God was pure energy

I had not been well for about 1 week. I had extreme abdominal pain and went to the doctor for a noon appointment. I almost cancelled the doctor's appointment as the pain had subsided around 10 a.m. When I got to the doctor's office, I was examined quickly and he ordered an emergency ultrasound. During the ultrasound, they stopped and I was booked into emergency surgery for 12:30 p.m. that day. I was put to sleep in the operating room.

Then all of the sudden, I started floating out of my body. I felt free, peaceful, no pain. I looked down and they were doing compressions on me. I continued to float up and a tunnel appeared. There was a beautiful tunnel with a bright light at the end of it. The light was brighter than the sun but did not hurt my eyes. It was pure white light. I knew that I had died and would be leaving behind a 5-6 month old infant and my husband, but I did not care. I wanted to go into the light. I wanted to go home.

When I came through the light, I knew everyone there and they were so happy to see me: welcoming me home. They were all dead relatives I had never met before, but I knew everyone. They also appeared in human-form, to be recognized, but somehow I sensed that was not their true form now. I had a connection with everyone and almost a collective consciousness.

I do not know how to describe it. There are so many emotions right now recalling it, but before I saw everyone when I came through the light, it felt like a blanket of love was wrapped around me. No feeling here on earth, in the present, can express the love or the feelings. Everything was ‘pure’, the brightest blues, greens, reds, yellows, whites, purples. It was like a filter being removed to see the purity of everything.

I turned and went to the right, where I saw what I believe was God. It was pure energy, but you knew who that was and the great wisdom that was within. God spoke to me stating that the message to bring back was 'love. We all have to live in love.’

The next thing I saw was a meadow in the mountains with indescribable beauty. The sky was the bluest blue; the grass was the greenest green. All colors here are extremely pale compared to there. I saw my grandmother, running with children, towards me. She took me by the hand and we were at the beginning of a bridge over a small creek. We talked for what seemed like hours about my life since she had died. I had just turned 9 years old when she died. We also talked about when she came to let me know that she died, to say goodbye until we would meet again and not to be sad. She was so vibrant and healthy, despite dying of a brain tumor. I told her how much I missed her and she said that she watches over my son and me. She then said something unexpected to me, 'You have to go back, it is not your time, yet.' She also said that a ‘blink of an eye could be 80 years’ in our time but that time was man-made. ‘There is no time here.’ I understood what she meant. I said that I wanted to stay and she said ‘it is not your time’. All of the sudden, I was falling back through the tunnel; the light was getting further away.

All of the sudden, I felt all this pain, excruciating pain from being back in my body. As I was falling back into my body, they were still doing compressions on me. The next thing I knew I woke up in the recovery room; the nurses called to the doctor that I was awake. There was a lot of fussing around me. I was confused and extremely angry that I was back in my body. It took me about 4 years to bring up this event to my husband and then he belittled me stating that I was crazy. I never spoke about it again for about 10 years. By that time I was divorced and getting my life back together. I was still angry about being here but have come to terms with it and the anger is gone. I know I will be going back there when it is my time. 

NDERF.org # 7373

 

Near-death experience was "just a scary event"

Before the events happened, I was sitting on my brother's couch and talking to my daughter. She told me, 'Mommy I love you. I’m going to go back outside. I’m going to go play.' I said, 'OK.'

I remember everything started going in slow motion and playing out as if it were me who was watching my life through a television. Then all of a sudden, that television show stopped and there was a sort of void like a 'commercial break.' Then it started again, like it was a rerun of the same show but it was all in reverse. All the words were backwards. I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying and why I was looking at myself sitting on the couch. Then all of a sudden, I felt as if I was being thrown back on top of my body, head first. I kept thinking why am I getting another chance at life? Why didn’t I stay dead?

Then I realized that I could hear my brother screaming at my sister-in-law. I remember being hit in the chest and receiving CPR. Then, I started breathing heavy and convulsing.

This nightmare still haunts me but it obviously wasn’t my time to leave this earth. My son , daughter and husband still need me. I vividly remember my soul leave my body, my consciousness afterwards, and then my soul returning to my body during CPR. This has definitely caused my PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome) to be worse. I did not meet a divine being. It was just a scary event. 

