Not every human who goes through a Near Death Experience (NDE) shares details of their transformation in connecting with spirit, but many people do. A multitude of accounts exist of those rare folks who “live again” after venturing into a different reality, and by our conventional understanding, have died. Unquestionably, there is a personal nature with individualize aspects to each NDE. Still, researchers have been able to submit questions to experiencers about these unique events and statistically discern qualities common to almost all NDEs.
Publishing their data has led to many academic generalizations about the nature of the NDE process while also providing a set of identifiers, a protocol, useful for categorizing information from a diversity of NDEs. Thanks to the dogged research by devoted professionals, knowledge gleamed from many years of anecdotal accounts has blessed humanity. The mainstream acknowledgement of the phenomenon has led to an understanding and, for many, validation of the non-physical “reality” of the afterlife. Finally, we can clearly declare in an NDE that there’s something significant going on and well worth more than just casual consideration. The International Association for Near Death Studies, Inc (IANDS) and its regional organizations are one of the many valuable online and in person resources of information available on this subject. Please seek them out.
MY NDE
It was in February or March of 1990 that I experienced what I now know as an NDE (astrologically, the event corresponded close to an almost exact alignment with my first Saturn return at 25º Capricorn, a MAJOR synchronicity I didn’t discover until almost 25 years later). At the time, I was living alone in Portsmouth, Virginia and was deeply engaged in my work as a professional civilian nuclear engineer for the US Navy in the DOD (Department of Defense). The demands of the job tacitly forced me into routine overtime work. Many weekdays, I found myself waking up before 5AM and not getting home again until after 7PM. One evening, following a particularly challenging day of overtime work, I made it home, closed the door, and felt so tired I immediately thought, I must take a nap before doing anything else. Stretching out on my comfy couch, almost immediately I fell into a deep asleep. What happened that evening during my sleeping state was nothing less than fantastic. I had no inkling of what was to transpire.
Asleep and in a dreaming state, I looked up slightly above and ahead of me at a bright white light that was opening up, like a porthole on a ship widening, approaching. There was a figure silhouetted in the light, partially blocking it, who was looking at me and moving toward me. This entire scene occurring before me represented no parallel to anything I could recall having experienced before in a dream. All the while, there was no fear or concern for my safety and I had no instinctive negative emotional reaction to the unfolding events. Intellectually, my limited understanding of the events that took place could only be categorized by me as a “dream”. Later, iI realized I was experiencing an NDE.
Oddly, I realized that I was in a dream state while still being consciously aware of what was going on. My waking consciousness seemed to remain active with my thoughts present and vivid. Physically, my eyes were closed and I was asleep, but I was “awake” and aware in the dream space. Today, we might call this an out-of-body or lucid dreaming experience, although at the time, I would have had almost no idea of what those terms or concepts were entirely about.
As the figure moved closer to me, I perceived something between us like a rail on a ship, sort of a barrier or divider, between me and this “person” I was seeing. Behind this being I saw something that seemed like movement down a hallway, human figures walking left and right, but their identity was completely indiscernible. There was a brilliant blown out white light that was making it impossible for me to determine who was passing by. The figure had stepped out of this background of traffic, approached me, and suddenly I realized clearly who it was; my father.
Dad had passed very unexpectedly from this world on February 11, 1989 at the age of 70, about a year before my NDE. His death occurred very close to a transiting Saturn crossing my natal ascendant, another significant astrological pattern it took me some 25 years to recognize. The news of his loss, so carelessly conveyed to me by my mother, still echoed in my memory. Dad and I were never close, but we still seemed to share a certain psychic link which would manifest unexpectedly in our lives. Maybe he wasn’t aware of this as he never said anything about it, but I recognized the significance of our psychic connections whenever they happened. Now, appearing to me in this NDE, Dad’s psychic signature was fully linked to me and we communicated telepathically. No words were spoken between us in this NDE, which I now see was significantly expanded from our our father-son life experience.
What did he say? Sadly, I don’t recall it clearly, but I do know that our communication was extensive, it continued for a while. As he stood silently in front of me, his thoughts continued to download into my consciousness, the interaction remaining much like a rapid conversation you can’t recall. Then, Dad began taking slow, small steps back from the rail that separated him from me, and he began to fade from my vision. In this transition, Dad faded and I felt movement, like being swept away in a current, yet I knew that physical analogy was not really accurate because it was a far subtler and gentle experience. I was dissolving away, my physical being was beginning to spread out, my form was dissipating from the pattern I had known in 3D life. There was absolutely no pain in this process. It felt warm and wonderful.
