Near Death

I had a near death experience once. Well, I think it was anyway. I’m not a religious person in any sense; thankfully it was never shoved down my throat by my stepmother in my youth. However, in a way, a part of me wants to believe in the spiritual aspect of things. Though logic has always been sitting pretty on my shoulder, I can’t help but feel giddy like a child again when things go bump in the night. Ghosts, witches, old wives’ tales – I love it all. So why was my psyche so quick to shove this to the back, ‘this didn’t happen’, brain compartment? Wouldn’t it froth in curiosity from this like it does for other ‘spooky’ things?

A few years ago, I began spiralling with drugs and alcohol. A couple tumultuous relationships later, a stressful job, mental health struggles, I was basically asking for an addiction. The company I kept wasn’t the wisest choice either; a few stragglers from primary school and high school that unfortunately fell into the same trap. You attract what you want in life, I suppose. In that period of my life I think I just wanted to feel something. Anything. Even if it wasn’t genuine.

A friend came over to my place one night. We were drinking, smoking, singing and dancing, having a grand ol’ time. Mixing Red Bulls and alcohol I should add (I have a very sensitive tolerance to caffeine = hello heart palpitations and anxiety). They eventually left and we continued our shenanigans over FaceTime like we normally would. A few hours had passed while continuing ‘partying’ with them on the phone and I felt as fine as I did every other time, only just beginning to become drowsy. I ended the call still feeling ‘normal’, and I went to sit on the couch for a cigarette (I think, anyway) before heading off to bed. Now I’m no doctor – I don’t know what caffeine, alcohol and cannabis does to your body when combined in excess, but I believe in that moment something wasn’t right.

I believe I had passed out, but it felt more like a comforting, deep sleep; like I’d just gone to bed after a typical, long day. I was beginning to slip into a dream state – where that airy tenderness sweeps over you. I remember being present in my own body on Earth, curious and eager to see how this dream would unfold, then unexpectedly that sweeping weightlessness again, truly feeling like I was floating up off the ground. I thought, “No way!”, “This is like next level lucid dreaming!”. It felt so real in fact, that I recall looking down at the indeed slowly shrinking ground and Earth below me. In reality, I am absolutely terrified of heights – ‘can't even stand too close to a balcony edge’ terrified of heights. But at the same time, that drifting sensation was so unthreatening and knowing I decided to let my body ‘go’ and give in to it, allowing it to take me wherever it wanted. Letting go felt genuinely incredible. Indescribable. What the holy grail of drugs would be. What I imagine returning to the womb is like, in a funny way. I just kept being effortlessly lifted higher and higher into the sky, completely succumbing to this new feeling.

All this time there was an intense but silky beam of light canopying through the clouds, almost inviting me in. It all looked too beautiful and perfect. As I began to get pulled towards this radiance, I noticed there was a sort of opening at the source. I wondered, “Am I dreaming about heaven? This looks exactly like those ‘heavenly sun peering through the clouds’ illustrations. This can’t be legit.”. Sure enough, I could see ‘through’ the opening, and what I saw was as humorous and ironic as ‘expected’. I chuckled to myself a little. It was the stereotypical huge, open fields of grass and flowers, everything all so bright and whimsy, animals frolicking through the fields, and people watching on warmly, laughing amongst themselves. It was classic, down to a T, heaven. I didn’t realise at the time until I focused on everyone’s faces intently - it was my family. Those were my old pets. My heart strangely felt comforted and full. They began waving me over to them, like they wanted to say something to me or to come join them. I could feel myself slowly gravitating over, I felt at home; they were familiar to me.

Then the realisation hit me like a tonne of bricks. I was dying. This is my family welcoming me to join them... in heaven. This is heaven. How could I have been so oblivious? I had never felt a bigger pit in my stomach then I did all those 50,0000 feet in the air. This was word-for-word almost every ‘near death experience’ I’ve read. I started to aggressively panic - I completely lost myself. I remember scrambling, screaming, thrashing; begging everyone not to take me, trying my best to escape them and whatever this ‘dream’ was.

The next thing I know, I make this huge gasping noise and now I’m struggling to breathe – choking for my life back sitting on the couch. Hyperventilating and genuinely freaked the f*ck out, my mind raced, “Did I pass out? Did I fall asleep? What time is it? What the hell was that?” It was so pure and concrete, I remember thinking, “Well, I can check ‘near death experience’ off my list I suppose.”. But even still, in that same moment, my brain was so quick to use logic and try to debunk it straight away, even though I knew I had overdone it that night and passed out, assuming I had stopped breathing at some point. My mind could just not grasp it or believe it, and right now to this day. I guess I just try not to think about it? Even though I know I subconsciously want to? It’s scary to think about, honestly. What does this mean then? I don’t think I want to explore too much into it at the moment...