Luke P ADC and Shared ADC

Experience Description

The first episode I want to explain is not a near-death experience, but a shared death experience, I think that is what they are called. A little background: I moved from Utah to New England for graduate school and I stayed there for work for a couple of years. I always had a very tight bond with my dad, who was living back in Utah. We had strangely connected experiences where one would know to call the other because they were in a bad mental state. I had a lucid dream one time where I was smoking and just thinking about how great it was to smoke again and wondering why I had ever quit. However, I have never smoked in my life. The next day I called my dad and asked, "Did you start smoking again last night?" After a moment's guilty hesitation, he admitted he had, after going almost two years without a cigarette. To this day, I still crave cigarettes.

In January 2010, unbeknownst to the rest of the family, my dad tried to go cold turkey off the Oxycontin he had been prescribed for a serious injury a year earlier. Sadly, like so many others at the peak of the opioid epidemic, his mental health declined rapidly, and he committed suicide on the night of January 30th and 31st.

That night, I had another lucid dream. I was in a very deep, dark place. A place of absolute despair and hopelessness. It seemed I stayed in that place for weeks or months. Time had lost meaning. Then, I thought about God, and as soon as I did, a tunnel briefly formed. Then I was pulled into this all-encompassing white light. The light felt like love, the fullest experience of love I have ever known. Unconditional and total. As soon as I was taken in, I felt myself pushed back out, and I felt my dad move past me into the light. I woke up. I was confident my dad had died. As early as I dared, I called my mom. They were divorced and living separately. I told her that she needed to check on my dad. She admitted that she had seen him the night before because he said he was feeling suicidal. At that point, I knew it was just a matter of time before I got the call, but part of me still wanted to believe I was wrong. Throughout that day, I felt that overpowering sense of love, as if I were still in its presence. That night I finally got the call from my mom, confirming that my dad had died from suicide.

The second part of my experience is where things get really bizarre. I grew up an atheist and am naturally a skeptic. I kept my shared death experience with my dad secret for many years. Then, in September 2016, I was suffering from some health issues that caused terrible tachycardia, especially at night. I went to bed that night feeling very unwell, and my chest hurt. That night I went to sleep and immediately, or so it seemed, transitioned into an OBE. I stepped out of my body, walked down the hall into our living room. I turned and looked through the doorway down to where our basement should have been. There was a flight of stairs there leading to a lit room that was not part of my house. I can remember all of the details of this space in complete detail; everything was so lucid. I went down the stairs and found my older brother sitting on a chair. On the couch next to him was my dad. In the experience, I did not remember that he was dead. He asked me to sit down next to him. He asked me how I was and I said, "I'm good Dad, but I'm so tired. Can I go back to bed?" He laughed and said, "Sure. But before you go, I want you to remember this: 'family is the most important thing.'" I said, "Okay, I'll remember." Then I walked back up the stairs, back into my darkened house, into my bedroom, got back into my bed, and started crying uncontrollably, because of course there were so many things I wished I had said and asked.

Two days later, I called my mom to tell her about my experience. She said, "That's odd, your older brother had a dream with your dad in it the same night, but he cannot remember the details." We had a Twilight Zone moment, but then I put it out of mind. Two weeks later, we met for our annual family get-together, including my mom, my siblings, and our spouses and kids. It was at the same rustic lodge and cabin place in one of Utah's national forests that we usually go to. But we were staying in a cabin we had never been to before, and, I want to make this clear, I had no idea what that cabin looked like, outside or in, prior to this. When I walked into the cabin we were staying in, I instantly recognized it as the one I had experienced in my OBE. There in its living room were the chair and the little couch, exactly as they had looked in the dream, and right off the stairs that led to the second floor of the cabin. The rug on those steps was the same industrial gray shag with loose strands exactly where I had seen them in my OBE. It was down to the minutest detail, the same place. When my brother arrived perhaps an hour later, I tucked myself in a spot where I could see his reaction when he came in. The second he walked in, his eyes went wide, and then he began to tear up. The dream he had had came back to him; we had shared the same dream, both spoken to our dad in this place we had never been to before.

A few weeks later, my daughter was diagnosed with a very rare autoimmune condition that would shape the next decade of our lives. Because of the message my dad had communicated to me, I was somewhat prepared for it, and was ready to make life changes needed to ensure I was there for my daughter, she is now healthy and doing very well. I have had a number of other similar experiences over the years involving my dad, but those two are the ones that most directly correlate with NDEs.

