Tim E Experience
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Experience description:

I have had an overpowering experience that shares some aspects of the NDE. Like those who have been through a NDE, it has been difficult if not impossible to share it with others. I can find no other instance of it, nobody else who has experienced it, although it cannot - as a human experience - be unique. I do not understand why it happened, or why it happened when it did. Attempts to describe it and share it with others have met with misunderstanding, disbelief, or disinterest.

1 The experience in sequential order (from notes made the day after)

a) Blackness. Silence. An awareness of self as gentle, waiting. No thought, no commentary, just the perception of blackness and the perception of self.

b) A sound (to be interpreted later). Not directed at me. Not aggressive.

c) Sudden movement, not of my doing. Being violently squeezed, pushed, turned. A simultaneous feeling of extreme terror.

d) Gasping for breath/being suffocated. Terror/helplessness/struggle.

And then I woke up. And this is the make or break point, the dealbreaker. Because the experience happened during sleep, it will be (and has been) understood and dismissed as a dream or nightmare, but it was neither. On waking, I was completely disoriented, confused, and scared. My heart was racing, and I felt I had suffered an attack by external forces. The feeling of terror lingered for a couple of days, until I began to understand what had happened.

I knew it wasn’t a dream. Dreams are familiar territory for me. I habitually remember them on waking, and can remember some dreams I had as a small child. As a teenager, I was briefly able to lucid dream. This event, to me, was as different to the dream state as ordinary waking consciousness. Neither was it an “out of body” experience in any sense. I have had an out-of-body experience, during a period of extreme stress many years ago. I woke from that, too, knowing it had not been a dream. So what happened to me was None Of The Above, and remains so.

Over the next few days, understanding took the place of terror. It was probably the overpowering emotion - more extreme than any I have ever felt - that prevented me from seeing the experience clearly, because it now seems obvious - I was experiencing birth. There was no sense of rebirth, of being born again or remembering it. It was physical birth in real time, not a replay or a memory. The actual experience, the trauma of birth, overpoweringly real and raw.

2 Interpreting in sequence:

a) The blackness and the silence; in the womb.

b) The sound; a human voice, which I neither recognized nor understood at the time. I was born at home, with a midwife and my father in attendance.

c) The physical violence; being ejected from the womb.

d) The drowning/suffocating; emerging from amniotic fluid into the air.

3 Correspondences with NDE

The blackness, the silence, and passing through the “tunnel”. There is also an odd correspondence of being met by your ancestors, who are waiting for you. In a sense, your mother waits to welcome you as she gives birth to you, and other people may be present at the birth (in my case, my Father and the midwife).

A main difference is the emotions; most NDEs are peaceful. The NBE turned very quickly into terror, almost like the inverse of the NDE. Another is that NDEs are considered spiritual experiences, a release from the body. This was very much a physical experience.

4 Notes

My experience was only partial, from just before the birth to the moment of birth.

I have no idea why it happened, or why it happened when it did. I was under no medication, not using drugs, not under stress, and in good health. I was not being treated in any way for any sort of psychological issues, including analysis, hypnosis, or involved in religious/spiritual practices or disciplines.

The only benefit I can think of is that in experiencing the birth trauma and comparing it to accounts of the Near Death Experience I conclude that in celebrating birth and dreading death we have got it the wrong way round. I have never had a worse or more intense experience, and it is amazing that we all forget it. Put in the terms of a religion I do not follow, being born into this world is 'The Fall', and we are redeemed by death.

 Any associated medications or substances with the potential to affect the experience?      No     

Was the kind of experience difficult to express in words?          No     

At the time of this experience, was there an associated life threatening event? No     

What was your level of consciousness and alertness during the experience?    Total.

            Was the experience dream like in any way?  No.

 Did you experience a separation of your consciousness from your body?   No     

What emotions did you feel during the experience?          Fear, terror ...

 Did you hear any unusual sounds or noises?         The voice, as referred to, was the only sound.

 LOCATION DESCRIPTION:  Did you recognize any familiar locations or any locations from familiar religious teachings or encounter any locations inhabited by incredible or amazing creatures?         No     

Did you see a light?        No     

Did you meet or see any other beings?         No     

Did you experiment while out of the body or in another, altered state?         No     

Did you observe or hear anything regarding people or events during your experience that could be verified later?          No     

Did you notice how your 5 senses were working, and if so, how were they different? No     

Did you have any sense of altered space or time?     No     

Did you have a sense of knowing, special knowledge, universal order and/or purpose?         No     

Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure?           No     

Did you become aware of future events?      No     

Were you involved in or aware of a decision regarding your return to the body?          No     

Did you have any psychic, paranormal or other special gifts following the experience that you did not have prior to the experience?         No     

Did you have any changes of attitudes or beliefs following the experience?     Yes    An understanding of death's relationship to birth.

 How has the experience affected your relationships? Daily life? Religious practices? Career choices?   Not at all.

 Has your life changed specifically as a result of your experience? No     

Have you shared this experience with others?       Yes          As in the statement - misunderstanding, disbelief, disinterest.

 What emotions did you experience following your experience? A slowly subsiding terror.

 What was the best and worst part of your experience?          Worst part was the experience itself. Best part was the vague understanding and perspective it gave me.

 Is there anything else you would like to add concerning the experience? All in my statement.

 Following the experience, have you had any other events in your life, medications or substances which reproduced any part of the experience?       No     

Did the questions asked and information you provided accurately and comprehensively describe your experience?           Yes    The questions asked and information I provided accurately and comprehensively describe my experience.