Ask the Atheist

When i was eight years old, I nearly choked to death on a Whopper. I didn't even like whoppers. I just used to suck off all of the chocolate and spit out the middle part. One day, while I was doing this, I sucked down the whopper and began to choke.

At first, I panicked, I ran around trying to get help from my family members. After a little while the frantic forms of my mother and brother began to become indistinct. I could still see them, but they seemed far away. I no longer felt my body and I began to feel weightless (I know now that this was probably due to the lack of oxygen to my brain, but i will stick to my understanding of what was happening during the time it was happening for now, in order to reflect the events more accurately.)It was at that moment that I knew I was going to die. Once it became a certainty, I was no longer panicking, not that i had the energy or ability to anymore, at that point. I only felt a hint of regret that I would die so young, but no fear.

I began to lose consciousness. I did not see a tunnel of light or any of the other miracles that other people report. Nor did I see the blackness of ordinary unconsciousness. What I saw was grayness that was lighter in the middle, like a gradient. Something a religious person could easily mistake for a light and then the lightness began to fade to a dull gray. I DID feel a sense of comfort, but I knew even then that it was not the same comfort that came from a parent; the type someone would expect from their god. I felt like I was high, at least high enough to feel comfortable about dying. Then, I remember coming to again. There was NOTHING on the "other side" that I saw.

Now, most of you reading this will probably think i'm making it up. What has amazed me throughout my life is that people have a harder time believing my story than an outrageous fairy tale involving mythical creatures and the meaning of life. I understand that this is because WANT to believe that life is eternal and that they can having meaningful reunions with their dead family members, but I know what I experienced was as close to death as most people ever come that live to tell about it.

I just wanted to post this story, because you won't hear it anywhere else. While I'm sure that there are other people
out there with stories like mine, they simple aren't remarkable enough to gain a lot of attention. Let's face it, when people ask: "What happens when you die?" The last thing they want to hear is:"You die."

As a final note, I would just like to address the question of how people know what's happening in the room around them
while they're having their experience. Well, I still knew what my family members were doing before I lost consciousness- for lack of a better description- because my mind was still active. I wasn't breathing and I'm pretty sure I wasn't blinking. To any casual observer, I would have appeared dead, but I was still aware of my surroundings because my brain had enough oxygen to function momentarily. I felt weightless because my brain disconnected itself from my body in an effort to stay alive. And, finally, when it was time to die, my brain released endorphins to comfort me in my last moments. It's not what people want to hear about death, but what I experienced, I found out later, is exactly what someone should expect to experience with a normal brain.

The only explanation I can think of for the differences between my experience and those of other people is that perhaps their brains produce a more hallucinogenic type or amount of endorphins than mine, or, since many of the stories come from people in hospitals, it could be an interaction between the endorphins and the painkillers they're on ( double-dose of endorphins! THAT will make ANYONE think they've seen God.)

So, there's my story. Take from it what you will, but from the day of MY NDE, I've been a die-hard atheist, trying to make the most of the days I have left because once its over, it's REALLY over.