Welcome to Round Trip Death. On this show we have discussions with real people who have had near-death experiences.
This is a safe, non-judgmental, non-denominational space where we all have something we can learn from others.
While every NDE is different, one of the commonalities is that experiencers come back changed and their lives going forward reflect that change.
The question is, what will you and I learn from listening to their stories?
Okay, we are going across the pond today and talking with David Ditchfield in Cambridge. David, good morning.
Good morning. Great to meet you.
Or apologize, afternoon for you.
It's afternoon, yeah, of course.
Tell us where you live and what you do back there.
Yeah, well, I'm in Cambridge. I've been living here since an accident that I had some years back, which changed my life dramatically.
I'm now, I'm an artist and a musician, a composer, I compose music for orchestra.
But none of this was happening in my life prior to my accident.
In fact, my life was pretty dire. I'd been living in London and I'd moved to London when I was young, hoping to sort of make something of it because I'd left school without any qualifications.
I'm dyslexic, so I struggled at school to get any academics.
So life was a bit of an uphill struggle, like it is for a lot of people. I realized that, you know, I'm not alone in this.
And especially living in a capital city, because living in any capital city, it's a lot more challenging, it's a lot more expensive.
And I was surrounded by people who were successful and were doing really good at their game.
And I just wanted to be part of that. But it was never going to happen.
In all fairness, I think that I was just trying to push on all the wrong doors that weren't meant for me.
You know, it's a lesson that I've learned not to do that.
So, yes, I'm in a different place now.
It can be amazing how lives change from a near-death experience.
And we'll talk more about that and how years changed before to after.
One of the things that I find fascinating on this show, as I get to interview interesting people, is not just what happened during their experience, but what led up to it.
In other words, how they died. And some are, you know, and that's not what the show is about.
We're not trying to, you know, talk about crazy stories.
But we have had some that are very unusual, such as one man who was run over by a Navy ship.
We've had drownings. We've had all kinds of things.
But congratulations, David, you are the first person that I've talked to that's been run over by a train.
Yeah, I know that is a freak accident.
And when I tell my stories to people, most people are like, what?
Because as Dr. Raymond Moody said, I saw I did a quick interview with him and he said he introduced me.
And he said that if you think about it, it's a lot of us.
It's our worst fear because we've all been there where we stood on a crowded platform waiting for the train to come in.
And we're all thinking, you know, imagine if I got pushed under by the swell of the crowd, that would be our worst possible nightmare.
But you never think it's going to happen to you. But in my case, it did.
It did happen to me. And it was it was terrifying.
Well, take us back. When did this happen? What led up to it?
You know, what were you doing this I assume was just an average day, but then an un average thing happened.
Yeah, it was an average day. I was just I was seeing a friend off at a rail station.
I, as I say, I was down on my look when I was in London running out of money.
I was about to get evicted from my apartment.
And I just met somebody, actually, a really nice girl called Anna.
And I said, look, I'm going to have to go away and stay at my sister's just to try and get myself grounded.
And while I was up there, we were in touch and I myself, she wanted to come and visit.
So it was her that I was seeing off at the station.
And I was helping her onto the car with my bags, with her bags.
Sorry. And it was as we were saying goodbye and I was giving her a kiss and a hug that the accident happened.
The automatic doors closed on my coat and I couldn't pull it free.
It was like a very thick sort of sheepskin coat.
And it was just was not going to come out. I tried everything, of course, you know, I mean, I really pulled.
I was pressing the buttons to open the doors, screaming at the top of my voice for help.
But there was no guard on the platform.
It was one of these stations where it's all, you know, it's all done by the driver basically.
And the driver had not seen me trapped in there.
So I remember looking into the in through the doors and seeing my friend Anna and seeing the look of sheer horror on her face.
And I thought I thought this was it.
I thought I'm going to die as the engine started to rev and pull out the station.
It pulled out a great speed.
You don't realize that how fast these trains pull out when you until you attach to the outside of one.
And I lost my footing. I was dragged along the platform edge.
And then finally, between the platform and the speeding train and non-drive went under the wheels.
And it was like being pulled into this great mechanical beast that was just throwing me around relentlessly.
And it was very violent. It was painful.
And as I say, it was immensely terrifying.
But I had this kind of fight or flight mode, I guess. And I decided to fight.
I decided I was not going to let this beast take me under. And it didn't.
It threw me down to the ground in between the tracks as the as a train sped on.
It was a very long train. So I thought it's not over yet.
Keep your face down into the gravel. Keep as flat as you can, because something could just hit me.
At this point, had you detached from your coat so you weren't being drug any longer?
No, yeah. I mean, the sheer pull of the train, the speed of it and the weight of my body, I heard a great rip.
And then I just went down. That's when I went under.
You know, so it ripped my coat.
So you're no longer dragging, but you are under a moving train.
I'm under a moving train and being thrown around.
It was like being thrown into a dryer, into a washing machine and just throw it on full spin.
It was just, you know, I was just tumbling all over the place.
So it was a miracle that I survived.
I mean, the British Rail Police did a huge inquiry because they take these things seriously, obviously.
