Strange halfway house idea about the NDE/OBE

Hello Tarantulanebula,
Max_B asked me to share my full experience, so I just posted it. Perhaps reading the full account will ease some of your fears. I responded to your direct questions below.


"Dear beyondmortality, having read your post, I have a question, sorry if that would offend you, my sense is, your description of your experience makes me a bit dread.
Since many people walked into that light without noticing you. This makes me guess that whether they are obsessed or be mentally controlled by some dark force?"

I can't say for sure why the others could not see me. My guess would be that they already passed. I was standing at the threshold, so not completely in either the spiritual or mortal world. The one aspect that bothers me still to this day is why I saw my co-worker who was very much alive. I really wonder if she was experiencing near death at the same time I was.

It was so beautiful and so peaceful inside the the light there is no doubt in my mind that this was a pure and sacred place. This is not a place where demons walk.

The other thing is I could not simply walk into the light. I had to will it. It had to be my choice to enter the light. So I don't think a demon can be on the other side drawing people in.

========

"OK, there is another possibility, that is, nders are all hiding some truth which they dare not say or they clearly know that they shouldn't tell, for some reasons. In this case, I would not like to ask you for an opinion on this. I respect you very very much. If you say it's pleasant, then I'm glad that it's pleasant to you, however if you say it's terrifying, then I want to cuddle you and solace you that there will be your beloved ones always accompanying you so please don't feel frightened."

I had a couple of reasons not to discuss it. The first was the inability of others to understand. When my ex husband stood there with a blank look on his face, I realized language is meaningless in describing the experience. Our reality in the mortal world is not the same as the spiritual world.

Humans share a common reality. It's difficult for people to understand experiences outside that reality. For example, the average person cannot understand what it feels like to walk on the moon because we have not walked on the moon. But the astronauts that have walked on the moon can discuss it with each other with clarity and understanding because they've all experienced it.

The other reason I hesitate to discuss it with people is most people just think you're crazy. it was a very moving experience for me. I don't want the value of that experience diminished by people's judgments.

I really like this form because people can talk very openly on these types of subjects without all the judgment.

The experience for most is quite beautiful so there really is no reason not to disclose the details.

=======
"Not many other Chinese people think things the way I think, it seems no Chinese people worry about the things I worry about."

My mother was Japanese, born and raised in Japan. The Japanese have their superstitious, but on a daily basis they are more focused on hard work and success.

Since my mother was very superstitious, I am also superstitious to some degree. Like mother, like daughter. The Japanese do not like the number four. I avoid the number 4 at all costs. The number 4 is very bad luck. It is the number of death because the word for the number 4 and death sound the same in Japanese.

Some years ago my ex husband wanted to buy a house, but the address was number 4. I told him we cannot buy this house. I kept calling it the Dead House. We bought a house across the street. Some months later the Dead House was purchased by a woman. She introduced herself then told me she just relocated to the area and bought that house because her husband had just died.

Coincidence I know, but eerie nonetheless. And more reason to avoid the number 4.
 
Hello Max_B.

Following is some background and my experience. I know some of it reads logically. But this is what I experienced in all its irrational beauty.


BACKGROUND:

I have a form of non-convulsive epilepsy (simple partial seizure disorder); with the exception of nocturnal seizures I'm fully aware during seizure activities

Seizure activity includes
  • Blurred vision: inability to focus
  • phantom smells: chemical smells or burning wires
  • visual hallucinations: shadow figures, technicolored auras
  • phantom sounds: soft voices
  • jamais vu (don't even recognize rooms in my house
  • "Electrical surge": waves of current like sensation in the brain
  • Nocturnal seizures

Occasionally I experience lost time. The only way I can explain this is to say I'll become hyper aware of every detail in my physical surroundings one moment, then have absolutely zero recollection of anything for the next few minutes. It's like being transported five minutes into the future.


I've had three or four EEG's; all abnormal indications of neuroplasticity. There's normal developmental neuroplasticity where new pathways develop and others close as a person grows into adulthood. Then there's a form associated with brain trauma in which new pathways are created to bypass injury. I have the type commonly associated with brain trauma--yet, I 've never had a brain injury.


