Trust the Force.
Greetings. My name is Will. Just recently, I found this NDE newsgroup and thought I would join. First, I'd like to say I've had a near-death experience. I didn't die or leave my body, but I was saved from death by some kind of force. Force is the best way to explain it. The short story goes like this:I was 13 or 14 at the time, camping in Oklahoma with my family. My cousin and I decided to go hiking on some trails near a river. There was a steep drop-off, about 50 to 100 feet down. Well, as my cousin and I were hiking, a twig swiped across my face. There must've been a bug on it, since something sprayed some liquid in my right eye. Obviously, it hurt, so I started running back down the trail. During my sprint, I attempted to jump over this five-foot 'dip' in the trail. There were loose rocks and dirt here, and then four feet away was the edge of the cliff. I tried to jump over it, but I didn't clear it and slipped. As you might've guessed by now, I lost my grip on the ground and started sliding down off of the cliff's edge. My cousin, meanwhile, was about 20 feet back and trying to catch up with me.
As I started going over the edge, I didn't really have one single thought except that I'm gonna get hurt bad, and maybe die. As soon as that thought entered my mind, the strangest thing happened. A Force literally lifted me up over the edge, just enough so I could get a foothold and pull myself up.
During this event, as I think back, I was completely in peace. I wasn't scared, and felt (pardon the quote) "like love was tangible and you could wrap it around you." I felt no evil, no hate...just love, peace and tranquility for those few seconds. Also, I could see a yellow/golden light all around me. A bit like a sunset, except it enveloped me. As for my cousin, he witnessed the entire situation unfold. He related that he seen me fall off the edge of the cliff, then a few seconds later he seen my arm and I pulled myself up. Oddly, he says he seen zero strain on my arms...as if I were doing it effortlessly. However, he seen nothing else out of the ordinary. No spiritual lights, no figures, nothing."
That's where my near-death story ends, and to this day I don't have a explanation for it. I see one of two possibilities; First, it was a spiritual being (God, angels, dead relative, etc). Second, simply side effects of adrenaline.
For those scientific folks who refute NDE's and everything else that defies 'reality', they may ask why I haven't ruled out the supernatural aspect. My reply would be that I've experienced and been relayed a lot of spiritual stories from my family, things that cannot be explained as scientific in nature, that causes me to 'sit on the fence'. Perhaps one day, I'll find out the truth.
Will Bradshaw