Background Information:

Gender: Male

Date of NDE: 1/31/2010

NDE Elements:

At the time of your experience, was there an associated life-threatening event? Yes
In the first instance, my dad died. In the second, I was experiencing tachycardia.

How do you consider the content of your experience? Both pleasant AND distressing

Did you feel separated from your body? I clearly left my body and existed outside it
During the OBE I saw the interior of my home, and then the interior of that cabin, which I had never before entered in my life.

How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness? In the first experience, I was most alert toward the end. In the second experience, I was at my highest level of consciousness when I was in the basement that was not my basement with my dad and brother.
The experiences were more vivid and detailed than anything I experience in the waking world.

At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness? More consciousness and alertness than normal

Were your thoughts speeded up? Faster than usual

Did time seem to speed up or slow down? Everything seemed to be happening at once; or time stopped or lost all meaning
Time lost meaning or was profoundly slow. One of those.

Were your senses more vivid than usual? Incredibly more vivid

Please compare your vision during the experience to your everyday vision that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience In both episodes, my shared death and OBE experiences were dramatically more vivid, clear, and detailed than anything I've experienced before or since while awake.

Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience I don't know that I noticed much difference in my hearing. I couldn't tell you if my dad's lips moved when he spoke or not. It seemed like they did, and then it seemed like they didn't, almost as if I assumed they were moving until I realized otherwise.

Did you seem to be aware of things going on elsewhere? Yes, and the facts have been checked out

Did you pass into or through a tunnel? Yes
Yes, it was mostly instantaneous. There was a pinpoint of light in the distance, and then it was all around me.

Did you see any beings in your experience? I actually saw them

Did you encounter or become aware of any deceased beings? Yes
During the OBE, I had a very detailed experience with my dad. I could see every follicle of hair and recognized the flannel shirt he was wearing as one of his favorites.

Did you see or feel surrounded by a brilliant light? A light clearly of mystical or other-worldly origin

Did you see an unearthly light? Yes
Perfect white light that suffused and entered to the core of my being.

Did you seem to enter another world? A clearly mystical or unearthly realm
Again, the realm of light and total love in the shared death experience. In the OBE/NDE, it was a real place that I would only encounter in the waking world after this episode.

What emotions did you feel during the experience? With the shared death, initially oppressive sadness and hopelessness, then when entering the light, the embrace of total and unconditional love. In the OBE, it was so vivid that I really wasn't fully aware that it wasn't real, or at least part of waking reality.

Did you have a feeling of peace or pleasantness? Incredible peace or pleasantness

Did you have a feeling of joy? Incredible joy

Did you feel a sense of harmony or unity with the universe? I felt united or one with the world

Did you suddenly understand everything? No

Did scenes from your past come back? No

Did scenes from the future come? Effectively, with the OBE/NDE, I was shown a place I would visit later. I shared the experience with my brother on the same night. My dad seemed to be preparing me for life events that occurred thereafter.

Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure? Yes
In the realm of light, I was pushed back through the tunnel into my body during the shared experience. In the OBE/NDE, my basement transformed into another physical space hundreds of miles away that I would not visit in person until weeks later.

Did you come to a border or point of no return? I came to a barrier that I was not permitted to cross; or was sent back against my will
I was pushed back into my body as my dad carried on into the realm of light.

God, Spiritual and Religion:

What was your religion prior to your experience? Christian - Mormon
Fairly orthodox LDS

Have your religious practices changed? Yes
Not my practice, but I feel open to a much wider range of possible truths about the universe.

What is your religion now? Christian - Mormon
Active, but heterodox LDS

Did your experience include features consistent with your earthly beliefs? Content that was both consistent and not consistent with the beliefs you had at the time of your experience
Nothing that contradicts my faith, but nothing that specifically affirms it either. It left me feeling more open.

Did you have a change in your values and beliefs because of your experience? Yes
I feel more confident in an afterlife, and less certain about the specifics. I also feel I have a mandate as far as how I ought to live my life.

Did you seem to encounter a mystical being or presence, or hear an unidentifiable voice? I encountered a definite being, or a voice clearly of mystical or unearthly origin
During the shared death experience, there was clearly a presence that pushed me back even as my dad went on further into the light. In the OBE, I saw my dad who was like my dad in every way, just younger than I'd last seen him, with no gray in his beard.

Did you encounter or become aware of any beings who previously lived on earth who are described by name in religions (for example: Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, etc.)? No

During your experience, did you gain information about premortal existence? No

During your experience, did you gain information about universal connection or oneness? Yes
That was the feeling in the shared death experience.

