That wasn't the end of it. I was still really upset about having to go home. A couple of days later I was walking back from the country grocery store. It was the most mundane circumstance. I was carrying 2 plastic bags of groceries. It was hot, and I was sweaty. There was no sidewalk, and I was walking on the verge. On my left was the road and on the right a field with purple clover and yellow flowers. All of a sudden the light changed and the colors became vivid again, like in the cottage. I felt the love and the presence and a voice in my head that wasn't exactly a voice but communicated to me: "You have to go back. You're going back for a purpose. The purpose is to talk about love.' And then the colours went back to normal.

I had no idea what that meant. How was I going to talk about love? Where? Was I supposed to give talks somewhere to an audience? I'd had some experience with that in my work, but not about this--what did I know about or have to say about it? I had no idea.

When I came home, I was a different person. Everything felt alien, the city, even my own apartment. It felt like a hotel room, nothing to do with me. I couldn't stand the smell or noise of the city. For a while I couldn't do small talk and I couldn't stand watching TV. I was very sensitive to violence. I didn't know what to do with the experience. I sold most of my furniture, keeping just a bed and a desk, and moved to a shared house in another neighborhood. How I ended up there is another story; I think I was guided.

I told one friend, who'd been a minister, expecting her to say I was crazy, but she didn't--she said I was very lucky, and it was a once in a lifetime experience. At the time, I didn't relate it to NDEs at all. I knew very little about NDEs, just what was in the air: there's a tunnel, relatives greeting you, a light. It's only very recently that in reading about NDEs, I realized that there were similar elements in this experience and others I've had that I'll get to.

A few months after this experience, I met the man who became my husband. He moved in with me, my housemate moved out, and eventually we bought the house. Years later I wondered if that was what the message was about re talking about love. I do think, I might not have been able to connect to my husband without the experience of the Light's unconditional love because I had been severely abused as a child and had also had an abusive first marriage when I was young.

I figured, like my friend had said, that this was a once in a lifetime thing. It was awe inspiring, but I put it aside and kept on with life, though it was utterly transformed. Change of work (returning to the life purpose I'd abandoned), marriage, house, children. I also knew things without anyone telling me, sometimes about people and occasionally about dates when something would  happen. I also get phantom smells, ie a whiff of something that isn't there.

In 2004, I went back to therapy because having children had brought up my past more deeply. It was very tough work, and I was only willing to face it because I was getting physically ill with no medical explanation (medical tests were all negative), and I needed to be healthy to raise my children. I should add that at some point after my experience, I became aware that the energy I felt in my hands could be used to help others. It isn't that I hadn't felt that energy before--I had, but hadn't known what to do with it. Now I did. I mention that because I helped a friend who was also struggling with the effects of child abuse, and when I myself was feeling a lot of emotional pain, she asked why I didn't talk to the light. This was in 2005. I told her that I thought my experience just happened, I couldn't just make it happen, but she thought I should try.

So I did. I'd get quiet, and meditate and ask to speak to the Light, and it happened. Not every time, sometimes I tried and nothing happened, but other times it did. And when it did, I recognized it because of the peace and the love. I became a different person, again. When I got married, I was a member of an egalitarian synagogue, so I was not traditional in the sense of gender roles, but I was relatively conventional. When I began to talk to the Light again, I became more of a flake. I'm still pragmatic, but I do energy work and have sight, and talk to spirits and so on.

I should explain an important difference from my initial experience. In 1994, the presence came to me where I was in the physical world. This world got vivid and bright beyond our known reality, but it happened here. However, when I get quiet and connect to the Light I go somewhere else. I understand the word 'light' as meaning three things: light energy as it comes from my hands for example; a place where I go, which is a non-physical plane beyond ours (our world is physical but also non-physical, having energy elements and people who have passed but haven't crossed) and this plane beyond ours that is a place of pure light and love; and the Light--which can be God, angels, guides, spirit, the universe--all words that to me are inadequate to the reality so I just use the word Light, which loves and is love.

I've been doing going to the Light ever since. I mention the peace here because this was something new in 2005. When therapists had asked me to envision a safe place, it was impossible for me. I could also never relax. Progressive muscle relaxation did nothing for me, neither did breathing exercises. The first time I felt all tension leave my body was when I went to the Light. I call it the Light because that's what I see. It's like what I've recently read in descriptions by NDE experiencers: a light that's very bright but doesn't hurt. A love that is total and unconditional. Sometimes it feels singular and sometimes it feels like multiple presences within it. The higher/further I go in it the less individuated it feels. I had one experience with reaching what felt like where everything is One. There is only light. That experience I have to say felt a bit frightening. It was still love, but it was all and only and there was no more individuality there and I could handle that only very briefly, still being human.

