History Main / NearDeathClairvoyance

* ''Manga/GiantRobo'' uses the narration version of this trope to pull off AnyoneCanDie. [[spoiler:Ginrei narrates the beginning of the first episode as if she's flashing back after the end of the story. After she dies in the last episode, her disembodied spirit says a few lines in a post-credits epilogue.]]

* According to director commentary on ''Film/TheAbyss'', the sequence where Ed Harris's character tries to revive his love interest was shot with camera angles meant to evoke the "hovering over your body" idea.

* Briefly happens to Gabriel Miller in ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline''. After he gets defeated by Kirito in Underworld, he returns to the real world and sees his own corpse and that of Vassago in the other nearby Soul Translator, [[spoiler:and shortly after gets DraggedOffToHell by the ghost of his childhood friend Alicia, whom he murdered years ago]].

* Ash and Pikachu go through this in the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' episode in which the team goes to Lavender Town in order to catch a Ghost Pokemon (which he does...kind of). HilarityEnsues with Misty and Brock.

A character who is dead or having a NearDeathExperience steps out of his body and observes what is happening with other characters in the story at that time. The events so observed are shown one way or another to be real and not the fantasy of a dying brain. Alternately, the character gets to review key events in his life, providing the justification for a ClipShow. Either variant can turn into yet another version of YetAnotherChristmasCarol or ItsAWonderfulPlot.

* The [[DarkerAndEdgier bleak]] ''Series/DoctorWho'' spinoff ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' tried SomethingCompletelyDifferent with the more lighthearted, sentimental episode "Random Shoes", in which a recently deceased character observes (and subconsciously influences) the protagonist Gwen as she investigates his death.

* In ''ComicBook/PrinceOfPersiaTheGraphicNovel'', Guiv first becomes a {{seer}} into the future while drowning in a pool during his aborted execution.

* While rare, this is argued to be TruthInTelevision: with some {{near death experience}}s featuring what's known as an out-of-body experience. During this time, they're capable of perceiving events out of their bodies.[[note]]''The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences'' says that, of 93 corroborated Out-of-Body NDE's 92% were completely accurate, only 1-2% were completely erroneous and the rest were accurate with some errors.[[/note]] While some have claimed this as a trick of the mind induced by stimulation of the right-temporal lobe and REM intrusion, that explanation doesn't account for those who have perfect visual perceptions of events outside their bodies [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKyQJDZuMHE despite being blind from birth]]. However, many appear to stem from [[http://infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html vivid hallucinations]]. Information from out of body experiences is not independently verified (although many tests have been done). Those by the blind also cannot be verified, since blind people are capable of describing things they have in fact only heard or read about. In nearly all cases, we must simply go by testimonial accounts which in terms of scientific research are only the starting point.
* Recent AWARE (Awareness during resuscitation) study, led by Dr. Sam Parnia, only managed to find one verifiable OBE case out of 2060 cardiac arrest patients, as most patients either did not survive or were too sick to be interviewed. The experience was very presise, though, but the cardiac arrest occured in a room without any specific hidden targets for the patient's disembodied conciousness to see.
* Sometimes, even severely mentally impaired patients (usually victims of neurodegenerative diseases) may recover their cognitive functions right before death, this is called "Terminal Lucidity"

** Subverted in an episode. As various doctors are around a man's body (masking it from view) and finally saying that they lost him, a man walks up and begins to talk about how seeing himself die like that was strange. He even starts giving a speech about death itself...until J.D. comes up and angrily reminds him that he's not dead, just insane.

* Thr ''Series/{{MASH}}'' episode "Follies of the Living - Concerns of the Dead" is told from the point of view of a soldier's ghost, seen by Klinger while the latter [[FeverDreamEpisode recovers from a high fever]].

* ''Series/DesperateHousewives'' manages to kill off its {{Narrator}} at the start of the first episode. She continues narrating, giving us glimpses into the personal lives of her still-living friends that they don't get to see in each other. She actually appears to Lynnette in one episode.

* In ''Film/WhatDreamsMayCome'', the plot pretty much revolves around what happens in the afterlife. After [[spoiler:Robin William's character dies,]] he's shown what happens in the real world after his death.

* In ''Discworld/MovingPictures'', Gaspode is having one when rescued.

* ''Series/MacGyver'' spends an episode in spiritual limbo after the bad guys first put him into a coma, and then try to poison his bed-ridden body. He escapes through the aid of a recently-deceased relative.