Divine Encounters Episode 136 | Near-Death Experience Story
Kelvin Chin was a stressed college student from the Boston suburbs who learned to meditate, and two years later, he says, a rip current carried him far out into the Pacific and he left his body while sinking. In this Divine Encounters episode he tells Alex Ferrari why he credits meditation with saving his life, why it did not feel like a spiritual experience at the time, and what a vision of a stone room revealed afterward.
Key Takeaways
- Kelvin says he grew up in a suburb of Boston with scientist parents who thought learning to meditate was nuts.
- He says a lecture at Dartmouth about the first medical studies of meditation, led by cardiologist Herbert Benson, drew him in, and he soon joined the experiments.
- He describes being caught in a rip current off a San Diego beach, panicking, swimming straight back into it, and sinking.
- He says his mind popped out and observed his body, and because he had meditated for two years, he recognized the state and chose to go back in.
- He says one thought guided him to the surface: take your time. He says he swam on his side for about an hour.
- Kelvin says it did not feel like a spiritual experience, but he credits meditation with saving his life.
- He describes a later vision, in a stone room, of himself as a man in chainmail, even though he did not believe in reincarnation.
| Guest | Kelvin Chin |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 136 |
| Background | Raised near Boston; attended Dartmouth; parents were scientists |
| What Kelvin says happened | A rip current pulled him far out to sea off a San Diego beach while he was alone with a friend |
| What he experienced | His mind popped out of his body and observed it, then returned by choice |
| Why he thinks he survived | Two years of daily meditation made the state familiar |
| A later vision | A stone room with a full length mirror and a figure in chainmail |
| The message | Each of us figures out what works through our own desires, thoughts and actions |
An Ordinary Boston Kid
Kelvin grew up in a suburb of Boston, where he was born. He did the things kids do: sports, music, school, and then college. Everything, he says, was like a regular kid growing up in the suburbs.
His parents were scientists, and they were not into anything spiritual. They thought it was nuts when he learned to meditate. If you had said the word spiritual to him back then, he says, he would have thought of spirits and ghosts. He went to the congregational church but did not pay attention. He thought spirituality was religion, and as a teenager he did not know what that meant.
Stress, a Lecture Hall and the First Studies of Meditation
Kelvin went to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where, he says, he was so stressed out that he wandered into a lecture hall. A speaker was discussing research on meditation that was just starting. It was, he says, the first medical studies ever done on meditation in the United States, by a Boston cardiologist named Herbert Benson.
The speaker talked about cortisol, adrenaline and lactic acid, and changes in the brain and blood chemistry. Kelvin thought: I need that. Six months later he was in Dr. Benson’s experiments.
He started noticing that, during meditation, he became unaware of his body and surroundings. He had never had that experience before. He says people can debate whether to call it an out of body experience or just being unaware of the body, since it is a matter of degrees. He would come out of meditation feeling refreshed and less anxious. That was all he cared about at the time.
If you are new to the practice, our glossary entry on meditation is a gentle introduction.
A Skeptic by Training
Kelvin is careful to say that he came from a science background, so these things were very unusual to him. He had never read any spiritual material and was not looking for anything like that. He did not believe in reincarnation.
That matters for what comes next, because he did not go to the ocean looking for anything but a swim.
Torrey Pines in June
The summer after, he went to California for intensive language study at UC San Diego in La Jolla, a year’s worth in two or three months. He was from the East Coast and had never been in the Pacific Ocean. At registration he met a girl who was also from New England and had never been in the Pacific. They had no class until the next day, so he said: let’s go swimming.
They walked from campus to the state park at Torrey Pines, where the beach lies about 300 feet below the cliffs. There were never any lifeguards, he says, and no one else was there. It was a beautiful, hot, sweaty June day.
Pulled Out by a Rip Current
He walked in about waist deep and dunked. When he came up, he started seeing her get smaller and smaller. He was being pulled by a rip current, which he had never known about, and the cliffs were getting smaller too. He later asked a friend who had been a merchant seaman and ship captain how far out he must have been, since the 300 foot cliffs looked about three or four inches tall. The friend said 1.7 miles.
He was panicking. He doesn’t know if it was seconds or minutes, but he was out there fast. He tried to swim back in, and he went straight back into the current, which is what you are not supposed to do. He now shares a piece of advice whenever he tells this story: you swim at an angle to the beach, because that increases the chance of getting out of the rip current. He had forgotten all his Boy Scout training.
