Experience description:

I had been feeling very depressed for two months by the day this happened. There had been issues boiling over regarding school for years at this point and I was bound to have a period in my life that was terrible when I entered my adolescent years, and 2014 happened to be that period.

When the ball dropped into 2014 I got this intense feeling of dread and doom for no apparent reason. On the following Monday (6 January 2014) I had woken up in a rut and suddenly felt a big sense of burnout, depression, and loneliness spurred by returning to school. A lot of it was due to the stress and change of the first year of middle school.

Throughout January - darkness set in. This was a standard suicidal depression, but I would regularly have bouts of derealization and depersonalization that would happen no matter where I was. My mind would regularly have cyclical thought patterns about eternal oblivion and question the soundness of reality.

Throughout February and March, the height of the darkness, these feelings were at their peak, but on all days except one - I would generally maintain a solid grip on reality. Throughout this time period the concept of death was often at the top of my mind.

The one exception was on the worst day of them all, 5 March 2014, where after an really bad argument with a friend who was the only person who understood what I was going through I made plans to end my life.

As I was preparing for the end I was in my pitch black room. 7:17 PM and something changes. All the sudden I feel the presence of another being in the corner of the room - death. The feeling of reality going out the window began to set in and I felt myself enter a trancelike state and visions appear above me in the darkness.

I was visited by my great grandfather, who my mother compared and compares me to and had died before I was born, and had visited my mother in 2005 during her NDE when my sister was born. He pushed me to stay just as he had done with my mother nine years earlier, and showed me visions of what my life could be like at different ages, but also how my family would react if I was gone, and through this one of my mother’s friends who had died by suicide visited me and reminded me of how her decision decades earlier caused my mother so much grief that continued until that point.

I told my great grandfather that I had made my decision to stay, that one day I would get to meet him for real. And he told me I would know he was watching out for me if I saw a penny from heaven on the ground.

Then the haze and trance began to fade, but the pain still remained, however I never have felt like I’ve come that close to death, feeling it in the air, ever since even including when I watched my grandmother die four years later.

And speaking of my grandmother, some of my memories from this event were unlocked when I greened out on weed nine years later (19 April 2023), which while not the same kind of experience was still noteworthy. Here as I was in emotional turmoil from the traumatic memories, her, my great grandfather, and my mother’s old friend all told me how proud of me they were and how far I’d come from nine years earlier.

At the time of your experience was there an associated life-threatening event?   No 

Was the experience difficult to express in words?  No    

At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness and alertness?      When my great grandfather was speaking to me

How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness?      Normal consciousness and alertness   It felt like I had entered another world where the normal type of awareness does not apply

Please compare your vision during the experience to your everyday vision that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience.   Everything was darker than normal, even for a time that seemed full of darkness, there was a dark tint on my visions

Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience.   Everything had a certain ring to it, I could hear what was being said but it sounded like it was coming from a far distance

Did you see or hear any earthly events that were occurring during a time that your consciousness / awareness was apart from your physical / earthly body?   No  

What emotions did you feel during the experience?   Panic, fear, despair, followed by reassurance  

Did you pass into or through a tunnel?   No  

Did you see an unearthly light?   Yes   Glow above my head

Did you seem to encounter a mystical being or presence, or hear an unidentifiable voice?   I encountered a definite being, or a voice clearly of mystical or unearthly origin
Deceased family members and friends who I had never met

Did you encounter or become aware of any beings who previously lived on earth who are described by name in religions (for example: Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, etc.)?   Uncertain   I think the visions came from heaven

Did you encounter or become aware of any deceased (or alive) beings?   Yes   Great grandfather, friend of mother

Did you become aware of past events in your life during your experience?   Yes   The recent past had replayed a bit

Did you seem to enter some other, unearthly world?   Some unfamiliar and strange place
I didn’t really move or feel like I was in another realm but that I was being contacted from the other side

Did time seem to speed up or slow down?   Everything seemed to be happening at once; or time stopped or lost all meaning
Time felt like it stopped

Did you suddenly seem to understand everything?   No

Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure?   No

Did you come to a border or point of no return?   I came to a definite conscious decision to return to life
The reaction of my parents, sister, and grandparents to my potential death

Did scenes from the future come to you?  Scenes from my personal future 
I briefly envisioned my own future, some of which has come true

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness suggesting that there either is (or is not) continued existence after earthly life (“life after death”)?   Yes   Heaven existed in my vision

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness that God or a supreme being either does (or does not) exist?   Yes   The existence of heaven implied God’s existence, but he wasn’t present in the vision

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness that you either did (or did not) exist prior to this lifetime?   Uncertain   The connection to my great grandfather seemed abnormal considering he died almost two years before I was born

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness that a mystical universal connection or unity/oneness either does (or does not) exist?   No  

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness regarding earthly life’s meaning or purpose?   Uncertain   The purpose wasn’t directly stated but it was implied that I’d find meaning in my life

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness regarding earthly life’s difficulties, challenges, or hardships?   Uncertain   It was implied that what I was going through would pass and that I’d find my way through in the end

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness regarding love?   No  

During your experience, did you encounter any other specific information / awareness that you have not shared in other questions that is relevant to living our earthly lives?   No  

Did you have a sense of knowing special knowledge or purpose?   No  

What occurred during your experience included:   Content that was both consistent and not consistent with the beliefs you had at the time of your experience   I wasn’t given an about if suicide victims go to heaven or hell, I just was told it wasn’t my time or the manner I’d go out but I was validated on the existence of the afterlife and heaven

How accurately do you remember the experience in comparison to other life events that occurred around the time of the experience?   I remember the experience as accurately as other life events that occurred around the time of the experience   I can name something that happened to me on almost any day from roughly the beginning of 2013 on but this specific time period is seared into my brain for all the wrong reasons

Discuss any changes that might have occurred in your life after your experience:   My emotional state has gone back and forth over the last eleven years, and only in the past four months have I gotten over the trauma from this specific time period. I feel ready to live my life to the fullest now.

My experience directly resulted in:   Moderate changes in my life

Did you have any changes in your values or beliefs after the experience that occurred as a result of the experience?   Yes   We all have a purpose and can find a way through even in the worst of moments

Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience?   Yes   It’s somewhat related to the experience but I do believe that I am cursed to how a given year will go. Even years have been bad and odd years have been good and every single one of them has had some form of change of fortunes and transition around the new year period.

Are there one or several parts of your experience that are especially meaningful or significant to you?     Being visited by my great grandfather and his pennies from heaven

Have you ever shared this experience with others?   Uncertain  I’ve shared bits and pieces. The first time I talked about that day to anyone was in October 2019, 5.5 years later.

Did you have any knowledge of near death experience (NDE) prior to your experience?   Yes   My mother talked about hers from 2005

What did you believe about the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened:   Experience was probably not real   I did take lessons from it but was in disbelief that it even occurred, still being a child it did seem like a possibility that something like that could actually happen, to be visited by spirits

What do you believe about the reality of your experience at the current time:   Experience was definitely not real   I know it to be a hallucination but I still can take lessons from it

Have your relationships changed specifically as a result of your experience?   Uncertain   That time period in general gave me greater empathy for mental health issues now as an adult, not the specific event itself however

Have your religious beliefs/spiritual practices changed specifically as a result of your experience?   No  

At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience?   Yes   Being greatly under the influence of weed has on a few occasions in my college years

Is there anything else that you would like to add about your experience?   It was very powerful, but also traumatizing, and very odd for a 10 year old to experience and comprehend which was why it took many years to process it

Did the questions asked and information that you provided accurately and comprehensively describe your experience?   Yes   It seemed to have covered everything