During your experience, did you gain information about the existence of God? Yes
In the shared death experience, my impression was of a being that sort of pushed me back into my body.

Concerning our Earthly lives other than Religion:

During your experience, did you gain special knowledge or information about your purpose? Yes
My dad's message about the importance of family.

During your experience, did you gain information about the meaning of life? Yes
At least for me personally, yes. In the OBE/NDE, my dad communicated the importance of family and relationships. I've treated that as my axiom ever since.

During your experience, did you gain information about an afterlife? Yes
Both the entry into a realm of perfect light and the communication with my dad during the OBE/NDE involved actual places I'd never visited before. This latter experience in particular is what convinced me to believe in an afterlife. It was as if my dad had constructed a perfect scenario that I would not be able to reason away.

Did you gain information about how to live our lives? No

During your experience, did you gain information about life's difficulties, challenges and hardships? No

During your experience, did you gain information about love? Yes
Again, from the OBE/NDE, my dad communicated a clear message about what I should focus my life on.

What life changes occurred in your life after your experience? Large changes in my life
I've been in a constant internal debate about how to interpret and apply the experiences I've had. The message I received from my dad was critical to the challenges that emerged in my life over the next decade. It's also helped me to be of service to those who have lost loved ones to suicide. My experience is that suicide does not lead to damnation. My dad is in a profoundly loving place. He went through a dark barrier right after death, but he's now in the light. That's perhaps something I didn't explain about the NDE/OBE experience: my dad was the happiest I've ever seen him. He always suffered with depression, but I saw him at his best, healthiest, happiest, and most centered during the latter experience.

Have your relationships changed specifically because of your experience? Yes
I'm a better father, husband, and son because of them.

After the NDE:

Was the experience difficult to express in words? Yes
I kept both experiences largely to myself at first, then shared them with close family. It's only in the past couple of years that I feel adequate enough to the task of describing them.

How accurately do you remember the experience in comparison to other life events that occurred around the time of the experience? I remember the experience more accurately than other life events that occurred around the time of the experience
Perfect clarity, particularly with the NDE/OBE.

Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience? Yes
I feel a bit strange and still suspicious of it all, but premonitions, clear answers, etc., seem to come very easily to me now. I feel connected to my father and whatever lies beyond in a way that provides me subtle hints and guidance about my life and the future of my family.

Are there one or several parts of your experience that are especially meaningful or significant to you? All of it was powerful. I love knowing what sort of love my dad experienced. I loved even more being able to interact with him years later and seeing him at his best.

Have you ever shared this experience with others? Yes
I shared both experiences with my wife right away. My mom knew about both secondhand. It was not until around 2019 that I spoke with anyone outside my immediate family about them. My uncle (my dad's brother) passed away last year and it prompted me to share the experience with my cousin. Since then, I've felt more open about it and have shared it with friends and church members.

Did you have any knowledge of near death experience (NDE) prior to your experience? Yes
I knew the term. I knew they often involved maybe a tunnel of light or something. That was it. Beyond that, I'd always just heard them dismissed or treated with extreme skepticism and therefore never really thought to look into them more. I didn't really learn what they were and how they conform in many details to my experience until maybe 2020.

What did you believe about the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened? Experience was probably real
It was like when you know something is there but you don't want to look at it. The experiences were so vivid, but I just didn't know how to process or deal with them. I am a professional writer, but I couldn't find adequate words to describe them either. I finally gave up on adequate and now just do my best within the limits of our crude and insufficient language.

What do you believe about the reality of your experience now? Experience was definitely real
After a time I had to reckon with both experiences. You can only keep something like that to yourself for so long. When I finally shared them, I felt more confident actually reflecting on them and their significance. I knew they were real at the time and I've known ever since, but they didn't have full impact on my life until I decided to actually sit down and grapple with their significance.

At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience? Yes
Yes, as I hinted at, I've had less significant experiences that had a similar feel. I've had a few OBEs (one while awake, even) that returned me to that sense of connection with all things, some portion of that sense of love, and that complete sense of seeing, feeling, and understanding the universe around me.

Did the questions asked and information that you provided accurately and comprehensively describe your experience? Yes
As well as language can, yes.

Anything else to add? I'm open to speaking with researchers. I'm not sure how common either of these experiences are. I've watched a few videos where people recount their NDEs, but I haven't yet heard of things that were exactly like my experiences. I'd love to know if there are others who have experienced a shared death experience or something with the strange dynamics of the OBE/NDE, like a real location never visited before or an experience shared with a living loved one.