On November 8, 2018, I had a near-death experience, except I wasn't near death and I wasn't actively dying at the time. I was perfectly healthy and that's what made my NDE all the more perplexing.

That night, as I decided to engage in my usual nightly meditation practice, my goal was to try to open my third eye. I had taken a keen interest in meditation and on opening the third eye for the last few months prior to this because for the last several years I had lived as an agnostic and I really wanted to see if meditation would help expose me to something new, perhaps a new experience that could prove to me that there at least was more to life than just concrete, buildings, and a dead-end 9-5 job.

Earlier in my life, when I was a teenager, I had tried organized religion but that ended up not working out for me. Because of my homosexuality, the Pentecostal church that I had joined ended up exacerbating my depression, making it far worse for me. After surviving a suicide attempt when I was 20, I remember coming out of the closet to my pastor while he visited me in the hospital. His reaction to my confession was a bit unexpected. I had anticipated a stern warning from him that had I not turned from my ways I would certainly burn in hell but instead he showed compassion the best way he knew how and told me before leaving my bedside that I could still be gay and follow God in the church but that I would have to abstain from loving another man in a sexual way. In other words, what he was really trying to tell me was that I couldn't be true to myself and continue on in the Christian faith as a gay man if I wanted to be saved and see God in heaven when I died. 

On November 8th, 2018, the minute I closed my eyes and began to focus on the binaural beats I was listening to, I suddenly had this really strange feeling that something very profound was about to happen. I knew this because I suddenly found myself standing in a beautiful green field full of blooming orange flowers and off in the distance I could see a light, a very bright light, which looked like the sun, growing brighter and drawing closer to me.

I knew I wasn't dreaming because I knew I was still lying on my bed and what I was seeing and experiencing were not the typical feelings I experience in a dream. People who are dreaming don't normally know they are dreaming but this was different because I knew where my body was supposed to be (on my bed meditating) but here I was standing in a beautiful field of flowers facing a beautiful light.

Suddenly, I found myself standing in front of a very large tunnel of light. I don't know how I ended up transitioning from the beautiful field to now standing in front of this beautiful large tunnel of light but oddly, I soon realized I had traveled back in time to the morning of 9/11/2001. I knew it was 9/11 because, as I was standing in front of this large tunnel, there were hundreds of people running towards the tunnel and into the tunnel. I don't even know how I knew this but I knew who these people were. They were the people who had died on 9/11. There were firefighters, women, and men, all eagerly running or walking fast towards the tunnel. They weren't sad or scared. They not only knew to go into this tunnel but they were all very eager to do so.

You see, when I was 19 years old, I ended up getting stuck in Seattle on the morning of 9/11. I was flying from my home in Alaska to California but I had to stop in Seattle to make my connecting flight. I was on my way to college and I ended up getting stuck in Seattle for five days as a result of the terrorist attacks. I still don't understand why I was taken back in time to the morning of 9/11 but all I know is that I was experiencing 9/11 from a different angle. This time, I wasn't observing the events being replayed over and over again on every news channel. This time, I was observing the events from the perspective of the victims of 9/11. I wasn't grieving their death or wondering where they were now, I was celebrating their death with them and watching them transition. 

While I was observing this, I suddenly realized that I had three beings of light standing beside me. I had never heard of a being of light until now but somehow I knew that these were beings of light. They were not human at all but they were somewhat shaped like humans. They were geometric in appearance, in the shape of a cross. They had black solid cores and had white light emanating all around them. Though I knew they were not human, I knew they were intelligent living "things". Quite simply, they were beings of light.

Suddenly, I myself was thrust through this large tunnel of light. The tunnel of light was not only made out of beautiful white light, but it was also made out of clouds. When I was thrust through this tunnel of light, I was thrust through it so fast that I was moving faster than the speed of light. As I was flying through this tunnel, I could hear the wind blowing past my ears but oddly the speed of the wind blowing past my ears didn't seem to match the speed I was actually going.

Below me were the most beautiful landscapes. I had never seen such beautiful landscapes as these. There were mountains, valleys, rivers, and just endless beauty. The color was so much richer and brighter than the colors on earth. Again, while this was happening, I was in shock that I was wide awake, not sleeping or dreaming, but actually experiencing something so real but yet so foreign and so out-of-this-world. 

Eventually the tunnel I was flying through went up into space. Soon I found myself being thrust through the universe. I was passing by galaxies at light speeds and I saw so many beautiful clusters of light. Once I passed through the universe, I suddenly ended up in what I can only describe as a room with these light beings but it wasn't really a room. It was as if I just existed with these light beings "somewhere" but that somewhere isn't something I can geographically locate.

I suddenly knew that my time was almost up and that if I wanted to get the most out of this experience, I had a choice to ask the light beings any question that I wanted to ask. This wasn't communicated to me verbally. It was all through thought or knowing. I had always wanted to know what the meaning of life was because all my life I had never sensed that life had any purpose to it. So I asked the beings of light what the meaning of life is and one of them reached out and touched my shoulder. As soon as he touched my shoulder, I suddenly felt my whole body vibrating. It felt as though currents of electricity were being thrust throughout my whole body.

While this was happening, I suddenly understood the meaning of life and understood why everything is the way that it is. Even the things that we as humans perceive as bad in actuality aren't bad. Everything made sense to me and I knew all of the answers. Even the seemingly small things in life, down to the movements of our hands, have profound meaning and purpose. It almost felt like a download of some sort, except while this was happening to me, I understood that I couldn't take this knowledge back with me because I understood that no human being can function on earth while in a state of all-knowingness. Five seconds of this download had passed and after that I suddenly opened my eyes and I was back on my bed again. 

Prior to this experience, I was terrified of dying and I didn't believe in beings of light or in the existence of other dimensions but since this experience happened, I am no longer afraid of dying. In fact, I look forward to dying and I secretly envy those who pass because I know where they are. Although I still have my rough days like anyone else, I have been profoundly changed by this experience and I know that one day I will be reunited with the tunnel of light that leads to a beautiful world beyond the one we are in now.