Horror on the Dance Floor: A Near-Death Out-of-Body Experience[1]

Introduction

This dossier is the result of an interview conducted by the author in January of 2024. It documents an incident that occurred in 2001. Names have been changed and personally identifiable information has been omitted out of respect for the interviewee’s privacy.

The interviewee is a late-middle-aged Caucasian male of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. He was between fifty and sixty years of age at the time of the interview. He self-reported the following information as to the reliability of this account. At present, he does not use illicit drugs or abuse prescription medications; though he does have a history of illicit drug use. He insinuated having taken “speedballs” (a mixture consisting of illicit stimulants and depressants) on a handful of occasions in the late 1990’s, but stressed that he never took them on a habitual basis. Also in the late 1990’s and throughout the time leading up to his near-death experience, he regularly drank alcohol to excess, sometimes at home but mostly at social occasions. He quit alcohol and speedballs altogether after 2001. He considers himself a recovering alcoholic. He has been sober of hard liquor since 2016 as it gives him heartburn, preferring instead to drink beer or wine, limiting himself to no more than two drinks a week.

He has been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and moderate bipolar disorder. He takes prescription medication for these conditions. These diagnoses aside, he also takes prescription medication for physical health conditions unrelated to his emotional wellbeing. The medications he takes regularly are believed to have some negative impact on one’s lucidity or ability to accurately recall events from memory, though none such were observed during the interview. He considers himself not to have any current substance abuse or dependency concerns.

He was talkative and spoke quickly with an affable demeanor. There was an ever-present grin to his tone that did not come off sounding facetious or glad-handed. He seemed practiced turning his eccentricities into something with which to endear himself to his listeners. One would not be surprised if he succeeded at this most of the time.

Occasionally the discussion would veer into peculiar tangents without prompting. This slight difficulty in keeping focused on the conversation resulted in the discussion becoming difficult to follow at times. He was not terribly self-conscious over this. Whenever it happened, he brushed it off by comparing himself to Robin Williams (whom he idolizes) during the comedian’s stint on the Mork & Mindy TV show before getting back on topic. 

In spite of this seemingly exuberant willingness to share his experience, he emphasized that the only reasons he agreed to having this event written about in the first place were because: (1) he would remain anonymous, and (2) thus far he had not uncovered a satisfactory explanation for his encounter. He wanted to speak with someone who might offer him answers; otherwise, he would not have shared this experience. On two or three occasions he became agitated when his account got particularly explicit. Recounting these moments appeared to cause him some distress, and he admitted to this when asked.

He appeared lucid before, during, and after the interview. He provided complete, coherent responses to the questions posed. He was not paid, offered, or promised anything in return for relating this account. He requested his personal information remain confidential.

Witness Report

I’m a chemist.

I look at the world differently than you.

Unless you’re a chemist also, in which case we probably think the same.

But then again, maybe not.

I’ll explain.

Everything is made up of something else. Take yourself as an example. You’re made up of organs, those organs are made up of tissues, those tissues are made up of molecules—mostly carbon—and those molecules are made up of atoms.

Given enough time, everything breaks down to its fundamental components. We call those components “elements.” You’ll find them listed on any periodic table decorating the walls of just about every high school science classroom in this country.

You don’t need a college degree to destroy the carbon bonds in a log of timber. For that there’s “fire”—note the scare quotes and the air quotes.[2] A college degree will burn as well as toilet paper if that’s what you’re using to set fire to the wood—not that I’d recommend you do that. Tuition is expensive. 

On the other hand, if your aim is to make complex molecules out of simpler ones, you’ll want someone with a college degree.

That’s why we have chemists.

More so than the builder who erects a skyscraper, the chemist is closer to God in the nature of his work. A skyscraper is just a pile of visible matter organized in an aesthetically pleasing and structurally sound configuration. The nature of its building materials does not change just because they are present in the same application. The concrete and steel that go into erecting a building remain precisely what they are after the building is completed. Ultimately, the only thing the builder affects is the positions in which these substances are arranged within three-dimensional space.

Contrast this builder with the chemist. Say I was to take two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen to make dihydrogen monoxide. Sounds scary, right? It’s just plain water.

That’s a chemistry joke.

Now say I combined one part hydrogen per oxygen molecule. What you get is hydrogen peroxide, what your mom dabbed onto your scraped knees. Drink a glass of that and you’ll die.

No joke. Seriously, don’t do it.

Like the builder’s concrete and steel, the hydrogen and oxygen molecules remain precisely what they are; however, the ratio of one to another yields different substances. Hydrogen peroxide molecules differ from water molecules in terms of structure, effect, acidity, practical uses—they can’t be any more different despite that they’re made of the same building blocks.

I’m oversimplifying here, but I’m sure you get my drift.

Chemists get to play God.

That manner of thinking is dangerous if you aren’t careful.

My family didn’t come from money, but we lived well. Papa worked long hours. He was like the night train—we knew he existed but we never saw him because he was never around when we were. 

That is, except on Sabbath.

I was raised Jewish. Mom and pop observed kashrut. Yom Kippur and Passover were big to-do’s. Hanukkah also, but as kid I was interested more in the fun aspects of the holiday than the religious aspects. 

Pop never missed the Sabbath. He was Jewish and proud of it, though I can’t say for sure whether his fervor was for the love of God or just to keep up appearances. It was an open secret that our family went to temple because everyone we knew went. You didn’t want to be thought of as the one Jewish family that didn’t go to temple. If you called yourself Jewish, everyone else who was Jewish expected you to be there. In retrospect, you might say we were culturally Jewish, though not religious.

I stopped attending temple service by the time I graduated university. I just didn’t see the point to it. For starters, it offered no practical networking opportunities. I was working on an advanced degree in petrochemical science. No one there had connections in my field of expertise. 

Add to this my personal belief that formal religious observance is a waste of time. Religion is a dusty holdover from the Bronze Age that never died out because its usefulness persisted. 

Take Moses, for instance. 

How did he become the de facto leader of a newly-independent nation of Israelites? All he had to do was disappear up a mountain for a few days and return with two stone tablets and a story about a burning bush. Moses appointed his brother Aaron as high priest—talk about nepotism. No one would dare question the brothers if everyone believed they took orders directly from God, divine right of kings and whatnot. 

So that we’re clear, I am not opposed to belief in God. You’re at liberty to believe what you want, or not to believe; though, I think it’s foolish not to believe. Things just don’t happen by themselves. Every effect has a cause. That’s obvious to me—I’m a chemist, remember?—but if you follow this chain back far enough, you will find a cause which was not itself caused. This first cause that set everything in motion is God. Regardless of whether this cause is a person, a rational intelligence, or a force of nature, call it whatever you will, a rose by any other name is still a rose.

What I am opposed to is the formalized worship of God. Assuming God exists, he would not need anything—not our prayers, not even us. Why then would an omnipotent, timeless entity fret so much over whether human beings should be allowed eat bacon? If your actions don’t bother God much, why should they offend anyone else? So long as you’re not hurting anyone, God shouldn’t mind; and so why should any man judge another over what he thinks might offend God? Organized religion smacks of hypocrisy.

Yet another reason I stopped going to temple is I didn’t get anything out of it. 

I was taught that worship was pleasing to God. Were that the case, then wouldn’t I have come away from temple with something of spiritual value? If I had increased in worthiness in the eyes of God, wouldn’t I know? Because, really, I had no way to tell. If I had no detectable sign that my presence in a house of worship was pleasing to God, then how would I know my being there accomplished anything at all? Or might the absence of a sign mean that God didn’t want me there?

Thoughts like these troubled me into my young adulthood. Gradually, I came to understand that our temple—like any other house of worship—was packed full of holier-than-thou types. 

Recognition of this fact brought on still more questions. If all these hypocrites did was pay lip service to God, how could anyone expect God to reward them? 

Mind you, I wasn’t sold back then on the existence of God, but I wasn’t stupid. If God existed, he was smarter than me. If I could tell these people were insincere, God certainly could also.

This hypocrisy cut against my sense of personal dignity. I didn’t want to be roped in with people who kept up appearances; obvious sinners who flaunted their virtues while downplaying their flaws. If I did anything valorous, I would be true in my valor. If I sinned, I would be true in my sin. Right or wrong, you couldn’t fault me for being consistent. I’m an honest guy at heart.