I have migraines.

I have asthma and severe environmental allergies.

I have a very small benign tumor in my occipital lobe.

NEUROLOGISTS' COMMENTS ON MY NDE:

I described the event to the three primary neurologists who have treated me over the years. Two thought I experienced a hypnopompic hallucination. One thought it was an NDE.

I explained to the neurologist who thought it was an NDE, that I had no near death trauma (it occurred during the night while I was in bed).

He stated my description isn't consistent with what they know about hypnopompic hallucinations. Hypnopompic hallucinations vary greatly between individuals because the triggers can be anything from a sleep disorder, drugs, to individual neurochemistry. While a sense of fear is common, the source of that varies greatly. One person will see spiders, another individual will see demons, while still another won't see anything, but feel things crawling all over them.

By contrast, NDE's are very consistent among individuals because the trigger is the death process. When respiration is suppressed, the physiological response is pretty much the same in everyone. While there's some variation in NDE's, there's more similarities than differences. This neurologist believes NDE's are very real, but only in the mind of the individual experiencing it.

He explained that I cannot dismiss the possibility of a respiratory episode while I was asleep. There is a type of sudden death syndrome associated with epilepsy. Aside from the epilepsy, otherwise healthy individuals go to bed, fall asleep, then die. In a large number of these epileptics there is no evidence of a seizure occurring just before the death.

They have two theories on this epileptic sudden death syndrome: 1) a nocturnal seizure in which the individual smothers to death in their pillow; 2) seizure or abnormal brain activity triggers cardiac arrhythmia.

Then there's my unexplained neuroplasticity. He said my EEGs are consistent with someone who has recovered from brain trauma. But I have no known brain injury. He said it's impossible to know what caused my neurological changes, but something caused my brain to re-route my neurological pathways. A healthy brain just doesn't re-wire itself.


WHAT I THINK

I'm inclined to accept the opinion of the neurologist who thinks I had a NDE. After our discussion, I researched hypnopompic hallucinations. I frequently experience sleep paralysis with that terrifying sense of a demon like presence. I believe these are hypnopompic hallucinations. There are always the same. They last about 30 seconds and afterwards I always realize it was a hallucination. More important, they are nothing like the NDE. I only had one NDE. If the NDE was a hypnopompic hallucination, then I should have more of them.

The other thing that stands out for me is the physical sensations. In dreams and hallucinations I have never felt physical sensations of any kind. I'll feel emotions, but never any physical sensations. I've cut myself in dreams. I once fell down a hill in a dream. Yet never felt anything. A couple of weeks ago I had a lucid dream. To test if I was dreaming or not I touched my left hand several times to see if I could feel sensation. I was thrilled that I felt nothing since it confirmed I was both lucid and dreaming.

Yet during the NDE I felt a lot of physical sensations: cold, warmth, texture on a tree, tingling, gravity, weightlessness, moisture.

I know tactile sensations is not conclusive evidence of survival beyond mortality, but it was and remains a defining element of my experience. Unlike my dreams, I actually touched that spiritual world. And it obviously left an impression on me--my screenname speaks to that fact.


=============

THE EVENT

It was in the mid-eighties, long before the ban on oil based house paint. On this day my ex husband painted our bedroom with an oil base paint. I am very sensitive to odors. I was overcome by the fumes. I told him I could not sleep in the bedroom. We dragged our box spring and mattress into the children's bedroom to camp out for a couple of days as our bedroom aired out. The children's bedroom was quite large. Bunkbeds against one wall, the opposite side was a play area with seating, television, and a video game set up. There was enough space in the center of the room to set up our queen size mattress. The mattress was positioned in front of a mirrored double-door closet.

I went to bed early that night because the paint fumes gave me a migraine. I felt nauseous, so I brought a towel to bed with me. I closed my eyes, and hoped for sleep so I wouldn't feel the pain in my head.

Then there is only darkness. It is a very deep darkness. Pitch black air. I'm in pitch black air.

The darkness in front of me gives way to a dim white light coming from above. I look up but I can't see the light source.