And they took them a year.
They said that they took the train down to London and stripped the carriage doors down to the last rivet.
And they said after a year on, they said we finished all our investigations.
And they said, David, the head of the police said to me, we don't get it.
We banged our heads together. You should not be here.
You should actually be dead. I don't know how you survived it.
And by then I knew what had helped me, what has helped me to survive this story.
And yeah, so there you go.
All right. Go blow, go blow, blow, blow as what happened.
You're getting tumbled around.
Blow, blow, blow. So I'm thrown down to the ground, as I say, and I'm in between the tracks and the train continues on.
And it's finally moved off down the tracks.
And there I was in complete agony, but also complete sort of joy that I'd survived.
I remember looking up and it was a beautiful blue sky that day.
It was a February day just like now.
And I looked to check my injuries and the coat that the sheep's can coat I'd been wearing had been ripped to shreds, particularly on the left side.
And my left arm had been ripped right open as well. I could see all the workings of my arm.
And it was odd because rather than go into a complete panic, I remember looking at my arm and thinking, wow, that's the inside of my arm.
That's all my the tendons and muscles that are me that I'd never seen before.
All of a sudden, the paramedics arrived really quick because there was a small hospital just around the corner from the station.
So they were there and they jumped down on the tracks and they started cutting through my clothes and started to talk with me and keep me calm.
And then they somehow got me onto a stretcher and in the back of an ambulance.
And I don't know how they did that because it's a huge drop.
You know, it was like being down in this sort of horrible pit.
But they did. They got me in the ambulance and the ambulance driver, the doctor said to me, said, look, there's a hospital around the corner, but the one that's going to save your life is a 25 minute drive.
Can you hang in there? I said, yeah, let's go.
And I was still in this fine mode, you know, and I remember we sped off down the highway like a rocket and we arrived at the hospital, which is called Addenbrook's Hospital, which is one of the best ones in the UK.
There's a whole team of medics waiting for me, you know, and then they just wheeled me in and they started to work on me.
And I was losing a lot of blood at this point and I knew it wasn't all over.
I didn't feel safe yet because I could hear fear in the voices of the actual doctors and the medics as they were all working on me.
I didn't know what they were talking about. It was all science to me, but, you know, it didn't sound great.
And I could see all this blood sort of literally sort of covering the floor.
My family arrived at this point, you know, they came in and I was really amazed that they were there because I thought, how did they find out?
You know, Anna had called from the train and phoned my sister and told her what had happened.
And she thought I was dead. So my sister was completely, you know, in shock, but she turned up with my parents and they came in to see me.
And my mom was in tears, I remember, and she said, Mom, it's always me bringing all the drama to this family.
I'm so sorry. She said, stop it and put a hand on my mouth.
And yeah, and I remember just all I wanted to do was see Anna because we'd just been through this together.
I was just so concerned for her, you know, she'd seen an awful thing happen, you know.
Yes, she had no idea what happened to you.
Exactly. That's it.
She thought you were probably dead, I assume.
She did do. Yeah.
Before we move on to her, would you mind telling us what some of your injuries were?
Yeah, well, the main injury that I received was my left arm had been cut, it had been severed from the elbow.
And I've still got it because as we went into surgery, I asked the surgeon, I begged him, I said, can you please save my arm?
My left arm, I said, because I play guitar, which I used to and I can't play guitar anymore, but they saved my arm and I can kind of use it.
So it's amazing. That was the main injury that I sustained.
I suffered internal injuries, which came back to haunt me a few years back, actually.
But also, but really, other than that, I came out really well.
My whole body was shattered and cut and bruised and I still feel a sense that it's never really fully recovered.
There's a sense of me that's not as fit and nimble as I was before.
But ultimately, I came out incredibly well, considering.
Yeah. How many years ago was this?
This was in 2006 that this happened.
Okay, keep going. Go back to the hospital. You're going into surgery.
Well, yeah, and it was then I said, I need to speak to Anna.
And so Anna came over and she was just ahead of us, just going from side to side.
And she said, I can't believe you're alive.
They told me over the system when we got to the next station that you were dead, that you'd been a fatality.
And so she was, I said, yeah, I'm still here.
And it was at that point that I left the hospital.
I left all the agony that I was in and I left the drama of it all.
And I was suddenly in a much calmer place.
I was in what seemed to me at first to be a darkened space, a darkened room.
And I looked around me, figuring that I was dead.
I figured, okay, this is it. I didn't make it.
And I didn't feel scared. I didn't resist it.
I didn't want to die, but I was from what I'd just been through, which was so horrific.
It just felt great to feel calm and no pain whatsoever.
And I was greeted by these pulsating colors all around me.
They were like orbs of light of oranges, ambers, yellows, greens and reds, just slowly pulsating, like landing lights on an airport.
And I thought, this is a really beautiful place.
I thought I no longer laid on the hospital trolley, but what I was laid on was a huge rock.
It was like a slight sort of medieval altar is the way I describe it.
It was like a huge slight rock, considering you would normally feel think that that was uncomfortable to lay on.
But in this case, it wasn't. I felt so relaxed and comfortable on this rock.