NDERF.org #9242

Baby with heart defect recalls NDE

I was a baby. I had been born with a heart defect and I had become weaker and was very sick. I was afraid because I could not breathe. My mother held me up on her shoulder all through the night so that I could breathe. She took me to the doctor the next day and they sent me right to the hospital. In the emergency room, they began sticking needles into me and I cried. When I cried, it got worse, and then they put me on life support. My mom says that I turned white, and every time someone touched me, it left a purple mark on my skin. She said the hospital chaplain came into the room. They transferred me to critical care, and the heart specialist came. My heart rate was up to 300 beats per minute and stayed that way for 5 hours. I remember the lights were glaring overhead, and I could not fight any more.

I left my body and went up a tunnel toward a beautiful golden light. I was in the presence of a spiritual being, Jesus. He told me that it was not time for me to stay there and that I would go back, that my mom needed me. He told me other things that I cannot remember. I remember being in the hospital room and realizing that I was not in my body. I remember seeing a baby. I no longer felt sick or scared. It was very peaceful, and I knew I would be okay.

When I returned to my body, I felt stronger, and I got well. 

NDERF.org #5284

Sees a "sea of souls" and God calling each one

I was in a film class in college. We were studying a documentary about a hospital. When they showed a close up of a small wound bleeding, being extremely squeamish at the time, I fainted.

When I fainted, I did not have an out of body experience in the sense of hovering above the scene. I think that first I went to a place that most people might describe as 'heaven' where I felt I was in the presence of a divine power. I did not see a specific religious personage such as Christ or Buddha, etc. even though I have a Christian background. Then I went to the beginning, by that I mean to a place before the universe existed. It's difficult to describe as nothing physical existed. There was an overwhelming sense of serenity where all the souls that exist are in a sea of souls and where the boundaries between individual souls was not defined, much like waves in an ocean. I was individual yet part of a larger whole. I was there for more than an eternity, sort of a timeless time, since time did not exist yet.

Then 'God' who seemed to be apart from or at a higher level than the seas of souls, created the physical universe. One by one, the souls were pulled into the physical universe but there seemed to be a voluntary nature to the participation. This was an extremely interesting experience since I witnessed everything from the beginning, formation of stars, etc. But as the physical universe evolved and as my soul was pulled into the universe I seemed to focus on just the Earth, but saw and experienced it on a micro level, having simultaneous, complete knowledge of every bit of earth especially of any living thing, including the smallest microbes in the soil or ocean.

It's difficult now to remember the feeling of being simultaneously aware of every living thing. Along with the total history of the earth, I saw and experienced my little part in it, thus seeing my own life and death. After I died in the experience, my soul floated in space above the earth. Even though I was back to being a soul, it seemed to have the form of my naked body. As earlier in the experience, my soul had the godlike quality of omniscience and I think therefore omnipresence. However, as I floated in space I slowly became aware that I was gripping something in my hand.

At first, I tried to ignore it but eventually I found I couldn't open my hand to see what I was holding. At that point, I was 'informed' by 'God' that I was still tied to the physical world and had to go back. My soul fell back through a dark tunnel except for a thin shower of individual photons that smarted like sand in a wind. It was almost like a birth canal for a soul. I fought hard to keep from going back to the physical world but was unable to prevent it.

I slowly became conscious, one of the girls in the class was running her hand through my hair and they were all crouched around me. Before I opened my eyes, I could feel I was holding something. I opened my eyes and saw the wooden beams in the old classroom and the first thing I said was something like 'How can this still be here after all that time?' I opened my hand to find a set of keys. I asked whose they were and a friend of mine from India said they were his and he took them. The class instructor took me into his office and asked if I had taken drugs. I was amused but I was not a drug user at all. He wanted to send me to the school clinic but I went home and slept for a long time.

Later I talked to my Indian friend, and without first describing what happened when I fainted, I asked why he put his keys in my hand and he said that in his area of India the custom is that when someone faints or goes unconscious they put something brass in the hand to keep the soul in the body. Also, as mentioned earlier, when I talked to the vet in the class he told me that he definitely thought I was dead. The girl who was rubbing her fingers through my hair told me I was only out for about a minute. That's what amazed me - how could I seem to experience multiple eternities in real time during that short of a period?

