Michael Joseph NDE

Experience Description

I can't. It is just far too huge and detailed to summarize in this space. It would take a book. It was Washington's Birthday and I had the day off from school. I could have stayed home but I chose to go to work with my dad at the family gas station mom and dad owned. I worked there on weekends and after school helping my dad out. I pumped gas, washed windows, checked oil and took care of customers including taking their money and bringing them change. I also cleaned the bathrooms, filled the oil racks with cans of oil, filled the soda machine and collected the money, swept up and did other jobs for my dad and was paid 50 cents an hour. That was a LOT of money in 1966 considering comic books cost 12 cents, matinee movie tickets were 1 dollar and so forth. I could make $4 a day working for my dad on weekends and $1+ a day after school. That's $13 to $15 a week. So I decided to go with my dad for Washington's holiday from school.

Nearby the gas station were huge limestone boulders some soaring as high as 30+ feet. That day was just another freezing cold morning where the ground was covered in ice (which happened a lot in the 60s and 70s). So there wasn't a lot of business that day and I did all the other jobs Dad had for me. Being bored, I asked him if it would be ok if I took off for a while.

I went out into those huge boulders, boulders I had climbed many times. To make a long story short, the water freezing and thus expanding in the cracks of these boulders had loosened a chunk of rock on this 15 to 20 foot high boulder. The chunk was perched on a ledge but seemed adhered to the side of the greater rock. I had climbed over it many times but this day it broke loose. The chunk was tear shaped, narrow, tapered at the top but thick, wide and heavy at the bottom, and was about 4' high or so as I recall. It broke off, I fell backwards off the gigantic boulder and this stone fell right on top of me. In fact, I rode it to the ground. It probably weighed around 400 to 500 pounds.

I don't recall much at that point except hearing a voice far off in the distance screaming. 'Oh my God, I'm dead!' I was oddly disconnected from it.

The next thing I knew I was floating there, hovering in the air and feeling stunned, not sure where I was, who I was or even what I was. There was a feeling of amnesia. I tried to orient myself to my surroundings, get my bearings and that meant carefully observing. Instantly my head was flooded with knowledge. As I stared at the boulder I knew its chemical composition, could describe every curve concavity and convex structure with mathematical formula that were both known to me and yet unknown. I couldn't believe how clear my thoughts were. Then I became aware of a body. I use the following words because they express what I felt but I didn't use these words. In fact, I wasn't thinking with words at all. I became aware of a 'biological unit' that wasn't functioning. I literally viewed it in the way I might view a car that was all crunched up. I swept over this body and could see almost nothing between where the boulder was lying on it and the ground. There was literally less than an inch. The face was contorted and gray with the mouth open and mud and blood smeared from its nose across its forehead. It wasn't moving or breathing and the face looked familiar but I couldn't place where I'd seen it before.

Then it hit me. It was my face! It looked different partly because it was dead and party because I had always seen my face in a mirror. It looked different when outside of my body. It was then that all my memories flooded back into my head, who I had been, who my family and friends were, what I had done and what I thought.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was dead and yet here I was, still alive and fully conscious. How could that be? In that instance, my atheism was wiped away and now I didn't know what to expect. I panicked. I was dead! Dad was really going to get pissed at me for killing myself. Then the panic went out of the roof when I realized I was dead. Dad isn't going to get pissed at me. I'm dead. Oh my God, what is going to happen to me? Because I've rejected Jesus, I'm going to hell! Maybe I shouldn't have been so hasty in rejecting religion. Maybe I should have listened more.

Then all that panic was pushed out of me and I can only use the analogy of being bone shivering cold and standing in front of a nice warm fire. All that shivering and cold slowly gets pushed out of you and all your muscles relax as the fire's warmth fills you. I felt this 'fire' coming from behind me and I whirled around to see a man with black wavy hair and black beard, all short cropped and dark well-tanned skin. His eyes were like diamonds sparkling under light and his robe was like a monk's robe except it was bright white and glowing. I could see it flowing around him with visible eddies and currents. This being smiled at me and I was instantly filled with love, so much love I felt I would explode from it. I could not contain it. I've never felt so adored. This being communicated directly with me with thoughts, no words were ever used.

