I left my body before the impact. And when I came back into my body on the tarmac I passed through some interesting places. I saw some little angry fat buddha type creatures - unpleasant! I later found out these are what the Tibetan Buddhist call 'The Bardoes' The realms of the dead. They pray for the dead to help them get through these astral regions and make it to Nirvana. I also knew that an Angel had saved me and could feel the magnitude of LOVE in my heart which I call the love of the Universe, of the Great Spirit. So I felt I was lucky to experience such spiritual gifts. It's really helped me keep going in the dark times, the times when I wanted to end my life because I was in so much pain. Through all that I knew that I had had a chance to die or a second chance to live and encounter this beautiful world.
I also had a repeated experience of being in a place full of huge white pyramids at the same time as being wherever I was. It was like not being sure which was the dream. This strange feeling did subside after 18 months. I quite liked it, it wasn't unpleasant but beautiful.
I feel that these experiences are vitally important to appreciating traumatic injury as they give us such insight and strength. Doctors/neuropsychologists and neuropsychiatrists aren't interested in them for their own sake, that is they don't seem to value NDE's. Rather they look on them as evidence of problems in the person, a weakness that must be eradicated. It might be the most interesting thing that ever happens to a person!
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Arcturuszone
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nope nothing, no memories of before during or for a while after,
but personally, i believe whatever a person sees, is based on their religious or spiritual beliefs and that it is the mind creating visions so that the person experiencing the situation does not have to deal with what is happening, the same goes for when the mind blanks out trauma so as to protect the person from it.
so whilst you find it all very spiritual, others will have their own beliefs to create whatever image/scene the mind needs to create to protect the person involved in the situation. or completely blanks it out, for years i struggled with not knowing, but have no accepted that the accident was so horrific, that i really don't want to remember what happened, and doing so would probably be a trauma in itself
from my perspective i don't see them as evidence of problems, more of the brains self defence mechanism to protect itself or the person.
for the record i am not religious in anyway nor am i spiritual.
While my second partner lay dying, the night before he died I fell asleep holding his hand and had the most amazing dream. I was in a sort of temple with cotton curtains blowing gently in the breeze, There as a little boy playing with other boys, running around being playful. The little boy resembled my partner.
A few weeks after his death his auntie was talking about when he was a child and went to a boarding school for Hindu boys for religious education. His aunt told of how he would run home to see his mother with excitement. His aunt described the place I had seen in my dream with my partner as a child playing in the temple. I do think there is something but what I could not put a name to, what I saw in my dream was a beautiful place.
Hi, thank you for sharing this beautiful and significant dream. How wonderful to have been able to share this with your partner before he died.
In Western and Eastern esoteric teachings we can go to a zone of no time or space and have access to any experience. All experiences are held in the Akasha/The A Field/ The GreatSuperComputer . If we get on the right frequency we can get into that zone/field.
I can understand that, as this was real, but not this time or place I'd ever been to.
I once heard of a term to describe 'surfing' where you come into someone else's thoughts/ dreams/past.
This once happened to me while I was at college, the moment I met the tutor I was linked in some way to their thoughts and past. No I'm not a dirty old man. It was quite frightening knowing so much about someone I'd never even spoken to, and the dreams became more real, telling me about the past of this tutor. All very sad and slightly weird
Wow_ - sounds like you have an ability ! Do you think having had a Brain injury that it has facilitated this kind of thing - what some would call psychic abilities. ?
In the early days of my injury I strongly felt I heard peoples thoughts. It would be corroborated by them then saying something along those lines. I also felt that there true feelings were more obvious through their body language. I had some very powerful past life experiences in therapies and a dream where I think I nearly died of a burst heart.
since the brain injury I feel less in tune with other people, although that is changing.
Yes agree with you on body language that I have become more in tune with since my ABI.
May have said this before on this site, but my little dog has been a life saver for me, keeping me sane telling me when I set light to the kitchen. She has also told me through her body language when she does not like someone or does not want 'us' to stay around.
Sounds like your a bit more in tune than me though
Hi, thanks for your response. I think that there is a a degree to which the mind is working through it's own creations. My sojourn through the bardoes was an example of that. I reason that the Tibetans don't have the total scoop on Life after Death. To my way of thinking these are astral 'thought forms' - one way to describe them. I appreciate your point of view.
