Two Near-Death Experiences: A true story of an unlikely friendship between two people who had NDEs (Third Edition)

By JD PhD Martin E.

Two Near-Death Experiences: A true story of an
unlikely friendship between two people who had NDEs

• Language: English
• Publisher: Doc Martin
• Release date: Nov 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781088016381

Book preview

1

Others see themselves through the reality of you.

--Robert H.

Robert is very much alive today, has moved to a mountainous region in the U.S., and enjoys living life surrounded by nature. His ataxia (the shaking of his body) is barely noticeable now and although he primarily ambulates via a wheelchair, he does on occasion walk on crutches with added forearm support for stability. He prefers to live in less-populated areas, but often interacts with friends and neighbors. He continues to discuss his experiences with Hanna, psychologists, and doctors, all of whom have been extraordinarily enriched by the sharing of pieces in his life’s puzzle. When interacting with Robert, he is quick to flash a boyish grin and good-natured sarcasm, particularly when the person he is addressing shows any signs of ego.

All of us have experienced high points in our lives and many have equally undergone traumatic episodes. Is it that the more experienced Souls – or what people often refer to as older Souls – choose to live out lives with a wider range of emotions and experiences as tests to their tenacity and for a truer understanding of Self? Who knows.

All that is known for certain is that Robert is proud to be alive to experience this particular time period on what we perceive to be the Earth realm. This is his triumph while in spirit form.

If you are alive and reading this, you too are triumphant.

Triumph in Spirit

2

It’s so quiet. It’s the deep breath before the plunge.

--J.R.R. Tolkien

"LOOK! Over here, … doctor, LOOK! Dillon urgently exclaimed, the eyes, … Rob has OPENED his eyes!"

"Opened his eyes?" the attending physician repeated to himself under his breath before turning to observe the patient.

Dillon’s urgency intensified and his voice echoed that of a frightened drill sergeant, barking orders during the midst of battle. "Come over here, . . . NOW! Did you hear me?"

His momentary strength now crumbled into gasps of sobbing, "His eyes are open! He’s alive! Rob is alive. I just KNOW it." Dillon’s excitement was a mixture of relief and alarm. Even he could not understand how such a thing could be, but in the innermost intuitive portion of his being he knew this to be so.

"Dammmmit, Rob IS alive! We need to help him! Now! PLEASE! He’s alive! Look at his eyes!" Dillon pleaded with the medical staff.

"Sir, please, the doctor coolly stated, attempting to calm Dillon down. Movement of the eyes in this patient is not indicative of life."

Dillon’s excitement level was now increasing and with each passing moment he became more assured of what he knew to be true: Rob IS alive.

The energies in the room were palpably changing. Excitement. Wonder. How could this be?

"Rob? Rob? Can you hear me?"

"Sir, please. Again, I must insist. The attending physician is now speaking with a more assured tone, a stronger voice mimicking that of a parent. Just then the physician paused for a moment, thinking only to himself, How can I get through to this guy? This patient is gone, zip, no more, nada. For Christ’s sake, he stopped breathing for 28 minutes and has been in a coma for the past month. He’s lost over 100 pounds. Once a very muscular and healthy 23 year-old tri-athlete, his present 6’3 98-pound emaciated state is more ghost-like than real. His body is decomposing. He has lost his hair and fingernails. His skin is in the process of literally rotting off of his frame. There’s a pungent odor of death in the room. While in this month-long coma, his vital organs continued to shut down and turn off. Strangely, the moment this would happen, this patient would undergo a seizure which would restart the damaged organs. His face appears mummy-like in that the decaying skin is so taut that he’s unable to close his mouth. He’s sustained a mortal head trauma. Portions of skin were violently ripped off, bones impacted, and internal organs bleeding and rigid. Rock climbing is an exhilarating sport, but not when you slip and fall, your unconscious body sustaining every life-threatening injury imaginable while brutally bouncing like a tattered rag doll until abruptly slamming to an abrupt end far below.

