Sylvia W NDE

I was visiting my boyfriend, his brother from out of state and a woman he picked up somewhere. They were all drunk sitting around the table, laughing, and acting up. I had a cold and ear infection and just couldn't put up with this anymore. Before my husband died in 1973, he chose this man as the one he wanted me to marry. My husband knew he didn't have much longer to live and he was afraid I would never remarry (I haven't). He had a business next to our real estate office and seemed like a wonderful guy. He was a great friend, but neither of us knew he was an alcoholic, as we only knew him during work hours. I tried everything I could think of to get him to stop drinking, but never succeeded. I gave him a choice - the booze or me.

After a five year relationship, he chose the booze and I left him. This happened about four years into the relationship.) I was sitting on a kitchen swivel bar stool. I turned to get up and leave and felt myself starting to fall. The next thing I knew, I was above the roof of the house. I could see through the roof and lying crumpled on the floor was a female body - about the size of a Barbie doll. My ‘vision’ and ‘hearing’ were very acute.

The woman he was with jumped up, came over to the body and turned it over. I could see that it was the body I had been in. There was a large laceration on the right forehead and blood was pouring over the face and floor. The woman reached up, got a dishcloth from the sink, and tried washing the blood from the eyes and face. The dishcloth was rather wet and was just diluting the blood. The brother ran quickly to the body and felt for a carotid pulse. ‘I don't feel anything.’ He tried the radial pulse in both wrists. The woman put her face near the body's nose and her hand on the chest. ‘She's not breathing.’

The brother put his ear over the heart. She quickly gave the body two breaths and the brother started chest compressions. The boyfriend started crying hysterically. ‘Sivie, if you die, I'll kill myself. I can't live without you. I love you. If you live, I'll never drink again. Oh God, please don't let her die.’

This is getting hard. I could see without eyes, hear without ears, and communicate without a mouth or other body parts. I knew everything past and present. I felt that I was in my natural state and the body was the temporary unnatural state. I was home where I belonged. Where I wanted to be.

It was going to be a very weak, sick female body, but it was what I needed to experience what I (the spirit) needed in order to grow spiritually. It was like taking a college class that you hated (like calculus), but you knew you had to get a passing grade in it in order to graduate. So I reluctantly agreed to take this body that belonged to a family I had never been with before. I also knew that I had been in a previous body that was a huge mean man who abused women and children. I needed to experience what it felt like to be a small, sickly woman. I understood why the body was dyslexic. Now that was a real challenge back in the 1940s-1950s when you were humiliated and punished because you didn't know right from left.

And why I chose nursing, and every time I tried to quit and go into another profession, I was pulled back. Everything was clear. I was going to school far from home and I only had one bag I could take. There were certain required items and one little spot left. I had to choose one thing (like a favorite teddy bear)-I chose my art ability and it was a wise choice. The spirits knew I was just passing through and so did I. Then a bright white light started appearing at the end of the aisle. I wanted to go to it. It got brighter and brighter and I started zinging faster and faster. It and I knew I had agreed to take this body reluctantly and that I hadn't completed my task.

I felt reassured that I wasn't going to be alone and that I would remember much of what I had experienced. It was kind of like a pep talk. An ‘atta boy’ you can do it, we're proud of you. I had prayed so many years to know in my heart that there was something after death, that God and Jesus existed. As a seven year old, the priests and nuns called me ‘doubting Thomas’ because I questioned everything. I just knew what they were saying wasn't right, but I didn't know what was right.

The Light knew how much pain I was in trying to remember. Trying to make sense out of snippets of dreams that other children didn't have. I nearly died from a severe illness at fourteen and had dreams of being out of my body and of being in other bodies with experienced I couldn't explain- and was against my religion.

At six, I saw a small statue of Michelangelo's David with a fig leaf. I became infuriated and didn't know why. I found a tiny bit of bright blue clay in a creek near our house. I carefully dug it out and ran excitedly to my mother. I told her this was the color he needed. He had to have it. But I didn't know who ‘he’ was. I was so frustrated and crying. She finally took the clay and said she'd save it for ‘him’. Sometimes at night-especially when I had a fever (which was frequent), I could hear ‘him’ say, ‘Long slow strokes.’ I could feel this cold smooth stone-like a big thigh. I had to polish it with a rough cloth and fine powder from the pile ‘over there’. I was up high and was afraid of falling, but I was more afraid of ‘him’. As an adult, I saw a picture of the real ‘David’ and knew it was the right one. I am still very attached to this statue. But now I know who ‘he’ was.

