In his account of the fall, he wrote is was 'as if on a distant stage, my whole past life playing itself out in numerous scenes.' In 1892, a Swiss geologist named Albert Heim fell from a precipice while mountain climbing. The experience of life flashing before one's eyes has been reported for well over a century. After all, this is where the phrase 'my life flashed before my eyes' comes from.īut what explains this phenomenon? Psychologists have proposed a number of explanations, but I'd argue the key to understanding Tony's experience lies in a different interpretation of time itself. Though Tony's belief that he saw into his future is uncommon, it's by no means uncommon for people to report witnessing multiple scenes from their past during split-second emergency situations.

Now, Tony Kofi is one of the UK's most successful jazz musicians, having won the BBC Jazz awards twice, in 20. He used his compensation money from the accident to buy one. Later, Tony saw a picture of a saxophone and recognized it as the instrument he'd seen himself playing. He felt that he was 'being shown something' and that the images represented his future. Over the following weeks, the images kept flashing back into his mind. When he came to at the hospital, he felt like a different person and didn't want to return to his previous life. The thing that really stuck in my mind was playing an instrument.' Then Tony landed on his head and lost consciousness.

As he described it, 'In my mind's eye I saw many, many things: children that I hadn't even had yet, friends that I had never seen but are now my friends.

Flash before your eyes meaning