I was riding my bicycle home with friends when I flipped over the handlebars and landed on my head. (I do not remember the incident or what I was doing immediately prior. I think we were playing in the schoolyard, about 1/4 mile from my home.) A neighbor picked me up and carried me home-less than 10 houses away. (The neighbor did not know me. The other kids told him where I lived. Talk about the kindness of strangers!) I remember a brief snipet of being in the back seat of my parents car and saying I could not see anything-everything was dark. No memory of going to/being in hospital. From my parents-the doctors told them I was unlikely to survive, and if I did I would probably be severely brain damaged. I remember next OBE in the OR. I was above my body and could see the doctors and OR staff working on me. No tunnel that I remember. A very bright white light appeared. Communication was telepathic. Told me not to be afraid, to come closer, explained I was no longer in my body, but had a different form now and that we communicated telepathically (although they used words an 11 year old would understand). There was life review, seen in a film strip form. It went backwards and forwards. The light (Guide?) pointed out where I could have been nicer, or done something better. I was asked if I understood what was happening and did I want to go with the light. I must have hesitated because then I was told I was not ready and would have to go back. I was told I would not remember some of the things they had shown me and that I should go back and do something to help other people. Re-entry was like being sucked into a vacumn. I regained consciousness a week and a half later, in a small private hospital room. The doctors said it was a miracle I survive pretty much intact. Medical residual-I had abnormal EEGS for months afterwards. I finally refused to have anymore EEGS because they hurt! This was back when they used needles inserted into the skin to do the test, not like the electrodes they use now.And an insensitive technician told me it didn’t hurt and I should stop crying. I was a child! (Funny the things you never forget). A year later I had to return to have a metal plate inserted to cover the area they removed the depressed skull fracture. (right occipital, maybe part of the parietal.)
Post NDE: Almost immediately returning home, I would hear voices. I could rarely distinguish words. It sounded like many people talking at once. Was it spirits communicating, or just an injured brain trying to heal? I rarely hear voices now, although I remember hearing my grandmother after she passed (1992) and I clearly heard my father once after he passed in 2014.
Shortly after my NDE I started to have premonitions. They happen while I am sleeping. They are always in black and white (so I know they are different from dreams), much more ‘real’ than dreams, and I always remember them clearly when I wake up, whereas I don’t remember all my dreams. They are a little scrambled because the event does not happen to the person in the premonition, but to someone they are close to. All of them have come true. As an example, here is one of the earlier ones I had. This was approximately 3 or 4 years after my NDE. I had a dream in black and white about a girl Ann that I knew. We grew up together in grammar school, lived near each other. By this time, we had different friends, but were friendly when we saw each other. All I remember now was the dream/premonition was at her house and she was in it. I woke up thinking it was odd to have a “dream” about her, it was so real, and odd it was in black and white. It was either that day or the next that I learned her father had died in his sleep at their home. This exact same scenario happened with a closer friend a few years later when his parents died six months apart. I had the black and white premonition on both occasions. Very recently, my sister, mother and niece were on a trip and I had a terrible feeling they were going to get in a car accident. They did not, but a few days later, I learned my bother in law was in a bad car accident in another state! Luckily, he is okay.
On to visions/communications. Much later, while working in a hospital, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a white form in a patient’s room. When I turned to look, it wasn’t there, but it would reappear when I looked away. This happened two or three times, then it was gone. I don’t remember any details of the patient or what happened to them.
After my grandmother passed, I felt I saw her everywhere-many patients looked like her, whenever I was thinking of her, I would find coins or flowers.
After my father passed in September 2014, I was at my mother’s house helping her get ready for the service a few days away. I was outside cutting the lawn, when something told me to look towards the back yard. I clearly saw my father looking around the corner of the house. I saw his face clearly. He had on one of his baseball hats-a red one, either for the Red Sox, or his alma mater- Fairfield University, and a red white and blue golf shirt-something he always wore. I figured I was just tired and emotional, so I looked away, but he was still there when I looked again. I felt he was saying he was glad we were helping my mother. I went back to check if there was anything that could have been there that I just thought was a human form. The yard is heavily treed and everything is green. There was nothing remotely red colored out there. I told no one about this. At the memorial service a few days later, my cousin said to me, ‘You know our family has a history of seeing visions?’! I was shocked, but still haven’t told my family yet of this experience.
So, what did I do immediately after my NDE? I did not tell anyone. I knew even then that the voices were not normal. If I told my parents, it would be off to the doctor again, and I had already had enough of that. I was a preteen girl just trying to fit in. I was already different because they shaved my hair off for the surgery-twice. This was long before computers, the internet, research or support groups,etc. There was only the encyclopedia and the library, neither of which covered this subject. Later as a teenager, other teens found my experience cool, or creepy, or both and wanted to hear about it. I later found the book ‘Closer to the Light’ which described other people’s NDEs, which helped knowing I wasn’t the only one. I my twenties, I found a group of coworkers who had other abilities-some saw auras, some saw the future, some saw spirits, so my experience was less unusual. As time passed, it just became part of who I am, and there was less need to talk about it.
Did it change my beliefs? I think I was too young to have beliefs or convictions. I think those came later with life experience. Am I more religious? No. Maybe more spiritual.
I hope this helps your research. I only became aware of you when I recently met someone with a more recent NDE.