Andrew P's NDE

Experience description: 

In the summer of 1955, a few days before my high school graduation, I experience an unusual, frightening, and incredible event.  The memory of this event is not only crystal clear, but it remains intact, exactly as it happened.  Every thought, word, image, action, and feeling of this memory abides unchanged in my body and thoughts.  I have spent years trying to forget it, but I always remember it, and I always remember it as if it happened today …

——

I am filled with joy and excitement. In a few days I will finally graduate from high school and move forward with my life. Our class decides to have a picnic at a nearby lake as our final class outing before graduation, and I’m excited about going.

I arrive at the lake and it is a great day for a picnic. The sun is shinning, the sky is painted a beautiful shade of blue dotted with perfect cotton ball clouds.  A warm breeze blows the fresh smell of the trees, sand and lake everywhere.

I change into my swimsuit and begin the party with some beach games before lunch.  After I eat, some of my friends swim out to a floating platform, about one hundred yards off shore.  Once they get to the platform, they wave and yell for me to join them.  The water is much too cold for me to ease in slowly, so from 20 feet back, I take a running leap and hit the water in a gigantic belly flop.  My body warms a bit as I get into my swimming rhythm.  Then about half way to the floating platform, I feel the first cramping pains in my stomach and groin.  “But the cramps aren’t that bad,” I tell myself, “and besides, I’m almost half way there. I can make it.”

With every stroke the cramps and pain increase, and my knees buckle into my stomach.  I can no longer kick my legs or straighten my body.  I’m scared.  My arms move, but I don’t go anywhere but down.  As I struggle beneath the surface of the water I start gagging on the water.  It’s in my nose, down my windpipe, and in my lungs … I’m submerged, and then sink.

As I struggle, I finally get my head up out of the water.  Frantically, I search the water’s surface for the platform and my friends. No one recognizes my dilemma.  Down I go again, deeper than before.  My arms feel frozen in place, and every muscle in my body screams with pain.  I never imagined that I could be in such unbearable pain.  I sink deeper as the beautiful June sunlight fades to blackness.  “Oh my God, it’s all black, I can’t see anything.”  A loud, painful, ringing sound is in my ears.  It feels as if someone stuck an ice pick in my ears.   I’m convinced my brain will explode any second.  I‘m falling endlessly down this freezing black hole.  My body trembles uncontrollably in freezing water.

I continue to sink into this ice-cold, black hole; it seems to last forever.  Wait, I feel something.  It’s the slimy, cold weeds at the bottom of the lake.  Struggling in this tangle of weeds feels horribly like falling into a frigid snake pit.

Finally I hit the bottom.  I try to push myself up with trembling, numb hands, but the goo at the lake bottom holds me down an sucks me deeper into the mud.

Then, I hear a strange voice inside my head say, “Andy, rest, for just a moment, you need to let go.”  I reply, “No, I can’t, I have to get to the surface for some air.”  Then the voice says again, “If you let go for just a moment, then I promise that you can return to the struggle.   And I respond, “Do you promise?”   And the voice answers back, “Yes, I promise.”

In my frozen panic I say to myself, “All right then, OK then, I’ll stop for just a moment of rest.”

I stop struggling.  I let go …

The very instant I let go, I am hurled into a dark, black tunnel.  I look back and see my body stuck in the weeds at the bottom of the lake.  I look forward and see a brilliant Light shining at the end of the tunnel.

Instantly, the freezing cold is gone, I feel warm.  The horrible pain in my body is gone, and I feel peaceful, calm, and very, very happy.  The ringing in my ears and head is gone, replaced by a gentle silence, as if I was in the middle of a redwood forest with a gentle breeze blowing through the tops of the trees.  The radiant Light that looks like a thousand exploding suns overtakes the blackness.  My retinas should have been burned out by its brightness, but I can stare into the Light and it doesn’t hurt.  Again, I realize that all of the pain that consumed me an instant ago is completely gone.  Warmth, joy, and an indescribable feeling of love replace the cold, terror, panic, and fear that enveloped me.