No memories during the first operation, cam as a big shock to me when I came round from the anesthetic. But on my second operation I am sure I was semi aware of what was going on during the operation, although I am assured I was not, I do have memories of things happening during the operation
I believe this is quite a regular occurrence! It must have been very strange. Thank you for responding to my question. That our consciousness can move out of our physical bodies does beg a lot of questions which seem to become even more relevant when one is ill and the body is a difficult place to be in.
Well I remember, dying & going too the waiting room, I call it, I saw how my life could of been, if I went with this girl.
I've met THE DUDE, I call him, aka GOD
he took me back to the day I was born, I was in the room & it was a IOU, from THE DUDE, he took the image of his face, from my memory, cos he made us & knew how too..
I've got a CRAZY memory, it starts when I was 3 & a half, the day came back to me a few weeks later, after my VIP party 18/12/07, it was the 27/8/86.
Awesome!!!! Thanks for sharing this ZombieDen. I hope it keeps you going through the difficult times. Have you ever thought of drawing this adventure.?
I can remember things from when I was very young too.
Amazing story! I did have a very funny dream following my stroke.
I was standing outside a 1950s block of council flats. The flats were in a very sad state. Lights flickering, paint peeling and smoke damage everywhere.
I then noticed lots of workmen in brown overalls fixing up and decorating certain flats. It took me a while, but eventually I realised this was my brain they were working on!
They were taking things from burnt out flats and putting them in nice, newly decorated ones.
Once I. Realised this I thought I should make them some tea. After a bit of searching I found a kitchen. I was relieved to find my late mother & gran making them piles of ham sandwiches.
I woke up feeling very comforted that they were all there helping to put my brain back together.
Ha! Great - sounds like you had a bit of 'lucid dreaming' there too when you realised in the dream what it was about. It sounds like your own perceptions could heal you - greater, deeper perceptions of an event, of Life. Thank you.
I had a dream in earlier post injury days that my mum was introducing me/making me aware of God, the light, I replied that I knew.
I do feel I was at a time when I was debating facing the fight, to recover. The dream reflected this.
I have learnt since that the healing of brain injury is an important part of journey.
Yes, I feel it is too. It's so devastating that knowing you have decided to face it is really important and a large part of forming a good attitude and being open to what is possible. That feeling I had of God's Love lifted me and keeps lifting me to sense new possibilities. I had an amazing day yesterday! I couldn't believe how good I felt. I think back to when I had a good 20 minutes and knew that if that was possible then it was possible to extend it somehow!!! That Light is in me, is me.
The 1st one was in a theatre and i was pogoing (used to be a punk) with a blue "bean bag" type male ballet dancer.
Think of the theatre with the projection light with a door next to it at the top of the seating and the chairs (blue) coming down. At the bottom of the chairs was a stage. This is where the dancing took place. It was yellow. (I still remember all the colours and its significant apparantly).
In front of the stage was a green fence. The sort you see in a park.
On the other side of the fence was a river and on the other side of the river where trees.
I tried climbing over the fence but couldnt.
I then found myself trying to swim the river, but, to no avail.
I went to the top of the chairs to the door. It wouldnt open. I tried climbbing up to the projection light but couldnt get to it.
I then gave the ballet dancer a lift up. He got to it and i went to sleep on the chairs.
I have been informed since that the colours represent things.
Blue is death and green is going to another life.
Does this mean i was dancing with death?
The 2nd NDE was in bed in a cave and outside was a fantastic sunny day.
Thats all i know on that one.
Personally i think its all chemical changes in the braiin
Fascinating SpideyMan!!! Maybe you were dancing with Death. What does it feel like to you is the most important thing as that's what we learn from - our own story, our own meaning, our choices. Thank you
I don't know if you'd call it a near death experience but at some point whilst I was unconscious I remember being in a place with very bright light, infact there was nothing but light and it felt very peaceful, but part of me thinks it could have been a light used during the operation and the cocktail of drugs I must have been on.
Hi - depends what you feel the relationship of brain and mind are about! Mind is universal and a field [in my opinion] whereas brain is an interchange of matter, chemicals and electricity!!! The electricity leads on to the electromagnetic field which is Life Force / Chi ..... I sound a tad opinionated. I am sorry. However the fact that you felt at peace seems to me to be very significant. Also that you were unconscious in a medical sense but actually experienced some kind of state is very interesting and makes your experience relevant for consciousness studies and quests!!! Thank you for sharing this AnthonyM
Right, I don't know when it happened, but it must have been when I was unconscious. I have a lasting memory of feeling really peaceful, I recalled this moment over and over for a long while afterwards. I'm not religious and not very spiritual, I'm very left-brained now after my right frontal-lobe injury and I struggle to find meaning in works of art and feeling spiritual, so I haven't got an agenda and there could be a logical explanation, i'm only recounting what happened. How you interpret that, I don't know.
