Stef STE

Experience Description

I was a little sick, with a cold and cough, but nothing serious. Just bronchitis. On December 11, 2010, a Sunday, I was feeling fine.

My partner and I took our daughters to see an exhibition at La Casa Encendida in Madrid. It surprised me and seemed marvelous. The art exhibition brought together works from several artists, each occupying a room in the museum with a piece that engaged the visitor's senses. In one room, birds flew around, microphones hung from the ceiling, and there were seeds on drum cymbals. The birds chirped and landed on the cymbals, and as they pecked at the seeds, they produced a very immersive, abstract music. In another room, the walls and a bench were covered in chocolate; the sight and smell were very comforting. In yet another room, a huge circular chandelier with lit candles dripped wax, creating an abstract statue as it fell over several days onto the floor. The smell of melted wax and the soft light reminded me of church candles, and suddenly an angelic voice enveloped us. I looked for where this beautiful voice was coming from, as it seemed to draw closer at moments and penetrate us. We eventually discovered, with great pleasure, that it was a woman with a masculine appearance, dressed in a simple light-brown security jumpsuit, who was singing. She moved through the room, discreetly observing the visitors, and when she turned her back, she would begin to sing very softly until she enveloped the entire space! There were more rooms (a grand piano with a tunnel/slide for balls that the spectator would throw; the ball bounced on the piano strings, creating a unique musical piece) that were also very impactful, but I will leave the description of this wonderful exhibition here so as not to go on for too long...

I returned home exhilarated. We had dinner and I put the girls to bed. Then, with my partner, we watched a movie on TV. It was a new TV with a large screen and a resolution that seemed excellent to me that day. The movie was "Agora" by Alejandro Amenábar. I became immersed in the story and in the shots of the starry sky, the Milky Way, and constellations.

Later, we went to bed to sleep. My partner fell asleep immediately, but I lay there turning over all the wonderful emotions of the day, amazed by this gift from heaven. I couldn't fall asleep and I had a slight fever (I rarely get fevers), a cough, and a little chest pain. But I felt very animated. I kept replaying the day's memories and still couldn't sleep. My partner was snoring loudly. I thought about life, about the gift I had just received, about the reason for things, about the history of humankind, about why there are so many struggles and wars, and about the planet, impassive and docile to our thirst for power and possession throughout the ages. Like an old wolf that lets the cubs nibble on its tail or ears without flinching. Suddenly, I understood man's role on this earth, the history of the universe, of the earth, and of humanity as part of evolution. I understood that we were neither more nor less than a piece in the whole that forms our World through the ages, a link in the food chain, a link in the circle of life... These thoughts amazed me, following the same dynamic as the emotions I had felt that afternoon. And the thoughts became increasingly logical, enlightening, clearer, and faster... It was already two or three in the morning, and I thought about a way to remember all these revelations. I wanted to be able to share them, to not forget, but there were so many revelations... I thought about writing them down, but they were too fast. I thought about recording my voice, but the thought (or whatever it was, the ideas?) was also faster than speech, and the pleasure I felt was growing greater and greater. But the snoring beside me was bothersome, and I decided to go sleep with my daughters in the adjacent room. I kept trying to sleep, worried about the tiredness I would surely feel the next day. I lay down on one side of the bed, at the feet of my three-year-old daughter (she took up little space in this two-meter-long bed). I felt very comfortable, close to my daughters, listening to their calm breathing, feeling their warm, familiar scent. I still couldn't sleep, with a knot of excitement in my stomach. It was four, then five in the morning, and I continued to understand the meaning of things, the evolution of man on earth (I no longer remember all the details). I looked at the alarm clock I had brought with me; it was 5:45, and I was amazed to realize I had been up all night and felt more energetic than ever. But once again, I tried to sleep, even if just for an hour or an hour and a half. I would have to get up in an hour and a half or two to wake my daughters and take them to school.

I concentrated on relaxing to fall asleep, and I felt my whole body tremble, and as if I were in a rocket, I was launched vertically at an unimaginable speed. The trembling and speed produced a tremendous noise, and I only perceived vertical flashes of light as I passed through this narrow vertical tube. The sensation was pleasurable, like when you push off against the vertical wall of a pool while diving, but it was as if I were being sucked up or propelled. I was completely aware that I was heading into space, light-years away from earth given the speed I was traveling in that passageway.

