Tim E

I had to go into hospital for an operation on an abdominal hernia which was quite severe as it was several years old and was quite bad.

I'd had general anesthetic more than ten years ago, when I had been 'aware' during a procedure at a dentist to remove some wisdom teeth and experienced a lot of pain. I was naturally very nervous this time, despite the fact that the surgeon re-assured me the anesthetics used at a dentist were inferior compared to those used in normal surgery.

This time the anesthesiologist was very reassuring. She had a long chat with me. She assured me that in light of my history and to put my mind at rest she would give me as much anesthetic as was safe to administer whilst the operation was in progress. My vital signs would be monitored constantly. She and her assistant would do their best to ensure the operation went as smoothly and painlessly as possible for me as possible. I was even given 'pre-meds' prior to the operation. I was told that I wouldn't be breathing for myself, as a machine would be doing my breathing for me. I was lying on the hospital trolley in the anesthesiologist's room whilst she put the needle in the back of my hand. I was trying to think 'happy' thoughts (a forest in the summer time with the sunlight shining through the green leaves and giving an emerald glow, wild flowers around, etc.) and the last thing I remember hearing was the nurse telling me that she was about to put the mask over my mouth.

The next thing I knew, I was back in the ward with a mask on my face and a nurse was telling me not to take the mask off but to breathe in the oxygen deeply, as the operation was over and I needed to get the anesthetic out of my system. I felt good, no ill effects at all, and eager to go. I said 'okay' and tried to sit up. I'd forgotten that with my abdominal muscles having been cut up and then sewn back together they wouldn't be able to work properly for a while. But at the same time as that little dialogue went on, I had a sudden flash of memory:

I had been stood behind the surgeon whilst the operation was going on, behind his left shoulder, and had been watching him. He was holding part of the equipment in his left hand, and had been saying something about a problem, the surgery was difficult and it wasn't a problem he had expected. I remembered that someone was there with me who was dressed in white. It couldn't have been the operating staff as I'd seen them before and they all wore blue/turquoise gowns.

I also remembered the impressions I'd had at this time too. I felt very calm and relaxed, there was no 'time' as such but just a feeling of 'the present' being all there is. I felt very much at peace, but I also felt - grownup. That was really strange right from the off as I've never felt adult or mature in my entire life! Second, I suddenly felt that there is someone always with me. Even when I can't see them. In other words, I'm never alone but have always had a companion, a spiritual one if you like and that none of us are ever alone. All of us have a lifelong companion that has been given to us to watch over us.

There have been some very traumatic episodes in my life and for a long time I blamed myself, that other people had taken my place and died when it should have been me instead. Yet in this experience, I was told to stop this. I was told that we all have our own life paths to follow, and that mine was different to theirs, which is why I hadn't died. So, I was to stop blaming myself.

I knew the body on the operating table was mine, but it didn't matter. That was just a temporary place. The surgeon was doing the best he could to fix it, and I had no worries there, but it was just a temporary place. I, me, myself, was here, stood behind the surgeon. It was vivid, so vivid. I kept getting the feeling it had happened twice, that I had left my body twice. All that flashed through my mind as I tried to sit up and then lay propped on my elbows. I didn't say anything to the nurse at the time, and because I wasn't allowed to get up yet I lay back down and promptly fell asleep again.

When I woke up, I had a visit from the surgeon who then told me that my abdominal muscles had been a real problem to get through as they were very well developed. I didn't say anything about my experience though, as I was still trying to come to terms with it. Things like that don't happen to me, surely? Why would I be that lucky as to have an experience like that? Despite the fact that it felt so real, something that dreams tend not to do, I kept trying to rationalize it away. After the surgeon had gone I got dressed and sat there pondering things for a while, and then despite the nurse's protestations I got up and hobbled about a bit.

One of the nurses, whilst she was fixing his bed up, was laughing and chatting to another patient (an older guy) who was still in bed after his operation. I wanted to see what she thought, so I told her that I'd had a weird dream whilst I was under. She looked up and smiling asked me what it had been. I told her that I'd dreamt that I was stood behind the surgeon's left shoulder watching him whilst he operated on me. Have you ever had the experience where you've said something, and then realized you've said something wrong? Well, that happened with me. The nurse suddenly stopped smiling, looked down as if she was thinking something, and then suddenly started busying herself making the bed next to her. She looked bothered, as if she hadn't wanted to hear that. The patient she had been chatting to just sat and stared at me. 'Oooops' I thought. That wasn't the reaction I'd expected.

