I had an asthma attack and was taken to the local hospital and put on a life support machine (respirator) in intensive care for about five days.

I was aware of four states of consciousness: awake, dreaming, hallucinating, and out of body in another realm.

I was listening to two doctors discuss the opening up of the thoracic area and thought they were talking about me. I thought, "Geeze, they think I'm unconscious and they're going to operate and I'm wide awake." When I regained consciousness, I related this to a nurse who told me that the conversation had taken place but in a different room to the one I was in and the doctors were talking about someone else.

I was in a hospital bed in a clinical room that wasn't solid. To my left stood my yoga teacher's wife, Bha, who had died three years previously of breast cancer. Bha was talking animatedly with a blue light being; he was tall and the shape of a man, but he had no features. A neon turquoise blue light outlined his shape and he had lights moving on the inside of his shape like sunlight playing on water. Bha and the light being were laughing a lot.

I was aware that my lungs weren't moving and I was trying to make my chest go up and down by breathing; nothing was happening.

Bha came over and said, "Stop interfering, let the machine breathe you, all you have to do is be here." I thought I would give it a go and stopped trying to breathe, I realised that I was still here even if I didn't breathe.

I was watching my life on a sort of video in my mind, which was running left to right. I saw myself laughing when I was seven and wearing a brown and white striped dress that my grandmother had made me. I saw myself in a conversation with my school mates saying, "Don't be stupid, when you're dead, you're dead." and other things that I cannot recall just now.

I went back in my memory to when I was a fetus and I was rocking myself to a sound that was the shape of a triangle; not like a pyramid but with a long base, a short upright on the left side and the top line curved. (perhaps my mother's breathing?) I had just discovered my tongue and I was rubbing it on the roof of my mouth. The sensation was exquisite. I discovered that I could click my tongue (I would describe this now as the sucking motion) and was clicking my tongue to the shape of the sound as I rocked myself. I was in a state of bliss.

I went to a place of knowledge, where I knew everything. It was here that I knew that there was no such thing as time or space. It was here that I realised that I had created all of the melodramas in my life and it made me laugh (I call that my cosmic giggle).

I went into a flow of oneness that I think is God, (I called that the isness); it is a state of bliss where I am all there is. It is formless. It is like waking from a nightmare and finding yourself safe at home. Life on earth is the dream and this oneness/bliss is the reality that you wake up into safe and sound.

I was back in the room with Bha and the light being, Bha said, "It's time for you to go back now." I said I didn't want to go back. A vision came into my mind of my daughter crying over my grave. I could feel what my daughter was feeling and I thought, "Ah, she's not ready for me to leave her yet. I'd better go back." As soon as I had the thought, I was back in my body. I was watching the video of my life again when suddenly it disappeared (as if the video was one of those little tape measures that has a button on the top to recoil the tape into its plastic housing and someone had pressed the button). I thought, "Hey, I was watching that."

A tea lady woke me up. I asked for water. My leg had pins and needles and I wanted to put my foot on the floor but every time I moved my leg a woman's voice would shout, get back in bed . I didn't know where I was or why I was there, or indeed who I was, I thought I was in a concentration camp being held against my will. I didn't recognise my daughter when she came to visit and had to ask who she was. I wanted to go home even though I didn't know where home was. The night I went home I had a sort of stroke and lost my memory, ability to speak and my balance so that, for some time, I had to come downstairs on my bottom, holding onto the railings and have someone to hold onto when I walked. I could not bend over without toppling over completely.

I was in a state of terror at being left alone. This went on for about six weeks and my husband had to get someone to sit with me if he wanted to go out. I was like a child. As I learned to talk and walk again. My speech became like that of a Swedish or German woman. I was very emotional and sensitive, bursting into tears easily and being easily frightened.

Then came an extended period of bliss where I was aware of the oneness of everything. I would amuse myself whilst hanging out the washing, knowing that everything is God; the cloth, the pegs, and the washing line itself. Wild birds would perch on my head as I sat in the garden and I hand fed a wild pigeon. At this time, there was no fear in me at all. One day a blackbird flew out of the hedge near my ankle and soared into the air. I felt as if I was flying with her for a time and felt exuberant. I was completely psychic and would only have to think of someone or something and they would appear at my door. I had a deep love for everyone I had contact with and I would describe that state now as living completely in the moment or in the now or in the flow. Apparently my eyes were all lit up at that time.

I lost one of my friends who thought I was possessed because I had a complete personality transplant. It was hard for me to explain what had happened to me because really, there are no words to describe it, I can only approximately describe it.

Although I couldn't remember my past, I could recognise people. I forgot I could drive, but it all came back when I sat in the car. I forgot my brothers' names. I lost a lot of memories forever. My speech returned to normal after about six months along with my balance.

For some years, I would wake at about 2 a.m. and the blue being (Michael) would teach me spiritual things until about 5 a.m. Although I still sense him around me, his presence is not as evident in my life as it was. This has been my choice because I felt that I was becoming too dependent on him to guide me. I

 trained as a hypnotherapist and holistic masseuse so that I could help people heal themselves. I know myself to be a healer. I think my purpose here is to help people to be unafraid of the dying process and to teach them that there is life after death. I have subsequently trained as an Interfaith Minister and Spiritual Counsellor so that I can work in hospitals and hospices.

My husband and I divorced soon after the episode. There is now no evidence of me ever having a stroke. I think I have seen the last of the asthma that used to plague my life. There may be more that I'm not recalling just now.