What was odd about Rob’s case was that several times a day during his 28-day coma, his dying body would somehow electrically recharge itself. "Strangest damn thing I’ve ever seen, mused one medical professional. It’s like his body is a computer, simply rebooting itself."

"Rob? I know you can hear me. I just know it," Dillon’s voice is now but a whisper as he hovers over Rob’s desiccated face. One of the nursing staff now places her hand gently upon Dillon’s upper arm in a motherly gesture of comfort. Throughout her many years working hospitals, she oftentimes felt helpless when attempting to soothe or console those left behind. No human interactions felt adequate in times such as these.

Dillon abruptly breaks away in order to again get closer to what appeared to everyone to be Rob’s corpse. As Dillon moved nearer the motionless body, he concentrated only upon Rob’s flickering eye movements, not noticing what was transpiring within this sterile hospital room.

"Sir," the physician again began to speak, but then ceased talking as he truly did not know what to say.

"Rob? Rob? Look! He’s looking around the room. He can see us."

"WHAT is that around him? Do you see that? Incredulously asked one of the seasoned medical staffers. WHAT the F– ?"

Everything was changing in the room. It was palpable.

People could feel, actually physically experience what appeared to be bluish energies emanating from Rob’s body. It was surreal. Doctors in the room visually saw it; nurses and technicians down the hallway could feel it.

There was an alive, intensive, blue energy all around Rob’s body. It made him glow.

His bruised and tattered body, scarcely holding on to his partially decomposing flesh, now steadily held a phantom-like blue haze which gently covered his entire being.

One of the attending physicians, unable to adequately comprehend what it was he was viewing, cautiously took his right hand and poked his finger through this blue, see-through energy as he compassionately touched Rob’s right leg.

While still trying to scientifically and medically discern what was happening, another weathered physician stepped into the room, this one being one of Parkland Hospital’s more intuitively sensitive professionals. A kind-hearted, white-haired medical expert who had experienced everything imaginable: construction accident anomalies, bloody barroom brawls continued in the emergency room, double footling breach birth babies delivered during power outages. He had seen everything, done everything, and experienced it all.

This physician had been outside Rob’s room as all of this was transpiring, but for some unknown reason felt a need to enter and attempt to assist. As this seasoned doctor stepped into Rob’s room and turned to take his first look at this patient, he immediately choked up and began sobbing uncontrollably. Never in his medical career had he dropped to his knees, bent over with such overwhelming emotion which could only express itself in tears. Never had he felt this strange type of energized calmness and unconditional love which engulfed him. Source energy was pulling.

The profoundness of this unexplained energy baffled everyone.

The pace picked up exponentially. Doctors and nurses were busily checking vital signs, medication schedules, electrical machinery closest to the patient, anything which may explain what was transpiring. As they did so, they were gingerly stepping around the crying doctor, still consumed by the power of the moment. Now passers-by, some not even employed by the hospital, were being drawn to Rob’s room much like bees being drawn back to protect a honeyed nest. Dillon was becoming agitated by the numbers of individuals gawking at the situation.

"OUT! OUT! Nurse, get these people OUT of here! NOW! Rob needs his rest."

Where am I? Robert coherently thought to himself while surveying the hospital room. Where is this place? And WHO are these strange, bubble-gum looking people?

3

Life can only be understood backwards,…

--Soren Kierkegaard

Robert’s reflections

I have been approached many times over the years to write a book, but the time never seemed right. There always seemed to be one more chapter to live and not many answers to give. The few times I have spoken about what I have lived through, I have been told I should teach others what I have learned. I have nothing to teach anyone and still have much to learn myself. We all create our own reality, so my answers are mine alone and would not apply to your creation. All I have really done is fight to live just one more day. I don’t think you would do things differently.