While at university, I interned for a petroleum refining company that would later employ me upon graduation. I won’t say which, but suffice it to say that it’s one of Standard Oil’s daughter companies and it consistently ranks high on the Fortune 500 list. 

Landing this job was a big deal. I was twenty-eight years old and making more money than I knew what to do with. I had more money than common sense half the time. What’s more, they put me to work in what I thought was the coolest business sector—the racing fuels division. I was the guy who turned dinosaur bones into go-fast juice.

As my mindset became ever more materialistic, so too did my interests. I burned through money like it was nothing. I had a big salary and only myself to spend it on. First thing I did, I bought a fire engine red Porsche convertible. On the heels of that purchase, I bought a house with a one-car garage. Upon returning from work every evening, I made sure to leave the Porsche out on the driveway for the neighbors to gawk at.

No sense in putting it away in the garage where it won’t be seen. 

Flaunt it if you got it.

Also around this time I developed appetites for things my parents did not approve of. For starters, I wasn’t interested in a steady relationship. The only sort of company I wanted was the type that lasted into the following morning. 

The late-night club scene was where I went for satisfaction. I never much liked dancing, but you’d be a fool to think that’s all that goes on inside a packed discotheque. You can’t see past your nose what with the fog machines and laser lights; to say nothing of the press of bodies between you and the unmentionable goings-on within private booths off in the corners. 

You could get anything you wanted if you knew where to look. Clubs for yuppies[3] like me dealt in high-end party favors—speedballs, MDMA. Scoring a joint meant you’d have to go slumming. If you wanted company for the night, a downbeat club was where you’d go too, but only if you’d already struck out elsewhere and were willing to pay.

Between work and partying, there was scarcely any time to carry on with typical adult duties. I hired a housekeeper—a college kid—gave him a set of keys to my house and paid him to clean up twice a week. 

I liked him. He showed up in the afternoons and was out before I came home, leaving you wondering whether the house cleaned itself.

By anybody’s estimation, I was a success. I had a bunch of material things to show for my efforts. I loved my job and worked hard at it. Whenever it came time to recognize someone as employee of the year, my boss would approach me and ask, under his breath, that I not get upset if I wasn’t picked. It wasn’t good for company morale if I won every year, even if I deserved to, which I did.

What no one saw, however, is that after work I’d go out trawling for booze, or drugs, or nighttime company—sometimes as often as every night for weeks straight. It’s a wonder how I’d be in any shape to function at work afterwards. If I got four hours of sleep at night, that’d be on the high side. 

Thankfully, I cleaned up well. After a shave and a shower, no one at work would be the wiser of my debauchery from the night before.

I carried on like this for twelve years.

The rational side of me understood that this lifestyle could not go on forever. Already I was beginning to feel its ill effects. I had become functionally impervious to alcohol. Where before two stiff drinks was enough to get me loosened up, eventually I reached the point where no quantity of liquor could get me feeling buzzed. The amount I’d have to drink just to feel anything at all would sooner kill me.

From time to time I mustered up the willpower to quit. Within a week my body would be aching from withdrawal. I got such a nasty case of the whiskey tremors that you’d think I had contracted Parkinson’s. That, and I was moody. I forget how long I was clean for that time—maybe two weeks—around that time I told my housekeeper to go to hell. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it really made an impression on him. He didn’t show up again for the rest of that week. 

That was a real shame, too. He was cute.

I told you I liked him, didn’t I?

My housekeeper kept my house tidy, and I… well, I kept company with my housekeeper, if you catch my meaning.

Is that orange a fire in your hands, Gary Soto, or are you just happy to see me?[4] 

Despite all the hurt withdrawal was putting me through, I had the clarity to realize this lifestyle was ruining my body. I was sporting the complexion of chopped liver—appropriate, considering the state of my liver with all the abuse I’d dealt it. I was old enough to be someone’s dad, but with a face that put on I was someone’s grandfather, gin blossoms as all.

The lifestyle also stopped being fun. I’d fallen into the rut of doing these things after work because I’d done them for so long. I could not conceive of doing anything else. I was what I did, and if I stopped doing these things, I would cease to be what I was. This was an existential threat I was not equipped to face. 

Sleep was out of the question also. You don’t just quit “uppers” cold turkey and expect to get a good night’s sleep. And sure, there are “downers” you can take to help you with that, but like with alcohol my body had developed so high a tolerance that an effective dose would also be a fatal one.

I returned to the nightclub scene, albeit without the zeal I had when I started. The thrill was gone. I was here out of habit alone because I knew of nothing else that could fill the hole in me. 

If my identity was comprised of what I did, then that identity was fractured. I was not myself anymore. I was different people under different circumstances, never the two to meet; Dr. Jekyll by day and Mr. Hyde by night. One actor, two roles, no way to switch between them willingly.

You know how Lon Chaney goes from human to werewolf completely beyond his control and wakes up the next day without any recollection of what happened?[5] 

Maybe that one’s a bit before your time, but you understand, right?

I began to develop imposter syndrome—self-diagnosed, admittedly. Some days, at work, I would think back on what I did the night before wonder whether it really was me who did that, or whether I’d dreamed it. No one as successful and respected and looked-up-to as me would be caught dead doing the things I vaguely remembered doing, right?

Right?

It was here I began to notice a shift in how I related to myself. Before, I was a hardworking white collar guy. Everybody at work knew me as “that guy with the red Porsche convertible.” All the nice things I had were proof of my success. Things were changing. Everything I owned—the house, the car—at one time they held value not just in my owning them, but in showing the world how awesome I was. My enjoyment of those things was gone. Maintaining them had become a chore, and a critical one at that. If I didn’t keep up appearances, the world would see me for the wretch I was.

The final straw was when I recognized I had become the very thing I sought to avoid.

I was not a straight-laced corporate success story. I was not Lon Chaney—I wasn’t even the character Chaney plays in that film (can’t remember his name). That was just a mask for my nighttime “cut loose” lifestyle. I was the wolf man all along—the savage, ugly, detestable thing that hid within his skin until the full moon drew it out.

Holden Caulfield might as well have called me a phony to my face.[6] 

But not the cool phony you see in Patrick Bateman.[7] 

I was a hypocrite.

That wrecked me.

It was all downhill from here. Life could offer nothing better than what I’d already experienced. All that remained was to wait for the candle of my life to flicker out on its own. Until then, I could look forward to carrying on an insipid existence, going day to day doing the same things I always did, deriving progressively less satisfaction.

That pissed me off. I went from despair to displeasure in a blink.

I would not go gentle, as Dylan Thomas says.[8] 

If there was no life after this one, then that was fine. I’d gotten everything I could out of this life anyway. No big loss there. What awaited me beyond death was either an eternity of lying unconscious or an eternity of complete nonexistence. Neither bothered me. Any way you hack it, I was due a rest.

The last thing I expected was an afterlife of consequences for my choices in this life. Such things were spoken of only to scare children and Bronze Age peasants into submission to their superiors. God—were He merciful—would not send anyone to hell. God—if He even existed—would have more important things to be concerned about than the trivial actions of an insignificant carbon-based life form like me.

Hell could not be real.

I had nothing to lose in going out on my own terms.

It was twelve thirty on a Tuesday afternoon when I resolved to do this. I fabricated an excuse to leave work early. Come two o’clock I was home with a bottle of whiskey and box of sleeping pills. Both were empty in short order.

I immediately regretted my choice.

In a word, I felt awful.

My stomach was a riot of anguish. As if to save me from the drug cocktail I’d ingested, my guts leapt up into my throat, pushing to expel their contents out my mouth. But it was too late. Already the pills had begun to take effect. I could not move volitionally. Lying on my couch, you’d think I was asleep, but everything under my skin fought the unnatural stillness I had induced. 

I could feel my organs shudder.

My head spun, despite that my eyes were shut. Nausea overtook me. I wanted to puke but resisted the urge, knowing that if I did throw up, I would choke to death on my vomit—a decidedly more stressful way to leave earth. 

About then I got an idea. It wasn’t so much a spoken concept that entered into my head as it was an idea that came seemingly from nowhere. It did not originate from me. I know this because I wasn’t happy I was dying, yet the idea seemed to originate from something that was. Whatever this thing was, it had a sneering, victorious lilt. 

The idea it put in my head was ironic and just a tad funny. 

The problem was that the joke was on me.

The thought was: Attaboy, you’re going out like the rock star you are!

