Divine Encounters Episode 091 | Near-Death Experience Story
Donna Rebadow was on a family vacation in the Adirondacks of Northern New York when, she says, a tow rope strangled her leg on a lake and she drowned. In this Divine Encounters episode she tells Alex Ferrari what she says happened next: leaving her body, flying toward the creator of the universe, being hugged by a vast living field of electric light, and being asked what she wanted to do. The conversation explores choice, the life review and what a former psychology teacher learned about awareness.
Key Takeaways
- Donna says a tow rope wrapped her left leg on a lake in the Adirondacks, dragged her underwater, and she drowned.
- She says she popped out of her body, felt no pain, and knew immediately the difference between time and eternity.
- She describes meeting the creator of the universe as a huge, alive, electric field like the Aurora Borealis, with no gender.
- She says she felt love so individual that she believed she was the only person in the universe.
- She describes being asked what she wanted to do, and giving the choice back to God, which taught her a lesson about choice.
- She says she returned with a mission to talk about the power of choice, and had a life review in which she felt how others felt.
- In her telling, we are here to evolve our souls and become love, and awareness, forgiveness and giving people the benefit of the doubt are how.
| Guest | Donna Rebadow |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 091 |
| Where it happened | A lake in the Adirondacks of Northern New York, on a family vacation |
| What Donna says happened | A tow rope wrapped her left leg and she drowned |
| Where she says she went | A space of timeless, multi-dimensional knowledge, with a line she knew she could not cross and return |
| Who she met | The creator of the universe, as a living electric field like the Aurora Borealis |
| The message | The power of choice, awareness, and going easy on yourself |
| What she did not see | A tunnel or Jesus, she says |
A Family Vacation on the Lake
Alex opens with his usual question, and Donna answers by taking us straight to the day. She was vacationing with her family in the Adirondacks of Northern New York, at Bear Lake. They were out on a lake toy, not skiing, but with a tow rope involved. It towed a little toy she calls the bullet.
Donna later taught psychology. A series of impossible things, she says, happened that day.
The Boat, the Rope and the Water
Water was coming into the boat. They were out in the middle of the lake when her brother-in-law yelled to get off the bullet because the boat was sinking. Donna and her sister were on the toy. Her sister held the rope and threw it to the left. They went into the water on the right. The toy slid between her brother-in-law’s line of sight and Donna, so he did not know what was happening.
The tow rope, nylon, which she says should not sink, was wrapped around her left leg. She looked down and thought, what the heck. Then she heard the boat start, and thought, oh my God, this is going to hurt. She took a big gulp of air.
Dragged Under
In her words the rope strangled her leg to the bone above the knee, and she was dragged underwater. She thought, now I know how I am going to die. She was drowning. In fact, she says, she drowned.
She adds a point about skeptics. People say that these experiences are just the brain, that you saw what you wanted to see. Donna says nothing that happened next was in her brain or her biology. She also noticed that the dying did not hurt. The pain of the rope was like nothing she had felt. But when she died, she says, there was no pain, and she even found herself wondering where they would hold the funeral.
Out of the Body, Out of Time
She says she popped out of her body, and thought, oh, okay. She knew the difference between time and eternity immediately. There was no time. She says it was as if she had a body and did not, as if all her cells were there, laughing like happy faces. She describes it as a moment of: here he comes.
She became aware that something was moving at the edge of what she calls the edge, the way the Earth rotates and something rises. And she thought, oh my God, I’m about to meet the creator of the universe.
She describes the knowledge there as telepathic, but unlike telepathy here. Whoever is speaking puts the concept in your mind and you know everything they mean, without words. Language does not matter. People ask how you would hear French or English, and she says it was instant knowing. For a short explanation, see the glossary entry on telepathy.
The Creator as a Living Field of Light
Nothing in her Catholic teaching, Donna says, told her God might present as the Aurora Borealis. It was not a human being, but that is the closest she can say. It was a big electric field, alive and vibrant, and she was fine with that. She said, oh my God, you’re the creator of the universe. It had no gender, and she says you do not need one over there.
They began to have conversations at the same time. Whatever you think of, wherever you want to be, is immediate. And she knew the love of God, which she describes as “love bombs being shot through my body.” Every cell was full of love. She says it is incomprehensible, and not something you can know while on Earth.
She leaned into the light as if into a big hug, and wanted to stay forever. She says she felt like the only person in the universe, as if God’s love for her were entirely individual. That, she says, is why she thinks every near-death experience is different. She imagined God saying, “Where’s my Donna? There she is.”
What Do You Want to Do Here?