I arrived where I needed to arrive, a place so familiar, so welcoming, full of acceptance, where I felt protected and complete. My family was there, I knew it—those who loved me unconditionally, wrapping me in their light in an immense and very comforting embrace of love. They did not have human forms, and there was no landscape. They were beings of light, diffuse energies of pure love. Perhaps they had an ovoid shape, but without a defined outline. There were about a dozen of them, grouped together, but three knew me particularly well. They welcomed me with emotional warmth, in their warm, powerful light. That light did not blind me. It warmed my heart. And without words, I knew they were my true family and that it was them I had missed so much. They reassured me with their warmth and their smiles; they were still there, as I remembered them from childhood, they cared for me and loved me unconditionally, and they had made me come to remember that, so I would not doubt. Their laughter and embraces filled me with peace and emotion; I melted into their light.

And I noticed I was in the universe. I felt so good, finally freed from my fears, my doubts, my earthly obligations that weighed so heavily on me. I felt I was part of this immense, so beautiful, so perfect universe, part of this whole, with millions and millions of stars in every direction I looked. Marvelous and all-encompassing!

Suddenly, millions and millions of stars arrived above and/or in front of me (like in the cartoon "Watoo Watoo" I watched as a child), stars or asteroids or triangles, geometric shapes that came from everywhere and joined together at great speed and took on a clay-red, pinkish, orange, very warm color; it's not a definable color on earth. The pieces seemed to respond to a supernatural order to give me a wonderful geometric spectacle in earth tones. At 180 degrees above/in front of me, a mandala formed, uniting all the pieces of the kaleidoscope, and in its center appeared a star with 5 or 6 points. They were all the pieces of my puzzle. Suddenly, I remembered my childhood love for my father, a full love where my inner child, wounded by the offenses, his divorce, and my feeling of being abandoned, was mortally hurt. My inner child, the girl who felt loved, free, strong, and enjoyed life, had stayed there, "hanging onto my father from that time," erased from my adolescent and especially adult consciousness.

As the puzzle pieces scattered across the universe came together, moments of happiness from my childhood came back to my mind, moments of solitude in nature, and a great gratitude for having lived them. The father from my childhood memory was not the same person as now. We were very close; he taught me psychology, how to make perfumes, the pleasure of camping, he taught me about music and peaceful protests, macro-concerts and hippie philosophy, biorhythms, dream interpretation, the unconscious, etc. That joyful, open, and happy girl disappeared with my parents' divorce, having to leave the village of my childhood, and the beginning of puberty and a great shadow of insecurities, complexes, and melancholy.

Suddenly, I recovered all those memories and understood that my inner child had been "stuck" in some corner of my unconscious or in the hands of the universe, and now I finally recovered, with her, the pleasure and the power to marvel and to enjoy.

The mandala was thrillingly beautiful, and I felt that this, the sensations and the message, came from my protectors and from all the forces of the universe joined together, to which I also belonged in a communion that overflowed with love and trust. I was sure now. That childhood feeling was true—that the universe was with me, and I was on earth experiencing, and often bewildered by my finitude, human minds and actions, and a total lack of understanding of why I was there. I had even been tempted several times, on the verge of jumping out the window to see if they were really watching over and protecting me from up there. My only refuge was nature on earth and in the sea. There I found coherence in geometric shapes, in the surprises of art present in the sky, on earth, in the sea, the sweet color, smell, and taste of freshly picked strawberries and blackberries, the simple and perfect system of the spiral of Life, and my powerlessness to intervene. The plants smiled at me, the wind caressed me, the rock protected me, the sea revealed treasures to us and enveloped us in its freshness, the stars and the moon cared for me.

At 6:00, the alarm hadn't gone off yet. I hadn't slept, but what a journey. I felt within me the clean and joyful mind of my inner child. She had finally come home! What emotion!

I prepared breakfast, told my partner that I had gone up into space that night and that it had been marvelous. I hadn't slept but was in better shape than ever. I woke my daughters. I could barely eat breakfast; I had a knot in my stomach from the emotion.

I felt safe driving the car even though I hadn't slept. With my daughters we sang. I had the sensation of driving and at the same time seeing us from above, and I could even see behind the curve we hadn't yet passed.

I felt my life had taken a turn. I felt invincible, and in that moment, I had the sensation of being myself again, complete, and that everything was going to change now.

The hug with my daughters that morning was profound, and they were as happy and funny as I was. I could get down to their level and enjoy, like them, the jokes we shared on the way.

Upon returning home, I was still very happy. I called my psychotherapist to tell him what was, for me, a feat. I left a message with the secretary, and shortly after, Julio called me back.

I simply told him that I had finished the puzzle, that I had had an astonishing experience, and that I had finished the puzzle. He saw me a few hours later at his office. I told him my experience and asked him what had happened to me, if more people had experiences like this, and if he had any readings on the subject to investigate.

