I looked down and saw my dad again. He was pulling my body out of water. I was dead. But I was more alive than ever before, or since. My dad threw my body over his shoulder and started for riverbank. It was a beautiful sight to me and I was filled with compassion.

I don't know what made me go back; maybe it was that compassion. But for whatever reason, I was compelled. I floated closer, as my dad laid my body in sand and started administering CPR. He was silent and focused. I was at peace and knew what to do. I came down and found a place on sand to "sit" behind my head. I looked into my dad's face as he pumped diligently at my chest.

Suddenly, water shot up like a geyser from my nose and mouth, and WHOOSH! I was sucked back into my body through top of my head. I "awoke" in my body, gasping and choking, force of water burning through my nose and throat. The harsh contrast of being thrust from Heaven back into pain and confinement of body hurt more than dying experience, itself. It was like getting tossed off best carnival ride ever, and I wanted back on!

Years later, when I asked my father about this experience, thinking maybe it had been a dream, he recounted every detail as clearly I had seen it from above. The Love and bliss I experienced in that place of Light has been my driving force, ever since. And from that day forward, my life's goal has been to bring a piece of that Light back to earth. That little spark from "the other side" remains with me to this day.

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The ride was long, but I had nothing else to do but go for it. Finally, end of tunnel was in sight. I came out into a kind of space, a stillness, where there was a glow of energy addressing me. It was like a spark of life, energy glowing with intelligence, not in a human form, just pure consciousness. It seemed that some distance away, there was another spark just observing scene.

I felt as though I were having an exit interview, something like, "Well, your trip is over now, so complete things in your consciousness about that, and we'll move on." I looked back and saw my life as I had lived it, completed my thoughts about things that had happened, understood a lot of things differently, and then expressed that I was ready.

The Being began to move away. I began to follow, and then I paused. The Being quickly asked me what thought was that had just entered my consciousness. I had thought that it would be a shame for my daughters to have grown up without their father in their life. I had spent a large part of my life without my father in it, and I would have liked my daughters to not have to have experienced that. Anyway, I was ready to go.

The Being said that because my reason for wanting to return was somebody outside myself, I would be allowed to return. Before I had chance to express that I didn't really want to return, there was a rapid, confused movement, something happened, other spark which had been "observing" was somehow a part of it, and then I was waking up in this body, in traumatic pain, with intense drama going on around me in hospital.

I felt as if I had just jumped into a movie that had been underway, but that I had not been one in body before this moment. Because of trauma and drama, my attention was directed to things happening in physical world, and memory of what had happened before was somehow obliterated. I had other things happening which were demanding my attention, and besides, I did not have belief systems that would allow me to accept what had just happened.

Over next year, I began to explore ideas and philosophies I had no experience of before. I read books like "Life After Life," and "Life After Death," and other writings which described what people called, "Near Death Experiences," and I began to remember what had happened. I saw similarities to what others had experienced, and I knew then what had happened to me. I thought also of similarities to what we consider "normal" birth process, where babies are born into bright lights and loud sounds and being slapped, and perhaps, their attention is so much directed to outer things that they forget their inner experiences just before process of being born.

From time to time, I meet others who have made trip, and we compare notes. "What was it like for you?" One woman said that before, she was certain there would be a Being on other side with a big book, looking at what she had and had not done, and making checks and crosses, good marks and bad marks. When she got to other side, there really was a Being there with a big book, just as she thought there would be. The only bad marks she got, though, were for things that she hadn't done. Her only sin was self-denial.

My diagnosis on leaving hospital was "Spinal Cord Tumor." There was no treatment possible. I was given one or two months to live, and I decided to do that living my new philosophy of "I'm glad I did." I decided to work on myself, working in my consciousness to release tumor. Later, doctors decided that they must have made a mistaken diagnosis.

But that's another story.

By Martin Brofman, Ph.D. © Martin Brofman 1988