Dave Bennett: Welcomed Home by a Soul Family He Never Knew He Had

Medical Details

On March 3, 1983, during a storm, the Zodiac boat he was in was folded in half by a 25 to 30 foot breaker about a mile offshore. He was thrown into the water and says he breathed salt water and drowned; his old life vest had dry-rotted and become waterlogged, pulling him down. A line wrapped around his arm pulled him to the surface, waves pushed water out of his lungs and he took a breath. He had a dislocated shoulder and thumb. In 2000 he was diagnosed with stage four lung and bone cancer, was cancer-free within six months, and later had three spine surgeries.

The Experience

In 1983, Dave Bennett was the chief engineer of a research vessel doing underwater exploration, his dream job. On a stormy March night, he and others took a small Zodiac boat toward a shallow harbor to bring crew members ashore. About a mile out, a towering breaker came down on them and folded the boat in half, throwing him into the sea. A trained commercial diver, he held his breath as long as he could while being tossed like a rag doll, until he breathed in salt water and drowned.

He found himself instantly in absolute blackness: quiet, serene, calm, and not cold. Though he could see nothing, he did not feel alone; he sensed an infinite presence. A speck of light appeared, and as he drew closer he felt a warm embrace of love growing stronger and stronger. The light, he saw, was made of millions of fragments moving together in unison, like a school of fish.

Three fragments broke away and came to him. He recognized them as family, not from this life, and they welcomed him home. Having grown up moving from one family to the next, he calls it the most emotional homecoming he could ever have known. Soon a dozen beings surrounded him, a soul family.

Together they went deeper into the light, into a spherical space, and he relived his life, not only from his own perspective but from the perspective of everyone he had interacted with. He feared what they would see of the brash young man he had been, but they did not judge him. They supported and loved him, almost excited to share the process with him. He saw how deeply we affect one another. Moving past the moment of his drowning, he says, he glimpsed parts of his future like a clear corridor, with room to step left or right, which he understood as free will.

Then all the light spoke in unison, a voice he perceived as God: "This is not your time. You must return." He argued; he was loved as never before. The light spoke again: "You must return. You have a purpose." Hearing the word purpose, he understood and accepted.

He watched from outside as a line from the wreckage, wrapped around his arm, pulled his body to the surface. As waves pushed the water from his lungs, his soul family gave him a gentle push and he took his first breath. His crewmates found him, and he sensed that his life vest was dragging him down. Releasing it, he swam to shore with them.

How It Changed Their Life

He says he took acceptance, tolerance and truth as his mantra, and for years kept the experience to himself, feeling isolated. After a second experience 11 years later, he left life at sea to be of greater service, found a community of other experiencers and began what he calls his quiet ministry. When he was diagnosed with stage four cancer in 2000, he says he remembered seeing in his life review that he would survive it, and he was cancer-free within six months.