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 this—which could have been within fifteen minutes or fifteen years, I had no way of knowing—I 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 mouth—which 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 to—it 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 judged—almost 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 longer—perhaps 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.