Donna then heard, “what do you want to do here?” She backed up a little. She knew there was a line to her right, a demarcation, and that if she crossed it she would be dead, dead, and not going back.
Using the active listening she learned in her psychology degree, she began active listening with God. What I hear you saying, she said, is whether I live or die? She says it is a concept you cannot believe here. She describes herself in a space of multiverses, 360 degrees of knowledge, like things you might see through the James Webb telescope, three dimensional and five dimensional at once.
She notes what she did not see. She did not go through a tunnel. She did not see Jesus. It was the creator, and that was enough.
Giving the Choice Back
Donna told God that if he was asking whether she wanted to live or die, she was giving the choice to him. And as soon as she did, she says, she thought: oh my God, what have I done? She no longer knew what would happen, and she says that is the unknown people fear. In that instant, knowledge about choices and free will was fed into her. Then she heard that when she went back, she would talk to people about the power of choice. For more on how experiencers describe a decision like this, see our complete guide to near-death experiences.
She says she became unhinged and flew back to Earth and snapped into her body. She asked what that was, and realized she was still drowned. Dead in the water.
Hands, a Life Jacket and an Unbound Rope
Donna says she felt human hands under her armpits lifting her. She thought it was her sister. When she reached the surface, no one was there. Gallons of water came out of her, and the rope came undone. She had a life jacket on.
She says her brother-in-law was still heading to shore because the boat was filling, and her sister was back where they had left her. Donna looked down and thought that if she twitched her calf, the lower leg would fall off. She grabbed it in case it could be reattached. She describes the lake water in her lungs, a wrecked throat and a wrecked leg.
The Hospital and a Year of Rehab
At the hospital, she says, the leg swelled and doctors watched it, wary that it could burst. Ice brought it down, and they sent her home with pain pills. They wrapped her leg in ice and gave her antibiotics for the Giardia in the lake. They were more worried about her lungs and throat. She spent a year rehabilitating her nerves.
She says every doctor she saw asked how she had not died. The knot in the rope sat right over her femoral artery, and there is no scar there. If the rope had been a millimeter down, she says, it would have ripped her leg off. She calls the rope coming undone another miracle. That is her word, and her experience.
A Life Review and a Man Choosing Bread
Donna says she also had a life review. One person stood out: a man at a counter who got to choose between rye and white bread. Sometimes, she says, that is the only choice someone has that day. In the review she felt how he felt as she let him go on and on, yes this one, no, that one, and how it shaped the rest of his day.
That is why she says her mission was to come back and talk about choices. Every choice has a ramification, she says, even if you do not say it. She calls the planet a teaching planet, or a hospital. “We’re here to evolve our souls and to become love.” To read about the idea, see the glossary entry on life review.
The Student Who Was Always Late
As a teacher, Donna used to teach about the fundamental attribution error: attributing someone’s behavior to personality instead of to their situation. She had a student who came late all the time. She told her college students to plan as if class started ten minutes earlier. When this student kept arriving late she called him to her office, assuming he was lazy and disliked authority.
He told her that he was the oldest child of a single mother, that he had to get his younger siblings off to school, and then take three buses to class. Donna says she nearly cried at how she had judged him. This was before her near-death experience, and she says it helps explain why the review landed the way it did. Choices are not about shame or guilt. They are about awareness.
Homework for a Dying Brother-in-Law
Donna shares a tender moment. Her brother-in-law, Wes, felt responsible for what happened and for 26 years the family did not talk about it. This past April, she says, he was dying of pancreatic cancer, and she went home to speak with him. He was afraid of dying and ready to hear her story.
She gave him homework: prepare yourself a banquet for when you cross over. What will you eat? Who is on your guest list? Get your mind off the fear. Whatever you think of heaven, hell or purgatory, it is alive and loving. She says they got to share some moments, and that he died within a month.
Her Message: Awareness and Forgiveness
Donna wants people who fear dying to know that “dying is wonderful, it’s glorious, it’s loving.” There is, she says, “nothing but love over there.” She acknowledges that other people have had hellish experiences, but that was not hers. It changed her cosmology.
Her advice is simple. Slow down. Take life day by day and situation by situation. Give people the benefit of the doubt and find out what is happening with them before you decide who they are. “go easy on yourself. Forgive, forgive, forgive.” Watch your belief system and your thinking. And, she says, “go through life with an awareness, not asleep.”
Questions to Sit With
- Donna gave the choice back to God and learned about choice. Where in your life are you handing a choice away, or holding on to one too tightly?
- She misjudged a student because she attributed his behavior to his personality. Who might you be judging before you know their situation?
- Wes was afraid. What kind of banquet would you want to prepare for yourself?
