Jiaheng I Probable NDE

Experience Description

July 2007: Without any advanced notice, my relationship ended. I couldn't accept the reality of what was happening and had an emotional breakdown. My heart felt like it was being stabbed. Then around December, my loyal companion of twelve years, my dog, suddenly became ill and passed away after just a few days. To me, that dog was family, always by my side even while I slept. With so many unfortunate events all happening at the same time and so suddenly, I just couldn't take it. As a result, I developed insomnia and resorted to drinking strong liquor every night in order to sleep. I drank to the point of throwing up blood, and yet I kept drinking. My body started to feel extreme fatigue and my brain, lack of focus. Turned out I had developed bleeding ulcers. One night after work in January 2008, I decided to go to the gym and jog to relieve my despair, even though I was already very tired and ill. I felt so lost. While exercising, I kept thinking, ‘Why must the heavens treat me like this?’ On the treadmill, I ran like mad with all my strength! But the more I ran, the more I felt a tightening and an extreme discomfort in my chest. Realizing that something might be wrong, I immediately left the gym. I was thinking that I should go right home and rest. By the time I got to the subway station, my calves, legs, and fingers had started to spasm painfully. Then all of the muscles in my body began undergoing painful cramps. I felt my heartbeat speeding up faster and faster, and it seemed clear to me that my body was out of my control. A crowd gathered, even a subway employee came up. I asked her to please call an ambulance immediately.

I began to get very nervous, and suddenly I felt all the blood in my body retracting towards my heart. Every inch of my body, including my organs, was feeling extreme discomfort. I could sense my organs busying themselves with activity, and then I felt time starting to slow down. I felt myself both entering and leaving the space-time of this world. The world seemed to be going into slow motion while my thinking was speeding up. I can attest to feeling that the speed of my mind must have been the fastest in the world right then. I wanted to raise my right hand to check on what was happening with my body's functioning but my right hand would not respond. My hands and feet felt like Jell-O as my body grew colder and colder. I could barely look down towards my right hand, which now appeared bloodless. My heartbeat felt irregular and burdened, and I could feel a gradual increase of discomfort in my heart. At this point, my brain was telling me that my heart was going to stop pretty soon. I could truly feel what it's like to move closer and closer to death, and this has to be the most frightening feeling in the world. I started to think about my family, all the things I had not done, and if I died, how sad my family would be, and how I must call my little brother and say my last words to him, etc., etc. ‘Hands!’ I begged mentally, ‘please move! Please move!’ But they wouldn't. I knew I was not going to last until the arrival of the ambulance, so I wanted to ask the subway employee if they had a defibrillator but my mouth wouldn't move, and my hearing was starting to warp. My body functions kept on decreasing as I lay there helplessly, and my mind continued to speed up. The speed of my thoughts increased as episodes of my life started to flash by, and my brain functions seemed to reach the limits of human capability. This abnormal situation worried me, but I could only scream in my mind, ‘Can't someone please help me?’ My eyelids started to droop, and I kept telling myself, ‘Don’t fall asleep! Hang in there! Don’t fall asleep! Hang in there!’ At last, I had completely used up all my strength. My heart no longer wanted to beat and my eyelids were finally closing. At this time, an image appeared in my mind, a high-speed ascent into the sky. I could see that the sky was very bright, even though it was nighttime.

A voice in my head said to me, ‘I am God’, and I could feel that He (She) completely understood me and knew my entire life. I felt that He was God, all-powerful, and that he could help me. So I started to beg him, begging him loudly in my heart, ‘Please, help me! I do not want to die! Give me one more chance for me to live a meaningful life!’ I kept apologizing to Him, apologizing for the life I had been living. I said to Him, ‘if I don’t die, if I don’t die, if I don’t die, I would, would, would….’ Then He said, “You would go to church, yes?” I immediately agreed, as I felt my heart about to stop, and my eyes shutting, I felt that in 3 seconds I would leave this world, 3, 2, 1. Suddenly I felt strength in my body. My eyelids lifted with ease, circulation returned to my hands and feet, and my body started to get warm. All my bodily functions returned to normal to the point where I could actually stand up! The first thing I asked myself was, ‘I said I was going to go to church. Why?’ I knew I was someone who had always been opposed to churches. I just couldn’t believe I would say that I was going to start going to church now!

