Gordie recounts his near-death experience when he attempted to commit suicide, and it’s a disturbing tale
I’m unsure how to speak of my experience in a clear way, without dramatics that even I question at times. So I’ll start at the part that was very real, physically: at the end.
I had the sensation of being sucked through the black vastness toward two tiny dots of light, faster and faster. As the suction grew more intense and the dots of light became larger, I began to brace for impact, but there was no way to ready myself for it. Before I knew it, I was at the edge of the dots of light.
Now, like huge windows from which I could see my wife in our bed, from the peripheral, then – BOOM! – I slammed back into my body with a force that jolted me up into a sitting position and startled my wife.
It was 2004, Portland, Oregon and although depressed, my life was actually moving along fairly well. I’ve always been depressed, though, and I’ve always half-assed my attempts at suicide. This time was no different, except that now I was struggling to breathe and rushed to the hospital. A few rounds of charcoal later and I was free of the sleeping pills I overdosed on. Only minutes after I got back home, I began to remember what happened. I died, or almost died. I had been to the other side.
Over the next year, I was initially flooded with memories of my experience, then it tapered off into bits and pieces. I was left to put all this together in a way that made sense. So here’s my story, less in detail and more in event.
I found myself slowly floating down a dark tunnel with walls like a smooth, wet mud. Every so often it looked to be ribbed. At the bottom was a light unlike what we see here in this world. It was jagged against the dark, bright and blinding, soft and warm, and it came from an open space at the floor of this tunnel.
I floated for millions of years, or maybe just seconds, I’m not sure. I was not aware of my body. I was not aware of time. My thoughts were all in truth and understood before even asking the questions. As I came closer to the light, I began to slow my float until I stopped, hanging in mid-air.
I began feeling a warmth on my back, warmer and warmer it became until the light was directly behind me, to my left. It touched me on my shoulder and spoke to me in my mind. I did not turn to look at it. Before I could even ask, the voice answered. I needed to make my choice, but I could only do that through witnessing my life, the good and bad, its effects on others, and what those relationships would be, if I did not go back.
I saw everything. In one minute I was happy and proud of who I was and things I did; in another I felt sick and sad and wrong. I saw the branches of the tree of my actions, and I saw my wife, broken, sad, lonely, and very angry with me. I saw my other family members, a few friends (who were pissed as well) and even my dog, my baby dog sepie, my best friend, sick, afraid and lonely, dead in two years from my death.
I also saw flashes of lives I had already lived. Two other times I had committed suicide and destroyed my loved ones. Another life I drowned at sea as the whaling boat I was on sank. It was after all this, which felt timeless and immeasurable, that i heard the voice again. it was answering questions as i was thinking them. it told me things i needed to know and understand. it warned me of the hard road ahead should I go back.
But it also warned me of the devastation I would leave behind if I chose to stay. When I asked the light why my life felt so sad, so hard, and why I had to endure such a struggle, it simply answered, “Because you can.”
Then I was asked my decision, and before I could answer I felt the suction pulling me toward those two dots of light, faster and faster, until I slammed into my eyes and body. Everything I read about near-death experiences are stories of positive change, a higher understanding, a calming or even of returning with psychic powers, but for me it has been none of those things.
It has been confusion, sadness, disbelief and untold loss every since that night… and I don’t know why.
Gordie recounts his near-death experience when he attempted to commit suicide, and it’s a disturbing tale
I’m unsure how to speak of my experience in a clear way, without dramatics that even I question at times. So I’ll start at the part that was very real, physically: at the end.
I had the sensation of being sucked through the black vastness toward two tiny dots of light, faster and faster. As the suction grew more intense and the dots of light became larger, I began to brace for impact, but there was no way to ready myself for it. Before I knew it, I was at the edge of the dots of light.
Now, like huge windows from which I could see my wife in our bed, from the peripheral, then – BOOM! – I slammed back into my body with a force that jolted me up into a sitting position and startled my wife.
It was 2004, Portland, Oregon and although depressed, my life was actually moving along fairly well. I’ve always been depressed, though, and I’ve always half-assed my attempts at suicide. This time was no different, except that now I was struggling to breathe and rushed to the hospital. A few rounds of charcoal later and I was free of the sleeping pills I overdosed on. Only minutes after I got back home, I began to remember what happened. I died, or almost died. I had been to the other side.
