The Light Within Us Knows the Way – David Ditchfield – Transcript

David Ditchfield Interview

Summary

• David Ditchfield was a struggling alcoholic in 2006 when his coat caught in train doors at Cambridge station, dragging him under a speeding train
• During preparation for emergency surgery, he had a profound near-death experience featuring beings of light, cascading stars, and what he describes as encountering God as pure white light
• The experience included deep healing work on both physical wounds and emotional trauma accumulated over years of low self-worth
• Upon recovery, David spontaneously developed abilities to paint and compose classical music despite having no formal training in either discipline
• He has since created multiple large-scale paintings depicting his NDE and composed two symphonies and a rhapsody, all performed by professional orchestras
• The experience eliminated his alcoholism and fundamentally transformed his understanding of death, replacing fear with certainty that consciousness continues
• David emphasizes the importance of living in the present moment, finding authentic self-worth, and trusting in universal energy—core lessons from his near-death journey

Key Takeaways

• Death is a transition, not an ending – The near-death experience revealed that consciousness continues beyond physical death, with realms of unconditional love and healing waiting beyond this life, fundamentally eliminating the fear of mortality
• Trauma can catalyze spiritual awakening and hidden abilities – A life-threatening accident became the catalyst for profound transformation, unlocking previously dormant creative talents and demonstrating that crisis can reveal authentic potential
• Presence and living in the now are essential – The NDE revealed that past regrets and future anxieties are illusions; the present moment is the only reality, and learning to inhabit it fully brings peace and clarity
• Self-worth must come from within, not external validation – Years of being labeled a failure at school created limiting beliefs that dissolved after the experience, showing that authentic self-love precedes meaningful creative expression and life purpose
• Universal energy and synchronicity guide those who remain open – When focused on authentic expression rather than material outcomes, the universe provides exactly what’s needed—the right people, opportunities, and resources appear at the right time

Full transcript, edited for readability:

Rick: My guest today is David Ditchfield. In 2006, David was a functional alcoholic, who had just been evicted from his flat and was living with his sister and her husband, when he got his coat caught in the doors of a train, got dragged along by the train, thrown under the train, was severely injured, and as he was getting ready for surgery in the hospital, he had a profound near-death experience in which he was met by beings of light who were healing him in various ways, and we’ll be getting into his story in great detail in this interview. In essence, when he recuperated a bit, he began to have impulses to paint paintings, and eventually, write music, and he ended up painting a lot of paintings, which we’ll be showing in this interview, and also writing a couple of symphonies and a rhapsody. And he continues to do that stuff to this day. And needless to say, he’s not an alcoholic anymore. Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people. We’ve done well over 700 of them now, and if this is new to you and you’d like to check out previous ones, please go to batgap.com and look under the interview’s menu, where you’ll see them, all organized in various ways. This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers, so if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there are PayPal buttons on every page of the website and also a page describing alternatives to PayPal. If you like this video or interview as you’re watching it, please hit the like button. That helps the algorithm bring it to the attention of more people. And please hit the subscribe button if you feel inclined to do so. Okay, so let me read a bit more of an elaborate bio here of David. David is now an artist, composer, and author. In 2006 he had a horrific train accident in Cambridge, England, where he was pulled under the wheels of a speeding train. He’s going to describe that to us in detail. This terrible accident nearly claimed his life, but moments before critical surgery, he had a profound spiritual experience filled with love, radiant light, and spiritual beings. This near-death experience, NDE as they’re called, awakened hidden talents for music and painting. His musical journey is remarkable. Despite no formal training in classical music and an inability to read or write musical notation to this day, he has composed two symphonies and a rhapsody, all premiering at sold-out concerts. This included being commissioned by the Cambridge Clarinet Choir to write a piece based on his spiritual awakening. He continues to create classical works, currently working on a new symphony. His artistic endeavors are no less remarkable, with one of his inspirational NDE paintings recently on display as part of a year-long exhibition in the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. A few months ago, his extraordinary story reached a global audience when the BBC World Service aired a documentary about his journey titled “My Journey Beyond Death.” David’s journey symbolizes the resilience of the human spirit and the boundless potential within all of us. He continues to paint and compose in Cambridge, England. So here we go, David.

David: Okay.

Rick: Alrighty. Yeah. So, I totally enjoyed your book. I converted it to audio and listened to the whole thing. We have plenty of time, so I want you to flesh it out in as much detail as you like, and people can ask questions to get more detail. But one interesting note that perhaps will get you started, is that you were scraping along and life was tough, and you were drinking a lot with scarce money and not finding much work. And you had some classy girlfriend who was living at a different social stratum than you were, and life was difficult. And on a whim, you met some lady on a train who said she was going to a spiritualist meeting to see a medium speak, and on a whim, you went to that, and the medium picked you out of the audience and said, “You’re going to undergo a big change, buddy.” But she wasn’t getting any information on what it might be exactly, and you thought it might have something to do with your girlfriend or whatever, but it turned out it was getting dragged under a train.

A Life Without Direction

David: Yeah, which I did not see coming at all. I mean, my life at that point was, all like, I wouldn’t say hedonistic, but it just wasn’t grounded at all. My life started out by schooling, I struggled at school because I’m dyslexic and I wasn’t diagnosed at the time, so I left school with no actual academic qualifications. So that was obviously a struggle for me and that was like my blueprint if you like. I was seen as being a troublesome sort of pupil and one that was lazy and inattentive- all those kinds of reports a lot of kids get who are struggling -which I didn’t like, because I actually did want to try and succeed. I wanted to do something, but that wasn’t happening. So, when I left school, I thought, “Well what am I going to do with my life?” I thought, ” I’m going to move to London.” I thought if I moved to London, that would just be like it was all going to open up for me. It was like the land of hope and glory for me and stuff. And of course, that wasn’t to be the case. When I got there, I had a lot of high aspirations -hence the girlfriend that you talked about -the high-maintenance girlfriend. That’s what I was aspiring to, that’s what I thought I needed in my life, and all these different things that I thought I needed, were not really doing me any good. So yeah, to get by because obviously like any capital city, it’s very expensive to live, and London’s no different. I was just picking up day-to-day casual work, manual laboring work. Working on construction sites. Anything I could pick up and a lot of that work was really like, get picked up by going down to the local pubs- the local bars- from where I lived and that’s where all the site managers hung out after a day’s work, and you just hustle for the work the next day and of course, I’d end up just drinking my wages each night. So that’s how that progressed into becoming an issue with me with alcoholism. Yeah.

Rick: Yeah, and then you were at some bar with your buddies and there was a really cute bartender girl working there, named Anna in your book. And you ended up befriending Anna, and it turned into a sort of relationship, but you were having troubles, like taking that leap. And I remember you were seeing Anna off at the train in Cambridge, I guess. And was it then you got your coat caught in the doors of the train?

The Day Everything Changed

David: That’s right. That’s what happened. Yeah, I’d moved. I was as you pointed out earlier, I was I was evicted from my apartment where I was living in London and because I’d run out of money by then, my sister and her family lived in Cambridge, and she said come and stay with us for a few weeks. So that’s what I did and when I was up there, and I just really met Anna and we just we’ve got this connection why we connected, and she was different. She just seemed different. She represented a sort of sense of wholeness as well about her, that was not all the things that I’d been used to aspiring to before that point, but I liked it. I like that fact, but it scared me at the same time, knowing that she got that within her, but we kept in touch, and she said “oh, I want to come up and see you” and I said “Great. “So she came up and that’s how that happened. She had to get back to London and so, I took her down to the to the rail station to see her off, and what’s really strange is that actual day that -I mean I was completely non-spiritual then as well- that didn’t enter into my life, but that actual day it felt like there was an odd sort of vibration in there. I remember my sister’s cat was in the sort of bedroom and did this really bizarre thing. He just scrambled on top of this very high cabinet, which is almost near the ceiling. And was up there, I thought, “What are you doing up there?” And he just stared at me and I said, “What? What are you trying to say?” You know, so…

Rick: That’s interesting.

David: It is interesting, yeah.

Rick: You know how they say animals can sometimes predict earthquakes and tidal waves and tsunamis and things like that? They all run for the highlands when a tsunami is coming.

David: Yes.

Rick: So I think maybe that cat was picking up on something in your aura or whatever.

David: Completely, he was an amazing cat. He lived up until only a few years ago and it’s so funny, because my family from then on- my sister’s family I should say – every time he did something strange like that they go. “Whoa, what’s about to happen?”

Rick: It’s going to use him to play the stock market or something.

David: So, but I’ve learned now that the animals are, they are really tuned in. , I think a lot of that is to do the fact that, we’ve like developed so much as a human race, that we’ve like forgotten how to communicate, other than you and I are talking now, or we using all technology and stuff like that. Whereas animals still communicate through vibration and the telepathy and all those different things.

