Ghosts Among Us - James Van Praagh [9]
“It could have been unwashed lettuce,” Victoria suggested. “I hope you feel better.”
Several hours later, my good friend Brian came over to take care of me. The anti-nausea medicine didn’t seem to be working, so I decided to give my doctor another call.
“It’s a bad case of food poisoning. Just keep drinking fluids.”
By eleven o’clock that evening, I was weaker than ever from vomiting all night long. No matter what, I had to get to the hospital. I managed to get up off the couch and walk into the bathroom. The last thing I remember seeing was the bathroom sink.
Suddenly I felt that I was floating out of my body. I felt connected to my body, but not necessarily in it. At first, I could see the top of my head, and the next thing I knew I could see my body on the bathroom floor. A rush of thoughts and emotions flooded through me, and I felt as if I were dying. The most vivid memory was of how much better I felt. No more pain, no more vomiting. Before I knew it, a luminous, golden light seemed to fill the space around me. I could hear someone say to me, Dying is easy. Living is hard. Instantly, I was aware of my dead cousin Pat. Pat was my favorite and closest cousin growing up, and we used to spend hours talking about life after death and the idea of reincarnation. In a way, she was the first person I ever spoke to about spiritual matters, and we both shared a mistrust for Catholicism. Pat died when I was nineteen; I was heartbroken. I had never seen her as a ghost until that moment. She stared at me with her smiling eyes. She looked so young and pretty in her blue-green satin top.
Pat whispered, Don’t worry, it will be all over soon.
I mentally asked her, Do you mean over over? Or just over?
At that point, Pat disappeared, and I was aware of my father’s presence. He stood in the distance, wearing a brown sweater. He too appeared to be a younger version of himself. Suddenly I heard a swooshing sound and Brian’s voice.
“James, wake up. Are you okay?”
I opened my eyes and looked around. I felt calm, yet at a loss for words. Then I said, “Dying is easy. Living is hard.”
“Okay, I’m calling 911,” Brian said without missing a beat. By the time I got to the ER, I had been in and out of consciousness several times. I was told that I had lost five pints of fluid and blood and needed a blood transfusion. All that vomiting had caused a tear in my esophagus, I was hemorrhaging internally, and I had E-coli poisoning from the food I had eaten.
To say the least, I was glad to be alive because I knew I still had work to do. Having my own near-death experience cemented my faith in my spiritual communication. Going through the dying experience showed me that there was nothing else left to be afraid of.
COMA
I am often asked, “Can people in comas hear us?” Even when an individual appears to be physically unresponsive or in a vegetative state, he or she may not be completely unaware of what is happening. That person may also not be aware all the time, because I also believe there are various degrees of a “coma” state of mind. However, consciousness is always aware of what’s going on.
There are many levels of consciousness: (1) waking consciousness; (2) automatic consciousness, which keeps our blood flowing, cells dividing, and so forth; and (3) higher consciousness, which occurs in deep relaxation, meditation, prayer, dreaming, and daydreaming. I believe that my communication with ghosts is part of this higher consciousness. Simply put, consciousness is awareness of all of our internal and external experiences. To me it is the “all.” Consciousness is not confined to the body; it is a part of the mind, and the mind is a part of the soul. At the time of death, the soul, which is eternal and contains experiences from eons of lifetimes, moves on.
My father was bedridden in a hospital for the last two weeks of his life. In a coma, he was hooked up to machines, respirators, and IVs. It was a situation that he would never have wanted. On his final night, his doctors