Again, I stress: this was a conceptual, nonverbal understanding. There were images and there were sentiments but there were no words, and this concept did not originate with me.

Before my mind’s eye, I saw pictures of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison—and I mean pictures. Photographs, some of them in black and white; others in living color like on the pages of a glossy magazine. There was movement to the pictures, but just a little, like those hologram baseball cards from the 90’s that showed about two seconds of movement when you tipped them back and forth. These artists were dead long before I was old enough to see them perform live. I knew of them because my pop was a fan of their music. 

Morrison in particular struck a chord with me. He was a rebel—you could tell as much from the furious look on Ed Sullivan’s face after Morrison glanced straight into the camera on national television and did precisely the opposite of what he’d promised Ed he’d do.[9] Adding to his bad boy image, it was said of him that he married a witch[10] and that together they engaged in all manner of occult stuff[11]—in the sixties, no less, long before the Satanic panic that would arise two decades later.

All of them are members of the twenty-seven club.[12] Joplin died from a heroin overdose; Hendrix took sleeping pills. Morrison died of heart failure, though he was known to use mescaline and amphetamines. It is not a stretch to think those substances might have contributed to Morrison’s death.[13] At least, that’s what I’m told official accounts of their deaths say. I’d also heard that they died choking on their vomit, which is why that intrusive thought sounded the way it did to me.

They say that your sense of hearing is the last thing to go. In my experience, they’re right, but not entirely. It’s just one of the last things to go. By this time my eyes were shut, I couldn’t move, but I could still hear the sounds of the living room. When my hearing finally went, I still had my sense of place. I knew I was lying on my living room couch.

All of a sudden, I wasn’t.

I felt as though the floor had dropped out from underneath me. I wasn’t falling; rather, I got this unsettling doubt that I was no longer sure where I was.

Was I still in my living room? If I wasn’t, where was I and how did I get here?

In retrospect, I find it baffling how I could have retained the presence of mind to consider these notions after taking enough pills to choke a horse, saying nothing of how I actually remember these things.

I was scarcely done exploring these thoughts when a scene appeared before me. And I say a “scene” because of how structured this looked to me. About fifty feet away there was a large group of people. They were bunched together and moving, but I was too far away to pick up on any details. As I drew closer I recognized this for what it was. It was a scene with which I was very familiar.

This was a nightclub dance floor.

The people stood inside of what appeared to be a large shadow box—they type you might use to frame mementos. The thing about a shadow box as compared to a picture frame is that a shadow box has depth. Its insides are lined with black felt. The felt absorbs light, producing the “shadow” illusion, drawing the contents within the frame into sharp contrast with its surroundings.

Although I could not see any borders, what I saw gave the impression of a giant shadow box encompassing the space where the people stood. All around and behind them was total darkness, walls seemingly coated in Vantablack.[14] It looked like some featureless corner of outer space devoid of stars. Clearly, this was not an actual shadow box and the surfaces around the crowd were not made of felt; rather, I was given to believe that there was nothing surrounding the people. This nothingness possessed enough substance to provide the crowd a place to stand. It also appeared to box them in, forming invisible black walls more secure than a Turkish prison.[15] 

This nothingness was oppressive. It had heft. It pulled down on my shoulders like gravity. It made me slouch. I could feel the added weight on my body. It settled into my lungs like radon gas; and like radon, it was subtle, insidious, and deadly. The nothingness displaced the air in my lungs. It filled my lungs starting from the bottom, so that each breath became more difficult than the last. 

The people were lit as though by stage lights, despite that I couldn’t see the lights themselves. The light seemed to come from within the people, radiating out from their bodies, though they did not appear to glow as such. There were men with women, men with men, and women with women, all of them crammed together, writhing and bumping. You could not squeeze a dime between two bodies. Some stood with their hands in the air; others had their arms pinned to their sides by everybody else surrounding them. They could hardly move their feet from how close they were to each other. The dancers swayed as if they were one body; a grotesque granfalloon[16] engaged in an uncoordinated, languid shuffle.

I watched them for a few moments before realizing there was no music; nor, for that matter, sound. The bodies moved in absolute silence. 

Fear set my back ramrod straight. There was no sound at all—not from the dancers, not from my breathing, not even my heartbeat.

Was I alive? 

Silly question. How couldn’t I be alive, if I was witnessing this?

But then I remembered taking the pills.

Was I even alive? Oh, what a difference that one word, “even,” makes.

Noticing this, I wanted to back away from the dancers. Just watching them made me uneasy. The problem was, each time I turned to look elsewhere they were still front and center in my field of vision. I could not escape them. 

The best I can describe it is as an optical illusion. Say you were to put on a virtual reality headset. If the set works as intended, then the contents of your field of view will change according to how you move your body. Now let’s say its motion sensors are shut off. Any time you moved your head, you would be aware of this actual change in position, but there would be no change in what you’d see on the screen. Your field of vision would not match the movements of your body.

If I was afraid before, then by now I was nearing my wit’s end. Every instinct of mine screamed for me to run away. Something outside of me caught on to my unease. I say this because an invisible push at my back dragged me steadily closer to the dancers. I dug my heels into the ground in protest. Even with the full weight of my body pressed against it, I could not stop its advance.

The push halted once I was within arm’s reach of the dancers. Whatever it was that brought me here now gripped my body, preventing me from moving, even from blinking. The pressure was unreal. I could scarcely breathe. It held me so tight, if you put a lump of coal between my knees, it’d become a diamond in under a minute.

The horror before me played out in excruciating detail.

Remember how I told you I was a petroleum chemist? If there’s anything you learn from working with engineers, it’s two things. First, the old ones swear like drunken sailors. Ever hear of an rch? It’s engineering jargon for the smallest calculable unit of measurement,[17] distinguishable from the only slightly larger ch both in size and also in that the rch is red.

Nanoo-nanoo, Orson.[18]

Second, and back to the point, engineers are sticklers for business risk aversion. As part of my corporate onboarding process, they had me sit through a number of industrial safety videos. One of these stuck out in my mind: the Rick Mears invisible fire incident at the 1981 Indianapolis 500.

To put it briefly, Mears drove in for a pit stop. As his crew team were finishing up, there was a fuel spill. The heat of his engine ignited the spill, setting him, his car, and his crew ablaze.

No one who saw this knew those men were burning to death.

This was a methanol fire. 

It produces no smoke, no visible flames.

How do you extinguish an invisible fire?

When you’re burning from head to toe, where do you even start?

How do you call for help? Scream, and the fire will jump down your throat to get at the oxygen still in your lings.

The people I thought were having fun on a packed dance floor were on fire. Standing as close as I was to them, the heat they let up was inescapable. They were pressed so tightly together that they looked like a photo of I’d seen once of the death pits at Bergen-Belsen—bodies flung carelessly in a Holocaust mass grave as deep as an Olympic swimming pool. 

They were living dead people. 

They wore their skin like rags. 

I could see the outlines of all their bones.

Invisible flame gouged welts into their flesh as big around as a dime and as deep as the second knuckle on my index finger. Through these pits in their skin I could see into their bodies. Their insides looked like boiled beef—insipid gray with splotches of red and stringy throughout. Their muscles were corded up so tight they looked like they might come apart in strands at any moment. The holes were constantly healing and reopening elsewhere on their bodies. No sooner had the holes knitted up than others ripped open like blisters.

Aside from the pits their skin did not visibly burn but instead was jellylike. Wherever two or more bodies touched, their skin came together with the consistency of pudding. It looked similar to when you’re working with fast-bonding glue and you accidentally glue your fingertips together. Normally, you’d scrub the glue off under warm running water. The last thing you’d want to do is try to pull your fingertips apart—that’ll take the skin right off your fingers. 

But that was exactly what I saw happening to their bodies.

The people in this invisible fire were struggling to escape the heat, but the mass of bodies surrounding them kept them from moving to safety. Just as soon as one managed to pull away from the crowd, he’d leave behind his skin. When too little of his muscle tissue remained to propel his body forward, he slumped, still on his feet. 

At that point, the bodies attained a bizarre equilibrium. The one looking like a tattered flag in a windstorm emptied out into the skin of those around him. He literally melted, cannibalized by the others closest to him. Meanwhile, the bodies of the others sluiced in to fill the voids in him like water poured from one vessel into another.