I think a lot of that is to do the fact that, we’ve like developed so much as a human race, that we’ve like forgotten how to communicate, other than you and I are talking now, or we using all technology and stuff like that.

Rick: Rupert Sheldrake’s book on dogs that know when their owners are coming home. You ever heard of that?

David: No, I’ve not heard of that.

Rick: Yeah, Rupert is a scientist over there in the UK and he did this whole carefully controlled study about dogs that know when their owners are coming home and he threw a lot of randomness into it like changing the schedule and having the owner take a taxi so it wouldn’t be the sound of the familiar car or whatever. But long before the owner was, or the owner’s car was in earshot of the dog, It would run to the front door and just wait. And then sometimes he’d have the owner change plans entirely and decide not to come home and the dog would go back and sit on his bed, okay he’s not coming home. But there’s very strong evidence that the dog was psychic and able to pick up on that stuff.

David: Exactly. That’s it. So yeah, there we go. So, we turned up at the station eventually. It was a very cold February day. Very ice cold. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I remember, and the train pulled into the station and I helped Anna on to the carriage, on to the car with her bags and everything, and I gave her a hug and a kiss to say goodbye. And as I did that, we heard the buzzers going, the emergency buzzers for the doors to close, and So, Anna said “Come on, you’ve got to get off.” I said, “Yeah, don’t worry, I’m going,” then I stepped back, and as I did, the bottom corners of my coat got trapped in those automatic closing doors and

Rick: You had like a big wool coat on or something.

David: Yeah, it was absolutely like it was an old Sheepskin coat that I’d been given, it was inherited it sort of thing. Yeah, so it was a good quality one. So, it’s quite thick and there was no way it was going to pull free. It was just in there was trapped.

There was no way it was going to pull free. It was just in there was trapped.

Rick: And you couldn’t wriggle out of it. That’s what I was wondering when I first heard the story. Why can’t you just like rip it open and wriggle?

David: Oh because of the type it was. It would be so old that it didn’t have any sort of like silky lining like we all have now in all our coats. It was just literally like the kind that had the sort of the fur on the inside of the sleeves.

Rick: Right

David: Yeah. So, I just could not get it off and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get it off. In fact, there was only one other person on that platform, Seeing off his girlfriend or whatever, and he shouted to me said “Get your coat off mate, get your coat off. “I thought “There’s no point, it’s not going to come off.” So yeah.

Rick: Yeah. And so, then the train starts moving and the conductor couldn’t see you.

David: That’s right, yeah.

Rick: He was pulled into the wrong spot or something.

Dragged Under the Train

David: That’s it. Because it was one of these stations where it’s not manned by a guard, which I didn’t realize. I mean I started yelling out for help. I thought a guard would come running forward and stuff and I thought that or the driver would hear me and look out of the window, but none of that happened. And as you say quite rightly, he’d pulled just, he’d come in a bit proud of the monitor so he couldn’t see him. Because it was such a bright, low sun, that also obscured the view on the monitor, so he couldn’t see me at all. And it’s strange because I remember the actual, when the engine started to rev, I thought, well at that moment I thought “This is it, I’m going to die” because I thought I can’t pull it free. And it’s interesting because it’s almost like time stretched for me as well, because I had time to actually think through how I was going to deal with this. I mean obviously I was terrified but there was a sense of calm as well and I actually remember thinking to myself, I’d seen this news footage about two or three weeks earlier where a small child had been thrown from a burning apartment block, from the third floor and had survived without any injuries and they put that down to the fact that infants don’t tense up like we do as adults. So, I thought “relax your body.” So as the train started pulling out, it pulled out at great speed, I felt every gear shift. You don’t realize how fast these trains pull out of stations until that happens and you’re attached to the outside. I ran with it at first and then I lost my footing and I hoped that the force of my body would pull it free, but that didn’t happen. Then I got sucked between the platform edge and the speeding train itself.

Rick: Which was how wide? Show me with your hands how wide that was.

David: It’s like that. It was just insane, because it’s a real narrow little thing. It’s a really, really nice. Yeah, because it took me a long time to be able to go back even to that station. I had lots of therapy to help me get back there, but whenever I do get on a train now, that’s the most terrifying part, is just getting on and off and looking at that gap and thinking, “Wow, how did I squeeze through there?”

Rick: Yeah, the gap couldn’t be too wide because people have to step from the platform to the train and not fall in the gap.

David: Absolutely. Obviously, there’s a slight step, but, yeah, there was a massive rail police inquiry, because it was a big thing with it being a rail accident and it took them a year to do the whole thing. I remember they, because I was interviewed by them quite a lot, the police, and they said to me that they’d taken the whole carriage down to London and they’d stripped it right down to the doors, down to the last rivet, and they actually said to me when they were concluding, they said, “We just don’t get it. We’ve done all our math’s, all our figures, and you should not have survived this. You should be dead.” You know, it’s…

Rick: The amazing thing was that you were pulled under the train, so you were actually under the train, and somehow or other a wheel didn’t run over you and cut you in half.

David: Yeah, I know. That is insane as well.

Rick: Yeah, you must have just swung in there and boom, and then the wheels came, went by after you had gotten under.

David: Exactly, yeah. Can you believe that? The timing of it all? But that’s exactly what happened. Because for me, when I went under, I was fully conscious and I put myself into this relaxed mode. In fact, my friend Anna, she ran through the train and looked through the window and she told me afterwards when I was in hospital, she said “look this sounds really strange,” she said. “But when I saw you go under, it’s like you went under so gracefully.” and I explained why. So that obviously helped as well, but when I did actually go in, it was just I remember it was just being if that was a strange moment as well because that felt like something that shifted. I felt like suddenly the train had become this huge mechanical beast that was determined to take me and I thought “no you’re not going to take me,” and it was like being thrown into, I guess into a huge washing machine at full spin, and I just tossed around relentlessly.

When I saw you go under, it’s like you went under so gracefully.

Rick: And somehow, Just at that point your coat ripped or pulled free finally from the door because otherwise you would have just been dragged along.

David: Yeah, yeah, I heard the rip. I heard the rip and I remember still now that visually it almost looked like the car of the train almost seemed to disappear into the sky. Then suddenly I was in darkness, and violence, so

Rick: Yeah. And then you had to lie there for a while the train kept going over you and I remember you saying you just had to keep your head really low in case there was some little sharp thing poking down from the bottom of the train.

David: Again what was really strange was I thought “Right what would James Bond or Indiana Jones do now in those situations?” because I’ve seen all those movies where those things happen. They said he keep his face right down in the gravel, so that’s what I did, and I remember that horrible smell of the oily gravel and keeping my face down. But then the train moved on and it was just like “wow.”

Rick: Amazing yeah, so help came pretty quickly because people had seen this happen and next thing you know, there were medics there and they were getting you on to a stretcher and into an ambulance and all that stuff and you got to the hospital and your left arm was totally ripped open, so, you could see the bones and the veins and the nerves and everything and the bones were some of them broken and Yeah, it was like anatomy class.

David: Yeah, exactly It was a complete mess and even that was strange because that was one of the first things that I saw when I laid on the tracks obviously like all I wanted to check my wrist. And there’s a part me was almost like fascinated thinking- I remember saying “wow, that’s me -the inside of my arm.” I could see all the nerve endings and muscles and everything and it was really strange to think. You just don’t think about what’s going on beneath your skin. Do you, ever? And so yeah, so that was really strange seeing all that. I remember we got in the ambulance, and the doctor in the back said “Look, we’ve just come from a small hospital around the corner. That’s why we’re here so quick. But the one that’s going to save your life is a 30-minute drive. Can you do that?” I said “yeah, let’s go,” We just went down the highway at full pelt with a siren going,

Rick: So they had to put a tourniquet on or something, so you wouldn’t lose too much blood.

Leaving the Body Behind

David: Yeah, yeah. I knew I was losing a lot of blood when we got into the hospital because it was really apparent. I could hear- Yeah, there was a whole team of medics waiting there, when we got into the emergency department, and I could hear fear in their voices. I didn’t know what they were saying, of course, it was all numbers and science and stuff, but I thought “This doesn’t sound too good.” Yeah What was really surreal, because the actual consultant who ended up taking charge of me, he was there. He kept me really calm, and he said to me “look” he said, “we’re going to have to take you straight into to a theater pretty soon.” He said “but I see your family are here. Would you like to see them before going?” I was going “Really?” I said, “yeah sure,” so they came through, and I remember my sister said afterwards, there was just so much blood on the floor, so that’s how much I was losing at that point. So that’s where it was getting a bit sort of why they wanted to get me in there pretty quick. Yeah

Rick: Interesting and so just as a guess it was just before you went into surgery, you had this NDE, right?

