Near-Death Experience (NDE): Is it Heaven or Hell?
What really happens when someone has a near-death experience? What does it feel like, and what really happens in those moments?
One of our best friends, Professor Luciano Roccia, one of Italy's most famous acupuncturist, has gathered the NDE of many people whom he has known throughout the years due to his professional skills, and has put these experiences in a book called Life Never Ends.
First it is the vision of one’s own body from above, then a warm light at the end of a tunnel along with a profound sense of peace and joy that casts away all fear about the end of life.
A wide collection of near-death experiences to serenely question ourselves about the meaning of our existence. He has chosen to do this after having experienced not just one, but two very touching NDE during his lifetime. The story that we share today comes from his most personal (and recent!) near death experience. To bring awareness about a topic that is being discussed for a long time by many kind of people.
Image by Karin Henseler from Pixabay
A last minute story
I had just returned home from a 20 days vacation in Greece with my grandsons and some friends of mine. We spent most of our holiday time either at the beach or boating in the surroundings. In the evening, I also spent some time in a small studio at my house treating some local friends’ and patients’ physical pain. In exchange for my well-appreciated services, they usually presented me with gifts of local food (vegetables, fruits and, if they went fishing, they also gave me what they had caught).
During the holiday I felt very well all the time. I had not seen my sons for a long time so as soon as I came back home, they payed me a visit the following morning. They immediately asked me how I felt and I answered that I was fine, even if that very day, while shaving, I had a weird physical sensation which I could not explain. I felt extremely tired albeit after having a good night’s sleep.
Both my sons, who are volunteers for the Red Cross (once a week they ride an ambulance and are specialized in first aid) did not pay attention to my answer but started looking at each other, obviously preoccupied. They are used to seeing people’s pain and reading their suffering. They both asked me again: “are you sure everything’s ok?”. My reply was: “why do you ask me this?”
They paid no attention to my response but immediately sat me down telling me that I was speaking slowly and seemed strange to them. As soon as they took my pulse (a frightening 27 bpm and blood pressure below 100) they suddenly called an ambulance.
While putting this experience into words I can feel a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.
The ambulance soon arrived, my sons had been slapping me around the face to keep me awake.
The seriousness of the situation was immediately clear to the doctor.
She immediately inserted an intravenous drip with some medication to bring my heartbeat (that had dropped to 17 bpm) back to normality. My eyes were wide open and I could see everything but I could barely speak. I heard someone crying.
The ambulance driver headed hell for leather to the nearest hospital. The doctor asked me to which hospital I wanted to be taken. There were two choices: the Molinette Hospital, which happens to be the biggest and most prepared hospital in Turin (Italy) and where I had worked for a long time in my youth and the Cardiac Center in Moncalieri (a mid-size town just outside the suburbs of Turin) whose extreme efficiency I was well aware of. With a nod of my head I chose the second option.
I felt as if I was quite likely on the verge of death but I was not worried at all. I was in a sort of trance, feeling serene, calm, without any fear of what could happen, and what could happen was…to die.
Suddenly, when we were half way to the hospital I heard the doctor yelling at the driver to stop the ambulance and help her get the defibrillator out as soon as possible because I was about to have a cardiac arrest.
The ambulance stopped by the side of the road in just one second.
It seemed to me as if I had gone back to my 40s, when I suffered from my first cardiac arrest. At that time, as I mentioned it in my first book ‘It took me a lifetime to be twenty’ and also in one of the first chapters of this book, I was able to look at my body lying on a bed from above.
Pic by Free-Photos from Pixabay
This time was very different. The first time I was above my lifeless body but I was in the room, and I knew I was in that room. This time I felt like I was still in this world but that surely I was in another dimension. Here’s what happened: I opened (or I thought I had done so) my eyes not to see the doctor and the assistant trying to bring me back to life and my body lying on a gurney but to find myself contemplating a bright blue sky. Across a garland of clouds a face appeared that I could not identify as ‘male’ or ‘female’, calling my name.
I thought I was certainly dead and, strangely, I was not sad at all, I was happy that I was dead. There was no room for sadness within me. I felt my body to be so light that I could float in space without gravity, completely free to move from one point to another, effortlessly.
It was as if I was having a dream, that kind of dream in which you are able to float above the world.
I could not see where we were. I no longer felt the pain, the anxiety, the sadness of the past nor the joys of my life. It was as if everything had been canceled out, leaving room only for the joy of being here. It was an ecstatic way of being, happily waiting for something or someone to help me go somewhere, even if the destination was unknown to me. I felt myself attracted to the face that kept calling me when, all of sudden, everything ended and I found myself on a bed in the Emergency Room at the hospital. I think I must have spent around 20 minutes in that state, which is more or less the time it took to the ambulance to arrive at the hospital. After a few days, I had a pacemaker installed.
The cardiologist told me that if this pacemaker worked well my heart won’t stop for the next 10 years…we’ll see. In any case I must not forget to change the device’s batteries...
I do not know if I have to thank my sons and the doctor that gave me back my soul and brought me back to this earthily life… I have done this because, I have to confess, it has been a joy to see again all the people I love (sons, family, friends, and also all my patients who have prayed for me).
Just a few days ago a person who loves me so much told me: “They do not want you yet on the other side, because you have not yet accomplished your duty here on earth”.
But I asked myself: what if…I had crossed that line and went over? Over there, where life never ends? I’ve always been a curious guy!
About the Author of this article (and of the Book 'Life never ends'): Luciano Roccia began his quest to understand the existence of life beyond death after having a near-death experience himself.
His professional skills as a surgeon and world renowned acupuncturist has allowed him to gather the experiences of patients, friends, acquaintances, and others who have had near-death experiences and visions of the afterlife. All near-death experiences share some aspects in common. A warm and comforting light at the end of a tunnel. A feeling of happiness and bliss. Visions and conversations with people who have passed away before us. Premonitions. Above all, a new perception of what happens, detached and far from the worries of this earthly life.
In this book the reader will find some well-documented and well-known articles on famous near-death experiences that have taken place in many parts of the world over the years.
This collection of stories allows the reader to reflect on the mysteries and fascination of existence. This book is a practical guide and gives ideas which offer a serene and comforting vision that helps to overcome the fear and anxiety of death.