I had been experiencing rather severe depression for a few weeks before this incident. Everything that I did seemed to take a large amount of energy.

I was having to force myself to work. Sometimes I would be at work installing cabinets and I would simply sit down on the floor of the empty apartment and despair. The depression was mostly from attempting to quit drinking.  

My near-death-like experience was this:  I was at work installing kitchen cabinets and while fastening two cabinets together the drill bit driver slipped off a screw and I drove it into my right wrist.  Instantaneously I pulled back and blood pumped out of my arm.  I can remember being shocked by the cold metallic feeling of the bit entering my wrist and then after removing it being just as shocked by the amount of blood pulsating out of my arm.  I pulled off my shirt and used that to hold tightly over the puncture.  There seemed to be blood all over the small kitchen that I was in.  All of a sudden I felt this utter sense of euphoria.  I started laughing hysterically, so much so that I knew that I had to get it under control or I might begin to alarm others living nearby.  At the same time I felt an intense sense of needing to be outside.

This euphoria lasted about a week and a half after the accident.  And there were so many other absolutely wonderful aspects of this experience.  In the days after the accident it seemed as if I could do no wrong.  One of the greatest paradoxes of this time was that I had an extremely high energy level (one that I have never experienced before or after this time in my life) and at the same time I was also calmer than I had ever been or have been since.  When I did feel my energy begin to fall during one of these days I would simply sit down by myself somewhere and after just a few minutes I would quite literally feel my energy start to rise.  It was very much as if my body was a thermometer and I could feel and visualize it rise while resting and fall as I was active.  Sometimes I would be resting and I would feel my energy rise so high that it would be astonishing.  It felt as though if I did not get up and do SOMETHING I would just fly away.  I really don't begin to know  how to put words to the feelings of that time in my life.  

One part of this experience that was completely miraculous was how things would work out if I simply let go of day to day problems (of course during this time EVERYTHING was easier).  For example I would be at work installing cabinets and realize that I needed a certain type of fastener or hardware.  If I could not find what I needed right away I would consciously push aside the problem and do the next thing that I COULD do.  Very soon after going on about my business I would invariably find exactly what I needed.   Seeing and feeling or LIVING that type of magic just made my energy keep rising!!!!!

Yet another wonderful aspect of this time was the connectedness I felt with absolutely everything around me.  People, plants, animals, tools, rocks....  Along with this feeling was a sense that everything in the world and universe was exactly as it should be.

This was by far the most wonderful time of my life.  In the seventeen or so years since then I have always felt that my life is only so so.  I keep trying different ways to get back to that feeling. There is a very real magic that is all around us and inside us.