David: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah

Rick: Okay, so let’s spend plenty of time talking about that. You can spend all the time you want talking, because that’s a really central piece of the whole story.

Healing in Another Realm

David: Sure, yeah, well basically, I left my body. I left all the pain and the agony that I was in. I left the drama of the hospital and the bright fluorescent light, that was like sort of shining in my eyes, and then suddenly I was transported, I guess is the one way to describe it -into what seemed to be like a small, darkened space, a small darkened room, I figured at first. And I thought “What’s going on? Where am I?” And I thought straight away this is death. I haven’t made it I didn’t make it. I’m dead. And the strange thing is I didn’t resist it. I didn’t fight it. I didn’t feel any sense of fear. I’ve since heard other people’s accounts of near-death experiences and some people do try to resist it at first, because they’ve got young kids and stuff like that – they don’t want to give all that up, but for me it’s not like I wanted to die, but it was just I thought, I didn’t have that sense of wanting to resist it. So, I tried to get my bearings. I looked around me and I looked through this darkness and then suddenly I was greeted by these pulsating colors of lights that were pulsating all around me slowly. They were like sort of orbs of yellows, \ greens, ambers, golds, what have you. They were lovely colors, but they were really mellow and that made me feel safe. That made me feel that I was in a safe place and if this was death, then it’s not so bad.

The strange thing is I didn’t resist it. I didn’t fight it. I didn’t feel any sense of fear.

Rick: Yeah, and incidentally you’ve painted pictures, paintings of some of these scenes. So, as we’re talking here, as you’re speaking, if there’s a particular photo that you’ve sent me that you’d like me to display, just let me know.

David: Yeah sure, will do, yeah.

Rick: Okay.

David: Okay, well so as I laid out, I just thought I wanted to check my body, my wounds and see how that was all looking. And so, I sat up and then I realized I was no longer laid out on the hospital trolley that I’d been on for so long there. And instead, I was now on this like huge slate rock or like a granite rock. I describe it as being like a medieval altar or something from Stonehenge or something like that. And it felt surprisingly comfortable to be laid out on. And that was also considering the fact that I realized I was no longer clothed, I was just covered in this blue satin sort of silky textured material that felt almost like a comfort blanket and all my wounds were completely fine. There wasn’t even a single scratch or scar. My body was back intact. So that made me also feel reassured and good about things. So, I decided to lay back on this granite rock and closed my eyes for a while. And as I closed my eyes, I suddenly started to see light coming through my eyelids. And so, I opened my eyes and above me where these three symmetrical grids of white light, pure, bright white lights that were slowly closing in towards me from above. And I couldn’t take my gaze away from this light, even though it was so bright. Normally that light would be too intense to look at in this realm, but there it was totally fine. And the reason I couldn’t stop looking at it because I knew there was like a healing force, a healing energy coming from that light that was healing all the trauma that I’d just been through both physically and emotionally, but mainly physically. I felt like that light was just like bathing me in this energy of healing. So, I closed my eyes and I trusted in this completely and I just laid there, and then as this went on, I suddenly felt the presence of somebody. I felt like somebody had walked into this small, darkened room, and so I lifted my head and opened my eyes and I can now suggest one of the paintings actually which is called ‘Greeting by the Being of Light’.

Rick: Yup, I will show that.

David: So yes, just ahead of my feet was this androgynous being that you can see in that painting there, wearing a very simple contemporary black t-shirt, nothing too ethereal as I figured I might be seeing, but just a simple black t-shirt with this pure white, blonde hair and the skin that was sort of emanating light from within. And this person was just gazing at me and smiling, and I said out loud I said, “I know your face, who are you?” and I just couldn’t place it. it’s like I knew this person so well, but I didn’t know where from and this person just kept looking back at me and smiling and saying nothing but with a reassuring smile, so I just figured okay, that’s okay. Then I started to realize that information was slowly coming through almost in a form of telepathy, if you like, going back to that thing talking about animals, that I started to get information that this person was the gatekeeper to wherever I was right now, that this person was there to guard me, my higher self if you like, that’s probably why I felt that sense of knowing.

Rick: Higher self, guardian angel maybe?

Encountering the Source

David: Exactly, that’s it, yeah, yeah people have different phrases, so yeah, all those different things that we talk about, when people talk about praying and saying they pray to their guardian angels and so yeah, that’s what my guardian angel appeared as being, and was there to reassure me and to guide me through, where I was about to go on this journey. So, I closed my eyes and again and laid back and then I suddenly started to feel the presence of more people if you like, around me. As you do, if you’re taking an afternoon nap, somebody walks in the room, you know someone’s there, don’t you? And that’s what happened. So, I opened my eyes and either side of me were two female forms. This time there was a girl to my right, and she was like a dark skin but was quite European looking with a very simple brown dress on and whereas the girl to my left was more American Indian, Asian Indian maybe, South American I don’t know, but and she was wearing this beautiful ornate sort of traditional dress. But they had their hands slowly hovering over the contours of my body, without actually touching me, and their hands were just smoothly going over every single part of my body and that felt great. I suddenly started to feel this this energy of love that was coming from their hands and I realized that they were going beyond just healing the physical wounds. They were healing like all the emotional scars that I carried over the years, that we all carry. The peeling off the layers of baggage. We use that phrase in the UK, I don’t know if you do, but that’s like saying “that person’s carrying a lot of baggage”. I certainly have been carrying a lot of baggage, so all those layers of baggage were slowly being taken off bit by bit and they were just getting right down to the pure essence of my soul. And that was incredibly liberating and incredibly beautiful and calm. So yeah, so I lay there and this healing was just so deep, that I didn’t want it to stop, and it didn’t do it and it continued. But then I started to think about my family. I started to wonder how they were because I thought “well clearly, I must be dead. That means that they’re –“I’d seen how distraught they’d all been, my mother had been in tears and I thought they’re going to be really upset now so I wanted to check on them. So, I thought I’d hoist myself over the edge of this huge granite rock and see if I could see them. And I thought I’d look down, and I did look down but when I did look down, I couldn’t see them at all. But what I saw was just what it made up for it really because it was just this beautiful sight, It was like it was a huge waterfall of stars. Let’s say it’s the size of Niagara or Victoria Falls. It was really fast. It was very huge and I suddenly realized at this point that I’m no longer in this small dark and space that I thought I was in. I’m actually in the universe itself, and I’m witnessing, instead of billions of tons of water toppling over the edge, I’m seeing billions of beautiful stars that were cascading over. Shooting stars flying all over the place and I was looking down. I was going. “Wow,” it was just- I remember my eyes were fixing and I was I felt like I was looking down into infinity from one galaxy into another, and I was seeing colors formed, again all these different kinds of colors I’d seen in the orbs, but this time they were nebulous and which was totally unfamiliar to me because I got no interest in astronomy at all in my life at that point. To me the universe was just like the black sky at night with the white stars. Yeah, I didn’t realize there were colors and gases, but that’s what I was looking at, so- and I felt the sense of being moved and carried by the energy forward motion of the universe. So that was really strong that was a really powerful thing to be feeling this and the interesting thing is that I thought “okay well I can’t see my family but that’s okay then.” Before I would have been feeling traumatized, I would have been feeling guilt and shame and oh no I can’t see them, but all those emotions were dispersed and I felt none of that at all. I remember just thinking “Well, I can’t see them, but I’m sure going to see them at some point soon. And if I don’t, they’re going to be enjoying all these wonders and all these delights that I’m now looking at and feeling and going through.” So, I pulled myself back over onto the rock and laid there and I closed my eyes and continued to bathe in all this beautiful healing energy that was surrounding me. And then as time went on, although time didn’t exist actually, but just to take you through it, the most incredible part was to really come at the end of this experience. And this was, as I laid there, I suddenly felt this energy of unconditional love that was coming from the hands of the healers, was now intensified. I felt like every single molecule of my body was starting to vibrate with this energy of love. And I thought, “what’s going on?” This really made me look up quick, so I just got up and looked. Beyond the being of light that was still stood at my feet, was this tunnel of white light that was coming through the universe. Coming through and it was surrounded by all these powerful flames. It was like pure white light, but the powerful flames that were surrounding it- as you can see there- were so strong and huge that normally I would be overwhelmed with fear and terror. I figured “What is going on now? Where am I being taken? “But I wasn’t at all. I was- there was a sensation of light, again complete trust in this, that this was all good because the vibration that was coming from that light was just so awe inspiring. It was just like a sort of like it, was just filling every single part of me with this sensation of love and feeling liberated. It was just so strong, that I’d never felt that in my life before. I’d felt no self-love, no self-worth, and it was just like all that came together at that point. And then I started to get more information coming through, and what I was being told was that what I was looking at here and what I was feeling as this light was getting closer to me, and the vibration started to get more intense, was that what I was looking here was the source of all creation, God, if you like. This was like God, not in the form of what I’d been used to seeing in my textbooks at school, the Michelangelo guy with a long beard or whatever faith you may have, there’s normally some human form attached to God, but no, this was God in this beautiful white tunnel of light, which again, I think- I did another painting now, which is called “The Moment of Realization.” So that’s literally sort of emphasizing that actual moment where I’ve thought to myself, “Yeah, this is it. This is God. This is God. This is the absolute unconditional love coming from this point.” So that’s why I was trying to paint myself just hoisting myself up from the rock, covered in the blue satin sheet as you can see there, like reaching out to this point of trust and knowing that this was the source of all creation, this was the source of all light and goodness. And it was at that point that I just, I remember laughing out loud to myself in absolute joy, and I like almost like threw myself back down onto the rock and then I suddenly left this whole experience and came crashing back into my body. I was just like back in the hospital and all the beautiful warmth and love that I’d been experiencing out there was now replaced with all the pain and the agony that came rushing straight back through my body. And that beautiful light was now replaced by the fluorescent strip. And I remember the noise of the sound of the hospital was like it’s almost like this overkill of shrill, in my ears. It was like, oh, I wanted to cover my ears and yeah, so there I was back in my body, but still almost still attached to that that that realm. A lot of people say to me “You must have been instantly gutted, upset that you come back, and it was all over for you that experience,” and I said, “not at all, because I felt like I was like still attached, like it almost like an umbilical cord of wonderful energy was still coming right through me,” so yeah. So there was-

