As the mass slowed down, I could hear groaning noises that sounded like noisy pigs. Then I heard crying, which gave the impression of horror rather than sadness. I heard screaming that was far more disturbing than anything I had ever heard before. As the tunnel stopped, I saw Brett lying on the ground, with some god-awful looking half-beast, half-human, torturing him. He seemed to be electrocuting Brett just by touching him. I can’t even describe how awful this thing looked. The closest thing that comes to mind is a bloated possum’s face atop the body of a human. Both Brett and the beast noticed me. Brett screamed, “Help me, please help!” while the beast just looked at me and laughed. It was an incredibly ugly laugh that turned me inside out, though I didn’t have any insides to speak of.
There were other people being tortured and other beasts walking around, but for some reason they hadn’t approached me yet. It was as if I were some type of observer in a show from Hell, literally! But I didn’t have any mental protection and was screaming for someone to help Brett. I saw a couple of the beasts take off Brett’s clothes. His body looked very human, except for the horrible burn marks all over. “Jesus, please, Jesus!” he kept pleading while one beast held him and the other started to sodomize him. Brett just kept looking at me and though he didn't say anything to me, I knew he was wondering why I wasn’t helping him.
“I wish I could,” I told him, just by looking at him. Then, for the first time since I had arrived at this place, I heard nothing come out of Brett’s mouth for what seemed to be a couple of minutes. Both of us knew that something horrifying was coming up, and that anticipation was almost as bad as experiencing the horror that followed. I heard the groaning noise approaching again, slowly fading in. We saw more human figures approach. They were still ravishingly ugly, but not as horrifying at the beasts we'd seen before. But their actions were worse. They picked up Brett and carried him over to the wall, which bore a red image of a cross. They threw him against the wall, right in front of the cross. As he screamed, one of the men spit at him. Brett kept kicking and punching, but was soon clamped in. I could see and hear large nails being pierced into Brett’s body, one by one. I couldn’t see how these savages were putting the nails in (possibly it was by telepathy) and couldn’t see any blood. But I could hear the high pitched, blood-curdling screams.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - O'Malley
Outstanding article. However, I am a skeptic. I believe you experienced everything you thought you did. However, what you experienced was produced by your unconscious mind. You heard of demons, so you saw "Hell." You heard of angels so you saw "Heaven." Sorry to be such a skeptic but I still want to compliment you for a very well written piece.
2 - canadian pie
ok, I am leaving the lights on when I go to sleep. This freaked the hell out of me-very good description-almost too good
3 - Allen
If you are interested in near-death experiences (NDEs), the most credible source is the website of the International Association for Near-Death Studies. In particular, there is an excellent web page that discusses the research into distressing NDEs of the type described in this blog entry.
You also might want to check under the Research tab for published papers outlining new findings from the most current research, particularly the two written by Dr. Peter Fenwick and Dr. Pim Van Lommel. During the past 30 years, NDEs have been the focus of many scientific studies at universities and medical centers throughout the U.S. and around the world. Many medical professionals who have seriously studied the research - and it is extensive - no longer dismiss this phenomenon as hallucinations, intense dreams, or caused by physiological or pharmacological factors.
Finally, there is an audio file available of a session at a 2006 conference that featured several people who had an NDE after they attempted suicide. You can order the file from the following page by scrolling down to the panel on "NDEs and Suicide".
I am a member of the above association because I am interested in the topic. To join is inexpensive, and they keep you up-to-date with the latest NDE research along with e-mails of experiencer accounts every month.
Allen
4 - Baritone
Sorry, I don't buy it. My wife had an "episode" when she nearly died on the operating table a few years ago. I don't recall the details, but she refered to white lights and voices among other things. While she remembers the incident quite clearly, she doesn't believe it had anything to do with "going over the the other side."
When Allen says the studies "no longer dismiss this phenomenon as hallucinations, intense dreams, or caused by physiological or pharmacological factors." the conclusions they are attempting to make is that it involves an after life, heaven, hell, god, the devil, the pearly gates, etc.
