Marie M NDE

Experience Description

I was with my grandparents at their cabin. I was playing with my two friends while we were fishing. I was three, and they were four-year-old twins. The adults had neglected to put life jackets on us and left us unsupervised for a time while they talked about 100 feet away.

I lost my footing and fell into the lake. It was spring and the water level was high. A water snake came from the bank and startled me, causing me to fall back a little deeper. I got swept up in a slight current and was underwater. I couldn’t tell up from down when I heard a voice saying, “Hold onto the sand, Marie.” So I reached for the sand. Then I believe I lost consciousness.

I felt transported to a place after briefly passing through a tunnel of bright light and a pleasing high-pitched sound. This place had a soft light, and I felt the presence of pure unconditional love. An unseen entity communicated telepathically, giving me a choice to stay, which I wanted at first because it felt like I was “home,” or to go back and learn things I could only learn in the life I was living. I was told and shown that there would be “helpers” to guide me and show me what I could learn.

I believe I chose to come back because the next thing I remember, I was above the scene of the drowning. I saw my grandfather and my friends’ father pulling me out of the lake with a seining net. I saw our neighbor checking me and then giving me CPR. After a few moments, I was back in my body, coughing and throwing up water.

The next thing I recall was another out-of-body experience in the hospital. My perspective was from a corner at the ceiling, seeing them work on me in a small room. I was very still and appeared to be sleeping, but a nurse and a doctor were checking me. No one else was in the room. I don’t remember reentering my body like by the lake.

After this experience, I could see colorful energy fields around living things. I had experiences with entities I can only describe as helpers and teachers that showed themselves to me as animals or voices. I talked with my family and friends, who called them “my imaginary friends.” They humored me for years until they became concerned that I was getting too old for imaginary friends. I had also been having experiences since the NDE where I knew things I shouldn’t know, such as everyone’s Christmas gifts. My family didn’t believe I just knew this, and I would be punished or criticized. They assumed I was snooping or misbehaving.

We went to bible study, and at about age eight or nine, they put me in the adult group because the questions I was asking and the concepts I was talking about were considered inappropriate for the children’s room. My grandparents were concerned about my spiritual and mental health, and I could sense their fear, both of me and for me. At age eleven or so, I was in pastoral counseling to address their fears. They were followers of the evangelist Billy Graham, and we always went to his crusades when he was in our city. At age twelve and again at thirteen, I was put on stage for healing or exorcism to rid me of what they called a demon feeding me information that conflicted with their faith and was supposedly “stealing my soul.”

I wasn’t around for this at fourteen because I had run away to the city and was living on the streets as a drug addict. I became an addict by trying to shut down the voices and visions that disturbed my family, because I wanted to please them. But at the same time, I came to believe that their love and the church’s love were not unconditional because they couldn’t accept me the way I was. I went on to have two more NDEs from heroin overdoses. A doctor told me he hoped I believed in something greater than myself because he wasn’t the one who saved my life.

Background Information:

Gender: Female

Date of NDE: 00/00/1965

NDE Elements:

At the time of your experience, was there an associated life-threatening event? Yes
I was three, didn't know how to swim yet, fell in the lake, and drowned. Two friends I was playing with alerted adults (my grandfather and their father). They got a seining net and entered the murky water to fish me out. They laid me on the ground, checked my vitals, and my playmates' father was a pharmacist who knew CPR. He started CPR until I was throwing up water and revived. Then they transported me to the hospital, where I had another OOBE.

How do you consider the content of your experience? Entirely pleasant

Did you feel separated from your body? I clearly left my body and existed outside it
From an earthly perspective, I could see my body being brought out of the lake and resuscitated, and I saw myself in the hospital. I believe this was real, and the story I heard growing up verified it. What I experienced in the other realm also came to pass; I encountered helper spirits in my everyday life who were teaching me metaphysical things.

How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness? While in the soft light, and when my choice was explained to me telepathically.
I was a small child. I didn't feel like a small child in this moment or thereafter.

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? No

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

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 I was not in a body with eyes. I could sense everything around me rather than normal vision from eyes that sighted humans use.

Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience I could hear more than sound. The soft high-pitched sound was more like sensing a frequency. The voice I heard was more like a telepathic knowing.

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
I briefly passed through a tunnel of the brightest light I’d ever seen.

Did you see any beings in your experience? No

Did you encounter or become aware of any deceased beings? Yes
I felt enveloped in a soft light and presence that was communicating with me, giving me a choice to stay or go back, and informing me of things that would be taught to me if I went back.

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
The tunnel was bright light, and the other side was soft, otherworldly light that felt like love.

Did you seem to enter another world? A clearly mystical or unearthly realm
It was an environment of soft light and unconditional love where I didn’t have physical form and I was communicating telepathically.

What emotions did you feel during the experience? pure love

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? Everything about myself or others
I was told things about myself, possibilities for my life and purpose, and some things about others that I knew I’d forget and have to remember throughout my life on earth.