He was swimming and getting nowhere, probably being pulled even farther. He was exhausted and started going down because he couldn’t swim anymore. He could see the surface of the water and he held his breath.
His Mind Popped Out
Then, he says, “My mind observed my body.” He popped out of his body, as he describes it, and he realized what was happening, because he had been meditating twice a day for two years and had been on some long retreats. He had experienced being unaware of his body and surroundings, separate from his mind, many times in those two years. He knew what it was.
It didn’t shut him down. He thought, whoa, and then: no. It wasn’t a thought, but a desire, a feeling. His mind went back into his body. You can read how others describe leaving the body in our glossary entry on astral projection.
Take Your Time
His body then struggled the four or five feet to the surface, and he had one thought: take your time. He flipped onto his back, got his breath, and then swam side stroke all the way in. He did side stroke on purpose, to keep his head out of the water so he wouldn’t take water in, as he was exhausted. He says the waves washed over him every so often, but his head stayed above water.
The girl told him later that it took an hour. When he got to the beach, he passed out for half an hour, she said.
Not a Spiritual Experience
“So the meditation really saved my life,” he says. He explains that a classic near-death experience, as many guests describe, is beautiful and full of light, with loved ones or angels welcoming you. If he had had that kind of experience, he says, his body would have been 60 feet down, and he doesn’t believe he would have come back. He doesn’t think he could have struggled the 12 feet up to the surface.
For Kelvin, it simply wasn’t that kind of event. After the swim he walked around in a daze for a while, thinking, I’ve got my whole life ahead of me. Then he dove into life. “I didn’t think of it as a spiritual experience. I thought of it as I almost drowned.”
He adds that it was not a spiritual experience for him the way it is for many people with a classic one, because having already had two years of out of body states made it normal. He says that many people are catapulted by such an experience, but for him it was already familiar.
A Stone Room and a Mirror
Shortly after, he had what he calls a jarring experience, jarring intellectually since he did not believe in reincarnation. He had meditated and was lying down, as he always does, and he recommends resting five, 10 or 15 minutes afterward instead of jumping up. About six or eight of them were lying on a friend’s living room floor. He was not meditating, not sleeping, not dreaming and not wide awake, but in an in between state.
It was as though a TV screen switched on in his head. He started seeing things as in a dream, but not a dream. He walked into a room, all stone, with big stone blocks two or three feet across on the walls and floor, and a ceiling maybe 20 to 40 feet up. There was nobody there. “All the furniture is pushed to the walls” except one piece in the middle of the room: a big, huge, full-length mirror.
He walked up to it. He filled up the mirror, a pretty big guy, with reddish hair, a red beard, a white tunic with a cross on it, and full length chainmail beneath.
You can read about how some people describe memories like this in our glossary entry on reincarnation. At Next Level Soul we share each story as an experience in the guest’s own words.
What Works for You
Kelvin says he never thought he would be talking about all this. He and his friend George would just talk about it among themselves over the decades. To him, it is about figuring out what works for each of us. We are each individual souls, and everybody is unique, so we each figure it out by trial and error, by looking at what our desires are and which thoughts and actions connected to those desires are working and which are not, and by not continuing down a road that isn’t working.
“That’s the road to happiness. That’s the road to inner peace and contentment.”
His View of God and the Soul
Kelvin is plain about his own thinking. He doesn’t see the need for God in the way other people define God. Could there have been a creator of human beings or plants? Maybe. But not of the soul. His reasoning is that “we are eternal, and therefore no creator of my soul necessary.” And he adds: “you can’t have eternity start after something’s created.”
He says this is his theory, and that his logic and his experience point him there. If someone views God as a creator of other things, he could buy that. He thinks every individual has their own purpose, which each person develops, refines and changes through their lives, or lifetimes.
For more background, begin with our complete guide to near-death experiences.
Questions to Sit With
- Kelvin says his meditation practice made an unfamiliar state familiar, so he could choose well when it mattered. What practice might make you steadier in a crisis?
- He says he credits meditation with saving his life, even though it did not feel spiritual. What ordinary habits in your life might be doing quiet work?
- He says to learn from what is not working and not keep going down that road. What road are you ready to leave?