I laid back on it and I decided to check my wounds.
I thought, how's everything looking? Because as I said earlier, I'd seen the state of my arm that was cut right open.
But everything was in place. It was not even a single scratch.
Everything was just completely there.
And I was just covered in this blue satin sheet that comforted me and made me feel safe.
So I laid back and closed my eyes. And as I closed my eyes, I laid there for a while and I could sense light coming through my eyelids.
So I opened my eyes and I looked up and there were three symmetrical grids of white light, very bright and pure white.
And I couldn't take my gaze away from this light.
Normally it would be too bright to look into, but in this sphere, I could.
I could look right in and I wanted to because I sense was more than just light coming at me.
I sense that there was a healing force, a gentle healing energy that was like healing all the trauma that my body has just been through.
And the whole shake up, you know, that my whole essence had had to endure.
And it felt very calming and very relaxing.
So I closed my eyes and kind of bathed in this light, if you like, and continued this for some time.
And then I felt the presence of somebody.
I felt somebody had kind of walked into what I thought was this dark room.
And so I lifted my head slightly and opened my eyes.
And there was a person stood at my feet, an androgynous person, you know, with this pure white blonde hair and wearing a very simple contemporary gown.
And this simple contemporary black T-shirt, which was really surprised me because I figured that I'd been dead.
That I had seen all the paintings and the images that we do.
And I thought that if this is an angel, it would be wearing some kind of ethereal outfit.
But it wasn't. It was a simple contemporary black T-shirt.
And I knew this person. I knew this person's face.
And I said, I know you, don't I? Where do I know you from? Who are you?
And this person just smiled back at me with a kind of knowing smile. But I felt protected.
I felt that this angel that was there was guarding me.
And so I knew all was good and decided to lay back and close my eyes and continue to sort of feel all this energy coming from the grids of white light.
Then time went on a bit further and I sensed that there were more people had entered the whole scene.
So I opened my eyes again and there were two female forms either side of me.
The girl to my right was with very long brown hair and dark skin and a long brown dress.
The girl to my left was more American Indian or Asian Indian or Brazilian maybe, you know, in her look.
And she wore a more traditional dress.
But anyhow, they had their hands slowly hovering over my body, just going over the contours of my body.
And the energy that was coming from their hands was just so powerful. It was just beautiful.
It felt like an energy of love that was just like, this was not just healing the physical wounds that I'd endured.
But it felt like they were just going right down to the essence of my soul.
Like they were peeling off all the layers of hurt that I carried with me, you know, as we call it baggage.
You know, the baggage that I carried all my life was slowly being taken away from me.
And they were healing all that and they were healing my me, my pure essence.
It was a remarkable feeling. That was something I'd never felt in my life.
I'd never felt this unconditional love just coming through in these waves of love from their hands.
I started to think about my family because I knew that they were distraught.
I knew my mother was in tears and I thought, well, I'm clearly dead now.
And they're going to be upset. They're going to be really distressed.
So I tried to edge my way over the side of this huge rock and looked down and hoping to see them.
And I didn't see them. But when I did look down, what I did see was this incredible sight.
It was a beautiful, huge waterfall of stars.
It was a waterfall of stars the size of, you know, Victoria Falls, Niagara Falls.
It was like really powerful. And instead of millions of tons of water cascading over the edge,
it was just billions of sparkling stars just falling over.
And I looked down and as I saw these stars tumbling down, I could see shooting stars.
And my eyes started to adjust. And then I started to see colors.
I started to see nebulas and beautiful things that I'd never seen before with the human eye.
And I knew that I was looking from one galaxy into another. I was looking into infinity.
And this was just so exciting. And I just remember just pulling myself over after a bit and thinking, wow, you know, this is incredible.
I'm not in a small darkened room, as I figured initially. I'm actually in the universe itself.
I'm actually part of it. And I felt this being, you know, being part of the universe was really quite a sort of prolific thing to me.
Because it was just, it was just, I don't know, I'd never felt that before.
You know, I'd always looked up at the sky every now and again and seen the stars sparkling.
But I never felt that I was part of the universe. And now I realize that we all are. We're all part of that energy.
Anyhow, I laid back for a while longer and the most powerful part of the whole experience was about to happen.
And I felt the energy before I saw it. I felt this energy of love and unconditional love from the hands was now turned up like a huge dial.
Like my every single molecule of my body was vibrating with this pure love. And it was coming through, you know.
And so I lifted my head and I looked and just behind the being of light that was stood there with the black t-shirt was a huge, huge tunnel of white light that was just coming through the universe.
And it was slowly getting closer to me. And this tunnel of white light was surrounded by very powerful flames that were slowly rotating around the edge of this pure white light.
And normally I would be quite sort of scared or worried about this because it was quite terrifying to look at.
But in this sphere, there was no sense of fear whatsoever. All I felt was excitement.
And the closer it got, then I started to feel love. I felt that this energy of love was just coming from the center of this pure white light.
And I realized what I was looking at was the source of all creation. This was God. This was not the image of God that I figured that I'd seen, that most would see in some kind of human form,
like the images of God on the ceiling of the Vatican in Rome with the long gray beard. No, this was it in this tunnel of white light.
