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Lessons from the Light

Moment Point Press

Chapter One

Journeys to the Light

For the past ten years, I have been teaching a course on the near-deathexperience (NDE) at my university. Every semester, thirty-five to fortyyoung undergraduates arrive at my classroom on the first day of the newterm, usually somewhat nervous about taking such an offbeat course butgenerally enthusiastic and curious about the topic that has alreadyexcited their interest.

    Normally, there is one person--and ordinarily no more thanone--among these students who comes to the class with a markedlydifferent orientation, and an advantage over his or her peers. Thisis the student, though I will only learn this later, who has alreadyhad an NDE. He or she is there for quite different reasons, and severalweeks or even most of the semester may pass before the other studentsand I learn that there has been an experiencer all along in our midst.By the time the semester is over, however, we have usually been madeprivy to the story of the NDE of that student, who becomes for that daythe real teacher in the class.

Craig

    I still remember quite vividly the first time one of these invisibleNDEr students made himself known to me and my class. Craig, as I willcall him, was a trifle older than most undergraduates, being in hislate twenties, but he still had a definite boyish quality to his mannerthat made him seem like their exact contemporary. I had already noticedthat Craig seemed especially interested in our discussions and, perhapsabetted by the fact that he was comely in an athletic way, with broadshoulders and a powerful build, he had a very lively and attractivepresence in the class. Perhaps I am guilty of a degree of idealizationwhen I recall him now, but I feel quite certain I had even noticed thatthere was a kind of sparkle his eyes that set him apart from most ofthe other students. At the time, I'm sure that I attributed this to hisobvious involvement with the course, but eventually my students and Iwere to learn that there were decidedly more personal reasons thatexplained Craig's almost luminous presence and his infectiouscheerfulness.

    That was the day, of course, when he, with some shyness, confessedthat he had had one of these experiences himself about ten years ago.Naturally, I drew him out and before the class was over that day, wehad heard the gist of his story which, once he got into it, Craig toldin a very natural, straightforward manner. Afterward, I asked him if hewould be kind enough to write out a version of it for me in his coursejournal, and what follows are some excerpts from this written account,preceded and interspersed with some comments of my own to help placehis remarks in context. In reading it, however, I would invite you notmerely to peruse his words, but to enter into his experience asempathically as you can by imagining that it was your own. To theextent you are able to do so, his experience will become yours and itspower will ramify through you.

    Craig's NDE had occurred one summer as a result of a raftingaccident in which he had nearly drowned. He had only been on his innertube for about 30 seconds when he realized he was already in danger. Inthis moment of alarm, he became aware that

the current was pulling me toward the middle of the river, where there was a small waterfall. There is a sharp drop of about 4 feet or so at this point, and the power of the river is extremely visible. The rocks below had eroded in such a manner that they created a sort of suction hole. ... I tried to pull myself toward the route that [his friend and rafting companion] Don had followed as I paddled with my hands, but my attempts proved to be futile. The current was too strong, and paddling was only twisting me around so that now I was headed toward the waterfall backwards instead of forwards. As I looked over my shoulder, my heart began beating faster for I realized that there was no possible way of avoiding the falls. I tried to get a grip on the tube but it was too slippery to get a hold of. Over the falls I went, the inner tube sinking into the water backwards, and then throwing me back in a forward direction because of the air pressure in the tube. I was propelled headfirst into the falls where the force of the water tore me from the tube with sudden impact and brutal force and sent me crashing to the bottom. I was pinned there by its never ending supply of overwhelming force.

    Craig now found himself seemingly inescapably trapped, face down inthe sand and could move only his hands, but there was nothing for himto grasp to get any leverage. Quickly, he realized that there was nohope and that, with his air supply already dwindling, he would surelydie. Meanwhile, his mind speeded up tremendously, and many things andthoughts seemed to be happening simultaneously. Then, he began to losehis sense of time altogether as the reality of his fatal predicamentimpressed itself upon him.

I could not believe that this is where my life would end. ... I never thought it would be by drowning, and never thought it would happen at such a young age. ... It struck me as funny that I had been to this area many times before, and never knew that this was where I would die later in life. Scenes from my life began to pass before my eyes at superhigh speeds. It seemed as if I was a passive observer in the process, and it was as if someone else was running the projector I was looking at my life objectively for the first time ever. I saw the good as well as the bad. I realized that these images were sort of a final chapter in my life, and that when the images stopped, I would lose consciousness forever. I thought of how a light bulb sometimes burns the brightest just before it goes out for the last time.

    Craig is beginning to have what many people report on nearly dying,a kind of panoramic life review, and went on to describe various scenesfrom his childhood, beginning when he was a baby.

I was astonished when I saw myself sitting in a baby's high chair and picking up some food with my right hand and throwing it onto the floor. And there was my mom, years younger, telling me that good boys do not throw their food on the floor. I also saw myself at a lake on a summer vacation when I was about three or four years old. My older brother and I had to swim with an air bubble on our backs to help us float because neither of us were able to swim on our own yet. For some reason, I was mad at him, and to demonstrate my anger, I threw his air bubble into the lake. He was very upset and began to cry, and my father walked over and explained to me that it was not nice of me to do what I did, and that I would have to row the boat out with him to get it, and would have to apologize. I relived a boating accident when I was about seven that was very traumatic for me because I had run over my brother by accident and nearly killed him. I was amazed at how many scenes I was seeing but had long since been forgotten. ... It seemed that all the scenes had to do with experiences I had either learned from or were traumatic for me in some way. The images...