The light promised me that I wouldn't have these experiences again and that I would retain my memory when I went back into the body. I knew that as much as I wanted to stay, I had to go back and I did. Suddenly I was back in my body, shivering, cold, in excruciating pain, couldn't see due to the blood in my eyes. The woman placed a dry cloth on my head and wiped my face. They put me in bed and left. My boyfriend passed out.

Around midnight his roommate came home and took me to the hospital. They sutured the laceration on my forehead and sent me home. The nurse in the emergency room knew I had a concussion but the doctor wouldn't listen to her. She told me to be sitting on my doctor's door step when the office opened in the morning. I was. He confirmed the concussion, but when I tried to tell him what happened, he told me to stop or he'd have to have me committed. I didn't mention this to any one for a long time.

It wasn't important to anyone but me. Whether you know the ‘truth’ or not, doesn't change the truth. When everyone ‘knew’ the earth was flat and the sun revolved around the earth. The earth was still round and revolved around the sun. I don't know why I came to your site. I don't know why I'm writing this. I don't question these things anymore. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to write this. I feel better even though I know it may never be read. One interesting point. My beloved husband, my soul mate who died in 1973, wasn't there. I didn't expect him to be there. He's back here, but it's not for me to know where at this point.

Background Information:

Gender: Female

Date NDE Occurred: 1977 approx.

NDE Elements:

At the time of your experience, was there an associated life-threatening event? Yes Accident Clinical death I had to be resuscitated.

How do you consider the content of your experience? Positive

The experience included: Out of body experience

Did you feel separated from your body? Yes

At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness and alertness? Now, this was a very interesting scenario. These two people who were falling down drunk, were acting perfectly sober and were working to keep me alive as well as I've ever seen. This interested me. I watched as my boyfriend was carrying on, but it was like watching a toddler with many diapers flop on the floor and start crying. He's not hurt. He's crying out of frustration. It's a learning experience and he's okay. This is the part that I can explain easily. The next part is difficult as it's not one that can be easily explained in words.

Did time seem to speed up or slow down? Everything seemed to be happening at once; or time stopped or lost all meaning Space and time have no meaning. They're corporal.

Did your hearing differ in any way from normal? I didn't have ears. I didn't hear any music like others said.

Did you pass into or through a tunnel? No

The experience included: Presence of deceased persons

Did you encounter or become aware of any deceased (or alive) beings? Yes I knew them all, but not all in this lifetime.

The experience included: Light

The experience included: Strong emotional tone

The experience included: Special Knowledge

Did you suddenly seem to understand everything? Everything about the universe

The experience included: Life review

Did scenes from the future come to you? Scenes from the world's future It's very frightening and I try not to do it. When my son was sixteen, I saw him in a coffin, but he had a slight smile and I knew he was okay. A week later, he was involved in a severe auto accident where three other kids were not expected to live. He was thrown, ‘lifted’ out of the car on the first of ten rolls and sustained a small abrasion on his neck. A doctor, two police and several paramedics witnessed the accident. They all said it was the strangest thing they ever saw. It was as though someone lifted him up and set him on his feet. My husband (who had died six years before) loved this boy so much, and I know he was responsible for this.

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 I knew I had to come back. There was no question about it. I wasn't happy about it, but there was no other choice.

God, Spiritual and Religion:

What was your religion prior to your experience? Conservative/fundamentalist Catholic to age 28, married Baptist minister at 33, baptized Baptist at 35, but couldn't convince my heart to believe teachings. Prayed frequently to believe in my heart.

Did you have a change in your values and beliefs because of your experience? Yes I don't try to convince people of things as much. I'm more apt to let things go feeling that they'll learn/understand when they're ready. The one thing I'm passionate about is suicide. I get very upset when people are considering this. I get very frustrated because someone /something stops me most of the time. So I have to go down the path of how much the family will miss them. I can feel their pain and it totally exhausts me. Sometimes I feel that if I don't get away from them something bad will happen to me to. I'm having much difficulty explaining this, so I'll stop trying.