Over the next year, I was initially flooded with memories of my experience, then it tapered off into bits and pieces. I was left to put all this together in a way that made sense. So here’s my story, less in detail and more in event.
I found myself slowly floating down a dark tunnel with walls like a smooth, wet mud. Every so often it looked to be ribbed. At the bottom was a light unlike what we see here in this world. It was jagged against the dark, bright and blinding, soft and warm, and it came from an open space at the floor of this tunnel.
I floated for millions of years, or maybe just seconds, I’m not sure. I was not aware of my body. I was not aware of time. My thoughts were all in truth and understood before even asking the questions. As I came closer to the light, I began to slow my float until I stopped, hanging in mid-air.
I began feeling a warmth on my back, warmer and warmer it became until the light was directly behind me, to my left. It touched me on my shoulder and spoke to me in my mind. I did not turn to look at it. Before I could even ask, the voice answered. I needed to make my choice, but I could only do that through witnessing my life, the good and bad, its effects on others, and what those relationships would be, if I did not go back.
I saw everything. In one minute I was happy and proud of who I was and things I did; in another I felt sick and sad and wrong. I saw the branches of the tree of my actions, and I saw my wife, broken, sad, lonely, and very angry with me. I saw my other family members, a few friends (who were pissed as well) and even my dog, my baby dog sepie, my best friend, sick, afraid and lonely, dead in two years from my death.
I also saw flashes of lives I had already lived. Two other times I had committed suicide and destroyed my loved ones. Another life I drowned at sea as the whaling boat I was on sank. It was after all this, which felt timeless and immeasurable, that i heard the voice again. it was answering questions as i was thinking them. it told me things i needed to know and understand. it warned me of the hard road ahead should I go back.
But it also warned me of the devastation I would leave behind if I chose to stay. When I asked the light why my life felt so sad, so hard, and why I had to endure such a struggle, it simply answered, “Because you can.”
Then I was asked my decision, and before I could answer I felt the suction pulling me toward those two dots of light, faster and faster, until I slammed into my eyes and body. Everything I read about near-death experiences are stories of positive change, a higher understanding, a calming or even of returning with psychic powers, but for me it has been none of those things.
It has been confusion, sadness, disbelief and untold loss every since that night… and I don’t know why.
Gordie recounts his near-death experience when he attempted to commit suicide, and it’s a disturbing tale
I’m unsure how to speak of my experience in a clear way, without dramatics that even I question at times. So I’ll start at the part that was very real, physically: at the end.
I had the sensation of being sucked through the black vastness toward two tiny dots of light, faster and faster. As the suction grew more intense and the dots of light became larger, I began to brace for impact, but there was no way to ready myself for it. Before I knew it, I was at the edge of the dots of light.
Now, like huge windows from which I could see my wife in our bed, from the peripheral, then – BOOM! – I slammed back into my body with a force that jolted me up into a sitting position and startled my wife.
It was 2004, Portland, Oregon and although depressed, my life was actually moving along fairly well. I’ve always been depressed, though, and I’ve always half-assed my attempts at suicide. This time was no different, except that now I was struggling to breathe and rushed to the hospital. A few rounds of charcoal later and I was free of the sleeping pills I overdosed on. Only minutes after I got back home, I began to remember what happened. I died, or almost died. I had been to the other side.
Over the next year, I was initially flooded with memories of my experience, then it tapered off into bits and pieces. I was left to put all this together in a way that made sense. So here’s my story, less in detail and more in event.
I found myself slowly floating down a dark tunnel with walls like a smooth, wet mud. Every so often it looked to be ribbed. At the bottom was a light unlike what we see here in this world. It was jagged against the dark, bright and blinding, soft and warm, and it came from an open space at the floor of this tunnel.
I floated for millions of years, or maybe just seconds, I’m not sure. I was not aware of my body. I was not aware of time. My thoughts were all in truth and understood before even asking the questions. As I came closer to the light, I began to slow my float until I stopped, hanging in mid-air.
I began feeling a warmth on my back, warmer and warmer it became until the light was directly behind me, to my left. It touched me on my shoulder and spoke to me in my mind. I did not turn to look at it. Before I could even ask, the voice answered. I needed to make my choice, but I could only do that through witnessing my life, the good and bad, its effects on others, and what those relationships would be, if I did not go back.
