David C FDE

Experience Description

I was a fairly young boy scout; I am guessing 10-11 years old. I and several other boys were being driven to a campout in the mountains by the grandfather of one of the boys. He drove sloppy while taking the curves on a winding mountain road. He went around a blind curve partly in the oncoming lane, causing a head-on collision. We were going slowly, about 25 miles per hour (mph), but the oncoming car seemed to be going about 35 to 45 mph. Nobody in either car was seriously injured. I was in the front seat next to the driver. After the collision, I found that my shoulder was sprained. The main significance of the accident was that I previously seen frequent fatal accident reports in the news and now assumed, as I saw the car coming, that we would be killed. I never thought of this as a near death experience because I was nowhere near death. I was in my body the whole time. I thought of this as an NDE or NDE-like experience recently, in retrospect, after viewing many NDE videos on YouTube.

During the accident, time seemed to stand still. I saw, off to the right and in the distance, what seemed to be an opening to a broad panorama of a pastoral scene that was filled with color and light. I had an overwhelming sense of peace. I felt that all of my earthly concerns were of minimal importance and could be set aside easily at a moment's notice for the transcendent significance of this other realm. It was that sense of overwhelming peace and beauty that captivated me in that moment. It was that sense of beauty and peace and the sense that all of my earthly concerns were frivolous by comparison. These are what was most significant to me about the experience.

I had the sense of a viewing this scene leisurely, as though viewing it out of time. It was like I watched for 10-20 seconds even though the accident was almost instantaneous.

I remember being surprised, after the accident, to find that my shoulder was hurt because I didn't remember it happening. In times of trauma over my lifetime, I have frequently thought back to the emotional tone of that experience.


Background Information:

Gender: Male

Date NDE Occurred: 1958-1959

NDE Elements:

At the time of your experience, was there an associated life-threatening event? Yes Accident. Life threatening event, but not clinical death

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

Did you feel separated from your body? Yes I continued to be aware of the car crash and was surprised that it was less severe than I had feared.

How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness? More consciousness and alertness than normal. I was highly focused on the scene that opened to me and less focused on the accident. Although, I remember the accident as well.

At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness and alertness? I was conscious the whole time, but I was in a state of heightened consciousness while viewing the scene.

Were your thoughts speeded up? No

Did time seem to speed up or slow down? Everything seemed to be happening at once; or time stopped or lost all meaning. A temporal sense of 10-20 seconds in what was essentially an instantaneous event of a car crash.

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. It seemed like ordinary vision.

Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience. No auditory component.

Did you seem to be aware of things going on elsewhere, as if by ESP? 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 (or alive) beings? No

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

Did you see an unearthly light? Uncertain. This was no white-light experience, but the vividness and brightness of the colors of that pastoral scene stand out for me.

Did you seem to enter some other, unearthly world? A clearly mystical or unearthly realm. I did not 'enter' this realm, but it was like a veil splitting open and I saw into that unearthly realm. It seemed tangible and very real, but still distant.

What emotions did you feel during the experience? An overwhelming sense of beauty, peace and transcendence of the experience and the insignificance of earthly concerns.

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 no longer in conflict with nature

Did you suddenly seem to understand everything? No

Did scenes from your past come back to you? No

Did scenes from the future come to you? 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? Christian- Protestant My mother had been a missionary in India for 13 years. She was well respected in our small denomination (Advent Christian) and I took her religious teachings seriously and with curiosity.

Have your religious practices changed since your experience? Uncertain. Not directly as a result of the experience, but the vividly remembered emotional tone of the experience reinforces the sense of love and destiny in the universe and was perhaps a factor in rejecting my more rigid early beliefs.

What is your religion now? Other or several faiths: Liberal Quaker

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. The Advent Christian doctrine about death and resurrection is that when you die, you stay dean and unconscious until a future time when Christ returns and everyone is resurrected. They specifically reject the notion that the spirit is immortal and simply continues to live after death. My direct experience was a realm where transition to this afterlife realm would be immediate upon death.

Did you have a change in your values and beliefs because of your experience? Yes Moving away from the specific doctrines of the Advent Christian Church regarding death and resurrection.

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

Did you see deceased or religious spirits? 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? No

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? No

During your experience, did you gain information about the meaning of life? Yes Compared with the realm of peace and beauty I saw, earthly concerns were completely unimportant.

During your experience, did you gain information about an afterlife? An afterlife definitely exists. I did not enter the unearthly scene, but I felt I was a part of it and it was ultimately my life destination.

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? Uncertain The sense of peace and beauty I also felt as a warm sensation of being loved.

What life changes occurred in your life after your experience? Moderate changes in my life. I went through a long, protracted experience of transition away from the quasi-fundamentalist belief system of my mother's church. I was quickly persuaded intellectually of a broader perspective, especially during college. Because of strong ties with the church and significant mentors in the church, the letting-go of that identity took time. I went to seminary after college, and during that time I found replacement mentors who were much broader, intellectually honest, and awake in addition to being spiritually conscious. This is what ultimately facilitated the change. I continued to evolve into a more socially-conscious spirituality and eventually became a Quaker. I tell people, 'I became a Quaker, then I found the Quakers.' I had another spiritually transcendent NDE-like experience while in college. I don't know if this questionnaire will ask about additional experiences or if I will fill it out separately for the other experience. That experience involved resolution of an emotional trauma, but nothing physical. In that experience I felt I directly saw and experienced God.

Have your relationships changed specifically because of your experience? No

After the NDE:

Was the experience difficult to express in words? Yes The intense emotional significance of seeing a scene was not a normal sense of pleasure at sightseeing. It was an insight into the meaning of life.

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. It was the unexpectedness and vividness that were particularly memorable. This experience had my full attention even during a car crash.

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? The sense of the existence of a transcendent realm of peace, love, and beauty beyond a thin veil to be crossed when we die.

Have you ever shared this experience with others? Yes Only recently (~60 years after the fact) with my current partner when I first recognized this early experience as an NDE or NDE-like experience. She was the one who introduced me to NDEs. She was a psychotherapist and personal friends with Ken Ring.

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 didn't understand it, but recognized it as real and significant. I didn't talk about my experience with others at the time.

What do you believe about the reality of your experience now? Experience was definitely real. Seeing this experience in the context of the NDE stories I have heard recently, gives me a context for understanding the experience and an increased openness to believing the NDE experiences of others.

At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience? Yes I referred earlier to a spiritually transcendent experience I had in college. I had an ongoing intractable conflict with another person. This conflict came to a head for me in the realization that I was never going to change him and I needed to simply let go and disengage from the 'locked horns' conflict. This realization happened when I was alone in my dorm room, lying on my bed during the daytime. It was accompanied by a brilliant unearthly being of light, who I interpreted as God. There was no specific verbal content, but a deep sense of love and approval. I remember trying to speak, but in the aftermath, I realized, in retrospect, that I had been speaking in tongues. This was not part of my religious tradition, but it happened spontaneously. That incident gave me some insight into and empathy for charismatic religious experience. It reinforced the existence of the thin 'veil' and I related it to stories like the apostle Paul's conversion experience.

Is there anything else that you would like to add about your experience? No

Are there any other questions that we could ask to help you communicate your experience? None at this time.