I don't lose all awareness of my body when I go to the Light. But it becomes distant. If someone calls me or the door opens or the phone rings, I'll hear it, but it's jarring, shocking, to come back so fast. I talk to the Light, the Light talks to me. Often I get the same message for months as I come to understand it. I should also talk about the healing I experienced in the Light. Because of the severity of my childhood abuse, I had many somatic reactions, there were many triggers, and I also had terribly negative beliefs about myself and a fear of danger that came from the perpetrators. Therapy went slowly, one trigger at a time. I was getting desperate--at that rate I'd need more than one lifetime to recover and, again, I had children to raise. So I asked the Light for healing. To make a long story a bit shorter, for two weeks I was aware that the larger part of myself was in the Light while a smaller part of myself stayed in my body functioning at a base line level. This might sound funny, but it kind of felt like I was in a kind of ethereal washing machine. There was no box around me but I was in this kind of swish of light that went back and forth around my consciousness during this time. When all of me came back,  90% of the reactivity and negativity was gone. I've had other experiences since then of healing in the Light but none as lengthy or dramatic.

When I started going to the Light, I found that organized religion no longer felt right. It just wasn't consistent with my direct experience. It was a bit of a loss--the community, the comfort of familiar tunes. But it just didn't fit with my ongoing experience. I couldn't find a replacement, and have recently wished there was an IANDS group in my city, but there isn't.

In the months before I went away to the island in 1994, I also took a creativity in writing course. During it there was some kind of visualization exercise, and I remembered that when I was a child, during the abuse, I went to a place where there was a peaceful pond or lake and swans on it. I believed  I'd imagined it. But 10 years after taking this course, when I started going to the Light, I remembered that as a child, I'd lost consciousness before going to that place. I also remembered that as a child, I escaped the abuse when it was even worse than usual by climbing a strand of light to the stars. Among the stars, there were other beings whom I met later in life, including the friend who'd suggested I talk to the Light. In reading about NDEs recently, it seemed to me that what may have happened to me when I was 4 years old was an NDE.

I've kept a record of what the Light has told me ever since I began going to the Light. Some of the things that I was told are echoed in the accounts of NDE experiencers I've read or whose talks I've seen on YouTube: for example, that we are here to love. I've also been told that we're here to experience being separate, that to love you need to have separateness, ie the person loving and the beloved, and that in the Light there isn't that separateness. There love is, but here love is a verb, it's enacted. And that we love through the difficulty of the physical world. That love is what's real, it's the essence, it underlies everything; I have an image of a river of light running underneath everything. That's what I remember off the top of my head. This comes  from my journal: That there is choice here in the timeline; there in eternity (timelessness) it's determined. Life is not meant to be a series of accomplishments; you are here to love; when you reject suffering you reject life; you are here to love; separation is suffering separation is love.

I've also had the experience of being in a loving Darkness. I'd never heard of that in NDEs until the last couple of months when I saw a couple of experiencers on YouTube talking about that. I don't really have conversation with the darkness (which I called the Deeps) the way I do in the Light, except once in it I was told that the reason it seems dark is that my human eyes (and so my human brain) can't see/retain/record the wavelengths that are outside of our sight.

Alot of what happens in the Light and the information I've had from the Light has to do with my own healing and life's journey. For example, I just glanced at a page of my journal at random, and I read, 'Life isn't an amazing race, it should be called The Amazing Dawdle.' And they/it (the Light) went on to explain what that means. Only occasionally is there something that I can verify externally. For example, once the Light explained to me the difference between light energy and dark energy. Sometime later (a year? two years?) there was a Scientific American issue about dark energy. I was reading one of the articles, and it said the same thing, and I heard the Light say 'That's what we were telling you' or something like that. It wasn't exactly words. It's very seldom that outside of meditation I've actually heard the Light speak to me like it did in 1994. The only other time I can think of right now is when the Light warned me against staying in touch with someone who was trying to reconnect with me.

