How does one create vivid narratives about realms that cannot be experienced before death, such as hell, purgatory, and paradise? This work uses early Jewish texts to reconstruct the narrative process of describing journeys to the beyond, and follows its transformations through different texts – from the Apocryphal Apocalypses of Peter and Paul to the influential medieval narratives of the Visio Tnugdali (Vision of Tnugdalus) and the Tractatus de Purgatorio S. Patricii (Treatise on St. Patrick’s Purgatory).