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I was searching for something. By the time I was 14,
I had given up on religion and science. I found a book about LSD, and after
reading it, I knew I wanted to try it. I had a feeling that drugs were the
way to find what I was looking for. I just didn't know that I would have
to die by them to get there. Seven years later, at a party on the night
of May 27,1978, I took large doses of MDA (Ecstasy) and angel dust. It made
my heart race then slow down. I relaxed, and then my mind started to drift.
I barely noticed as my heart raced then slowed until it stopped.
I wasn't frightened. It wasn't
until I opened my eyes and saw I was in the wrong place that I thought something
was wrong. I was too high up and on the other side of the room, looking
down at everyone. Then I saw my body sitting across the room, my head hanging
limp against my chest. My body disgusted me; it was so weak and useless.
I felt no pain, no fear, only happiness at being out of that thing.
Then I noticed I was right next
to the ceiling, so I reached out to touch it, but my hand went right though
it. I drew my hand back and tried again. Suddenly my head was between the
ceiling, and the floor above. I could look down the ceiling joists at the
dust and dirt no one had seen in years. I saw the people at the party upstairs
as I passed quickly through the second floor, and attic. At about fifty
feet, I stopped and looked back at the house below. Somehow, I knew that
I could visit the people who knew me, if I chose to. I decided to go on.
At the very instant of my decision,
I shot upwards at a tremendous rate. The house became smaller, then the
city, the surrounding fields, the country, and the earth became smaller
and smaller, until I was alone in space. It was amazing to me that I could
be so happy now, when a few hours before, I had been so depressed that I
had taken the angle dust, knowing the combination with MDA would probably
kill me. Now I was doing loop-the-loops in space, racing about with reckless
abandon, having a wonderful time.
After tiring of thiswhich
could have been within fifteen minutes or fifteen years, I had no way of
knowingI remembered a book about a man who had floated down a river
in a bubble he had created with his mind. As soon as I remembered this,
I found that I too had this power. I could change my body into anything
I wished. After some play and experimentation, I came up with spaceship
that was a cross between a stealth fighter and a minivan, neither of which
I knew anything about at the time. After exploring with that for awhile,
I noticed a read-out on the radar screen. The screen showed neon green lines,
laid out on a grid. The grid appeared normal at first, then it abruptly
turned downward, forming a hole in the grid like a black hole. I was fascinated
by this. I cautiously approached it and could feel a slight tug upon the
ship. Then the pull increased dramatically, and I feared being pulled in.
I turned away from the hole and began a slow orbit around it. But I realized
I was still being pulled in.
Then I had an idea: instead of
being pulled in, I would dive in at full speed, right down the center. I
began to pull out of orbit but discovered I had almost waited too long.
Now it took full power to brake free of its grasp. The ship finally pulled
free, climbed, banked over and dived in, all at full power. Once inside
the vortex, the pull caused the ship to go even faster. Objects flew by,
leaving long streaks, and still I gained speed. I fell faster and faster
for what seemed like forever. At some point I realized that the ship had
disappeared, and the shape like my body had returned. Then I noticed there
were many others in the dark tunnel with me. I didn't know any of them,
and they didn't seem to notice me.
Soon my body seemed to elongate
and compress until I was just one atom falling at an incredible rate. Only
at this point was there any fear or pain. When I reached the point that
I couldn't take it any more, I saw the tiniest point of light. It was glorious.
I fixed my eyes on it, and it gave me hope. The light kept getting bigger
and brighter. It was the most wonderful light I had ever seen. Then I flew
through the light like a doorway. A new creation opened up before me. It
was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. There were galaxies and stars
and planets like we have, but different and more beautiful. The stars glistened
with colors I had never seen. Their brilliance was greater than diamonds.
Overall, a feeling in my heart told me that everything was truly different
here.
In a moment, off in the distance,
I saw a city floating on clouds. I was drawn towards it. The city was like
nothing I had ever seen. It was huge, very tall and thousands of feet long.
In awe, I flew around it, circling it twice. The walls were made of something
like glass, but with many luminous colors throughout. They sparkled as well,
and you could see through them. There were gates in the walls, but no windows.
The gates were made of a whitish material, the color of mother-of-pearl,
with beautiful luminous colors flowing across them. Cascading steps flowed
from each gate. I landed on a set of these steps not 50 feet from the city
and stood there near a gate, awe struck.
One half of the gate opened at
the middle where I hadn't seen a seam before. Out stepped the most beautiful
woman I had ever seen. Her face was the most perfect face you could ever
imagine. She had waist length, dark brown hair, and brown eyes. She was
tall, elegant and graceful as she glided down the stairs, her hands held
slightly away from her body. She was clothed from neck to foot in white
silky cloth which was draped over her body in many folds, almost Roman-like.
The folds caused the material to change into the colors of the rainbow.
Light seemed to shine from her body through the cloth, causing multicolored
hues of light to cascade all around her. The cloth and the changing colors
fascinated me.
Then as I watched, the cloth turned
from translucent to transparent. She had lowered the neckline of her gown
a little and, for a brief moment, the cloth was completely under her control.
I thought to myself, "Why am I standing here, staring? This is an angel."
At this, she laughed and said, "Don't be afraid." But the sound didn't come
from her mouthwhich hadn't moved. It seemed to come from inside my
head. It was unsettling at first to know that I couldn't hide my thoughts
from her. But she was so kind, and you could feel the love flowing from
her from 30 feet away. I soon realized I had nothing to fear.
