Cyril, 41, had a Near-Death Experience (NDE) at age 11 and saw his existence turned upside down when he felt life leaving his body. He crossed over into “somewhere else” and came back shaken. Since then, his life has never been the same. He shares his experience with Alanna.
“I’ve never told anyone about this ‘experience.'”
Not my partner, not my family. I’m too afraid they’d think I was crazy, or that they’d “ruin” this memory that I find, with many years of hindsight, wonderful. I’ve never read other accounts in the press either, and there are quite a few these days, it’s less taboo than before, nor any books on the subject. I know there are Dr. Charbonnier’s books that are fairly well-known. But I don’t want to. I’m afraid it would “contaminate” my memory, or worse, change it. That I’d absorb other people’s accounts, probably similar to mine. It was so long ago now…
I was 11 and we were at the pool with my class. At one point I was at the edge of the pool and one of my classmates thought it would be funny to push me into the deep end. I didn’t know how to swim well yet at the time, and I remember falling and letting myself sink. I remember the temperature of the water too, which gripped me as I fell. I couldn’t breathe anymore, I was scared, I started hyperventilating and swallowing the first mouthfuls of water. Then I remember having this horrible sensation of sinking even deeper into the pool.
Then suddenly, a black veil. And off to the side, a kind of tunnel. A cloudy blue tunnel. This tunnel pulled me in, because there was a kind of energy at the end of it. I was no longer aware of my body, or the pool, or the water temperature. Suddenly I had a sensation of warmth, you know, like when the sun caresses your skin and the temperature is neither too hot nor too burning. Just perfect. That’s a bit like it, if I try to compare it. But it’s almost unmatched and indescribable. This “warmth” on my skin, while I was no longer aware of my body — it was like energy. That’s it… I was nothing but energy. Nothing else. I felt something so powerful, the sensation of an unconditional love flooding through me. A kind of bliss, like total ecstasy. And it never left me. It was so intense, this feeling of unity, of serenity, of peace. So strong.
And then I saw them. Images. Of my parents, my friends, my loved ones. In my mind, these images scrolled by inside the tunnel. And I apologized to them. For letting them down. For leaving. For not saying goodbye. So I did it now. I had the sensation that everything was happening very fast. We didn’t speak, because there’s no need for words there. Everything was just sensation. We understood each other. I don’t know how to explain it. There were no more bodies, no more words… but we communicated with each other. It was so beautiful and peaceful to say goodbye like that. Being sad there, in that tunnel, made no sense — it didn’t even exist! I still had that energy inside me and the unconditional love surrounding me, encompassing my whole being. Everything was beautiful, good, pure, and positive. I left the image of my loved ones after this farewell and kept moving further into the tunnel. I was pulled along by the energy radiating from it.
Then I saw the faces of deceased relatives that I recognized. Even though I didn’t know them. It’s strange to say that, but in my memory I didn’t find it strange at all. Everything felt completely normal. I wasn’t afraid. Not for a second. I saw my great-grandparents, whom I had only seen in photographs, people who died before I was born. Ancestors, essentially. They all came to meet me. They passed before me. They “spoke” to me, still without words. And they made me understand that it wasn’t my time to leave. That what I was feeling there, in that tunnel, I had the right to feel it, to soak it in, but that I couldn’t stay. That it wasn’t my place yet… that I still had many things to live and feel before experiencing that moment again.
And then, suddenly, bam, I was at the edge of the pool, surrounded by my classmates and my teacher. I felt my body, the sensation of the tile against my skin. It was a bit, a lot, brutal. The light, the sound of the pool. I was cold.
But right away I said nothing about what I’d experienced. For me, it was obvious that I shouldn’t tell anyone. Not even my parents. And yet, I was young — at 11 I was still just a child. But that’s how I felt. It marked me as an experience… and yet I was certain I shouldn’t say anything. It’s a secret I’ve always carried inside me since. But it’s not something heavy. It’s part of me.
It’s an experience that has followed me my whole life. But I’ve never really questioned what I lived through. I know it wasn’t a dream or anything like that. I know it’s real. And incredible. I don’t try to feel that sensation of unconditional love again. It’s not possible here. There hasn’t really been any consequence in my life. Or maybe one. I realize it as I tell you this. Probably hugely important, or not, I don’t know (laughs).