They were healing like all the emotional scars that I carried over the years, that we all carry. The peeling off the layers of baggage.

Rick: Good, so was that basically the end of the NDE and then you’re back in the hospital?

Awakening With New Abilities

David: Yes. I’m back in the hospital. That’s it. Yeah, and then then that’s it was at that point that I remember the consultant saying “we’re going to take you through now David” and then I saw my friend Anna sat at the back of the emergency department I said “hang on I just want to speak to Anna” because I wanted to check she was okay, because I knew that she’d been through all this with me, the whole accident itself and so she came forward and I said “you’re okay “and she was just shaking her head from side to side. She said, “I thought you were dead.” They announced over the speakers at the rail station, the next station that they took her to, that you were dead.

Rick: Really? They announced that you were dead at the next station?

David: Yeah, yeah. Well, they said there had been a fatality. They said trains are delayed, because there’s been a fatality at the previous station in Cambridge. So obviously that’s what she assumed that it happened and she figured it as well when she saw me go under. What’s amazing is because I remember she told me that because she ran through the train trying to find a guard to stop the train as well, and because there were all these levers and all these different things, all these different signs saying if you pull this you’ll be fined, if you pull that, don’t pull this, don’t pull that and obviously if you’re in a state of shock, you can’t take all that in, so she ran through the train and then she finally found a guard on the train and then they stopped it in the middle of the countryside. And she said to me that when that train stopped, she turned around to everyone on the carriage and said, “look my friend’s just gone under the train, that’s why we stopped and could we say a prayer for him?” and she said it was amazing. She said this woman stepped forward and said “look I’m a Christian. would you like me to take the prayers for you?” And she said” yes, that’d be great.” So, she said this woman started praying and she said everyone just laid down there the newspaper because they’re all commuters, so, they laid down their laptops and what have you and newspapers and everyone prayed, and that was quite a special moment because I remember feeling people’s prayers. I remember feeling the energy of prayers. I really believe in that energy of prayer now, because I felt it, when it was coming through. So, yeah, there I was back in the hospital and then I was wheeled through into theatre and I was under for about eight and a half hours, I think it was, yeah.

Rick: Yeah, so some people might be thinking, okay, you must have had this NDE when you were given anesthesia, but no, you hadn’t had the anesthesia yet, you were just still lying there on a gurney waiting to… while they got ready to operate on you.

David: That’s absolutely correct yeah, when I started writing my book putting that together, I got a friend who was a nurse, and then she’d moved on from that. She was lecturing in nursing and so I said to her “I’m putting this book together” and I said, “I wonder, I’d like to get some medical records.” She said, “well you can just write to the hospital, and you can access them and you can just you pay for them, but you’ll get the whole lot.” I said “great. I’ll do that.” So, I got them all and then I asked her to read through it, because I wanted to cover all this, all that as well, because obviously I realized that understandably that people will have those thoughts there, that all these things could bought on by sort of drugs and stuff like that. So, she got back to me and I said, “be honest as well please.” A so she said “yeah, you would have been under nothing at all at the point that you actually had your near-death experience that would have altered what’s happening with your mind and stuff “but I mean the other thing is as well is it’s just that it’s not like- it’s not like a dream state and it’s not like a hallucinative state either, because dreams and hallucinative states, they’re chaotic and they change as well the structure as you tell them over the years. They change, but for me that’s never changed at all the whole thing was like- I describe it as being ultra-real.

It’s not like a dream state and it’s not like a hallucinative state either, because dreams and hallucinative states, they’re chaotic and they change as well the structure as you tell them over the years.

Rick: Yeah an incredibly very lucid experience. You were not just in some dopey dreamy state.

David: Yeah

Rick: Interesting. It’s funny. You hear this with all the NDE experiences people trying to rationalize and excuse them and because it threatens their paradigm. The predominant paradigm is when your body dies, that’s curtains, you’re out, you’re dead. You don’t exist anymore and when people come back with these stories that contradict that paradigm, it makes the paradigm holders uncomfortable, and they try to come up with reasons why it wasn’t a real experience. It was some hallucination, brain was starved of oxygen, or you were influenced by drugs and all that stuff.

Beyond Scientific Explanations

David: Absolutely. I mean, for me, I’ve done a few debates and stuff like that, on the radio, on the BBC and stuff like that, where they’ve had scientists on and they’ve contacted me and they said, “Look, we’ve got a scientist who’s doing studies into NDEs. Would you like to come on and talk?” I said, “Yeah, totally.” So, for me science also saved me. Without science, I wouldn’t be talking to you now as well. The scientists I totally respect. But also, one thing I was saying that is that we do, it’s almost like we all need to have a scientific explanation for everything, which is insane because we can’t. I started watching programs ever since that experience, on the universe now. I love watching programs about the universe, they’re science based. And there was one guy I love, called Professor Brian Cox, who’s a UK guy.

Rick: Oh yeah, I’m aware of him.

David: Yeah, and he’s great. And so, there was a program I saw only a couple of years back, and he was saying that, he said that everyone thinks that as scientists we’ve got all the answers to the universe. He said, “But we haven’t.” He said, “We’re only at the beginning of trying to understand the vastness of it all.” They’re really, really only just touching the surface of trying to understand all that. So, I thought that’s great that he said that because it’s absolutely true. There’re other things in life that we don’t question. There’s no scientific equation for people falling in love, what makes us fall in love and all those different things. There’s no real…

Rick: Scientists would say oh, yes, it’s hormones. It’s bio its biological instinct. It’s DNA and they come up with reasons.

David: Yeah, no, of course. Yeah, but again, I would argue that they’re probably only touching the surface. So, they’re not- like okay, because otherwise you’d have that in a bottle, wouldn’t you?

Rick: There was a song about that. It was called love potion number nine back in the 60s.

David: Okay. Well, there you go. So that’s so scientists would be saying yeah great. Let this is this is going to be the biggest selling drug of all time, Isn’t it? Love potion number nine.

Rick: I’ll spare you the torment of hearing me sing it and my wife’s torment if I were to sing it. But it’s funny because on the one hand, yes, many scientists, perhaps all if you really pinned them down, would acknowledge that yeah, there’s so much we don’t know and we’re just scratching the surface. We’ve just begun basically to understand the universe. On the other hand, maybe sometimes even the same people dig their heels in and say, “Nope, there couldn’t be God, there couldn’t be this, other side, and when you’re dead, you’re dead.” And it’s paradoxical that they could, have a foot in both camps like that.

