My Near-Death Experience (NDE) took place when I was 4 or 5 years old. I cannot determine the age exactly, but I was in kindergarten when it happened. It was a very sunny day, typical to those of Quito, Ecuador, the city where I was born and grew up. I remember playing in the school yard, going down the slide and running around the many children who were there during the break. Suddenly, as I sprinted through the middle of the yard, a kid bumped into me, and our heads collided violently. When I looked at him, with frustration and anger, he was staring back at me with the same shock, which told me that he was not at fault, and it had been an accident.

By the time I got home after school, I was feeling nauseous, and I had a bad headache. It was lunch time, but I was not hungry. My mother’s cousin was visiting us, and both she and my mother showed concern when I told them how I was feeling. My mother wanted to know what had happened that morning. My mother’s cousin insisted that I had to be taken to the doctor as soon as possible. That is the last memory I have of my life before the NDE.

My parents told me later that I was diagnosed with a concussion. My mother explained that I slept for one whole week at home while recovering from the blow to the head. I have no recollection about that period, except for one of the most amazing and puzzling experiences anyone can go through.

I woke up in this pitch-black place. I knew I was not in my bed anymore. Unlike my room, the space was much wider, unconstrained, bounded only by a darkness similar to the clear sky in a moonless, starless night. I told myself I had to be in my parents’ bed, and although I could not see it, I assumed the closet was to one side and the door to my room on the opposite end, as their bedroom was laid out. Of course, I was trying to make sense of it all. Yet, I was in unknown territory, in an unusual “place” I do not know how to call it otherwise. 

To wake up in a strange setting can be distressing for any child. I was unaccompanied in a mysterious and inky space, but I was not afraid. I felt secure, comfortable, and curious. A light shone in front of me, which baffled me because neither my parents’ nor my bedroom had such a light at night. The apartment where we lived had a small garden next to our dormitories, which was unlighted. I wondered who had set up an electric lamp outside.

I started to pay attention to the light. It had a bluish, greenish tonality. It was not a simple bulb. It formed a kind of tunnel. Its radiation seemed to shift somehow, to turn like a slow-moving, uneven vortex. It also emitted a sound. It was like a murmur of many voices, and if I tried to listen to it carefully, it intensified to almost becoming deafening. It was the only moment when I felt uneasy. However, it seemed I could control its loudness, and I was able to subside the sound until it turned again into the undecipherable whisper of an enormous and ghostly crowd. 

Most of all, looking at the tunnel of light, I felt in complete harmony. I was welcome and at peace. It was an enveloping sensation of warmth and kindness. As I contemplated the light, it grew closer, or I approached it, I am not sure. I did not walk towards it. I did not stand up and moved, as I was pure consciousness and I have no recollection of having a body anymore. As the tunnel of light drew near, four dark figures appeared before me. It was the abrupt arrival of four shadows. They stood in front of the light, so it was not possible for me to discern their identities, features, or expressions. They were almost blocking my path, and I felt completely tranquil in their presence.

I do not know who they were, yet I was fully aware of how they felt. Two of them had a motherly love towards me. I was trying to identify them, but I was unsure who of those two figures was my earthly mother. The third presence cared a lot about me, and I could recognize that they were concerned about my welfare. I decided that it had to be my father. The fourth figure, standing close to the light at the centre of the tunnel, was a protective, authoritative being. I concluded it had to be the doctor.

Thus, throughout my experience I was trying to interpret each occurrence in terms of the mind of a young child. Recollections from my corporeal condition served to explicate what I was confronting in this timeless, alien place. At the same time, I had a distinct awareness of what I was attempting to do, how reason was describing each element according to some worldly past. I knew I was not in my parents’ apartment. I fully recognized that those four figures were strangers. I understood that I was in a magnificent realm, which was eternal because time did not exist there, and where we all come from. It is our place of origin, an intimate and all-loving reality that had an unmistakable familiarity. It was home. 

A deep, powerful voice started talking. In the beginning I thought it was the fourth figure, the one I imagined to be the doctor looking after my concussion, who was addressing the other three. However, the voice did not have a specific source. Maybe it came from the light. Moreover, it was a message I could fathom even though it lacked words or a distinguishable language. I soon recognized it was directed at me. 

The echoes of both the murmur of the light and the impressive voice are still in the back of my mind. I can close my eyes and listen to them. On the contrary, the message I received during my NDE has lost legibility over the years. I can only recall bits and pieces. I may have been told that I was meant to forget most of it, in particular the details about my future back on earth.

Although it could be disheartening to admit that I was not able to recognize the four figures or remember in detail what I was told back then, I do not suffer such a frustration. I remember my near-death experience with fondness, happiness, and extreme inquisitiveness. It is a puzzle I continue to solve. Sometimes I think of it as a true, existential privilege. For most of my adult life, I have been able to inquire and explore human existence with a sense of meaning, purpose, and wonder that I attribute to the wisdom of the deep, powerful voice that guided my NDE.

The message I relate to my near-death experience is the result of both direct recollections and other memories I had as a child about the NDE. For example, at some point I was told I had to go back to this world, which seemed like a bad idea to me. That is a recollection I have from the NDE itself. On the other hand, I learned never to be violent, which is a tenor that as a child I considered to have been bestowed on me during the near-death experience.

