Ryan O Experience
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Experience description:

My experience is not connected to a near death event, it was experienced during meditation. However I have been so surprised and affected to hear, through other NDE's, that mine was of a similar nature, that I am reaching out to share my experience.  I have been processing if for some years now, and I am otherwise a very logical, scientifically minded and skeptical person, yet I cannot simply dismiss what happened to me and the magical things it went on to bring into my life.

At the time of my experience I was suffering from depression that I later learned was one of the effects of MS, which I was diagnosed with five years later, though as you will see, my experience gave me a tool to manage that condition. As of yet, I am in complete remission and have been for some years.

Owing to the mysterious, un-diagnosed health problems I was having at the time, I was staying with family for support, and was sat in my room one evening meditating. I was not well practiced at it, but, following some instructions from an online video, I was able to enter a meditative state which would come to change my life.

I left my body for a short period, although I don't know for how long, and found myself in a dark space of infinite size - with no thoughts coming through my mind other than feelings of profound freedom, safety and bliss such as I had never experienced before. There was no perception of time passing, and the experience of how I was in an infinite space is hard to convey in words, other than to say that we experience space around us in a finite way usually, and this limitation was gone.

I was at some stage in the presence of, and felt at the same time that I was, a glowing spherical orb of orange / golden light, somewhat like the sun but with the light dimmed to a softer glow. I was both looking at it and yet at the same felt that I WAS this object, though 'object' is a very bland word to refer to what this was. The feeling of bliss intensified and was accompanied by a feeling of laughter (the feeling more than the sound), along with a remarkable sense of suddenly knowing everything - I knew all there was to know. Suffice to say that this was lost when I came back to my body.

I stayed in this state for an indeterminate length of time, before the final unusual aspect of this experience - my eyes opened in such a way as though some other force was opening them for me - forcing them open, something I have never experienced before or since, and I found myself back in my body, sat on the floor.  I was initially perturbed by this given that I didn't want to leave wherever it was I had gone. Nor, I have to say, would anybody want to leave such a state of bliss. I have wanted to go back ever since, but have not been bestowed with that grace again as of yet.

The aftermath is very significant also. Firstly, I was for a few nights in little need of sleep, as though I had been energized temporarily. After a short time, I visited a supermarket, still in the afterglow of this experience, and found myself looking unusually intently at the foods in the grocery aisles - such as the fruits and vegetables, and was somehow seeing them with new eyes - I was newly amazed at the beauty and structures of them, realizing for the first time how significant it was that only nature could make such things, mankind can only grow them if nature plays along. I was seeing and understanding the boundaries of what humans can do and how we are still reliant on mother nature for food in a way that many of us have forgotten with our modern diets of processed foods that are making us sick. I took to walking a lot in a forest near to where I live and experienced a similar realisation about how that environment was more real and meaningful than the offices and other man-made places I had spent my life studying, and then as an adult, working in. 

To summarize my health journey since, I was diagnosed with the very first stages of MS some time later, following a scan that detected it, and this accounts for the depression that I had suffered. But by that time I had already cured myself of most of my symptoms by following a diet made as far as possible of 'real' food - an ancestral type diet with minimal processed foods. I am now stronger and healthier that I have ever been.

Around the time of my diagnosis I also became (and am still) a locally renowned researcher and speaker on the subject of nutrition and chronic health conditions. I have now given over 70 public talks and worked with a number of different organizations, though I remain a layman, I have been able to carry my message about nutrition and it's affect on health to thousands of people.

In addition, I have also become an instructor and teacher on the subject of foraging for wild food - having somehow been given the ability to learn about this subject from a point of knowing very little, to becoming a teacher on it, in the space of about three years, and I have had hundreds, or possibly even into the thousands, of students since I began running forage walks in 2014.

If I could offer a take-away message from my experience, it would be firstly to treat your body with respect and be healthy because you will discover powers and abilities you may not have previously thought possible from your improved cognitive functioning. Secondly, I advise to not take anything in this life as we know it too seriously, because somewhere, somehow there is an undercurrent of profoundly powerful and blissful energy that is the main part of what you are, it is present in you now in the same way that the sun's energy is now powering your body. And if it is the case that we return fully to this state when we die, I can tell you that the news on that front is very very good - better in fact that you could begin to imagine it might be. I acknowledge that all of what I experienced could be a simulation of my brain, but that in no way can detract from the value of it for me personally, or indeed the real-life results and subsequent events that were behind the door that this 'intervention' opened for me.

I hope that this is of interest or of use to your research.

At the time of your experience was there an associated life-threatening event?   No 

Was the experience difficult to express in words?  Uncertain     There are no words for that level of positivity and joy, and I struggle to explain in words what being in an infinite space is or feels like, and also cannot explain in words how I both looked at, and at the same time became, the seemingly divine object that appeared to me

 At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness and alertness?      In all of it

 How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness?      More consciousness and alertness than normal   I felt as though I was accessing both more knowledge and more bliss that I am capable of normally

 Please compare your vision during the experience to your everyday vision that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience.   My experience was quite limited in it's scope in terms of what saw - only infinite space and then a glowing orb.

 Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience.   I don't recall experiencing sound specifically as I would in normal life - the senses seemed somehow merged. I felt, rather than heard, laughter, but this was the only 'sound' I recall receiving.