In the fall of 1989, I awoke from coma after 28 days, confused and very sick. My 200-pound athletic body had wasted to a bag of skin stuffed with a skeleton weighing just 98 pounds. My face was so emaciated I could not close my mouth and the stench of my rotting flesh filled the hospital room. My brain had swelled, damaging the stem where the brain and spinal cord met. My neurological system from my neck down had been profoundly compromised. Coordinated movement of any kind was impossible, but strangely I wasn’t concerned with the advanced state of decay of my body.

My thoughts were swimming, trying to understand where I had been and what I had seen. The last thing I remembered before waking was speaking with God. At that moment I was whole in body, with a strong heart of deep conviction. The many adventures of my Soul were fresh and still tangible in my mind and my life of 23 years seemed like a distant childhood dream to which I was again waking. I did not recognize my name or anyone in the room, although I did understand family relations and my lover who had been in a few of my adventures, but not as he appeared now.

The hospital room had become chaotic with family, many friends, doctors, and nurses. Most who came into the room had an unusual emotional experience. Doctors wept and others would begin praying aloud or stand frozen in a stare of disbelief. People gathered in the hall outside my door, trying to get a glimpse of the man who had come back from death and was glowing. I think people saw what they wanted. Some saw a halo. Others said my aura was glowing light blue. I just wanted rest and sleep and as I’m sure you know, a hospital isn’t a place for either.

With very slurred speech, I asked Dillon to summon my physician. I asked him to tell me my prognosis. He replied that I would die within 36 hours if I survived 24, but he would make me as comfortable as possible. With no sense of alarm, I turned to my lover and asked to go home to die in my own bed. Just a few weeks earlier I had given Dillon my Power of Attorney. We had met while working at a non-profit AIDS services agency and had witnessed firsthand the discrimination experienced by gay couples in this situation. Without hesitation, Dillon scooped me into his arms, cradling me like a baby. The doctor protested loudly that I would not survive the car ride home.

4

Sometimes the most evolved Souls take the most challenging paths.

--Dr. Brian Weiss

Time at Home Recuperating

It was hour-by-hour for many weeks, then day-by-day for months. Dillon sat in a chair beside the bed. Months later my doctors were still telling him I would surely die, but somehow I had come to understand differently. I wanted to, but was afraid to tell Dillon about all of my experience, so instead told him the more humorous and benign bits a little at a time. I told him about the tunnel and bright light, but jokes that God didn't want to put up with me and sent me back. He would sit in a chair beside my bed and read to me, usually The Hobbit, until I drifted off to sleep. He would begin again when my eyes opened. And so it went for weeks. As he read, I would tell him a little more about what happened, but then I'd fall asleep again. He later admitted that he would put a mirror under my nose to make sure I hadn't passed away.

A month after returning home, I went back to a therapy group which I had belonged to beforehand. In turn each member welcomed me back with words of encouragement. When one member finished by saying don’t give up hope, I became angered at this foolish comment. With much effort and passion and, to the horror of the group members, I exclaimed: "I don’t have hope. I don’t need hope. I don’t hope, I KNOW! I HAVE KNOWING!"

Their mouths were agape, waiting for a further explanation of my emotional outburst as we sat on the floor in awkward silence. I realized in that moment as they waited for me to speak that I was fundamentally different as a result of my experience. Dreams cannot change core beliefs, but a profound experience does. I could no longer explain them away as the delirium of a brain shocked by coma, swelling, and high fever or the convoluted dreams of a brain starved from life because of hypoxia. I now had a body of knowledge within my core being and could not explain how it had gotten there. I could no longer trivialize them or make light of it. I had been changed by my knowledge and now I had to understand it and the dreams and visions in order to realize that my experiences were more than just the memories of a dream.

After many questions, the therapist seemed satisfied that I was not saying that I felt hopeless, but he had no way of knowing what I really meant or how profound the statement’s implication was to me. I was in fact saying exactly that: I did not hope because I knew.

