First I must tell you something very personnal about me, so that you can understand the whole story.
I was born with a common face deformity that can now easily be treated with two or three surgical operations, but needed much more of it about thirty years ago.
So I had to go through 12 surgical operations, between the age of 3 month and 22 years old, before I can have a face that everybody would call "normal".
Every surgical operation was to me very traumatizing because, each time, I felt the awfull sensation of falling into nothingness, and, each time, I was afraid I would never come back, never wake up. This nothingness, this intimate nothingness I would say, was terribly frightening to me and it was the way I contemplated death. Till I was 22, I thought death matched nothingness.
But something very specific happened to me during my last surgical operation. It was in 1997, the 16th of september which is the day before my birthday. This operation was quite special in itself. I wont give you all the details, cause it's not so important, but the fact is that this operation, which was supposed to last three hours but lasted in fact nearly four hours, was quite risky. It could have failed. Fortunately, I was operated by a great surgeon, maybe the greatest in the world regarding this face deformity matter. It was a great stroke of luck I was operated by this wonderful man and I was born in France, were social insurance is one of the best in the world. I'm so grateful for that.
At 11:30 AM they came into my room to transport me to the operating room. Despite the medicine they give every patient in order to help them relaxing, I was quite anxious. Before going, I was alone for a few minutes, and then I prayed. I was so afraid I would vanish into nothingness.
When I was lying on the operating table, while feeling I was going to fall more than deeply asleep, a few seconds before my eyes shut, I thought about God and I thought about the Christ and thought something like "Okay, I trust you".
Then I falled into this consciousness black hole again and woke up as if I had travelled through time. But there was something wrong. The operation wasn't finished. I awoke in the very middle of it. Fortunately I didn't panic for I didn't feel any pain. The surgeon just told me some words of comfort like "Don't worry. Everything is fine. We just had to wake you up and now we're going to put you to sleep again." So I came back to "sleep" and then, it happened...
I awoke in another world. All of a sudden I was standing barefoot, in a fresh and short green grass. I was wearing a kind of white cloth, like a bright white alb. The landscape was... Just awesome. There were green hills as far as the eye can see. It was almost the same as this earthly landscape from Mongolia I discovered later : http://www.flickr.com/photos/venture160/827708832/
Except the fact that the sky wasn't blue at all and there were no clouds. The color of the sky was a kind of very bright golden grey, yet it wasn't blinding.
The first thing I thought when I "arrived" in this place was : "Well, I'm back !". Indeed, I still don't know how this can be, but, as a matter of fact, this place was very well-known to me. I felt home. And I immediately felt that it was more real than my so-called real life on earth. A few seconds later, I could see a man walking to me. He was about thirty years old, bearded, with long chestnut airs. He weared the same cloth as me, despite the fact he also weared a simple golden belt. He had very sweet eyes. To me it was beyond doubt that he was The Christ.
However, as he was just standing before me, I had a thought for my parents and my sister who, in this very moment were still "on earth". Then a vision of Earth appeared right before my eyes... Well, I think I shouldn't call this a vision... It was more like a hologram I would have make apear. This 3D picture of earth was very colorful and it was surrounded by a kind of bright green and blue glory. Then Christ just told me : "Don't worry. They're just fine". He was talking about my familly of course. So he started to walk in this wonderfull landscape and I followed him. I was walking on his left side, gazing at him. As we were taking this walk, which seemed quite long to me and lasted about one hour I would say, we had a long talk. Unfortunately, I can't remember what we talked about. All I can remember is that, at some time, his eyes seemed to loose themselves into the green grass and, a moment later, he would just look at me, smiling. It seems to me that he was examining my whole life but I can't explain why I'm so sure about it.
Just to prevent any misunderstanding, I think I should add that he wasn't judging me at all. In fact, it was more as if I would have found back a dear old friend.
So we were calmly walking when, suddenly he stopped and looked straight before him in a very grave way. I felt very intrigued by this behaviour, so I looked in the same direction and what I saw I will never forget...
Right to our left side was a vast wall. It was made of huge grey stones cut in perfect square. The wall height and its length seemed immeasurable as it was vanishing into the sky and to the horizon.
At the bottom of this wall, there were hundreds of "doors", or maybe I should say hundreds of openings, the size of a normal door and of a very bright electric blue color. The distance between these "doors" was aproximately 2 meters (6.56 feet). As I was looking to this incredible wall, I knew each "door" standed for one human being on earth and that I was gazing at something very important and really wonderfull. Would it be a kind of great experiment ? I don't know. Maybe.
Then I faced back the Christ and, as he was looking at me, I could feel a kind of deep sweet warmth while he was surounded by a magnificent golden light. It was his love I was feeling. In this place, love can be seen and almost touched, and it feels like the rays of the sun by a sunny autumn day.
So He was looking at me and he said : "Tu es sur le bon chemin. C'est celui de l'amour. Mais tu vas devoir persévérer. Tu as encore des choses à faire en bas." wich means "You're on the right way. It is the one of love. But you'll have to persevere. You still have some things to do downwards."
So, he put his left hand on my right shoulder and gently pushed me toward a "door" in the wall. Then I immediately understood this was the door leading to my body on earth and, as I was crossing its threshold, I started to wake up from my surgery operation. It was like I was entering my body from its right side. The feeling was a kind of tickle.
While I was opening my eyes, I was back in my hospital room and I still could catch a brief glimpse of him on my right side. He was waving at me with a little peaceful smile.
Never did I awake this way from a surgical operation, nor did I have any experience of this kind before this day. In fact, I didn't have any experience at all during my previous surgical operations, even a single dream.
The next day, it was my birthday. I was 22.
That's all.
I know you might have many things to say about this story. But I can swear it really happened to me and that, for me, it is as real as real can be. And it had nothing to do with a dream.