David: Yeah, well that’s true, because, Brian Cox, he doesn’t believe there’s a God, he doesn’t believe in that, so which is interesting. But that’s fine that everyone’s, we’ve got a broad spectrum of things that we can believe in, but I just feel that ultimately, it’s great to have a faith, some faith, because it’s like, sometimes I might read online, sometimes just a bit of a flippant comment that somebody I don’t even know might just turn around and say, whenever I read things like people saying, “You’ve got to live life to the full now because you only get one life, enjoy it while you can because it’s lights out soon” and all that thing. I think, “wow, how could you possibly enjoy living your life like that?” It’s just like without having some faith that maybe this isn’t the only journey that we’re on, that the journey continues, which for me, it’s certainly altered my mind state-not just for myself but for loved ones. I lost both my parents over the past five years and it helped me greatly to be able to cope with the loss. Obviously, I grieved the loss of them being with me and the love and things like that, but it really helped me to know that this wasn’t the end of the story. And when my mom passed, I remember going into hospital because she’d had a minor heart attack. So, my sister and I were in the hospital the night before she passed and it was interesting, because she had Alzheimer’s and that particular night, we both said afterwards it’s almost like the Alzheimer’s wasn’t there, and we were communicating and all we did was just exchange how much we loved each other-which is great. And then I got a call the next morning from the hospital and I thought, “Oh, this is not good.” It was about 7.30 a.m. and it was the doctor saying, “You better come in, your mom’s just had a massive heart attack,” and I just thought, “This is it,” and I remember going in and they said, “Oh, do you want all of us to go in and say our farewells to my mom,” who’s behind the curtain in the hospital ward and stuff,” and I remember turning around and I said to my mom and I said, “Well, mom, you’re going to enjoy where you’re going now, you’re going to love it, it’s going to be great!” And that’s how I felt, rather than feeling “No!” So that was really lovely.

Well, mom, you’re going to enjoy where you’re going now, you’re going to love it, it’s going to be great!

Rick: Yeah, there used to be a beer commercial which was something like, “You only go around once in this life, so grab all the gusto you can get.”

David: Exactly, that’s it, yeah, that’s the thing, isn’t it? You just think, “Oh, man, that’s not a way to live at all.” basically, like going through life in first gear.

Rick: Yeah, it’s very discouraging because obviously as you get older you begin to lose your ability to enjoy all these things that define your life and so it just gets more and more depressing. But if you realize as you’ve just been describing that death is not an end, it’s an end to a chapter in a very big book.

David: Yes, exactly. It’s just, whatever your faith is. It’s interesting actually, because both my parents were Christian, and I talked to them, I said, “does it ever get discussed, the afterlife, about what happens to us all afterwards?” And they said no, it’s just like, only with Christ. Christ was the only person they talk about who came back, who rose from the dead, and that’s it. And I found that like, I thought, “Wow, that’s strange.” I thought, the fact that there’s a faith there, I always thought that I’d be interested to explore that at least, which it was.

Rick: Well, of course they have beliefs, like either you’re going to hell for eternity or you’re going to heaven for eternity and all this. I was listening to a podcast the other day called Closer to Truth, which is one of my favorite podcasts, and the guy was interviewing these people from different religions about their beliefs of the afterlife. And he was interviewing this Muslim guy, and he was going to this elaborate description of all the different things that are supposed to happen and where you go and what happens to your body and all kinds of stuff, which seemed to me to be extremely speculative. And at the end, the interviewer said, well, this is amazing what the human mind can conjure up. And the guy said, no, no, no, we believe this. This is the truth. But then he went on to interview a whole bunch of other people who had different truths.

David: Yes, yes.

Rick: So, belief doesn’t really cut it. But you and people like you have had experience, which makes it more than a belief.

David: Yeah, well, that’s, yeah, I hope so. I hope it does encourage people. Because for me, that’s where it’s at. Not like me trying to say, “Hey, I had this amazing experience, you’ve got to hear it.” It’s more like, if I can at least help somebody get past that fear of death, and for example, I didn’t realize how so many people do have a fear of death, young people as well. A lot of people suppress it as well though, in all fairness. I think a lot of people don’t even want to think about death, they don’t want to think about what’s happening afterwards, and I can see, I’ve seen that untangle in people when they’ve lost their loved ones, because they’re fearing that they don’t know where, what’s going to happen to them now,” is that it, are they going to end up, just floating around in some void” or all those different things that might be going through their minds, rather than really exploring it. And I just feel that we just don’t do that in Western civilization anyway, we don’t explore death and I think that it’s not like we should be getting up talking about it every day after our morning coffee, but I think it’s good to at least embrace it and talk about it like we are now, and talk about death, because it absolutely helps. Because we prepare for everything else in life. We prepare for birth, marriage, even taking our driving lessons and passing our test- all those different things but we don’t prepare for the one thing that’s God comes to us all which is the end of this stage of the journey.

Rick: You know that Buddhist saying, “Die before you die” and what they’re saying actually- and Hindus have similar comments- is that through certain spiritual practices, you can transcend your individuality- which is a mini death. Obviously, your body is not in any danger but you get to peep into the universal ground of existence, which is what someone might experience when they physically die, but then you come back to life, and you can integrate that experience so that you’re in a liberated state, a state of freedom in the midst of living a normal life in the world.

David: Yeah, absolutely. Well, that’s it. It can change your mindset. You’ve got this heavy weight that you’re denying, which is like what’s going to happen not only to me but to my loved ones, if you can help to release that, I think it changes your whole outlook on life. It has done with me because I certainly didn’t even think about it. Death didn’t even come into my equation. All I was thinking of was where’s the next paycheck coming from? Where’s the next great relationship going to come from? All these different things are all very linear. My life was linear before, so there was no sort of light sort of peaks and troughs or whatever.

Rick: Yeah, so let’s shift into the whole discussion about your art and your music and that thing. And incidentally another point to mention here is that at the end of this interview we’ll be playing a section of one of David’s symphonies, and while that’s playing, we’ll show a number of his paintings, including some that we haven’t shown so far in this video. So, when did you first feel an impulse to paint something?

David: It was pretty much as soon as I came around from the anesthetic. The hospital had given me my own room because of the severity of the accident and stuff. I remember it was late then, it was like about 2 a.m. or what have you, and I was just like in this small, darkened room. But there in a hospital room, and I just got this little R2D2 machine bleeping next to me, and I saw- Yeah, I was obviously just like processing what had happened with the accident. Going under the trains is a huge thing. But also, I was more fixated on this whole experience that I’d had, the spiritual experience, the near-death experience itself, which I didn’t know anything about near-death experiences, so, I didn’t know what had happened, and I thought, “Is it just me that this has happened to?” And I thought, “This is far too important to not be able to share this.” So, I knew I…

Rick: Did you start telling nurses and people about it?

David: Yeah, yeah. Well, not nurses straight away. No, I wanted to tell my loved ones to start off with, because I wanted to honor them with that. But I took my time. It took me a while to tell my parents, because as I said, with them being Christians, I wanted them to get it and I thought they might not get it because it might sort of jar with their faith, but they did. They got it. In fact what was really strange was when I did tell my parents, that they listened, and then they looked and then they turned around and my mum said we knew and I said you knew? What do you mean you knew mom? And she said “Well,” she said, “Well it’s just you’re, we come into this this hospital, we walk into this room, you’re surrounded by the nurses, and you’ve got all these tubes and wires coming out of you.“ She said “But you’re just glowing, and you’re just like giving out to others, whereas they’re supposed to be giving to you.” And they saw the shift in me, which is obviously a massive shift because they understood how I was struggling with my life before that point. What a dark place I was in. So, for them, maybe their faith helped them understand it. So, going back to the idea of the painting, initially I thought, “I can’t afford to forget all this. I might forget it. I want to make sure that I remember everything.” I thought “I’m going to do a painting.” I’m going to do something -like I’d never done anything like this before. I wanted to do something like really huge, like a big like all these sort of Renaissance paintings -those very dramatic scenes of the Bible that you see, that Michelangelo did and Raphael and stuff like that. I wanted to get something like that, and it had to be big to get the story across dramatically enough that it warranted, and so I remember my sister coming in to visit me the first night and she was chatting and she said very quietly as she was about to leave, she said “Is there anything I can get you?” I said “yeah, can you get me like a small sketch pad and a pencil” and she was like “Really?” I said “yeah, really.” So, she said “okay.’ So, she brought that in, and the nurses propped me up in in the bed, and I managed to start sketching what I was going to do in the very first painting, which was trying to sort of get everything into that one painting and I’ve still got that sketch, but I’m not even going to attempt to show you now because it’s just so faint, because I’m so weak. But it was just the beginnings of what was going to be, my very first painting. So, when I got out of hospital, once I started getting physical strength up enough to be able to start painting, I got that canvas, and it was leaning against the wall for a long time because I didn’t want to mess this up. I wanted to get this right. So, I was kept putting it off. But some friends of my sister were around one day and then they came in and they said “oh, you still got that canvas against the wall” then I said, “yeah.” I said” well, I can’t paint, I can’t start in here, there’s not enough light and stuff” and they said “well, that’s no excuse,” because they ran a health center and they said “we’re closing for a week for a refurbishment. So, we’ve got a studio space going that you can use.” So, I said “great.” So, they took the canvas down there and I went in, and I started painting. I started the first bits bravely putting the paint on that canvas and it was amazing, because it started to come together so Immediately and I felt like I was being helped. I felt like this energy was still coming through again, from that realm that was helping me to produce something that I’d never produced in my whole life, which was a painting but I’m sort of like- I almost get flesh tones and used be brave with colors rather than just say okay. This is before I would have just said “right this person’s flesh is that color? Do you just need one color?” I thought no just throwing some greens and blues and yeah, throw them all in there and it started to come alive. So, I became- It got towards the end of the week, and I said, “there’s no way I’m going to get this finished” and they said that’s fine. Then my they my sister’s friend said, “We’ll just move you around from studio to studio and you can stay here.” So that was great, and I ended up staying there for two years and they didn’t charge me at all. So that was amazing, and I became known as the artist in the attic, Cause I was up in up in the lofts, doing all this putting these paintings together.

