“Snails and Swiss Chocolate: An Account of My NDE”

AngelicView: This brilliantly-written NDE story comes to us from a member of our NDE and OBE Facebook Discussion Group and while everything written there is confidential, the author was happy to share her experience with the rest of us. 

Sometimes an experiencer might feel frustrated when reading NDE account after account where the person saw things such as Crystal Cities, deceased family members, magical Libraries, or any “thing” else, because many experiences contain, well – no “things”. And they go no “where”. Those experiences cannot be expressed in human terms in much of any “way”. But I think that sometimes these types of experiences actually go deeper and transcend all “things”. Thanks so much to Elle, for “effing” the “ineffable”. 

Q: How do you describe Swiss dark chocolate to a snail?

A: The same way you explain the internet to a caveman whose vocab consists of 4 words: hunt, mate, shit, eat.

That is how implausible the task of describing a Near Death Experience feels.

This is my first time writing and sharing my NDE. I hope that it will encourage someone.
(if you want to skip to the actual experience, scroll down halfway till you start seeing numbers)

Ever since the experience the events that happened in my life can be described as less than simple or happy.

Life has become narrower but deeper. Less friends, less noise.

I’ve become a different person. More introverted, lots of thoughts I keep to myself. Enjoying the company of being alone with my many thoughts than sharing them with people who do not understand.

I constantly crave peace and quiet. I cannot deal with large crowds or noise. Less friends, less topics I am interested in. My personality itself has become less charismatic because I care less what others think.

Not valuing the things I used to. Incapable of forcing myself to do things that seem pointless or have no real value. Anything that does not strike well with my inner code I cannot make myself do, and vice versa. If there is something that society says I should do, but I see no real value in it, I cannot force myself to do. Social norms have become strange to me.

I used to be someone who was always pursuing something and never just still. Now I physically choose to not move. Not only do I rarely go out, but I find solace in being indoors. Where there used to be an insatiable hunger to explore the world and see more. Constantly traveling and introducing myself to everyone, there is now in its place an insatiable hunger to find more peace within myself. I just want to get to know myself more.

And this incredible need for solace. Constantly looking for more and more peace. Meditation, yoga, books, nature… my life revolves around these things. I have always been a book worm, but now I literally haunt the “self-help” section of every Barnes and Noble in my vicinity.

I devour every book that I think will draw me closer to that place of complete comfortability within this body. I listen and absorb like a sponge the words of writers who share their stories of lifestyles centered on wholeness and joy. As I feel like a stranger in a new home. I am trying to make myself comfortable here, in this new habitat and in this body. I am drinking and eating Peace and Tranquility like I can’t get enough, because that is all I am hungry for since this NDE.

Like most of us who’ve experienced an NDE or something similar, nothing compares to that resounding euphoria that accompanies it. You carry over a little bit of it back into your life here but what you really want is the whole thing ALL the time and are constantly longing for it. It is so hard to bridge that gap between that experience and the “today” that is looking you in the face.

In writing these things out I hope someone, anyone can be a little bit encouraged. Somehow the contrast of there being an amazing world out there beyond this life, yet the reality of living day by day where there are struggles and problems to overcome is incredibly hard to take.
It feels like snorkeling. The moment when you see both the water underneath and the sky above through your goggles. They are completely different elements and worlds. Seemingly unattached to each other but that clear blue and white line that divides water from air.

I am trying everyday to bridge that connection and I have no idea how.

Like a man lost in the desert with his car parked on the side of the dirt road, frantically waving his cell phone in the air as he paces back and forth by the car trying to reach a signal.

Everyday I frantically reach out to the universe.
Please help me find sustainable peace.
Please help me figure my life out.
Where am I going? Can I get there sooner?

My near death experience solidified a knowing inside of myself of there being further and deeper to explore than mere geography, space, knowledge and the Human psyche. Although I don’t believe this experience can be separated from the human psyche itself,

I believe everyone has the potential to have this experience. Whether by accident or on purpose. The resources of euphoria and content that is associated with these experiences and instant knowledge of ones safety and perfection in this seemingly imperfect place is for all of us. And I believe it is free.

After my experience I explored the websites online about NDE’s and read over 300 cases and stories that people posted. From what I have read I’ve concluded that other NDE experiencers have received a lot more knowledge and detailed vision in their experiences than I have. Mine is more like a concept that has been fixed into my being as of the incident. I don’t have any visual or auditory contact with the experience. It felt like something far greater than me that resides in this body experienced it all and then was sent to live in this body for a time being.

