Sammy E NDE

Experience Description

On this December day in 2012, I was participating in an association event for the nearby town of Elancourt at a gymnasium. These events are common in France and let hobby and sports associations advertise themselves to recruit new members. I was part of a cultural association for regional (Bretagne) traditional dancing and cooking, and had volunteered to bake pancakes to sell during the event to fund-raise for the association.

While awaiting my cooking shift, I visited the climbing clubs present at the event, as the gymnasium has a climbing wall and the groups were offering trials, and I like climbing (I ended up joining one of these clubs the year after). When my turn came I easily progressed up the beginner trail, but almost immediately I started getting the familiar precursor signs of an impending hypovolemic shock, a frequent complication of a lifelong condition I have struggled with since childhood. About halfway up the wall I had to stop due to shortness of breath, nausea, sudden muscular weakness, tachycardia, cold sweating and a blood pressure drop, as well as a fading consciousness, induced by the condition. I tried to signal that I wanted down but the person holding the other end of my rope did not understand, so I ended up letting go of the wall and let them reel me down.

Then I unfastened (with assistance), curled up into a ball on a nearby bench to conserve heat and try to recover, as I have had many syncopes and similar shocks throughout my life and found that keeping warm and drinking a lot of water used to mitigate their effects. But as more nausea started overcoming me I hurried to the facility's bathroom, so I could drink about half a liter of water and as a precaution should I vomit, which happens about half of those times. Overcome with the cold, sweaty weakness, unable to stand up anymore, and through the intense feeling of incoming doom that is typical of shock states, I ended up falling and laying down in the fetal position in one of the stalls, ashamed of being so powerless against what was happening. The floor was very cold, which did not help at all.

I stayed like this, unable to move for an estimated twenty minutes, becoming less and less conscious, with my heart racing irregularly and increasingly ineffectively, becoming numb from getting colder and colder, until I reached a point where I stopped feeling my body and instead felt myself floating, completely detached, in a dark void with no sense of physicality whatsoever. My body was just a memory at that point, distant. In this strange situation I started wondering if this was just a more severe than usual form of the same crises I'd had infrequently all my life. But then I started getting impressions, like a whirlwind of confused direct knowing, about what was going to happen if I stayed down on the bathroom floor and did not take action: I got sorts of composite visions of an elderly member of the association eventually opening the bathroom door and noticing my feet splayed in the stall, but rather than observing this visually I was instead perceiving their awareness, sensations, and emotions, with the panicked dread of having found my dead body there. I also received similar impressions of my family grieving and breaking up as a result, and my wife trapped in depression from being widowed so early. I was receiving all this all at once yet able to hold all of it simultaneously in my mind. And I rejected this possible future with what force I still had left in my heart.

Just as I expressed this refusal, I was cast back into my body, heart still racing, cold and sweaty and nearly paralyzed. I pulled myself out of the stall as my arms still had some strength left, and then out of the bathroom, which is where my wife then found me (she had been anxiously searching for me). She helped me get to the cooking stands where I could warm up and drink another half liter of water. The rest of the members wanted to call an ambulance because of how whitened out and sickly I looked (like a ghost, they said) but I declined out of sheer embarrassment. After about an hour I had finally started feeling better and could even haphazardly attempt to take part in my shift.

Background Information:

Gender: Male

Date of NDE: 2012-12

NDE Elements:

At the time of your experience, was there an associated life-threatening event? Yes
Hypovolemic shock from combined hyponatremia and hyperkalemia

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

Did you feel separated from your body? I lost awareness of my body

How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness? It is hard to say, I was feeling both clear-minded while in the Void, but also affected by the feeling of intense doom that typically accompanies shock.
I was holding far more memories, or rather impressions and feelings and intents of other people, all at once, than should be normally possible, while in the Void.

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 did not seem to exist anymore.

Were your senses more vivid than usual? No

Please compare your vision during the experience to your everyday vision that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience I did not have sight.

Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience I did not have hearing.