It's all nonsense. Our brains are capable of many things we haven't nailed down just yet. But there is ample evidence that strongly suggests that such experiences are in fact owing to the severe trauma of accidents, illness and other such events causing and our mind and bodily reactions to them. There are always those who insist that there are other worldly hands at work here, when there is absolutely not one whit of evidence that there is. There are those who can't accept that science - real science has or likely will come up with the answers to age old questions including what happens after we shuffle off our mortal coils. There is an insistence by many that we have a "purpose" in life, that "things happen for a reason." that there are "no accidents." It's all baloney. The sooner most people accept this, the better our chances for our long term survival on this planet.
Baritone
5 - Sean
Thank you for sharing your story. Sadly, many will dismiss NDEs as a subconcious reaction to trauma. God, heaven and hell exist, and many will be surprised when they die because they didn't pay attention in this 'temporary' world.
6 - troll
Baritone - if the brain takes you on a supernatural death trip in its final moments of life how does that differ from 'actually' meeting St Peter - ?
the wise ones that I've run into suggest the 'good life' as preparation for that instant
7 - Baritone
Sean,
Show us ANY evidence of the existence of god, heaven or hell. Anything! Just one iota of proof beyond your stalwart conviction.
True, our existence here is temporary. But it is a human conceit to believe that we are so special as to be singled out by some imaginary omnipotent entity for an eternal existence, either at his place or beelzebub's hot springs.
Humans who believe in god and an afterlife just can't get over themselves.
B-tone
8 - Baritone
troll,
I'm not sure of your point. What do you mean by "the good life?"
From what I've heard and read about NDEs prior to Allen's tale above, few reports of such experiences involved such horrific scenes. Most that I've heard of involve the ubiquitous "tunnel with a great white light at its end," and voices, often of loved ones and friends, already with their mortal coils shuffled, beckoning them forward, and perhaps ethereal music and tactile sensations - pretty much all of it of a positive nature, inviting, enticing even. Then they say, as Allen does, that something or someone calls or leads them back, and they reluctantly return to this lowly physical world to a vision of several masked individuals peering down on them talking medical stuff, poking and prodding them with who knows what. They usually later arise with the conviction that they now have a mission to complete, a reason that they were brought back.
I quizzed my wife about her experience late last nite. Her situation was different. It didn't happen during surgery, but, rather a couple of days later. Her dream or vision or whatever happened just after her first real conscious moments after her surgery. She had actually tried to get up and leave her room despite all of the multitude of tubes and wires and whatnot attached to her. My son and I with the help of a nurse or nurse's aide quelled her insurrection and got her back into bed and properly reattached to all of her drains and monitors. Then she fell into an apparently deep sleep, and this is when she had her experience. For her, there was no tunnel, just a lot of "white" as she describes it, that she could reach out and touch. She said it looked like clouds or cotton, but had an amazingly soft "feel" to it. There were sounds, probably voices, but she doesn't remember too much about them.
Keep in mind that she was likely still under some influence of the surgical anesthetics and very much under the influence of a morphine drip. That, coupled with the trauma of the surgery itself, and the circumstances she found herself in upon waking up, probably had the effect of sending her off to lala land for a time.
She did say that if that's what death is like, then that's okay. She liked the experience a lot. "If that's death, she says, I can live with that."
As to Allen's experience, there is probably nothing he describes of it that cannot be accounted for as essentially a dream, a highly vivid one, but nevertheless a dream including people, places and prior experiences from his own life. The "otherworldly" aspects of these experiences are, as I see it, nothing more than fanciful wish making. So many people want to believe that there MUST be more, much more to existence than our all too brief pass-through here on this little blue and green planet.
Of course, when you look at the overall of human experience, the vast majority of all humanity have, and are still living lives of depravation and great suffering. It's no wonder that such people desparately grasp onto the hope of something much better beyond.
But now, even people who have lived reasonably prosperous and enlightened lives, comfortably ensconsed in vinyl suburban boxes continue to believe there must be more; that their lives of relative ease still are not enough. Now that's just being greedy.
B-tone
9 - cog
B-tone,
"Humans who believe in god and an afterlife" get over themselves every day. Most especially when they feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, comfort the sick, and visit those in prison in the name of the God they believe in.
As for the proof of the existence of God, try reading Aquinas. Another suggestion is to go to a quiet beautiful place in nature that you enjoy and in wonder at the beauty of nature just ask. If there is a creator, let me know you. Then open your heart. If there is no God, you have nothing to lose and nothing to fear. If there is a God, you have so much to gain in this life and in the next.