I watched, horrified, as they tore themselves to shreds, regenerated, then did it all again in a futile effort to save themselves. 

Did they do this out of malice? I can’t say. If you asked me to describe the scene in a word, it’d be desperation. 

They knew they’d suffer if they stayed put. 

They knew they’d suffer if they tried freeing themselves. 

They knew freeing themselves was impossible, a wasted effort, but they tried it anyway and suffered for it.

The way they moved—thrust together, pulled apart—there was an undertone of carnality to this that I could not help but notice. The eroticism was there, albeit twisted into something unmistakably ugly. 

I had heard tell of how sexual contact with someone establishes a “soul tie” with that person. These are viewed as negative. They’re thought to be spiritual connections with sexual partners that persist even after the physical relationship has ended—basically, a curse brought on by illicit sex.[19] What played out before me resembled an orgy, though I was given to understand that what I beheld was the spiritual consequence of sexual promiscuity.

Other thoughts entered my mind—at least, that’s how it felt. The information they brought was foreign to me.

What I believed at first to be a push that brought me closer to the bodies was actually a pull coming from the bodies. The distinction is important. I didn’t know it at the time, but when I dug my heels in to fight the pull, I was not fighting an external force. I was fighting myself. That is to say, the rational side of me, the side that distinguishes good from bad, knew that what stood ahead of me was very bad indeed. Yet my carnal side desired it, knowing that my choice flew in the face of self-preservation. The heart wants what it wants, and the body configures itself to the choices the soul makes.

Horrible as the sight before me was, I wanted to dive into that miserable clump of ragged flesh—flesh that humped everything even as it drowned in sex; hands that tore at everyone in a crazed and futile grasp for respite. I was drawn toward it like I was caught in the Death Star’s tractor beam. I belonged there. I would have given everything to join them. 

Here’s the scariest part: I knew—I knew—that would have been absolutely the worst thing I could have done, and yet I could not fight it.

Something outside of me—that invisible force that squeezed the air from my lungs—that “something” fought the pull. Call it God, call it a guardian angel—whatever it was, that “something” was keeping me from going headfirst into hell.

I stood there, watching the bodies writhe. It might have been seconds; it might have been years, but it felt like a long time from how much information I seemed to draw from the experience.

At last, I could take no more. 

I shouted, “Jesus Christ!”

I meant nothing by that. It was just something I was accustomed to saying whenever I was exasperated. Many a time I’d shouted that name upon stubbing my toe. It held no particular significance for me.

But for the burning people, it did.

Time stopped that instant.

The people halted in place, looking like a Roman frieze.

Before, they had not seemed to notice me, but now they all stared in silence. The ones in the back had their necks bent in painful angles in an attempt to lock eyes with me. One in particular was so flattened-out and drained that his face was stretched the length of four bodies, and even he strained to look at me.

They were terrified. They looked like when you’re new to someplace and you mention the name of somebody everyone is afraid of, and everybody turns to look to make sure that person isn’t around.

They held their stares for a while longer before I was yanked away with a sudden jolt. I’d compare it to when you’re skydiving and the chute opens. This was a full-body tug centered on my torso. The force of this pull would have bent me in two from how powerfully it dragged me away, and yet somehow, it didn’t. 

At the same time as I was pulled back I was moving upward also, traveling along an orbit around the crowd. The floor beneath them wasn’t a floor anymore. I could see above, underneath, and around them. I realized that the people weren’t standing so much as they were clumped in a shuddering, disjointed mass like the mythical rattenkönig.[20] 

I was flung into a wide arc before being catapulted upward.

And then my eyes opened.

I was on my back.

Wherever I was now, I wanted to spring up and run away—anywhere, it didn’t matter—but something held me down.

I thrashed.

I screamed.

What felt like a dozen hands crushed me back down. I couldn’t see the hands or the people they belonged to. All around me was noise and hurried speech and frantic movement.

I remember thinking: Too late! I’m stuck here with the burning people…

Stuck here…

Forever.

All caps. Full stop. 

FOREVER.

I saw the word as clearly as I had heard it—as clearly as I’d felt it.

My vision sharpened as though I were waking from a dream.

The people around me were nurses. I was on a hospital gurney. They were wheeling me out of the operating room where they’d just pumped my stomach.

While I have no way of knowing how long I had been unconscious, it could not have been long if the doctors were able to save my life. They don’t perform a gastric suction unless there’s a chance of removing the toxins before they enter your digestive tract. It sure felt like a long time, though.

Once I got settled into the recovery ward, I started piecing together what had happened.

I’d arrived home at two that afternoon. I recall not wasting any time in getting to work with the booze and pills—I didn’t want to leave any room for second thoughts. My best estimate is that I went unconscious no later than two thirty. 

I found out later that my housekeeper showed up at three, punctual as always. I’d neglected to take back his set of house keys. He found me lying unresponsive on the couch and phoned for emergency services.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Once my legs were sufficiently steady beneath me, I went to the bathroom. I was the only person in the room, but reflected in the mirror was a face I did not recognize. It was me—this much I knew for certain—but I looked so old, so deathly pallid, like an extra in a John Romero film. 

You know, like a zombie. Like the people in the invisible fire.

Internally, I asked: Why am I doing this to myself?

I don’t know what came over me in thinking that I’d get a response. 

Regardless, none came. That is, not one involving words.

My experience that afternoon was a wake-up call. It stung me to accept that truth because I knew it was a sign I would have to make some difficult lifestyle changes. 

Truth be told, I had come to hate my lifestyle, but what I hated even more was the thought of leaving it behind. Nature abhors a vacuum. If I walked away from my life of constant partying, I could not conceive of anything else to fill the gap this would leave.

I’d acquired a taste for the poison that was killing me.

“Why am I doing this to myself?” I spoke aloud, and was taken aback at the sound of my voice. I was so caught up in my thoughts that I doubted whether it was me who had spoken.

I did not get the answer then, but what I did get was something better—a newfound sense direction. It’s not easy pulling yourself out of a rut. I didn’t get myself into it overnight, and so I couldn’t expect to leave it as quickly. I knew it would be a grueling climb out of this hole I’d dug myself into. 

There’s a line in a sci-fi novel I read once: “The enemy’s gate is down.”[21] A character says this to orient himself in the depth of space much the same way as you align a map with north toward its top. It’s a point of reference. Without one you cannot chart a course; nor can you redirect your life.

Where I was then was “down.” It became where I did not want to be. That made charting a course for my life a simple matter. I would not repeat the mistakes that got me here.

I still don’t understand what happened to me while I was out, or whether it was divine intervention—if such a thing exists—or a visit from the “ascended masters.”[22] It was a long time before I could bring myself to reflect on that experience, to say nothing of talking about it. It frightened me so much; it was just so real. That, and the last thing I wanted was for people to think I was strange. I mean, I was strange, but if word of this experience got out it would raise questions I was not comfortable answering. 

That’s funny when you consider some of the other things I was doing at the time. I was okay with those things being somewhat public knowledge, but this? No sir. 

After I was discharged from the hospital, the first thing I did was fire my housekeeper.

I know that sounds harsh, but hear me out.

I thanked him for saving my life, and then explained that we could no longer be together. To show there were no hard feelings, I gave him five hundred dollars cash. Afterward, we shook hands. That was the last I saw of him. 

I wish him well. Really, I do.

I took some time off work. In the time since my housekeeper’s last visit, my house had decayed into squalor. I’d devoted so much effort in keeping up appearances that I’d blinded myself to the fact I’d become what I sought to avoid.

The wolf man saw himself in the mirror and gaped at what he’d become.

I spent one whole day cleaning the place up, leaving me exhausted but proud of my efforts. The following morning, I washed and detailed the Porsche. By noon it shone like it was new off the dealer’s lot.

These little tasks of caring for what was mine instilled in me a new sense of worth. Not just in my possessions, I mean, but in myself. If I was willing to devote two days to care for those things that mattered most to me—my house and my car—how much more ought I devote toward cleaning up my life? It put things in perspective.

I felt stupid for not having realized that before. It was an open-mouthed grin kind of stupid, not the judgmental type. It was the way you feel about yourself when you know you’ve done wrong but you smile and acknowledge your faults as you work to get better. 

I quit the nightclub scene.

I quit nightclub people.

I quit one-night stands.

I quit drinking—mostly.

Every now and then I might smoke a little. Nobody’s perfect, after all, and I’m not by a longshot.