 Did you see or hear any earthly events that were occurring during a time that your consciousness / awareness was apart from your physical / earthly body?   No  

What emotions did you feel during the experience?   Love, safety, bliss, relief, mirth, joy.  

Did you pass into or through a tunnel?   No  

Did you see an unearthly light?   Yes   The glowing orb as i have already described.

 Did you seem to encounter a mystical being or presence, or hear an unidentifiable voice?   No


 Did you encounter or become aware of any beings who previously lived on earth who are described by name in religions (for example: Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, etc.)?   No  

Did you encounter or become aware of any deceased (or alive) beings?   No  

Did you become aware of past events in your life during your experience?   No  

Did you seem to enter some other, unearthly world?   A clearly mystical or unearthly realm
 Infinite dark space, which felt pleasant and comforting

 Did time seem to speed up or slow down?   Everything seemed to be happening at once; or time stopped or lost all meaning
 I don't know how long I was in this state for, I lost perception of time passing, or the ability to perceive time passing

 Did you suddenly seem to understand everything?   Everything about the universe
I felt that in that moment I understood and knew all there was to know, and that though our existence may be complex and varied, there is also a very simple and basic underlying structure to it all that we in some way feel occasionally when we experience love or joy.

 Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure?   No

 Did you come to a border or point of no return?  

Did scenes from the future come to you?  No 

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness suggesting that there either is (or is not) continued existence after earthly life (“life after death”)?   Yes   It felt to me as though what I experienced was an aspect of where we go when we die - perhaps the gateway to it, i feel that I only saw a small part of it - possibly the gateway. Having said that I do not 100% hold that belief, I am torn between whether I saw the afterlife or just something my own brain projected.

 During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness that God or a supreme being either does (or does not) exist?   Uncertain   I felt that the object in interacted with/became was a supreme being

 During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness that you either did (or did not) exist prior to this lifetime?   No  

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness that a mystical universal connection or unity/oneness either does (or does not) exist?   Yes   In the sense that I felt like I 'merged' with the object/being that appeared to me, I felt completely connected and 'one' with everything, and that the unity of all things and when i was there it felt both simple and obvious. My thoughts on this since are that this is something that is veiled from us, or imperceptible to us in our physical being in normal life.

 During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness regarding earthly life’s meaning or purpose?   No  

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness regarding earthly life’s difficulties, challenges, or hardships?   No  

During your experience, did you encounter any specific information / awareness regarding love?   Yes   It felt as though 'love' as we feel it is something far more significant in that realm than just a positive emotion, it seemed to be relevant and connected to the underlying structures of the universe. For example, that which causes the sun to radiate it's energy in our physical realm, and the processes by which cellular life itself is created is analogous to that love and bliss which I experienced when I left my body. But wheras the sun can burn us as well as keep us alive, in that realm there is no duality of good and bad, and everything is just love.

 During your experience, did you encounter any other specific information / awareness that you have not shared in other questions that is relevant to living our earthly lives?   Yes   I feel that I acquired understandings and abilities (not paranormal ones, just improvements to my life) which I have recounted in my earlier description,

 Did you have a sense of knowing special knowledge or purpose?   Yes   Afterwards I acquired this specific purpose and new vocation which has come to define my life since.

 What occurred during your experience included:   Content that was both consistent and not consistent with the beliefs you had at the time of your experience   I could not have imagined that I was capable of such a vivid or profoundly blissful experience before this. I had no prior experience or understanding of the possibility that I could leave my body, that I could experience infinite space in that particular way, or that there could be such a celestial object that i could interact with. None of this paw part of my prior belief system.

 How accurately do you remember the experience in comparison to other life events that occurred around the time of the experience?   I remember the experience more accurately than other life events that occurred around the time of th   I have not forgottne any aspect of the experience, although it was not in itself detailed or extensive so is quite easy to remember.

 Discuss any changes that might have occurred in your life after your experience:   They have been extensive but I have already described them.
My experience directly resulted in:   Large changes in my life

Did you have any changes in your values or beliefs after the experience that occurred as a result of the experience?   Yes   I now value health, nature and being physically connected to the natural world through a diet of real food and through interacting with nature often.

 Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience?   Uncertain   My ability to connect with other people, and to counsel them has improved, although that might just be because of my age.
Are there one or several parts of your experience that are especially meaningful or significant to you?     No it is all significant.

Have you ever shared this experience with others?   Yes  I wrote to someone online to speaks about NDE's a few years ago who replied with positive responses, I have never spoken to someone about it in person, although i would like to if it was someone who was open to it.

 Did you have any knowledge of near death experience (NDE) prior to your experience?   No  

What did you believe about the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened:   Experience was definitely real   It was vivid and was not experienced like a dream - it was somehow just as real as it feels typing this

 What do you believe about the reality of your experience at the current time:   Experience was probably real   I have over the years tried to be open to any explanation of what I experienced and I have come to learn that the brain is now believed by some to be able to make psychedelic experiences and might also make it's own version of DMT so I am now partly swayed by the idea that my brain created this experience for me. But the caveat there is that, if my brain can make this experience, what made my brain?

 Have your relationships changed specifically as a result of your experience?   No  

Have your religious beliefs/spiritual practices changed specifically as a result of your experience?   Yes   Well I have been interested in all matters spiritual since having this experience.

 At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience?   No  
  
Did the questions asked and information that you provided accurately and comprehensively describe your experience?   Yes