He told me this was an accident and I could go back, if I wanted. I told him by my thoughts there was no way to make that body work. It was squashed flat. He told me that he could make it work again. Did I want to go back? I wanted to know my options. What would happen if I chose to go back and what would happen if I didn't. No sooner did I think these thoughts, and then I was hit with a package of images. It showed in brief what would happen if I didn't go back. I saw my sister get into alcohol and drugs and her life spin out of control, because I wasn't there. I saw my Dad commit suicide because of my death shortly after my mom divorced him over the matter of my death. I saw my paternal grandfather wither away and die, his heart broken over my death and my dad's suicide. There were twin blows that destroyed all the joy he had left in life. The effects went on and on, my mom was sad and heart-broken the rest of her life and so very lonely. And I saw a parade of faces of people I would never meet and whose lives I would have impacted and whose lives would have impacted mine but now I would never know any of them and they would never know me. The man in the white robe had me with my sister. I've always loved my little sister and for her alone I would have chosen to come back but seeing all that pain it would cause everyone else, mom, dad, grandparents, friends, cousins, aunts, and uncles, I had to go back.

Then came a second package of images, those of what would happen if I went back. I skipped over the obvious. Dad didn't commit suicide. My sister turned out okay. Mom ended up happy. My grandfather went on to beam with pride over his first grandson to attend a university. My grandfather was a legal immigrant from Italy who never made it past the 4th grade and he treasured education beyond everything. He crowed like a proud rooster when his kids graduated from high school and I became the first of his grandkids to attend a prestigious university. But what I focused on in this second package was what I would pay as a price for going back. I knew that I would walk again, that all I had lost would be restored but only temporarily. In my latter life, perhaps 10 to 15 years after the accident, I would suffer pain, extreme pain and it would affect me the rest of my life.

I chose to come back. He smiled, as if he knew I would pick the harder path because of how I felt for my family and friends. There was a snap and a pop and I was back in my body. It was filled with crackling electricity like sounds and feelings. I had no breath, no air and this huge rock was choking off all air. I grabbed the small end of the tear near my nose with my one free left hand (my right arm was pinned under the rock) and rolled the thing off me like it was made of papier-mâché`.

I took a painful breath of air and it was as if someone had plunged a sword into my right side. It was an agonizing breath, so painful I passed out and rolled down an embankment into a depression and yet as my body flopped over and over, rolling down hill, I was watching it from the top of my head both half in and half out of my ruined body. I landed in the bottom of this depression in a tangle of brush. I couldn't feel or move my legs. I was completely paralyzed from the waist down and I could barely breathe. Every breath was shallow and stabbed me like a dagger driven deep into my right chest. But I was alive, just like the man in the glowing bright white robe told me I would be but I had not a clue how he did it. I could feel and hear the crackling of what felt and sounded like electricity flowing through me and I knew I had to get help and fast. But how does one walk out of a deep ravine surrounded with muddy slopes and soaring boulders of limestone 15+ feet high with a broken back and legs that not only don't work but I couldn't even feel?

Just then, two boys crested the hill above me, one being a boy I knew named Johnny. I called to them weakly and Johnny dropped down to me. I told him to run and get my dad; I was very badly hurt. The other boy, who I didn't know, lived just up the hill above the ravine I was laying in. He ran to tell his dad to call for an ambulance (they didn't have paramedics in those days).

Things moved fast after that. My Dad, in a complete panic, finally found me as he ran aimlessly around the limestone field calling for me. My dad was the toughest, most fearless man I've ever known but I saw panic in his eyes when he finally got to me. He wanted to pick me up and carry me out of there and I told him not to because my back was broken. Soon the ambulance showed up at the top of the hill near the house of the kid I didn't know and a small army of men had appeared from God knows where. I was strapped to a board that was very carefully slid under me. A small army of men passed me from hand to hand, up that steep muddy slope out of that ravine. Near the top, the line of men collapsed in the slippery mud and I started to fall back down the slope only to be caught and held by my beautiful papa who refused to leave me fall. He rammed his feet into the mud, carved out footholds, and held on until the other men could reestablish their footholds and get me over the crest of the hill and into the ambulance where my mom was waiting.

It was quite a ride to hospital and on the way, I asked my mom to wash the blood and mud off my face, which surprised her because how could I know? She took out of her purse a Kleenex, wetted it with her saliva, and used it to wash my face. Ironically, my face was so numb I couldn't even feel her touching my face.