Thus, the message I received is an amalgam of precepts and impressions that, nonetheless, are compatible and coherent. I was told life is an opportunity we are given to learn and to be kind to each other. We are not to accumulate wealth, but to share it, and to make sure we leave this world with the humility and plainness with which we arrive. We need to take care of nature, in the same way nature takes care of us. We are not to fear death, evil, suffering, or loneliness, because their harm is limited and temporary. We are also not to expect judgement and retribution, because we are all part of a unity that is compassionate and all-forgiving. We need to open our minds to laughter, artistry, travel, and change, because they enhance the learning experience. 

As confessed earlier, I did not want to come back to my body. The pitch-black place I found myself was more beautiful, caring, and awe-inspiring that anything else I could imagine. Hence, it seems it took a bit of convincing. I distinctly recall the deep, powerful voice showing me that I had to return to take care of two of the figures standing before me. It did not make sense. As a child I was accustomed to being looked after by adults, not the other way around. I thought it would be safe to go back to my bed because the two beings would take care of me. As I distorted the information to fit my perception, I accepted to return. I turned, as if accommodating myself, ready to sleep, and the vision disappeared.

A few days after I had recovered from my concussion, I entered the kitchen to find my mother. I asked her if it was true that I had slept an entire week. I also wanted to know who had come to visit me. My mother looked at me strangely. Yes, the doctor had been at my house to check on me. (I did not mention it, but I found it peculiar that they would do so under the cover of night.) Then I asked if my grandfather had also come to see me. My mother stopped whatever she was doing, stared at me, and suspiciously interrogated me why I was asking such questions. Of course, the whole family had been concerned. Why was I asking, she insisted. “Nothing, forget it,”  I think were my exact words. I left the kitchen in a hurry.

It was difficult to make sense of what had happened. Even today, almost five decades later, I cannot find the right words to describe my experience. It is understandable that as a child I could not find the proper way to communicate it to my parents, or even the firmness to accept that I had “died” in another realm to arrive back to a “reality” that lacked the same truthfulness, love, and transcendence. 

Consequently, for many years I hid that experience from others and from myself. I would think about it every now and then because I could identify certain changes in my character. After my near-death experience, I showed sensitivity to other people’s emotions, avoidance of large crowds, heightened interactions with smaller children, and enhanced intuition. I witnessed those changes in utter solitude. As with many other children NDErs, I also endured sleeplessness, distress from violent news, a constant craving for knowledge and spirituality, and a learning reversal where the abstract was easier, and the inward was authentic.

To make matters worse, at age 14 I was exposed to philosophical materialism. I started to conceptualize reality as the sole product of interactions of physical processes. Considering my NDE, I explained it to myself in terms of the concussion and a probable decrease of oxygen levels in the brain. It had been a hallucination, I concluded. Someday, physiology or psychology would explain it. In the meantime, I proceeded to dismiss it altogether. 

For the next ten years I repressed memories and embarked myself in a treacherous journey of apathy and alcohol consumption. Philosophical materialism filled my life with dread and rage, most probably because I read all the wrong books and lacked appropriate counseling. Transition from childhood to adulthood is never easy, and I did it uncritically and evasively. I was yet to discover authors that would challenge me to think on my own, and to anesthetize myself helped me to deal with a corporeality that I found meaningless, superficial, and contradictory in every possible way.

I was in my 20s when two seemingly trivial events made me revisit my NDE. I went to a laser show and felt mesmerized by a colourful tunnel of light. It had a cunning resemblance to something I had witnessed as a child. The second event occurred after smoking marijuana. I was feeling quite relaxed, anesthetized from reality, when I imagined myself at the age of four. It did not classify as an out of body, spiritual, or sublime experience, but the plain acknowledgement of a child who was furious and disappointed at the person he had become. I had disregarded my near-death experience, but above all, I had set aside its message. These events marked the beginning of a reevaluation of the past, a revival of spiritual interests, and a constant exploration of intellectual attentiveness that is coherent with the value I give to existence.

I am 53 years old now. I am happily married and father of two wonderful kids who are my pride and joy. It has taken this long to come to terms with an experience only now I can narrate unceremoniously. I can testify that my near-death experience was more real, radically transcendent, and deeply existential than any other insight I have gained in this world where the body I occupy lives.

I found NDERF, IANDS, and the works of Raymond Moody, P.M.H. Atwater, and Bruce Greyson. I have read hundreds of near-death accounts, and I acknowledge that there is a community out there of people with whom I share an extraordinary occurrence, its aftermaths, and the issues of reintegration. I have been to therapy and joined support groups where I have learned the meaning of validation and acceptance. I still cannot discern with certainty the four figures I once met, but I try to recall details and fulfill their message, which has stayed with me at my highs and lows.

The deep, powerful voice did share with me certain elements that I keep to myself, because I believe they are yet to come to fruition. I also regard the message as a personal quest, not to be imposed or preached upon others, because each one of us ought to find their own, arduous path. As of death itself, if it is the only immortal thing (after Heraclitus), and if one who does not die does not exist (as per Egyptian mythology), then it is an illusion.