I follow the downward projection of light. At the bottom of the light is a table. I only see the light and the table. Everything else is wrapped in darkness. In pitch black air.

A woman's body is on the table. She's not asleep. She's dead. There's no visible trauma, but I just know she's dead. I look at her face. It's my face. I'm dead. I know I'm dead.

There's no fear. I don't feel panic or fear. I move closer to the table. I feel an odd detachment. I see that it's me. I see that I'm dead. But I don't feel any attachment to my dead body.

But I feel confused. I draw closer and closer to my dead body. I don't understand how I could be dead. I don't understand how I could be outside my dead body looking at myself.

I don't feel dead. I'm standing outside my dead body so I don't feel dead.

I have a small towel in my hand. I feel pressure in my chest. I feel like I'm going to choke and cough. I put the towel to my lips as I cough. I feel fluid spill from my mouth, between my lips onto the blue towel. I feel the wetness of the fluid over my lips.

I pull the towel from my mouth and look at it. It's blood. The blood is wet, glistening. Bright red, fresh blood. I just stare at the blood for a minute. I'm dead. I know I'm dead. I see me; I see what was me, dead on the table in front of me. Yet I just stand there looking at the blood. And I still don't feel dead.

I look up at the light illuminating over my dead body. I follow the beam of light down to the table, look again at my dead body. I feel no fear. I'm confused.

Then a faint light appears to my right. I stand in place, turn only my head toward the faint light. A woman sits at a desk. She's busy writing.

I walk toward her. She never looks up. I stop a couple of feet from her desk. I say, "There's a mistake. I can't be dead. I'm right here."

She doesn't look up. She keeps writing. She doesn't answer.

I again say, "There's a mistake. I can't be dead. I don't feel dead."

She continues to write. Never looking away from her work she says, "The sensation of life does not leave the body at the moment of death."

I hear her words, but I don't comprehend. I don't understand what she is telling me. I want to ask her questions, but I just know she's told me everything she is suppose to tell me. She's not suppose to tell me anything more. I know this. I just know this.

I just stand there. I don't know what to do.

Opposite the table where my dead body lay, a bright light shatters the darkness. It's a brilliant white light. Much brighter than the light illuminating my dead body. Everything else on each side of this bright light is pitch black air. I turn to face the light. It's so bright.

I see movement at the edge of darkness. People begin to emerge from the dark. They move in silence into the light and disappear.

As they file past me and enter the light, I look at their faces. No one notices me. I don't know why they can't see me.

I only recognize a few people. My grandmother who died when I was eleven. She doesn't see me.

Paula, it's Paula. A woman I used to work with, but who is very much alive. I think there's a mistake, she's alive. No, stop. Paula's alive she's not supposed to go into the light.

I look at Paula, then toward the light. Then back at Paula. She looks toward me, but she sees through me. She can't see me. No one sees me. I don't understand why no one sees me.

I look back at the light. I feel the light now. I feel the warmth on my skin now. The warmth is so soothing. I feel so cold. My bones are cold. I want to go into the light, let it warm me. But I can't move. My legs won't take a step toward the light.

I then know that to go into the light, I must will it. It's about my will, I have to will myself into the light, then it will just happen. I understand now that there is no need to walk toward the light.

I will myself to the light. It's effortless. My weight releases. I feel the lightness of my being.

There's no door. There's no tunnel. There's only bright light air and pitch black air. Pure bright light air spills over the darkness just waiting for me to enter.

I feel the Perfect Warmth as I enter the light air. I think: Perfect Warmth. I feel it from the inside out. This is Perfect Warmth. I understand now Perfect Warmth is from the inside out, and not from the outside in. That's why I never felt Perfect Warmth before. Ive only been warmed from the outside in. And that's not the right way to feel Perfect Warmth.

The light air surrounds me. I look into the light air. Such breathtaking beauty. Where's no words to describe the beauty. The beauty is the air. I can see the air and it's so beautiful. The beautiful air is all around me. It's crystal. It's white. It's blue. Ive never seen such beauty.