After the NDE:

Was the experience difficult to express in words? Yes There are no words to explain to people who haven't experienced it. My doctor told me it was a dream, and if I continued to think about it, he would have to have me committed. So I kept quiet.

Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience? No However, I am more accepting / understanding of what has been happening since childhood. I also have strong feelings that to encourage or seek these experiences is not a positive thing to do. I sometimes feel a pressure on my shoulder and a feeling. It says, ‘don't go there, you don't need it.’

At first, my fellow medical professionals at the hospital would laugh at me when I'd put the crash cart outside a patient's room even though there was no evidence to indicate a problem. Sometimes I didn't even know the patient. I didn't know why I did it. However, before the shift was over, the patient could ‘code’-the crash cart is set up to manage CPR-heart standstill and other fatal emergencies.

One nurse from Jamaica was sure it was voodoo. One doctor explained it as my being sensitive to slight changes in the patient's condition, and encouraged the other nurses to be more observant.

I also understand now why some of my patients said their pain would diminish when I touched them. Sometimes I could feel a warm flow of energy leave my body when I touched them. They would relax. But, if I did this too often, I would become extremely tired. I only use this on my grandchildren now. We had a surgeon who would give us (nurses) a warm soft hug when he came on the floor. He called it a recuperative hug. When he was low on energy, he would take a little from each if us. If we needed energy, he would share his with us. Most people made a joke of this and some even called him a dirty old man. But, I always felt so rested and calm after a hug. He was a big man and I would feel for an instant that I was inside his body. I never felt it was anything sexual. It was a spiritual thing. After over twenty years of doing this, the hospital administration told him his privileges would be revoked if he continued. He stopped and I was very upset. Before I quit working at the hospital for the last time, I told him about this. I remember looking at his face and it was glowing. He just smiled and said, ‘You know.’ I said, ‘Yes.’

He was a military doctor during the war. I don't know what happened to him. I witnessed him save lives and do surgery that no other doctors in our hospital would attempt. I haven't seen him since, but he had a very special spirit.

About ten years ago, a young male student came with three other students to our home to work on a college project with my daughter. I had told my children about my experience a number of years before, but I don't think they believed me-so I let it go. I was drawn to this young man sitting at the table. He looked up at me, and I don't know where we went spiritually. There were no word, just a very warm, knowing feeling, a communication I can't explain. I was brought to the real world by my daughter shaking me. She was very upset and wanted to know what was happening. I told her, ‘He knows’. He said, ‘Yes’. She wanted to know what he knew, so I told her he visited the light. He said he was five or seven, some very young age. I left them to their studies. Later that day, my daughter said that she now believed my ‘story’ as he related a similar experience to her. He had never told anyone before, but he knew as soon as he saw me that I also knew and he felt comfortable telling her.

Are there one or several parts of your experience that are especially meaningful or significant to you? It was all wondrous, comforting. The hard part came afterward.

Have you ever shared this experience with others? Yes

(1) My doctor: he made me stop.

(2) About 2 years after my experience, I was working as an occupational health nurse for a large manufacturing company and my friend gave me a book written by a doctor about his out of body experience during the war. She said she never bought books; she always borrowed them from the library. She didn't know why she bought this one. She read it and it didn't mean much to her. In fact, she had a hard time reading it that she mostly skimmed through it. However, she had a strange feeling that she should give it to me. I read it that night. Even though it didn't match my experience, it made me realize that maybe I wasn't the only one to have an out of body experience. I went to return it to her the next day, and I couldn't find it. I looked all over for two weeks and couldn't find it. Finally, I went to the book store and after much computer searching, the saleswoman located a copy. It arrived two weeks later and I returned it to my friend. When I got home that night, the first book was on the lamp table next to the door. No one had been in the house since I left that morning. Weird. I told my friend what happened. A very religious woman, she felt God did this for a reason. I felt compelled to tell her about my experience. She listened respectfully and advised that if I believed this really happened, then it really happened. God acts in mysterious ways. She also advised that I keep it under my hat or people would think I was nuts. We both agreed that the discussion never took place.

(3)My children after about five years. My daughter now believes me, but admits she doesn't understand. My son listened attentively, made no comment, and we never discussed it again.

(4) 1985 - My grandson's grandfather experienced a heart attack and bypass surgery. We discussed death and if there was an afterlife. I related part of my experience and he listened. He's an engineer and a man of genius intelligence but few words. Two years later, he suffered a cardiac irregularity with no discernible breathing or heartbeat. I called 911 and was unsuccessful getting him out of his lounge chair.