Did scenes from your past come back? No

Did scenes from the future come? Spirit helpers would be sent for me to work with, so I could know more and assist other living things.

Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure? Uncertain
I didn’t try to go beyond where I was.

Did you come to a border or point of no return? I came to a definite conscious decision to return to life
Whatever I encountered gave me a choice to stay or return.

God, Spiritual and Religion:

What was your religion prior to your experience? Christian - Protestant
Methodist grandparents, Lutheran parents

Have your religious practices changed? Yes
I moved away from the Christian church and joined the Pagan and New Age communities. I've been an avid meditator, healer, teacher, with my own lessons to learn from this life. I am currently studying Gnostic texts and realizing Christ consciousness has never really left me, but I felt abused and abandoned by the church and its followers.

What is your religion now? Other faiths - Unitarian and other liberal faiths
I left the Christian church in my teens and became interested in mystical traditions including shamanism and Druidry. I am now studying the Nag Hammadi texts and I’m drawn to Gnostic beliefs.

Did your experience include features consistent with your earthly beliefs? Content that was entirely not consistent with the beliefs you had at the time of your experience
When I drowned, I had the mind of a 3-year-old child. When I recovered, I did not.

Did you have a change in your values and beliefs because of your experience? Yes
I've always felt like a kind of outsider and am not sure I belong here. I haven't changed my beliefs (what beliefs does a toddler have?), but I've remained pretty steady in them despite misunderstanding or disapproval from people around me at times.

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
I was communicated with telepathically, not in words, but through knowing, and I was shown visions.

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? Yes
I was given knowledge of spirits existing beyond the physical materialistic plane that would appear to me on earth for the purpose of teaching/helping.

During your experience, did you gain information about universal connection or oneness? Yes
I had the knowing that we are all connected, barriers on earth are illusions, and 'God' is love and in everyone.

During your experience, did you gain information about the existence of God? Uncertain
In my human understanding, this experience defies human understanding. My experience tells me we incarnate in human bodies for learning and then return to this Source/God/All There Is as soul consciousness.

Concerning our Earthly lives other than Religion:

During your experience, did you gain special knowledge or information about your purpose? Yes
I think I already expressed this.

During your experience, did you gain information about the meaning of life? Yes
I got the impression that we choose to come to earth for lessons/missions and mine was to help. Sounds vague, but that was the message.

During your experience, did you gain information about an afterlife? No

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? Yes
Earth’s limitations are illusions.

During your experience, did you gain information about love? Yes
Love is all there is and all that matters.

What life changes occurred in your life after your experience? Large changes in my life
I grew up, had two more NDEs, and I’ve had a traumatic but mystical life.

Have your relationships changed specifically because of your experience? Uncertain
I kind of assume so, but not sure since I was so young.

After the NDE:

Was the experience difficult to express in words? Yes
I was a small child whose first language was ASL because my parents were Deaf. I knew some English from being hearing and picking it up from my hearing grandparents, TV, and neighbors. But I didn't know how to explain this in either language until I was older, and there were concepts I didn't have words for that took me a lifetime of searching to learn the language for 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
I do have early memories even before age 3 of crying in my crib and my Deaf parents not hearing me. I remember playing with friends and my brother coming home when I was 2, but these are probably memories retrieved in therapy or EMDR. The NDE was never fuzzy or had to be remembered. It was never forgotten and was clear to me, even if others tried to convince me otherwise.

Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience? Yes
Seeing/sensing energy, healing living things, astral travel, shamanic journeys, mediumship

Are there one or several parts of your experience that are especially meaningful or significant to you? All of it, but I've always puzzled over who or what told me, "Hold onto the sand, Marie."

Have you ever shared this experience with others? Yes
Ongoing until I was 10, then only people who I was close to or shared spiritual experiences with. My family's reaction was to think I was possessed. My husband thought I was "special/gifted." The most common reaction seems to be surprise, and then people develop misconceptions about me being different from them. I'm really not, as we are all one.

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

What did you believe about the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened? Experience was definitely real
I was a small child who took things at face value. I had not yet developed the discernment to disbelieve my experiences.

What do you believe about the reality of your experience now? Experience was definitely real
As a 64-year-old mother and grandmother, I know I had this experience plus two more NDEs that became medical events that saved my life. But this experience showed me this life isn't all there is. I'm not sure if we return to the Source from which we all came and then commune as one connected being in unconditional love without separation or illusion, after incarnating in various other realities, planes, or dimensions (not limited to earth), but that's the gist of what I believe. I also allow for the possibility that I'm wrong and can't possibly understand my perceived experience.

At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience? Yes
I had two more NDEs from two heroin overdoses. Reiki mastery has helped me channel the healing of Universal Energy, which feels like the unconditional love I experienced in that other realm. I have had OOBEs through astral travel and shamanic travel. Psychedelic experiences feel like illusions and plastic by comparison.

Did the questions asked and information that you provided accurately and comprehensively describe your experience? Yes
This is probably the first time I've explained my experience this extensively.