But I’m better than I was. I’m proud of that.

It’s been a hard road. While I have no way of knowing what lies at the end, I’m certain I don’t want to end up there—with the burning people—whatever “there” is. 

I hesitate to call it hell. 

Without a doubt it’s hellish, but is it really the H-E-double-hockey-sticks?

I can’t accept that so awful a place exists, and yet I can’t deny that it’s real.

Call it cognitive dissonance, call it willful blindness—I don’t care what you call it, but I don’t want to believe hell exists in spite of what I saw.

Because if I did, that would mean anyone can go there.

Even me.

“The enemy’s gate is down,” and I’m going anywhere but back there.

For me, that’s what purpose looks like. 

That is what’s kept this train from coming off its tracks.

But you know what I haven’t figured out? What to call the event that turned my life around.

Smarter people than me—smarter than chemists, even—have a word for it.

They call it a miracle.

For all I know, they’re probably right.

Analysis[23]

This account describes an out-of-body experience (OBE) that occurred during a near-death experience (NDE)—specifically, a “negative” or “distressing” NDE. Before proceeding on with analysis of this account, four threshold points must be addressed.

First, one should not seek to willfully produce an OBE or an NDE. This undertaking is inherently hazardous. It is not for nothing that NDE stands for near-death experience. 

Second, it is necessary to define what these phenomena are and what they are not. In this author’s judgment, these experiences are not drug trips; they are not the product of an altered state of consciousness induced by material means. Rather, genuine OBE/NDE’s appear to have spiritual causes despite that, admittedly, these causes are not fully understood.

Cogent arguments have been put forward that OBE/NDE’s have no spiritual dimension. They posit that such phenomena are entirely the product of environmental or chemical effects on the body. For instance, that these experiences stem from a brain coping with the stress of dying: “This brute link between abnormal activity patterns… and subjective experience provides support for a biological, not spiritual origin.”[24] Adherents to this view would agree that such things as oxygen hypoxia and hallucinogenic drugs can trigger something similar to an OBE/NDE. Similar findings support the conclusion that an OBE is a form of sensory deception, one that can be evoked clinically by application of electrical current to the brain.[25] 

It is conceded that objects and circumstances in the material world may produce results that can be likened to OBE/NDE phenomena. Both LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) and DMT (dimethyltryptamine) have been said to generate effects on the body resembling an OBE/NDE. However, that does not mean OBE/NDE’s always have their origins in physical causes. Such an observation can be the product of confirmation bias. A person who takes drugs with the intent of undergoing an OBE/NDE may think he actually produced a genuine experience if something similar to an OBE/NDE ensues.

Moreover, reported OBE/NDE’s tend to exhibit details consistent with other such reported phenomena. Certain common elements are present across the spectrum of reported events.[26] This suggests these phenomena cannot be the product of random chance, as would be expected if the experience were solely the product of material causes.

What, then, are OBE’s and NDE’s?

OBE’s have been defined as “experiences in which a person seems to be awake and sees his body and the world from a location outside his physical body.”[27] An NDE is “a phenomenon that occurs when a person loses consciousness and senses a disconnection from the world around them.”[28] 

Lest these definitions be criticized as facile, observe that during an NDE the witness is unconscious, but upon waking reports awareness of events occurring around him during a time when this should not have been possible. In addition, the witness retains a capacity for introspection—that is, he has a sense of self. What the witness sees is not understood as a fictional narrative viewed on a television screen; rather, there is immediacy to the events and realness to the experience. He perceives the events as happening to him personally, not to someone else, despite seeming to know he is outside of his body as these events transpire. 

A celebrated example of this phenomenon is the Pam Reynolds case. After being diagnosed with a serious brain aneurysm, Ms. Reynolds underwent an experimental surgery during which her respiration was stopped and all the blood was removed from her brain.[29] Her vital signs were closely monitored throughout the process.[30] She reports that, after the anesthesia had taken effect, she felt as though she were being pulled out of her body by the top of her head.[31] She could see the medical personnel working on her body and even recalled their conversations in the operating room.[32] Although she was not previously familiar with the surgical implements the hospital workers were using, she described them after regaining consciousness, referring to a handheld circular saw by calling it an electric toothbrush, which it resembled.[33] Throughout this experience, her heart was stopped.[34] Such high level brain functions should not be present in a person who is clinically dead.[35]

This, in turn, raises the question: what does it mean to die? In this author’s judgment, the concept of physical death is something the natural sciences cannot fully delineate:

The reason no scientific technique can directly identify the moment of death is quite simple: the soul is a non-corporeal, spiritual life-principle which cannot be observed or measured or weighed using the tools of empirical science. The presence or absence of the soul can be ascertained only by observing certain biological signs that indirectly attest to its presence or its absence.[36] 

A human being is a creature with a body with a soul.[37] The natural sciences are keyed toward investigation of the material universe. Science excels at making observations about the human body because the object of its inquiry suits its method. The same cannot be said when the object of a scientific inquiry is the soul. A soul, by definition, is non-corporeal. It has no material component. It cannot be weighed, measured, or manipulated with scientific equipment.[38] 

Thus, scientific methods are employed after the fact when looking for signs that a death has occurred. Using these signs as evidence, a reasonably secure conclusion can be drawn that a living being has died. Scientific methods can also provide a reasonable timeframe during which the death may have occurred. However, where science falls short is in pinpointing the exact moment death comes. This it cannot do.

How, then, does one begin to understand what death is? Approaching this question from a commonsensical perspective, a body is dead when it is separated from the soul animating it. To go any further, one must better understand the soul, and that requires one resort to theology.

Like the natural sciences, theology has methods of analysis it utilizes in the pursuit of truth. This is best explained by way of an analogy. Science measures matter. These measurements comprise the data from which conclusions are drawn about the natural world. 

If measurement is the currency of science, logic is the currency of theology. Unlike measurement, logic is not subject to the limitations imposed on science. A scale may be incapable of determining the weight of a soul, but logic is more than suitable for telling whether a soul is present or not in a body. 

Thus, the discussion delves now into theology.

The soul is the body’s “spiritual life-principle,”[39] the animating force without which a body is dead.[40] Therefore one can determine that death—conceptually at least—is the moment at which the soul is separated from the body. 

More questions emerge. Observe that the definition for an NDE given above involves a person losing consciousness and yet sensing a disconnection from the world around them. How might a person sense anything after going unconscious? How might a person retain consciousness after death? 

Faced with these difficult questions, skepticism is only natural. Dr. Kevin Nelson remarks: “Belief in consciousness beyond the brain lies in the realm of faith beyond science.”[41] While Dr. Nelson is not wrong for saying so, he approaches the topic from the standpoint of a neuroscientist. He bases his conclusions on observations of the material components of a human body. While it makes sense that consciousness should not persist beyond a person becoming unconscious, that is exactly what appears to happen during NDE’s, and so one must look beyond material causes for an explanation.

Research into OBE/NDE phenomena indicates that consciousness persists after the death of a body. This in turn would indicate that, while one’s consciousness and bodily state are related, consciousness must ultimately reside in something outside of the body. By this is meant: it is indeed the case that one can suffer a loss of consciousness due bodily circumstances; for example: sleep, intoxication, or a blow to the head. Death and NDE’s are just two more events observed to cause a loss of bodily consciousness. 

If consciousness were extinguished every time a body became unconscious, as occurs during sleep, then there should be no anecdotal evidence of NDE’s. Indeed, how often does one even remember his own nightly dreams? However, it appears the opposite is true: there is an enormous volume of anecdotal evidence for NDE’s during times in which the witnesses were observed to be unconscious, according to the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF), one of the largest databases on the topic. 

That such a profusion of anecdotal NDE evidence exists would indicate that consciousness may survive periods of bodily unconsciousness. Building on this point, that a person might be conscious while his body is not points to consciousness residing outside of the body, possibly in something the natural sciences have been unable to pin down—i.e., a soul.

The data suggest that the soul is that aspect of a person that leaves the body during an OBE, and which is responsible for the persistence of consciousness at times when recourse to the bodily senses is impossible.

Third, despite pop culture’s association of OBE/NDE phenomena with New Age spiritualism, research into these occurrences should not be dismissed as pseudoscience. These phenomena have been topics of scientific research for the last fifty years. Dr. Raymond Moody commenced inquiry into the subject with the publication of his 1975 study, Life After Life.[42] Moody’s research paved the way for Dr. Michael Sabom’s 1994 Atlanta study,[43] Dr. Sam Parnia’s comprehensive AWARE study (AWAreness during REsuscitation) in 2008,[44] and other investigations which are ongoing.

