Being out of body: death experience
(Dr Satyapal Anand)
There have been numerous occasions when one comes across, either as a personal experience, or as a re-told actual story by a friend, an experience beyond one’s ordinary understanding. “Out of Body Experience” is one such thing.
I would not have found it trustworthy, but for the fact that I nursed my wife (alas, she is no more!) for over two years when she was in and out of coma for a number of times.
I always believed that the grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables upon itself to see meaninglessness as the ultimate meaning of life. Bertrand Russell, in his The Conquest of Happiness says:
“The mind is a strange machine which can combine the fact with a fantasy – and when you look at it carefully, you might find the fantasy is more fact than fact itself. ”
It was back in 2004 and wife was in the hospital fighting for her life after a total kidney failure and lack of response to dialyses. It was late in the evening and I was in the chair, half asleep, by her bed side.
Suddenly she opened her eyes and called me by my pet name for her: “Jaani“!”She said.
I stood up and said, “God bless ! You’re out of coma!”
She said haltingly in Punjabi, “You know, I was dead for a while.”
I was taken aback.
“No, I really was …” she said. “…and I wandered in the long corridors and wards, and also went inside the canteen where people were having their dinner.”
I touched her on the forehead. It was cold to my touch, not warm and perspiring as I had expected.
Still a little confused, I said, “You must’ve been dreaming, but thank God, you are out of come. Let me call the nurse.”
She closed her eyes and then opened them, looked at me earnestly, “No. Don’t call her. You see, Jaani, I really was dead. I was not in my body, but was wandering about in the hospital.” Then she added after a pause, “Do you know that the patient in the room next to mine is dead already, but even the nurses don’t know it. She was also wandering with me.”
I was taken aback because suddenly there was a flurry of movement outside in the corridor. Nurses rushed passed my wife’s room; there was a hectic discussion on the nurses’ phone and someone said a little loudly. “Oh God! She’s no more!
I went out of the room a few steps. The patient next door, an elderly lady, had really died. ….I came back. My wife’s eyes were closed, but she said, “You see, I wasn’t telling a lie.”
“Yes, dear,”I said. “You did go out of your body, but what did you do and how did you come back?”
“Well, I don’t know for real, but suddenly I found myself lighter than air. Hovering over my bed, I could see myself lying. Like a breath of breeze, I touched you on the cheek. You did not feel my touch. Then I went outside; I was walking … no flying … no gliding or floating on a cushion of air … but not like one swims but like one walks. I went to the canteen with the idea to bring a cup of coffee for you. .. I touched the coffee pot. It wasn’t a touch because my hand went through it.
I tried to pick up a newspaper for you. Strangely enough, although I couldn’t pick one up, the stack was disturbed and some papers fell on the floor. Everyone looked at it, but one could see me hovering right over the stack of newspapers. Then I thought of coming back to the room – and here I was, once again on the bed with you in the lounge chair … and then I spoke to you and told you that I had died.”
Well, by this time I had swallowed the whole truth. She really had had – what is called – an out of body experience. But, curious as I was, I asked her again. “‘And what did the lady next door do? One who had died almost the same time you had.”
Oh, she?”My wife said, “She wandered alongside me and said something to me. I could see her lips making movements, but there was no sound. Then she went out of the hospital from the parking lot side, while I went to the canteen. Maybe, she wanted to drive her car back to her home.”
I thought she was making a jest of it, but no, she had said it in the right earnest as if she believed that people who were dead, could drive cars.
From my forthcoming book Memory Embers (Trafford Publishing House, USA) available on line from amazon.com)