This week, when someone frustrates you, pause and ask them one question about what is going on with them before you decide what it means.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Donna says time does not exist where she went, and that knowledge is instant and telepathic.
- She says the love she felt was so individual that she felt like the only person in the universe.
- She says every choice has a ramification, and that the point is awareness, not shame.
- She says we are here to evolve our souls and become love.
- She says to go easy on yourself and forgive, forgive, forgive.
Please enjoy my conversation with Donna Rebadow.
Guest Links: Connect With Donna Rebadow
Listen to the Episode
- Watch this episode ad-free on Next Level Soul TV
- Download the MP3
- More episodes: Divine Encounters
- Listen to Divine Encounters on Apple Podcasts
- Listen to Divine Encounters on Spotify
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Donna Rebadow?
Donna Rebadow is a near-death experiencer and former college psychology teacher who says she drowned in a lake in the Adirondacks of Northern New York. She shares her story with Alex Ferrari on Divine Encounters.
What happened to Donna Rebadow?
She says a nylon tow rope wrapped her left leg on a lake toy and dragged her underwater. She says she drowned, left her body and met the creator of the universe.
How does Donna describe God?
She describes a large, alive, vibrant electric field like the Aurora Borealis, with no gender, filling her with what she calls love bombs.
What did Donna mean that it was telepathic?
She says knowledge there arrives instantly, as concepts placed in your mind, without words, so language does not matter.
What question was Donna asked?
She says she was asked what she wanted to do there. She knew a line to her right would mean she could not return. She gave the choice to God and was told she would talk about choice.
What did Donna not see?
She says she did not go through a tunnel and did not see Jesus.
How did Donna survive?
She says she felt hands lift her, the rope came undone and she wore a life jacket. She says doctors told her they were amazed she did not die.
What was in Donna’s life review?
She says she felt how a man buying bread felt when she let him go on and on, and she learned how small choices shape another person’s day.
What is the fundamental attribution error?
Donna describes it as attributing someone’s behavior to personality when it is really their situation, like a student who was late because of a long commute and family duties.
Is Donna’s story proof of an afterlife?
Next Level Soul shares near-death experiences as personal accounts in the guest’s own words. Researchers continue to study and debate them, and nothing here is medical advice or a medical claim.
Keep Exploring
- The complete guide to near-death experiences
- What a life review is
- Telepathy in plain language
- Carlos Vivas on dying in the ocean and a dolphin rescue
- Karen Lorre on drowning and being asked one question
- Kelvin Chin on leaving his body while drowning
- William J. Peters on a life review and what he learned
- Lee Papa on being given a choice to leave or return
- Browse more free masterclasses and the Divine Encounters podcast.
Follow Along with the Transcript
Alex Ferrari 0:00
Tell me what your life was like before you died.
Donna Rebadow 0:08
I was vacationing with my family in the Adirondacks of Northern New York, Bear Lake. We were on a lake toy, not skiing, but there was a ski rope involved a tow rope. It towed a little bullet around it, you know, little lake toy and a series of impossible things happened. Water was being taken on by the boat. We were out in the middle, and my brother in law yelled, get off the bullet. The boat's sinking. So my sister had the tow rope in her hand, and I watched where she was behind me, the two of us were on the bullet. She threw the rope to the left, and we went into the water on the right, and the bullet got its moved in between my brother in law's sight line and myself. So he didn't, he didn't know what was happening, and the tow rope, that's nylon that shouldn't sink, was wrapped around my left leg. And I looked down. I go, What the heck. And then I heard the boat start, and I went, oh my god, this is gonna hurt. So I dig it. Took a big gulp of air, and then, boom, the tow rope strangled my leg to the bone above the knee, and I was being dragged underwater. And I thought, well, now I know how I'm going to die. And so I was drowning. In fact, I drowned. And you know, people say, well, it's just a product of your brain. It was just You saw what you wanted to see. There was nothing that happened next that was in my brain, that was in my biology. So I popped out of my body and I went, Oh, okay. I knew the difference between time and eternity. Immediately. I was like, oh, there's, there's no time here. And it's like, you have a body, but you don't. But I all my cells in my body, which I didn't have, but it's like I did. We're all laughing like happy faces, like, Oh, here he comes here. He comes down. I go. Was coming, and I realized there was something moving. And as I looked up on the edge of the I call it the edge, but you know how the rotation of the Earth, the Earth is round, so something was coming up. And I went, oh my god, I'm about to meet the creator of the universe. And then all kinds of things started happening. Knowledge over there, it's telepathic. It's telepathy, but not like telepathy here. It's like, whoever's talking to you puts this concept in your brain, and you automatically, without words, you know everything that they were talking about. So language doesn't matter. Over there, people say, Well, you speak English. How did you hear something in French or