With this in mind, one must always be on guard for hoaxes. Hoax NDE’s are known to have occurred, with one of the most salient examples being the account of Alex Malarkey. When he was six years old, Mr. Malarkey sustained injuries in a car accident that left him in a coma. Upon regaining consciousness, he told his parents he had an OBE wherein he went to heaven and met Jesus. His story was published in 2010 as The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven.[45] 

The year after the book was published, Alex repudiated his story. Then, in 2012, his mother wrote that her son’s account had been embellished to the point of hardly being truthful. On January 13, 2015, Alex wrote to Christian apologetics blog Pulpit and Pen: “I did not die. I did not go to Heaven. I said I went to Heaven because I thought it would get me attention… People have profited from lies, and continue to.”[46] Two days after Alex’s statement, his publisher withdrew the book.

Practiced skepticism is always advised when considering events that appear to take on supernatural characteristics. With that said, it is not this author’s place to judge whether the experience recounted in this dossier is genuine; however certain hallmarks of authenticity are present.

Fourth, and to clear the air about the topic, the occurrence of OBE/NDE phenomena neither disprove nor run afoul of Catholic teachings. St. John “was in the spirit on the Lord’s day”[47] when Christ granted him the visions the apostle would later record in the Book of Revelation. After having been stoned and left for dead,[48] St. Paul received a vision of heaven[49] during which he was unable to tell whether he was “in the body, or out of the body.”[50] St. John Bosco may have had a negative OBE of hell;[51] likewise St. Teresa of Avila. In his letters, St. Jerome relates his own negative NDE:

[A]bout the middle of Lent a deep-seated fever fell upon my weakened body… Meantime preparations for my funeral went on… [s]uddenly I was caught up in the spirit and dragged before the judgment seat of the Judge… Instantly I became dumb, amid the strokes of the lash—for He had ordered me to be scourged—I was tortured more severely by the fire of conscience… I returned then to the upper world, and, to the surprise of all, I opened upon them eyes so drenched with tears that my distress served to convince even the incredulous. And this was no sleep nor idle dream… I call to witness the tribunal before which I lay, and the terrible judgment which I feared. I profess that my shoulders were black and blue, that I felt the bruises long after I woke from sleep…[52] 

Thus, Sacred Tradition abounds with OBE/NDE phenomena. By the same token, neither the fact that OBE/NDE events occur, nor the content of such genuine phenomena, contradict the Catholic faith.

It is difficult to pin down how prevalent OBE/NDE are. Research suggests that one in ten patients with cardiac arrest in a hospital setting undergoes an NDE.[53] Within the general population, as many as one in twenty have had an OBE.[54] OBE accompanies NDE seventy-six percent of the time.[55] 

The archetypal NDE is a positive one.[56] Several examples are given below in summary fashion. After contracting bacterial meningitis, Eben Alexander was put in a medically induced coma during which he claims to have seen heaven.[57] Don Piper asserts that in 1989 he died in a car accident and was taken to heaven.[58] In 2010, Todd Burpo’s Heaven is for Real was published, in which he relates that his son, Colton, died during an appendix surgery but returned to tell of having met Jesus in heaven.[59] 

One in five NDE’s is negative.[60] Bill Weise claims that in 1998 he was transported to hell, where he encountered frightening sights and malevolent creatures.[61] Howard Storm relates a similarly hellish account when, in 1985, he was taken to the hospital for an emergency surgery.[62] 

It should be noted that this latter statistic may be skewed by reporting bias. There is a notorious reluctance to report distressing NDE’s.[63] Underreporting has been put forward for why positive NDE’s outnumber negative NDE’s. It may be the case that both phenomena have equal chances occurring, except that witnesses are less inclined to report negative NDE’s than positive ones.

The International Association of Near-Death Studies (IANDS) proposes that this underreporting may be due to the traumatic nature of negative NDE’s. Several reasons have been put forth for why witnesses hesitate to share negative experiences: witnesses may regard the NDE as a shameful event or a punishment for their poor life choices; witnesses calling to mind their NDE may fear experiencing distress akin to post-traumatic stress disorder; witnesses may have concerns over others thinking less of them if word of their experience got out.

Speaking strictly of negative NDE’s, researchers Nancy Bush and Bruce Greyson have identified three types.[64] 

The first type is the “inverse” NDE. This one bears the hallmarks of a typical NDE. The witness encounters his surroundings from a point of view that is outside his body; he may detect the presence of others around him whose identities are known or unknown to him; he may experience rapid movement, akin to flying, via an unknown or unexplainable mode of propulsion; such movement might be described as “going into the light” or flying through space. However, the negative experience is known as “inverse” owing to a crucial distinction. While in a typical NDE the witness might perceive the circumstances as being positive or pleasant, an inverse NDE is marked by feelings of hostility, despondency, panic, and fear.

The second type is the “void” NDE, characterized by “a perceived vast emptiness, often a devastating scenario of aloneness, isolation, and sometimes annihilation.”[65] A “void” NDE may include the sensation of “going into the dark” as opposed to “going into the light,” as witness accounts appear to indicate: “I was being drawn into this dark abyss, or tunnel, or void… I was terrified.”[66] 

A number of observations about negative NDE’s can be made from witness accounts. Chiefly, that the darkness they experience is not oblivion. An interviewee who attempted suicide relates: “I had expected nothingness… the big sleep… I found now I was going to another plane… and it frightened me.”[67] 

Moreover, there is a continuity of consciousness between life as the witness knew it before the NDE and the event that prompted the NDE. This is to say: the person undergoing the NDE was aware of things happening around him after the event that would have caused his death, and furthermore, understood that it was he to whom these events were occurring. 

In addition, there is an unsettling otherness to the circumstances that causes severe anxiety. The witness does not want to remain in the NDE. He would prefer to be anywhere else than to continue in it: “I wanted nothingness, but this force was pulling me somewhere I didn’t want to go…”[68] 

Despite the aloneness experienced in a type two or “void” NDE; this is not peaceful solitude. Sometimes, the presence of hostile others is noted. One study observes:

A woman in childbirth found herself abruptly flying over the hospital and into deep, empty space. A group of circular entities informed her she never existed, that she had been allowed to imagine her life but it was a joke; she was not real.[69] 

The third type of negative NDE is called “hellish,” which, fortunately, is the least common type among reported distressing NDE.[70] The most salient difference between this type and the preceding two is how manifest the horrors appear to the witness.

Type one and two negative NDE’s are characterized by distressing sensations ranging from intense anxiety to paralyzing fear, but the cause of those sensations may not be readily apparent to the witness. For example: a type one NDE of “flying through the dark” coupled with the sense that one no longer is within one’s body stirs up feelings of uncertainty; a type two NDE of being harangued by the voices of many unseen persons all around the witness implicates paranoia.

Type three “hellish” NDE’s differ in that the circumstances producing those negative sensations are concrete and immediate to the witness. The study reports witnesses discretely perceiving what they understood to be the gates of hell[71] and a desolate wasteland inhabited by lost spirits.[72] Another tells of visiting a horrific subterranean cave where grotesque, vaguely humanoid creatures screamed in torment.[73] Howard Storm’s hellish NDE account relates that he felt his body was being apart by hostile entities.[74] 

If the visions of hell related by St. John Bosco and St. Teresa of Avila were actual OBE’s, then they could be characterized as type-three experiences.[75] Interestingly, their descriptions of hell accord with those given by NDE witnesses with respect to several key details. St. Teresa writes:

I understood that the Lord wanted me to see the place the devils had prepared there for me and which I merited because of my sins… I felt myself on fire… There was no light, but all was thick darkness… though there was no light, yet everything that can give pain by being seen was visible.[76] 

It may come as a surprise that these saints’ accounts should correspond so closely despite having been born three centuries apart. It is all the more surprising that their accounts appear to dovetail with other reports of hellish NDE’s, but the data indicate that this indeed is the case.