He told me it was a more frequent experience than people thought, but that people usually didn't talk about it because they thought it was madness and feared being judged or having gone crazy.

Julio told me it was an expanded state of consciousness, an oceanic experience (due to the feeling of being like a wave that forms and is part of the ocean), and he told me about some books by Enrique Barros. He asked me several times if I had taken drugs, which almost offended me.

Julio warned me that I now had to sleep because lack of sleep could play tricks on me. He prescribed me a sleeping medication and insisted on the importance of managing to fall asleep. He also said that the feeling of omnipotence and omniscience could last 10 or 15 days, and even up to a month, but that I had to sleep so as not to lose touch with reality (the greatest danger of that altered state of consciousness).

So I followed his recommendations and slept for almost three days after taking an antipsychotic. After about a week, I began to feel the weight of my body, my thoughts, and earthly routine again. However, I was able to play and have fun with my daughters, something that happened rarely before. I began to be able to see life from the perspective and innocence of a child, free from prejudices and taboos. I began to write poems when I couldn't sleep, or reflections, ideas... Art attracted me more than ever. I told my experience everywhere, without reservation.

After 6 months, I was still searching for information about similar experiences, about hallucinogenic experiences under the influence of drugs, asceticism and religious fasting, the ecstasy of Saint John of the Cross, and mystical experiences, but I found nothing like my experience. Those beings of Love and light, that feeling of unity with the entire cosmos and that everything has its reason for being, everything is perfect...

Until I heard about Anita Moorjani. Her book, "Dying to Be Me," was a revelation! There it was: physical death, universal and unconditional love, the warm light, the journey, ubiquity, understanding, and finally Life!

I finally understood that these were not charlatans, as many say or want us to believe to keep us immersed in insecurity and fear. Then I searched for testimonies of near-death experiences, books, videos: studies and testimonies from doctors like Didier Chambon, Prof. Charbonnier. I also became interested in meditation, hypnosis, lucid dreaming, spontaneous out-of-body experiences...

The book by Pim van Lommel gave me a lot. I discovered testimonies almost identical to my experience; there are also statistics about the changes produced in people after an NDE. I began to understand concepts like quantum physics or ancient philosophies like Taoism, shamanism, mediumship, research into the psychotherapeutic power of some substances taken under medical supervision. I also understood the limitation and difficulty of continuing to live, pretending and obeying, seeing how man destroys himself by forcefully destroying this fantastic planet...

I had to separate from my partner due to my cravings for freedom and solitude at that time. I suffered episodes of very strong depression and migraines that were debilitating... Even if the pain is unbearable and I think of death as a liberation, I know that if I remain in my body, it is because I can still learn and enjoy. I no longer have suicidal behaviors as I might have had before out of desperation. I have enough patience and the help of pharmacological treatment to accept that I am in a crisis and that it will pass.

As a child, I had faith (but I have always been secular, I did not believe in any religion). As an adult, I did not understand why or for what purpose one had to suffer so much in this life; I felt a lot of despair. After this experience, I have regained hope. I know there is and always has been an order to things, something superior like Life with a capital L (the word God seems rather reductive to me due to the stereotypes it carries) that governs and in which to trust... I feel I am on earth to experience and learn.

After reading NDE testimonies and lectures, I am convinced it cannot be a dream, an invention, or hallucinations: there are many common points among the accounts, even in children.

To differentiate between a psychotic break, a bipolar episode, an existential crisis (meaning without a specific trigger), or an NDE due to the failure of a vital organ, an accident, anesthesia...

To inform and train medical personnel, and particularly psychiatrists and psychotherapists.

To induce expanded states of consciousness in terminally ill patients, in cases of anguish or chronic depression, to help resolve our internal conflicts and not fear death, to live or die with trust.

Background Information:

Gender: Female

Date of NDE: 12/12/2010

NDE Elements:

At the time of your experience, was there an associated life-threatening event? Uncertain
Spontaneous experience, in a context of severe chronic depression and anxiety.

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

Did you feel separated from your body? I lost awareness of my body
Hours after returning to my body, I was driving and I still had a kind of ubiquity: I could see my position among the cars, I could 'see' what was after a curve.

How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness? Before, during the experience, and after, before sleeping.
More alert and conscious than ever.

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? Incredibly fast

Did time seem to speed up or slow down? Everything seemed to be happening at once; or time stopped or lost all meaning
It seemed as if everything was happening at once, without chronology. I do not know how long I was in heaven in earthly time.