Peace
10 - Baritone
Cog,
By what you say, do you believe that those who don't embrace god DON'T do those things? Do you imagine that we are loveless, without conscience, without a giving nature?
In fact many non-beleivers involve themselves in much if not all of those kinds of efforts for their fellow man, and it doesn't come mired in all the religious gobbledegook.
Aquinas provides NO proof. I can and do marvel in nature - I am an avid gardener. We, too, are part of the wonders of nature. But that "wonder" does not lead me to god. Science, including evolution, has many "wonders" to impart. This vast universe has much to offer, and we have yet a great deal to learn about it. But given what we DO know, a god is now no better than a remote and unlikely answer to our as yet unanswered questions.
B-tone
11 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Selwyn,
In February 2006, I wrote a piece on a similar topic to this, albeit from a far less personal point of view.
From the point of view of what you saw, I would say it proves the thesis propounded by Benedict Spinoza centuries ago on the nature of miracles and vision - that G-d gives you see what you see so that you can understand it. I gather that you are a Christian, so what you saw was structured in a way that you would be able to comprehend it, as a Christian. And what you saw was real, not fake, as Baritone would have you believe.
If the brain were merely putting on an endocrine "light show" to help it deal with trauma as the body dies, everybody who is reported dead on the operating table who comes back would report a "near death experience". Apparently, this is not the case. Less than twenty percent of such folks do.
The vast majority of near death experiences are of the white light variety - but not all are, and evidently yours was not. With your permission, I will forward this article to Dr. Gerald Schroeder, who was the lecturer reported on at the link above.
A very interesting read.
Thanks.
Shavua Tov - Have a Good Week
12 - Ray Ellis
Why does this article prompt an advisory from McAfee that it wants to run an add on:"Viewpoint Media Player for II from "Viewpoint Corporation" (unverified publisher)?
13 - daryl d
Ray, sorry you didn't like this. [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
14 - Ray Ellis
I said nothing about the article. I asked a question.
[Deleted]
15 - DD
Baritone,
For those who WANT to believe, no proof is necessary,
For those who DON'T WANT to believe, no proof wil ever be enough.
Tell me, why would someone imagine such a horrifying experience, and what happened to Brett? Why would they imagine that someone who ad died was being tortured while they were pulled out of torture by someone they were nice too?
16 - Baritone
DD,
I didn't say Daryl was imagining his vision, I said that, in effect, he was dreaming it. Why is that so hard to comprehend? Dreams take all kinds of leaps and bounds, but almost always through our personal experiences. Virtually everything he recounted from the dream, or whatever you choose to call it, were things from his life experience. While he made no specific reference, the "monsters" could have been and probably were a manifestation from perhaps some film or TV show he had seen, or an image from a comic book or whatever. Often dreams find things hidden in the folds of our brains that we perhaps hadn't thought about in years.
Yes, you are correct, if a person "wants" to believe in something he or she can find a path, usually through a series of rationalizations, to enabling them to do just that. Little ones believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny with little difficulty. They have little or no frame of reference that would disavow their acceptance of those myths. As we get older, such beliefs become more problematic. We are assailed by conflicting evidence which tends to litter our paths as it were. So to continue to accept a belief in Santa, or, more to the point, a belief in god, believers must do as is requested when viewing a play or a movie - adopt a willingness to believe what you're seeing and hearing as true during the span of the performance - a suspension of disbelief.
In the case of god, though, the "performance" lasts forever. So it is necessary to keep one's eyes, or more accurately, one's mind cut off from consideration of the possiblity of other realities. Not to do so would be tantamount to apostacy, or perhaps even blasphemy - god forbid!
You also seem to assume that atheists have made no consideration regarding the existence of god.
The fact is most of us grew up in religious households. Obviously, some more intensely so than others. Many avowed atheists have been as devout believers as they have become non-believers. Atheists and many agnostics have opted for a more rational response to their origins and existence than any religious tradition, or acceptance of any god's existence.
In other words, we didn't just fall off of the turkey truck.
As usual Ruvy, you simply condescend to and dismiss anyone who disagrees with you as having no credibility. Non-believers are persona non grata in your estimation. I guess when you've allowed yourself to be duped as long and as completely as you have, you've got to build up those walls of denial to rationalize all the wasted life.