And as it rotated and got closer and closer, I just went, wow, I was just so overwhelmed. I started to laugh because I was just so happy.
And it was at that point that I left this whole place that I was in and I came crashing back into my body. I was back in the hospital.
I was back and all the pain came rushing through me. And instead of the beautiful bright lights I'd been looking at there, I was now suddenly staring back into the fluorescent strips,
which I couldn't look at. And the noise was just like overkill on my ears. Yeah.
Wow, that's spectacular. Yeah. Let's come back and discuss a bunch of that. But first tell us what happened the rest of your time in the hospital and recovery.
Most people say to me, you must have been really disappointed to come back after all this. But I wasn't.
I was actually charged with so much energy that there was a part of me still felt like I was attached to that whole energy that had been given.
And in fact, Anna came up to me and I said, look, something amazing has just happened, really important. I've got to tell you.
She said, not now. They're going to take you into the theatre. I said, no, but you've got to hear this. And she said, you can tell me later.
I said, OK. So anyhow, they will be interested. I was there. They operated for about eight hours, I think it was.
And I came through, they'd given me my own room in the hospital. And I remember being in that room, it was around 2am and it was very dark.
I just got this little machine bleeping next to me. And I got tubes and wires coming out.
And part of me was obviously sort of trying to deal with what had happened with the accident, because that was obviously very huge and that was very big.
But more importantly to me, I was trying to deal with the whole experience, the whole thing that I had this whole day.
I knew nothing about NDEs at this point. So I didn't even know what had happened to me.
And all I could think of was I got to tell everybody about this. And I was actually scared I was going to forget moments of it.
So I decided there and then, right, I'm going to paint this. I'm going to get out of hospital and do a huge painting.
I'd never done anything like this before, but I wanted to do this. I wanted to paint something like these things that you do see in the Vatican in Rome,
these big sort of Renaissance paintings, the biblical scenes. I thought I want to paint something like that because that's how I saw it. That's how I felt.
And had you been an artist prior to this time?
No. I mean, when I was at school, I could have been, you know, because I really enjoyed, I was always sketching and I was always, you know,
enjoying and wanted to take that further. But I was discouraged immediately because the teachers just said, look, you haven't even got a chance.
You've got no academic qualifications. If you want to go to art school, you need those. So forget it.
You know, you're going to you're you're working in a factory and that's it. You know, that's where I was being lined up.
And so it's like I got no training to be able to start painting.
And once I did start painting, I was apprehensive, of course, because I didn't want to mess this up.
But I've still got this sense of kind of all the love that had been given to me in this other realm gave me this sense of self-worth and self-confidence.
And I wanted to do it. And once I started painting the actual first painting, I did start to come together really well.
I knew that I was being helped. I knew that I was still attached, as I say, to this other realm.
And they were giving me this energy and this confidence to bring out all the creativity within me and produce this painting.
Do you have pictures of this and some of your other paintings that we can post with this episode?
Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I'll send them over to you. I mean, yeah.
All right. Listeners can look forward to that then. Did they did the paintings come out how you expected?
I mean, were you able to actually communicate through painting what you saw and felt on the other side?
Or was it kind of a disappointment? It was far from a disappointment.
I was excited. I remember when I was doing the very first painting and with all of them, actually, I realized that I was channeling through what was going on to that canvas.
And I was excited. I'd sit back each day and I'd go, I'd look at the work and I go, wow, this is amazing.
And I knew that it wasn't just me that was creating this painting. I knew that I was getting help.
And this continued on with all of them. And there were things that would happen.
There was one painting that I did of my own idea. And I was trying to capture the tunnel of light.
And there was this kind of like sort of nebula kind of formed as I was painting it.
And obviously, I developed it, you know, physically myself. But it was something that was given to me. I didn't actually plan it.
Some years later, some friends of mine said, have you seen the news? And I said, no.
And they said, oh, you should look because the Hubble telescope has just captured some images from the far side of our galaxy.
And it's just like your painting. And I was going, right, I'll go check it out. And it really was.
It was just kind of like it was just, you know, it was almost like I was recreating something that was there that I'd never actually seen.
But then but the telescope did, you know, so it's really incredible how it all came together.
That is really cool. So what kind of a recovery did you have? How long were you in the hospital?
I was in I should have been in there for they said to me it was going to be about four months recovery at least.
And I was out in I was there for three and a half weeks in the end. And they were amazed at the speed of my recovery.
I knew by then that I was still I was being helped to recover as well, you know, and which was incredible because it's just it's really bizarre because, you know,
my family would come and see me and my friends expecting the worst, of course, of course, you know, and they were walking.
They go, wow, you just look amazing. You know, you've got all these tubes and wires coming out. You can't move.
You've been under a train. You're just glowing. One of my friends said, you look animated, you know.
And I remember my mom came in and because I went it took me a week to tell my mom about the NDE because my parents are Christians
and they both would attend a church each week. And I thought it's probably going to jar with their faith.
And I wanted them to get it, you know, because my parents, it was important.