Sometimes I get information that I can't retain. I have many pages of notes from over the years. I always thought of it as personal, and I didn't share it except for occasionally with a close friend if it seemed relevant. But now that I've read about NDE experiences and how its meaning is contagious, I'm rethinking that attitude. For the first time, I've started talking about my experience in 1994 with people, even friends I've known a long time, to share it, and sometimes then people open up about an experience they've had that's similar, a sudden feeling of a divine presence for example, that they've been too shy to share with anyone, too. And it seems to me that the world needs this more than ever now: the message of love and interconnectedness.

In the last eight years, I've done reiki training and then shamanic training. I do healings for family and friends, not as a profession. My husband's mother and sister passed away in the last few years, and I did reiki for them. I was very close to my sister-in-law, and I detected her cancer while doing reiki for her. That's the only time I have intuited a medical diagnosis. I didn't know what to do about it--I didn't know if what I sensed was real and I didn't want to frighten her, but on the other hand I didn't want to ignore it if it was true. I have a very pragmatic, logical side that questions everything. It happened at a family dinner. As soon as we walked into her apartment and I saw her, I was shocked because she looked very sick to me, but everyone else was acting as if nothing was wrong. And then during the reiki, I was shocked again by what I felt/sensed. She thought she had a bladder infection, and I let her know I felt something else but she dismissed it.

I wrote her an email the next day about it--urging her to go back to the doctor, telling her that I had felt something that could be treated if caught early enough but if not it would be very serious. She didn't go to the doctor then, but somewhat later. I told my husband and a friend that it felt like cancer, something like bladder or something like bowel. I have no medical training, I should add. A few months later she was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer that grows on top of the bladder but is more like colon cancer in its pathology.

My husband's mother passed away a month after my sister-in-law began chemo. After she passed, she came to me in the Light because I was having trouble with remembering her distorted face when she died; she'd just had a seizure. In the Light, she looked so light of heart, recognisably her but so different than in life, and she just said 'Oh, that old thing' and kicked aside the image I had of her body as if it was a shed skin, and after that the memory didn't bother me at all.

While my sister-in-law was sick, in my shamanic training, I learned how to accompany someone to the other side. I had an experience during the training of taking my grandmother, who was stuck between, over to the other side. It's a bit of a story in itself, but it was a powerful experience. (As an aside, there was an element of it that surprised me at the time, and just recently, while I've been exploring NDEs, I was in email contact with an NDE experiencer who told me of something similar; he didn't know about my experience at all.) I shared this experience with my sister-in-law, and she asked me to accompany her when it was time. And I did so. When she passed, I went with her. Later, at a memorial we had for her, one of her friends came up to me to tell me that my sister-in-law had told her that she wasn't afraid because she knew I'd do this, and I was so touched and surprised by that. I have much less confidence in my own abilities than the people around me do.

I appreciate the opportunity to put all this down--it's long and yet in writing it, I realize that there is so much more to say about it, too. I hope that my account will help someone else who may have had similar experiences, but, like me, hadn't realized there was anyone else who'd experienced it, too.

At the time of your experience was there an associated life-threatening event?   Uncertain  The ones that happened when I was a child were during events I felt as life-threatening, but I can't say that they were objectively. My adult experiences are STEs and NDE-like and the contexts were not not life threatening.

Was the experience difficult to express in words?  Yes     There are times when I'm in the Light that I just can't retain the information or describe what occurs. I can't really describe what the place is like. I focus on what I can bring back, the feeling, the message, sometimes images. The deeper in I am the further it is from what I could describe. Sometimes there are phantom odours, but that also occurs to me when I'm not in the light.

At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness and alertness?         During all of it.

How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness?      More consciousness and alertness than normal   During the incidents in 1994, I was aware of a change in light and a vividness of colour that was beyond natural.

Please compare your vision during the experience to your everyday vision that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience.   Everything was so vivid, the colours gorgeous even though it was still in the physical realm, just a room in one instance and in the other, an ordinary grassy field. This is in reference to the 1994 incidents. When I go to the Light, it is less visual, except for seeing light, more of feeling and conversation and presence. It feels more different to the regular world.

Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience.   No change in hearing.

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?   Love and peace  

Did you pass into or through a tunnel?   No  

Did you see an unearthly light?   Yes   A bright light that should have hurt my eyes according to its brightness, but didn't at all

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
In 1994, there was a presence, which felt female. It was a divine presence emanating pure unconditional love, which I'd never felt before. Subsequently, when I go to the Light, I encounter beings, which also appear as light, sometimes a diffuse light with multiple points of light within it, or sometimes a more singular light that is brighter and larger. There is the same unconditional love I felt in 1994, but also a sense of peace and sometimes a sense of humor, a kind of smiley lightness. Sometimes I've encountered concern as in the Light emits a concern and compassion for me and others.