For some unknown reason, this dramatic rush toward the Light causes me no concern. I have no fear of the Light.  I’m pulled closer and closer, as if I’m drawn into the Light by a gentle, giant magnet.

Then, in the next instant, I’m suspended inside the center an immense sphere, bigger than our high school gymnasium.  The inside of the sphere looks like an enormous, unending movie screen, with hundreds of movies playing in every direction at the same time.  I am completely surrounded by images of my experiences.  Wherever I look in the sphere, I see all the events of my lives; and I can hear, feel, touch, and smell the exact experience of living those lives. In this place there is no beginning; there is no end.  I observe all of the moments of my lives all at the same time, all around me.  All my lifetimes are somehow mystically connected to each other.  Strange, I sense no fear or judgments, no guilt or accountability, and absolutely no blame or shame.  I re-experience every thought, word, and action of each life experience whenever I focus on them.  I am suspended in a world of unlimited dimensions.

Then after what seems like hours in the sphere, I am instantly back in the tunnel again, drawn toward the Light.  I can actually feel its brightness, warmth, and love. As I get closer to the Light, I am absorbed by its brilliance and perfect love. 

I am in the Light!  Oh my God, I am actually in the Light.  I am the Light!

I look directly into the source of the Light and it appears to me in a human-like form.  It looks like a massive, human silhouette that is radiating with the brightness of thousands of suns.  Although I can’t remember seeing its form before, somehow I recognize it.  The Light speaks to me, “Andy, do not be afraid.  Andy, I love you.  Andy, we love you.”

The Light—It actually knows me.  The Light knows my name.  The Light called me Andy.  Surrounding the central Light form are millions and millions of other Lights welcoming me back home. I know them all and they know me, we are all pieces of the same Light.  I hear myself say, “It’s good to be back home.”  We are All home together again.

Although I am in the Light, and the Light is in me, I am still Andy.  I’m everywhere and I am here at the same time.  I see me as a person and I see me in the infinite, warm, and loving Light.  I become the Light.  The Light has a voice that I have never heard, but it is not strange to me.  The Light has a smile that is indescribably beautiful, and I recognize that too.  The Light has an incredible sense of humor and an infectious laugh, and we talk and laugh together.  The Light has the answers to all of the questions in the universe—and I don’t have any questions, because I know everything that the Light knows, and that is everything!

The Light also knows everything that I have ever done or will do, and the Light loves me without conditions.  The Light loves me because of who I am—Andy, a piece of the Light.  There is no fear.  No judgment.  No punishment.  No blame.  No shame.  No ledger of good and bad deeds. Only warmth, peace, joy, happiness, forgiveness, and love in the Light.  I am one with the unconditionally loving Light.

I’m home.  I am home forever.

And then I am startled! The Light says, “Andy, you must go back.”  And I say, “No, I’m not going back, I’m not leaving … I’m never ever going back.”   The Light says for a second time, “Andy, you must go back.”   I repeat my first response, “No, I’m not going back … ever.”  Just the thought of returning to my body back on earth is repulsive to me.  It felt like I would be trying to force the universe in a tiny, brittle bottle.  Then the Light says the third time, “Andy, you must go back.”  The next instant, without pause or delay of the smallest increment of time, I am back on Earth.  Stuffed back into a cold, shivering, aching body lying on the beach.  I open my eyes and tears roll down my cheeks.  The Light is gone.  Oh my God, the Light is gone.  I am so sad, so mournful.  I am back in this tired, achy, and nearly frozen body.  How sad … how very, very sad I am. 

I am lying on my stomach on the sand. One of my friends pushes the rest of water out of my lungs.  I cough out the water, but the intense pain remains.  This time the pain is different and permanent.  It’s the pain of being separated from the Light.  I don’t know why I’m so sad?  I don’t even know what I have just experienced?  But I do know that all of the warmth, beauty, and love that was infused in my soul, I can no longer feel.  The Light has played a devious trick on me.  The Light allowed me to expand and become one with the universe, and then rammed me back into my frail, earthly body.  At the time, it seemed like a very cruel experience to put me through.  I was very angry at the Light.

