My wife’s family was visiting, we had a fight, and I went to bed for a nap in the middle of the afternoon. I was ultimately exhausted from my life, from my terrible marriage which was a literal torture of psychological violence, and I vividly remember praying, as I laid down, saying, “God, I can’t go on. You decide now. I am ready.”

What I remember next is three distinct stages, not on a continuous timeline, but rather in isolated moments. First, I found myself somehow floating in the room. I didn’t see myself, or the bed. I just saw the curtains beside me and I seemed to go through the closed window out into the dark. I didn’t seem to have any participation in these actions, they were just developing. I didn’t feel forced but I didn’t exert any choice either.

In the second moment, I felt I was sort of flying, or rather clouds were passing by me. There were gray patches in the background and dark clouds of different sizes travelling fast in the opposite direction. I had a feeling of travelling and ascending in a dark, windy, stormy sky. The clouds were numerous, ugly and threatening, although I didn’t feel particularly afraid. This sky appeared to turn to a darker and smaller reality, which in turn gave way to a third moment. 

I found myself in a white space. It was filled with a mild white light. There was no sense of borders, limits or size, there were no walls, ceiling or floor, but I had the distinct notion that I was standing. For a moment all I could feel was myself and this space, but then a subtle presence filled in, until it became totally evident that someone was there with me, in front of me. And although nothing had changed, the white space now seemed smaller on my side, like I was on an edge, like the most of it was on the other side, and I felt some sort of stream was flowing in front of my feet. I could not see it, hear it, or feel it in any way, but I knew it was there. And as I realized there was this stream, the situation changed. Initially I was feeling peace and calmness, but then I started to feel loved, as I was never loved before. I started feeling that everything was good. I felt an indescribable peace, and it was somehow given to me to understand that if I crossed the stream, which seemingly would take just one step, I could stay with that loving presence.

This was the first time in the experience where I seemed to have a choice, a decision to make, and as I became aware of that, it seemed also that there would be no turning back. I lost all sense of time as I stayed in this condition, with the open choice, the stream at my feet, and the overwhelming love surrounding me. I was unburdened of all sense of responsibility, my job, my children, my family, I didn’t think of them then, it was just me in front of something that seemed to embrace all existence, that seemed to have authority over everything, that seemed to know me and love me unconditionally, and that would take me with it, if I just took that step.

The next thing that happened is that I was awake, in my bed, shaken by the shoulder and arm by my angry wife, shouting, claiming that she had been trying to wake me up for several minutes, that everybody in the house was afraid, that they heard a noise outside in the dark and my then father-in-law had to go around the house armed with a scythe which I had for the high grass. 

As I said, I don’t claim to have been dead, all I can say is my wife was frightened that I was not responding for a long time. If this was a dream, it was of a different kind, as there was no need for me to fill in gaps of inconsistency. It was all coherent and real beyond distinction. I had slept for about four hours.

I later came to the conviction that everything will be fine in the end, that I will be safe, and that the end is good for all. This has given me confidence and a sense that I know where we are going, and that human distress shall ultimately be relieved. On the other hand, a certain disregard for money or success has put me in a difficult economic situation.