Near Death Experience

It began in 1996…


I was a pedestrian pushing a disabled car when it was struck from behind. I was between the cars and the impact so great it bent the frames on both cars. I regained consciousness on a gurney in the emergency room. I knew I was going to die and welcomed the release from pain. Because of my religious upbringing (Southern Baptist) I was expecting a man in white robes on a golden throne to greet me.

As I died there was a cessation of all feeling and blackness closed in and light shrank to a pinpoint. I felt myself falling backwards into the blackness and a cool sensation of wind. I felt myself turn and then a pinpoint of light appeared in the blackness. I came out into the light and was in an upper corner of the ER looking down at my body on the gurney. I was not disturbed by being dead or by seeing my body on the gurney. I was in a state of euphoria and a sense of perfect peace and being. I had no pain, wants, or needs of any kind. I had a sense of being home. I sensed a presence behind me and then had a communication.

This was beyond telepathy. This was not hearing words in my mind and translating them into thoughts, this was knowing as the other presence knew, an instant sharing of knowledge. I had no interest in asking questions or in seeing anything, I was completely at peace. I was then made to understand I was to return. At this point I had my first want, the desire to remain. I wanted to know why I was to return.

The wall beyond my gurney became transparent and I was shown what appeared to be a flowing river. It was silver and shimmering as it flowed. The drops in the river were each a different color yet all flowed together as one body of water. Nothing gave me the impression this was actually water or a river but this is the best descriptive example that can be given of something I witnessed for which there are no words. The main body of the flow was silvery shimmering lights with different colored drops on the flow. I understood (I use this term because I did not actually hear) the colored drops were the experiences of all who had lived. The experiences existed as separate items yet belonged to the whole. The whole was the collective knowledge of all. I understood there was no individual, just one, yet each experience was individual making up the whole. This concept of ONE is so foreign to any description I can give, there seems to be no way now of describing it. My previous understanding of ONE was a single uniqueness. In this case ONE is something else. Many being ONE and ONE being many, both existing simultaneously in the same time and space.

I further understood that the collective experiences are omniscient knowledge. Everything that has been spoken, heard, and experienced. These colored drops contained each experience down to the memory of every cell division, every thought. All experiences were known at once by the collective consciousness that was the stream. Any experience could be known as if it were a first person experience happening at the time it happened originally. It was then that I was made to understand why there was no man on a golden throne to pass judgment on me.  I reviewed the experience of a key religious figure and I understood why I had never known the true cosmic construct until that moment.

There was no fear, or joy from this stream. I use the term river of life to describe the stream. There was an understanding of complete peace, happiness, and contentment without need or want, coming from the river of life. I had a strong desire now to join the river of life and felt this was home, where I came from. Touching the river gave me insight into realms beyond realms, universes beyond universes, dimensions beyond dimensions; I experienced infinity. I was shown a long line of experiences in other realms of realities and on other worlds. It was some time later I realized it was my past “lives” review of all existences of which I had been part. There were beings and objects unlike anything I had ever seen or heard of, even in the imaginings of science fiction writers I had read. I was made to know there were an infinite number of realms of existence and all were part of the One, the Source. The stream had distinct layers or levels that were not divided by any kind of barrier but each seemed to be of a different density. The one I experienced was the highest level. Where I first came after death was into the lowest level; I call it the “between place” or “lowest level of transition.”

That stream of consciousness and knowledge is what might be termed the “mind of god.” I understood I was not to join the river of life at that time, I was to go back. At this understanding I began to have fears and questions. I again reiterated I did not want to go. I understood I was to go back. I then was made to understand there would be great pain. I did not want to face the pain that awaited me. I understood the pain would be great and it would change and mold me. I wanted to know why and what I was to do. I was flushed with two sensations, one after the other. One sensation was of a sense of an action being right that brought a brief moment of the total peace and comfort I had experienced. The other sensation was one of an action being wrong. The sensation for wrong was a darkening of the light and cold. At that point the light dimmed and I felt myself falling backwards into blackness. There was a cool wind and I felt myself turning. There was a pinpoint of light in the blackness and I reemerged into light on the gurney and in my body. I was mostly unconscious for the next 30 hours and underwent surgery. I understood from family members I died again but I did not have another experience.