I was thirteen years old at the time and lived in Szczecin, Poland.
During the summer school holidays, I became very sick at home - my head became hot, all my joints became very painful, and I ended up in hospital (although to this day I have no idea how I got there). My grandmother was there at my bed putting cold compresses on my head but they did not help. I was suffering from rheumatic fever. The last thing I remembered was screaming as I lay there in bed.
The next thing I recall was waking up in a dark, warm place. I could not see anything at all. There was absolutely no pain at all, and I recalled feeling warm, peaceful, and safe. I could not see or feel my body. I knew however for some reason that I had to go up, and it felt like I was climbing stairs, although I couldn't see them. A very bright, white light appeared up in the distance, and I knew I had to go towards it. It was already in the direction I was heading. It was clear and I have never seen such a brightness in my life. I just knew that I had get there somehow.
Someone then touched me on the shoulder, like a push with a hand, and a voice said:
"Child, you have to go back. It's not your time."
The voice was beautiful, calm and clear, definitely male.
I said to the voice, "I don't want to go back. I have no pain and it's nice and warm here. I want to stay." I still couldn't see anything at all, either myself or the source of the voice even though it was like they were right next to me.
The voice repeated its earlier statement. "It's not your time yet, you have to go back, you have to go back, it's not your time." It was very patient, yet insistent and firm, despite my anger at not being allowed to continue. I'd never felt like that before, it was so good, you cannot explain it but there is nothing there that can hurt you, no pain in your head, just a warm gooey feeling of happiness and safety.
The next thing I remember I was coming down through the ceiling looking down at myself on a hospital bed. I also saw my mother sitting next to the bed. She had her head lying on the bed next to me and appeared to be asleep. I noticed that her hair had gone completely grey.
The walls in the wards in the hospital had glass windows in the top part of the wall near the ceiling, and as I was floating down from the ceiling, I could look into the room next to mine. I remember seeing a young girl who looked like a teenager, around 18 or so. I could hear the doctors and nurses talking about how she had been attacked in a park. They didn't think she was going to survive as she had brain damage. The doctor said they would have to operate. One of the nurses said they were going to cut off her hair. I was so upset at this because she had such beautiful black hair, and as a child I was obsessed with hair.
I then kept descending and entered my body. I then opened my eyes and saw my mother next to me. She realised that I had woken up and got the nurses and doctors to attend. They kept saying 'she's alive, she's alive'.
All I was thinking about was the girl next door. The first thing I asked was:
"How is that girl in the next room? Is she okay?"
When I said that, a nurse who was nearby who was carrying a tray of syringes and other objects dropped it on the floor. She then went and got the specialist who had been looking after me and they started to whisper. I could hear what they were saying, the nurse kept repeating 'how does she know that?' The specialist then talked to me and told me that I was lucky that I was alive, and that everything I thought I saw was a dream and it was my imagination (I was trying to explain what happened to me and what I had seen in the next room). The specialist denied such a person was in the next room.
When they left, I was in tears and asked my mother to have a look in the ward next door. I wanted to know if the girl was still alive. She went and had a look and the girl was there, just like I had said. My mother appeared to be very calm about it. We didn't bother to tell the doctors anything after that, I was so angry that they wouldn't believe me and they kept giving me empty boxes to play with. I kept trying to go in and see her, but the nurses would not let me.