In March 2009, Raymond O'Brien collapsed at home. He barely managed to summon help (999) through the intervention of his cat, which in licking Ray's nose, somehow roused him just enough to make the call for help on his mobile phone.
Inside the ambulance, Raymond died for the first time and was defibrillated. He woke up and asked the ambulance staff if they wanted to come back in the house for a cup of tea, as he felt fine now.
"
No, Ray, this is very serious, you died! " ...and she pointed to a red clock on the ambulance wall which had been set to 12 midnight, the exact time his heart stopped. During his close brush with death, he was defibrillated no less than ten times and during this, he experienced leaving his physical body behind on several occasions and also visiting a place he describes as paradise.
Raymond very kindly allowed me to reproduce his experience here and he is currently finishing his training as a
PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) counsellor, such was the extreme pain and literally 'shocking' circumstances of his resuscitation. NB. It is very unusual for anyone to feel the pain from defibrillation (but it does occasionally happen, apparently)
In the ambulance when his heart stopped:
The "wind" was the first contact with my soul, I felt the incredible power of this sentient being as it welcomed me, as it passed through me from the right hand side. The first touch it made with me was my right upper shoulder, quickly followed by my waist and right leg, it went through me so quickly and yet slow enough to introduce itself. I was immediately aware of a sense of knowing this "wind." The way it passed through my soul was akin to the most wonderful blissful sensation, I am trying so much to give an understanding of what happened when we met.
I can only say it was on par with the most comfortable warm duvet, open fire warmth that one could have
ever experienced... it was so soft on my soul. The two of us connected which brought a comfort and calmness to us, there seemed to be a slight edge of confusion from the "wind" in regards to me. All of this is happening even before I have raised my head to look around, I was still fixed on looking at my bare feet when I realized by the emptiness within that the "wind" had left my soul alone.
As I took in what was unfolding I recall having a thought that this time
I am going take all of this moment in and the way I am going to do this is by being practical! I very briefly looked at the scenery to my right, there was a green pasture that led off to water, it could have been a lake (Ray mentioned here that he was surprised to then telepathically communicate with a swan who asked him where he had been)....
...but I was more fascinated with the feeling coming from my feet, I looked back down at them, the grass was protruding through my toes. I started to get excited at the realization of where I was.
The "other side" was reinforced with what I was seeing at my feet. The grass of course was not
grass in the sense of grass in a park for instance. It resembled very warm soft straight fur about two inches or so in height. I scrunched my toes and could feel the smoothness of each green blade of it.
The fur grass was slippery smooth between my toes and I was impressed with this as it gave me another affirmation to my sense of being on the "other side."
It was then that I looked up again to see just up ahead on a very slight hill, there were two men, and three women standing almost parallel to each other. The two men, one elderly, the other younger, wore white togas. What impressed me about the older man was that he had this inner strength. I have never experienced such energy! He had so much power, it shone out between his neck and shoulders.
The younger man, say around forty years of age, had brown hair and a good tan. The elderly man was clearly healthy, but he had white hair and a white beard. Of the three women/ladies, one was taller than the other two and they also wore white togas with additional white head veils. The women and the man were in conversation with the elderly man, who had a tan coloured book in his left hand he seemed to be reading from.
There I stood and I was just waiting patiently for a very short while. The tallest woman, who was just stunning, had long dark brown hair and the most beautiful face! She stood opposite to the younger man, turned and looked directly at me, smiling.
I smiled back, then I watched her bend forward and say something to the younger man and as she did, the other two women turned their attention from the elderly man to looking past each other to see me standing there. I don't recall their faces just the angle they took to look past the tall woman.
The colour contrast between the bright white clothing, the green "fur" grass and the blue sky was
mesmerizing to me! The beautiful smell of this place became
implanted in me as I was to find out several years later! Each passing second made me closer to staying here.
All of a sudden I found I was standing next to the younger man, how this happened, I don't know; but I did see him turn and hear him say to the elderly man, "Rays here!"
I knew from the energy that was given off, the elderly man had the final say on what was going to happen to me. My eyes were fixed not on him but on the tan coloured book in his left hand and with the gentlest of gestures, without even looking up from his book, he waved his right hand and said at the same time, "He should not be here"
Ray then awakes in the ambulance and is transported to hospital. He then suffers a series of cardiac arrests (9 more) and is defibrillated with additional chest compressions many times.
Typical of one of these arrests is this out of body experience in the resuscitation room.
One bizarre moment I can recall distinctly is being defibrillated and then immediately sitting up and raising my right arm, pointing with my finger at the crash team. They visibly recoiled from me and I heard myself say to them "Thanks, I needed that!"