This week, sit for five minutes a day, and when you finish, lie down for a few more minutes before getting up. Notice what you feel.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Kelvin says regular meditation made a profound state feel familiar and allowed him to choose.
- He says each of us figures out what works through our desires, thoughts and actions.
- He says the road to inner peace comes from learning from what does not work.
- He says we are eternal souls.
- He says each person develops their own purpose and changes it over time.
Please enjoy my conversation with Kelvin Chin.
Guest Links: Connect With Kelvin Chin
- Kelvin Chin’s official site
- Turning Within Meditation Foundation
- Kelvin Chin on YouTube
- Full NDE story with Kelvin Chin
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 Kelvin Chin?
Kelvin Chin is the guest on this Divine Encounters episode. He grew up near Boston, attended Dartmouth, and says he left his body while drowning in a rip current off a San Diego beach.
What happened to Kelvin Chin in the ocean?
Kelvin says a rip current carried him far from shore. He panicked, swam straight back into it, grew exhausted and began to sink.
How far out does Kelvin say he was?
Kelvin says a friend who had been a ship captain estimated 1.7 miles out, based on how tall the cliffs looked to him.
What does Kelvin mean by his mind popped out?
Kelvin says his mind observed his body from outside. He recognized the state from two years of meditation, felt a desire to go back, and returned.
How did Kelvin get back to shore?
Kelvin says he told himself to take your time, rolled onto his back to catch his breath, and then swam side stroke with his head out of the water for about an hour.
Why does Kelvin credit meditation?
Kelvin says meditating twice a day for two years made leaving his body familiar, so he did not freeze and could choose to return.
What advice does Kelvin give about rip currents?
Kelvin says to swim at an angle to the beach, because that increases the likelihood of getting out of the rip current. He shares this as his own advice.
Did Kelvin consider it a spiritual experience?
Kelvin says no. He says he thought of it as having almost drowned, since out of body states were already normal to him.
What was the stone room vision?
Kelvin says that while resting after meditation he saw himself in a large stone room with a full length mirror, wearing a white tunic with a cross and chainmail.
What does Kelvin say about God and the soul?
Kelvin says he does not see the need for a creator of the soul, because he believes the soul is eternal, and you can’t have eternity start after something is created.
Is this a medical claim?
No. Next Level Soul shares these stories as lived experiences in the guest’s own words. Nothing here is medical advice, and researchers continue to debate what such experiences mean.
Keep Exploring
- The complete guide to near-death experiences
- What astral projection means
- Meditation in plain language
- Karen Lorre on drowning and a question that saved her life
- Carlos Vivas on drowning in the ocean and a life review
- Donna Rebadow on drowning and meeting God
- David Bennett on dying at sea and meeting an ancient soul family
- Mark Hodges on traveling to other dimensions and past lives
- Lei Mohr on leaving her body and a voice that asked one question
- 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.
Kelvin Chin 0:08
Growing up suburb of Boston, born in Boston, you know, did the things, you know, sports, music, you know, studied and all that stuff. Went to college. Everything's like in a regular kid growing up in the suburb. My parents were scientists. They they were not into like anything. They thought I was nuts learning to meditate. You said the word spiritual to me back then. I would have thought, oh, spirits, ghosts, or something. Or I thought, I would think, oh yeah, I went to the congregational church, but I didn't really pay attention. You know that that's what I thought spirituality was was religion. Teenager, I didn't know what that meant. So no, I I was stressed out. That's why I learned. I wandered into a lecture hall at college. I went to Dartmouth College up in New Hampshire, and I was so stressed out. And the guy was talking about research on meditation that was just starting to be being done. It was the very beginning. It was the first medical studies ever done on meditation in the U.S. Anyway, by a guy named Herbert Benson. He was a cardiologist in Boston, and I ended up six months later being in his experiments. But they, the guy that they on the stage was starting to talk about cortisol, adrenaline, lactic acid. Those are the only three that I remember. But he's talking about all these different changes going on in the brain and the blood chemistry. And I thought I need that. Was that I started being unaware of body and surroundings during my meditation. So people sometimes was I having an out of body experience or was just unaware of body and surround. People can parse that, you know. I mean, but but because it's gradations, it's degrees. But I just thought, oh, was wasn't aware of my body and surroundings. Never had that experience before. And then I'd come out of the meditation feeling like really refreshed and less anxious. That's all I cared about at that time. But yeah, later I started opening up in a more because I came from a science background, so you know these things are very unusual to me. I'm not thinking like I'd never read any spiritual stuff. I wasn't looking for anything like that. I