Dr. Jeffrey Long has observed that the content of NDE’s tends to be consistent from witness to witness regardless of the individual witness’s religion, upbringing, or country of origin.[77] By necessity, some subjectivity will come into play here because “the description of any NDE is shaped by the experiencer’s pre-existing mental categories and vocabulary.”[78] Nonetheless, there is consistently a religious element to the experience.[79] This is particularly revelatory given that NDE’s are no more likely to occur in devout believers than in secular or non-practicing witnesses.[80]

It is therefore noteworthy that an NDE witness should describe his experience as being in hell—particularly a hell of flames—despite not actually believing any such hell exists. Were the experience recorded in this dossier the product of random brain activity, it is unlikely that this random activity should generate an experience with such a clearly delineated narrative element. In addition, it was apparent during the interview that the interviewee herein had been exposed to the Judeo-Christian concept of a fiery hell, and that he did not accept such a place was real. 

This raises the question: if the interviewee believes hell is not real, then why would his NDE include a fiery hell? It is akin to asking: if unicorns do not exist, then why am I limited to thinking all unicorns must be pink? If the witness rejects the idea of hell in general, and his experience really was all in his head, then would not there have been as much of a chance that the hell he experienced was frozen, or watery, or for that matter, distressing in any other way?

Here, too, it is of note that the interviewee’s subjective experience of hell comports with how hell historically has been depicted.

Dr. Barbara Rommer posits the existence of a fourth type of NDE, the “negative judgment” experience.[81] These are presumed to be the rarest of their kind.[82] NDE’s of this sort are similar to the accounts of St. Jerome and St. Teresa discussed above. Here, the witness feels as though he has been judged negatively by a higher power.[83] These are characterized by imagery of an impending punishment for one’s conduct. Oftentimes this is accompanied by knowledge that the sentence is fair despite the witness’s disagreement with it. It has been reported that the finality of the judgment evokes fear. This can be taken to mean that there simply is no arguing with the judge; but also that there is no greater authority to whom an appeal can be made. 

Aside from the sense of finality in NDE’s of the fourth type, there is also the notion of permanence. While related, the two concepts are distinct. Finality means that the judgment cannot be overturned; permanence means that the sentence will be carried out with no conceivable end. The sentence of a convict who has exhausted all appeals to a higher court is final; but even if he were sentenced to life in prison, his sentence is not permanent because it ends upon his death. In this author’s opinion, the notion of permanence is what makes judgment NDE’s so dreadful. To be subjected to an irrevocable judgment of unceasing punishment into the forever after spells the very definition of doom.

Several observations can be drawn from research into negative NDE’s. One salient point is how the effects of a distressing NDE differ from those of a positive NDE. A positive NDE can produce a considerable reduction of death anxiety in the witness; though the same cannot be said for those who undergo a negative NDE.[84] It may be the case that death does not appear as bad as one first thought if, during a positive NDE, the witness is shown a happy afterlife where he will be reunited with his loved ones. 

Negative NDE’s have been known to not so much scare the hell out of someone as they scare someone out of hell. Bush and Greyson would agree: 

The terrifying NDE is interpreted as a warning about unwise or wrong behaviors, and to turn one’s life around… The primary effect of many NDEs is a powerful and enduring awareness that the physical world is not the full extent of reality… [This] new conviction commonly overturns experiencers’ personal life and social relationships abruptly and permanently.[85] 

As a closing note, the fact that a person underwent a negative NDE is not proof of his having lived a sinful life. Distressing NDE’s may occur to good people just as pleasant NDE’s may occur to bad people. No evidence suggests good people get positive NDE’s while evildoers get the negative ones;[86] however, the data indicate there may be a correlation between the witness attempting suicide and whether that witness experiences a negative NDE.[87] In light of these observations, a negative NDE might serve as a call to straighten up one’s lifestyle, or at the very least, as a sign that one’s duties in life are not yet completed.

Footnotes

[1] The events reported in this dossier are presented as true; however, no guarantee is made as to their veracity. To the extent the facts appear to take on a supernatural nature, the reader is advised that supreme authority to discern facts of this kind rests with the Catholic Church.

[2] Scare quotes are when the speaker writes a phrase in quotation marks to indicate that what is being said is meant in an ironic or mocking tone; air quotes are when the speaker gestures with his fingers to indicate the same thing.

[3] A young, urban professional. “A yuppie is often characterized by youth, affluence, and business success. They are often preppy in appearance and like to show off their success by their style and possessions.” Halton, Clay. “Yuppie: Definition, History, and Yuppies Today.” Investopedia, www.investopedia.com/terms/y/yuppie.asp. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[4] A reference to Gary Soto’s poem, Oranges, about a boy’s first romantic outing with a girl.

[5] A reference to the 1941 film, The Wolf Man, in which Lon Chaney plays a man cursed to transform into a savage monster whenever the moon is full.

[6] A reference to J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, about alienated youths growing up in a superficial society.

[7] A reference to the 2000 film, American Psycho, about a suave young professional who is also a serial killer in 1980’s New York City.

[8] A reference to Dylan Thomas’s poem, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, about clinging to life when faced with impending death.

[9] Morrison was the lead singer for The Doors. Sullivan invited the band to perform Light My Fire on his program, The Ed Sullivan Show, on condition that Morrison omit any lyrics alluding to drug use. Sullivan felt that these lyrics were inappropriate for his family-oriented show. The live, nationally-broadcast performance aired on September 17, 1967. Morrison defied Sullivan by performing the song as it was originally written. Sullivan fumed: “You will never do this show again,” to which Morrison remarked: “Hey, that’s okay—we just did The Ed Sullivan Show.” Anonymous. “Artists—The Doors.” The Ed Sullivan Show, www.edsullivan.com/artists/the-doors. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[10] Régimbal, Jean-Paul. “Rock ‘n Roll: Satanic Music—V: From Subliminal to Direct Messages. Tradition in Action, www.traditioninaction.org/Cultural/D055_Rock_5.htm. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[11] Kennealy, Patricia. Strange Days: My Life with and without Jim Morrison. NY: Dutton, 1992.

[12] The “twenty-seven club” is an informal list of celebrities and musicians who died at twenty-seven years of age.

[13] Lazarotto, Lorenzo. “Obituary of Rock—A Succession of Tragedies.” Tradition in Action, www.traditioninaction.org/Cultural/D073_HeavyM_2.htm. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[14] Vantablack is a pigment developed in 2014 by Surrey Nanosystems. Put simply, it is a “perfect” black paint in that it reflects almost no visible light. It may produce optical illusions that can be unsettling to viewers. For example, a flat surface painted in Vantablack takes on the appearance of a void space (i.e., a black hole); while a three-dimensional object painted in Vantablack might appear to a viewer as a two-dimensional object.

[15] A reference to the 1978 film, Midnight Express, about an American whose imprisonment in a foreign country amounts to a death sentence.

[16] “Granfalloon” is an expression taken from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. Vonnegut defined it as: “a proud and meaningless collection of human beings.” Vonnegut, Kurt. Wampters, Foma and Granfalloons. New York: Dell, 1979.

[17] This initialism stands for a vulgar expression that will not be printed here for the sake decency. Anonymous. “rch.” Urban Dictionary, www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rch. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[18] “Nanoo-nanoo” is the greeting Robin Williams’s character used on the sitcom, Mork & Mindy. Orson was the character’s extraterrestrial supervisor. 

[19] “A soul tie is a strong spiritual and emotional connection you have with someone after being intimate with them, usually after engaging in sexual intercourse, though its formation is not limited to sexual acts… there are good soul ties and there are bad soul ties.” Savchuk, Vlad. “6 Signs of an Ungodly Soul Tie.” https://pastorvlad.org/sixsigns. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[20] German for “rat king.” A phenomenon in which a group of live rodents—typically black rats (Rattus rattus)—become permanently clumped together due to their tails becoming intertwined. The earliest reports date back to the sixteenth century in what is now modern-day Germany. Sightings of live specimens are rare, leading many to believe that the preserved remains of dead rat kings are spurious. Nonetheless, the subject remains of interest to cryptozoologists.

[21] A reference to Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, about humanity’s war against an insectoid alien species.

[22] A reference to the Theosophical Society of Alice A. Bailey, a gnostic occult movement originating in the nineteenth century. “The international New Age movement of the 1970s and ’80s originated among independent theosophical groups in the United Kingdom.” Melton, J. Gordon. “Theosophy.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/topic/theosophy. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[23] This analysis presupposes the reader has some grasp of clinical studies on out of body experiences and near death experiences. For background reading on this topic, refer to: I Stood at the Mouth of Hell: A Near-Death Out-of-Body Experience (File Number: 02-231905).