All my classmates stand around me, glad that I’ve been revived.  Someone says, “Andy, you don’t seem very happy about being dragged from the bottom of the lake, are you still in a daze, or what?  How was it?  Were you afraid?”  I answer with a lie.  I say that I can’t remember anything.  I tell them that the entire episode is a complete blank.  I have to lie to my friends, I have to lie to my family, and I have to lie to myself.  I can’t tell anyone about the Light.  How can expect them to understand what I just experienced if I don’t understand any of it myself?

I tell myself that maybe it was just a hallucination or some bizarre connection of synapses inside my brain from the lack of oxygen, or something else like that.  I don’t know, maybe I’m just plain crazy.  Oh well, I’ll probably forget all about it in a little while.

——

It’s been many, many years since my drowning and death, and I have forgotten thousands of experiences.  Thousands of other experiences have faded and dimmed with the passing of time.  Many traumatic memories have been embellished or partially forgotten.  I have only one life and death experience that has remained clear and unchanged over my lifetime and this is it.  The moment that I entered the Light, to become one with the Light, is a moment that has no parallel in my life.  It is a feeling of inexpressible, unconditional love, peace, and joy.  It is a love that I cannot adequately describe with words; it’s a love that can only be experienced.  And I experienced it … I am in the Light, the Light is in me, and we are all One.

A number of years ago a series of strange, early morning occurrences began to happen to me.  I would wake up around 2:00 AM, fully awake and there would be phrases and images spinning around in my head.  There was nothing I could do to make those images go away and allow me to go back to sleep.  I had an uncontrolled impulse to write.  I am not a writer — I am very visual.  But, I would find myself alone, in the middle of the night, writing simple poetry that just flowed from my pencil point. After an hour or so, I would get very tired and go back to sleep. I would get up and read the poem I wrote a few hours earlier and be very surprised that something like that could come from me. Then I realized that the poems were not coming from me but through me. They were coming from the Light, and all I was doing was transcribing my experiences with the Light into beautiful poetry.

The poem that follows, “Death By Drowning and Back Again,” is a poem that describes my near death experience through the beauty of poetry. 

Death by Drowning and Back Again

Oh God, I’m drowning! My life is all black!

Why me?  Why me, God?  Please, can’t I go back?

I sank into an abyss of ice-cold pain,

Surrounded by blackness again and again …

Though my senses were numb, my pain was intense!

I screamed out in silence … death seemed so immense!

Every fiber of my body continued to fight …

The ugly, frigid, blackness was void of any light.

I continued to sink and struggle without end.

Until finally, I hit bottom … alone without friend.

Stuck in the mud and try as I might …

Escape was impossible from this black, hideous sight.

A voice from my depths, tells me what’s best.

“Let go … for just a moment, you need a little rest.”

I’m afraid to stop trying … for one breath of air!

To rise from the bottom … break free from despair!

Again, the voice assures me … “Let go, it’s all right …”

“After a brief moment, you can continue the fight.”

All right then – OK then – I’ll let go of my life.

A moment of rest, and then on with the strife.

I release!  I let go!  Then in an instant so fine …

I’m hurled from my body through a tunnel in time.

I look down and see my body all knurled up in fright!

I look up, and the tunnel is aglow in white Light.

In a heartbeat, a gasp, my senses are alive!

I am warm, I am loved, I am happy … completely revived!

The Light is so bright; it should burn through my eyes,

But It pulls like a gentle magnet, and then I realize

I’m engulfed in the Brightness, with love and with care.

The Light, It sustains me … I can breathe its warm, sweet air.

And then in a moment I appear in a sphere.

My lives are all around me, I can see them, I can hear …

Every moment, every thought through lifetimes unfold …

There is no judgment or fear to behold,

No accounting, no damnation, just observations so clear …

That my lives are just choices and it is love that endears.

“Don’t be afraid,” the Light says through my ears,

“I love you, we love you, and there’s nothing to fear.”

I’m welcomed by the Light … and the Light smiles within me!

We talk, we play, we laugh … Its Love sets me free!