Once I got home that day, I kept thinking over this experience. Was it a dream or was it real? The enormous feeling of contentment I had, a contentment I hadn't felt since I was a child, and I put down to the painkillers I had been given by the hospital. But I still couldn't get the experience out of my mind, and came to these conclusions:

Firstly, dreams and hallucinations are very individual things being based upon the subject's life-experiences and mental make-up.

Secondly, this did not have any of the hallmarks of a dream. I rarely remember mine, but when I do, I know they were dreams as they have a very 'unrealistic' quality to them. You wake up, and just know it was a dream.

Thirdly, what I had experienced was exactly the same thing as many other people had experienced and, with relation to the first point, you do not dream other people's dreams nor have other people's hallucinations. If two people separately sat down and wrote of an imaginary visit to an imaginary place, the stories would be very different to each other. If, however, two people were to separately sit down and write of a genuine visit to a real place e.g. the British Museum, there would be many points of congruency.

Not conclusive proof I know, but sufficient to make my point. The aim of the anesthesia was to remove consciousness completely, and if I had been mentally active enough to be able to remove myself from the situation subliminally, my God, I'd have been conscious enough to feel the pain and there would have been a hell of a lot of it. I'd been opened right up, while they burrowed around inside me. You see subliminal messages only work where a message is embedded somewhere, and subconscious behavior only affects conscious behavior. In other words, I'd have to have been awake and aware, which I most certainly wasn't. Additionally, I have been informed that general anesthetics contain a powerful amnesiac so even if I had come round, I would never have remembered it.

The way I felt during the following few weeks is also worth telling. I kept feeling as if I had met 'somebody', but who I hadn't a clue as I couldn't remember. Additionally, I felt very much at peace and contented, something I hadn't experienced for years, and certainly never to this degree. At first I'd put that down to the pain-killers I was on, but I stopped taking those after a few days, yet these feelings continued for weeks and weeks despite the pain and discomfort I was experiencing during recovery. What else was it like? Remember 'The Matrix', near the end when Neo suddenly sees everything the way it really is and makes that connection? That's how I felt, as if I'd suddenly been shown what it's all about. I felt like I had one foot in this world and the other foot in another one entirely. I'd been given new eyes, and could 'see' everything, it's temporal nature, how much we emphasize things that really aren't that important. Everything in this life is dead, or dying from the minute it's born. It's one thing to say it, to repeat it and know it intellectually. It's quite another to actually sit there and see it, really see it, and it's a very strange experience. All the things we all put so much importance to, wealth, having a partner, a big house, possessions, in a hundred years' time they'll either be gone or belong to somebody else! They don't matter, not in the greater scheme of things. People take years building up wealth and security, and then without any warning they die for whatever reason. As the saying goes, they can't take it with them. Everything to do with this life stays here, and means absolutely nothing in the next one. This life is very, very temporary, the next one is for keeps. The only thing that really matters in this life is where your heart is. Who you are, what kind of person you are. People search for recognition and celebrity status, but it doesn't matter one jot as far as the next life goes.

Basing everything in this life is tantamount to taking one word out of a huge dictionary, and saying that one word is the whole dictionary. It isn't. How else can I explain it? Before I'd always loved dark colors, the brooding and menacing, particularly with regard to blog pages I wrote. Suddenly I wanted nothing to do with them. I'd been wrong about so many things, lots of us are wrong. Now I wanted bright and light colors, because that is what life really is. It's good to be alive, it's a wonderful gift. Why does God allow so much suffering in the world? Without trying to go into so much detail as I could go on for hours, He doesn't. I was informed that we are the ones who allow so much suffering, humankind does it to itself. What about things like the tsunami, which killed so many people? We all have to die, but we all put too much emphasis upon its happening. Death is not the tragedy that many of us perceive it to be, but an awakening. In the greater scheme of things, you'll see when it happens to you, you really will. That's what Jesus tried to explain to us. The next part of existence is like walking from a cramped tiny dingy room into a vast wilderness full of colors and experiences, trees and fields, blue skies. I can't explain it. All I know is that I now understood the saying 'In Him we live and move and have our being' and I felt very privileged. It was as if all my life I had lived in a dingy room with the curtains drawn, but for a brief moment the curtains were drawn back and the windows thrown open for me to see the real world - the light, the colors, the life, God, the truth, the fresh breeze blowing through me.

My whole perception of life has changed for the better.