It hit me like a thunderbolt, fortunate and unfortunate, all at once.
Rushing into emergency, all is a blur. Commotion, frenzied activity, a typical emergency room full of patients and medical attendants addressing their needs as best they can.
I have a very heavy pressure in the center of my chest and have been quickly taken by wheelchair into the emergency ward. I am in the middle of a massive heart attack. On the emergency room bed, the attending doctors and nurses are having great difficulty getting the IV lines going and their level of frustration rises rapidly. I feel a sense of panic in their energy and in their voices. On both sides of me there is fear. My system is shutting down.
I close my eyes.
All sounds disappear. All sense of panic evaporates. There is only absolute quiet, calm and serenity. I seem to have moved into a great void. Momentarily, there is no sound, no sight, no feeling. Nothing.
A perfect grid of lights appear against a totally black background. It is as if I am staring up at a blanket of stars that are all perfectly lined up. A star formation becomes visible with the points of light getting brighter than the points in the grid. A second star point formation appears and begins to grow brighter. More than visually recognizing it, I intuitively know this growing cluster of stars is the Little Dipper. It grows rapidly brighter and appears to come down out of the heavens closer to me, or I closer to it.
The process is continuous. Remarkably, I no longer feel "physical". I have a heightened