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The Wisdom of Near-Death Experiences – Dr Penny Sartori

Below is a case reported to me by Natasha, 33, from Cardiff:

I had whooping cough when I was eight or nine. The doctor did home visits since I was too infectious to be taken to hospital. There was one particular night where I was at the worst of it because I was still coughing and very weak and when the doctor visited in the evening apparently he told my parents that he didn't expect me to survive the night and there wasn't anything more that he could do to help.

My parents put me in their bed (l had a cabin bed that was too high) and they slept in the spare room. I 'woke' during the night because there was a bright light spilling into the room around the edge of the door and I could hear my name being called.

I'm profoundly deaf and can't hear anything at all without a hearing aid in.

I got up out of bed to see what the light was and turned round to see myself still in the bed, asleep. But the voice kept calling me and the light was really bright so I opened the bedroom door and it was just this pure brilliant white light, and I stepped into it and kept walking towards the voice. I was just walking in the light; there wasn't anything else.

Then I was in a room and saw my life playing in front of me and I realized there was a presence behind me and he put a hand on my shoulder but told me not to turn around because the light would blind me. Then he said that I had to go back because I was important and I had a job to do. It went white again and I walked back and saw myself on the bed again and climbed back in.

I don't remember waking up or the recovery, etc., but apparently that day I was better. I was still very weak and the residual cough was there but I had more or less recovered overnight. I didn't tell anyone for many years about it. I thought they’d think I was lying or crazy. I’d lost my faith as a child when I was around seven so I wasn't religious but still didn't know if God was real or not. I still don't believe in God even though I think that if someone were to ask for a sign of God’s existence that would be about as much as he could possibly give!

It did change my life because it gave me inner strength and self-belief that I am here for a reason. I knew I was important or special.

Given that I had a really difficult childhood especially as a teenager, and having been born deaf, there was a lot to keep fighting through. I still don't know what I am meant to do but I make sure I live as full a life as possible and give as much as I can through that.