I flatlined at a party and saw my lifeless body lying in a chair…. then came a

David Oakford was just 19 years old when he suffered a fatal overdose on drugs at a house party in suburban Detroit, Michigan.

The troubled young man claimed that in 1979 he saw his own body lying motionless in a chair, which led to a spiritual experience that changed his views on the afterlife and reality.

Oakford, now 47, began to pray to God, saying he was then rescued by an angel, who explained that time does not exist in the way humans understand it and warned him that ghosts remain trapped, repeating the same behaviors over and over again.

He told the Daily Mail the spirit revealed that ‘time is past, present and future, but it’s not separated, it’s all in one.’

After returning, Oakford said he tried to tell his family about what had happened but was quickly dismissed. ‘I don’t want to know about it,’ he recalled his mother telling him.’

‘More than one time, someone told me, “Stop your crazy talk.” So that’s what made me hibernate. No one’s gonna listen to me,’ he said.

More than four decades later, Oakford said he still believes the mysterious entity watches over him every day. ‘It really affects me now. I know that he’s with me. I know that he protects me. I talk with him every night,’ he said.

Despite returning to everyday life, Oakford said the experience permanently changed him. He stopped using hard drugs afterward, though alcohol remained a problem for years before he finally became sober in 2012.

Now living in western Montana near Glacier National Park, Oakford said the terrifying encounter completely transformed his understanding of what happens after death. 

He grew up in Warren, a suburb outside Detroit, and described himself as an unsettled teenager from a troubled home who started smoking cigarettes at just six years old.

At the time, he had fallen in with a crowd involved heavily in drugs and alcohol.

‘I know I should have been doing it, but I didn’t actually know how to quit,’ he said.

Oakford had hoped to leave Michigan behind and start a new life in the West, but after losing his driving license, his plan to ride a bicycle across the country failed.

Instead, he decided to spend one final day partying with friends.

According to Oakford, the group spent the entire day drinking and taking drugs before he decided he wanted something stronger.

‘I had this friend who could go out and get anything, so I asked my friend to get me stuff,’ he recalled.

‘He went out and came back and gave me this brown rock. I remember him saying it was some kind of cocaine, but I didn’t know what kind.’

Oakford said he cut up the substance and snorted roughly half a gram before later learning it was crack cocaine, which was already circulating in parts of the United States before the better-known crack epidemic of the 1980s.

Shortly afterward, he said he lost consciousness. What happened next, Oakford said, left him terrified.

‘The longer I was out, the more I was looking at myself, and the more I tried to get away,’ he said.

He claimed he desperately tried to leave the house while loud rock music blasted in the background.

‘I needed to get out of the house because this music was playing, and we had played music all day, just rock music. The Doors, all Black Sabbath bands like that,’ he said.

He claimed he tried to unplug the stereo and switch it off, but could not touch the buttons or cords.

‘I wanted to get out of the house, I couldn’t get out of the house, I couldn’t touch anything, I tried to turn off the music, and I couldn’t unplug it,’ Oakford said.

At one point, he said he looked into a bathroom mirror and saw nothing staring back at him.

Oakford said he attempted to crawl back toward his body before realizing he was hovering above the ground.

‘I couldn’t touch the floor. I couldn’t feel the floor, and that kind of scared me,’ he said.

Eventually, he remembered praying during his years attending Christian school as a child.

Although he said he disliked most aspects of religious school, prayer had stayed with him.

He said he prayed to God and admitted: ‘I really messed up here.’

According to Oakford, that was the moment a strange spirit-like entity suddenly appeared.

He described the being as ‘like an energy, floating by the door, and not touching the floor.’ Oakford said the entity told him: ‘I can help you.’

He was initially suspicious because he remembered biblical warnings that evil spirits could disguise themselves.

But he became convinced the entity was trustworthy after it began describing deeply personal childhood memories he had forgotten.

‘[The entity] started telling me about things I did when I was a kid, I was really young, like three, four years old, like that. He told me stuff, stuff that I did, and he told me things that I had forgotten about,’ Oakford said.

He claimed the pair then ‘melted’ out of the house and into the driveway.

The being eventually revealed a long, complicated name, but Oakford chose to call him ‘Bob,’ who then explained that time itself was an illusion.

‘He said that time is past, present, and future, but it’s not separated, it’sall in one, It’s not, it’s not three different times. It’s all one,’ Oakford said.

He said Bob explained that some of the energies were created by ghosts trapped endlessly repeating their former behaviors.

Oakford believed the warning related directly to his own addiction struggles.

He said the experience eventually convinced him that human beings can manipulate energy through the choices they make in life.

After returning, Oakford said he tried to tell his family about what had happened but was quickly dismissed.

‘I don’t want to know about it,’ he recalled his mother telling him.

‘More than one time, someone told me, “Stop your crazy talk.” So that’s what made me hibernate. No one’s gonna listen to me,’ he said.

Despite returning to everyday life, Oakford said the experience permanently changed him.

Today, Oakford says he no longer follows organized religion but considers himself deeply spiritual.

He also insists he never stopped believing that Bob remains with him.

‘After the experience, see, I didn’t want to come back here. I didn’t want to come back here. I wanted to stay there, and I couldn’t,’ he said.