NDERF.org, #4598

Greyson's conclusions in his book After

Greyson ends his After account where he began, with reflections on the mind and the brain. He writes that: “near-death experiences seem to me to involve both the physical brain and the non-physical mind. We can choose to focus on the physical brain and explore chemical and electrical changes associated with near-death experiences. Or we can focus on the nonphysical mind and explore feelings of peace and love, out-of-body perceptions, and encounters with deceased loved ones. Both aspects—the physical and the nonphysical—are there, and we can see either one by changing our focus.” He concludes, however, that “neither of those perspectives by itself provides a complete description of the experience.”

“It seems plausible to me,” Greyson asserts, “that near-death experiences may be triggered by electrical or chemical changes in the brain that permit the mind to experience separating from the body at the moment of death. There is no inherent conflict between a physical and a non-physical understanding of near-death experiences. The physical and the nonphysical are different levels of explanation or description.”

Greyson clearly recognizes: “Although our physical brain and nonphysical mind seem to work as one unit in everyday life, people who have had near-death experiences consistently say that their experience of being awake and aware while their brains are impaired convinces them that their minds can act independently of their brains at times and are not just the product of their physical brains."

He admits: “I don’t know whether some kind of continued consciousness after death is the best explanation for near-death experiences in which experiencers see deceased loved ones no one knew had died. But I don’t have any alternative explanation for the evidence.”

Many “report that the most meaningful change after a near-death experience is an increase in their sense of spirituality. What they mean by the term ‘spirituality’ is the aspect of their personal lives that includes something beyond the usual senses, and a personal search for inspiration, meaning, and purpose, a quest to connect with something greater than themselves. Greyson affirms, “this includes a conviction that loving and care for other is of primary importance.”

Finally, Greyson communicates directly to each reader: “I would hope that your reflections on my words will not end when you put this book down but may continue to live on in your thoughts and feelings about life, death, and beyond.”

---

Bruce Greyson, After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond, 194-211.

Teen-ager saved by Christ in his NDE

Some survivors remain troubled and are trouble as well for their families. “Kenny was a teenager whose heart stopped when he was electrocuted by a freak spark jumping from a high-voltage power line. He had a near-death experience with both heavenly and hellish visions and felt he had been saved by Christ and sent back with a mission. His parents had brought him to see me because he felt estranged from his school friends, who didn’t understand why he had changed.” Greyson included Kenny in a support group he’d organized for near-death survivors to share their recovery problems, and Kenny brought his parents. Greyson notes, “Long after Kenny himself stopped coming to the group, his parents continued to attend.”

Greyson says: “In the three decades since Kenny’s participation in that group, he continued to wrestle with the aftereffects of his near-death experience. Kenny now sums up that struggle in these words: I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs since then—some good, some bad. Over the years, I’ve really discovered the empathic side of me. I know my true gifts lie in the emotional side of humanity, and I have a strong ability to comfort and educate when people are at their worst. I do believe the electrocution has shaped my life. I know my life has purpose and I was spared to do something bigger than me, whether it’s helping as a practitioner or just being available to others.

Bruce Greyson, After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond, 210-211.

She didn't want to survive her NDE

Greyson affirms: “Most of the aftereffects that experiencers report after near-death experiences are positive effects. But how could such a profound experience that differs so radically from everyday life not lead to problems as well? In fact, not all the aftereffects of near-death experiences are positive. Some experiencers have difficulty reconciling their near-death experiences with their religious beliefs. Some find it hard to resume their old roles and lifestyles, which no longer have the same meaning, or to communicate to others the impact of the near-death experience. Some experiencers report anger at still being alive—or at being alive again.

Cecilia, a sixty-one-year-old teacher, had a near-death experience during surgery for a ruptured and gangrenous appendix. She recalls: I experienced a wonderful feeling of peace and freedom. I saw my students going out and assisting others, and I knew the work I loved would go on without me. I felt ready to go, reached my arms out to two spirits who were in the room watching, waiting—and then they began to back away, leaving me behind! I pleaded, ‘Here I am. Take me with you,’ as they gradually faded away. My recovery proved slow and tedious. My body was healing, but I regretted that I had not died. I went through weeks of depression. I did not know how to climb out of this hole. I looked everywhere I could in a desperate attempt to find answers. I bought myself a notebook to keep a journal of how I was to get through this. My first entry was written to God in anger, I asked, ‘Why am I alive?’

Bruce Greyson, After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond, 194.