whatever? It's like, No, it's It's this instant knowledge. So I knew all these things that were happening as I was flying up toward the creator of the universe. And when I got there, nowhere in our Catholic teaching Did someone say God is going to present to you as the Aurora Borealis was not a human being, but actually that's the closest thing I can say. It was this big electric field that was alive and vibrant and electric, and I was okay with that. I was like, Oh my God, you're the creator of the universe. And then we started having conversations at the same time, time is there's no time. And so whenever, whatever you think is going to happen, wherever you want to be, is immediate. It's just the other side was not anything I thought of and I knew the love of God. It was like love bombs being shot through my body. Every cell in my body was full of love. That's incomprehensible. That's not you can't know this kind of love while you're on Earth. And so I was getting closer, said, you're the creator of the universe. You know, the Aurora doesn't have a gender. You don't need a gender over there. It's just this big, you know, all encompassing. I knew that this was the creator of everything, and I kind of leaned into him, and I felt like it's a big hug, and I just, I wanted to be there forever. The love that was, it was just amazing. And so I felt like I was the only person in the universe. I felt like the love that God had for me was so individual. That's why I think there's a designer death. He's gonna he did why? He talked to all nde's, and they all have different experiences. It was like he you say, Where's my Donna? There she is. I made her this is what we're gonna do. And I kind of leaned in and got a big hug, and when I got this hug, I then heard, what do you want to do here? And I kind of backed up, and I knew there was a line to my right, that there was the demarcation line, that if I passed that line, I'd be dead, dead. So it's kind of dead, you know, I'm dead. I'm drowned. I knew if I went over there, I wasn't going back. So he goes, Well, Donna, what do you want to do here? So in my psychology degree, we learned active listening. So I start active listening with God. Who does that? I go, Oh God, what I hear you saying if I live or die? It's a concept that you can't believe here. So the closest thing I could say is, remember, it's the Aurora Borealis. So I'm kind of in this space of multiverses, like eternity. It was just like 360 everything and all this knowledge. So this environment, when it started off, it was light, but I didn't go through a tunnel. I didn't see Jesus, so I was like, you know, okay, so I I'll just get God, the Creator. So okay, it was like some things that you would see on the James Webb telescope. It was like three dimensional, five dimensional. It was like everything. It was the most incredible thing. But for people that want to know about dying, so when the rope strength. Hold my leg to the bone, that was a pain I never had felt in my life. So I felt that pain, but when I died, I did. There was no pain, and it only took me a few there was no time. So I say in seconds, you know, I crossed through this veil and I knew I was dead. I brought my consciousness with me. That surprised me. I don't know why, but it was like my whole personality and consciousness went there, but the love so people the dying didn't hurt. There was, there was nothing hurtful about drowning. It was like I was being dragged underwater saying, I wonder where they're going to have the funeral. You know, how's this going to work? And then, boom, you're in this space of pure love and knowledge. Andso people that are worried about their loved ones or themselves, you hear a lot of nd your say, I'm not afraid to die. I'm just afraid of the pain before. Just you take me fast like I don't want to. But dying in my brother in law this past April of this year, we didn't talk about this for 26 years because he felt responsible for killing me, but he was dying of pancreatic cancer, and I got to go back home and talk to him when he hadn't talked about this. I said, Wes, I have to talk to you about what happened. And he was ready to hear he was afraid of dying. And I said, Okay, well, you have homework. He died within a month. So I said, you have homework. I want you to prepare yourself a big banquet when you pass, so that as soon as you cross, you have, you have, I want you to have. What are you going to eat? What's What are your guest lists? Just get your mind off of this. Whatever you think of heaven, hell or purgatory. It's alive. It's loving. So I we actually got to share some moments there. So if I can help people know that dying is wonderful, it's glorious, it's loving. There's nothing but love over there. I know other people have had, like, hellish experiences. That's all I had. It's not what I was expecting. It wasn't anything that was it came back, changed in my cosmology. He had asked me, What do you want to do here? So I said, Well, if you're asking me if I want to live or die, then I give the choice to you. And I learned a very valuable lesson about choice, because that as soon as I did that, I went, oh my god, what have I done? I now don't know what's going to happen, and so that's the unknown that people are afraid of. But I was like, you know, am I going to go? What's going to happen? So as that was happening, all this knowledge about choices and free will were being fed into my brain, and I heard, well, when you go back, you're going to talk to people about the power of choice, and it's dawn on me, Alex, he said, When you go back, because I'm still waiting for the answer. So I'm like, Okay, I became unhinged and was flying back to Earth, and snapped into my body. And I went, what was