Then I fell back again..my head hit the black cushioning on the trolley... I had a burning cold hot pain in my chest...then blackness... then a very violent awakening from this blackness. I assume the violent awakening came from the defibrillator. A sense of suffocation, followed by a deep intake of breath and an immediate panic... and then the sensation of my nose being pressed up against the white ceiling tiles that they have in the hospitals.
I was blown away by the realization that I am on the ceiling ! I could actually see the tiny fibre-board holes in the tiles, followed by bright white cold light coming from what appeared to be the fluorescent lights, I then had the feeling of falling down back in to my body. I fought with the staff, I could hear them say "Its us, Ray its us!"
I was so angry at the pain that they were giving me that I shouted "What the hell do you think you are doing to me?"
The staff were holding me down as I was trying to get them off me... two members of staff per leg and the same for my arms. I came too, but I knew more was still to come it was just a clear sense of knowing. I spoke to some of the cardiac sisters just a month ago about this 'event.' They know the crash team and they said to me "You must have really freaked them out, Ray!"
His final out of body experience :
(I recall that OBE very well in actual fact it still touches me at this very moment) The other day on my white board in the kitchen I wrote this.
He doesn't know this is going to hurt me. 'He' is called B...., a member of the crash team that night... and as I sat on my haunches (out of my body), on my physical forehead knowing that I'm probably dead, I was shocked to understand how quickly it was all over with my life to a point where a sense of guilt came to mind because I had left my body and really did not give any thought or thanks to what we had been through together in life.
So I said, "Thank you, Ray" as I looked along the length of my physical body below me. The crash team were running out of idea's of what to do next, I could see it in their expressions and a slight lack of urgency of movements in comparison to the start of my resuscitation.
As they worked on me I could see the clock up on the wall and knew I had been here a while. What drew my eyes away from the clock was the 'slopping' movement of my body, side to side caused by the defibrillator.
I looked down at Ray (me), his tee-shirt cut open and I made a point of saying, "It doesn't matter what you do to me, it won't make the blindest bit of difference!" Wishful thinking, I suppose as I wanted to be where this journey had started (in paradise).
So here I am squatting on my forehead, this in itself felt completely natural, then B appeared with the defibrillator to my left hand side. B and my soul were very nearly at eye level to each other and as I looked at him, to my disbelief, he said to the crash team as he rubbed the paddles together, "
If this doesn't bring him back, nothing will." Then he applied the defibrillator to me and I came back. The staff had 'caught' me; I was back and knew it; I could feel it, the shock of coming back ....and it made me so angry. I knew then I was in big trouble.
Some of Ray's thoughts on this :
"He" (Ray >Me) also doesn't know this is going to hurt him...came from my soul. I felt empathy for my physical body, as I knew that this 'event' had now taken a turn from the bliss of paradise to a dark and painful level. I was coming
back.
The 'events' were still to be on-going, I was told this, in some form of telepathy between the bout's of dying. I was probably two thirds in, time wise, in this NDE/OBE and by this time it looked to me from my 'soul's' point of view that Ray (the physical Ray) is going through a very tough time... and now he knows it. And I
did know it, as each time I came back into my body, I would reassess and take stock of the situation.
I recall (as a soul) lying back down in my body after B (the nurse/tech) had shocked me. I find it most unusual now to be remembering the 'event' from two separate plains, the physical which was intertwined with the unknown. The word unknown was hugely significant to me.
It is full of the most intense panic, the fear of the awareness that
'I have to wait and lie here' for the next 'event' (arrest) and (possible shock from the defibrillator). I felt like the situation was comparable to the plight of Prometheus from Greek mythology. I'll never forget that thought. I understood that tale now and what the meaning meant to me.. and it meant sheer cold fear of the pain and knowing it was coming for me.
I had accepted that I was going to die again. I could not take the information in quick enough to try and make sense of why ? I could see through the gaps of the staff to my right a shady grey shapeless fog had come for me again.
In response to a question about whether or not he had any conception of his non physical body :
I did see my feet. They were bare but slightly smaller. I was aware of the texture of my physical body's forehead and the strangeness of this situation but I was also comfortable with the 'rational.' I never spoke to B (from the crash team) about him defibrillating me, maybe I shall in the future. He left as quickly as he came, then a short while after this, the ambulance girl, R, who was the first person to resuscitate me in the ambulance, made an appearance. She came with another paramedic lady and I heard Rebecca say to her "Here he is, here's the man I was telling you about Ray, you are so lucky!"
Ray also described going
sideways out of his physical body and ending up in a place somewhat less pleasant (but not hell)
Many thanks to Raymond O'Brien.
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