I have few memories of my actual death. I remember, just vaguely, the pain in my head; feeling claustrophobic, being totally closed in; struggling to breathe, and wishing to express somehow everything that I so desperately wanted to say. The pain was just a faint throbbing, not nearly as intense as before because of the heavy dosage of morphine the doctor had given me. But my head; my head was spinning, and I couldn't open my eyes to see my wife, who I suspected was hovering above me. I could hear her speaking quietly, the doctor responding in a whisper. My wife sounded afraid, frantic; but the tone of the doctor, who clearly knew for a fact what my fate would be, was simply sympathetic.
And that's where I stop remembering. I know that the noise became gradually louder, that more people entered the room, and that my head was suddenly in agony. The pain lasted very few seconds, however; and when it died down again, it stopped completely. The numbness was so sudden, so unexpected, that I actually wondered if I were dead already. But at that point, I am now very sure that I was still alive.
That moment, that exact instant of death, was the most fascinating experience I have ever been through. I remember both seeing and sensing a beautiful, blinding white light that was pulling me, dragging me into a vacuum where the light just became stronger and stronger.
I didn't see anything else but that light, and I wanted to close my eyes but was somehow unable to. Perhaps because I had no eyes. A sense of incredible majesty welled up in my chest and made me want to burst; it was a feeling beyond which I had never experienced. I wanted nothing more than to see more of that light, the light whose brilliance was right before me now. I was moving so quickly, my soul racing through the air, as if I were flying.
And then it was over, all too suddenly.
I was then in total darkness, stunned by the immense change. I felt nothing physically, and everything emotionally. My mind was filled to the brim with thoughts, certainties and uncertainties, ideas and memories. Yet it wasn't crowded; no, my brain (if you could call it that, seeing as I no longer had a body) had never been so clear, so organized and placid. And my current knowledge was immense. Suddenly, upon my death, everything seemed so clear all of a sudden; I understood how the world worked, and why. I had an understanding of all that was important, and it all seemed so natural, so easy. For the first time, the universe made sense to me.
I didn't see my parents' spirits, but I sensed their presence. They were lingering in this place while their souls carried out a second life on Earth. They could sense me, somehow, although their bodies and current minds did not register my presence. The remains of the parents I had known existed, their memories and experiences drifting through space and adding on to the thousands of other lives that their particular souls had lived at one point.
There was no concept of time or space, no human overload of emotions or senses. I did not feel human any longer; I felt that I was something greater, I felt that we all were, all of the souls that were surrounding me. We were all equals, all witnesses to some greater force. I was pure, cleansed of all the clutter I was at that point accustomed to.
Knowing all meant that I understood there were choices to be made. I could be born into another body, and relive the life experience all over again. If I chose the first option, then I would become any living being that I felt connected to in some way; an insect, a cougar, a maple tree, a bacterial cell. My potential for the next life was endless. The second option was to return to Earth or any of the many other planets on which life currently existed, and become a guardian spirit. A guardian spirit could drift, simply float through space and matter to find what it truly wished to protect. When it found the living being, place or concept that truly mattered to that particular soul, they would linger near it for as long as they felt the need to protect it. It would gain endless senses, capable of seeing all, hearing all, feeling all, smelling all. This included so many possibilities that we humans had never even imagined during my time on Earth. There was so much out there; senses we had never known existed.
I was not at all tired, so I was ready for anything. My chronic human exhaustion was over with, mystically gone. In place of the tiredness, I felt elated, prepared, the particles of energy moving within me at unimaginable velocities. My many lives, clearly visible to me now, were fascinating and magnificent to an extent I had never imagined in a single one of them. And as for the future? Well, this soul of mine would be recycled forever. I would spend all of eternity drifting from place to place, being to being, and learning to truly experience what would always be mine.