I began to push and expand all my physical limitations, not accepting defeat. I no longer would take sponge baths, but instead I insisted on going to the shower. I didn’t have enough coordination to use a wheelchair, so I scooted on a Frisbee, backwards. Off I would go to the grocery store, Frisbee and all, and backwards! I asked my doctors for physical therapy and was told that it was time to relax and let other do for me. No was an unacceptable answer and the doctor finally acquiesced in writing me the prescription under the threat that I wasn’t going to leave his office without it. "If I can come back from the dead, I can do this as well was a pretty good argument. Or if I wanted to be more manipulative: I came all the way back from the dead. This is the least you can do for me."

I went to rehabilitation only to be told my insurance wouldn’t pay for terminal patients. In order for them to pay for it, I would have to make more improvements than I was capable of. So I convinced the rehabilitation experts to lie. A dying man can be quite convincing.

5

"Sometimes it’s not a goodbye,

just a hello patiently waiting for the right time."

--The Better Man Project

Drew had a quick laugh and kind-hearted nature, always working a deal to get housing, food, supplies, or whatever was needed to the individuals she facilitated. Now a middle-aged mental health counselor, she had recognized Rob’s name on the newest list of homeless individuals seeking assistance. Alarmed, Drew stood and stared past the list while she attempted to retrieve images from the past. As she closed her eyes, she clearly envisioned a tall, slender young man she had passively known from the Dallas side of the metroplex 15+ years earlier in life. He was born in Mississippi and had moved to the big city of Dallas as a late teen. Rob and Drew had known each other as casual friends who ran around within the same groupings of people prior to the accident. She remembered that this Rob had played back a phone recording for his friends of his Mississippi mama telling him, "I luuuuuv yyyyyyyou at the end of a recorded phone message. Rob had grown up in a region of the country where milk was melk, dress was drass, tire was taar, and bless your heart" was often a precursor to an insult.

Could this be the same guy? Why would he be homeless? Last thing she had remembered about Rob was his bartender days in a trendy Dallas bar, followed by some work in which he and several others had started up a non-profit. Soon thereafter, she lost contact. Never knew what happened to him, but after so many years her memories were vague. Drew remembered how athletic Rob was and that he never experimented with drugs, much less got drunk. Being a bartender early in life and seeing the stupid acts of fellow humans had made a lasting impact on his unswerving sobriety.

Several phone calls later it turned out that it was, indeed, the same Rob who was homeless. They recognized each other on the phone when they spoke. Old times, mutual friends, fun times from years gone by, the memories were dusted off and revived. Drew pulled strings and cashed in a few favors in order to get Rob immediately set up in a small, partially furnished apartment. The complex was relatively clean, but was not located in the safest of locations. Even with strings and favors, it was the best Drew could accomplish with such short notice. She also helped to set up routine counseling sessions with a local Fort Worth psychologist in order to assist in hopefully overcoming whatever had caused Rob to be homeless in the first place.

6

"Individuals do not meet by chance.

They are necessary in the experience of others,…"

--Edgar Cayce

During the early spring of 2007, Robert was about to turn 42 and, with the help of his old acquaintance, Drew, had recently been moved into a Fort Worth emergency housing unit set up for homeless individuals affected by substance abuse issues and/or mental illness. Its residents were a Crayola box of major addictions and mental instabilities. The whole setup was akin to a paper recycling plant with a few paperclips erroneously thrown in. Robert was one of those paperclips.

After several weeks of settling in to his tiny new apartment, Robert began his counseling sessions again, this time requesting to speak with another professional about his death. He disclosed later that he understood that he needed to take this step because, as Robert explained to his counselor, he knew that by doing this, "I would meet a woman who would mean as much to me as my own mother." How he knew this was a giant question mark. The woman he referenced would not know of this declaration until 12 years later. Was Robert shown future actions to take during his death experience? Did his death experience somehow make him precognitive? Who knows for certain. Robert’s counselor was perplexed, but reached out to his counseling supervisor as to whom he should contact on his client’s behalf.