At that moment, she walked to
me, took my hand, and we flew away to an uninhabited planet. The planet
was lush, green, and full of life. It abounded with plants, animals, streams
and mountains. It was beautiful and just as I imagined Eden to be. We sat
on the lush grass and talked for what seemed like hours. I could have stayed
there forever. I don't remember much of what was said, but we spoke about
how our actions here on earth affect other people for good and bad. Also,
that our decisions all come with a price. Here, I realized she was trying
to get to something. At my realization, she started to explain. She said
I could stay if I wanted toit was my decision. But, if I did stay,
my friend would go to prison for killing me. I insisted that he hadn't killed
me, that I took the drugs, knowing they would probably kill me. She said
the authorities wouldn't know this.
Then I thought how stupid it would
be of me to leave that place if there was even the slightest chance that
I wouldn't get to come back. She laughed at this and assured me I could
come back. By her laugh, I knew she thought my worrying was funny, and I
believed her about being able to return there. She told me I had a job to
do on earth. But when I asked what the job was, she said she couldn't tell
me. She said if I knew, I would try to do the job as quickly as possible
so I could return, and she said it wouldn't work that way. I thought about
it a minute, and said okay.
Instantly I was back in my body.
It was like the phrase: "in the twinkling of an eye." I opened
my eyes, and I was back at the party. From across the room, my friend, Kenny,
yelled, "Hey, look at Charlie." Charlie was my alias. "He's
alive again." I was not happy about being back at all. I felt trapped
inside my body, I didn't like it here, and I wanted to go back!
Kenny and his wife, Dianne, came
over and said they had been worried about me. One of the girls who had stayed
straight to watch over everybody said she had taken my pulse and couldn't
feel one. She had also used a mirror to see if I was breathing. I wasn't.
I asked, "How long was I out?" Someone answered, "A couple of hours."
My very first thought after I
opened my eyes and saw I had returned to earth was, "I have got to get back."
I found the friend who would have gone to jail if the authorities discovered
my death. He was still very high. His teeth were chattering so hard, he
had a rag between them to keep them from chipping. I told him if anything
happened to me, to make certain nobody finds my body. He nodded.
Feeling I had saved him from prison,
I took another large dose of MDA and tried to die again. But I couldn't
quite make it. I got to fly around a little bit, but that's all. Now I do
not condone drug use. Drugs will kill you. Neither do I approve of suicide.
God made it perfectly clear that he did not approve of my method of getting
back to heaven. But from that night on, I only wanted to return there. I
took all kinds of drugs in larger and larger doses. And about a year or
so later, I succeeded.
There had been some bad angel
dust going around. I took two large doses, and everything was fine for awhile.
Then I started to get sick, and I knew that this was it. I began to feel
nauseous, so I crawled to a big pile of garbage in a back room and laid
down on top of it. I thought, "What a fitting place for me to die,"
as I lay there jerking with convulsions.
A guy came in and asked if I wanted
to go to the hospital. I said, "No, throw me in the creek or something."
He left, and the convulsions came in waves. Then I became very weak. I had
to fight to keep my eyes open. I thought, "This is it." My eyes closed,
and I felt the darkness press in.
It seemed like only a second had
passed when I opened my eyes again, and it was morning. It felt like I had
only blinked. The sunshine was streaming through the screen door, and the
birds were singing happily. I sat up. I should have felt as though a truck
had run over me, but I felt great. No headache, no fuzziness in my head.
I stood up, brushed myself off, and walked outside. I began singing as I
walked down the dirty alley. Halfway down the alley, I heard a voice in
my head say, "If you keep doing this, I will keep sending you back. You're
here for the duration." I said, "No, I won't do that again." And I continued
singing down the alley.
Then I stopped and thought, "Why
am I acting this way?" I realized a major change of attitude had already
occurred before I opened my eyes and started singing. I had no inclination
at all to argue with the voice. I now had feelings of acceptance about being
here on earth, and I knew suicide was wrong. The desire to do drugs had
also been taken away. Though, I didn't know it yet. The voice must have
been given to me for something to remember, since I don't have any remembrance
of what happened in those eight hours between closing my eyes and opening
them again. However, I have received a hint. When I was reading "Embraced
By The Light" for the first time, a strange thing happened. As I was
reading the part where Betty was being judged, my environment seemed to
change. Instead of me reading a book, I could see myself being judgedalmost
like watching a movie. But then I was in it, reliving the experience. It
was very painful, and I didn't think I was going to survive it. Afterwards,
I was back reading the book.
I remember saying out loud, "That
was weird." Since being judged wasn't a part of my experience which I could
actually remember before, perhaps reading about Betty triggered a memory
which had been blacked out before. Maybe after or during my being judged,
I had begged for another chance so I could do better the next time. This
would explain why I was so happy that morning when I opened my eyes.
I was truly changed. Everything
earthly that I had enjoyed before seemed like such a waste of time now.
About a month later, on a Sunday afternoon, I heard the voice again. This
time it said, "Go to the church with the purple bus behind it." I had passed
that church every day going to high school, and the bus had caught my eye
many times. It was bright purple. So I put some good clothes on and went.
My friends Kenny and Dianne were there! They had been "saved"
two weeks before. It took me a bit longerperhaps not accepting the
truth and continuing in my self-destructive behavior had given ground to
demons that weren't going to give up that easily. Fortunately, the pastor
of that small church had experience in this area. I was "saved"
on November 4, 1980. It was on the day the preacher spoke about The Prodigal
Son. 
David D.
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