The paramedics finally arrived. En route to the hospital, I asked the paramedics, ‘A little while ago, when I felt all my blood being returned to my heart, what exactly was happening then?’ They casually replied that when the body goes into emergency survival mode, it would automatically concentrate the blood flow toward the essential core organs in preparation for the final struggle. At the hospital, they insisted that they would have to keep me for four days. I just couldn't stand being hospitalized and had been planning to sneak out the first day but my body was so tired that I didn't. The next day, when I woke up, I felt completely different! My personality had changed. I didn't feel like myself. I felt so peaceful in my heart, so full of love! I felt that from that day forward, it was going to be a brand new life, and from now, I would forgive all whom I had ever resented! Then days passed, one at a time, and I eventually forgot my promise to go to church. I had not mentioned to anyone, anything about this event where I had met God, so there was no one to remind me of my promise. During those two years, I kept getting images of a bunch of people at church and these images would touch my heart with such love that I would cry uncontrollably. And there was always this incessant voice in my mind telling me to go to church, but I kept saying, ‘Later, later I will definitely go.’ Then these images and voices started to appear less and less frequently, fading slowly away.

During February of 2010, my second dog was diagnosed with cancer. We took it to the vet, who then operated on it. He showed my youngest brother that the cancer had spread all throughout its body, and that it had at the most no more than a month or two to live. The entire family was crushed. I remembered again the God that had helped me before: So I said to Him, ‘If my dog lives more than three months, then I will go to church.’ As it turned out, after three months my dog was still alive, walking around like nothing had ever been wrong. In the fall of the same year, we took the dog to the vet for a minor illness, and the vet was surprised to see my dog, asking, ‘How can it be that your dog is still alive?’ It was not until the end of July 2011 that my dog finally did pass on at the ripe old age of nearly twelve. Around the summer of 2010, I started to ask around to see who goes to church so I could get a recommendation. A customer from the gym recommended a church in Kowloon.

This was to be my very first visit to a church in my entire life! I got on the Kowloon bus and went to the upper deck, and, since all the window seats were taken, I picked a seat next to the most genteel looking person I could see. Once I sat down, he immediately gave me a card, on which was written ‘Sun Yat Sun (founding father of modern China) was a Christian.’ So we began talking. What a coincidence that the first time I go to church I end up on the bus sitting next to a pastor, quite a play of fate. The pastor gave me a quick run though of what to expect, so that I would not be so resistant to hearing about Jesus, but deep inside I still felt a little resistant anyway. After my first visit to the church, I declared, ‘Mission Complete!’ regarding my promise, ha ha, and after attending a few more times, I started to really not want to go back. So it was then that I left the church. After I left, I felt very uncomfortable, so I said to God, ‘God, I am leaving the church on purpose. So if you do exist, you will find a nice girl to take me there again.’ I was thinking, ‘I'll bet no one has ever prayed to have a girl invite them to church. In fact, I am sure this is so rare that it won't even happen.’ (My idea being that by making this impossible wish, I wouldn't need to go to church ever again!) I did it this way to relieve my conscience.

After a month, during a CPR class, I met a very pure and sincere looking girl who suddenly asked me whether I went to church or not. I was stunned for a few seconds! I didn't even believe this could be happening! So I finally realized that God does exist in this world and I asked God if it had been He who had rescued me that time (of my NDE) four years ago. A few days later, I went with this girl to church. We sat down and started reading the synopsis of the day, and we saw that it said, ‘Without God, There Is No Life.’ The girl was surprised, saying, ‘God is talking to you!’ I answered, ‘I am even more shocked than you are!’ The impact went deep into my heart. I asked her how many years she had believed in God. And how many people had she brought to church? She said she had believed in God for eight years now, and had started going to church more frequently only during these last two years, but I was the only one she had ever asked whether they went to church or not. As everyone stood up to sing the Psalms, again a voice said to me, ‘Now you have to spread the good word!’ to which I answered, ‘But I don’t know what the ‘good word’ is’. After a while, I noticed that lots of my friends and even people I didn't know started to share their deepest feelings and thoughts, and even their pain and suffering, with me. Even people that I had just met for a few hours would disclose their deepest thoughts to me, and this had never happened before! As long as I kept having conversations with these people, my body and mind would keep feeling very strange, new sensations: I was full of power, heartfelt emotions, and feelings of energy, sharpness of mind, speed of thought and intelligence, with the divine spark of inspiration. And often I would speak right from the depths of my inspiration. As a result, people would always follow me to church.

Now, my mother had been an ancestor-worshipper and a Buddhist since childhood, having grown up in a village (ancestor and Buddha worship is the predominant religion of the Chinese in general) and she had a Guan-yin (Bodhisattva) [Commonly known in English as the Goddess of Mercy - Wikipedia] statue in the house. A couple of years back, she had begun to feel a persistent pain just below her left ear, and this pain troubled her a lot. The doctor’s explanation was that it was a matter of joint deterioration. But no matter what medicine she took, it did not improve, and the pain had persisted for more than two years. In the spring of 2011, I asked her to try to pray about it. She responded very angrily, scolding, ‘What kind of church is this church of yours now? What God is this? Are you crazy? If praying could cure diseases, why would the world still have doctors?’ I answered, ‘All you have to do is say a few words. Do you not even have the courage to try?’ She slowed down, listened to me, and soon afterwards said her very first prayer, ‘God, if you really exist, please heal the spot below my left ear. If it no longer hurts, then I will go to church.’