At last I am Home!  The universe is such a wondrous delight!

The Light is One with Me … and I am One in the Light!

Surprisingly, the Light says, “Andy you must go back!”

“No, I‘m finally Home!” I screamed in a counterattack.

The Light insisted, “Back to earth you must go.”

Earthly images terrorized me and tears started to flow.

In an instant I was back, coughing up water on the sand…

The agony of earth overshadowed a Light so wonderfully grand.

First Time submitted:

(It is the summer of 1955 and a few days before my graduation at Redford Union High School in Redford Township, Michigan, that I experience an unusual, frightening, incredible event.  It is always in my memory.  The memory of that event is not only crystal clear, but it remains intact, exactly as it happened, to this moment.  Every thought, every word, every image, every action and every feeling is unchanged, and it abides in my memory unchanged.  I have spent years trying to forget, but always remembering, and always remembering as if it were today.  I’ve never experienced any other incident with the clarity, exactness or emotional impact as my drowning and my death…) 

My classmates and I are so happy because the end is in sight.  In a few days we will finally graduate from high school and get on with our lives.  I have a scholarship to an engineering university in Northern Michigan.  I am filled with joy and excitement.  June is exceptionally warm this year and our class decides to have a picnic at a near by lake.  It is our final class gathering before graduation, and most of us are anxious to go. 

My mother doesn’t want me to go.  She says that the water is still too cold and she specifically doesn’t want me to go swimming.  Since I am one of the class officers, I know that I have to go and that I have to go swimming with my friends.  So I hide my swimming trunks in my lunch bag and I am off for a good time. 

We arrive at the lake and it truly is a great day for a beach picnic.  The sun is shinning, the sky is a beautiful shade of blue, pretty cotton cloud balls dot the sky, and there is a slight breeze blowing.  Everyone changes into their swimming suits and we begin the party with some beach games prior to lunch.  We eat and then after lunch, some of my friends swim out to a floating dock, about one hundred yards off shore.  Once they get to the dock, they begin waving and yelling for me to join them.  I walk down to the water and step in ankle deep, and immediately jump back out.  It is really cold!  Way too cold for me!  I like to swim in warm, almost bathtub temperature water.  But, they keep on waving and yelling at me, they really want me to swim out … everyone is watching … I have to go.  The water is much too cold for me to ease in slowly, so I run into the water from about twenty feet off shore, and with a big, blood-curdling scream, I hit the water in a gigantic belly flop.  Wow!  This water really is cold!  I’d better start swimming as fast as possible to get warm, and I do.  I am starting to warm up as I get into my swimming rhythm. 

Then about half way to the dock I begin to feel cramping pains in my stomach and groin.  I can hear my mother’s voice, “Andy, don’t go into the water right after you eat, you might get cramps.”  But the cramps aren’t that bad, and besides I’m over half way there already … I can make it.  Now with every stroke the pain increases, it’s getting harder and harder for me to kick my legs. 

I can’t kick my legs any more, the pain is really intense … I can’t keep my body straight … my knees are buckling up into my stomach.  I’m scared!  My arms are moving, but I’m not going anywhere … I’m starting to bob up and down.  Oh hell, I’m swallowing too much water … it’s in my nose, down my windpipe, in my lungs … I’m going under … I am under!  I’ve got to get to the surface for some air.  Why is it taking me so long to get to my head out of the water?  I am stroking as hard as I can.  I need to break through to the surface for some air, and I need it now!   

Finally, my head breaks the surface of the water!  I am coughing, choking and trying to scream for help, but no sound comes out.  I need to breathe now, but I’m sucking in more water than air, my lungs are filling up with water … they feel like they’re going to bust.  Frantically, I look across the surface of the water for the raft … there it is, but it’s still quite far away … I’ll never make it!  Hey, why is everybody just standing around?  No, wait, a couple of guys are waving at me … don’t they realize that I am drowning!  There I finally said it, I am drowning!  I am going to die!   