Rick: So did you take any art lessons during this time or were-

David: No- the art lessons coming from within. I used to say I was channeling. I thought I was channeling ideas through, but what I’m realizing now was basically, it’s more that I was allowing myself to go into a state of presence, Basically. I was I was completely present when I was doing all this artwork, and it was also helping me to heal from the accident as well. It was a great healing power as well. So, I took no lessons at all whatsoever and I just improved with each painting that I did and became more and more brave.

Rick: That’s great, because you mastered perspective, depth, and anatomical proportions that are correct and all that stuff which people study in art school to get the hang of.

David: I know -absolutely. That’s it. That’s what’s remarkable. So, it’s just- obviously, I became more aware. I would study people myself. I would study how people held themselves. I would study the fact that not everyone has the same body language -that some people have this, that and the other and it tried to sort of like- – yeah, people would start to say to me, Yeah, “when you’re painting people, it’s almost like you’re getting behind, you’re bringing people alive, you’re giving people a sense of presence.” And I didn’t even realize I was doing that, so it wasn’t something I was conscious of, but that’s probably why it was coming together for me. I was also encouraged as well by the fact that these people who would come in for yoga and Pilates sessions were coming up. They all wanted to see how the paintings were coming on and so I get all that feedback from them and not only that, people would ask me what the paintings were about. So that was my first getting my feet to start telling other people that I didn’t know.

Rick: Sure, and those people would be open to that thing.

David: Well, they were pretty cool.

Rick: Yeah, yoga people, oh yeah, near-death experience, no problem.

David: Exactly, that’s it. Yeah, and in fact, I wanted to go back. When I was getting well, I said to my sister, “I want to try and find that that spiritualist church.” So, I went to where the medium was predicting what was going to happen to me because I wanted to go back there and I said because at that point I didn’t really realize what was going on, and I went along and I went to their one of their meetings. And they turned around and said -they told me “You had a near-death experience.” I said, okay, that’s what it is, and So.

Rick: Was there was some woman that you started seeing regularly there who was a healer or something was that before or after your NDE? That was after the NDE?

David: Yeah, that was after my NDE. That was my first visit to the church. We were having coffee afterwards and we all sat around and then the German lady came over to me, called Maria. who’s one of the spiritual healers at that church, and she said “oh, we don’t normally invite people along. People normally come on their own accord, but you look pretty banged up.” Yeah, I got all this stuff hold of it together, and she said “we do spiritual healing. Would you be interested?” I said “yeah, that sounds great.” So, I started going for spiritual healing, which was amazing, because it just like that not only helped me physically but emotionally, a lot. Yeah, so that was great. So that’s how that came about.

Rick: So, you’re painting to this day and continue to paint and then the music thing started. You started having themes of music in your head and had to figure out what to do with them.

Composing Without Training

David: That’s right. Yeah, and again, that what this sprung from because some of the spiritual healers, you’d have two or three healers working on you if you like, and some of them would be clairvoyant and they just give a few little messages at the end. They’d say “I saw like a blue light coming through your heart chakra” or whatever. And then I started to see this theme that was being repetitive. But one of them would say “oh,” the German lady said “yeah, why am I seeing Beethoven, Wagner and Singer and then another one said, “I saw a violin laid across your chest” and then one of them turned around to me and said, “Oh, they’re telling me”, when they said they’re telling me, either my guides or her guides are telling me that” You’re going to write a piece of music about your experience.” I went, “Great.” So, I went home, and I thought it was going to be a song. I just got this old synthesizer out at the loft or whatever, and it was a beaten old thing. And then I borrowed a cassette recorder off my dad that he had in his garage, and so that’s all I had. And I started to try and write this song and that wasn’t coming together like the paintings did. I thought this isn’t happening in the same way. And then one afternoon I was just like watching this old movie on the TV and I was watching it, and I was just playing around. I’ve got this keyboard out and then suddenly this little chord progression happened and I thought, “Oh, I like that. That sounds really good.” So, I recorded it on the cassette, and I started to develop it. I thought, “This is not meant to be a song. It’s meant to be something played by an orchestra,” yeah, and so I thought that’s where I’m taking it, and I had that same sense of like nothing was going to stop me, just like the paintings I thought let’s go. So, I started to develop that on this little cheap old synthesizer and one of the people who used to come in and have yoga sessions, she played cello in the local orchestra and we became friends she was quite spiritual, and we used to go for coffee. So, I started telling her about this piece of music and she laughed and said, “Oh, maybe we could perform it.” And I thought, “Wow, yeah, why not? That would be great.” So, I got in touch with my brother, and he said, “Look, you can’t just hand out cassettes to an orchestra and say, ‘Here’s all the parts.'”

Rick: And your brother was a member of that orchestra also playing French horn.

David: Yeah, not in that orchestra. No, he wasn’t in a French orchestra. He lived down in London. So, he was down there, so he said, “what you’ll need is music school.“ and I said “well, I can’t write music. I can’t even read music.” He said…

Rick: “You’re an old punk rocker, right?” That was the extent of your music experience, right?

David: All I could do is thrash out three chords just about on a guitar. So, he said to me, “listen I’m going to give you an old computer of mine,” he said “and then I’m going to give you this app.” He said, “when you play the keyboard, I’m going to give you the keyboard, and the app I’m going to give you will transfer those notes that you’re playing into a musical format,” and Then he said, “give it back to me and then I’ll look through it.” I said “great” and so we did that together, and then I printed off the parts, and I told them – orchestra- this is where I was at, and stuff and they said well lets meet up for coffee. So, I met up with my friend and also with a conductor and a few other people, and they looked at the score and I was amazed because I thought they’d want to hear what I’d done, and they could tell just by reading music what it was going to sound like. I was shocked I said, “you don’t even want to hear what I’ve done on the cassette.” They said no we can get it from here. This is really good. So, they said “we’ll perform it.” So, I said “fantastic.”

Rick: So, yeah, that’s great And so, it was quite a story actually because I think they only practiced it once before the performance, but or maybe twice, I don’t know, but they were so good that they could just do that. They were all professional level musicians and Then you had this debut performance of your symphony, which was three movements by that time -a full symphony, and with all the different -you had to write like the lines of music for each separate thing -for the strings, for the horn, for the percussion-everything.

David: I started realizing just like with the paintings, that there was more textures then just violins. I used to think classical music was just violins. Yeah, and I started to realize -no there’s more instruments that I can use and in fact, it was my brother said that “so why don’t you start -you just got strings. You’ve got cellos and violins. You can start using other stuff,” and I was going like “what?” And he said “well, like French horn for starters. I was going “I’ve already got French horn in there, I said, because you play it.” Then I started throwing in other instruments, and then I started to realize it was giving this piece of music more dimension, more color, and it was starting to come alive even more and the only reason I could do this, was because the synthesizer had like, very cheap synthetic sounds of a trumpet or what have you, so I could pretty much roughly hear that was going to come together. But the rehearsal itself was- that was mind-blowing because I turned up for the first rehearsal. I was incredibly nervous because I thought “is this just going to come tumbling down like a block of bricks, and stuff and or is it going to come together?” So, I had faith, but at the same time I was nervous because I knew nothing about all this and I walked in and also So, the orchestra, they’re lovely people, but it’s quite a sort of foreboding sort of setup. They don’t really give much away, classical musicians. So, they don’t turn around and say, “This is great.” It’s like, “I didn’t know what to think.” So, I walked in, and the conductor said, “Oh, the composer’s here.” And I was going, “What? No, it’s me. I’m not the composer.” And he said, “David, would you like to come forward and say a few words?” And I said, “No, no, it’s fine. You just go ahead.” He said, “Come on.” So, I stepped up and I started telling them what it was about. I talked about the near-death experience and people were asking me loads of questions. I thought “this is great.” People were really keen to know what it was about and that helped me to have faith. So, I went and sat down and when the baton came down on those opening chords, it was like hearing that cheap little Spanish synthesizer that I got, suddenly becoming into this massive three-dimensional stereo. It was like it was huge and it was beautiful.Yeah.

When the baton came down on those opening chords, it was like hearing that cheap little Spanish synthesizer that I got, suddenly becoming into this massive three-dimensional stereo.

