These NDE accounts were submitted to our website and are published here anonymously. Minor edits have been made to protect the identity of the experiencer and others who may have been involved with the experience. Note to researchers and authors: IANDS cannot grant permission to publish quotations from these NDE accounts because we have not received permission from the NDE authors to do so. However, we advise authors who wish to use quotations from these accounts to follow the Fair Use Doctrine. See our Copyright PolicyPolicy for more information. We recommend adopting this practice for quotations from our web site before you have written your book or article.
I grew up in a small town, population approximately 3,000. I knew almost nothing of other religions/philosophies outside of Christianity. In 1976 I had major surgery to remove an acoustic neuroma. Two neuro-surgeons alternated performing the surgery that lasted 12 hours. I spent six hours in recovery and a day in ICU. Prior to surgery at about 5 a.m., I was given medication in my room to begin the anesthesia. As I faded away and couldn't keep my eyes open, my mother and brother prayed over me. My brother put his hands on top of my head during the praying, and I had intense flashes of white light inside or over my head. I "knew" I would be all right. I cried while being wheeled out of my room, and remember saying to the nurse I didn't know why I was crying because either way I was going to be all right. I don't remember anything more after that. Next I realized I had floated to the ceiling, but I had no form or body.
At 18 years old I had an experience that I will never forget. Call it a NDE or whatever you want, but it was fantastic. At the time, I was in a very destructive phase in my life, living in youth homes and having an uncertain future. I had mostly dark and hostile thoughts. One day a female staff member and I had been shopping and enroute to the car to go home. We were crossing a transitional place. It was a two-lane road refuge to another. We crossed the first road and then stopped for a red light together with a lot of other people in the refuge. Standing far ahead, a large van stopped in front of the transition and waved us forward. I looked toward the red light and got the perception that it was green for us. I went in front of the van, yet in the corner of my eye I saw a red car coming straight toward me and thought "Now I die!" But, I still had time to think that I had to go up against the cap in order to have the best chance. It felt like I hit the hood and windshield. Then something very strange happened. Suddenly I was in the middle of another dimension.
I was alone in my university bedroom. It was the end of my first term. I had starved myself. Like all anorexics, I had no idea that I was ill, and had run around for weeks fueled by nervous energy rather than physical energy. That evening I suddenly felt the energy leave me and I crawled toward the bed to lie down. I was terrified of sleep because I heard myself thinking the words from Shakespeare's Richard II, "methinks that if I sleep I never wake again." I knew I was going to die. Shortly after I found myself exiting my body by floating through the top of my head. It was like being born, but entering another world through the head.
I have always had memories of being somewhere before birth. I could describe it to a T. I was born at home, breech birth with only my aunt tending to my mother. I came out feet first. I was blue and not breathing. I was wrapped in a towel and placed where my mother could not see me. The midwife came and checked me. She worked on me for a while then I began to cry. They were all shocked.
I was riding my bicycle home after a long day at work and looking forward to the next two days off. I got off my bike and was preparing to cross the road. There was a break in the traffic, or so I thought. I got on my bike and started across. The next thing I know, I'm in this huge field of flowers with a bright, blue sky. I can't describe the colors. (Our language doesn't have the words to describe them properly.) I'm thinking: How did I get here from being on my bike? Then, I started walking toward a light I could see in the distance.
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