A healer named Caroline told me a story that struck close to home. While undergoing heart-valve replacement surgery, a client's heart stopped beating and her EKG went flat. An emergency code was called and a team of doctors and nurses rushed in to resuscitate her. The client later reported having been aware of everything happening around her, but from a different vantage point. She said she had been transported to a tunnel, a long, cylindrical passage with no end, filled with golden light. Exhilarated, she began walking through the passageway, while the commotion in the operating room slipped farther and farther away. The intensity of the light kept drawing her forward with a movement so exquisite in its gentleness that she didn't think to resist. She felt complete tranquillity and had no interest in turning back. Then abruptly, in one swift motion, she was pulled out of this place and thrust back to the hospital again. Her life had been saved. The tunnel was gone.
According to her doctor, she had been hallucinating, the result of a shortage of oxygen to the brain. He also reassured her that there had been no irreparable damage. But this woman knew he was mistaken; her experience was too real to have been a hallucination. Caroline agreed. She had spoken to numerous people who were explicit in their descriptions of these near-death experiences. Many of them had described the same things.
When I heard about this, I was transfixed. The tunnel I had visited during the Tuna Canyon accident suddenly made sense. Although Jim had been open minded, the experience of the tunnel was novel for him, too. He had never been sure what it meant. I couldn't wait to tell Caroline my story. It matched her client's description so closely that I blurted out every detail. I felt as if I had just confessed a sin and been absolved. Caroline laughed and assured me that I hadn't done anything wrong. She went on to say that although there were small discrepancies in our perceptions, her client and I had basically visited the same place. She felt I had come closer to death than I'd imagined: The tunnel saved me; it had provided a perfect sanctuary.
I was astonished by the similarity of our experiences, and by the fact that others in life-threatening situations had been to the tunnel. I had always been fascinated by the bridge between life and death, the geography of the spirit moving between worlds. Now the tunnel also appeared to be a two-way passage: Even when physical life was over, in certain cases the spirit might return to the body.
I believed I had stumbled on a great secret: Having met death head on and survived, I had glimpsed what the other side looked and felt like. I now had a sense of myself as a pioneer, bearing testimony to the tangible link between life and death. Such validation of my personal experience brought me closer to my true voice, to self-respect, to the person I felt I was meant to be. And, finally, the discovery that I had gone through a near-death experience reinforced what I already suspected: Death was not an end but simply a transition into another form. A circle had been completed. I began to look at life with a broader viewpoint. I saw that human beings were blessed with gifts that I never dreamed possible. Psychic ability was only one of them. I no longer was willing to limit myself or to buy into other people's notions of my capabilities. The sky had no ceiling. It was boundless. And so was the spirit within us. It needed room to fly high and dive deep without restraint or restrictions.
L
OSS OF
I
NNOCENCE
You can't always get what you want,
But you get what you need.
—T
HE
R
OLLING
S
TONES
I am standing in a huge open space, listening to an anonymous voice giving me instructions. It is telling me that I am about to go to medical school and become a psychiatrist. With an M.D., I will have the credibility to continue my psychic work. I feel like a secret agent who has just been given a special assignment. How can I refuse? The words seem so right, I never once think to question them.
I woke at dawn, puzzled, remembering this dream in detail. Although I had accepted it with ease, the message made no sense to me now. My head was spinning. There must have been some mistake. Me, a psychiatrist? Unbelievable. I just wasn't the type. I might as well have heard that I was going to be shot out of a cannon into another galaxy. I felt like the object of some bad practical joke, that any minute someone was going to jump out from behind the curtains and burst out laughing.
As the daughter of two physicians, it might have seemed logical that I would consider following in their footsteps, but I had never shown the slightest interest. My parents, wanting to point me in a reasonable direction while I was still in high school, had sent me to a private psychologist in Beverly Hills for career counseling. She handed me a pile of tests filled with questions, each one more meaningless than the next: Do you like gardening? Do you get along with other people? Do you like working with your hands?
I took the questionnaires home and labored over them for eight hours. After they were scored, the psychologist and I went over the results. “Whatever you do,” she advised, “don't ever go into medicine, counseling, or any of the helping professions. Your aptitude in these areas is far too low. You'd be happier and more successful in a career in the arts.”
I wasn't surprised. At that time in my life, the thought of dealing with illness or listening to somebody else's problems all day long held no appeal for me. I had enough problems of my own. Furthermore, most of my parents' friends were doctors, so I'd been around them all my life. They'd never really interested me; I had little in common with them. My friends were artists; the more eccentric and far out the better. And I too wanted to become an artist of some kind.
But while I lay in bed, the dream gnawed at me. I couldn't go back to sleep. Throwing on my favorite green sweater and an old pair of sweatpants, I took off for a coffee shop on the Venice boardwalk. Except for a waitress who was cleaning up behind the counter, the place was still empty. I slid into a corner booth. Watching the joggers and street people pass by, I let the dream sink in. I'd learned enough at the lab to know better than to ignore such a clear message, even though it seemed so fat-fetched.
Listening to old fifties songs on the juke box and sipping strong coffee, I sat there for hours, thinking. Even if I wanted to, would I be able to follow the guidance in the dream? I wasn't sure. Finally, after much deliberation, I reached an agreement with myself that I thought I could live with: I would enroll in Santa Monica Junior College, take one class, and see how it went. That was the most I could promise. I hadn't been to school for almost three years, and although I'd always done well with a minimum of work, I didn't miss it. No matter how absurd this new plan sounded to me, I was now committed to giving it a try.
The fall semester, which began in mid-September, happened to be a few weeks away. But I was registering late, so most of the classes were already full. One of the last choices was meteorology. Totally uninterested in the subject, I enrolled anyway, certain my experiment was doomed.