Rick: Yeah, and that was just a rehearsal then. So, when you had finally the actual concert in some really nice concert hall, and everybody’s all dressed up and it was a packed hall

David: that’s right and

Rick: That was almost like the climax of your book, it was the end of the book where you described that, but it would be nice if there had been a video of that. Was there a video of that?

David: No, there wasn’t a video of it, but there’s a recording of it. So yes, so that’s why I got –

Rick: So just as a reminder for people listening, I’m going to play one of the movements of the symphony at the end of this video and show a bunch of pictures. But anyway, so anything more you want to say about the concert, or you want to move on some other point?

Living in the Present Moment

David: Yeah, I mean basically, the concert itself- I’d started to realize there was a lot of synchronicities happening in my life. Like the people of the yoga center and then meeting the cellist and not only that, the reason the concert sold out basically, was because the orchestra said, “Oh would you mind saying a few words to the local press about your piece?” I said, “yes sure.” So, I did do, and then and the Cambridge Evening News said “Hey, you’re the guy went under the train, aren’t you?” I said yeah, because it was covered a lot, in Cambridge and they said, “oh this is going on the front page.” I was going “fantastic” and then after that, there’re more people finding out and then the BBC got in touch, and they said they’d like to come down and do a small feature on the news, so they did. So, there was a short clip of from that somewhere. But it wasn’t the whole thing unfortunately, but yeah, so that was great, and that meant that it sold out two weeks in advance. And there was no sense of like ego about this. It wasn’t like “Hey great, the big seller concert.” I was just thinking great there’s going to be more people, coming along and experiencing hopefully, what I went through themselves and stuff and there were. There were so many people coming up just before the concert and after saying, they’d had similar experiences or all these different things. There were a lot of people coming forward who wanted to share what the emotion was. And the whole atmosphere that night was just like beautiful, there was just like, there was like, when the orchestra did Play, I remember I was sat with my family. We were given the front row and stuff and we all sat there and I enjoyed to listen to it. I wasn’t nervous. I just sat back, and actually enjoyed my symphony in full for the first time, as if I were a punter in the audience, and then right at the end there was a tremendous applause, and my mom was in tears again, but this time there were tears of joy. And she was hugging me, and she said, “David that was just the most beautiful, I ever heard,” and I said, “Thanks mom.” And then my sister said, “David, look behind you,’” and I looked and there was like a standing ovation. So, I thought this is incredible. So again it was like the atmosphere the energy was just so tremendous that I just thought I could not fault this. I couldn’t I swap it. It was just really beautiful.

Rick: Yeah, so that reminds me of Beethoven’s ninth. He was deaf by the time he composed that and when it was performed, he was in the front row, and he obviously couldn’t hear his own composition and then somebody had to turn him around to show him at the end that the audience was going wild.

David: Yeah. Obviously, I wasn’t expecting that yeah, I didn’t know about standing ovations. I didn’t even know that that would happen, and I didn’t realize it would and so it was just great. So, to me it just meant yes, everyone got it. Everyone was like transposed. I was hopefully for however long that it was being performed for and stuff. So yeah, so I was hoping that people got to naturally taking away with it also. Yeah,

Rick: it’s really cool. And so that was what 15, 18 years ago?

David: yeah. Yes. Yes, and then from then on from that one onwards that I would I got sort of like, people would come forward. I got commissioned straight away to do another piece and then, one of the clarinet members in that orchestra turned around and said “look, I’m part of this group called the Cambridge clarinet choir. We’d like to also commission you to write a part piece for us.” I said, “yeah great.” Again, that was all new to me. I went along to meet them all and I said “well, tell me more about your clarinets” and stuff like that and they said “well, yeah.” I just thought there’s one clarinet and that’s it and they said “no, there’s about six different sizes,” and so, there’s a bass clarinet, which is like about six foot in length, They got the guy to play one note on it and it was just like a ship coming into harbor. It’s just like “Wow,.” So, I went away and just- that was a whole new sketchpad if you like, a whole new sort of canvas for me to work with and they wanted me to write something as well. That was they said “we heard that you wrote something really beautiful about your near-death experience. We’d like you to do something similar for us.” I said “great. Yeah, I’d love to.” So that was another piece.

Rick: Cool, so have you been able to support yourself financially through this music and painting?

David: Yeah. Yeah I mean, it’s just the books being really good actually, that that’s been great, but it’s, Yes, I have. Yeah. Especially, the commissions from the music are really good when they come in, but obviously they’re not coming in every other month or what have you. Whereas with the artworks that that’s more…

Rick: Yes, I guess to create things and actually sell them to people and they keep them.

David: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I’ll get commissions and stuff like that. So, I’ll do stuff. I do a lot of work that still that is- I just I got commissioned by a spiritualist church recently to do a painting for them and which is now hanging on the wall in their church and that was great. That was really a lovely one to do because it was a nice big painting that hung at the wall and that was special to me because it meant that it was something that I felt I could give back, as well as being commissioned for it. So that was good, but not all my work is based around spirituality. There’s also- I’ll get other work that comes in as well, maybe even portraits and stuff like that, which is completely different, which is fine.

Rick: yeah, do you feel, do you still feel the flow of inspiration related to your near-death experience- like it opened up some portal and you keep getting creative juices flowing from that experience?

David: Absolutely. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah, because I work a lot, even if I’m not working on any commissions, I work, that’s when I’m doing a lot of work based on my spirituals. So, I’m working on one at the moment which is literally all about trusting in the energy of the universe, because I’m starting to realize just how much, going back to animals, that we’ve lost that as well, we’ve lost that common connection with the universal pool. I started to realize, I’d look out my window, I’d see birds migrating every year, and I used to think to myself, “How come they fly off to the other side of the world and they come back?” And I noticed, I started to notice that there were the same birds that would come back a year later, and they would land on exactly the same spot on a meadow outside my window, and I think, “Well, they’ve traveled thousands of miles, but they still managed to come back to this particular point.” And it’s incredible that the universe is telling them what to do. The universe is telling them when it’s time to migrate and what have you and I just, so yeah, my latest painting that I’m working on that is all about trusting in the energy of the universe.

Rick: Nice, do you ever have dry spells the way writers have writers block?

David: Oh Yeah, that happens, there’s times when something’s just not coming together. I start on it and I come and back think “no, this one’s not working.” So, I just tend to not get frustrated. I just park it, just put it to one side and then come back to it. And then it’s almost like I can come back, as if I haven’t actually started creating it myself. I’m coming back as if to say, “You know what? You know what you’re doing wrong there? This is all the perspective’s wrong. That guy shouldn’t be over there.” It’s like, “Ah, okay, that’s wise.” So, I’m better at being more objective, once I take a break from one particular thing, yeah.

Rick: Did your NDE inspire you to start some regular spiritual practice? Some meditation or something like that?

David: Yeah.

Rick: Aside from, I mean, art can be a spiritual practice, but, traditional spiritual practice of some sort?

David: Well, spiritual healing is something that I kept up.

Rick: Healing others or being healed?

David: No, no, being healed. Yeah. Because I’m not sure. Yeah, I did have some, I actually had a few lessons on giving spiritual healing. And I haven’t taken that any further because, it’s taken very seriously, and you have to have papers and qualifications to be able to start healing people, which is good. But I tend to, for me, going for spiritual healing is not just going to be healed, physically and emotionally. It’s the nearest thing I would say, that coming to that realm is going into spiritual healing, because the actual energy in that room, in that space, is just so beautiful, that it’s like, it’s really, it’s incredible and just the connection between, I’d always turn around to the healers and say, “Oh you’re a brilliant healer, thank you so much” and every one of them would say, “No, no, I’m not a brilliant healer, but the healing’s coming through me.” They’d pretty much say, “Look, I’m just conducting the energy through,” and stuff. But then I started to realize that it’s almost like a circular motion as well, that we’re all, because we always chat for a few moments afterwards and stuff and so I started to realize that there is- there’s an energy that’s coming through them that they’re conducting, but whatever that is, it’s also they’re feeling something from themselves as well. So yes, spiritual healing is like something that is probably the only thing that I can think of that I really take part in. But Meditation- yeah when I’m at home yeah, I meditate a lot. That’s really good.

Rick: Hmm And have you ever had any more what we might call flashy experiences like your near-death experience was where you so really get out there and there’s some profound cognition or unbounded awareness or tremendous bliss or anything like that?

David: Yeah, I guess it’s strange, because I feel like it’s never really gone away. I’ve never really had moments where it’s like where I start to sort of, I’m blessed. I guess it’s because I’m creating still, with my art and my music that enables me to still explore things. I guess if I had to go back to say, a night, a regular nine-to-five job, then I probably- I guess there’s a part of me probably would find it hard just to keep going back and exploring it. But because the fact that it’s there all the time. I don’t know. It’s seems to have stayed with me. And obviously there are moments where I feel there are spiritual moments, I feel stronger than others, but to me it’s all about the way I look at my experiences it was also complete compared to how my life was before as I pointed out. It was a spiritual awakening and I think a spiritual awakening, don’t reach a point of spiritual awakening. It continues. Yes It’s not like a point where you say, “I’m going to keep working and working on this until I become spiritually enlightened and then I’ll be okay, “ That’s not a way to look at it. So, I just for me anyway, so I just keep sort of practicing. I’m not just believing in it and have your faith.