I saw everything. In one minute I was happy and proud of who I was and things I did; in another I felt sick and sad and wrong. I saw the branches of the tree of my actions, and I saw my wife, broken, sad, lonely, and very angry with me. I saw my other family members, a few friends (who were pissed as well) and even my dog, my baby dog sepie, my best friend, sick, afraid and lonely, dead in two years from my death.
I also saw flashes of lives I had already lived. Two other times I had committed suicide and destroyed my loved ones. Another life I drowned at sea as the whaling boat I was on sank. It was after all this, which felt timeless and immeasurable, that i heard the voice again. it was answering questions as i was thinking them. it told me things i needed to know and understand. it warned me of the hard road ahead should I go back.
But it also warned me of the devastation I would leave behind if I chose to stay. When I asked the light why my life felt so sad, so hard, and why I had to endure such a struggle, it simply answered, “Because you can.”
Then I was asked my decision, and before I could answer I felt the suction pulling me toward those two dots of light, faster and faster, until I slammed into my eyes and body. Everything I read about near-death experiences are stories of positive change, a higher understanding, a calming or even of returning with psychic powers, but for me it has been none of those things.
It has been confusion, sadness, disbelief and untold loss every since that night… and I don’t know why.
Gordie recounts his near-death experience when he attempted to commit suicide, and it’s a disturbing tale
I’m unsure how to speak of my experience in a clear way, without dramatics that even I question at times. So I’ll start at the part that was very real, physically: at the end.
I had the sensation of being sucked through the black vastness toward two tiny dots of light, faster and faster. As the suction grew more intense and the dots of light became larger, I began to brace for impact, but there was no way to ready myself for it. Before I knew it, I was at the edge of the dots of light.
Now, like huge windows from which I could see my wife in our bed, from the peripheral, then – BOOM! – I slammed back into my body with a force that jolted me up into a sitting position and startled my wife.
It was 2004, Portland, Oregon and although depressed, my life was actually moving along fairly well. I’ve always been depressed, though, and I’ve always half-assed my attempts at suicide. This time was no different, except that now I was struggling to breathe and rushed to the hospital. A few rounds of charcoal later and I was free of the sleeping pills I overdosed on. Only minutes after I got back home, I began to remember what happened. I died, or almost died. I had been to the other side.
Over the next year, I was initially flooded with memories of my experience, then it tapered off into bits and pieces. I was left to put all this together in a way that made sense. So here’s my story, less in detail and more in event.
I found myself slowly floating down a dark tunnel with walls like a smooth, wet mud. Every so often it looked to be ribbed. At the bottom was a light unlike what we see here in this world. It was jagged against the dark, bright and blinding, soft and warm, and it came from an open space at the floor of this tunnel.
I floated for millions of years, or maybe just seconds, I’m not sure. I was not aware of my body. I was not aware of time. My thoughts were all in truth and understood before even asking the questions. As I came closer to the light, I began to slow my float until I stopped, hanging in mid-air.
I began feeling a warmth on my back, warmer and warmer it became until the light was directly behind me, to my left. It touched me on my shoulder and spoke to me in my mind. I did not turn to look at it. Before I could even ask, the voice answered. I needed to make my choice, but I could only do that through witnessing my life, the good and bad, its effects on others, and what those relationships would be, if I did not go back.
I saw everything. In one minute I was happy and proud of who I was and things I did; in another I felt sick and sad and wrong. I saw the branches of the tree of my actions, and I saw my wife, broken, sad, lonely, and very angry with me. I saw my other family members, a few friends (who were pissed as well) and even my dog, my baby dog sepie, my best friend, sick, afraid and lonely, dead in two years from my death.
I also saw flashes of lives I had already lived. Two other times I had committed suicide and destroyed my loved ones. Another life I drowned at sea as the whaling boat I was on sank. It was after all this, which felt timeless and immeasurable, that i heard the voice again. it was answering questions as i was thinking them. it told me things i needed to know and understand. it warned me of the hard road ahead should I go back.
But it also warned me of the devastation I would leave behind if I chose to stay. When I asked the light why my life felt so sad, so hard, and why I had to endure such a struggle, it simply answered, “Because you can.”
Then I was asked my decision, and before I could answer I felt the suction pulling me toward those two dots of light, faster and faster, until I slammed into my eyes and body. Everything I read about near-death experiences are stories of positive change, a higher understanding, a calming or even of returning with psychic powers, but for me it has been none of those things.
It has been confusion, sadness, disbelief and untold loss every since that night… and I don’t know why.
