It happened the summer I was 11 years old, on a lake with the unpretentious name "Obozero," of glacial origin in the Arkhangelsk region of Russia. I drowned, after floundering with all my might and resisting as best I could.

About 40 meters away were my mother and my aunt. I shouted, "Help! Help!" Trying to inhale, I choked on water, choking more and more each time. My strength ended and my resistance became weaker and weaker. I held my breath as long as I could, struggled, but uncontrollable breaths began, first small breaths, then deeper and deeper, and I began to sink to the bottom, inhaling water into my lungs.

Approximately at a depth of 2 meters, I saw that someone jumped into the water. It turned out to be my mother. I recognized her by her blue dress. Gathering the last strength, I made an effort to ascend, grabbed her legs and tried to climb over my mother, clasping my legs and arms, as if climbing a tree, I climbed to my stomach, I drowned my mother without understanding what I was doing, while constantly inhaling water.

 My strength was gone and I couldn't climb any higher. I greedily uncontrollably inhaled water with full breaths. Air bubbles stopped coming out of my lungs. Then a thought appeared. It began to hammer like a hammer of panic and despair, "Now I'll die, Now I'll die, Now I'll die, Now I'll die, Now I'll die."

Having tightly clasped my mother with my arms and legs, I froze, I had no more strength at all. The thought, “breathing is pointless,” appeared, so I stopped inhaling and exhaling water. And then the question arose, "Why did I live? Why did I live? Why did I live?" I saw something similar to a film tape with frames, but in each frame an event was recorded with smells, wind, and even dust. From right to left, this tape moved, and I could stop any event and view it by scrolling and stopping, as if entering into it and feeling the warmth of the sun and the breeze.

When all the events were viewed, I did not find an answer to, "Why did I live?" Scrolling the tape forward, I saw how I stuck a large rusty nail through my hand, then I felt light tingling from the tips of my toes, hands, and from my head. It was a familiar feeling, like in childhood, when they checked flat batteries 4.5 volts with their tongue, only much weaker. There was a feeling that a weak current flowed from all the cells to the chest area, just the place where we point with our hand when we say "I".

My arms and legs began to ossify. I no longer felt them. The thought, “Now I will die, Now I will die, Now I will die, Now I will die,” appeared again. And at that moment, I went out of my body through the back to the level of the chest, and I saw my body and my mother. I thought: "Finally, I died." I felt such a relief that there is nothing to compare

Moving away from my body, I clearly saw everything around in the water, slowly moving further and further away. At a distance of about 5 meters, I was still looking at the body and my mother, saying goodbye, and rejoicing, "Finally, I died." Then I flew into the hole just a little bigger than me. There was darkness all around. I saw it as a wall (plane) in which there is a hole. I could still see my body through this round hole, but there was no more water around, there was complete darkness. Moving away, I saw that I was moving through the dispersion of particles, as if a light fog, and I began to turn in the direction of movement to the right.

Turning around, I saw a yellowish glow through the dispersion of light particles. Moving through these clouds of particles towards the light, I felt an all-consuming feeling of love. The closer to the light, the more I was filled with warmth and joy. And then I heard the voice: "It is not yet your time." I was immediately turned by an invisible force and I flew back at a speed ten times faster than before. I flew through the hole into this world and ended up in the water, but the body was no longer there... I “turned around” and saw that the body was being dragged ashore and the legs were dragging along the bottom, leaving furrows in the sand, I immediately flew to the left heel and, frozen for a moment in front of it, was surprised how huge it was, what an interesting pattern of papillary lines. (Of course, I didn’t know then what they were called, but I could draw my imprint of the heel on paper, it surprised me so much.)

I was about the size of the lens of an eye ... grains of sand and small pebbles curled around the heels, they sparkled interestingly in the rays of the sun, and I watched the circling grains of sand, then looked at the heel of my left foot, moving after it. Having flown into the body, I "turned around" with my eyes up and felt how I disintegrated into particles and spread over the body. Feeling the body again, I felt again the joy of the death I had just experienced.

The heart was not beating, the lungs were full of water, my mother and my aunt started the heart and pumped water out of the lungs, I watched them with my eyes closed ... Feeling the water flying out of my lungs, I made my lips a tube and began to let them take turns getting a fountain of water in their face. It amused me.

I was amused and having fun with them as they tried to revive my body. Having pumped me out, they stepped aside, leaving me not far from the water. I had a slight desire to run back and drown, it was so good there. It turned out that I dragged my mother under the water entirely. She stretched her hand up as the last hope that our aunt would save us. Her hand was already deeper than a meter under water. My aunt ran up later than my mother, the depth where the cliff began was up to her chest, she bent in the water over the cliff and reached under the water with her fingertips, and so by the fingertips of my mother, pulled us out ... Death woke me up, as if I had been sleeping for 11 years of carefree sleep.