I was X-rayed, my clothes cut off and the x-rays showed no internal damage yet over the next 11 hours, I could feel the electricity from the white robed man slowly bleed away. I knew I was dying again despite the fact I was delirious from all the morphine they injected in me to hold down my pain. It was clear they had to operate because my blood pressure was falling and I heard them talking about perhaps a bleeding spleen.

My personal doctor came to me and said they had to operate and asked if that would be ok with me. He was such a gentle kind doctor! I said, 'oh yeah, sure, as long as you promise me I'll wake up.' Promises in my family are sacred and you never break one unless the entire universe prevents you and even then, you finish it later. He made the promise and that meant I'd survive the operation. He gave me his promise.

They administered an anesthetic and told me to count back from 100. I did it clear to zero and the orderly said, 'do it again.' So, I did and since I reached zero again I figured he'd just ask me to do it a third time, so I did it a third time. I found them wheeling me into an operation theater. They hoisted my body with several nurses and orderlies up onto two parallel steel rails with my spine settled in between the two rails. My body was draped with sheets, a hood put in front of my face/head, a huge spot light hovered over me, and the room was really, really cold.

I could hear someone say, 'We are losing him!' Then, 'His BP just went to zero.' It meant my heart had stopped. I watched as the doctor, the chief surgeon, took a saw to me to quickly open me up. I still bear the ugly scar across me chest where he literally ripped me open. I saw him say something, 'Oh my dear god' after he got me opened. The internal damage was extensive. In fact, I should not have survived the initial impact of the rock. My heart was pushed out of its normal cavity up under my left armpit. My stomach and liver were shoved up into my right lung, which had collapsed around them. My diaphragm was missing. All my intestines including my spleen were shoved down into an area just above my pubic bone. There was literally nothing in my abdomen and that was why nothing looked out of order in my x-rays. I heard the surgeon say he'd seen car wreck victims die with nothing near as severe as my injuries. He found it miraculous that I'd survived this long. He sawed my open and shoved his hand into my chest. I presume he went after my heart to massage it back to life but just then, the oddest thing happened. I could hear people praying for me. Suddenly I was there and I could see my doctor. He was kneeling on the floor in a waiting room with a bunch of chairs. Next to them were my mom, dad, and someone else behind them. They were all kneeling on the floor in that room praying for my life.

The next thing I know I'm back in the operating room where the surgeon is working frantically to save my life and as he works at massaging my heart I found myself drifting away and the further I drifted the darker the room got and the further away his voice sounded. I found myself well above the operating theater where I should have been on a floor above that room or outside looking on a roof, but I wasn't. Instead, I was floating in the entrance to a tunnel or vortex. I was sucked into it and that was when my adventure really began.

I ended up with a life review, and was escorted around 'the other side' by a being who was my guardian angel/teacher whom I came to call 'professor' but he had an incredible sense of humor. I say 'he' with tongue in cheek because 'he' was neither a he nor a she.

I saw what happened to true atheists (apparently, I was opened-minded enough that I didn't qualify). I got to see various 'heavens' and asked to see what 'Hell' was like if there was one (and there was but it was nothing like I expected). I even asked to meet Jesus and apologize only to meet a man that was nothing like I expected and was given interesting historical facts I was later able to verify.

All of that is far too complex to include here, including numerous predictions of the future that have all come true except one, which I think is yet to happen.

Background Information:

Gender: Male

Date NDE Occurred: 2-22-1966

NDE Elements:

At the time of your experience, was there an associated life-threatening event? Yes Accident. Surgery-related. Other: I was stone cold dead at the site, crushed under the boulder. There was no one anywhere near me to help me. My first NDE, I saw a man dressed in white light who literally resurrected me in my body. I felt filled with energy and heard crackling and managed I don't understand what the question is asking. I was killed dead by a boulder. About 12 hours later, though half delirious at the time, I was told I needed an operation and died on the operating table. The fuzzy delirium vanished mysteriously and I didn't understand why I wasn't going under when they administered the medication to put me asleep until I finally realized I was out of my body a second time and was just lying there with my body.

How do you consider the content of your experience? Both pleasant AND distressing

The experience included: Out of body experience

Did you feel separated from your body? Yes Described above. I clearly left my body and existed outside it

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 just seemed to be able to access a lot more knowledge, stuff I didn't even know I knew if that makes sense.

