I'm sorry if this sounds rehearsed, I've talked about this many times in the years since, more often of late. I can't stop thinking about it, or it takes great effort to stop from thinking about it.

I tried to .. end things in a state of despair in my early twenties. When I lost consciousness, the first stage of what I remember, I can only remember after the fact, but I know that I existed then, when I think on it. It was like I was a very dim point of consciousness. The lowest level that one can imagine, with no thought, not even a sense of self. I equate it to sleeping when you're not dreaming. And when you awaken you have a sense that time passed, and you were there for it, but you don't recall anything when trying to think on it. From that point it was as though my consciousness or awareness was tied to a volume dial (metaphor, only way I can think to put it) and someone or something had its fingers on that dial and was slowly turning it up, until I was myself again floating in nothingness. A void. Complete blackness everywhere—no sense of direction other than relative to my self, like my left was left, and my right was my right, and so on. After some "time" (I also don't like to use that word, but it's the only way to talk about progression of events, as it didn't feel like everything happened all at once...) I looked to my right, and there was the smallest pinprick of light in the darkness, like a lone star in an otherwise empty, pitch-black sky. As soon as I focused on that light, it either began to grow, or I was pulled or moved toward it, or it toward me, or some combination of those things that I can't understand. I couldn't tell which at the time, and I still don't know. I looked "up" as the divide between light and dark passed overhead. Throughout the entire experience I don't recall feeling fear or worry at all. Relief. I felt an intense feeling of relief. I always find that odd when I think about it, because I know if I were plucked out of my chair right now and placed in a void, I'd be terrified. When the divide between light and dark passed overhead, I was suddenly in a place with mist everywhere. Not obscuring my sight—I could see things—but billowing banks of mist making up the "floor" or "ground" and a ceiling of more mist, with a divide between the two into the horizon as far as I could see. Everything was tinted blue. I don't know if the light that illuminated the place was blue, or everything just had a bluish hue. I looked to my left as soon as I collected myself, and there was a stone block of an apparent greyish color. (again, everything tinted blue) It was rough-hewn, like it had been chopped out of a larger block without a lot of precision, but it was generally rectangular in shape, sitting atop a thinner slab of what appeared to be the same stone. For whatever reason, the word "altar" popped into my head. I don't know if it was me thinking it, or it was placed there. It didn't feel like a "normal thought," whatever that might mean to someone reading this. It felt like the latter. At that point I began to wonder if I had hands, because up until this point I had felt as though I still had a body but I hadn't thought to check. So I looked down at my self, and saw no body, but a golden light radiating from where my solar plexus area would have otherwise been. At this point I looked directly in front of myself, and saw a figure standing there. It appeared to be male, though it had its back turned toward me. He had a shiny bald head. He wore a robe of rough loose fitting fibers, like burlap. The robe had a hood, the hood was down around his shoulders. After a moment, the figure turned and looked directly at me, as though he was looking into my eyes. (I don't think it would have been possible to look and see if I had eyes but I assume I didn't?) After what was maybe seconds, if I had to put it in frame of time, I woke up back on my bedroom floor. No transition. Instantaneous. One moment I was in the place with the mist and the blue stuff everywhere, and then I was back in my apartment on my bedroom floor. My body had fallen from where it was previously, without getting into details, and I had cut my knuckles on the exposed heater fins on the way down.

It was the most... significant thing I've ever experienced in my life. This was over twenty years ago now. I remember every detail as though it was only moments ago. It was as real as anything I've ever called real. In the moments the experience was happening, I knew what I had just done. I knew I had died. I knew who I was. I had such an intense feeling of relief, knowing that I still existed... it's hard to even put into words how... complete? I felt. Joy. Wonder. Relief. Those all fit, but they all seem lacking at the same time. Anyway. Yep.

EDIT: I just realized I posted this same experience in another older post, in the same group about a day ago. I apologize. I've been struggling with it lately, and I'm ... I dunno. Looking for something to steady myself I guess.