And after I did tell them, my mom turned around and said, we know it's like a mother's instinct.
I said, I said, how do you know? She said, well, we both talk about it whenever we come to see you.
You're in this room and we walk in and you you're glowing.
You've got this glow about you that we've never seen on you before. And you're just radiating love to everyone,
to the nurses and everyone who walks in. And that's not to say that I was, you know, I don't know what it was.
It's because I was still feeling that, you know, unconditional love filling within me.
And it stayed with me throughout my recovery and it helped with the speed of my recovery.
In fact, the surgeons turned around and said, David, you're healing an incredible race.
Do you realize that? You know, and I said, yes.
And I started to tell them why. But of course, the scientists and they said, OK, you know.
Yeah, it can't be that. Yeah.
So was Anna the first person that you told about it?
My sister was the first person I told about it because she was the first person who came to visit me and we're very close.
And I knew she would she would listen to me and she got it.
But I told Anna she was the second year I told her like she came to because she had to return to London.
But she came up from London the next day. And I told her, Anna said to me, this is amazing.
And I said to me, she said, I knew something had happened to you. And I said, why?
How do you mean? She said, because I stood over you at the time you had your near death experiences, she said.
And your eyes changed. And I said, what did they close?
She said, no, they remained open. But your eyes were suddenly sparkling.
They were just kind of you know, all this sort of you were in a bad place.
Clearly, you know, I was I was in shock. I was I was shaking. I was you know, I was in pain.
She said, you suddenly look calm and your eyes just kind of had this kind of glow about them.
So that was amazing that she she noticed a physical change in me, especially in my eyes.
So did everybody believe what you said? Maybe the doctors, it sounds like not so much.
What was the reaction with some other people?
Well, I didn't. I decided not to take it much further than the doctors, because I mean, without those doctors, without science, I wouldn't be here chatting with you now.
So I've got so much space and time for science.
But at the same time, it's very hard for a scientist to be able to really take it on board because of all these things like near death experiences.
There's no scientific equation for it.
But I always if people do doubt that I don't actually say, well, look, you know, there's no scientific thing equation for a lot of things that we take for granted.
I love you know, there's no scientific equation for that.
But we take it for granted that we we we meet someone or attracted, we fall in love and we all feel that sensation of love and love bonds us together.
But we don't question it. We don't ask why that happens.
So the other thing is as well is, is that we don't really talk about death, which is which now I find kind of strange, you know, because it's it's going to happen to us all.
You know, it's like we plan everything else. We plan birth.
We plan marriage, even driving our cars. But we don't plan death, you know, and we don't talk about it.
So the fact that we don't talk about it obviously, you know, will give some people a sense of doubt about people having the NDE.
But when you've had one, you know, you've had one, you know, it's happened.
And it's it's it's because it's it's so real. It's kind of it's like ultra real.
I always say, you know, when you're there in that realm, it's just so incredibly bright and all your feelings and sensations are amazing because because all of all the stuff that we carry around on Earth doesn't happen.
Doesn't belong there. You know, there's no sense of negativity, guilt, fear or shame. All those things are gone.
That's a common comment that I love from people as they're saying this couldn't have been a dream.
This was this was not only real, it was more real than real. Yes.
And I don't know that that I can truly understand that, but I've heard it so much. I certainly believe it.
Yeah. So can we pick apart a little bit of your NDE experience here?
Let's see. I'm just going back to that. You were greeted by colored pulsating lights.
Did you get any feel for what those were, what they meant, anything?
I felt that they were slowly introducing me to the fact that I was now in the next stage of life, but it was making me feel calm.
You know, I wasn't suddenly thrown into, you know, seeing the tunnel of white light, for example.
You know, it was just like a gentle ease. It was making me feel comfortable and safe.
So they were like welcoming lights, basically. That's what they felt like.
OK. And then there were the three grids of white light with healing energy.
What do you think those were? Well, as I say, I think those three grids of white light were there to sort of
you know, because our bodies are, I know that our bodies, of course, are not completely our souls, but while we're alive, they are.
They're part of us, you know, every single part of our body is, you know, is our essence, you know.
And so in the next realm, although I wasn't, it wasn't me physically there, it was my soul that had moved on.
I still felt like I was in my body. And when I looked down, that was my body that I was looking at.
But it was it was those grids of white light were just trying to put everything slowly back together.
You know, they were just trying to calm down the trauma that my body had been through because my body is part of my of me, you know.
And, you know, so that's why I figured that they were there for.
Yeah, it is traumatic to see that separation. And then the person in the black T-shirt and the two females, they were there at the same time, right?
Well, the first one in the black T-shirt was alone. The two female forms arrived later.
So that was the first one that was there. And that I knew that this that one was the most important one, that that was my guard.
You know, that was a if you like my guardian angel or my higher self is is what I was figuring that I was looking at there.
OK, I wasn't sure if those two overlapped with that person and then also the two females.
So that person left when the females came. No, they all three of them stayed. That's what I thought.
And did you get any kind of communication from these three beings?
They didn't speak to me at all. But I was gaining knowledge while I was there.
So I guess it was telepathy that I started to realize what was happening and who they were and why they were there.
