This was not the first or only related experience I've had; however, this was my first NDE.

When I was much younger, I passed out while getting blood drawn, and I basically thought I went to hell. I was afraid, alone, threatened, confused, lost, terrified, and wasn't sure what "I" meant. I wanted more than anything to just be able to understand what was happening. I was in darker than darkness and utterly terrified, though I didn't know of what, and it didn't matter. When I came to, I was so relieved to understand what I was seeing. I started balling. I told no one about that experience. That was over 10 years ago.

This time, I blacked out after seeing gruesome violence, and it started out with a similar terror and confusion, but to a lesser degree. The confusion was there but after a minute I felt I could master it, or at least could prevent it from getting to me or taking me over. I was in darkness but I was moving, and fast -- beyond fast, lightspeed or even faster. Things were whooshing past and through me. There were things we might call lights in the "air" whoosing past me. It was like going through a tunnel that had no spatial limits. At some point I began to notice I was part of this everythingness that was around me. When I discovered that, I recognized that this was somewhere I had been before--although I had no idea what "I" was, or where "I" could have been, (I use quotes here because identity and spatial placement did not exist). I tried to calm myself down and tell myself this experience (whatever it was) did not have to be bad or scary.

Although I say "I" and "myself" and use time, space or worldly words like "experience," the fact is I was not existing within the confines of those definitions. These are simply the words whose meanings are closest to the concepts I'm attempting to describe. At this juncture, I began to feel/sense/see a glow. It was not coming from any particular direction; I felt it inside of me and outside of me, and the feeling of being the same as everything else swept through me. In some ways it felt like I ceased to exist; I was not, and nothing was. At the same time, I felt like I was everything, everywhere, everytime; I felt infinite and undying; I was and everything was and there was no palpable distinction between "I" and everything else--the universe. 

The same "time" as I was feeling/seeing/sensing this growing glow all around me, I also began to feel/see/sense the entirety of my earthly existence all at once. This was a combination of "visual" and emotional/psychological sensing, whereby I could feel everything I had ever felt, and everyone around me had ever felt, and could sometimes "see" certain events from my life. Although I talk about feeling these experiences from "the past," there was no sense that these experiences were happening/had happened in a separate "time" than right now. It was like I was living my entire life, from beginning to end, including the future, all at once, right now. I also had the sense that this "life" and these life experiences were part of the everythingness around me -- they weren't only "mine," but all. 

As I was growing into my future (I have no idea how else to say it), I "went through" extreme sadness, pain, and chaos, but the glowing feeling began intensifying right after some point where I felt I had "broken through" something. There was no bright light or anything, just a great, loving, beyond-loving, warm, safe, caring feeling that intensified. The black darkness was not as dark or as black, but it was not all white. Nonetheless, I had the sense that I was just beginning to get the opportunity to feel this undying, unending, unconditional love. (Really, it was beyond "unconditional," because the word "unconditional" implies a world where conditions could exist--in this "other" world, it is not possible for there to be limits on love, because love itself is everything that does exist).

Without warning, the glow started to fade--not in terms of its existence or intensity, no, I was still acutely aware that it was there and that I was part of it; however, I felt we were being separated from each other, which was odd because at this point, no such thing as "separation" existed. It was extremely confusing and foreign to me. It got darker and colder and I began moving faster and faster through a tunnel, a very dark tunnel that DID have limits, and I was going very deep into it. (Going "into" something also was very foreign to me by this time). I didn't know what was happening, but I knew I did NOT want to be leaving the universal existence.

Then, down at the "end" of the tunnel I was moving through, I saw a tiny, tiny, itty-bitty little tiny peeking pinhole of physical, earthly light, which is a very distinct kind of light than what I had just been exposed to. It is almost like the distinction between fluorescent light and sunlight, except the difference should be multiplied by orders of orders of magnitude. I was moving toward this little pinhole extremely fast, and at the same time I was getting squeezed and pushed and crammed through this tunnel toward it. I began frantically trying to figure out where this pinhole was, what it was, and why I was going there. Then at some point I realized the pinhole was a point in time--time...time was coming back to me, for Pete's sakes not that horribly confusing, divisive thing time! Wherever I was going I figured out it was back into time and I began trying to fight movement toward it. Then I started to figure out where it was in time--it was back in 2012, ALL the way BACK THEN, in the past! It felt like eons had passed since then, why oh why was I getting sent all the way back there? And then the pinhole got closer, and larger, and the squeezing got harder, and I was fighting as HARD AS I POSSIBLY COULD so that I would NOT GET SHOVED INTO THIS LITTLE TINY HOLE. But as I got closer, my senses all changed. It was like someone was shoving a mask over my head, suffocating most of my senses. (I'm talking about the feeling of hundreds and hundreds of senses getting suffocated, until only five, that are almost purely physical, are the only ones remaining). It was like I got shoved into someone's weird and well-used jacket.

Then I could see, physically. I could see colors and shapes, although I didn't know that's what they were called, "colors" and "shapes." I didn't know red from blue but I could see them. I could see walls and windows, but I didn't know they were walls and windows. My brain was receiving sensory input but it was not able to categorize or relate it to memories. I could see lots and lots of this one particular shape that kept moving and stopping near where I was or near where I was looking, and then I started noticing these things seemed to be able to see me. I also noticed one of these things was looking at me with his eyes. (I didn't know those were "eyes" or that he was a human, let alone a "he.") He was showing me a minute glimmer of the universal love I had just felt moments ago. Yes, it looked a little bit like that true "home" in his eyes. So I latched onto them because I figured, if there is that love there, then I only need to look there, and the rest will fall into place. 

Slowly, things happened, first the red and blue ropes. Yes, those were red and blue and they were ropes. And that was a TV, ah yes, TV. Those were walls and buildings outside the windows, and those were humans looking at me. This was a human body I was in, and human eyes I was looking out of, and this was New York, USA, planet  earth, solar system, Milky Way, physical universe. Then it hit me this is the physical universe--the limited, confining, tiny, time-space-crunched--universe.

Then I remembered I hadn't wanted to come back, and how badly I had tried to keep myself from coming back. I felt lifeless, isolated, separate, alone, disappointed, and confused. I was almost angry at myself for not being able to keep myself from getting shoved back to earth. But, I had no time for these emotions or thoughts. I finished the rest of the day's seminar half brainless, then took the earliest train home, a full day earlier than I'd planned. For the first week or so I felt like I hadn't entirely returned. I felt like I was still "out there," and in many ways I still do. I am having intense after effects. My life will never be the same.