[24] Koch, Christof. “What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about the Brain.” Scientific American, www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-near-death-experiences-reveal-about-the-brain. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[25] Nelson, Kevin. “Near-Death Experiences: Neuroscience Perspectives on Near-Death Experiences.” Missouri Medicine, 2015 Mar-Apr; 112(2): 92-96.

[26] Koch, Christof. “What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about the Brain.” Scientific American, www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-near-death-experiences-reveal-about-the-brain. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[27] Bünning, Silvia and Olaf Blanke. “The Out-of Body Experience: Precipitating Factors and Neural Correlates.” Progress in Brain Research, vol. 150, 2005, pp. 331-350, 605-606.

[28] Johnson, Sharona. “Near-Death Experience in Patients on Hemodialysis.” Nephrology Nursing Journal: Journal of the American Nephrology Nurses’ Association, vol. 42, no. 4, July-August 2015, pp. 331-336.

[29] Wehrstein, K. M. “Pam Reynolds (Near-Death Experience).” Psi Encyclopedia, psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/pam-reynolds-near-death-experience. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[30] Id.

[31] Id.

[32] Id.

[33] Id.

[34] Id.

[35] Clinical death occurs when, in a physician’s judgment, a person has died based upon the absence of observable vital functions. This has been taken to mean absence of respiration and blood circulation, although the definition can be broadened to include cessation of brain function. “Usually this term referred to the cessation of cardiac function, as might occur during a medical procedure or a heart attack.” Kastenbaum, Robert. “Definitions of Death.” Encyclopedia of Death and Dying, www.deathreference.com/Da-Em/Definitions-of-Death.html. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[36] Haas, John M. “Catholic Teaching Regarding the Legitimacy of Neurological Criteria for the Determination of Death.” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, vol. 11, no. 2, Summer 2011, pp. 279-299.

[37] The Holy Bible: Douay-Rheims Version, 1 Corinthians 15:44-45. “If there be a natural body, there is also a spiritual body, as it is written: The first man Adam was made into a living soul…”

[38] In 1907, Massachusetts physician Duncan MacDougall claimed that a human soul weighed twenty-one grams based upon the mass of a human body measured immediately before and after that person’s death. MacDougall, Duncan. “The Soul: Hypothesis Concerning Soul Substance Together with Experimental Evidence of the Existence of Such Substance.” American Medicine. 2: 240-243. The “21 Grams Experiment,” as it has since been called, is generally considered to be unreliable both in methods and in conclusions.

[39] Haas, John M. “Catholic Teaching Regarding the Legitimacy of Neurological Criteria for the Determination of Death.” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, vol. 11, no. 2, Summer 2011, pp. 279-299.

[40] James 2:26. “For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also faith without works is dead.”

[41] Nelson, Kevin. “Near-Death Experiences: Neuroscience Perspectives on Near-Death Experiences.” Missouri Medicine, 2015 Mar-Apr; 112(2): 92-96.

[42] Moody, Raymond. Life After Life. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2015.

[43] Sabom, Michael. Light After Death: One Doctor’s Fascinating Account of Near-Death Experiences. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

[44] Parnia, Sam, et. al. “AWARE—AWAreness during REsuscitation—A prospective study.” Resuscitation, vol. 85, no. 12, December 2014, pp. 1799-1805.

[45] Malarkey, Alex and Kevin Malarkey. The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven. Carol Stream: Tyndale House Publishers, 2010.

[46] Anonymous. “The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven Recants Story, Rebukes Christian Retailers.” Pulpit and Pen, pulpitandpen.org/2015/01/13/the-boy-who-came-back-from-heaven-recants-story-rebukes-christian-retailers. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[47] Revelation 1:10.

[48] Acts 14:18.

[49] 2 Corinthians 12:1-4.

[50] 2 Corinthians 12:2.

[51] Bosco, John. Forty Dreams of St. John Bosco. Charlotte: TAN Books, 2012.

[52] Jerome, Saint. Letter XXII. To Eustochium. Published in: “Fathers Of The Church, Catholic Edition; The Letters of St. Jerome.” E-Catholic 2000, www.ecatholic2000.com/fathers/untitled-890.shtml. Wildfire Fellowship, Inc. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[53] Koch, Christof. “What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about the Brain.” Scientific American, www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-near-death-experiences-reveal-about-the-brain. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[54] Ohayon, M. M. “Prevalence of Hallucinations and Their Pathological Associations in the General Population.” Psychiatry Resources. 2000: 97: 153-164.

[55] Nelson, K. R., Michelle Mattingly, and Frederick A. Schmitt. “Out-of-Body Experience and Arousal.” Neurology, 2007 Mar 6; 68(10): 794-795.

[56] Bush, Nancy and Bruce Greyson. “Distressing Near-Death Experiences: The Basics.” Missouri Medicine, 2014 Sept-Oct; 112(5): 372-376.

[57] Alexander, Eben. Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012.

[58] Piper, Don and Cecil Murphey. 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life. Ada, MI: Revell, 2004.

[59] Burpo, Todd and Lynn Vincent. Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010.

[60] Bush, Nancy Evans. Dancing Past the Dark: Distressing Near-Death Experiences. Cleveland: Parson’s Porch Books, 2012.

[61] Weise, Bill. 23 Minutes in Hell: One Man’s Story about What He Saw, Heard, and Felt in That Place of Torment. Lake Mary: Charisma House, 2006.

[62] Storm, Howard. My Descent into Death: and the Message of Love Which Brought Me Back. West Sussex, UK: Clairview Books, 2008.

[63] Bush, Nancy and Bruce Greyson. “Distressing Near-Death Experiences: The Basics.” Missouri Medicine, 2014 Sept-Oct; 112(5): 372-376.

[64] Greyson, Bruce and Nancy Evans Bush. “Distressing Near-Death Experiences.” Psychiatry, March 1992; 55(1): 95-110.

[65] Bush, Nancy and Bruce Greyson. “Distressing Near-Death Experiences: The Basics.” Missouri Medicine, 2014 Sept-Oct; 112(5): 372-376.

[66] Id.

[67] Id.

[68] Id.

[69] Bush, Nancy. Dancing Past the Dark: Distressing Near-Death Experiences. Cleveland, TN: Parson’s Porch Books, 2012.

[70] Bush, Nancy and Bruce Greyson. “Distressing Near-Death Experiences: The Basics.” Missouri Medicine, 2014 Sept-Oct; 112(5): 372-376.

[71] Id.

[72] Id.

[73] Id.

[74] Storm, Howard. My Descent into Death: A Second Chance at Life. New York: Doubleday, 2005.

[75] By asking whether these were “actual” NDE’s, this author questions neither these saints’ credibility nor the faithfulness of their accounts; rather, this author is uncertain whether the terms OBE/NDE might apply to their experiences. John Bosco referred to his experiences as visions and dreams, most of which transpired after he had gone to bed at night. Teresa related that her vision of hell occurred during prayer. While these saints ostensibly may have had OBE’s, they did not appear to be in danger of death at the time each occurred, and so they may not have had NDE’s.

[76] Teresa, of Avila. The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Volume 1. Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez. Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1987.

[77] Long, Jeffrey and Paul Perry. Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2011.

[78] Bush, Nancy and Bruce Greyson. “Distressing Near-Death Experiences: The Basics.” Missouri Medicine, 2014 Sept-Oct; 112(5): 372-376.

[79] Rommer, Barbara R. Blessings in Disguise: Another Side of the Near-Death Experience. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2001.

[80] Koch, Christof. “What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about the Brain.” Scientific American, www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-near-death-experiences-reveal-about-the-brain. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[81] Rommer, Barbara R. Blessings in Disguise: Another Side of the Near-Death Experience. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2001.

[82] Holden, Janice. Distressing Near-Death Experiences. Durham, SC: International Association for Near-Death Studies, 2003.

[83] Id.

[84] Rommer, Barbara R. Blessings in Disguise: Another Side of the Near-Death Experience. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2001.

[85] Bush, Nancy and Bruce Greyson. “Distressing Near-Death Experiences: The Basics.” Missouri Medicine, 2014 Sept-Oct; 112(5): 372-376.

[86] Id.

[87] Moody, Raymond. Life After Life. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2015.