At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness and alertness? After I was clear of my body, both times. As I said before, I have an IQ of about 150, genius level and yet when out of my body, in a 'dead' state, I found myself much smarter. Comparing the two, I'd consider myself a drooling moron to what I was outside my limiting body.

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 As I said above, it seemed like months and yet like minutes while in real life I was in a deep coma for over a week in the Earthly world.

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. I saw colors I've never seen before and saw into realms of existence that people don't even know exist.

Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience. Hearing was off the hook. I didn't hear with ears per se, but with thoughts. It's weird to try to describe.

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

The experience included: Tunnel

Did you pass into or through a tunnel? Yes

Did you see any beings in your experience? No

Did you encounter or become aware of any deceased (or alive) beings? Uncertain I met my 'guardian angel' or 'teacher' who escorted me around the 'heavens' and hells but I'm not sure if he ever lived. If he did he's incredibly old.

The experience included: Unearthly light

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? Yes

The experience included: A landscape or city

Did you seem to enter some other, unearthly world? A clearly mystical or unearthly realm I can't. There is just too much to describe.

The experience included: Hellish imagery

The experience included: Strong emotional tone

What emotions did you feel during the experience? I felt fear, terror, panic, overwhelming love, awe, and curiosity, etc.

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

The experience included: Special knowledge or purpose

Did you suddenly seem to understand everything? Everything about the universe As described above. Anything I wanted to know I seemed to get a response to.

The experience included: Life review

Did scenes from your past come back to you? I remembered many past events

The experience included: Awareness of the future

Did scenes from the future come to you? Scenes from the world's future Both scenes from my future and the world's future and every single one of them has come true except some scenes of my personal future that I purposefully chose to change and had a very weird sensation when I did that. I was supposed to die in my mid to late 50s, for example and yet here I am in my early 60s, still alive. As for the future of our world, all but one of the things I was shown has come true. The last one has yet to come to pass but I've no doubt it is coming.

Did you come to a border or point of no return? No As I said, I crossed that barrier with the proviso I wouldn't remember any of it. But I did and do remember pretty much all of it.

God, Spiritual and Religion:

What importance did you place on your religious/spiritual life prior to your experience? Not important to me

What was your religion prior to your experience? Unaffiliated- Atheist Even though only 13 I was a confirmed atheist. I was gifted with a keen mind with an IQ around 150 and was deeply interested in science. I was doing Freshman high school math in the 5th grade just to give you an idea. I had LONG rejected religion in general and Christianity in particular. I was kicked out of Sunday school circa 8 or 9 because I kept asking questions related to science and logic versus what the Bible was saying that they were teaching us that the Sunday School teacher couldn't answer. My family was asked to keep me in the church rather than send me to Sunday School. Shortly thereafter I asked to just not go to church because I was convinced they just didn't know anything and I found it no different than Greek. Roman or Norse mythology. I was bored to tears by the whole thing.

Have your religious practices changed since your experience? Yes

What importance do you place on your religious/spiritual life after your experience? Greatly important to me

What is your religion now? Other or several faiths I have no "faith". I KNOW we are more than our body. I've studied and practiced a myriad of religions and paths focusing more particular on those that develop awareness of the spiritual side of reality. I met and walked and talked with Jesus during my second NDE and found him ... well ... absolutely delightful and inspiring. I thus carry a soft spot for Christianity but not Orthodox Christianity, per se. Jesus told me several things about his life that didn't square with anything I could remember from my brief experience with church. My parents were always faithful church goers until my accident changed things but I stopped going around 8 or 9. I spent much of the next 40 years after my accident researching ancient Hebrew texts ad Greek texts to find the true historical Jesus and see if I could verify the bits of historical data he gave me about himself and each and every one of them I was able to verify. Because I met him and know him and his philosophy by personally talking to him, let it be said, I'd follow him into Hell itself.

Did your experience include features consistent with your earthly beliefs? Content that was entirely not consistent with the beliefs you had at the time of your experience

Did you have a change in your values and beliefs because of your experience? Yes I am no longer am an atheist. I know there Is an afterlife and it changed my entire way of thinking.

The experience included: Presence of unearthly beings

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 It was more an unearthly thought than a voice, per se. I didn't hear people talk per se. I 'heard' their thoughts.

