Mark Horton

I had to merely think of a place and time and I was there, experiencing everything about the place and time and people present.

Near Death Experience

 I "died" from total kidney, liver, and respiratory shutdown. Coupled with massive internal bleeding and the associated anemia.

Since I was already in a coma, I have no idea when my NDE actually occurred. From reading my medical chart and other sup- porting information and anecdotal evidence, I presume it was on New Year's Eve, 1992. It was that evening that my kidneys had quit, my liver had ceased functioning, and the doctors had told my parents that they should contact a funeral home since it was doubtful that I would make it through the night and if I did, they would have to put me onto a kidney dialysis machine the next morning; the shock of which would probably kill me anyways. During the evening (from what I've read in the chart) I went into full respiratory arrest and was placed on a ventilator. So there I was, kidneys shut down, liver not functioning, fluid building up, getting pneumonia, and a machine breathing for me. I suspect that's when I "left." I have vague, very vague recollections of looking down on a body in a bed with tubes and machines, but I cannot honestly say that it was mine. I was, well, floating is not an adequate description, more like held up, contained, buoyed, sustained in a warm, dry, medium of some sort, suspended without pressure or any feeling of containment, just there. I felt safe, warm, calm, without pain or fogginess at all, completely aware.

Then the "experience" began.

Suddenly dusk became full, blazing daylight, except with a brightness brighter than normally associated with daylight... everything was bright as I was lifted (without any feeling or pressure) upwards to a high point (I assume, since I was unaware of standing on anything or for that matter aware of any "body" that I had) I was pure intellect, absorbing information and knowledge through "sensors" or means that I have no concept of. From this vantage point, I had to merely think of a place and time and I was there, experiencing everything about the place and time and people present.

I have always, I don't know why, had a very strong "pull" toward Scotland. I have some Scottish ancestry, but no more so than English, Swedish, and Prussian, but I don't know why I have such a strong affinity for the land, its history, its culture, and the music. (No sound in this world can stir the feelings that the sound of bagpipes arise in me!) Well, one of my first "trips" was to Scotland, on a high cliff overlooking a grey, crashing sea during a violent thunderstorm. I was there! I could feel the wind lashing at me and the driving force of the rain while I could see and hear the crashing of the thunder and the sea. All I had done was have the merest fleeting thought of the land and I was there! As I've said, I have no idea why I have such a strong tie to that particular piece of space/time.

I next thought of warm sunshine and I was in a place of bright warm light and comfort. I could discern nothing but a comforting brightness around me (such that "me" was... I still had no "body" that I remember, but had the "feeling" that I was an amorphous, glowing pure intellect... all sensors and no tangible gross physical body to drag me down or contain me. It was a truly wonderful feeling? state? being? Words just don't exist to describe this.) This was very pleasant and comforting and went on for microseconds or billions of years, I have no idea since time just wasn't an operative construct and had no meaning or relevance to existence. I literally had the feeling that I was everywhere in the universe simultaneously.

This brightness ceased and was replaced with a view of the earth rapidly receding "below" me. I was still enveloped in a sense of warmth and comfort, but "moving" backwards at an ever- increasing velocity; the view of the earth almost instantly gave way to an overall view of our solar system which as quickly gave way to a cluster of star systems that apparently was in one of the arms of our galaxy. I was still absorbing all of this on so many different levels beyond merely what we think of as seeing as I raced outward. I could still sense the location of our planet even though at this distance that should have been impossible in the normal space/time continuum. My overall feelings were of comfort, wonder, amazement, belonging, a sense of "rightness", and overlaying it all what I can only call an overwhelming love, although that word is woefully inadequate to describe those feelings.

Still moving (backwards always for some reason) I suddenly just relaxed completely and allowed "myself" to dissolve (?) open up (?) merge (?) into the "oneness" that surrounded me. The explosion of emotion and (again words are almost useless) over- whelming "love" that I now felt made any previous feelings I had experienced even during this episode, however "long" it had/was/is going on, seem like nothing! I cannot possibly put into words that any human language has that feeling. I was everything, I was nothing. I was everywhere, I was nowhere. I was everywhen, I wasn't. My intellect had expanded to contain every thing, time, place, and even being that was, is, or ever would be! I was unique yet I was the tiniest part of the whole. I know this is sounding like gibberish... it even does to me a times when I read it on paper; but to have been it! Words don't exist to describe the joy and love and warmth. It truly is indescribable!

And I was still accelerating outward, absorbing, observing, and becoming more! Entire galaxies became the size of grains of sand. I saw immense galaxies colliding together. I saw "holes" in space that weren't holes at all, but were filled with some- thing I couldn't comprehend even in my "enhanced" state... proto- galaxies perhaps? And there were so many galaxies to see and feel; but still I could sense where our planet was... I say sense because our tiny Milky Way galaxy had vanished; I could "feel" it there, but could no longer "see" it.

And I kept going outward! I began to discern a curvature to the scene before me and realized that the universe was really a large sphere containing all the galaxies. It became more and more apparent as I moved (still backwards) into the "darkspace" beyond the sphere of galaxies. Still, the occasional galaxy whipped by as I continued moving outward. And then I "felt" a large something or presence behind me. I seemed to slow slightly and hesitate and then was through this barrier and looking down at the sphere that contained our universe. It seemed to be at once transparent and slightly opaque as if I were seeing the energy fields that contained it. The image of the electron shell of an atom seems to fit here.

I was still moving outward and could now make out around the shrinking curvature of our universe, other spheres which could only be other universes. These seemed to be arranged in some sort of order, a spherical shell of universes around a core that I could not see. And beyond this shell, another, towards which I was now speeding. The overall impression I'm left with is of something like those little carved "spheres within spheres" of ivory that one used to see in import shops.

I never made it to the next shell. As I was moving outward to the next shell layer of universes, something started pulling at me and I was suddenly racing back forwards, inward toward our universe and then inside it. The other galaxies within our universe were gone and I had one last "sight" of our arm of the Milky Way galaxy and then I was back. Stunned, confused, sad, having a tremendous sense of loss, I guess at the loss of the knowledge and love and "oneness" that I had been.

My NDE was over.

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Personal Near Death Experiences

One most extraordinary aspect of NDE's is that the underlying pattern seems unaffected by a person's culture or belief system, religion, race, education, or any other known variable, although the way in which the NDE is described varies according to the person's background and vocabulary. There is no evidence that the type of experience is related to whether the person is conventionally religious or not, or has lived a "good" or "bad" life according to his/her society's standards (although an NDE often strongly affects how life is lived after the experience).

Quotes

Dr. Raymond Moody--Thanatologist, psychiatrist and author of many books, including the ground-breaking book, Life After Life.

Betty J. Eadie--Near-death returnee, transformational speaker and author of the best-seller Embraced By the Light.

Dannion Brinkley--Near-death returnee, transformational speaker and author of the bestseller Saved By The Light.

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