There was no because, as I say, I spoke out loud initially to the first being of light that greeted me.
And it didn't speak back to me. But I knew that I was being given information that this person was my higher self,
that this person had been with me throughout the whole of my life and beyond.
You know, this person had been there all the time. And the other two as well.
The other two there and I sense all three of them still with me.
But I just wasn't I wasn't open to it before. I was very close down, you know, even though my life was going completely wrong and downhill.
I couldn't connect with them. I wish I could have done. You know, I do know I connect with them.
I call that for their help. I don't know if you realize, but you just said that person had been with you throughout your life and beyond.
What do you mean by the and beyond?
Because I realize that I hadn't just lived this one life that I'm living now that I realized that I've been reincarnated and will be reincarnated again.
So that's why I say that, you know, in my previous life, I don't even know what I was.
You know, I could have been I could have been a cat. I could have been another person.
But whatever it was, my my soul that was in that other physical being in my previous life was still being guarded by this particular person in the black t-shirt.
And the pure love with the tunnel, that just sounds amazing. What did that feel like?
It was it was just tremendous because it was it was as I say, I felt like I felt like a vibration of love was so powerful.
It was going through me. And that was the energy that stayed with me throughout my recovery in the hospital, really.
But also, again, the telepathy, the knowledge that was being given to me that I was now staring at God, the creator.
That was really profound. You know, that was really, really strong because I'd never been religious before.
You know, like I say, my parents were Christian. They took me to church when I was younger and I just didn't get it.
And they were very liberal. My parents said, I'm not I don't enjoy this.
I'm not I just want to be over and get home. They said, well, that's fine.
You can stay at home on Sundays and the rest of the family will go. So that's how it was.
So I got no faith whatsoever. So to suddenly see this and realize that there was a God, but and this was it.
And to feel the love, the pure vibration of love coming through me was really profound.
Has that changed you as far as a religious life now?
Yes, it has done.
Do you attend a church?
I don't attend the church. That's the only thing that hasn't changed.
You know, I don't, you know, I've been I started going taking my parents to church on quite a few occasions.
And I would sit down through some of the services, but I find that it's still jarred with me because people who go to church,
most of the majority of people who do go, they're really lovely people.
And so I really enjoyed that. The fact that I was surrounded by goodness.
But I just didn't like I found that some of the sermons kind of jarred with what I'd experienced myself.
You know, there was no like I say, there's no sense of guilt or shame or anything like that.
Whereas I feel that in a lot of faiths, you do feel a sense of, you know, of shame.
There's a certain sense of light, you know, it made to feel like you're a sinner and you should sort of, you know,
pray for forgiveness for your sins or what have you.
But I kind of feel that didn't work with me, you know, because that's not what I was always being taught when I was on on the other side.
If you like, you know, yeah. Yeah. You didn't feel any guilt or shame, did you?
No, whatsoever. And this was one of the biggest lessons while I was there that I brought back because before that,
you know, I used to carry around so much guilt and shame.
And I spent a lot of time worrying about the past, past mistakes I've made or opportunities I'd missed.
Then I was also worried about the future, you know, where my apartment was about to be taken from me.
What was I going to do? How was I going to fit in with this world?
So in this other realm, there was no sense of time. Time did not exist.
So and all those feelings of worrying about the past, they were just stories and worrying about the future.
I didn't even think about the future. You know, it was just you're in the moment.
And that was really powerful to feel that.
Lastly, you were used the word, I think, if I remember right, you were crashed back into your body.
So and everybody describes that differently.
OK, for some people, it's painful. For some people, it's just it's just kind of a blink and it happens.
What do you mean by crashed back? That sounds kind of violent almost.
Because it was it was the reason I say that is because it was it was violent because
I was in an awful lot of agony from the accident and all that pain suddenly came back.
And but like I said, the just the kind of the noise of the hospital and the fluorescent light was just it was just
I can't think of a word that we use for that, you know, but it's just like overkill.
It was just like I just couldn't stand it. Kind of a shock.
Yeah, there is a word that I think my mind now like overstimulation overstimulation.
That's it. Yeah, you know, I just couldn't I couldn't bear the noise or or the or the brightness of the light.
It was just I just felt like I wanted to go out like that.
So, yeah, so that's why I said I can't crash him back because I came from all this peaceful,
useful calmness into a very hysterical sort of place because the doctors were still there working on me and they were still kind of panicking.
You know, they were trying to save me. They were worried, you know, because the blood loss was getting pretty crazy and stuff.
And so, yeah, but they go. That's that's that's why I say I can't crash him back.
So after a few weeks in the hospital, how has your life been different since I came out and I started painting once I was well enough.
You know, I covered my my sister's house with her family.
So that was lovely. And once I was able to get up and get out, I decided to I got this canvas.
My aunt bought it for me. She came over from Canada to visit me and I told her the story.
And so she went and bought the canvas, which was great.
So it was leaning against the wall and I kept looking at it and I thought, I've got to start this, you know,
and I found there was a lot of synchronicity starts coming to my life because I knew nobody obviously where I'd moved.
