My story may be somewhat different than most; you may see why later. I have a condition called Sleep Apnea. To make a long story short, I toss and turn at night causing my CPAP mask to leak, causing my obstruction to cut off the air to my lungs during sleep, causing me to suffocate in my sleep. This is my theory anyway of what caused my NDE. 

It was almost as if it were a dream but at the same time very real. I was going through this tunnel at an extremely high speed. This experience was very fun and pleasurable. At a certain point I came to a light at the end of the tunnel, which I instinctively knew was an intelligent being. There was a planet nearby which I had the feeling I was supposed to get off on for some reason. I had no idea why I was there nor had I even thought about it. As I was considering how I would get there, the being told me in what seemed to be telepathic communication, that I could only go there with this huge disc. I remember there was a huge glowing disc that somehow hovered over my head. It took me down to this planet that was dark with jagged looking rocks and mountains.

Someone appeared from behind the large rock formations with a big smile as if he were happy to see me with arms wide open to receive me. When he got close enough for me to see his face, I recognized a very familiar face, someone I really should know, but I couldn't yet figure out who it was. As we embraced I kind of pretended to know who he was -- I knew I really should have known who he was, but didn't realize who it was until later. 

The funny thing was that it seemed that I was there more for his benefit than mine! The next thing I know I'm back in my body in bed, but without a heartbeat or breathing. I know my heart wasn't beating since I meditate regularly and I am used to listening for and hearing my heart beat. But I realized that it wasn't! I also realized I wasn't breathing either.

I remember thinking I needed to start breathing or I would stay dead. So I consciously took a deep breath and started gasping for air as if I had been suffocating. Then the problem was no beat from my heart! I didn't know how I would get that to start beating, but all of a sudden there were five real strong, what seemed to me to be hiccoughs -- real strong -- after which my heart started up beating again.

Naturally, I was afraid I may have had a heart attack, given the symptoms I had had in the middle of the night. So that very morning I called and told a nurse my symptoms, being worried that I may have had damage to my heart. She told me, "That's impossible. If your heart stopped beating and you stopped breathing, you'd be dead."

At any rate, I scheduled several appointments and apparently no damage was done.