The sensation of the air around me is like nothing I've ever felt. It's so light. It's so billowy soft. It's so buoyant. It feels as beautiful as it looks. I run my fingers over the billowy air. Feel it's softness. So pure, so sheer. Such beautiful air.

There's a tree. It's massive. A large tree with no leaves. It's beautiful. Not a single leaf, yet so beautiful. I move to the tree. The bark is so full of colors, but has no color. I see all the colors in the bark, but together make the bark look like a pale beige. But I can see the color inside. I touch the trunk. The bark is so smooth.

I look up into the branches. Perched on a high branch is a bird. It's feathers are a kaleidoscope of soft pastels. It looks like someone painted his feathers. It's the most beautiful bird I've ever seen. It just sits there. Perched. Looking out at the beautiful air.

I know I'm suppose to go toward the bird. I feel the strong need to go toward the bird. But it's so high in the tree.

I begin to feel a sensation in my feet. It tingles at first. It's emotion. Joy, sadness, anger, love. All human emotions. I feel all the emotions. Everything comes together, I feel it all. There are no singular emotions. Nothing singular. It's the sum of all human emotions. I understand now. The sensations of life. Life is sensation. We experience life through the sum of all sensation.

I feel the sum of all emotions. The Perfect Warmth. The sensation of life. I understand now. I spread my arms. My head tilts back. The sensation of life moves up and through me. I feel it enter my veins. Filling me up, then floating out of me. I feel the release of life. I feel the sensation of life as it floats through me and out of my body. I feel the gravity release me. I feel the lightness of my being. So light in the buoyant air. Now I rise toward the bird. Rise through the beautiful air as I release my life into it. As the sensation of life leaves my body, a peace begins to fill me.

I understand now. I understand life and death. The oneness of it. A singular experience. And so the peace comes to me.

The peace. Indescribable peace. There are no words to describe the peace.

My eyes. I see my eyes in the reflection of the mirrored closet doors in my children's bedroom. I'm lying on my stomach. My pillow is under my chest. My arms are folded under my neck. My hands overlap and hold my chin up. I'm looking at my reflection in the mirror. I've been awake the whole time. There is no sensation of waking. There's no sensation that I had been dreaming. I breathe very slowly and quietly. I do not want wake my husband. I want this moment to myself.

The beautiful air is gone. The tree of many colors is gone. The bird that beckoned me toward the heavens is gone. All that remains is the understanding of life and this incredible, indescribable peace. A peace that I am not willing to release.

Thanks very much for relating your experience in such detail. It's clearly a very profound experience for you. I can see why two of your consultants described your experience as a hypnopompic hallucination, simply because you woke up from your experience. But I must say, labelling recalled experiences in this way doesn't get one any nearer to explaining them. So I find such labels pretty unsatisfying.

Your experience does have some NDE-like elements, but it's also got a more complex narrative, as if it has important symbolism hidden within it that it is trying to telling you things. For that reason, at least to me, it more closely resembles a profound spiritually transforming event.

Two things which are also interesting to me, are the mirror you awoke looking at - their ability to project a space beyond their surface has always intrigued me. And the idea one is also sharing something with one or more, other persons during these experiences... your colleagues presence for instance... or, perhaps something that your husband was experiencing as he slept next to you.

Anyway, it sounds a very strong experience, and it only matters what it means to you. You are most likely the best judge of how it best relates to your life.

Thanks very much for sharing it.
 
Two things which are also interesting to me, are the mirror you awoke looking at - their ability to project a space beyond their surface has always intrigued me. And the idea one is also sharing something with one or more, other persons during these experiences... your colleagues presence for instance... or, perhaps something that your husband was experiencing as he slept next to you.

You have an excellent eye for detail. My reflection in the mirror was an extraordinary part of the whole experience. The transition from the light to my room was instantaneous and seamless. My reflection, keen lucidity, posed in a position for viewing a scene instead of one just stirring from sleep was very symbolic to me.
 
Thank you very very much dear beyondmortality. You are so kind to share your experience and opinions with such detailed narration.