No one is coming to help me!  I can’t keep my head above the water!  Down I go again … this time deeper than before!  Hell, I’ve got to get more air!  I’ve got to get my head out of this damn water!  Why can’t I move my arms?  Oh God, they feel like lead pipes, it’s so hard to move them, I sinking like a rock.  The pain, the excruciating pain is in my chest and arms now!  I’ve never thought there could be pain like this.  I need air!  I need air!  I’ve got to get my head out of the water! 

Oh God, I’m sinking deeper and deeper.  I can’t move my arms any more, the pain is unbearable, every muscle in my body is screaming out with pain.  Pain!  Pain!  And more pain!  I can’t stand it any more!  I’m still sinking, and it’s getting darker and darker … now it’s black, I can’t see anything!  Oh my God, I can’t see!  Am I blind? 

My ears, there’s pain in my ears.  It feels like someone is sticking an ice pick in them!  The ringing is deafening, it feels like my brain is going to explode!  I’m still falling into this black hole, and it’s freezing down here.  My whole body is trembling with freezing cold, with freezing pain … Oh God, where in the hell am I going? 

I am still slowly sinking into this freezing black hole, it’s lasting forever … wait … I feel something.  They’re slimy and cold!  They must be the weeds at the bottom of the lake.  I’m getting tangled in the weeds.  I’m struggling with the weeds, God they feel horrible, and it’s like I’ve fallen into a freezing snake pit!  I’m still dropping down! 

I stop sinking!  I’m at the bottom.  I reach down with my frozen hands to try and push myself up, but they’re being sucked into the mud and goo of the lake bottom.  My hands are stuck in the mud and I can’t get them out.  Oh God, help me!  I’m terrified!  I’m in a state of complete panic!  Ice cold, black, unbearable panic!  I’m tired, so very, very tired!  Every muscle, every cell of my body is filled with excruciating pain!  It’s unbearable, truly unbearable!  But I have to continue to struggle … I have to stay alive … I’m so afraid to die!  God please help me?  Please help me now!  I don’t want to die! 

I have to get out of the water … I need air.  Oh God, how I need a breath of air!  Please God, just one breath, that’s all I ask?  I can’t stand the pain, the fear, the cold, the ringing, and the blackness … but I can’t die!  “Try Andy, damn it, try!  You can’t give up!  You can’t give up now!”  But, I’m so tired … so sore … so much blackness, so much ice-cold pain.  I need a rest!  Just for a minute!  I need to stop struggling for just a minute.   

Then, almost magically, I hear myself say, “OK, Andy, you can rest, if you promise to return to the struggle?  You can’t die now.  Do you promise?”  And I respond to myself, “Yes, I promise.”  I’m a chunk of black, frozen, excruciating, panic and terror.  I stop struggling.  I let go …  

The second, the very instant, the exact moment that I let go … I am hurled into a black tunnel.  “What’s in the hell is happening?” I scream to myself!   The freezing cold is gone!  I AM WARM!  The pain is gone!  I FEEL WONDERFUL!  The ringing in my ears and head is gone!  I CAN HEAR THE SILENCE!  The blackness is gone!  I CAN SEE A LIGHT!   

 I look back and I can see my body in the weeds at the bottom of the lake!  “Is that really my body?”  “How can I see it through the blackness?” I look up and I can see a Light!  It’s bright, so very bright.  It looks like a thousand suns all exploding at the same time!  I am staring into the Light, but it doesn’t hurt my eyes!  No pain, there is no more pain!  There is no more terror, no more panic, no more fear.  I feel warm and I feel loved.  Is this crazy or what? 

I am rushing toward the Light, and for some unknown reason I have no fear, and I love the Light.  Oh what a wonderful, beautiful, enchanting, warm and loving Light.  I’m getting closer and closer, it’s as if I’m being drawn into the Light by a gentle, giant magnet.  Closer and closer… 

“What now?”  “Where am I?”  I’m inside an immense sphere!  And the inside of the sphere is like an enormous, unending movie screen.  Everything is going on at once, all around me … left, right, up, down … wherever I look I see my life.  I cannot only see it, but I can also hear, feel and experience every event in all of my lives … past, present and future. There is no beginning!  There is no end!  I can observe all of the moments of my lives all at the same time, all around me.  Strange, there is no fear or judgments; it’s just my life’s experiences as they are occurring.  What incredible feelings, I can relive every thought, word, and action whenever I focus on any one of them.  What a wonderful, fantastic, incredible experience being in the Eternal Now! 