didn't believe in reincarnation. I went out to study intensive language study for the summer, like at a year's worth in like two three months at UCSD in San Diego, La Jolla, and so I'm from the East Coast. I'd never been in the Pacific Ocean before, so I met this girl at registration. She'd never, she was also from New England. She had never been in the Pacific. I said, "Hey, let's go swimming. Let's go. We got a dog class till tomorrow, so you know, met her at at registration desk, and we went down there. Was nobody there? And people who know Torrey Pines State Park, right there in La Jolla, it you know that the PGA tour is is held at Torrey Pines, whatever it's called, the Country Club, whatever it's called there, and it's on the bluffs that overlook the Pacific Ocean. It's a gorgeous. I guess it's a gorgeous golf course. I've never been on it, but I've been on the beach, and it's 300 feet down is the beach. There's cliffs. 300 feet down is where we were on the beach alone. Nobody there. So you walk from UCSD. It's literally just you know cross campus down a driveway. You're at the you're at one end of the state park, and there's never any lifeguards or anything. So just the two of us there. Beautiful June day, hot, sweaty. Go into the ocean. You want to dunk right away. I literally was in the. I probably walked in literally the waist deep and dunked, and started seeing her get really get smaller and smaller, smaller and smaller. I was getting pulled up in a rip current, so I never knew what a rip current was, and so I saw the cliffs getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And I asked a friend of mine, who's a you know used to be you know a merchant seaman, captain on these big huge ocean ships, you know freighters and stuff. I said that was those cliffs, 300 foot high, were about three or four inches tall. How far out was I?
Kelvin Chin 3:39
He said 1.7 miles out, so I don't know. I was panicking, so I don't. It was seconds, minutes. I was panicking, but I was out there fast, and I started trying to swim back in, of course, and couldn't because I I panicked. I I did. I went right back into the current, which is what you're not supposed to do. It just saves anybody's lives. I've been saying this when I tell this NDE. You swim at an angle to the beach because that's going to increase the likelihood you're going to get out of the rip current that just pulled you out. Well, I forgot all my Boy Scout training and I just because I panicked and I'm swimming back in and I'm going nowhere and I'm probably getting even pulled out farther, seeing the cliffs get even a little smaller. I'm panicking. I start going. I'm exhausted. So now I start going down because I can't swim. I I just and I see the surface of the water. I'm holding my breath. I pop out of my body, my mind. That's the only way I can describe it. My mind observed my body. Okay, so whatever you want to call that, I popped out. I say I popped out, and I realized what was happening though because I had been meditating for two years, every day, twice a day, I'd been on some retreat, some long retreat. I'd meditated a lot for two years. Okay, I'd had this unaware body and surroundings, and separate from my my mind, separate from my body experience, whatever you want to call that. Many many times during those two years of meditating, I was familiar. I knew what was. It didn't shut. Me, it was like oh, and then I and I went whoa, and I just no back in. I didn't have a thought. It was a desire. It was a feeling of no. My mind went back into my body, struggled the four or five feet to the surface, and I just had one thought: take your time. And I flipped over my back, got my breath, and I did side stroke all the way in, she said, "for an hour, and I did side stroke intentionally because I didn't want to do breaststroke because I don't want to put my face in the water and risk taking water in because you know I was exhausted. So I did side stroke, kept my head out of the water the whole time, and I tried swimming on my back, but the waves were kind of washing over me too. So so I did side stroke the whole way in, kept my head above water. The waves would come over me every once in a while, but you know my head was still out of the water. And she said, "I and I passed out for half an hour. She said, "When I got up on the beach. So that was my. So the meditation really saved my life because if I'd had a classic NDE, you've had a ton of people on here. I know who talk about NDEs, and you know you hear them? Well, I'm on the other side. It's beautiful. It's full of light. I'm out of my body. My body. I feel no pain in my body if they're experiencing pain for some. You know, I see Jesus or God or angels or my dead loved ones, and they're welcoming. My body would have been 60 feet down, and there's no way after you know a few seconds. I wouldn't have come back. I would have been dead. I don't think I could have struggled 12 feet up to the surface. Yeah, I'm walking around thinking, "What the you know fill in the blank just happened? I almost that was it. I was like, "I got my. I'm like, Tina, man, I got my whole life ahead of me. I'm like, and that was it. Mother Nature just boom pulled me out. Call it whatever you want, and it's just like how random I thought. So I was walking around a little bit in a daze, like you said, like you were, you know, like you know, for a while there, and then I just dived into life. I guess no, I didn't think of it as a spiritual experience. I thought of it as I almost drowned. I didn't.