Rick: Yeah, I have a similar attitude. I’ve said that a million times on this show that there is no such a thing as a final resting place that beyond which there could be no further growth, that which is – I don’t like the word enlightenment because it implies finality.

David: Yeah.

Rick: But we all keep growing and so that’s what I’ve gathered that this NDE you had was just a kickstart, and then the motor keeps running, you keep evolving, keep growing in various dimensions and ways.

David: Exactly. That’s it. I just feel that it’s important just for all of us to never stop learning. The more you open yourself up to learning, the more things will come to you, all these different things will naturally come if you open yourself up and you want, you ask for those things. As long as they’re coming from the right place, that is, you know what I mean, then I think that’s like, I mean, I know that manifestation has been a big word over the past few years, a lot of people have talked about, and people are looking for manifestation and I do actually believe in manifestation. I think this is probably what I’m trying to say, that I think if you’re coming from the right place, then manifestation will start to evolve. If you’re turning around saying “no, I just want to get out there, and get the fastest car and get and all these different things,” it’s not necessarily going to work. So yeah, it’s just presence as well, just because the one thing I remember, the big takeaway from that NDE was that I realized when I was in that space, that as I say, there was no sense of time. I remember noticing that and I remember thinking to myself at that point that I’d spent the whole of my life either thinking about the past, past mistakes or past opportunities or thinking about the future. Thinking where’s my life going to go? What am I going to do is such a mess and I never ever thought about the present moment. But whereas when I was in that realm, the present moment was the only thing that existed. And that is so important, and that’s something that I’m starting to discover, there’s more and more people starting to talk about that as well, talking about the present moment, which is great because I think it’s important.

I’d spent the whole of my life either thinking about the past, past mistakes or past opportunities or thinking about the future. Thinking where’s my life going to go? What am I going to do is such a mess and I never ever thought about the present moment.

Rick: Sure, that’s Eckhart Tolle’s big theme, right? The power of now.

David: Yes, exactly yeah. So yeah, I came across him recently, he’s amazing.

Rick: Yeah. I still haven’t managed to snag him for an interview, maybe one of these days. Is there anything else that you know comes to mind that we haven’t talked about that you want to get out there before we Conclude?

David: We’ve covered a lot, haven’t we? So, I’m sure.

Rick: Oh, on the manifestation point, there was one thing I just remembered, which is that one spiritual teacher always, with regard to merit manifestation, always used to say, “Deserve, then desire.” Not just, “I want the sports car,” but deserve. Increase your deserving ability. And if you do that, you might find that the sports car is not what you really want, there might be something more meaningful than that.

David: I totally agree with you. That’s it. Yeah, I find that just an item of clothing. It’s just like there are times when you think I’d love to go out and get myself a really nice expensive suit” or what have you and I know me when I’ve done that, I get that expensive suit and then it’s just stays hung in the wardrobe for special occasions and stuff like that. Then I tend to enjoy wearing the beaten old cheap clothes and stuff that I’ve been painting and decorating in. And I think “I see I really prefer these clothes. They’re me. They’re like they’re more sort of like the authentic true me,” and so that’s the other thing that I think is really important to focus on, is looking for things = that reflect your authentic true self, that I had no idea that I could develop myself with- Yeah- That’s a good thing for me, I would be able to talk about because as I point out at the beginning of the interview was that when I was at school the way I was written off was so badly, as a no-hoper and it’s good to try and sort of like make sure that you let go of some of those -that the blueprint if you like, that’s been stamped on you usually by adults, teachers or what have you, who really haven’t got that much time to spend to be able to really focus on you. But it hurts you and it stays. So it’s just letting go of that and finding self, a bit of self-love is the start and then some self-worth will follow and when you find that self-worth, that’s when you start to realize your true authentic self, that can come through. Like I did with my music and art, that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. If I’d never had that NDE, I would not have gone down that road of exploring music and art at all. So, it’s just, it doesn’t have to be musical, it doesn’t have to be creative. You might just turn around, I mean, the pandemic was a fine example of that, wasn’t it? When that happened at first, I actually thought this felt like a huge awakening, a spiritual awakening for the world because people were turning around and putting stuff up on social media saying, “Hey it’s great not going into work, I’m walking down the street with my kids and we’re listening to the birdsong and we’re looking at trees.” And I thought, “Wow this is it, this is what we need.” I know there was obviously the downside of the whole pandemic, but that didn’t last. Then suddenly people were saying, “I’m getting sick and tired of this, I need to get back to work. When are we getting back to normality? And I thought, no, don’t blow this beautiful opportunity, enjoy the moment, enjoy this freedom of not aspiring.

Rick: It was definitely a bit of a reset. In fact, there for a long time, I think they’re starting, companies are starting to clamp down again, but for a long time there was just all this empty office space and it was a real problem for the owners of the buildings because nobody wanted to work in the office anymore, they all wanted to work at home.

David: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Rick: Another thought that popped up based upon the things you’ve been saying is, you’re saying, people listen to these stories about NDEs and they think, “Well, I’d love to have that experience,” but you don’t particularly want to get dragged under a train or have cancer or get shot or all these ways in which people have NDEs. But, as Jesus said, “Seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened. So, without having to go through anything traumatic or life-threatening, you can just begin to stir up your desire for this, knowing that there is something more, and take some action steps, some practice, some reading, something which attracts you. And one thing leads to the next. You do begin to find, and the door begins to open.

David: Absolutely, that’s how I see it. Then synchronicity starts to happen as well, for all of us. That’s then suddenly, things, that’s because it’s meant to happen. Somebody will suddenly come across your pathway. It’s like saying, “Hey, I can help you out with this.” It’s like, “Great,” then it will start to come together. I was speaking to a friend of mine who was a singer and songwriter in a band and he was just talking about the fact that he was like, he said when he started off, he said Yeah, they wanted to make money because, like myself, they thought there’s no other way of doing It but he said that they just focus so hard on just the music rather than thinking well they weren’t thinking about you know getting a record deal or selling lots of lots of records they just wanted to focus on the music itself and he said to me “We found that once we’ve focused on that music that the songs started to come together then suddenly the record companies were knocking on their door saying hey we want to offer you a deal and stuff” and so that’s how it works. I really believe that. So yeah.

Rick: Yeah, Good. All right. Well thanks David. So, what we’re going to do next in a minute, is we’re going to play your symphony or part of your symphony and show a bunch of pictures on the screen while that plays. So, people should stay tuned for that. And you do have a website, I’ll be linking to that from your page on batgap.com. And other than that, I don’t think you’re out there as a spiritual teacher giving talks on all that business, although I imagine you’d be open to it if somebody wanted you to come give a talk.

David: Yeah, yeah, no, no, I’ve done some talks, yeah, for sure.

Rick: Yeah, so people could invite you to do that?

David: Absolutely, yeah.

Rick: You don’t do individual consultations with people, I don’t imagine? I don’t do individual consultations, no. I’ve just done stuff where I’ve been invited to go along to different, they’re normally sort of like summits and things like that, where they’re not other people who’ve had NDEs, so they’re not NDEs, they’re more like sort of people who are end-of-life doulas and stuff like that. I’ve done a few with them, where I’ve gone out and we’ve talked about dealing with death. So, my story has been really useful from that point of view.

Rick: It’s very useful. And like we said earlier, you know that saying, “Life sucks, then you die?” That’s popular over here, I don’t know about over there. But I have a variation on that that I came up with, which is that “life may or may not suck, and then you appear to die, but you really don’t.”

David: Yeah, that’s it exactly. Some people are already, they’re already walking dead out there just by not living life, not sort of like, really giving themselves an option, to move on.

Rick: Right, so live life and live long and prosper, I think.

David: That’s it, yeah.

Rick: Star Trek.

David: Yeah, there was loads of French films that used to come out, I remember, and stuff, and they especially they got great titles there and I saw one or actually, I think it might have been a German film it was on TV recently and it was called “Fear eats the soul.” Yeah that’s great. That’s a great title.

Rick: Fear eats the soul.”

David: Yeah,” Fear eats the soul” and that’s what a lot of people tend to get themselves into.

Rick: yeah some say fear is an acronym for “False evidence appearing real.”

David: Oh, that’s great.

Rick: Yeah. All right, well thanks everybody and thanks to you David and now let’s listen to that music and see some nice photos or photos of paintings. See you for the next one.

David: Thank you.