Death seems to be waiting for us around every corner.
Take one wrong step, come around one corner a little too quick, and you could be on your
way to meet your maker.
But not every brush with the Reaper is definite.
To explain what I mean, I have three fascinating stories for you of people who claim to have
bested death, only to return to the mortal realm with quite the tale.
Then again, they could be my own imaginative creations with no truth to them whatsoever.
It's up to you decide what's fact, or fiction..
The line that divides the factual from the unreal has long since blurred, the tales we
once thought fantastical now implanted as truth.
To decipher verity from the imagined, you must break from the ordinary and consider
a universe where the outlandish prevails.
Can you expand your mind to see beyond our perceived reality?
Can you decide what's fact or fiction?
Can childbirth be life threatening?
It’s a question we all know the answer to, but how many of us have actually lived through
the horrors of a birth-gone-bad?
Barb Zeckerman and her husband Todd were delighted to welcome a new life into this world, but
during the complicated birth, Barb got a glimpse of the joyous life that was almost ripped
from her.
Story # 1: Birth and Rebirth It was the light that faded first, at least
that’s how Barb remembered it as her gurney was rushed down the hospital hall.
The stark white, fluorescent glow that bounced off the sterile walls blinded her at first,
but the longer she was in the hallway, the more they dimmed.
Eventually, there was nothing but darkness and the motion of the gurney moving.
She felt hands pressed against her body and heard frantic voices struggling to remain
calm.
It all turned into a dull echo before fading completely, but she was still conscious.
Barb still thought and felt and could sense everything around her.
Pressure on her abdomen, hands against her thighs – the feelings were vivid.
Then, the cry came.
As the shrill of the baby’s voice pierced the air, the darkness snapped away and Barb
found herself looking down on the chaotic scene.
She remembered thinking that her view was impossible, that she shouldn’t have been
able to watch as her baby was pulled from her body.
She took notice of her own limp figure, Todd sobbing at its side.
It was then she knew what had happened, their greatest fear realized – she hadn’t survived
the birth.
She wasn’t sad, though, but rather at peace that she could watch as the new father held
his baby, tears clouding his eyes.
Before she could appreciate the serenity that washed over the room, they were outside, the
sun shining brightly on her family.
Then they were inside, gathered around her baby’s first pile of Christmas gifts.
Barb felt nothing but joy as time passed, her baby now a toddler.
She laughed as the baby fell and cooed for her father to pick her up.
She smiled as they came together for a meal, her child now a teenager with long blonde
hair.
Barb wanted to remain there, suspended in her nothingness, observing her family as it
grew and lived and laughed; but as a sharp pain coursed through her body, the image started
to dissolve.
She was being ripped from her happy place above.
The bright light came again, but when it dissolved, she was staring up at a masked face, the whirring
and beeping of machinery all around her.
It was an experience she would never forget, and while those around her believe it was
vivid imagery her brain fabricated in order to deal with the pains of childbirth, she’s
persistent in her belief that she was given a glimpse into a future without her.
A glimpse into an alternate future – it may sound implausible, but who are we to decide
what we see when our hearts stop?
Surely you have an opinion on Barb’s story, so why not share whether you think this tale
is fact or fallacy by using the comment section below.
We’ll have a reveal for you in a bit, but for now, let’s move on from Barb to another
near-death experience, that of Devin Cape.
He thought it was nothing more than a cold, but as his symptoms worsened, Devin found
himself on a journey to the “other side.”
Story # 2: One Thing “I didn’t know what would happen,” Devin
replied as he dug up the vivid memory from his past.
“I knew an induced coma was bad, that I may not wake up from it, but I also knew it
may provide me a chance to return to what I can only describe as “the other side.”
Clearly, it’s a difficult story for him to recount, not because it terrifies him,
but because of the ridicule and criticism he’s received from it.
“They were just cold symptoms, maybe the flu.
A fever, cold sweats, blurred vision – I never expected that to lead to me dying at
my doctor’s office.
But I did.
My heart stopped, and though my body ceased to function, I still heard the nurse yelling.
‘Hurry!
Get a doctor in here!
He’s dead!’.”
“It was surreal, but in the darkness, I found something.
A bright light, shining as bright as any I’ve seen.
It was beautiful.
There were doors, too, though something kept me from approaching them.
I pushed and pushed, but some force kept me back.
Then I heard the voice, somewhere deep within my brain.
"You cannot enter that room, my son.”
“Nothing seemed to bother me in this white place.
I was happy.
I felt… love.
But that door, oh I wanted to go through it.
I tried again, but the voice came again.
‘I told you, my son.
You cannot enter that room.’
I asked ‘why’, and, to my surprise, the voice answered.
‘You must go back.
You must finish one more thing.’.”
“But the voice wasn’t even the craziest part of it all.
I woke up a day or two later and everything seemed different.
I couldn’t move from my bed, but I was alive.
Still, I saw things I shouldn’t have.
Visions of people and things that were impossible to be in my hospital room; but I saw them,
as if to remind me of that ‘one thing’.”
“I did recover, and as much as I tried to put the event behind me, it was always there.
