by alice

In September 2004, a poster named alice shared this account on alt.consciousness.near-death-exp. She had had an out-of-body experience while fully awake, healthy, and sober — not in a medical crisis, not under the influence of anything. She described it not quite as a near-death experience but adjacent to one: she found herself outside her body, faced with a genuine choice of whether to return and finish her life, and she chose to come back.

The account is modest and careful. She reports what she saw without overclaiming: walls of transparent energy, a moment of comprehending energy's fundamental nature and purpose (which slipped away from her), luminescent beings who seemed to live in a state of joy. Then a kind of panic — the realization that not going back meant dying — and the return.

The second half of the post is stranger and more valuable: a philosophical meditation that the OBE prompted. What is the difference between one being's level of awareness and another? What causes a person's awareness to increase? What is the difference between a life that fundamentally changes a person and one that doesn't? She doesn't answer these questions so much as circle them — and then propose a paradox: the best way to increase awareness may be to stop thinking about it altogether, and simply live.

i had an out-of-body experience while i was awake.
it was sort of like an nde because
while out of body i realized i had
a choice of going back to my body
and finishing my life or not.
i was healthy and happy and sober
at the time, not having ever taken
drugs or medications or anything.
obviously i decided to come back.

one thing i remember is that the walls
were transparent energy, and that for
a moment i became aware of the very
nature and purpose of that energy.

another thing i remember is looking
inside my head.
as strange as it may seem, i actually
witnessed my own brain dreaming
while i was not in my body.
i also remember seeing a lot of what
people call angels, or luminescent beings.
all i can say about that is that there is much
joy in heaven (or wherever those angels are).

when i realized that if i did not go back
to my body i would die, i sort of panicked
and in my enthusiasm to get back into
my body, i shot off the recliner, flew
across the room and hit the wall,
which broke my neck and caused
me to have another obe.

just kidding about that last part.

anyway, i seem to have had a life full
of bizarre experiences, and i imagine
most people think i'm a bit odd, so i
don't usually talk about them.
after i tell people about a couple weird
things that have happened to me, they
sort of give me a funny look and don't
inquire about the rest, as if they're afraid
of me, or what i have to say.
i realize that a person can become
fixated by these kind of events in their
life, so much so that they can miss out
on what else life has to offer.

i am working on something, but it's
very difficult.
i call it fundamental change.

what is the difference between one
entity's awareness and another?
what causes this difference?
what causes a person's level of
awareness, and what they are
capable of, to increase?
what controls the rate of increase?
what can one do, or not do, to
cause a fundamental change in
one's awareness?

incarnating works, forcing oneself
to experience physical life first hand,
one will become aware of nature,
of one's nature and relationship.
but what is the difference between
a life well-lived, and a life wasted?

no life is a waste, but some lives
cause a greater fundamental change
in a person.
no one really goes down, or backwards,
or from being fundamentally ahead to
fundamentally behind.
those who really have, have, and will
have more.
those who appear to lose, just never
really had it, they looked good for a
while, but couldn't maintain it, they
were not fundamentally where they
thought they were.

there is no judgment there.

i realize that my abilities are very
limited compared to many.

but what to do to really move ahead,
to facilitate oneself, to be able to see
what one currently cannot see?

to not think about, to just live, to
forget about anything but living itself,
to just plow ahead doing what life
demands, and what most people
seem to be doing, keeping busy,
finding ways to keep busy, making
plans, saving, building, organizing,
whatever it takes to have a square
meal, a place to sleep, for oneself
and one's loved ones.

eventually one begins to question.

Colophon

Written by a poster known only as alice. Posted to alt.consciousness.near-death-exp on September 22, 2004. The author described a history of unusual spiritual experiences she rarely shared because of the reactions they provoked. The post is the only substantial standalone essay she left in the archive.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

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