A former NASA scientist has revealed what death is “really like” after claiming she died three times and left her body before being brought back.
Ingrid Honkala says her first near-death experience happened when she was just two years old after she fell into a tank of icy water at home.
The now 55 year old says she slipped out of the “physical world” before being rescued and revived by her mum.
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“I remember the shock of the icy water hitting my body and the panic of struggling to breathe,” Ingrid, from Bogotá, Colombia, told Need To Know.
“Then something extraordinary happened.
“Instead of fear, a deep calm came over me.
“The panic disappeared and was replaced by an overwhelming sense of peace and stillness.
“It felt as if my awareness separated from my body.
“My next memories are not of the physical world, but of an expanded state of awareness.
“I remember seeing my small body floating lifeless in the water.
“At that moment, I no longer felt like a child in a body but like pure consciousness, a field of awareness and light.
“There was no sense of time, no fear, and no thoughts.
“Instead, there was a deep knowing that everything was interconnected.
“I felt completely unified with life itself, as if the boundaries that normally define who we are had dissolved.
“It felt like being immersed in a vast intelligence filled with love, clarity, and peace.
“Even though I was only two years old, that experience left a profound imprint on my consciousness.
“During the experience, my awareness seemed to move beyond my body.
“I remember seeing my mother several blocks away from our home as she was walking to her first day at a new job.
“I remember recognising her and thinking ‘that’s my mom’.
“At that moment there seemed to be a form of communication between us, not through spoken words, but through awareness.”
Ingrid claims her mum suddenly turned around and rushed home, where she found Ingrid unconscious in the water.
Years later, when Ingrid shared what she had seen, her mum said the details matched exactly.
She said: “When she arrived, she found my body in the water tank where I had drowned.
“The maid who was supposed to be watching us was in another room listening to the radio and had no idea what had happened.”
Ingrid says the experience changed her life forever, leaving her with no fear of death.
She said: “From that moment forward, I no longer feared death.
“The experience showed me that what we call the afterlife did not feel like a distant place at all.
“Instead, it felt like entering a deeper layer of reality that exists beyond our physical senses.
“In that state, consciousness felt vast, intelligent, and interconnected.
“To me, the experience suggested that consciousness may not be produced solely by the brain – it may be something more fundamental.
“From the outside, life simply continued.
“But internally, something had changed.
“Even as a young child, I carried a quiet knowing that who we truly are is not limited to the physical body.
“As I grew older, I continued to have unusual spiritual experiences, including encounters with what I later described as Beings of Light, luminous presences that communicated through awareness rather than spoken language.
“Growing up with these experiences was not always easy.
“I often felt different from other children because I carried a deep awareness of interconnectedness that most people around me did not seem to understand.
“Another unusual aspect of my childhood after the experience was a sudden expansion in my mental abilities.
“Learning often did not feel like acquiring new knowledge.
“It felt more like remembering something I already knew.
“This sometimes made it difficult to relate to other children and deepened my sense of feeling different.”
Incredibly, Ingrid claims she has had two more near-death experiences since – one at 25 in a motorcycle crash, and another at 52 during surgery when her blood pressure suddenly dropped.
Each time, she says, she returned to the same peaceful state.
While sceptics argue such experiences are hallucinations caused by the brain under extreme stress, Ingrid believes something far deeper is at play.
She said: “These experiences transformed my understanding of life itself.
“Instead of seeing ourselves as isolated individuals struggling to survive, I began to understand that we may be expressions of consciousness experiencing life through a physical form.
“From that perspective, death does not feel like the end of existence, it feels more like a transition in the continuum of consciousness.
“Through these experiences I also came to feel that, at the deepest level, life never truly ends, consciousness continues.”
Despite her extraordinary claims, Ingrid went on to build a high-level scientific career.
She earned a PhD in Marine Science and worked in environmental research, including collaborations with NASA and the US Navy.
She said: “In many ways, my experiences also led me toward science.
“I wanted to understand the nature of reality through observation and research.
“That curiosity led me to study marine biology and oceanography, eventually earning a PhD in Marine Science and working with institutions including NASA and the US Navy.
“For many years I focused almost entirely on my scientific career and rarely spoke publicly about my spiritual experiences.
“Over time, however, I came to see that science and spirituality may not necessarily be in conflict – they may simply be exploring the same mystery from different perspectives.
“My upcoming book, Dying to See the Light: A Scientist’s Guide to Reawakening, explores how scientific inquiry and spiritual awakening can complement one another in understanding consciousness.”
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