What was I supposed to do?
Why was I sent back?
Years later, it finally happened.
My daughter, once a sweet girl, got involved with drugs thanks to her husband.
Their son, my grandson, was only two and caught in the middle of a horrific situation.
He deserved better, and so I fought for custody.
My wife and I struggled against my ex-wife and my daughter, but after a seven-year battle
in the courts, custody was signed over to me.”
“I like to think that was the ‘one thing’ I was sent back for.
I like to think he’s the reason I am still alive.”
Devin’s tale may leave you questioning two things: First, do we all have a purpose to
fulfill?
And second, was it really nothing but a load of fluff?
You can vote on the second question using the onscreen prompt, but let us know your
thoughts in the comments.
As we move on to our third and final story, I want you to ponder - have you ever met someone
in your dreams, only for a chance encounter to see them in the real world?
For Amanda Ward, it’s a very real scenario, but, to her, it wasn’t a dream.
It was another plane of existence.
Story # 3: Meeting Others “It was so freeing.”
Amanda fiddled with her nails, nervous to tell a story so few had believed.
“To not be in pain, I couldn’t remember the last time I went a day without feeling
some kind of pain.
The disease was impossible to live with and so…
I didn’t.”
She searches the ceiling tiles for the rest of her story, her mind deciding how much detail
to give.
“The pills took effect pretty quick.
I remember that stiff feeling, as if I were being mummified, and then it all just dissipated.
My body was light, like it didn’t exist, and then the room faded around me.
I wasn’t alone, dozens of others were standing and waiting to enter some sort of… portal.
It was this big white doorway and people were slowly walking through it.
I felt like I was in a waiting room, especially as I started to notice the different walks
of life.”
“There was a trio of teenagers, clearly the product of a drunken night on the road.
Then I saw her, maybe 20-years-old, fiery red hair, green eyes – she was gorgeous.
As I watched her getting closer to me, I could feel how she died.
Air stopped coming to me, but I didn’t panic.
Even as she sat next to me and, without moving her lips, started speaking within my head,
I felt calm.”
“As she spoke to me, I realized she was telling me to do things for her.
‘Tell them this”, ‘tell them that.”
She wasn’t rude about it but spoke as if she knew I was going to meet these people.
The encounter was strange, but I remember it vividly.
As quick as she came, she was gone again, but I wasn’t alone.
The room was still busy with people, but they were all focused on one man, someone that
took a keen interest in me.”
“It was so crazy,” Amanda proclaimed and dropped her head to the floor, tears welling
in her eyes.
“He was a guide, someone that helped the lost after they died, but he told me I wasn’t
like them.
I was alive, just stuck ‘in between’.
And he was right.
My time in the white room, the encounter with the red-haired girl and the mysterious man,
they happened in a span of seconds that I slipped out of consciousness.”
“At first, I didn’t want to believe any of it happened, but then I met her shortly
after.
A middle-aged woman, crying within a group of people, being consoled over a loss.
My instincts and curiosity brought me closer to her and I just spoke to her.
I asked why she was sad and she explained that her daughter had been found, dead.
She flashed me a picture.
It was her.
The green eyes, the fiery hair – in those moments I left the world, I crossed into a
passage of the dead on their way to whatever was beyond that portal.”
How would one go about explaining what really happened to Amanda?
Perhaps the girl just looked similar, or maybe Amanda had met the girl before and was just
reliving distant memories.
Did Amanda really briefly cross over or is this another of our fantastical creations?
We’re ready to reveal the answers to you, but before we do, be sure to vote on tonight's
stories by using the cards found in the right-hand corner of the screen, and leave your thoughts
in the comment section.
This was admittedly a strange trio of stories, so let’s get to it and see how well you
did.
Are you ready to find out if you can decipher between fact or fiction?
Let’s look back at tonight's three stories and find out which were born from reality
and which were fabrications of the imagination.
Do you recall Barb Zeckerman’s child-birth horror?
Do you think she had a near-death experience while in labor?
While giving birth can be a fatal experience and this story is entirely plausible, we based
this story on nothing else, but our imaginations.
How about Devin and his fatal cold symptoms?
Did he find a purpose for his life in a near-death experience?
If you said it was fictitious, allow me to introduce you to NDERF.org and the story of
Juan R, case 8414.
Juan claims to have died and found himself facing a door he couldn’t enter.
As for taking custody of his grandson?
It’s all a part of Juan’s sordid NDE tale.
Finally, we have Amanda, a girl who was granted admission to the Beetlejuice version of the
netherworld.
Was there a girl with fiery red hair?
Did Amanda, once recovered from her affliction, run into the girl’s mother?
As surprising as it sounds, this is not something we made up.
The story, which belongs to a girl named Amy, was originally reported to the Near-Death
Experience Research Foundation and shared on NorthWest Spiritism.
How well did you do in tonight's video?
Did you look past the deception of our world and define the oft-blurred line that struggles
to separate lies from the truth?
Let us all know in the comment section below and should you find the urge to test your
perceptions again, be sure to subscribe and join us next time when we ask you to decide
what's fact... or fiction.