He's a big man and was stuck to the chair due to sweat from having pounded large nails into treated lumber in hundred degree Florida heat. I jumped on top of him and beat the crap out of his chest. Just as the ambulance arrived, his pupils began to react and he started breathing. At the hospital, he told me he was disappointed, as he didn't have any experience. He remembers chest pain, sitting in the chair, then the paramedics working on him. We never discussed it again and I have the feeling he doesn't believe me.

(5) In a college class on World Religions (higher aspects) in 1987, we were discussing the death rituals of Hindus. The deceased is told repeatedly to go to the white light and ignore the colored lights. I don't remember what I said, but the instructor (from India, born into a Hindu family, but educated by Catholic monks) asked me if I had had an out of body experience. I told him ‘yes’, but I don't remember any more discussions with him.

(6)The next semester I was called into my ‘Critical and Creative Thinking’ instructor's office. He said I stood out in the class room, not because I was the oldest student (I wasn't), but because I usually had a glow around me and that I didn’t have that day. He wanted to know what was going on. I was exhausted. A young female classmate was having seizures and her medication wasn't working. Earlier that day she had a seizure in the cafeteria and didn't respond when it was over. We called the ambulance and I gave her all my energy. I was so weak I couldn't make my next class. I told my instructor this and he cautioned me about doing this. He said to only give away what I can spare. We talked for a while about my bodily experiences, and then he asked me about my out of body experience. This surprised me, as I wasn't sure where he was coming from. I felt very uneasy talking to him on one hand, but my mouth kept running very fast- almost out of control. It's as though someone else was using my body. I wasn't talking about my experience, but like a teacher explaining what it's like to be without a body, in a place where time and distance don't exist. I went back to molecular structure, physics, and properties of energy. It was the strangest experience. He listened intently. When I finally finished, and I asked him if he ever had an out of body experience, he responded that he hadn't, but he was reading about it and was very interested. We never referred to this conversation again.

(7) My daughter's classmate.

(8) 1989-1990 One day on break at the hospital with five other nurses, one of the nurses was relating her out of body experience (from twenty years earlier) when she was in her early twenties and went into cardiac arrest in the recovery room following extensive bowel surgery for multiple segments of gangrenous bowel. She remembered me as one of her nurses. She explained how she saw Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and God in a white robe and long white beard and heard beautiful music played on heavenly instruments by angles. There were beautiful smelling flowers that we didn't have on earth, green mountains, clear streams. I listened without comment. Her face glowed as she spoke about her life-changing experience and why she became a nurse. Going up in the elevator, I whispered to her that I had had an out of body experience but it wasn't anything like hers. Jesus wasn't there. The next day she rearranged her lunch period to coincide with mine and asked if I would relate my experience to her. We found a secluded table and I told her. She didn't say anything, but tears flowed and she kept shaking her head ‘Yes’ and patting my hand.

Then she told me that she had the same experience I had and was so thankful to know she wasn't nuts. She related that when she returned to her room after her experience, the priest was there to give her last rites. She tried to tell him what she saw, but he kept interrupting and telling her that Jesus was there to meet her. He came everyday for a month, until her discharge and told her over and over what she saw until she believed what he said. It wasn't until my whispered conversation in the elevator that the memories came flooding back of what she really experienced. She said she was grateful, and we never mentioned it again.

(9) A minister and his assistant knocked on my door about a month ago wanting to talk about my mortal soul. I was busy with my grandson who is teething and going through the terrible twos and blurted out to them, ‘Have either of you died and come back?’ They said ‘no’. I said, ‘If you ever do, come back and we'll discuss our mortal souls.’ They acted like they had seen a ghost and beat it down the driveway. It made my day.

(10) You. That's it.

At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience? Uncertain I tried to reproduce it, but always stopped - feeling it wasn't right. My grandson's father can go on excursions with a golden thread. I tried once and the thread wasn't attached so I stopped and haven't tried again.

Is there anything else that you would like to add about your experience? I think I've said enough. Thanks for the opportunity.

Are there any other questions that we could ask to help you communicate your experience? You've done a very good job. I'm glad it's over. I'm now aware my bum hurts and I'm hungry.