Pamela Reynolds was an American singer-songwriter (she died in 2010) who had an NDE in 1991 at the age of 35.
She was being operated on to treat a large brain-stem aneurysm, a surgery that required lowering her body temperature to 10 C and stopping her heart (a procedure known as hypothermic cardiac arrest). During this period there would have been no cerebral circulation, and Pamela had her eyes taped shut (to protect the corneas during surgery).

Here is her telling of the experience as recounted in Pim van Lommel’s book ‘Consciousness Beyond Life’.

I don’t remember an operating room. I don’t remember seeing Doctor Spetzler at all. I was with a fellow; one of his fellows was with me at that time. After that . .. nothing. Absolutely nothing. Until the sound . .. and the sound was . .. unpleasant. It was guttural. It was reminiscent of being in a dentist’s office. And I remember the top of my head tingling, and I just sort of popped out of the top of my head. The further out of my body, I got, the more clear the tone became. I remember seeing several things in the operating room when I was looking down. I was the most aware that I’ve ever been in my entire life. And I was then looking down at my body, and I knew that it was my body. But I didn’t care. I thought the way they had my head shaved was very peculiar. I expected them to take all of the hair, but they didn’t.
I was metaphorically sitting on Dr Spetzler’s shoulder. It wasn’t like normal vision. It was brighter and more focused and clearer than normal vision. There was so much in the operating room that I didn’t recognize, and so many people. I remember the instrument in his hand; it looked like the handle of my electric toothbrush. I had assumed that they were going to open the skull with a saw. I had heard the term saw, but what I saw looked a lot more like a drill than a saw. It even had little bits that were kept in this case that looked like the case that my father stored his socket wrenches in when I was a child. I saw the grip of the saw, but I didn’t see them use it on my head, but I think I heard it being used on something. It was humming at a relatively high pitch. I remember the heart-lung machine. I didn’t like the respirator…I remember a lot of tools and instruments that I did not readily recognise. And I distinctly remember a female voice saying “we have a problem” Her arteries are too small. And then a male voice: “Try the other side” It seemed to come from further down the table. I do remember wondering what they were doing because this was brain surgery. What had happened was that they accessed the femoral vein to drain the blood, and I didn’t understand that….I felt a “presence.” I sort of turned around to look at it. And that’s when I saw the very tiny pinpoint of light. And the light started to pull me, but not against my will. I was going of my own accord because I wanted to go. And there was a physical sensation to the point where… and I know how that must sound … nonetheless it’s true. There was a physical sensation, rather like going over a hill real fast. It was like The Wizard of Oz- being taken up in a tornado vortex, only you’re not spinning around. The feeling was like going up in an elevator really fast. It was like a tunnel, but it wasn’t a tunnel. And I went toward the light. The closer I got to the light, I began to discern different figures, different people, and I distinctly heard my grandmother calling me. She has a very distinct voice. But I didn’t hear her call me with my ears. . .. It was a clearer hearing than with my ears. And I immediately went to her. The light was incredibly bright, like sitting in the middle of a lightbulb.
I noticed that as I began to discern different figures in the light-and they were all covered with light, they were light, and had light permeating all around them–they began to form shapes I could recognize and understand. And I saw many, many people I knew and many, many I didn’t know, but I knew that I was somehow and in some way connected to them. And it felt … great Everyone I saw, looking back on it, fit perfectly into my understanding of what that person looked like at their best during their lives.
I recognized a lot of people. And one of them was my grandmother. And saw my uncle Gene, who passed away when he was only thirty-nine years old. He taught me a lot, he taught me to play my first guitar.
So was my great-great-aunt Maggie On papa’s side of the family, my grandfather was there. They were taking care of me, looking after me.
They wouldn’t permit me to go further. They communicate with me — that’s the best way I know how to say it because they didn’t speak like I am speaking— that if I went all the way into the light something would happen to me physically. They would be unable to put (this) me back into the body (me). Like I had gone too far and they couldn’t reconnect. So they wouldn’t let me go anywhere or do anything.
I wanted to go into the light, but I also wanted to come back. I had children to be reared. It was like watching a movie on fast forward on your VCR. You get the general idea, but the individual freeze-frames aren’t slow enough to get detail. … Sparkles is the image that I get. I asked if God was the light, and the answer was:
No, God is not the light, the light is what happens when God breathes.” And I distinctly remember thinking: I’m standing in the breath of God. .
At some point in time I was reminded that it was time to go back. Of course I had made my decision to go back before I ever lay down on that table. But, you know, the more I was there, the better liked it (laughs). My grandmother didn’t take me back through the tunnel or even send me back or ask me to go. She just looked up at me. expected to go with her. My uncle was the one who brought me back down to the body. But then I got to where the body was, and I looked at the thing, and I for sure didn’t want to get in it because it looked pretty much like what it was: void of life. I believe it was covered. It scared me, and I didn’t want to look at it. And I knew it would hurt, so I didn’t want to get in. But he kept reasoning with me. He says: “Like diving into a swimming pool, just jump in” No. “What about the children?” You know what, the children are fine (laughs). And he goes: “Honey, you got to go. No. He pushed me, he gave me a little help there. It’s taken a long time, but think I’m ready to forgive him for that (laughs) I saw the body jump. And then he pushed me, and I returned to my body. jump. . And it was like diving into a pond.
It was like diving into a pool of iced water. It hurt!

When I came back, and I was still under general anesthesia in
the operating theater, they were playing “Hotel California, and the line was “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.” I mentiontioned (later) to Dr. Brown that that was incredibly insensitive, and he told me that I needed to sleep more (laughs).
When I regained consciousness, I was still on the respirator.

Pam concludes her account by saying,I think death is an illusion, I think death is a reallly nasty bad lie.

Consciousness Beyond Life.

Critics of Pamela’s experience suggest that she was experiencing ‘anaesthesia awareness’ and was in fact reporting events constructed from the sounds and sensations she could feel combined with her prior expectations of the surgery.

Supporters argue that it is highly unlikely that a brain not receiving blood circulation would be capable of having complex, meaningful, lucid experiences as she described them. Many of the procedures she described were clinically verifiable and descriptions of the type of drill, the equipment (of which many pieces remain wrapped and unseen until after the anaesthetic is administered), and of the surgeons operating on her groin would not be knowable to a layperson.

Photo by Piron Guillaume