Twenty years ago I had a psychic experience. I was not asleep, so it wasn't a dream. It was a sort of vision, I guess, but I only became aware of it after it happened as though it was a psychic memory, and then I could recall it in vivid detail.

At the time I had not yet read the material on OBE's, so I had no awareness of that phenomenon. As the experience began, I was aware that I was a native American somewhere in red rock country out west. I was standing in the cleft of a large boulder or a small hill. The cleft opened up a channel in the rock about three feet wide, and I was standing with my back to one wall, facing the other wall three feet in front of me. I realized that I was hiding and that I was afraid.

On the wall opposite me appeared the shadow of a man. I knew he was standing on the top of the little hill in which I was hiding and that he was hunting me. I pressed back against the wall trying to be as invisible as possible, but I was terrified that he would find me.

Suddenly, arrows started flying into the opening in the rock off to my right where the hill sloped down to the plain. I was hit by one of the arrows. But before I could feel any pain or shock, I was out of my body. I rose swiftly until I had emerged from the top of the cleft and was hovering over the little hill. From there I could see other Indians running into the opening and kicking and stamping on my prone body, celebrating their victory.

I felt nothing about being dead, but I was angry at the way they were treating my body. So I went down to them and said quite forcefully, "This is not a proper way to treat another human being. I may be your enemy but I'm still man. You would not want others to treat you this way, whether you were dead or alive." But of course they couldn't hear me. And that was the end of the past-death recall.

I phoned a psychic friend and asked him to investigate this experience for me. He called back and told me that it appeared to be a legitimate memory, and that it had been brought to me because I was ready to remember it. Then he asked, "Do you have any birthmarks?" I told him I have a small round mark on the left side of my abdomen which has been sensitive my entire life. He said, "That birthmark probably shows the spot where you were hit by the arrow!"