When I Fell and Hit My Head

While I was living in Australia, I fell and hit my head.

I was cutting an onion when the knife slipped and I felt a sudden pain in my left middle finger. I looked at it and saw a tiny mark, smaller than an eyelash. I have always had a fear relating to cutting my fingers, likely from my childhood when I sliced open my thumb on a metal can, so I curled my hand into a fist to cover the cut.

I quickly walked to the bathroom to wash my hands and hoped I would not see any blood. I focused on keeping myself calm but worry overtook me when I saw a little bit of red coming from that tiny cut on my finger. Although it was very small, my brain decided to treat it like it was much more serious than it was; almost like I had cut my entire finger off!

I have had more than enough experiences feeling light headed so I knew that I should get myself to a place where I could just lay down and rest until the feeling passed. Laying down always helped since I could guarantee that even if I fainted, I would already be on the ground so I could just wake up afterwards.

The only carpet in the house was in my bedroom so I walked out of the bathroom and across the tile floor to get there, but I never made it. I was unconscious before I even began to fall and my head hit the ground hard; or so I was told.

I was in space.

I was flying through beautiful clouds of colorful nebulas at unimaginable speeds. I felt so comfortable, filled with peace and joy. Somehow it felt like I had always been there. My memories told me that I had been flying around this place for a long time. It felt like forever in the best way possible.

After flying around for some time, I heard a voice. Well, it wasn’t quite a voice but it also wasn’t quite a thought either. To this day, I’m still not sure what it was but I know it came from behind my right side.

“You gotta go back. You’re not done yet.”

I was in absolute bliss so I had no desire to argue or refuse anything. I responded with a simple “okay!” and then I turned to the right.

The colorful clouds changed into white clouds. Those clouds quickly passed and I remember seeing a sight similar to a satellite view of a neighborhood, my neighborhood. I remember seeing the black of the roof and then white. The floor was white.

I opened my eyes to find that my head had been lifted and was being held by my girlfriend at the time, though it would be a few more moments before I recognized her. It felt like I was sifting through a file cabinet of memories to figure out what was happening.

• My name is Eddie
• I am 25 years old
• I am in Australia right now
• This person in front of me is my girlfriend
• I just fainted from cutting my finger

I felt as though I was a computer that went through a system reset and I had to read through the saved files of this person’s memory. My head was lifted and being held and I could sense that there was a twisted feeling in my neck that went all the way down to the left finger that I was still holding tightly in a fist. I assumed that this twist was a result of my head having been moved from where it was when I “left my body” and my “soul” needing to spin around to find me since I was not in the same position as when I left.

A quick public service announcement: if someone ever has a head or neck injury, do NOT move them!

“How long was I out?” I asked, still processing the memories of this person named Eddie that I felt like I had just entered. The people in the room seemed confused at my question and told me it was probably less than a minute but more than 10 seconds; when I pressed further they couldn’t be more specific.

I wanted to go back to that space. I felt like I had never wanted anything more in my entire life than to just go back there. At the same time, I had never felt a fear more intense than the idea of “just” going back there.

I quickly found that I was unable to even look at my own hands. I thought that my skin was as thin as tissue paper and even looking at them would make me bleed and faint again. As I said, I had never been more afraid of anything in my life than to go back to that place!

I developed a phobia of knives, and metal in general and found myself unable to even look at people cutting things. I couldn’t even think about someone cutting themselves without squirming and curling my left hand into a protective fist. If you’ve ever had a phobia, you know that nobody in the world would ever choose to have a phobia.

If you have never experienced a phobia, you must accept that you cannot possibly understand it. It was awful and debilitating and made me feel weak whenever I saw sharp metal or even heard a story of someone getting cut. I had to use a butter knife to slice my tomatoes for over a year afterward! Luckily, time has a way of healing so the phobia has diminished a lot.

Every time I think back on that day, I still tend to clench my fist to protect the finger that was cut. Even as I write this, I have found my hand reacting to the fear that I once felt. However, I also remember the place I was in while I was gone. I remember how amazing and free it felt and how much peace it gave me to believe that I will one day return to that place when my work is done.

I think that I may have died for a few moments that day. I don’t have any evidence to support or refute this claim, but it makes sense to me. My consciousness/soul went off to a place that was greater than any words could describe and when I returned, my Organism used a phobia to tell me to never ever do that again. The organism’s number one goal is “don’t die,” so an irrational fear towards knives is understandable since that was what seemed to cause the whole thing.

Regardless of whether I left this world or if I was just dreaming and created false memories to satisfy the story that I left, I choose to believe in the more magical story. My mind is at peace to know that I will be able to return to that blissful foreverness someday. I have found myself to be suspiciously calm in possibly dangerous situations simply because I believe that I’m “not allowed to die yet.”

The lesson:

I am here until I am not anymore, and I believe that the next step is a beautiful one. If I am wrong and there is nothing after death, then I am still at peace with my beliefs because they grant me serenity while I am still alive. 

There is something going on here that is greater than our minds can conceive. Death will come for us all, but whatever happens after death is going to be amazing!