Japanese language is in many ways similar to Chinese language, in Mandarin, 4 sounds "si" which also is what "die" sounds. So some Chinese people are as the same superstitious as what you described on the number 4. I can fully understand what you said because I have lived in a society with such cultural background.

I know "die" in Japanese language sounds like "seen", and 1, 2, 3, 4 sound "ichi", "ni", "san", "shi" respectively.

It's amazing that we know these two similar languages together in this forum. :)

It's morning here and I'm going to work, I have got up very early today so I have little time to read posts on this forum before going to work. I will read more carefully when I have more sufficient time.

Dear beyondmortality, I'm glad that you feel all happy and positive about your experience. But I'm not feeling well.

I gradually love a woman who has been got married and has been pregnant for three months. She loves her husband very very much and she often talks in a very sweet way when she is communicating with her husband through phone call, or when she mentions her husband in conversations with colleagues. But she also often complains about that her husband does many misdemeanors to her. Actually I did many helps to her which should have been done by her husband but her husband has never shown up to help her. She is serving her husband as a good wife but it seems that her husband doesn't care much about her. I feel very very bad as if there are some dark forces arranging these and enjoying watching me suffer. If I could have a nde, the first thing is not anything else except than that I would seek for any opportunity to find the answers to my questions like "why I gradually love this woman? (year I don't know by myself that how my love started)", "why do not give her as mine?", "why she loves a man who doesn't love her as he should do?"

She is not super attractive. When I first saw her I didn't foresee that I would later gradually love her. It is just her "not that beautiful according to common standard" which caused my intense love, because I always tend to love a female when I feel that she is vulnerable and in a disadvantage situation rather than in a super powerful and being well cared by all men surrounding situation.

I'm suffering to the extremity. I wonder whether that light will answer the many questions of mine.

I have a lot to write but I need to go to work soon.

Anyway, glad to know you from this forum and best wishes to you!

Tarantulanebula,
The light is not the place to seek answers for heartache.

It is from the heart that we love, and from the heart where we ache. Just as the heart knows no end to love, the heart know no end to ache.

We fall in love from the heart, but we fall out of love with the mind. Think back to the woman that you loved before this one. How your heart filled with love. How your heart thought there could be no other love for you.

But over time your mind began to find fault in the love your heart so deeply felt. In time, your mind convinced your heart to stop loving her.

Perhaps it's time to open up to your mind.
 
If the light is the source of all creation, then it shouldn't let all disappear, but should contain every questions and answers, but your sentence:
"The light is not the place to seek answers for heartache."
despairs me greatly, meaning I'm totally disposal and I will be discarded and tossed into oblivion.


tarantulanebula,
For me, the experience with the light isnt about foretelling one's future. It's not about granting my wishes. It's not about guiding my decisions. I was not asking the light for guidance. I wasn't asking the light to grant to my wishes.

The experience gave me an understanding and acceptance of death. It gave me internal peace. It's taught me to live more in the moment and not feel the anxiety of impending death. In accepting the inevitable I free my mind to live a more full life.

How we proceed through life depends on our belief systems. Some people believe our path in life is set. Some people believe we have free will.

Many people believe in a higher power, believe in god. Some people believe god directs every aspect of their life. I was once talking to a woman who told me god takes care of everything for her every day. She said that morning she got into her car and it wouldn't start. She repeatedly tried to start the car; each time it failed to start. She then prayed to god and asked him to start her car. The car then started. She said god started her car so she wouldn't be late for class.

I don't see it as free will when one attributes everything good that happens as a blessing from god. Then interpret everything bad that happens to either God forsaking them or evidence of the devil at work.

I do not believe in an omnipotent god who sits in heaven directing the lives of all things living down here. I believe life is within me. Just as I have the emotional and mental fortitude to experience joy, I have it to navigate myself through life's most painful and trying times.

When life's circumstances brings me pain and distress, I give myself time to feel the weight of it. But I know if I don't redirect my emotions, that pain will grow all consuming.

I have found there always comes a moment when I take stock of my pain and gauge just how much longer I'm willing to allow myself to suffer. That's the turning point for me. That's when I make a plan to take my life forward.