Sounds like you've had quite an adventure, I've just looked at your blog.
It's just good to feel that feeling and recall it - that's what counts I think. Meaning attribution is all well and good and enjoyable but nothing like the clear and direct experience of something truly wonderful.....
Hope you enjoyed my blog - it was quite mental. I'm working on some paintings from the trip. We do talks for groups on it to keep raising a bit of money for Headway.
I damaged my right side too. I have found it helpful to do art and have gone to small informal classes over the past 4 years.I have improved considerably. I draw with my left hand sometimes because I want to let that damaged part 'speak' and express itself - It's very interesting what comes out!!!!! I don't know if it would be of interest to you but Ian McGilchrist [a neurologist ] wrote a book called 'The Master and His Emissary' It's a bit heavy going but the gist of it is all about the right and left brain relationship. I value my right side functioning now even more than before because I nearly lost it. - hell! I could have been dead!!!
It sounds like you've made a good recovery, at least better than me. I've started to play the guitar just to engage my left hand and to get both hemispheres to work at once, I have weakness and spasticity in my left arm/hand and because i'm right-handed anyway it tends to be neglected. I'm finding coordination very hard especially since there's so many positions, but it's a great exercise as I used to be musical long ago. That book sounds like it could be useful and thanks for the suggestion!
Hi Arcturusaone, well i dont know about NDE but after my TBI i did have this one thing happen to me, not at the time of the accident but a few days later, the pain was just getting worse and worse and wehn going to sleep i didnt know if i would wake up or not, one day,or night, i dont remember, i was out of my body and found myself in outerspace i was'nt afraid or worried, i was just there and beside me was a huge angel, dont know if it was male or female but i felt loved and safe. the angel told me to look and as i turned i saw the panet earth in the distance and there were angels all around the world protecting us, the angel told me to go back i would be alright. I still get a warm happy feeling when i remember this.
I have Hydroceflous and the pressure was building up in my brain I had a lumbar puncture in Cheltenham Hospital and it showed a high pressure I was down for elective surgury for a shunt in 6 weeks time and a decision was made to wait till then and i was discharged.
2 days later I called an out of hours doctor because of intense headaches and he could see the discs at the back of my eyes distorted and that is a sign of extreme pressure and he admitted me to Gloucester Hospital. Still they said they would wait for the elective surgury at frenchay. 3 days later at 2pm I was very ill and was told there was an ambulance coming for me to take me to frenchay where they would examine me. As the nurse told me the paramedics turned up put me in the ambulance and with a police escourt took me to frenchay when i asked why the speed they said i was going straight to theatre in frenchay. indeed when i got to frenchay i was so ill the surgeon told me that if he didnt operate on me within 5 minutes I would be dead and i am sure I saw a bright light with dark figures before coming round. and in fact instead of taking a week to recover I was in hospital for 3 months and still I remember that near death experience.
Hello everyone, it is so interesting reading all of your experiences, anything like this I lap up. When my Daughter was still in a coma after suffering a severe hypoxic brain injury, I was at home asleep one early morning. I woke up, sat up in bed, still a bit weary and thinking what day is it today etc as you do, when I heard ' Hiya Mum!!!' Very loud in my head, it wasn't in the room, but in my head. I thought how strange, but shrugged and got on with my day. At the time I didn't know my Daughter had any brain injury at all because it was early days and they hadn't done the scan. I think of this quite often now, because she can't speak, and I wonder if maybe she came to visit me.
One day was at home and had overwhelming feeling of dread, something awful going to happen. Later my son rang and told me he'd been attacked on basketball court. And asked time and it fitted with when I got that fear/dread feeling. Another time tried to heal him (with thoughts), he young and very ill and suddenly saw a blue flash. He got better quickly after = as kids do... but weird.
Hi Arcturuszone, no she doesn't use any aids to communicate, she has very low awareness, she has spoken single words, like Mum, and the other ladies on her ward have said she shouts things out at night in her sleep.