Now I’m back in the tunnel again, speeding toward the Light!  I can actually feel the brightness, the warmth, the love … Oh God what a truly wondrous feeling!  I’m getting closer and closer to the Light.  It’s so very bright, so very warm, and so very loving.  I’m getting closer and closer… 

I am in the Light!  Oh God, I am actually in the Light.  I am the Light!  I see the Light and now it appears to have a human-like form.  I’ve never seen it before, but, somehow, I recognize it.  The Light speaks to me.  The Light says, “Andy, do not be afraid.”  Then the light says, “Andy, I love you.  Andy, we love you.”  Oh God, It knows me!  The Light knows my name!  I can’t believe it!  The Light actually knows me!  The Light called me “Andy!” 

I am in the Light.  The Light is in me.  I can see me in the unending Light.  Nevertheless, I am still Andy.  I’m everywhere and I am here.  I can see me as a person and I can see me in the infinite, warm, and loving Light.  I become the Light.  The Light is a form that I have never seen, but it is not new to me, somehow I know it.  The Light has a voice that I have never heard, but it is not strange to me.  The Light has a smile that is indescribable beautiful, and I recognize it.  The Light has an infectious laugh, and we laugh together.  The Light has all of the answers in the universe … and I don’t have any questions, because I know everything that the Light knows. 

The Light knows everything that I have ever done or will do, and the Light loves me because … I’m Andy.  The Light loves me because of who I am!  No fear!  No judgments!  No punishment!  Just warmth!  Just love!  Just joy!  Just happiness!  Just this loving, ever loving Light!  I’m home!  I feel the unbelievable warmth, love, joy, and completeness of the Light!  It is so very, very wonderful being in the Light.  I’m truly home!  I am home forever! 

Then the Light says, “Andy, you must go back!”  And I say to the Light, “No, I’m not going back, I’m not leaving … I’m never ever going back!”   The Light says for a second time, “Andy, you must go back.”   I repeat my first response, “No, I’m not going back … ever!”  Then the Light says the third time, “Andy, you must go back!”  The next instant, the very next moment, without any pause or delay of even the smallest amount of time, I am back!  I open my eyes and tears are rolling down my cheeks.  The Light is gone!  Oh God, the Light is gone!  I am back on the beach.  I am so sad.  I can’t describe the mournfulness.  The Light is gone.  I am back on the beach.  How sad … how very, very sad I am. 

I am lying on my stomach, on top of the sand, with one of my friends pushing the water out of my lungs.  I’m coughing out the water, but the pain returns.  This time the pain is different.  This time the pain never goes away.  It’s the pain of not being in the Light. 

How can I explain the Light to my family and friends?  They will think that I am crazy.  I’ll be sent away to the room with rubber walls!  No!  There is no way in the world I could ever tell anyone about the Light!  I truly must be crazy! 

Everyone is standing around me in a big circle.  They are all glad that I’m still alive.  One of my friends says, “Andy, you don’t seem very happy about being dragged from the bottom of the lake, are you still in a daze, or what?  How was it?  Were you afraid?”  I answer with a lie.  I say that I can’t remember anything.  I tell them that the entire episode is a complete blank.  I have to lie to my friends, I have to lie to my family, and I have to lie to myself.  I can’t tell anyone about the Light.  They would never understand.  Even I don’t understand. 

After a few minutes I tell my friends that I have to go back into the water for a swim.  I tell them that I don’t want to be afraid of the water for the rest of my life.  So, I jump back into the cold water and swim out a little way, and then return.  Everyone thinks that I am so brave.  The truth is I am so sad.  Maybe it was just a dream or something like that.  Maybe I am crazy. 

Oh well, I’ll probably forget all about it in a few days.   

