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Going Home – Colm Keane
Anni Dixon living at the time on the West Cork/Kerry border.

I had an ectopic pregnancy where the fallopian tube ruptured six days before they took me to hospital. You can die within a half-hour of a ruptured fallopian tube because you are bleeding internally. I had reached the point where I was fainting when I was sitting up. If I got up, there were huge, great clots of blood coming out. I was within a thread of losing my life.

I was on the brink of death. I could feel it myself. I was bleeding to death. I felt my life’s strength ebbing away. Everything became weaker. There was no strength in my muscles and there was no strength in my brain. My brain was sinking down. It was an unbearable effort to think. My life-force was just draining away from me.

They operated on me within 24 hours. I was under anaesthetic when I had this life-changing experience. There was an extraordinary rushing sensation, like rushing wind. It was all very black. There wasn’t light, as people speak of when they talk about their near-death experience. But the darkness and the rushing sense were inconsequential really. Instead there was a feeling of something enduring that never ends.

I had this awareness of an enormous consciousness of which mine was a part. My consciousness was released from its bodily form. The bodily form was completely insignificant.

It was like a drop in the ocean and part of something much, much bigger. I had this distinct sense that it could reach anywhere. There was this feeling of reaching across space. I was aware that this consciousness is present in all material forms. Whether it is plants or animals, or human forms, or rock forms, doesn't really make any difference. All of those forms are not separate. The overpowering thing was this great sense of life which was happy and joyous, this wonderful sense of abundant, extraordinary creativity.

There was a sense that the body was like a leaf that could be shed in the fall and had no greater significance than that. The body is simply a particular construction of material atoms. The meaning that was conveyed was to let the bodily form just flow away. There is something much more enduring that never ends, which is totally bigger. It's incomparable and a different dimension. There was also a sense that to experience life is a gift, no matter what the circumstances. It doesn't matter how difficult our life experiences are, they are that way for a reason. And they are a gift, no matter how destructive and painful they seem to be. The core communication that was being conveyed was that life itself is vital, it's there forever, it's indestructible, it's playful, joyous and humorous. That was very fruitful for me, personally, because I felt very overwhelmed by my life circumstances.

The whole thing may have only lasted seconds. It may have been a split second, because in the dimension of consciousness time does not work in the way we experience it in normal day-to-day life. I felt it was profound meaning that was being revealed. It was a revelation. It all felt very real. It was an experience that was given to me. That's what it felt like. Afterwards my mind couldn't think of anything else. It changed my awareness of the fundamental meaning of life.