Based on all my responses... don't you see the irony in questioning whether my near-death-experience was near enough?
I do see where you're coming from Ash, I was trying to establish if we are or are not speaking about the same thing. I would not presume to answer for you, the query was genuine curiousity.
In my understanding of it, NDE in the now accepted use of the term is not about
- the death of thoughts, or identification with thoughts;
- or the shock with impending death or trauma through physical symptoms;
- or panic or fear or remorse of a life not lived fully;
- or about the impact on a person in grief and again shock of others' passing / dying ;
it is about the first hand experience and the ability to prove elements of it - of existence of continued consciousness outside of a functioning physical body and the effects that that experience has on the experiencer.
I do understand you validating things according to your knowledge and I do accept your experience as you have detailed it.
I have also experienced very similar things to the ones you detail while still in a physical functioning (if scarily at times) body, whether there was any real immediate 'threat' to my 'physical life' or not - and in some of them yes there was, but not in all of them. But this is not what I'm talking about when i refer to nde.
The nde I and others speak of has elements that are outside of these experiences. They are not imaginary, or outside of this moment - in fact the moments are more clear. I would actually prefer they term it an 'eternal life experience' because in some ways it's not about death at all. It's about seeing that death is not the end, nor was birth the beginning, not just in a 'thought' sense.
Our rights start deep within our humanity; they end where another's begin~~ SmileyJen