Gradually, I could sense myself expanding outwardly, all my molecules, atoms, every sub atomic particle that made up my physical being, was diffusing into the universe. My understanding of time became compressed (or expanded) and what I had understood as the past, present and future all merged into the same thing. I looked a what I had known as a linear life, moving always from A, to B, to C, etc., only to observe it melting into a single awareness of time seen from a grander, cosmic scale. It became so profoundly clear to me that my conscious human perspective was exceptionally limited. Actually, there was really no time at all, or at least I could not apply ANY of my 3D concepts of time. What was happening?
In this transformation process, there was no anxiety or vibrations of worry. Peace, contentment, and oneness of self were replacing what I had known in physical form. Now, losing my body and connecting with a larger reality, I could see simultaneously everything that ever happened to humans on Earth. In the infinity of time, backward and forward, it was all the same. All the good events had the exact same “value” as all the bad stuff that ever happened. The the joyful happy moments, every birthday celebration, a warm embrace, was exactly the same as every moment of sorrow, war, or hardship. Physically, each grain of sand in the Sahara Desert was intimately connected to every speck of dirt on the bottom of my shoe. Absolute unity experience.
You might think gaining this kind of perspective was unnerving as it flat-lined much of our waking knowledge, but my emotional responses were buffered out. More than ever before I felt the truth of who we really are and our place in reality. There was serenity in my oneness of existence, yet I also knew this information shown to me in my NDE had always been a part of me my whole life. This was the truth behind everything I thought I knew. Everything is connected in one grand cosmic mass, and it has and always will be that way.
I was shocked that my waking cognitive ability was still engaged. I hoped to at least to retain some memory of the experience. Still, some how I knew I would not forget the profound implications of awareness. Where would I go from here? My dissolution continued and I could “feel myself” being all the individual subatomic particles in existence simultaneously. Every point in the universe, in every possible, conceivable direction absolute oneness was me and I was it; left, right, up, down, inside, out, big, small, forward and backward in time, accross every conceivable realm of infinity.
There’s a little more to my journey’s description. Having reached what could only be considered the very end of possible expansion into EVERYTHING, it felt a kind of steady-state coming over me. A profound sense of wholeness blanketed my awareness, yet I retained no need or desire for stimulation. To the best of my understanding, this was at least how I was able to interpret my state of consciousness (over 30 years ago!).
I never thought of the NDE as a “bad thing” as I was filled with a knowing that completely replaced the duality we are always subject to as Earth humans. There was no consideration of wet/dry, warm/cold, big/small, good/bad, strong/weak, malevolent/benevolent, etc. As I was settling into my new consciousness in this “final stage” of my journey, I began to slowly wake up.
Gradually, my eyes opened and I looked out ahead of me from my reclined position on the couch. Waking from that “dream” experience, I knew immediately I had unmistakably gone through what was called an NDE, but I was still ALIVE, awake, feeling good and gaining back my conscious self-awareness. Laying there quietly, reflecting on what had just happened, I could not say a word. Then, I began thinking about the experience I had just undergone. I remember I said aloud, like someone was in the room to hear it, “If that’s what death is like, why would anyone ever fear it?” I realized I had been living my WHOLE LIFE on one side of a wall, and now I was finally able to see what was on the other side.
Getting up from the couch, I began to return to my “ordinary life” and conventional 3D activities. Oh well, I was only 28 and have to forgive myself for this shortcoming. It took me many months, almost a year, for the NDE experience to sink in and catalyze the transformation of my life. Almost a year later, the results were manifesting.
By early 1991, I had lost 50 lbs., was working out regularly and in tremendous physical condition, quit my job as a nuclear engineer (THANK GOD), came out as a gay man, moved from Virginia, and began a new life. There’s a lot more details to my “after the NDE” transformation story, some of it REALLY amazing, but those were the highlights. Incidentally, astrology clearly indicates the role my first Saturn return played in this process of life change, tuning up my soul connection and contributing to the NDE. After this event, I simply could no longer do the things I had done before.
Our lives are way more than we’ve been taught. Your own personal experiences in life are always intimately linked to others. We are all the same underneath and connected. Learning from the NDEs of others can teach us significant lessons, expanding our understanding of reality and knowledge of who we really are. Certainly, an NDE is not in everyone’s life deck, but I encourage you to explore this subject and gain a better understanding of its implications. Astrology should be considered a valuable tool to apply in this exploration. Expand your reality by challenging all BS (Belief Systems)!
My name is Dan Brock and I’m here to help you. If you are looking for answers to questions, please seek me out. I’ll help you in any way I can to get the solutions you seek.