Did you seem to be aware of things going on elsewhere? No

Did you pass into or through a tunnel? No

Did you see any beings in your experience? No

Did you encounter or become aware of any deceased beings? No

Did you see or feel surrounded by a brilliant light? No

Did you see an unearthly light? No

Did you seem to enter another world? A clearly mystical or unearthly realm
I was detached from physicality, without a body, and existing solely as a panicked bundle of thoughts and emotions.

What emotions did you feel during the experience? I was overcome with doom and grieving concern about the people I was in danger of leaving behind.

Did you have a feeling of peace or pleasantness? No

Did you have a feeling of joy? No

Did you feel a sense of harmony or unity with the universe? No

Did you suddenly understand everything? No

Did scenes from your past come back? No

Did scenes from the future come? I was receiving some sort of gallery of lived experiences from others, from a possible future where I would have stayed dead.

Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure? Uncertain
It felt as if I had to make a decision about whether to die there and then, or go back to living.

Did you come to a border or point of no return? I came to a definite conscious decision to return to life
I am now almost certain I was presented with a possible future where I would have died then and there, and had to decide whether I would be OK with it. This future was not good at all for those I cared about, leaving members of the association traumatized, my wife descending into sadness and my family broken.

God, Spiritual and Religion:

What was your religion prior to your experience? Other or several faiths
Discordian

Have your religious practices changed? No

What is your religion now? Other or several faiths
Discordian, with extra New Age flavors

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
At the time I thought that the mind was produced by the brain and could not exist separately from it. I also did not really believe in time-travel or precognition.

Did you have a change in your values and beliefs because of your experience? Yes
I started considering existing for the sake of others. I promised my wife I would not let myself die and leave her alone.

Did you seem to encounter a mystical being or presence, or hear an unidentifiable voice? No

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? Uncertain
I received information about what would happen after this lifetime, rather than prior to it.

During your experience, did you gain information about universal connection or oneness? No

During your experience, did you gain information about the existence of God? No

Concerning our Earthly lives other than Religion:

During your experience, did you gain special knowledge or information about your purpose? Yes
I think I was shown an alternate future in which I would have died then and there. This appears to have highlighted the importance my existence could mean for others.

During your experience, did you gain information about the meaning of life? No

During your experience, did you gain information about an afterlife? Yes
Experiencing alternate timelines where I would have been dead is suggestive of being able to exist, and learn new things, beyond physical existence.

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? No

What life changes occurred in your life after your experience? Moderate changes in my life

Have your relationships changed specifically because of your experience? Yes
I became more deeply aware of the importance of my existence in the eyes of others, of their care about me.

After the NDE:

Was the experience difficult to express in words? Yes
The infusion of knowing from lived experiences of other people in the near future was beyond describing with words, I still have no good way of portraying it to satisfaction.

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 can still retrace the whole sequence of events, remember the images and sensations and sounds and emotions of the whole incident, jsut as clearly, many years later.

Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience? No

Have you ever shared this experience with others? Yes
In 2021 I learned that my experience may very well have been an NDE, and joined a support/discussion group about NDEs, where I shared the experience. They agreed that this was likely a negative NDE.

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
The whole experience was harrowing and distressing, it left a clear mark on me ever since and also terrified my wife. As a result it forced me into more decisive action to get a diagnosis for my lifelong condition, as part of the resolutions and promise I made to my wife.

What do you believe about the reality of your experience now? Experience was definitely real
I was able to reach a diagnosis confirming the potential lethality of the crises I had been having, as well as progressively figuring out treatments to mitigate or prevent its effects. This validated the reality of the experience.

At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience? Yes
I experienced a similar form of unencumbered, lightning-fast parallel thinking in other incidents, from a freak gymnastics accident in 1992 and from a different but also fatal complication of the same condition later in 2016.

Did the questions asked and information that you provided accurately and comprehensively describe your experience? Uncertain
It is exceedingly hard to explain in words, in any language, the experience of perceiving things and feelings and events and intents, from within other people's inner lived subjectivity.