I was in an earthquake.
I am curious about my own experiences, that do not fit the traditional NDE.I was in an earthquake in 1971 thought to be an 8.3 at the epicenter, where I lived. The silence right before it gave me a dreadful forboding, and the sound of the earthquake was so loud that it was as if there was no more sound. (To this day, I cannot tolerate certain sounds or extreme loud noises) Everything in my room fell and was thrown around like a demon had it, and me. I hit two opposite walls, and then was buried under the contents of the room, and the ceiling.
I remember a feeling of surrender, and the subsequent serenity, the likes of which I have never known since. I felt as if I belonged, finally. Still, I was concerned for my family, and I somehow extracted myself from under the debris, and passed through a door that later was impossible to pass through, the crack was about 3 inches wide, and the sill had been crushed during the quake so that the door had to be taken off with crow-bars later. I passed out of the door without effort, and walked toward the end of the house where the rest of the family was.
Later, I saw what I had walked over, huge shards of broken gallon jugs, shattered window panes, broken plates and crystal. I passed through a door, and I remember opening it, or feeling through it, as it was pitch dark. Once again, I had no fear, no worry, nothing. My father was on the other side of the door, and grasped my hand. At that moment, I was catapulted out of the serene state into full blown hysterics. Since it happened in a split second, it is hard to believe that all of this happened, but I literally felt sucked out, like in a black hole vortex, and placed in my body. I suffered from shock afterwards for several days, or a week. Still, my feet had no cuts, I was not bruised, nothing was broken, and I was completely uninjured in anyway.
Since the NDE seems to require the departure of the soul from the body, I know doubt I had an NDE. I was very peacefully in my body all through the experience.
But the experience of seeing THE REAL TRUTH fits this experience. I had the same thing when my husband died suddenly and I was two months pregnant. I was so moved by this experience, and so insulted by the people who pitied me, since I felt then, and still do ten years later, that I was given something of such precious and rare value, even with the pain, that it had to be shared.
Subsequently five years ago, I wrote a book called, Companion Through The Darkness, Inner Dialogues on Grief. It's in it's seventh printing. It speaks to the grieving ones left behind, and validates this epiphany that has absolutely changed us, seemingly down to our DNA.
From both of these experiences, I have been driven to serve others, to seek the real ones out from the unconscious ones. I have an urgency to confront and change my own self destructive tendencies, and there are few things except unconsciousness of others, that can get my goat any more.
What do you call this experience?
Thank you for your time.Stephanie Ericsson