Yes: in op theatre paralysed and unable to breathe I died (or thought I did) and was up on the wall 'where the clock should be' looking down. Don't know where the clock phrase comes from,wondered if somebody in op theatre said something like that = my subconscious memory? Didn't last long, I lost all consciousness (whatever that is) then wow: woke in recovery room, alive, not dead when 'knew' I'd died!
Tried so hard to force my memory try to remember as much as possible later, such hard work (counsellors/psychs like to call this 'avoidance' when wasn't at all) and remembered what the bloke said (a lie and had made me very angry when I'd heard it) when he took the breathing tube out. I passed out/died, couldn't breathe, couldn't save myself and became calm and so very very sad: wrong reason why I'd died.
2nd counsellor asked me in 2nd session if I'd had out of body experience, totally exhausted (from their many stupid awful computer tests, they sounded sad/upset as they when got computer read-out and said 'valid tests' = had they been told I was lying/malingering or something?) and didn't trust her/them (and NHS trying make out me a nutter, imagining my injuries) and said no but said yes coz not concentrating/thinking/too tired (instead of no, to other Q she wouldn't have known to ask unless told to by hospital. Only realised later these 2 things she'd asked and remembered what I'd said but too late, so needed to correct the wrong yes, coz no: I hadn't said to SHO what she'd written, I had said the truth/fact but she thought she knew better than me (an op) even though I thought I'd explained it and she chose to write different op name. All awful, all replays year after year. Terrible,need info and help.
No,no white light, no gods or anything I saw, looking down at me and saw pipe/vent with lines on.
"Rhino' thought read on something but maybe I hear it. Very odd, ties up with Q 2nd counsellors 2nd session. All confused.
The out of body not long, calm by then, huge spike mega fear terror when suffocating but over and although v injured = survived. The years since far far worse, must look at area on graph,that spike v high but v narrow, the rest (continual lies, denials, betrayals) huge area, half as high as spike terror but on and on for years with some massive spikes (high as original) eg when read letter of lies to GP from consultant surgeon and went out to kill myself coz UNBEARABLE. Oh drilling again next door = stop.
On April 1st 1974 (it is not an April Fool's Joke) I was hit by a bus when I was living in Brazil. I was 11 years old. The bus driver drove the bus straight to the hospital where I had a cardiac arrest. I was inside a beautiful and bright garden, I felt an enormous peace and wanted to remain there. A woman figure - couldn't see her because she was so bright - told me that I have to go back, I couldn't stay there. She said it louder (using my mother's voice - and my mother is still alive) I woke up in the Hospital Intensive care with the most horrific headache.
I had a head trauma and remained in the trauma hospital for about a month.
I didn't have a TBI but rather a nonTBI where the brain tissue wasn't damaged and the neural pathways were scrambled instead. The docs believe a virus got into my spinal fluid and hit my brain like an EMP going off next to a supercomputer. Information was lost and signals got scrambled while pain sensitivity was cranked up to the heavens. I didn't experience a coma, but stayed ill for quite a long while afterwards. Some symptoms went away while others still play havoc with my life everyday.
When I first became ill, my brain would seem to stop. It would stop telling my heart to beat or my lungs to draw in air. I would just stop. I could feel my body shutting down and I could not consciously force my autonomic systems to function again. It was terrifying because it was like being paralyzed completely. I know that happened four times in the span of a few days, twice while I was sleeping. It may have happened for shorter durations while I slept and I was unaware of it. When my brain kicked back in, it felt like the Hulk punched me in the chest when my heart would restart. I didn't have any tunnel of light experiences or out of body sensations during those events.
However, when I experienced the intense pain that came from the neurological trauma, I had, and still have occasionally, the most vivid dreams. Colors so saturated that they should be in the Robin Williams' film What Dreams May Come. The sensations are all so intense that my skin feels raw when I wake, smells are too strong, and light and sounds are agonizing. Taste is the only sense unaffected. The dreams are so powerful that they make reality seem fake in comparison, diminishing normal sensations to the palest versions of life imaginable. I long for the dreams as much as I fear them because I only have them when my brain's health is declining dramatically; yet they are so amazing that I hope to have another just to witness something that exquisite again.
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Hard to know I have a brain injury
I'm 42 now, had my brain injury when I was 3 years old. Only accepted my brain injury as a part of me, 3 years ago. 
