: What Do They Say About It?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-have-emerged-from-long-comas-what-do-they-say-about-it/270486>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 21, 2004, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-have-emerged-from-long-comas-what-do-they-say-about-it/270486 "2004-10-21T20:53:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-have-emerged-from-long-comas-what-do-they-say-about-it/270486/1 "2004-10-21T20:53:20Z")

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I understand that some people have been in long comas-some of these lasting decades. My question: what do these people say about their experience? Did they have any sense of the passing of time? Did any of them dream? And, suppose you went to sleep in say, 1954…then emerged in 2004…how would you adapt to all of the changes in daily life?  
I’m interested, because I am planning to thwart death via “coldsleep”, Of course, I am hoping that a few technical problems with coldsleep will be resolved when the time draws near!

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**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-have-emerged-from-long-comas-what-do-they-say-about-it/270486/2 "2004-10-21T21:22:36Z")

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I have no cite (sorry - I took the class a long time ago).

However, my understanding is that typically, people that emerge from comas after decades aren’t quite _right_ if you know what I mean. They’re awake, they’re somewhat functional, there just not quite up to snuff, and generally nothing like they were before the coma (at least according to family members who knew them). Descriptions and reports of the coma tend to be fuzzy, or non-existant.

I don’t know about short comas - however, generally I think the prognosis for a normal life is much better.

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**Author:** ![vertizontal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ad7895/32.png) [@vertizontal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vertizontal)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-have-emerged-from-long-comas-what-do-they-say-about-it/270486/3 "2004-10-21T21:29:21Z")

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I don’t have anything factual to add, but I’ll just mention that if you’re interested in this subject, you’ll probably be interested in seeing the movie [Awakenings](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099077/), which I think is kinda based on a true story.

Here’s a short summary from [imdb.com](http://imdb.com):

> [@](#):
>
> A new doctor finds himself with a ward full of comatose patients. He is disturbed by them and the fact that they have been comatose for decades with no hope of any cure. When he finds a possible chemical cure he gets permission to try it on one of them. When the first patient awakes, he is now an adult having gone into a coma in his early teens. The film then delights in the new awareness of the patients and then on the reactions of their relatives to the changes in the newly awakened.