Oh well, I’ll probably forget all about it in a few months.

Oh well, I’ll probably forget all about it in a few years. 

Oh well, I’ll probably forget all about it in a few decades. 

It’s been over forty years since my death, and I have forgotten thousands of experiences.  Thousands of others have faded and dimmed with the passing of time.  Many traumatic ones have been embellished or disremember.  I have only one life and death experience that has remained clear and unchanged over time, and this is it.  The moment that I entered the Light, to become one with the Light, is a moment that has no parallel in my life!  It is a true experience of inexpressible love.  It is a love that can never be adequately described with words.  A love that can only be experienced, the ever-loving Light … I am in the Light, I am the Light, and the Light is God.

Was the kind of experience difficult to express in words? No      

At the time of this experience, was there an associated life threatening event?          No       I drowned swimming out to a floating platform during my high school senior year class picnic.

At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness and alertness?    At the moment when the Light smiled at me and said to me, "Andy, don't be afraid, Andy I love you, Andy we love you".

How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal every day consciousness and alertness?    More consciousness and alertness than normal

If your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience was different from your normal every day consciousness and alertness, please explain:            There is no way to compare my consciousness when I was in the Light with my consciousness here on planet Earth.  It's like asking someone to compare the difference between the light from a thousand suns exploding at the same time and the light from a match stick.  Yes, they are both light, but beyond that, there is no comparison.  I can only say that I was in a compete state of love and knowing.  The love of a billion home-comings all rolled up into one instant, and the knowing of every aspect of the complete universe, to become one with God.  I had all of my earthly senses only heightened by a million times.

Did your vision differ in any way from your normal, everyday vision (in any aspect, such as clarity, field of vision, colors, brightness, depth perception degree of solidness/transparency of objects, etc.)?  Yes     Since I have had vision only out of my left eye since birth, I never experienced true binocular vision on earth.  But in the Light I not only had perfect vision from both eyes, but there was no pain or discomfort looking into the Light brighter that thousands of suns.  That truly amazed me!

Did your hearing differ in any way from your normal, everyday hearing (in any aspect, such as clarity, ability to recognize source of sound, pitch, loudness, etc.)?
            Yes     Yes, my hearing experience when from the driving, painful ringing just before I left my body to the wonderful sound of silence, pure loving, graceful silence.  When I was in the Eternal Now Sphere, I could hear every event from my lifetimes clearer that when they actually occurred to me on Earth and other places.

Did you experience a separation of your consciousness from your body?     Yes

What emotions did you feel during the experience?            Warmth (warm because I was freezing to death stuck in the mud in the bottom of the lake) and unconditional love to a degree I never even dreamed about here on Earth.  The feeling of being back home, after a long time away, being back home where I belonged ... what a truly glorious feeling.

Did you pass into or through a tunnel or enclosure?          Yes     Yes, as soon as I "let go" I left my body and started moving up into a deep dark tunnel, I could see my body stuck back in the mud and then I saw the bright light at the end of the tunnel.  I was moving fast in the tunnel because I could feel the wind on my face and body.

Did you see a light?           Yes     Yes, I saw the Light immediately, and it was so bright I immediately wondered why it wasn't burning out my retinas.  I was always in the Light, even when I went into the Eternal Now Sphere, and the closer I got to the light the brighter it got until I saw the form and face of the Light that loved me unconditionally.

Did you meet or see any other beings?           Yes     Yes, I saw the Light and communicated with the Light through all my senses.  We talked, and laughed, and loved one another like long, lost friends.  The Light was also surrounded by countless billions of other lights who knew me and who I knew.  Not people from my life time (at the time of my drowning) buy people (souls) from countless other lifetimes and from being in the absolute.

Did you experience a review of past events in your life?    Yes     Yes, I was in a sphere surrounded (360 degrees) with all of my life times.  They were all occurring at the same time, sort of "blending" into one another.  Not in a serial sequence, but happening all around me (right, left, up, and down ... just everywhere in that sphere.  Yes, I learned that I have experienced many life times in many places, and that there is no "death" - there is no "judgment" - there is no "punishment" - there is no "fear".  There are only event and experiences that "work for me" or "don't work for me" ... things that I want to repeat, because the give me and others joy, and things that I don't want to repeat, because the don't create joy.