"Hello, Dr. Holden. My name is Peter Jackson. Most people call me Jax. I’m contacting you because Dr. Ken Smith, our director of counseling, indicated that you were the perfect person to contact. I’ve got a client who has requested to speak with someone about his – I think you call it an NDE (near-death experience) or NDA (near-death account) or some such. Sorry. I’m not familiar with the terminology. The guy died back in 1989 and wants to discuss his death experience with a professional familiar with such things. I told him I’d do my best to locate someone. Would you be interested in this type of case?"

"It’s NDE, which stands for near-death experience, and, yes, of course, I’d be pleased to assist."

Dr. Jan Holden, president of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS), then reached out to Hanna, a local deputy district attorney living in the same county as Robert, and asked if Hanna wouldn’t mind accompanying the professor to the apartment of a gentleman who had reportedly wanted to talk to someone about his death experience. Dr. Holden was a very intelligent woman, the epitome of what one would think of when visualizing university professors: graying hair; glasses; about 5’8 tall, a slender woman with an inquisitive mind, quick welcoming smile, and woman’s briefcase filled to the brim with research, notes, and writing pads. Hanna was approximately the same age, dyed her shoulder-length curly hair a medium brown which always looked reddish in the sunlight, was a whopping 5’2 and beginning to develop a middle-aged thickening of her waistline. She was widening her horizons as she liked to joke. She was also very curious by nature, oftentimes questioning life and all of its challenges, but when surprised, Hanna was not nearly as formal or eloquent sounding as the dear professor. In Hanna’s position at the district attorney’s office, if a defendant decided to take the stand and proceed to make up some crazy-a-- story (her words), she was quick to call BS and lodge a rebuttal. "Keep it real, guys. Keep it real."

Dr. Holden’s known information was relatively succinct: the gentleman’s name was Robert; he lived at XYZ address; and he had requested of his personal psychologist that he wanted to discuss his near-death experience with someone who knew about such things. Robert’s counselor was directed to reach out to Dr. Holden as she was an internationally known researcher in the field of NDEs. She held a Ph.D., was a licensed professional counselor, and had taught university-level classes for a number of years, including psychology and parapsychology. She routinely mentored Master’s and Ph.D.-level students who were also interested in NDE research. Although Dr. Holden was not what is termed an experiencer or NDEr -- terms used for those individuals who had undergone a death or near-death experience -- this field had held a focus and fascination for her for many years.

One of Dr. Holden’s extracurricular activities involved hosting monthly IANDS meetings in a city approximately 40 miles away. It was at one of these monthly IANDS meetings that the dear professor and Hanna first met. Hanna was an NDE experiencer from a near-death experience during a fatal car crash which occurred over 30 years earlier when she was 16 years old.

What then transpired took everyone by surprise, including Robert.

7

"When you become comfortable with uncertainty,

infinite possibilities open up in your life."

--Eckhart Tolle

Hanna’s recollection

I first met Robert back in the early spring of 2007 when Jan (Dr. Jan Holden), asked me if I would please accompany her to interview an NDE experiencer on the Fort Worth side of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Although I was also an NDE experiencer, I was soon to learn that my journey to the other side was not nearly as profound as that of this mystery person we were on our way to interview.

Dr. Raymond Moody coined the term NDE (near-death experience) in his 1975 book Life After Life. Dr. Moody had been an emergency room doc who had never had a near-death experience himself, but chronicled multiple instances of patients who had. If I remember correctly, his book was a study of about 100 individuals who were clinically dead, revived, and then subsequently interviewed as to what they had experienced while deceased. I know. Sounds like a Michael Jackson Thriller type of book, but honestly it was one of the most positively impactful books for its time, particularly for NDE experiencers.