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.)?   No  

Did you encounter or become aware of any deceased (or alive) beings?   Yes   I didn't encounter them in 1994. But subsequently in the Light, I've encountered my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. I saw my mother-in-law once. She dispelled a haunting memory I had of her physical appearance when she passed. I've encountered my sister-in-law a number of times in the Light. We were very close. I almost always see her on a beach, and she's wearing a silk scarf. I know this contradicts what I wrote earlier, which is that when I'm in the Light it's beyond description and unlike anything here. I think that's because I understand the beach as a kind of metaphor that represents my sister-in-law and where she liked to be in this lifetime, just like she often wore scarves. Once, soon after she died, I felt her presence very close while I was lying in bed. I felt her there with me. When I encounter her in the Light, it's usually something to do with our relationship. Sometimes her husband asks me to journey there to get a message for him.

Did you become aware of past events in your life during your experience?   No  

Did you seem to enter some other, unearthly world?   A clearly mystical or unearthly realm
When I go to the Light, it's unlike anything here. It's difficult to describe. I don't try to because I am still in human form, so any description will be humanized so to speak.

Did time seem to speed up or slow down?   Everything seemed to be happening at once; or time stopped or lost all meaning
When I go to the Light time has no meaning. Sometimes when I am tired and meditate and try to go to the light, I hear conversations or see things that I can't retain after that aren't from the Light but seem to be parts of other people's lives, people I don't know. I have no idea when or where they are. It isn't at all like thoughts or dreaming.

Did you suddenly seem to understand everything?   Everything about myself or others
This happens sometimes when I'm in the Light--there is information and I know it makes complete sense but I just can't retain it.

Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure?   No

Did you come to a border or point of no return?   No

Did scenes from the future come to you?  Scenes from my personal future 
When I was very young, I escaped the abuse by climbing a thread of light to the stars. There were other beings there, and one of them I met and became friends with 40+ years later. After I began going to the Light in 2005 and other gifts came back to me, like energy healing, and perceiving with my hands, so did sight, which I had when I was very young and had become frightened of. However, after using sight for a while, I started getting severe headaches, and when I went to the Light, it/they said to stop using sight to look into the future. That it was important for me to stay in the now.

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   It was clear from all my experiences, from 1960, 1994, and the last fifteen years, that we are beings in human form, and the earth is a being in earth form, and rocks in the rock form. I experienced this on many occasions. I accompanied spirits to the other side, and I have spoken to spirits who've had human lives. I was told that the Light was One and individuated on subsequent levels until it comes to the material level where we experience existence, but that this is all light and that we are light in human form.

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness that God or a supreme being either does (or does not) exist?   Yes   What we call God is what I call the Light which is pure love and the source of love and all existence. We are all God inasmuch as we are all light and love in human form (and other forms) here to love and--this next bit is my view not something I can recall being told--have an experience, an adventure.

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness that you either did (or did not) exist prior to this lifetime?   Yes   Ok, so I didn't get into this in my long description above, but when I was in the Light, I was told that I had chosen this life and that need to remember where I come from, that is the Light, that I have had many other lifetimes. Above, when I wrote about sight, one of the things that I saw was some of my previous lifetimes. That was very quick, and there was nothing in it that I could externally verify, however.

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness that a mystical universal connection or unity/oneness either does (or does not) exist?   Yes   I saw it--that is, I went deeper into the Light until I came to where everything is one. It was really freaky! I know other people have described it as being like a drop in the water, from my recent readings, ie retaining individuality while being part of the greater whole, and I have experienced that, too, on planes that I would describe as being closer to here--though that is using human language. But when I travelled that one time so deeply into the light, there weren't any drops, just the whole. Mostly when I go to the Light I just have the feeling of us all being connected and I just smile thinking of it, and having that good feeling of love and harmony and even laughter.

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness regarding earthly life’s meaning or purpose?   Yes   We are here to love. We are here to experience existence, the material world. Every aspect of it has its opposite and there is a range of qualities from one end to the other, for example heat and cold. By being separate we can have the experience of loving another, in contrast with being love and being connected as in the Light. And they feel that through us in the Light. There is also something about being creative and art--elements which are important to me, personally. Art makes the experience in this world denser, it's the experience of the experience. I've often been told 'protect your art.'