I cannot control some of the forces in life that bring me pain. But I most certainly can control how I respond to that pain. And for me, controlling how I respond to pain is the key to successful living.
 
Dear beyondmortality:

I shouldn't trouble you by saying pessimistic words. I'm very very glad that you can find a soothing way to accept what lives give us. And I wish you all good.

But I still want to emphasize that, finding a way to control pain, is not determined by the person himself. Someone can find a way, doesn't mean that it's a universal bless or methodology that everyone can.

The heartache is from inside of one person, yes I agree, but it doesn't imply that it is meant to be CONTROLLED by this person. It is controlled by whoever designed human species. Using the word "design" is improper though. Because I'm referring some existence not human, unfathomably beyond powerful than human.

Some nders said many of their questions had been answered by "someone" or "something" from that light, some said "their questions were not that important or worthwhile any more when were about to enter that light", some nders said that light is unaware of anything except than giving a simple feeling of peacefulness, comfort, warmth.

But to me, our physical lives are really very very important, and the answers to my questions are really very very significant to me, as long as I am still myself. I don't want to embrace the idea that "all fine", "there is no questions or answers", "you find a way to forget something and then every pain will be gone". No, everything counts and is significant. Every existence, every information.
 
The heartache is from inside of one person said:
Tarantulanebula,
From what you write, I understand you believe humans are created and controlled by a higher power. So I acknowledge your belief this power gave you this suffering. But did his power give you suffering and only suffering? Did this power not also give you joy, love, and happiness?

I believe it is a truth to say this higher power gives you suffering, but also gives you joy, happiness. Because your life has also had joy and happiness, then suffering is a temporary condition.

Without the ability to reason and make decisions you could not survive. So this higher power also gives you the ability to make decisions and direct your life. Everyday you make decisions and control your life. You decide what to eat and what not to eat. What to wear and what not to wear.

You also make decisions about your emotional well-being. You decide who you will spend time with and who you will not. You decide who your friends will be and who you will not befriend. So you can also decide who to love and who not to love.

The higher power may have given you suffering, but it also gave you the power to identify the cause of that suffering and the power to remove the cause of that suffering from your life.

So just as you decide who you will spend time with and who you will not, you can decide how much thought and time you will or will not spend thinking about this woman.

If you step on a thorn, would you not remove the thorn from your foot to stop the pain? There is a thorn in your heart. It is not easy I know to pull it from your heart, I know I just pulled a thorn from my heart and it hurt like hell. But now the pain is gone.
 
Tarantulanebula,
From what you write, I understand you believe humans are created and controlled by a higher power. So I acknowledge your belief this power gave you this suffering. But did his power give you suffering and only suffering? Did this power not also give you joy, love, and happiness?

I believe it is a truth to say this higher power gives you suffering, but also gives you joy, happiness. Because your life has also had joy and happiness, then suffering is a temporary condition.

Without the ability to reason and make decisions you could not survive. So this higher power also gives you the ability to make decisions and direct your life. Everyday you make decisions and control your life. You decide what to eat and what not to eat. What to wear and what not to wear.

You also make decisions about your emotional well-being. You decide who you will spend time with and who you will not. You decide who your friends will be and who you will not befriend. So you can also decide who to love and who not to love.

The higher power may have given you suffering, but it also gave you the power to identify the cause of that suffering and the power to remove the cause of that suffering from your life.

So just as you decide who you will spend time with and who you will not, you can decide how much thought and time you will or will not spend thinking about this woman.

If you step on a thorn, would you not remove the thorn from your foot to stop the pain? There is a thorn in your heart. It is not easy I know to pull it from your heart, I know I just pulled a thorn from my heart and it hurt like hell. But now the pain is gone.

Dear beyondmortality:

This time, I have no single disagreement with this paragraph written by you.

It is totally correct. And wise said. Whatever created me and arranged all these, has the right to torture me or destroy me without letting me to know why.

But I will beg the answers for the rest of my life.

Also, when I was a child, I thought I was created into this world because the CREATOR needs me, and someone in this world will need me. Now I know everything needs me to be a pig and a joke, that's why I'm created.
 
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