I was only 16 at the time of my NDE. I had died for a short period following what doctors call an MVA (motor vehicle accident). In my case, on August 9, 1973, a speeding teenager playing chicken with red lights demolished my VW bug and me along with it. Soon after my eventual discharge from the hospital, I tried speaking with my mother on several occasions about what had occurred during my NDE while my consciousness was outside of my human body. She very quickly shut me down by saying it was all a dream and that I shouldn’t think about such things. What would the neighbors think? I didn’t give a flip about the neighbors, but I did shut down,…for years. Long after my exposure to another cosmic bandwidth and life in a higher frequency, my father-in-law introduced me to Dr. Moody’s best-selling book and I felt as though I had been validated. I had always known that I wasn’t crazy, making things up, or dreaming. Being out of body during a near-death experiences feels nothing like a dream. If anything, life here on Earth is, in essence, the dreamstate and the other side of the veil is the real side of life. Eagerly, I read Dr. Moody’s instrumental book to better understand.

Jan explained to me on the phone that this gentleman’s psychologist had reached out to her because this Fort Worth gentleman was wanting to share his death experience. Jan was contacted because she was an extremely well-known near-death researcher and, I would assume, because she happened to live and work within easy driving distance in order to conduct a quick consultation. As Jan was a sole female venturing out to meet an unknown individual and since I lived in the Fort Worth side of the metroplex, she asked if I wouldn’t mind accompanying her on this interview. Delighted by the prospect, I immediately said yes, never imagining how much this chance meeting was going to dramatically change the course of my life.

It was late in the afternoon. Jan and I drove separately and met in the small, partially empty parking lot of Robert’s apartment complex. We proceeded to walk into the building, down a long hallway, turn left, then right, and his apartment appeared to be located approximately ten feet further down on the left. The structure was dingy, poorly lit and only partially marked. The building we entered was one of those older structures with interior hallways leading to a number of doors, some indicating numbers, and others decorated with no trespassing signs. A television blasting away at max volume could be heard as we passed one of the doors near the building’s entrance. Otherwise it was relatively quiet. I had noticed spray-painted graffiti on the outside of the building’s trash containers when we parked and must admit that while Jan and I were walking down the various hallways, I was attempting to ascertain in my mind whether the markings indicated Bloods, Crips, or some other gang.

Jan knocked on the door and then we both stood back, not quite knowing what to expect. It seemed like a long one-to-two minutes before a 30ish-looking, brown-haired Caucasian in a wheelchair slowly opened the door. Jan and I introduced ourselves and were quickly ushered into Robert’s small apartment. A kitchen was located on the right-hand side which was not large enough to afford a wheelchair-bound person to turn around. Past the kitchen was a small, square living room with a black loveseat-sized couch where Jan and I were invited to sit. As I sat, under my bottom I could feel that a board of some sort had been placed under the cushions. This board appeared to have been placed there so that when one sat down, he or she wouldn’t immediately sink down in the couch all the way to the floor. Robert sat is his wheelchair facing us at an angle from the left-hand side.

At first I thought that I recognized Robert from somewhere, but soon realized that our paths had never crossed, at least not in this lifetime. I then wondered if he seemed familiar because he physically reminded me of the actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Was I simply mixing images from various movies with this new person? No, not really. There was more to this felt knowingness that I simply couldn’t explain.

It would be approximately 12 years later before a better understanding of how we knew each other would be revealed.

I had never seen someone ‘walk a wheelchair’ before. Robert’s legs appeared to work (at least when walking his wheelchair) and I noticed that the wheelchair’s footrest, footplate, and heel loop had been removed. It had a seat, frame, wheels, and backseat or rest for his back, but no armrests or push handles. Robert’s chair looked very worn and modified or ‘doctored on’ by someone, most probably him. I later learned that, yes, both his arms and legs worked to a limited degree, but that he could not stand for more than a second or two without losing his balance. In addition to his other injuries, he had what doctor’s call ataxia which means that he shook a lot, particularly his hands as we were talking. Cerebellar ataxia normally results from damage to the cerebellum and brainstem which is how one’s brain controls muscle coordination of movements. This was Robert’s condition when Dillon took him home to die following his coma. Over several decades Robert had been successful in regaining a limited amount of muscle control without full balance and stability.

Robert later joked with me that several of his friends used to call him Bob instead of Rob because his head shook so dramatically after the accident.

