Okay folks, for what it's worth, here's my own little NDE.............
I was an electronics tech in the US Coast Guard for fourteen years. About halfway through that 'sentence' I was stationed in Mobile, AL, and this is where it happened. Another tech and myself were on the Cutter White Pine 'tweeking' on a high powered sea scan radar. There is a certain safe procedure for this particular tuning that we were skirting around. To make this long story short, I was hit by 10kv of high current electricity. I was never 'latched on' (unable to let go), and perhaps that is why I lived. I felt like a golf ball being driven from atop a tee. It was just "WHAMMMMM", and that was it. It threw me across the bridge (where you drive the boat from) of the vessel into the front bulkhead (wall) below the window. When I stopped moving I was somewhere on the other side of that bulkhead, looking back at myself crumpled against the bulkhead. I could see the other tech standing over my body, and then others come running up the ladder from the galley below. I could hear them talking, but it had an echo as if heard from inside a steel drum. They were saying things like, "what happened?" and "is he okay?" The other tech said, "Yeah, he's okay. Just took a little hit, is all."
Then I suddenly realized what had happened, and truthfully, didn't feel a bit "okay" about my situation. There were thoughts of, "Oh my God!!!!!!!!! I'm dead!!! I'm DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And there was nothing okay about that feeling at all. I felt a certain irrevocableness about turning to see what was behind me. In my mind it seemed that if I turned around to see what was there, then I would never be able to turn BACK around. I did not know what was there. Maybe it was this beautiful light many speak of, but I didn't know. For all I knew, it could have been some kind of hideous demon or slimy soul sucking attack leach. Good or bad, whatever was there, I wanted no part of being dead. It was the most radical terror of my life. 'Pulling' to get back into my body with all my might, I could hear them talking as they crowded around me. One guy leaned over and shook my shoulder where I was crumpled on the deck, and said, "Dude, you okay?" Of course, I didn't feel it. I watched it. A moment later, I was back in my body and trying to breath. After a bit, there was only the thought of, "Oh shit, I can't get a breath in! Somehow it just wouldn't catch, and then my chest and head began hurting badly. Finally I found the muscle used to suck air and gasped.
When I got air into my lungs, I wanted to stand up immediately. Sort of a feeling of wanting to get as far away from that situation of "dead-ness" as possible. My legs were rubbery and weak -- kind of like the feeling of a near miss car wreck -- but I was alive! At my request, the other tech agreed to not tell about the incident because it could have put us both in some military "hot water." I never told him or any of my other co-workers about what happened other than to say that "it knocked the hell out of me..."
Perhaps this does not qualify as an NDE as such, but I'm convinced that if
I had turned to see what was behind me, then I probably would have stayed
dead. Sorry, but in my book, dying is an almost sure way to ruin a day, if
you know what I mean. So Scott, for what it's worth, that was my
experience. It is NOT something I talk about often.
Luck to you man.
Dan