is a book by Raymond Moody. I met him at a reading years ago and he signed a copy for me.
On Monday, author Kim Roberts wrote the most interesting post on her experiences with the dead. Here’s an excerpt: “I will say, I never felt anything from a body. When a person dies, I firmly believe the soul leaves it. Like a butterfly leaving a cocoon, it soars around the room, a little disoriented, maybe a little frightened of its new form or tired from the transformation and needing to rest. It’s like there is a time period, when the soul isn’t quite ready to leave, that a presence can be felt by those who are in-tune with its feelings. If I was busy-I didn’t feel anything. If I was bored—I got the message, but it wasn’t loud or clear.” Pretty close, Kim.
I left a few comments on Kim’s post because I find the topic intriguing. In fact, life after death sort of colors everything I do, every decision I make. I guess I dropped hints - I wasn’t trying to be coy, but I’ve learned that some people are offended by and/or dismissive of my experience so I don’t often discuss it. I will say dying was the most real thing I’ve ever done, aside from having my kids.
When I was sixteen years old, I was killed in an awful horseback riding accident. As I tell people when they ask, I didn’t stay dead, I was forced to return. I did learn the following -
When you’re dead, everything makes sense, you have no more questions - we are no longer troubled by all the nagging existential questions we wrestle with every single day of our existence. But when you come back to life, all you remember is that when you were dead, everything made sense, everything became clear - you just can’t remember what.
Religion doesn’t matter, it’s what you do that matters. How do you treat your fellow man? As the ghost, Jacob Marley, says in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, I wear the chains I forged in life. The bad we do comes with us, along with the good. If you did something to hurt someone, you feel it as they felt it. You feel their hurt, their embarrassment, their pain - both physical and emotional. What you do to your fellows in life, you will experience for yourself in death.
Our only real possession is love. God is love, embodied.
We do have bodies, although I can’t describe what they’re made of. The essential you-ness remains after death.
Our human bodies are beautiful machines built to house the soul. Once we leave them behind, they no longer matter.
The colors of earth, even on the most beautiful day, are pale reflections of the colors in heaven.
Enlightenment is seeing heaven and coming back to earth to live your life. Don’t take any crap, but be a good person. Do the best you can.
I learned some other stuff, but I think the post is long enough. 
I have 2x choked to a point where resuscitation was required and had alcohol poisoning too the point where I remember the ambulance attendants said I had no pulse as I hovered above. I have had several vasovagal syncope where while I was not dead I was at complete peace and really ticked off to be woken up.
I believe that near death events were one of the most peaceful and comfortable experiences I ever had. I was forcibly pulled back to consciousness.
The hard part of death is thinking about it. Even if what I experienced was not true death I can say then that getting from a to b was not painful but peaceful.
I have spoken with my father the year he died and asked him if the after life was what he imagined it would be? He and I had often disagreed about religion. He told me it’s not what anyone thinks.
OMG, Steph! Bad choking! Bad, bad choking! You have to be more careful with yourself, girl!
Yes, true. The afterlife defies your expectations.
Julia, I love your post. I’m not sure why anyone would be offended by your story, but I have little understanding of people who have no tolerance for different experiences/beliefs than their own. My mom always told me if you take something that belongs to someone else it will stick to the fingers of your soul and weigh you down after you die. Hence you won’t be able to climb the steps to heaven to meet St. Peter at the pearly gates. The same went for treating someone badly or hurting another. To an extent I believe that to be true, I’m just not sure I want to give my kids the same scary image!
Kym - I don’t discuss the issue with my kids. They know about my experience in general terms. They know I am a person of faith but not religion. When they were little I simply told them heaven is a beautiful place. My one goal as a parent has been to raise kids who would be decent adults. My father, on the other hand, terrified my sisters and me when we were kids by telling us that heaven didn’t exist, that we are nothing more than dust. He’s an atheist.
Beautiful, beautiful post Julia! I love Moody’s books along with Michael Newton’s Journey of Souls and Life between Lives and of course Dannion Brinkley’s Saved By the Light-all are wonderful, thought provoking books.
XXOO Kat
Kim —
I read Moody’s book and compared it in a formal paper for a religion course with the Tibetan Book of the Dead. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. Not an easy read, but the descriptions of the tunnel, light and other beings parallel the reports in Moody’s book.
Great post. I creep people out when I talk about being psychic and hearing ghosts. Glad you returned, kicking and screaming, I bet. We need funny romance writers. Your gift is to make others laugh and have an HEA,
Sharon
Hi Sharon! Yes, I’ve read the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the similarities are striking. My husband asked Dr. Moody if he’d encountered any truly evil people who’d had an NDE and Dr. Moody said he’d met two murderers on death row. He described them as complete sociopaths, lacking all conscience, yet after their NDE, each changed. Each man became a good person. When he spoke with them about it, asked them what had happened to make them different, both claimed they still didn’t possess a conscience as you and I might experience the concept, but they’d seen what was going to happen to them after they died and they didn’t want to pile up any more stuff, you know, like bad stuff. Both men made 180′ turns from what they’d been before their NDE.
Kat, the interesting thing is that I was part of a large study on NDEs in children and as part of the interview, I was asked if I wear a watch. I don’t. I was asked why, and I said - because they keep breaking, they just stop working after a few weeks or a month or so. And I’m a nurse, I need a watch. I found out later that people who’ve died and come back all say the same thing, watches just stop working after a while. It doesn’t help to get them repaired.
Interesting! They must have been really scared! Sociopaths don’t have much of a conscience, as you know. Ha! Can’t believe you’re a nurse, too. We do get around…
Yes, Sharon, I think there are a number of us nurses writing…
Julia-I had heard about the watch thing. My mom had an NDE and she could never get a watch to work. We never put it with the NDE…very interesting.
Kym - interesting! I had no idea why the researchers asked such an obtuse question! Until after the study was completed and they told me.
Hi Julia,
This is a really interesting post. I remember reading this book when I was a teenager and fascinated with NDEs. I should go back and read it again…
Thanks for tweeting my Nutella pancake post!
Julia you fascinate me! There is so much to know. Do you have a theory why the watches don’t work? I’m sure you do…
XXOO Kat
Thanks, Karen! I so love your recipes! Yeah, Life After Life is quite a book.
My theory, Kat? I guess my theory - and this is just one of those metaphysical guesses - is that time no longer matters? Maybe there is no time? Or time is relative? Or all time happens at the same time?
I know what happened with me when I was up there and I did find out where all things merge into one thing. It’s kind of like the story, A River Runs Through It - which is my very favorite short story and my favorite few pages shall be read at my funeral! By god! (It’s in my will.)
Julia - it seems everyone I know that’s had a NDE describes the same understandings of the universe/world. Gives a person hope. Of course I’d love to go into the whole reincarnation discussion with all kinds of questions, but a blog doesn’t seem to be the forum for something so indepth. I guess we’ll have to find a quiet corner and a couple glasses of wine at a writer’s convention to have that discussion.
Thanks for sharing.
Amazing!