"Hi, Robert, Jan began, My name is Dr. Jan Holden and as we discussed on the phone, I was contacted in order to speak with you further about your near-death experience."

"Ahhh, yes, good," replied Robert. He was relatively soft-spoken and had a male baritone/low tenor voice with absolutely no hint of any type of accent. At times he would have to repeat himself in order to make himself understood. At first I thought that a portion of his jaw must have been broken in the accident and that the superficial masseter muscles which connect the face to the jaw did not appear to be working at full capacity. Later I learned that it was actually just the muscles within the jaw which did not function correctly. After a while it was easier to understand most of his words as the listener became familiar with his often-slowed speech patterns. Slowed speech patterns, yes, but definitely very intelligent, self-assured, and knowledgeable. What was amazing to me was that Robert never seemed to be upset or exasperated when we asked him to repeat a word or phrase.

Gosh, this guy is really, really patient, I thought to myself.

"Okay, Robert. I have a list of near-death experience questions which I’d like to ask you. As you respond, I’ll be writing down your answers so that I am able to compile your information when I get back to the office. Shall we begin?" Jan politely asked.

"Yes, of course," Robert eagerly replied.

After almost two decades, he was finally going to speak in more detail about his NDE. What Dr. Holden and yours truly didn’t realize at the time of this first interview was the enormity of Robert’s experiences, how he had gone far beyond where 95 percent of near-death experiencers had reported going, how he had experienced Heaven not once but multiple times in different contexts, how he had overheard discussions regarding a project on Earth, how he had argued with multiple entities on the other side in order to go back to live in his same body, how he had lived with extraterrestrials during his death process, how he had spoken directly with a power he calls God, and the list goes on and on.

Robert was beginning to answer Dr. Holden’s NDE questions when all of a sudden,…

I unexpectedly blurted out: "The tall purplish blue guys with the wry sense of humor."

"Whaaaaaat?" inquired Dr. Holden.

"They’re like seven feet tall and normally keep to themselves, but they’re really quite witty in a sarcastic kind of way," I continued.

"I’m not following what –" Dr. Holden started to say, but was interrupted by Robert.

"YES, that’s RIGHT. The tall blue ones!!!" Robert quickly responded.

Nobody said anything for at least 10 seconds.

Robert’s face reflected a validated yet perplexed look, Dr. Holden was hesitant to ask her next question, and I kept seeing these tall purplish-blue beings in my mind’s eye. Why? I didn’t have a clue. I could also discern a change of energies within the room. In the normal human course of events, this made absolutely no sense; in a metaphysical world, everything made perfect sense.

I quickly apologized to Jan for interrupting her questioning and asked that she please continue with her NDE interview. I then tried my best not to talk much during the remainder of her inquiry.

Keeping quiet was difficult for me. At one point during the remainder of the visit, I actually bit down on the left side of my tongue to remind myself to zip it.

Finally the interview came to an end and everyone exchanged niceties on the way out the door. I asked if I may contact Robert in the future, get him groceries, shuttle him back and forth to his various doctors’ visits from time to time, depending upon my work schedule.

"Yes, thank you," was the quick reply.

While standing close to his outside apartment door, I started to reach out my right hand in order to shake Robert’s hand, but instead bent over and gave him a quick hug. When I straightened up again after touching him, he gave me such an odd look. He had been very upbeat and excited to discuss his NDE, but after I touched him, he seemed to momentarily switch into a sadness which was reflected in his eyes. His pupils were large and the iris portion of his eyes appeared to be a lighter blue now than earlier in the afternoon. Maybe he’s got color-changing hazel eyes I thought to myself,… that or the lighting within the apartment had changed due to the afternoon sun. Maybe I’m just working too damn many hours was always my go-to excuse, but I also double-checked my memory. Yep, I had taken my usual morning shower. Geeze, I hoped that I wasn’t too sweaty smelling when hugging someone I didn’t know. His apparent sadness when I touched him confused me, but with time I was to learn much, much more.

On the way back to the parking area, Jan reviewed her