Theo de Backer
Yes, I think that if it's important for other people, you must do so. So you have my permission for that reason.I am 37 years old, married, have two young children at the ages of 5 and 2. Until my NDE I took life as it was and didn't worry about what would be after life. Now that's very different. Does it sound similar?
On the 14th of December 1996, recently, thus, I had to go to the hospital because of a pain in my stomach. I knew for sure it was my appendix. There was no doubt about it. It was an awful pain. I crawled all over the floor.
Although the man in the ambulance couldn't measure my blood pressure, I was still conscious. I said to him that he must hurry. As long as I was talking, I was alive, and the pain was killing me.
Soon in the hospital they prepared me for an operation to get out my appendix. I had to count to three, but by one I was already out. As soon as the operation knife cut my body I awoke but couldn't move. I could hear everything and, most worse, I felt everything.
The radio was on. The doctors, who were operating on me, were listening to a very important international football game. The head of the doctors was angry that he couldn't see that game on television, so he said.
I thought I was having a nightmare. I tried to scream out loud, but there came no sound at all. I realized that I had to choose other ways to make them aware of my very awful pain. Never in my life, I have such a horrible pain. I tried to move my body, my fingers, my feet, my eyes, you name it and I tried it. But nobody noticed that I was in shocking pain!
Finally, a lady, the anesthesiologist, saw on the monitor that there was something wrong. My blood pressure mounted, so did my heart beats. The anesthesiologist gave me more morphine, but still my blood pressure and my heart rates were high. She repeated the dose three times in different ways, but it didn't work. Then she said to the operation doctor that she couldn't give more than she gave me already, because she would lose me, so she said, I heard, word for word. So the operation had to go on. And I was aware of everything. It was complete torture!
Then the whole thing was over. The doctors were finished. One of the persons took me to another room, to let me sleep and recover. While he was taking me, I felt my heart was beating slower and slower. And the beats became more painful. I knew very well, I was going to die, and it filled me with fear. "Oh, God, I'm dying" I thought to myself, "So now it is happening." My heart felt like a stopping engine, and when it really stopped, I knew I was really dead. I was gone. This was it. This was the moment. I was aware that this was my most important moment of my life. But still I was thinking! So I had to be something. My thoughts were going on.
I had to think about René Descartes, who said some centuries ago: "I think, therefor I am." So, maybe I was dead, but still alive. I felt that I was out of my body. I felt that I was cleaner than before. I felt free. I felt more free than ever. More free than when I was drunk or stoned. (yes, I did such things). I felt good, better than ever before. It was as if I took off a jacket. I had more room and space. I felt there was no time and space anymore. Those stupid things, that we made ourselves to live in.
I felt I was on my way to something. I was afraid. Didn't know what would happen to me. It was more than dark. I only had my thoughts and there was nothing else. Then, behind me on the left side I heard a noise. It was like house music and it terrified me. I was glad I went on further. Then I went on a kind of misty road. It felt as if I was walking on clouds. I saw a shimmering light among me. I noticed that I could look all the ways around me at the same time, and it looked like, as if, it was much sharper what I saw. Somehow, I knew that I was here before. Somehow, I felt like an aha-erlebnis. But my thoughts were not really clear.
I knew this "road." But I didn't know where it was leading me. My fear was gone the moment I realized that I was here sometime before (in another life). Then I came into a cloudy room, I think it was oval. And there were about seven gates or doors or something like that. That is hard to explain in words. But I knew I had to choose one and I chose the one on my left side, the most left one. (bad English, I know it). And I went on. Then many things happened. Most of the things I don't remember, but still, I remember my thoughts about it, and, some, several things I do remember.
So I thought: "How simple it is. How beautiful it is. Oh, why didn't I remember it while I was alive. I always knew this." I saw a kind of strings. It was as if I looked at the under side of a carpet, on the upper side everything is in order. But on the bottom side of that carpet everything is out of order. It's chaos, but everything fits and everything is totally logical. That's reality, that's the only reality, and I remember thinking that I always knew this. Things on earth are the opposite of the truth which I saw on the other side.