Did you observe or hear anything regarding people or events during your experience that could be verified later?          No      

Did you see or visit any beautiful or otherwise distinctive locations, levels or dimensions?           Yes            Yes, being in the Light with billions of other Lights all around is the most beautiful and distinctive location in the entire universe.

Did you have any sense of altered space or time?   Yes     Yes, while I was in the Light, I had to sense of "time" as I know in here in Earth.  In other words, no sense of the serial nature of time ... past, present, or future.  All times (past, present, and future) were experienced at every moment in "time" while I was in the light.

Did you have a sense of knowing special knowledge, universal order and/or purpose?     Yes            Yes, I had a complete knowledge of the entire universe, therefore I knew the Light (God in Earth terms), because I became One with the Light - but at the same time retained my "Andy-ness" and individuality.  I asked no questions because I knew all the answers.  There wasn't nothing I didn't know while I was immersed in the Light.

Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure? Yes     Yes, I was contained in the Light, absorbed in the Light ... there were billions of other Lights surrounding the Master Light and I didn't go beyond the original absorbing Light.  I was told to go back to Earth before I joined the billions of other Lights, which were also part of the Master Light.

Did you become aware of future events?       Yes
            Yes, I saw the entire universe and all events, but did not retain any memory of any future events about my life here on Earth.  I knew that I came from another planet that was at a higher level of consciousness then we have here on Earth.

Did you have any psychic, paranormal or other special gifts following the experience you did not have prior to the experience?     Yes     Yes, I have an awareness of people that I knew in another life time the moment that I meet or see them.  I occurs more and more frequently as I get older.

Have you shared this experience with others?         Yes     Yes, but I never spoke of it to anyone for over 20 years.  I was afraid that I was crazy.  I didn't speak of it until I read my first book on NDE by Moody in the mid 1970s.

Did you have any knowledge of near death experience (NDE) prior to your experience?    No      

How did you view the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened:            Experience was definitely not real        I had nothing to compare it with, and since I was deeply Roman Catholic and did not recognize one entity from the Roman Catholic teachings in the Light (not Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Moses, no one like that) I thought that I was crazy.  I had no one to talk to about it!

Were there one or several parts of the experience especially meaningful or significant to you?            The fact that I was absorbed into the Light to become One with the Light and still retained my "Andy" consciousness!  Now that a heavy experience.  To realize that you are One with Light/God, actually an Individual Piece of God ... therefore I am God, as we All Are here on planet Earth.

How do you currently view the reality of your experience:            Experience was definitely real    I know that it happened to me and that it is real.  After 50 years the events of my drowning, death, and return are a clear today as they were when I was laying on the beach with the water being pumped out of my lungs.  I can still feel the warmth, unconditional love, and complete absorption from and by the Light.  I know it is true from the very fiber ... from the cellular level of my earthly body!

Have your relationships changed specifically as a result of your experience?           Yes     Yes, my whole life has changed ... I don't fear death, I am waiting to return to the Light soon!

Have your religious beliefs/practices changed specifically as a result of your experience?            Yes            Yes, they all have.  I am no longer "religious" I am a "spiritual being" who believes that we are all One in the Light with God.

Following the experience, have you had any other events in your life, medications or substances which reproduced any part of the experience?         Yes     Yes, meditation often brings back many of the feelings and emotions that I experienced in the Light.

Is there anything else you would like to add concerning the experience?          I don't know why I came back, but I do know that I am grateful for being able to remember being in the Light.

Did the questions asked and information you provided so far accurately and comprehensively describe your experience?         Yes     Yes, the main segments of my drowning, death, and return were covered quite well.

Are there any other questions we could ask to help you communicate your experience?      I live in Williamsburg, and I would like to have a local NDE group in my area.  There is one in Virginia Beach, but it's too far to drive to on a regular basis.