But people started to come along that were there to help me with my my pathway.
And the first lot of people were two friends of my sisters who come over to pick up their boy.
And they came in and they saw the canvas against the wall.
And Jane, who runs a yoga place, said, when are you going to start this painting?
I said, I can't. There's no room in here. You know, the paint.
And she said, well, we've got a spare studio space going for a week.
You can use that until you've got no excuse now.
So I went, you know, and I started painting there and I got to the end of the week and I was nowhere near finished, of course.
And then they said, look, you can stay.
Yeah, we'll just move you around in different studios while different, you know, pilates classes are going on.
So great. So I stayed there for two years and they didn't charge me any money.
And I just became really prolific. I couldn't stop painting.
And I became known as the artist in the attic because I was up there, you know, up in the last.
And people would come in for the yoga pilates sessions.
And they come up and see me and I started getting a lot of interest because of what the subject matter was.
And they knew I'd been under the train. It was on the news, you know, and everybody knew about it.
And I found a lot of people were fascinated because I'd tell the story and what had happened and people wanted to listen.
And I realized that this was a good thing because I wanted to tell people I didn't want to hold back on this.
And there was no sense of worrying about it.
And that helped me to start telling the story to more people and get out there.
And then I decided that I wanted to start writing some music.
Yeah, I thought, as I say, I used to play guitar.
But when I say play guitar, I was very rough and ready.
It was just like playing three, thrashing out three chords in local punk bands or whatever, you know.
And so I got no formal classical training whatsoever.
But I decided I wanted to write a piece of music about my experience.
And I'd been going for spiritual healing because I went to this spiritual church that I'd come across.
And I'd actually seen this church before my accident.
And this is really fascinating because I'd been coming up from London to visit my sister at the time and her family.
And there was a couple sat opposite me, an elderly couple, and they were asking where the stations were to get off and stuff like that.
And so I was helping them. And then the lady says to me, oh, we're going to see a medium tonight.
You should come along. And I said, OK, thanks. I'm not all that interested.
She said, she's very good. She's very good. You know, she's not famous, but she's great.
And she gave me this little A5 flyer and put it in my pocket.
So I got to my sister's, I remember that day, and there was a lot of chaos going on, the kids running around.
And I said, look, I'm just going to go to the bar and have a drink.
So I went to the local pub and I had a beer and I pulled out this flyer and I thought, I'm going to go.
So I went along to this meeting and it was packed. And yes, this medium came out.
She was called Julia Knight. She was amazing. She was very animated.
You know, she walks around and she'd say, you know, gentleman over there, lady over there, I'm picking your grandfather.
Did he wear this? Yes, totally. That's him.
So everyone was getting messages from their loved ones.
And I wasn't really interested in getting a message at all.
But there was a moment where she stopped and she turned around and I felt like there was a shift in energy.
Even then, you know, she said, gentleman in the blue sweater, which is me, she said, your life is about to change.
I went, oh, OK. I said, in what way?
You know, I said, am I going to win the lottery? You know, whatever.
And she said she walked around and she was talking. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I know.
She was like having this conversation with these guides, I guess, you know.
And she turned around and she said, they're not telling me. They're just saying be prepared for it.
It's going to be very big, but you will be protected.
OK, so I now realized what she was talking about was the accident and the experience.
So I needed to find this church because I wanted to track this medium down and talk to her.
You know, so it was there where they said to me, look, you look pretty banged up.
I got all sorts of plastic holding my arm together at the time.
And they said, we do spiritual healing. I said, OK.
So I went along to the spiritual healing groups, which I still do.
And some of the mediums clairvoyant, you know, and they started to say little messages at the end.
They'd say, well, why am I seeing a violin laid across your chest?
Why am I in Beethoven and Bach and stuff?
And I said, I have no idea. Then one of them said, they're telling me that you're going to write a piece of music about your NDE.
So that was the red, the green light for me to go home and start writing.
So I did. All I got was an old cheap synthesizer that had been up in the loft and a basic cassette recorder, believe it or not.
And I just started recording the ideas on that and it just started to come together and pieced together.
And again, synchronicity. One of the people who used to come into the yoga center was a cello player who played in the local orchestra.
And we used to meet for coffee. She said, what are you up to?
So I told her about this piece of music and she said, oh, maybe we could perform it with the orchestra.
I was going, yes, please. You know, so anyhow, my brother said to me, look, you know, he's he got some software.
He said that I'm going to give you my old laptop and some software. You need to have this now because you're going to play it with an orchestra.
They all need, you know, manuscripts. And so I could play the notes I was playing now instead of having the old cassette recorder.
And it would digitally transform this into manuscript. And I, you know, I got to learn all what parts were needed.
I'd hear sounds and I thought, right, that's a French horn. That's, you know, it's the viola, that's cello and stuff.
And I managed to pull it all together and the orchestra agreed to play it. They said, well, we'll play it and we'll perform it.
So can you get me a copy of that too? Of course I can. Yeah. Of course.
We'll put some of that in right now.
Okay, that's that's fascinating. So what do you do for a living now?
Well, I'm basically the mixture of the two. You know, I'm painting, I'm an artist, but also from that concert, the concert sold out, which was amazing.