that? And I was still drowned. I'm dead in the water. And so I didn't know how they were going to get the rope out of my leg. It was strangled to the bone, and I could feel human hands under my armpits, lifting me up, and I thought it was my sister. When it got to the surface, no one was there, and just gallons of water coming out of me, the rope came undone. I had a life jacket on. So another miracle was the rope came undone. A nylon rope strangled my leg to the bone. My femoral artery should have ruptured. It was just, I thought it was amputated, but the rope came undone. Like, how did that happen? So I had my life jacket. I'm in the lake. My brother in law doesn't know what's going on, so he's continuing to go to the shore because there was water coming on the boat. My sister was back where we left her, and so when I got to the surface, I was like, I'm just all this lake water in my lungs, you know, wrecked. Wrecked my lungs and my throat. The rope wrecked my leg. So I looked down, and I went, Oh my God, if I twitch or kick my calf, you know, the below the knee is going to fall off. And I grabbed it, because I want to have it, maybe they could reattach it at the emergency room. It's like somebody was pounding on my back, you know, I was like, Don how they two things, how are they going to get the water out of me, and how they going to get the rope on done? And those two things happened. I snapped back into my body, I can actually feel that observer and me snap together. That also was very strange, that was in shock or something, you know. I mean, think about that. A tow rope strangles your leg to the bone. The pain was there and now it's not. I'm like, What the heck? There's no bleed. My leg wasn't amputated. It was strangled. So I got to the hospital. It started swelling, so they were afraid that my leg it would explode, so they were watching me for a little bit, and once it started, iced it and it started going down, they gave me pain pills and sent me home because, well, you know, you're not gonna die. You're, you know, it's a country little er, it's not amputated. You know, when you get home, see your doctor sitting there going, Are you hitting me? They wrapped it. They wrapped my leg in ice. Gave me antibiotics, biotics for the Giardia that was in the lake. They were more concerned about my lungs, my throat and not my leg. So I had to deal with a year of rehabbing my nerves. And every doctor I saw was like, how did you not die your femoral artery and where the knot was, you know, in the rope where the knot was over my femoral artery, there's no scar there. There's nothing. It was perfectly placed. And if the rope had been like a millimeter down, it would have ripped my leg off. And I got a life review where one of the guys was. Really standing out in my mind. And that came up, and I got to see how he felt when we got to choose what piece of type of bread he wanted. He wanted rye or white. I mean, sometimes that's the only choice they have that day. And I just let him go on and on, yeah, you want this one? No, okay, you want that one. And how that made him feel, and how he went through the rest of his day. And because of what my mission was to come back and tell people about choices this planet is, you can call it a teaching planet, or a hospital, or whatever metaphor you want. We're here to evolve our souls and to become love. So all these things are evolving me, making me aware of every moment of my life. So part of the choice was, every choice that you make has a ramification even if you say it or don't say it. So as a teacher of psychology, I would teach people about the fundamental attribution error. It's fundamental we all make it. You attribute someone's behavior to a personality or situation, and you usually make an error with it. For example, I had a student came come late to class all the time, and I told kids in the college kids, you know, people pay for this. Don't come late. You know, plan your schedule. Pretend like the class starts 10 minutes before it actually does. And this kid was late, late, late, and I said, You got to come see me in my office. I attributed his behavior to his personality. He's lazy. He doesn't like authority. He's this, he's that. And he told me a story of being the oldest of a single mom in three busses he had to take to class. He had to get his younger siblings off to school. I about cried with now this is before my nd about cried with how I did the fundamental attribution error. So knowing that what happens in my life review, what happens every day in my life is I just slow down and take every day, day by day, almost like situation by situation, I'd like that for all my life reviews, since my drowning, I was just saying it's the choices we make, people need to be aware of and not afraid of the choices we make, because it's not a shame or guilt like we grew up with. It's more like be aware of it. Don't make fundamental attribution or give people the benefit of the doubt, find out about their situation first, if I had to come at them with you know what's happening with you and found out about the situation before I said, you know you're lazy or this, you're that. It's very much an awareness for me since then, go easy on yourself. Forgive, forgive, forgive. Watch your belief system and your thinking. Be aware. Just don't go through life. Be aware of yourself. Be aware of others. So go through life with an awareness, not asleep. Be aware of what you're doing.
Our Sponsors
- Next Level Soul TV: exclusive spiritual films, series, audiobooks, courses and events. Get the app.
- Earthing.com: discover the science-based healing powers of earthing and grounding.
If you enjoyed today’s episode, watch and subscribe to Divine Encounters on YouTube.