The higher intelligence of the being that is in me knows exactly what happened, but this body that is housing the being cannot comprehend that amount of awareness or process such advanced information.
So I am trying to share and process this information through words.

And the whole experience can be summed up in one word:

BLISS – supreme happiness, utter joy and contentment.

That was the entirety of the experience.

Think of the best moments in your life, or the greatest surge of triumph you’ve ever had. Multiply that feeling exponentially.

Whenever I mention Bliss, picture those best moments and heighten the delight you felt to the maximum degree you can imagine. Like a halogen lamp that just keeps turning brighter.

Parts of what I’m sharing sound like stereotypical NDE points but others do not.

1. Firstly, there is no story to my story. Only a concept, a happening that is etched into my brain. Stories have a beginning middle and an end. Mine kind of has a beginning and an almost end.

2. I cannot picture what happened like a regular memory. For instance if I were to share with you my first encounter riding an airplane, a short video clip would pop up in my mind. Because in order to have pictures or a movie replay in your head, you had to have seen or absorbed something with your 5 senses. But there was no body, I did not have eyes or hands or feet. It was beyond touch taste see hear feel.

3. There were no angels nor familiar deceased people. No tunnels, no buildings, no panel of elders. There was nothing similar or recognizable to this world that I can compare to. What I experienced was completely outside of this world or other worlds.

I could continue to list all the things I don’t know or didn’t see, because to describe what I did experience is far more difficult. So let me introduce myself.

My name is Elle.

Three years ago I was put under anesthesia for a minor surgery and awoke after two hours. By all appearances I looked like the same person. Except this, and this is all I remember:

1. Time is a thing that belongs here. I was abiding in eternities by stepping outside of it.

2. When I returned I was dropped back into time.

3. Lives and worlds are numerous beyond measure. Each one is different and unique. Worlds are not linear nor similar like clones of each other or clusters of grapes. Neither are they one within another like a Matryoshka doll. Individual worlds are different, completely.

4. This world or universe was one of the least appealing and underdeveloped ones. It seemed much lower on the rung of desirable or well evolved lives to live.

5. Bliss. Infinite.

6. I remember being surrounded. Not by people or any type of figures. Nothing of form or anything visible. Zero Physicality. They just were and I knew them. I will call them beings.

7. We lived timelessly seamlessly and delightedly, basking in one another’s presence. Presence itself was Bliss. That seemed to be the whole point.

8. Intimate and solid connection was shared by all. Unmarred, unstripped un-diluted. A vivid positivity joyousness and jubilation encompassed everything. Brilliantly staining and covering all things.

9. One of the beings whom I truly knew well showed me something. It looked like a cascade of multidimensional tiles picturing all the different lives I’ve lived or was living in innumerable worlds.

10. The being communicated to me the equivalent of, “Lets take a look at this” and I was interested to see which worlds he would point out. It was this one. And amongst this world specifically this body and this life.

11. I remember being seriously displeased by what he showed me. This universe seemed so insignificant, dreary and backwards. Similar to if someone replaced your new smart phone with the first cellphone ever made. A tank with an antenna.

And to describe what it was like to be introduced into this body. One word: Ugh. I remember not wanting to. As someone with OCD would apprehend doorknobs. The human body was hairy, primitive, dark, oily… so fleshy and digressive. A devolved creature… biological, inefficient and on the very lower end of beings. What was the point of something so archaic?

To go deeper into the concept of time this is how I returned to the body.

1. As I was brought back into this world and this life I caught a glimpse of time and evolution. It seemed like an even blue stream of light flowing one way. Like a continual linear current of still frames.

2. Similar to a fish put up river at the waters start so it could flow down stream, I was dropped off at close to the beginning point of when this body was first conceived.

3. The point at which I was dropped into the body seemed to be the very beginning stage of its linear life. I thought it was at its infancy. Hatchling was the word that came to mind. A newborn chic. As I awoke I was perplexed to find I was entering the body of an adult in their late twenties, not a newborn baby.

4. I remember being surprised not only at the age and the low quality of the tenement I was entering but at what breed it was: Asian female short dark with long hair. Especially the part about being Asian and female surprised me. I must have thought I would be in something far different. Something much bigger brighter and stronger.

Like a Giant star squeezed into the dot at the end of this sentence. Not only was there the contrast in size but also the divergence of star material to flimsy shell.

The whole experience was Real. More Real than this life and the act of living. More resplendent and solid and illuminating than anything I’ve seen or heard about in movies or in books. Better than fantasies or my deepest imagination. Everything else before or since then pales in comparison.