Afterwards, I read Plato. Many of his thoughts are near the truth. He also wrote about "Er," a soldier who died in a war and had a NDE. I remember that I saw the earth, the whole universe, the great truth, the meaning of life, the reason why we are living, the purpose of life. I don't know if it was first or later on, but I saw my life backwards. I saw my learning points, my purpose. I felt the pain I brought other people in the review of my life. It was as if everything was happening at the same time. I felt that I was not so very bad. I saw my good points, my bad points, and the consequences of those points. I saw my earlier lives and my lives in the future. But not the reviews of those lives, just the relationship of my present life compared with my lives in the past and in the future. I knew where I was going and the reason why I was going there.
Suddenly, I was on a cloudy road and I heard, no, I felt a voice talking to me that was on the left side behind me. He said to me: "sure, you are very welcome, you may come in. But your present life isn't over yet. Do you still want to stay?" "Sure," I said: "Sure I want to go in, please, let me go."
"Alright," the voice said, "you may continue your way, but first I will show you what the consequences are of that."
The moment he "said" he wanted to show me the consequences I saw in a three dimensional way, my wife and kids crying. Then I realized what I was doing, if I should go on my own way. Then I thought: "Well, if I go back, it'll be for only a short time. I'll be back here soon." "It's easy to go back. Life is easy. I have to finish my tasks. It'll be less a sacrifice for me and I'll be better if I continue my life. When I come back here again, then, I'll be grown."
Well, the moment I had those thoughts, I collapsed back into my body. I felt the awful pain again and I thought: "Oh, Jezus, I'd better went on to the light." But there was no way back. I was very confused when I woke up. After I woke up, I had some very strange hallucinations which had nothing to do with my NDE, although they were like reality. They made it clear what was important in life. It looks like God wanted me to have those hallucinations to know what was important in life. I still remember the hallucination story exactly and also the message that God gave me with those hallucinations. If you want to know that story, write me. (I wrote, and the story appears below, after the main letter.)
For 6 weeks I was at home recovering. Afterwards, I began with my work again. I hoped if I worked very hard I'd forget the whole thing. But that didn't happen at all. Six months later, I was very depressed and stayed at home for nearly a year. Still I'm recovering, but also feeling stronger everyday, physically and mentally. I've learned my lesson. And now I'm working on it. That's very difficult. My whole life has turned upside down. Now I'm a believer. No, I know for sure, because I've been there.
I go to the church. After 7 years of marriage, we married in the church, a few weeks ago. Our children have been baptized, recently. I read the Bible, but also other spiritual books. I see the same things as before my NDE, but now in another way. I see them clear. I see the value. I see the truth, more easy than before. I don't work for status or money. Those things are the veil of the truth. It's love that counts and we all know it. Love is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God... Now, I realize that through misery we learn. If you like to know more about the way I see it now, write me.
Theo
The hallucination story.
Maybe it wasn't a hallucination. But it was different from my, what I call my NDE. Now I think that at the point of no return, when I chose to go back because it seemed so easy to live, my Maker must have thought to let me see what life is about. What is important and what isn't.
I remember very well that suddenly I heard a dull crack in both my ears. Then everything was totally, more than that, black. I remembered thinking: "Oh, what now." Again I heard that crack in my ears. And I felt a horrible, awful pain I never had felt before in my life and in my death, including my last surgery. I totally screamed. Then again that crack and I came back in the first situation of darkness. Then again the crack and that awful pain. Then that crack and a less awful pain. I began to understand that after a phase, I must go back to the beginning and that was frightening me because I knew I had to go again through that awful pain.
So continuing the phases I felt a long lasting pain, a kiss from my wife to awake me from that surgery, very itchy, love feelings, walking on the beach, walking through the forrest with my family. Doing little things with my wife and children, seeing colours, smelling things like flowers and more, hearing and making music, having sex in very different ways (I never thought it was possible to do so), be kind to many people, and more positive things.
Very late during the phases there came those things I held important, like driving my Mercedes Benz, having parties with unimportant friends, driving my BSA and Triumph, working hard for my career, making money.
At last, I want to say that the most important things of physical life weren't lasting long. They were short in terms of time (but what is time) and the phases at the and were lasting longer. (bad English, I know). At last it was clear to me that dying was the most important thing to do in life and making money was totally not! Maybe it's better to say that going to die, that very moment, is the most impressive thing to have in life... Now, I think my Maker had to shake me up to reform my life. I'm still working on it but it costs trouble and pains. I have to work on it...I'm still learning...
Theo de Backer