Ruvy. THERE IS NO -O-! No amount of wishful thinking or tons of liturgical writings from your or any other tradition will change that. It's all intricately devised and grandly presented baloney.
B-tone
17 - SCK
Those who believe in God have a 50% chance of being right.
Those who don't belive in God have a 50% chance of being right.
50/50 either way.
So if - let's say, there is no God, and you live a good, charitable life and pray, and at the end - nothing - then no harm, no foul...
And if you live an evil, selfish life, and there is no God, again - no harm, no foul...
BUT...
If it turns out there IS a God... and every good and bad thing you do in this life is taken into full account before Him in the next one...
It's impossible to be dumber than an atheist who refuses to consider the odds... absolutely impossible.
18 - Ray Ellis
Ahhh-- there's the rub. Which version of God do we believe in? Is he gonna get all pissy when we live our seventy-some-odd years and sentence us to eternal damnation if we chose the wrong doctrine?
Better hedge your bets, and recognize all tenets have truths--and lies. They can't all be right, can they?
As far as near death experiences, this one reeks of one of those "Sun" tabloid filler pieces.
19 - troll
hmmm...ah yes the odds
Those who believe in God have a 50% chance of being right.
Those who don't belive in God have a 50% chance of being wrong
now not believing and being wrong equals believing and being right as far as God's existence goes
so if we add the equivalent probabilities we get the result that there is a 100% chance that belief in God is right
20 - troll
"I can tell the queen of diamonds by the way she shines"
21 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Baritone,
I haven't commented on the existence of G-d. I cannot prove such existence, so I do not try. I believe, and believe firmly, in such existence - but I cannot prove that belief, anymore than a cell on the edge of fingernail can prove the existence of the arm that the hand the fingernail is attached to exists.
You, my good man, are the one making assertions as though they are so many axioms in a geometry textbook.
Ahhh-- there's the rub. Which version of God do we believe in? Is he gonna get all pissy when we live our seventy-some-odd years and sentence us to eternal damnation if we chose the wrong doctrine?
Ray, that is why I cited the doctrines of Benedict Spinoza, a Jew who was excommunicated by the Dutch Jewish community because they were scared of an independent thinker.
I have the feeling that Daryl's late friend was an asshole - but a friend to Daryl. And I suspect that it is the fundamentals of behavior that we are judged on by the Almighty, not on the errors of what we are taught by organized religions.
So, if I cheat on my wife, I'm in a lot more trouble than if I get which messiah is going to show up wrong....
And I apologize, Daryl, for confusing you with Selwyn Duke....
22 - Ray Ellis
"And I suspect that it is the fundamentals of behavior that we are judged on by the Almighty, not on the errors of what we are taught by organized religions."
Once again, we're sympatico, Ruvy.
23 - Anne
What SCK describes is Pascal's wager; very valid, we learned about it in philosophy classes.
24 - Kimberly
Truely, when it comes down to it, each of us will have an out of body experience. Whether it's decided we come back to share it or that it will be eternal, we will have an out of body experience. To call this non-sense is ignorant. Each of us is as different as the stars in the sky so it's rather very interesting that each person has a different experience. This is this person's experience and no one however educated or religious can take this away from him. Live and learn and be respective of others in each and every way.
25 - Baritone
The fact that most of you accept the existence of god solely on faith - with no evidence whatsoever of such existence, you all take as a badge of honor. Yet anyone who accepts virtually anything else simply on faith is often taken for a fool. I don't believe blind faith in the existence of any god is a virture.
The Greeks and Romans took belief in their several gods just as seriously as you all do your one god. Now their whole system of belief is looked upon with bemusement. One can only hope that with time - probably a lot of it - the majority of people will have set aside their superstitions in acceptance of a rational world and look upon the few who remain clinging to phantoms with a slightly sad, but good natured shake of the head.
Kimberly - my position is far from ignorant. I've no doubt that all of these NDEs are unique to each individual just as virtually all dreams are. That lends no credence to them having anything at all to do with god or an afterlife or anything else otherworldly. They are nothing more than vivid dreams, a defence mechanism of the brain that most of us possess for traumatic situations. Why make more of it than it actually is?
B-tone