The only consequence is that I’m not afraid of death, and above all, death isn’t synonymous with sadness or anything like that for me, unlike for 99.9% of people.
In fact, I’m extremely confident about death — yes, it’s strange to say that — and so about what comes after, which I caught a glimpse of after all! That doesn’t mean I take reckless risks or that I’m a daredevil… not at all. But I have no fear, no sadness around it… because people are often afraid of it since it’s the unknown beyond. The famous million-dollar question: “And after, what’s there?”
I actually took care of my funeral arrangements a few months ago, even though I was barely 40 and in good health. It’s done, and it’ll mainly take the burden off my loved ones. I really did it for them. For me, it doesn’t matter. Because I know. What comes after. And it’s so powerful, incredible. Indescribable as a sensation and as beauty. It’s truly a philosophy of life. A way of approaching life without fear of death, quite simply.
There’s no age requirement to make arrangements and prepare for your funeral. You too should consider expressing your wishes to protect your loved ones and have peace of mind:
To learn more…
What is an NDE?
Near-death experience (NDE), edge-of-death experience, temporary death experience, approached-death experience, death-and-return experience… All these terms describe the same phenomenon reported by people who came close to death and ultimately found their way back to life, testifying to the possibility of life, or at least consciousness, after death.
This fascinating experience is believed to be based on physiological and psychological mechanisms. It was popularized in 1975 with the publication of psychiatrist Raymond Moody’s bestseller Life After Life.
Raymond Moody defined the NDE as: any experience of conscious perception occurring in individuals declared clinically dead or who came very close to physical death.
What do the accounts say? According to these testimonies, what happens after death?
“Witnesses” can be accident or illness victims who were clinically declared dead for a few minutes, or who were in a deep coma. Some even report having had this kind of experience in their sleep.
The near-death experience touches on two major scientific mysteries that also raise questions in philosophy, religion, and psychology: death and consciousness.
It’s always described in a unique way by the people who go through it, but a few common characteristics can still be identified across the accounts. “Experiencers,” as they’re called, report:
- A phenomenon of “out-of-body” experience — their “soul” leaving their body and being able to see themselves from outside, above or to the side, unable to move
- The vision of a tunnel of light
- A geometric change in the room
- Meeting deceased loved ones or spiritual entities
- A feeling of love, peace, communion, and tranquility
- An accelerated vision of past episodes of their life, like watching a film
- The return to life and reality is often described as instantaneous and very jarring
In June 2017, a team of researchers from the University of Liège in Belgium attempted to establish a typical timeline by analyzing 154 accounts from French patients returning from an NDE. The most frequently reported scenario, in 22% of cases, was: the impression of leaving one’s own body, then passing through a tunnel, glimpsing a light in which the silhouettes of deceased loved ones appear, and finally, a feeling of peace.
In most cases, the NDE is judged to be “pleasant” and “luminous,” tinged with a mystical quality (depending on cultural and religious context), which complicates the return to reality. A small minority of people, however, describe the NDE as a frightening or distressing experience.
Editor’s Comment
What strikes me about Cyril’s account is how closely it tracks the same pattern I’ve seen over and over in this research — and he came to it cold. No books, no other testimonies, nothing. He avoided the literature on purpose for thirty years because he didn’t want to risk altering the memory. And yet the structure is all there: leaving the body, the tunnel, the light, the encounter with deceased relatives, being told it isn’t his time yet, the hard return to the body.
That’s the part worth sitting with. An 11-year-old in a French swimming pool isn’t reading Raymond Moody or watching the same documentaries as someone halfway across the world having a similar experience decades later. There’s no shared culture, no shared source material. What they share is the pattern itself — the tunnel, the life review, the ancestors, the message, the jolt back. The specific details are always different. The architecture underneath them almost never is.
I look at this the way I was trained to look at any body of data: when you see the same structure repeating across sources that have no connection to each other, that’s not something you can wave away as coincidence. It’s worth taking seriously, regardless of what any of us believe is actually happening when these people are at the edge.
What really stood out was the part where Cyril is describing encounters with his Great Grandparents who were deceased before he was even born, who he had only seen in pictures. There’s an entire subset in the NDE data reflecting this sort of experience, and his account is consistent with many others.
Get the book here: https://mybook.to/A8X8
Here’s a link to the original article: https://alanna.life/blog/article-blog/experience-de-mort-imminente-temoignage.html