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 could see and understand everything at once and completely.

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

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

Did you pass into or through a tunnel? Uncertain
I was rising so fast towards the sky that the effect was like a tunnel, but without borders or a light at the end.

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? A light clearly of mystical or other-worldly origin

Did you see an unearthly light? Yes
A warm light like cotton, a light of love, a light that welcomes you, that envelops you, a familiar light.

Did you seem to enter another world? A clearly mystical or unearthly realm
In the universe and in that warm, cotton-like light.

What emotions did you feel during the experience? Peace, joy, love, understanding, surprise, trust.

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 the universe
And about the history of humanity, the reason for things, understanding that everything made sense and was perfect; everything was in harmony. I also understood everything about myself: that I was missing my childhood memories in order to be able to enjoy and laugh.

Did scenes from your past come back? I remembered many past events
My entire childhood.

Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure? No

Did you come to a border or point of no return? No

God, Spiritual and Religion:

What was your religion prior to your experience? Unaffiliated - Agnostic

Have your religious practices changed? Yes
Meditation, spirituality.

What is your religion now? Unaffiliated - Atheist
Agnostic

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
As a child, I did not understand why 'I had been placed' in this world, with this family. In church, as a child with my grandparents, I could not understand why so many people believed in Jesus Christ. But I have always considered Nature as a balanced whole: beautiful, fertile, surprising, full of color, geometric details, smells, and sensations that generally relaxed me, and I learned a great deal from it.

Did you have a change in your values and beliefs because of your experience? Yes
Intolerance, panic towards aggression, lying, violence, abuses of power, injustice... It is often difficult to deal with all of that.

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 welcomed by smiling lights whose contours were not defined, three or five or more. They felt familiar and I thought I had always known them. I was finally feeling their warmth and their deep love for me again.

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 encountered something familiar and 'beings' who knew me during the experience, something I sensed as a child. It was like seeing and feeling my true soul family again, 'beings' who follow me, protect me, and love me deeply.

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? Yes
Unconditional and comforting love (not a being or an earthly figure).

Concerning our Earthly lives other than Religion:

During your experience, did you gain special knowledge or information about your purpose? Yes
Everything has its reason for being, even wars and crimes. Nothing is extra, and nothing is missing. As human beings, we are within the spiral of that whole. Nothing is important or a cause for sorrow. We only belong to that whole. If we go extinct as a human race, it also does not matter. The Earth and everything else will continue to exist.

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

During your experience, did you gain information about an afterlife? Yes
While experiencing consciousness without a body, I understood that the body could die, but consciousness remained intact upon separating from the body.

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
When I remembered my childhood, I discovered that my inner child was still in love with my father. Upon realizing it was the child and not the adult, I recovered my childhood memories, spontaneity, and the ability to enjoy, laugh, and play with my daughters.

During your experience, did you gain information about love? Yes
Love is in everything and everything is Love.

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

Have your relationships changed specifically because of your experience? Yes
I have separated from my partner.

After the NDE:

Was the experience difficult to express in words? Yes
It is like trying to explain to a character in a 2D, black-and-white comic that outside the comic there are colors, sounds, movement, tastes, emotions, smells, wind, humidity, sensations that fill you...

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
Intact.

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

Are there one or several parts of your experience that are especially meaningful or significant to you? Thanks to the revelation I had (Oedipus), I came out of anhedonia. I have been able to enjoy things again and little by little I have been able to laugh and make jokes. Before, I was very sad and serious, and extremely insecure.

Have you ever shared this experience with others? Yes
A few hours. I was so happy that I told everyone! (I didn't know it could be an NDE.) Some people started taking it poorly (religious people), others thought I was exaggerating, being dramatic, or that it was a hallucination... I don't share my experience as much anymore. Now that I have researched it, I try to convey what I have learned, especially about the immortality of consciousness, with sources and references, but it is generally very frustrating.

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 thought I had known Nirvana or paradise, God, and that I was 'chosen' for having been able to live that fantastic experience and access that knowledge. I felt loved and protected.

What do you believe about the reality of your experience now? Experience was definitely real
It has never seemed to me that I have ever lived anything so real. About two years after the experience, I began to doubt the meaning of the NDE. Five years later, I fell into a nearly perpetual depression. Rather, I doubt the reality of our experience on Earth; it's like a game here, a match. I don't understand why I chose to incarnate into this earthly life or what the purpose is.

At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience? No

Did the questions asked and information that you provided accurately and comprehensively describe your experience? Yes
Accurate questions and space for a free narrative.