Kelvin Chin 6:54
I know you call that whatever you call it, you know. But no, it was not a spiritual experience for me, as it is for many people who have a classic NDE, et cetera, et cetera, because even having an out-of-body experience for many people can catapult them. But for me, I'd already had two years of this is like very normal to me. It was normal. Shortly after that, I had some, in a sense, jarring to use. Kind of go down your road of you know intimating in terms of the psycho-emotional of what was going on-it was somewhat jarring at first because, again, it was jarring not just emotionally. It was jarring because intellectually, I didn't believe in reincarnation. I was lying down after I meditated. I always lie down. I was-I always recommend people rest afterwards. Don't just jump up after you finish your meditation. Rest for you know 510, 15 minutes or something, so I'm in that mode. So I'm not meditating, I'm not sleeping, I'm not dreaming, and I'm not totally wide awake. But I'm kind of in that in between wakefulness state. So I'm in that mode, and then like it was as if like a like a TV screen like switched on in my in my head, you know, and I and I start seeing things like you see in a dream, but I'm not dreaming, right? You know how you in a dream you can you see things, but you don't see yourself, right? You're seeing stuff in your dream, so you're looking through your eyes, your mind's eye. People sometimes you call it that, right? So I walk into this room, in this experience, I'm just lying on a friend of mine's living room floor because we all six or eight of us had just meditated and just lying there resting, and I go into this room, and it's all stone, big, huge, like stone blocks, two, three foot stone blocks, and floor. I look at the walls, stone ceiling, stone. It's all big, huge stone room, and the ceiling's maybe I don't know 20, 3040, feet up, something like that. You know, it's big, high ceiling, and there's nobody in the room. I'm alone in the room. I look around, and all the furniture is pushed to the walls except this one piece of furniture in the middle of the room, and it's a big, huge, full-length mirror. And so I walk up to it. First time I walk up, seen myself, and I saw myself. I filled up the mirror. I didn't know how big I was then. Filled up the mirror, so a pretty big guy, and I had reddish red hair, red beard, a white tunic, and a cross on it, and I had chainmail underneath, full length, head to toe chainmail. That was the first. So then I don't know if it was. See, I never thought I'd be talking about this stuff because I just thought I would talk to my friend George, and we start, you know, over the decades, and you think, yeah, yeah, we just we just talk about it amongst ourselves. To me, it's figuring out what works for each of us, and we're each individual souls, and everybody's unique. So we each have to figure that out ourselves, and how to do that by trial and error, quite frankly, and by but by specifically looking at what of my desires, and then my subsequent thought and actions connected to those desires is working, and what's not, and don't keep going down the road that's not working. Learn from that. To me, that's the road to happiness. That's the road to inner peace and contentment. That's what I suggest. I don't see there that there is a need for God in the way that other people define God. If there is no creation or end. There is no need for a creator now. Could there have been a creator of human beings? Yes, but not of the soul. Is my theory okay? Again, these are not provable, but my logic and my experience so far tells me, and my logic extension tells me that we are eternal, and therefore no creator of my soul necessary. Now, could somebody have created plants like you used the plant example or whatever? Yeah, somebody could have been a creator of that. Some beings or being could have. That's possible.
Kelvin Chin 10:32
If somebody views God that way, then I could buy that. But I don't view there a need to be a creator in of the soul or whatever, if it's you can't have eternity start after something's created. That makes no logical sense. Okay, but you hear that all the time. That kind of cognitive dissonance. So that's what I'm referring to. I think every individual has their own purpose, whatever that is, and it's developed. Each person has to develop that themselves and and refine it and change it as they go through their lives and lifetimes in their own one life or however they want to look at it.
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