Experience description:

Ever since i can remember can speak to people who have died and guide them on paths appropriate to them. Basic memory that makes me conscious of these things happened in the forties when i was thrown into a pit of burning gasoline by SS. I was twelve and could see others dying plus my own body burning at my feet, i felt wonderful and realized that events weren't actually real, more like watching a film. I was still born in this life but didn't remember several sets of memories as coming from this time.

So i grew up with memories from other times outside this life but only found there source later in life. I don't think anything special about these things, only that the normal view of life is extremely narrow. As an artist i can be weird with no questions asked. Actually I'm disappointingly normal but my work blows people away in a good way. I paint a light that i know surrounded me at birth but manifested more clearly when i was three. I was sitting on a bed looking out of the window into the sky and suddenly realized the light outside and inside were the same, it is a light that cannot be separated from feeling and the feeling is of a warm home made of nothing and everything where all is known and all is perfect, imperfections are only misunderstandings and can be seen perfectly clearly, like standing in the flames but knowing what was happening wasn't real, that feeling is much more real than what we normally experience as real and in it there is no doubt at all.

In the fire those dying around me were terrified and i tried to calm them and say look you are not affected by this, you are still here. I definitely live in this world and past memories are also of this world and i have been greedy and got myself in loads of pain but that light and understanding is separate from memories of here. I found that light again ( the exterior experience of it) in meditation in my late forties. Though i paint that light and others can feel it through the paintings, they are only paintings and not original feelings, though my feelings come close during painting. I have been painting that light since i was ten years old.

I could talk for hours about  other life memories but there isn't much point, they are mundane memories the same as in this life. For example before i was caught and thrown in the pit i was on the run for several weeks, when i was a small child in London playing hide and seek with the other kids i experienced the same desperate feelings though at a distance. I used to compare the architecture of London with other architecture i could remember the buildings were similar but less ornate in London.

Thirty years later i saw a photo in the Jewish museum of Warsaw and knew the street in the photo and its surrounding streets that weren't in the photo. I hope when i die this time i can stay in that light for a while and have a really good rest then come back to work some more, perhaps a little more able. People are fascinated with the prospect of other lives but they might as well be fascinated with yesterday afternoon, unless you can somehow realize that all the bogymen and all the junk of our involvements are not as real and final as they seem, the fascination only wastes time, and we have the prospect of landing right back in the shit again.

Was the kind of experience difficult to express in words? Uncertain,     several sets of memories mixed with normal childhood. Knowledge of other places same as knowledge of this place but not communicable to those here. Can use specialist skills from other lives but best skill slowly putting the pieces together and gaining understanding of events across long span of time.

At the time of this experience, was there an associated life threatening event?          Yes     Death at birth. death in other life, near death in this life.
At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness and alertness?    Immediately after death when i realized that the body at my feet was mine.

How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal every day consciousness and alertness?    More consciousness and alertness than normal

If your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience was different from your normal every day consciousness and alertness, please explain:            My hiding and fear and capture and pain were still valid and real but the whole thing was turned on its head because i was still here and feeling more wonderful than i had ever felt. I could understand the ignorance of our captors and the anguish of other victims but from a very different viewpoint.

Did your vision differ in any way from your normal, everyday vision (in any aspect, such as clarity, field of vision, colors, brightness, depth perception degree of solidness/transparency of objects, etc.)?  Yes     Best described by similar experiences after meeting same light in meditation. rise and walk among other people and can see things but also see into things with a very definite knowing. Knowing how people are and why people are. I knew how and why the captors were and how and why the victims were. This knowing is inseparable from sight in that light.

Did your hearing differ in any way from your normal, everyday hearing (in any aspect, such as clarity, ability to recognize source of sound, pitch, loudness, etc.)?
            Uncertain      More a general part of very wide consciousness.

Did you experience a separation of your consciousness from your body?     Yes

What emotions did you feel during the experience?            Same as now only more so, that i can see but cannot help those around me because they cannot see what i can. Or cannot see outside of where they are.

Did you pass into or through a tunnel or enclosure?          Yes     When i left that place, the light and smoke turned into a tunnel.

Did you see a light?           Yes     Yes i went into light, like really going home, this is what i saw again at the age of three on the bed. This time undistracted by events around me and as pure as when i left the pit.

Did you meet or see any other beings?           Uncertain      More the feeling that i was being cared for by something.

Did you experience a review of past events in your life?    No       All events taken together have slowly distilled into a very definite understanding now.

Did you observe or hear anything regarding people or events during your experience that could be verified later?          Yes     Warsaw photo, knowledge of many places i have never been before so much so that on occasion i have used this knowledge, ie went to a cottage in a place i had never been in before and walked up to another house nearby and asked the owner of the cottage ( who lived in this other house) if i could live there for a year, he said yes, rent free, to the astonishment of my companions.

Did you see or visit any beautiful or otherwise distinctive locations, levels or dimensions?           No
Did you have any sense of altered space or time?   Yes
            Yes as though outside of time.

Did you have a sense of knowing special knowledge, universal order and/or purpose?     Yes            That what we take to be real is only real as a projection and that we are projecting the projection, but the feelings we experience have a real effect on us.

Did you have any psychic, paranormal or other special gifts following the experience you did not have prior to the experience?     Yes     I can feel how people are, can alter there state by physical healing.

Have you shared this experience with others?         Yes     thirty or so years. By what most people say you can tell they are only talking new age junk, there are rare exceptions so mostly i channel through art or healing and don't share origins.

Did you have any knowledge of near death experience (NDE) prior to your experience?    Yes     Not when i was still born or when i was three nor in memories of the forties but since then, yes, but i count all experiences as ordinary or just as they are and try not to add or detract from them. There is nothing to be gained from inflation.

Were there one or several parts of the experience especially meaningful or significant to you?    I was dead for several minutes at birth and because of the distance and new state of learning only the tip of the iceberg is present, but the most important thing was the reinforcing of the understanding i gained in the pit in the forties.

How did you view the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened:            Experience was definitely real
            I love life, even the shitty bits but still i have experienced a more real state.

How do you currently view the reality of your experience:            Experience was definitely real
            I can get lost in whatever is happening around me but always remember there is another level of reality.

Have your relationships changed specifically as a result of your experience?           Yes
            I am a happy outsider, some people think i do not know my talent, i do but i don't compare it to others in a competitive way. I love it and share it but always be the student not the teacher.

Have your religious beliefs/practices changed specifically as a result of your experience?            Yes            I found explanations and structure in Buddhist teachings.

Following the experience, have you had any other events in your life, medications or substances which reproduced any part of the experience?         Yes     Yes i have had five life threatening illnesses one stroke and several meditation sessions which confirmed a higher level of consciousness.

Is there anything else you would like to add concerning the experience?        There are many answers to be found in phenomena but there is a state described by people who meditate as emptiness, this state comes closest to describing reality, though it is extremely difficult to understand and has to be studied and meditated on for a long time.

Did the questions asked and information you provided so far accurately and comprehensively describe your experience?         Yes     It is an unusual forum for me but one where i can speak of things i rarely speak of.

Please offer any suggestions you may have to improve this questionnaire:
            HAVE YOU FOUND A WAY TO USE YOUR EXPERIENCE TO HELP YOURSELF AND OR OTHERS? IF SO DESCRIBE.