The Black Velvet Void, page 1

reply to post by Enthralled Fan

I nearly died some years ago. I do not wish to go into the details of what happened to me but recovery was tough and very painful, putting me in the Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital in Woolwich London (now shut I think) for just under two years. Many more years were spent recovering from serious mental and physical injuries I had sustained.

Anyway I was found by a Quick Reaction Force and had they not found me I would have been dead soon I have no doubt of that. I was hypothermic, covered in ice (I was told) and very close to death and yet at the time I was found, I was aware that I had slipped through the ground and was floating in a foetal position just under the surface which I sensed as an abstract thing I did not want to even look at. In fact I wanted to sink deeper into balmy blackness.

There was a sense of form in that I had a human shape and I felt warm and very content to drift, looking down into an inky black abyss that as far as I could discern was infinite space. It was something of warmth and comfort vaguely similar to being wrapped in the best of all duvets.

I was facing downwards, weightless with my back arched, my knees drawn loosely up to my chest, my arms bent and my hands either side of my head. I could hear nothing until finger and thumb pinched my ear lobe and I heard a soldier shout to ‘HOLD MY GAT’.

Our experiences are very similar and perhaps it is because our brains being human bathe in similar fluid and chemicals, or perhaps it is because what we experienced was something we all get to experience when we touch the hidden void.

The experience changed me from someone who lived for the moment to someone who needed to find out about the real things that matter in life like hidden truths, respecting and being understanding of others (for some reason this is important to me).

These days I could not be horrible to someone and feel good about myself. Harsh words said by me in the heat of a moment can keep me awake at night. I was not like this before my near death experience. I never used to care too much if I stepped on somebody.

If you knew anything of my background this new tolerant self was a very challenging concept that my peer group and family found very difficult to understand and more so for them because I was different from the moment I became conscious and stepped back into this world.

The only way I can describe it is that I felt an indiscernible sense of love I do not have the words to vocalise and that I touched something that is here all the time but for most of the time is hidden from view.

What I do know is that I touched "something" and it touched me right back.

The gift that has stayed with me is that I have no fear of death at all – just the manner in which I may die!

A born again, bald headed hippy