It turned out that the pain started to decrease day after day. The days turned into weeks, and after only one month, the pain was completely gone! Also, one time, Mother was having dinner with me after returning from a trip, and she told me that at the hotel, while she was trying to sleep, a ‘ghost’ had sat on her, to the point where she could not move, and she couldn't even open her eyes. In her heart she started thinking, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, save me!! Lord Jesus Christ save me!’ and right away, she was able to open her eyes and move her mouth, whereupon she then proceeded to pray loudly. She achieved a calm, peaceful feeling and was no longer fearful. The remainder of the night at the hotel passed without further incident of any kind, not even any strange noises! She slept well, too, and for that, she was very grateful to Jesus Christ. She said to me, ‘In the past, I would have been sleepless the entire night and the pressure on my body (from the ghost) would not have stopped. But this time, once I started praying, I could move freely! This is incredible, and I am no longer afraid! It’s really wonderful to believe in Jesus Christ!’ Now in our family we have four believers in the Lord, the idols in the house are gone, and our family relations have improved. We are much happier than we used to be! Mother is also spreading the good word and those who have become believers are also leading their families and friends towards the Lord.

Background Information:

Gender: Male

Date NDE Occurred: 2008年1月中

NDE Elements:

At the time of your experience, was there an associated life-threatening event? Yes Heart attack Life threatening event, but not clinical death 心率不正,不能呼吸,身體不能動 At the time I felt discomfort in my chest and heart. I had difficulty breathing and all the muscles in my body were cramped and in spasm. I had no blood flow in my hands, and my body felt ice cold.

How do you consider the content of your experience? Wonderful

Did you feel separated from your body? No No

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

At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness and alertness? During my arrhythmia, when I sensed imminent death.

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 I felt that time was in ‘slow motion’.

Were your senses more vivid than usual? Incredibly more vivid

Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience. When I felt that I was at the edge of death, time felt like it was in slow-motion, and people's voices to me had a warped/changed quality.

Did you seem to be aware of things going on elsewhere? Yes, and the facts have been checked out

Did you pass into or through a tunnel? No

Did you see any beings in your experience? I actually saw them

Did you encounter or become aware of any deceased (or alive) 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? No

Did you seem to enter some other, unearthly world? No

What emotions did you feel during the experience? When it was happening to me, I felt terrified, with a sense of being abandoned by the world. But when I woke up the next day, I felt very peaceful and happy.

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 seem to understand everything? Everything about the universe

The experience included: Life review

Did scenes from your past come back to you? My past flashed before me, out of my control When it was happening to me, I felt terrified, with a sense of being abandoned by the world. But when I woke up the next day, I felt very peaceful and happy.

Did scenes from the future come to you? Scenes from the world's future

Did you come to a border or point of no return? I came to a barrier that I was not permitted to cross; or was sent back against my will

God, Spiritual and Religion:

What was your religion prior to your experience? Liberal 無神論者

Have your religious practices changed since your experience? Yes After experiencing this NDE, I now believe in Christianity (whereas I was an atheist before.)

What is your religion now? Liberal 沒有宗教信仰

Did you have a change in your values and beliefs because of your experience? Yes After experiencing this NDE, I now believe in Christianity (whereas I was an atheist before.)

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

Did you see deceased or religious spirits? I actually saw them

Concerning our Earthly lives other than Religion:

During your experience, did you gain special knowledge or information about your purpose? Uncertain I just felt that in the universe there is a Master, one who knows my entire life, and that He was able to give me a chance to survive.

Have your relationships changed specifically because of your experience? Yes I became kinder and more loving. I would sacrifice my own personal interests to help others.

After the NDE:

Was the experience difficult to express in words? No

Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience? Yes Power and capability from Jesus Christ, especially for the purpose of healing.

Are there one or several parts of your experience that are especially meaningful or significant to you? The most meaningful was God’s love. I am very touched by this and I want to always have this feeling.

Have you ever shared this experience with others? Yes I shared my experience with others only after about three years. Most of the responses were of surprise. Those that had no reaction eventually came to believe in Christ, convinced by the many miracles that occurred. They were also able to feel the love from God, themselves.

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 found the whole thing hard to believe because I was an atheist. I did not believe in any kind of God.

What do you believe about the reality of your experience now? Experience was definitely real There were many miracles following my experience, and as a result, many friends have experienced miracles as well. Jesus is real!

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

Is there anything else that you would like to add about your experience? After experiencing this NDE, I became interested in death. God is real! You should all believe in the Lord!

Are there any other questions that we could ask to help you communicate your experience? It’s very good. No need to change anything.