I couldn't have been more wrong. I quickly found that I was moved by the beauty of how rain was made, how clouds were formed, the way weather happened. Something inside me responded, and in this unlikely setting I discovered that school wasn't so alien after all. When it was over, I registered in more classes. And so the cycle began.
Nine months after the first meteorology class, as I sat on my living room floor typing up an English term paper, the rightness of the dream hit me. It hadn't even been on my mind, but I couldn't argue with this feeling. I knew for certain my dream was true. At that moment, I made a clear choice to begin premed. I picked up the telephone.
“Mother, I have something to tell you. I want to go to medical school.” There was a long silence; I thought the phone had gone dead. “Mother, are you there?”
“Of course, dear. I'm just surprised. This is so sudden. Why didn't you ever mention it before?”
I opened up and told her about the dream. She had become more tolerant of such things since I began working with Thelma. When I had finished, there was another long pause.
“So what do you think?” I finally asked.
My mother seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “I'm sure you'd make a wonderful doctor. If that's what you want to do, I'm completely behind you. But this is a big decision. I don't believe in dreams the way you do, so I wouldn't start a career on the basis of one. Why don't you give it some time to sink in? Remember, you never liked high school. Medical school and residency are a long haul.”
When I hung up, doubt overtook me. My mother had sounded extremely cautious. I could see that she wasn't against my becoming a doctor. She'd be thrilled if I did something “positive” with my life, and of course valued the status and service of the medical profession. But understanding my past as she did, she was genuinely concerned for me. Maybe she was right. Medical school had to be a crazy idea. Why would I choose to upset the balance in my life to pursue so demanding a path? But finally, all the considerations she raised didn't make any difference. Logic had nothing to do with what I seemed impelled to do.
During the months following this dream, problems with the lab that I hadn't noticed before became more evident. When I began, I had felt a purity of purpose in the research we conducted. But in the past year, some of that had changed. Because of increasing involvement with the media, our work was gradually getting polluted. Films based on the lab were sensationalizing and misrepresenting the psychic. TV magazine shows were the worst, viewing the paranormal with obvious disbelief, presenting many factual inaccuracies, using our work as hype to improve their ratings.
Perhaps this was the reason I was being directed to become a doctor. Psychic experiences were so easily misunderstood; they needed to be legitimized. Although Thelma's Ph.D. was helpful, it didn't carry enough clout in a medical center comprised primarily of physicians who often considered themselves a step above such a degree. For some of the more conservative doctors at the NPI, our lab was an embarrassment to science. If they had the power, I'm sure they would have forced us to leave. Al though the director, Dr. Jollyn West, was a skeptic about parapsychology, still he provided Thelma's lab space and defended her right to do research. Bur since she seemed always to paste together the lab's finances from gifts and her teaching income, or relied on volunteers, the lab was never really secure.
My only hope of turning such attitudes around, I was convinced, was to become part of the medical community, no matter how much I disliked the idea. If I had ever really sat down and mapped out what I was getting myself into, I probably wouldn't have chosen medical school. But luckily, I didn't think too fat into the future. I was riding an invisible wave. I tried to let go and trust it.
My work with Thelma had given me a strong foundation in psychic research and a structure from which to grow, but I was ready to move on. One final factor was that Kirlian photography was falling out of favor among parapsychologists: There was increasing data indicating that the effect was due only to moisture. Although Thelma never believed this, my own enthusiasm for working with it waned: I wanted to find other methods of establishing the validity of phenomena I knew to be authentic. Gradually, then, the lab was getting less of my attention as my life became consumed with school. It took every available ounce of energy and discipline to stay focused on my classes. With a single-mindedness that was new for me, I forged ahead, concentrating on getting through one subject at a time. I barely stopped long enough to take a breath. Years flew by—until it was time for the MCATs.
I was never good at taking computerized multiple-choice tests, particularly when my future depended upon them. The pressure surrounding the MCATs, the equivalent of college SATs, was enormous. I would have to score extremely high in order to be accepted into medical school. Packed into the UCLA student union with a thousand other students, I spent eight grueling hours taking the test. By the time it was over, I'd lost faith in myself. On that same night, certain that I'd failed, I returned to my grammar school, climbed the steps, and sat down.
Alone, my legs drawn up to my chest in fetal position, I rocked back and forth, wishing I were a child again, trying to put this harrowing day behind me. I gazed across the street at the house I used to live in as a child. The lights were on, making it look warm and inviting, and I wanted to run inside. Remembering the tiny vegetable garden I'd planted with my father in the front yard, I broke down and wept cleansing tears that had been bottled up for a long time. Huddled on the steps, engulfed in memories and caressed by them, I felt calm again. As I got up and walked away, my strength had been renewed.
My fears turned out to be unjustified. I was accepted at Hahnemann Medical School in Philadelphia, the alma mater of both my parents. For them, this was almost too good to be true. I had turned my life around. They not only paid for my school tuition and housing but also offered emotional support. So in late August of 1975, I packed up my van and my black Labrador retriever, and we drove to the East Coast.
My new home was a studio apartment in an old converted 1920s brownstone with art deco trim. It was directly adjacent to the Philadelphia Art Museum and across the street from a two-story Catholic convent. My window looked directly into the convent's front garden, giving me an unobstructed view of a pure white life-size statue of Jesus. In the winter, the statue would often be half buried in snow. I liked to think it was watching over me.
The first few months of medical school elicited great resistance. Nothing in my life looked familiar; I felt I had been swallowed by a black hole. My days were regimented, planned down to the last minute, so much more rigid than pre-med had ever been. In the early mornings, my only time for myself, my dog and I would walk through Fairmount Park and watch the crew teams rowing past the banks of dogwoods and azaleas down the Schuylkill River.