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When I was eight years old, I was attacked by two men who physically and sexually abused me. One of them wanted to drown me in a nearby river and so he took me to the river’s edge. Moments before he held me under the water, my body went into “freeze” mode and I remember giving up the fight and surrendering. He put his hands around my neck and held me under the water facing up. I remember seeing the sun from under the water and feeling an incredible sense of panic, which, within seconds, was replaced with an unlimited amount of peace and serenity.
In September 1990 I was scheduled to have major surgery to remove my gall bladder. I wasn't at all scared because I had a hysterectomy the year before and it went like clockwork. I climbed onto the table and the next thing I remember was a feeling of flipping over and thinking how strange it was that I could see the floor. I wondered if they had turned me over, and why I didn't see the table not the floor. The next thing I experienced was zooming up to the ceiling and looking down on a body, I say "a" body because I didn't realise at first that it was mine! I zoomed in without moving and realised that it was my body and it was dead.
I went for an ablation for atrial fibrillation. The night prior to the procedure my doctor came in to talk. He asked me if I was up for the procedure and I told him I did not feel good about this, and he reassured me that I would do fine given I was young and in good health. The procedure began early the next morning. I was put under general anesthesia for what would be the next nine hours. Well into the procedure the doctor found a cluster of "hot spots" the bad areas that cause interruptions in the electrical pathways of the heart and the atrial fibrillation. He ablated the first area then went for the second one and it caused my heart to stop beating. Within some time it restarted on its own. He went on to the third area and my heart stopped again but this time it did not restart.
This was not the first or only related experience I've had; however, this was my first NDE.
When I was much younger, I passed out while getting blood drawn, and I basically thought I went to hell. I was afraid, alone, threatened, confused, lost, terrified, and wasn't sure what "I" meant. I wanted more than anything to just be able to understand what was happening. I was in darker than darkness and utterly terrified, though I didn't know of what, and it didn't matter. When I came to, I was so relieved to understand what I was seeing. I started balling. I told no one about that experience. That was over 10 years ago.
I firmly believe I experienced an NDE, yet the conditions leading up to it were quite different from the standard. I was a sophomore in college, enrolled in a very rigorous engineering program. My never-end drive to succeed academically drove me to exhaustion, and I really didn't have many friends. Additionally, I suffered from asthma that could make breathing difficult. I was pretty depressed! Friday night fun for me involved studying, and then lighting a candle to watch it burn out. (Although I'm smiling now as I type those pathetic lines, honestly that’s what I used to do!) Then, the most amazing event occurred in my life.
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