I am so pleased to see mainstream academics currently concentrating on NDEs and OOBEs a bit. At age 75, I've spent a lifetime having

these experiences, some verified by others, and learning over and over not to discuss them because one's friends, relatives, and medical doctors think such a disclosure is a) dotty, b) attention-seeking or c) simply irreligious and misguided.

My most active period was roughly between ages five and fifty. I can tell any number of stories, but I wanted to make one point to someone who is interested in the research. It is this: When a person is "out" in a NDE or an OOBE, they may be interpreting what they experience in human, physical and cultural terms. For example, I've encountered a boundary structure or entity several times...a limit that I knew I wasn't allowed to cross. These were mostly included in visits to family members that had died. (I went purposefully to make sure they got there.) That boundary has appeared as an ornamental stone balustrade in front of a familiar college building with my aunt on the other side, a four-lane street from my childhood filled with traffic that separated me from my grandmother, and an "angel" straight out of Botticelli that kept me from visiting my father very soon after he died. The last was rather startling and I looked at (him?) floating above the floor with his gold ringlets, white draperies, and upraised arm and I thought, "Where is your flaming sword? You've got to be pulling my chain." As I thought that, he changed into an ordinary-looking human man in contemporary clothing who (said?) "You can't see him yet, he's still resting/sleeping." I did get to see my father seven years later.

I'm nearly certain that the balustrade, busy street, et cetera were not at all what they appeared to be but that I had no mental furniture to help interpret them correctly. Also, in OOBE experiences that stayed local, I have misinterpreted simple objects as something they resembled and discovered the error when I physically went to check later. One example: While "out", I thought I saw a pair of green rubber swim fins near the doorway of a neighbor's outbuilding. Upon checking, the "fins" turned out to be a very sturdy example of a weed called Englishman's Foot...with broad, green leaves spread out on the ground.