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.)? Yes I got to walk and talk with Jesus and he gave me details of his life that I was later able to verify historically.

During your experience, did you gain information about premortal existence? Yes I can remember several life times two of which I've been able to historically verify

During your experience, did you gain information about universal connection or oneness? Yes I EXPERIENCED that universal connection. We are both part of a great supernatural "internet" and yet simultaneously separate PCs as well (to use an analogy).

Did you believe in the existence of God prior to your experience? God does not exist

During your experience, did you gain information about the existence of God? Yes I felt "God" did exist as a collective consciousness and much more beyond that.

Do you believe in the existence of God after your experience? God definitely exists

Concerning our Earthly lives other than Religion:

During your experience, did you gain special knowledge or information about your purpose? No

Did you believe that our earthly lives are meaningful and significant prior to your experience? Are not meaningful and significant

During your experience, did you gain information about the meaning of life? Yes We are here to gather experience in a concentrated form. We make quantum leaps in the Earth forms

Did you believe in an afterlife prior to your experience? An afterlife does not exist

Do you believe in an afterlife after your experience? An afterlife definitely exists Yes Too much to explain. Suffice it to say I saw my parents and Dr. kneeling in a waiting room praying together for my survival. I also saw parts of the operation to save my body which shocked and frightened my doctor when I later described it to him. I also

Did you fear death prior to your experience? I greatly feared death

Do you fear death after your experience? I do not fear death

Were you fearful living your life prior to your experience? Not fearful in living my earthly life

Were you fearful living your life after your experience? Not fearful in living my earthly life

Did you believe that our earthly lives are meaningful and significant prior to your experience? Are not meaningful and significant

Did you believe that our earthly lives are meaningful and significant after your experience? Are meaningful and significant

Did you gain information about how to live our lives? Yes And I'll not share it in a summary like this.

During your experience, did you gain information about life's difficulties, challenges and hardships? Yes Already covered this above

Were you compassionate prior to your experience? Greatly compassionate toward others

During your experience, did you gain information about love? Yes OH YEAH!!!! LOVE IS THE ANSWER! I experienced love off any measurable scale.

Were you compassionate after your experience? Greatly compassionate toward others

What life changes occurred in your life after your experience? Large changes in my life

Have your relationships changed specifically because of your experience? Yes Yes I now know what we do here affects us 'over there' in profound ways. I've learned to be more deliberate in how I love others.

After the NDE:

Was the experience difficult to express in words? Yes How do you describe the color blue to a person blind from birth? Some parts of my experience are beyond words.

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 I recorded the events from "over there" in a "journal" and it has helped keep the details alive in my mind.

Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience? Yes I now know things that seem to come from nowhere. For example, I once was with my future wife at a meeting of a professional organization we belonged to and they sold raffle tickets. I told her to buy $20 worth because the winning ticket was in the second ten dollars. I pointed directly at the winning ticket and told her it was that one. The tickets were $1 each and I picked the exact winning ticket. It freaked her out but lucky for me she had gotten used to my strange intuitions. I 'pick up' things about people that I couldn't possibly know or about places such as a home we were considering buying. For a rational scientific mind as I had (and still have), these experiences still unsettle me and leave me astonished and constantly reminding me there is far more to reality.

Are there one or several parts of your experience that are especially meaningful or significant to you? Yes and because they are meaningful to me I keep them private. At a superficial level, I'm no longer and atheist but now know there is an afterlife.

Have you ever shared this experience with others? Yes I held back for decades and even when I shared it was in bits and pieces even with the people I trusted most in this world. It's only in the last decade and a half that I've come to share more of what I experienced. I am still reluctant to share it all.

Did you have any knowledge of near death experience (NDE) prior to your experience? No I did not believe in an afterlife. The NDE's first book by Raymond Moody (Life After Life) didn't come out until 1977 and I didn't hear about that book until the late 1980s. As far as I was concerned my experience was unique and I often thought maybe I was crazy.

What did you believe about the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened? Experience was definitely real And yet my 'rational mind' wanted to rationalize it away until the historical facts proved it was real and left me with no doubts.

What do you believe about the reality of your experience now? Experience was definitely real

At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience? Yes Everyday.

Is there anything else that you would like to add about your experience? Not here.