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness regarding earthly life’s difficulties, challenges, or hardships?   Yes   There is compassion for it. In part, it's the result of existence itself. Part and parcel of the experience. There is so much to say on this, it's hard to summarize. Existence is difficult. We are separate and small and fearful because of that. Love carries us through. But also, there are many pleasures. They (Light) say that in every situation, there is something positive. The time here feels long to us (or too short at the end of life!) and hard, but when we're there, this life is like going to a movie. An afternoon's entertainment so to speak. What we perceive as terrible--a short life for example--from the perspective of the other side might be very different. 'Whew, that was short. Didn't have to be there long this time!' I'm putting it into terms that we can understand. So we choose this life, that I am given to understand, and though I find it difficult to understand how so many people who are hungry might choose that life, there is also a collective experience, since we're all interconnected, that is hard to understand from our separate perspective, especially living in cultures that underscore individuality. We are here to love and to have compassion, and compassion can't be experienced without something requiring compassion. We get to experience needing and giving and difference. Yet through all this, I feel from the other side a love for us all and a love for existence that is shot through with understanding.

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness regarding love?   Yes   Love is what's real; love underlies all things; we are all love; we are here to experience the action of loving another, and therefore here we are separate from one another, though there we are interconnected and underlying this separateness, we are all interconnected. There is no judgement, I haven't mentioned that before because it is so far away from the experience of there. Only love exists.

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?   Yes   There are 4 kinds of communication. One is judgement: flush it down the toilet. Two is feedback; consider it. Three are messages of love and connection, take them in. Four are messages from the Light; take them in. There are energies that swirl around on this physical plane, positive and negative, and they generally blow off. However when there are intense fears, and many people have them, the energy can coalesce. It is not a being, it is a coalescing of energy, and the best way to deal with it is to stand in love and light.

Did you have a sense of knowing special knowledge or purpose?   Uncertain   I'm not sure what the question is getting at. I've been told many things by the Light--are they special? I don't know! In my 1994 experience I was told that I have a purpose--to go back and talk about love. I still don't know what that means! To my husband? My friends? In my work? Have I been doing it all along? Is it yet to unfold? I don't know.

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   Before my experience in 1994, I was open to the idea of energy and I was somewhat religious, but I didn't really believe in an afterlife. I hadn't since I was eleven years old. And even though I was religious, God was more of an abstract concept for me. The experience of the Light in 1994, the intensity of love and connection was entirely different from the beliefs I had at the time. Afterward, it became not something I believed but something I'd experienced. And 10 years later, when I began to communicate with the Light and go to the Light, that deepened and continued not as a belief but as something that I experience. I became a different person again. I turned away from organized religion and began to do energy work and journeying. I was a bit worried about how my husband would take it. I said to him, 'You married someone religious and now I've turned into a flake!' He said he'd always thought he'd marry a flake.

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 more accurately than other life events that occurred around the time of th   I remember the summer it occurred as an interesting time, but I just have vague and general memories of who I met and what I did, whereas this stands out very specifically.

Discuss any changes that might have occurred in your life after your experience:   After the STE experience in 1994, I was a different person. I went home and the life there felt like it didn't belong to me anymore, neither did my possessions or apartment. I sold everything except bed and desk. I moved to a house in a different neighbourhood. I dedicated myself to a creative life. I met my husband, married, and started a family. I sometimes knew things about people they hadn't told me, and sometimes I knew when something would happen. In 2005, when I began going to the Light, I changed again. I began helping others who'd been abused, doing energy work, and I had sight. I left organized religion. The people I worked with changed. My creative life also went in new directions. I trained in reiki and shamanic work. I accompanied my sister-in-law in crossing over.

My experience directly resulted in:   Large 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   I became much more dedicated to a path of spiritual growth. I'd believed in an abstract God. My experience of the Light was personal, and I knew that I was loved and everyone is loved. This intensified when I began to go to the Light. I had been skeptical of forgiveness before, but I came to forgive myself, and more recently the perpetrators of my abuse, to have compassion for them and for others who I hadn't before. The framework for the world is one of battle between sides, and i really wish we could step out of that framework and instead stand before each other in a place of love, and listen. That's part of the reason i'm filling out this form. If NDEs are contagious, the world needs to catch it!

Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience?   Yes   After the STE in 1994, I began to know things about people they hadn't told me, and to know sometimes when something would happen. After I began to go to the Light in 2005, I had energy in my hands that I used for healing and perceiving, I also sometimes saw the future, though I stopped doing that because of headaches. I go to the Light when I meditate and receive information. I accompanied my sister-in-law to the other side and saw my mother-in-law's spirit after she passed.

Are there one or several parts of your experience that are especially meaningful or significant to you?     The unconditional love I initially experienced during the STE in 1994 was a revelation. I had no idea that anything like that could exist. Going to the Light and healing from childhood abuse so much more deeply and rapidly than I had in years of therapy--I wish that for everyone. And also the love and forgiveness that I felt and was able to feel for others, too. To know that love is all and underlies all. There is so much fear in the world, and understandably so, I wish everyone could feel that love.

Have you ever shared this experience with others?   Yes  When I came home in 1994, right after, I told one person. She was envious, and I was surprised she believed me. In 2005, when I began to go to light, I didn't talk about it except to my husband, and he was supportive. A few years later I told two friends. One of them was interested in trying to do the same thing, and for a while we meditated together, but she gave it up. The other friend has a similar background of childhood abuse (not the one who told me to talk to the Light). A little while after that, she went to a healing centre where she had a similar experience, and since then we've talked a lot about it. She's also had psychic experiences and has non-ordinary gifts. I find that with work colleagues, when I talk about the light, their faces change and the way they talk about the work then changes too and becomes much more about heart, creativity, light and less about markets.

Did you have any knowledge of near death experience (NDE) prior to your experience?   Yes   Very minimal. I hadn't read anything. I'd heard about a tunnel, deceased relatives, and light. I didn't think my experiences had anything to do with it or were like them at all. Then a year and a half ago, I read a couple of books and was stunned at the similarities. In the last couple of months I've read more and also watched videos of IANDS conferences, and even more similarities have become obvious.

What did you believe about the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened:   Experience was definitely real   The initial experience of unconditional love was totally new and undeniable. About the vividness of colour, I could say to myself that I'd imagined it. But the love was something I'd never experienced, not remotely. Nothing I could imagine. In 2005, when I began to go to the Light, I experienced the love again and also peace. My body relaxed in a way I had never known. I also experienced extensive healing from childhood trauma, much deeper and more rapidly than in years of therapy. There are other effects that have occurred up until the present.

What do you believe about the reality of your experience at the current time:   Experience was definitely real   I have to say that before I started on this, I might have said 'probably real' except for the initial experience in 1994. Even the doubting, questioning person that I am can't doubt that experience of love. However in writing this out, I moved to definitely real. The level and rapidity of healing I've experienced in the Light is something that I wish for everyone. I know many other survivors of severe childhood abuse, and they've worked hard in therapy, as I did, and they've made progress, as I did, but they still carry a lot of baggage that the Light took from me. The forgiveness for myself and others, and more recently the compassion I feel for people that have harmed others is something I could never have thought even valuable without being in the Light.

Have your relationships changed specifically as a result of your experience?   Yes   I don't know that I could have connected with my husband, a good and gentle man, given the extent of my childhood trauma, without the experience of unconditional love that I had in the STE in 1994. Following that, my friendships changed. And after I began to go to the Light in 2005, I had new work relationships and my friendships with people who are spiritually attuned deepened.

Have your religious beliefs/spiritual practices changed specifically as a result of your experience?   Yes   I stopped going to synagogue or praying in a formal way. Instead my spirituality is ongoing and personal and consists of going to the Light, being open to hearing and then acting on what I learn, practising compassion, love, forgiveness and giving.

At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience?   Yes   I'm not sure if this is what you mean by reproduced, but I go to the Light during meditation. I use the word meditation loosely. It just means being quiet, and doing a kind of shift where instead of being here, I'm there. I can't always do it. If my mind is too busy, it doesn't happen. But I think the regular practice of it makes it happen when it does, and then I feel the love again and also peace, and i can talk to the Light and receive love, compassion, information and guidance. I'm not sure if I'd call it reproduced. To me that's ongoing.  

Did the questions asked and information that you provided accurately and comprehensively describe your experience?   Yes   As much as possible. I'm getting worn out writing this, it's taken a lot longer than 45 minutes, which I don't mind, but also for some reason, parts didn't save and I had to redo them. But I have done my best.