And even the orchestra were amazed at that. You know, again, I felt I was being helped even to bring that together.
It all started because I was at the rehearsal and they said, would you mind saying a few words to the local paper about your piece?
Because that's what we normally do. I said, yeah, sure. So they gave me a phone number and I phoned up the local paper and they said, hang on, you're the guy who went under the train, aren't you?
And I said, yeah. They said, oh, this is going on the front cover, you know. So they did a big piece on it. And then more and more people phoned me.
And they said, we'd like to come down and film the rehearsal and interview you. And this was two weeks before the actual concert.
And then after that, of course, everyone just bought tickets and it was an amazing atmosphere.
You know, it was a beautiful, beautiful experience. There was no sense of ego like me feeling like, yes, it's the big it's all about me.
I was just like, great. People are going to be able to get hopefully through my music what happened and what it's like to experience the other side.
And from that first concert, I was immediately asked to write a piece for another orchestra.
And then I got sort of jobs coming in writing for the Cambridge clarinet choir.
So they came to me and I wrote a piece for them and they said, look, we saw that piece and it was very spiritual.
Would you write a spiritual piece based on your experience for us as well? I said, yeah.
And they continue to draw lots of people in and sell out, you know. And so that's where I'm at.
So I'm still getting commissions with both my music and my art. That's what I do.
OK, so if people want to go online somewhere, see your artwork and hear your music, where do they go? Yeah.
The best place to go is shine on the story dot com or daviddidgfield dot com.
It'll take you to the same website and you can see my paintings on there and you can listen to the Divine Light,
which is my first debut symphony, which is based on the NDE Synth 3 movement. So you can listen to that.
And then there's also links on there for my social media, because it's good if you're interested,
if you want to follow me there, then you can see what's coming next, how things are developing,
you know, the next things that are going to be happening for me with both.
So David, go ahead and tell us about your book. Yeah, well, that's that's quite amazing, really, because as I said, I'm dyslexic.
A lot of people used to say to me where you should write the story. It's a great story.
I said, I wish. And then a few years back, an old friend that I'd known from some way back,
who had moved to the Highlands of Scotland, so we'd lost touch. And she'd moved back down to England and gone in touch.
And she said, oh, you should write your story. And I said, you know, I can't. I'm dyslexic.
She said, well, how about I co-write it with you? I said, that'd be fantastic.
So we worked together on writing the story and it was published before it was published.
I'd sent it to I got an email of Dr. Raymond Moody, who coined the phrase near death experience.
And I wanted to send it to him. I heard nothing back.
Then a few months later, his manager, Lisa Smart, got in touch with me and said, I've just looked at your website.
I've heard your music and I've seen, you know, that you'd like Raymond to read this.
This is an amazing story. I'm going to make sure that he reads it.
Can you send the manuscripts? I did. And he loved it. And he said, when it comes out, I'll write a forward for it.
So I said, that's great. So it was published and it came out.
And Dr. Raymond Moody wrote the forward. He had a beautiful forward for it.
And then, yeah, so it came out right at the beginning of the pandemic.
And I had no idea whether it was going to, you know, completely die because there was no they were
they were hoping that I'd be going and promoting it in bookshops, which I was dreading, to be honest with you.
I thought I can't do this. And so it kind of saved me in a way because I started promoting through Zoom.
You know, talking to people all over the world. And it suddenly became the book started to take off.
And it's been really, really well received. So the book is called Shine On.
And if people are interested, you know, it's out there on Amazon, wherever you live in the world, and it's still available to buy.
So it tells the whole story. We'll put those links in our show notes. Thank you.
So let's kind of wrap this up. Tell me what message that you got from all of this that you would like to share with the world.
The message that I got was that we're all loved and we're all cared for.
We've all got guides that are following us on a day to day basis.
And we just need to stop and try to tap into that and accept that love, you know, because once you start it's all about self love, really.
Once you start to love yourself and give yourself total, genuine, full on love, then you start to evolve as a person.
You start to realize, like for me, it was my music and my art was already in me.
And that feeling of self worth gave me the confidence to be able to bring that out and do something with it, you know.
And so we've all got that. And the other thing is, as I say, that sense of time.
We worry too much about time. We worry about the past, all of us.
We worry about the future, especially at the moment, because there's a lot of chaos in the world.
So everyone's scared of the future. And I just try and urge everybody to try not to do that.
Not to be, you know, the future doesn't actually exist, really.
At the moment, it's a story that we're creating.
And what does exist is the present moment that we are in.
And we remain in that present moment and look around us.
Even if we look at the news, it's very terrifying. If we stop, and like I am now, and I look around my apartments,
I think, no, this moment in time, I'm safe and I'm OK.
And that's what I try and urge everybody to do, because that's what I learned from that other realm,
that time, the past and the future are not as important as we give so much energy into.
All right. Thank you for the good message. We're glad you're OK and made such a great comeback.
Anyway, thank you, David. Appreciate your time.
My pleasure. Great to talk to you.
Thanks again for listening. We hope you will share this message with family and friends.
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Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.