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Some years ago I wound up in the cockpit of a crashed helicopter on its side in flames with fire coming into the cockpit from the cabin like a blow torch and my dead crewmember blocking the only emergency exit. The situation was so overwhelming that I had an 'out of body experience' looking down on myself trapped in the cockpit, being burnt. The experience was not unpleasant, just a sort of curiosity as to what was happening to my body. Realising I was about to perish, I managed, with considerable effort to 'persuade' myself back into my body. It then all became most unpleasant and I only escaped by crawling down over the pedals and breaking a 'chin' window to crawl out onto the burning tarmac and into the spilled fuel fire. I felt no difficulty with deliberately placing hands and arms into the fire as a sort of 'sacrifice' to ensure that the whole of the remainder of me survived. I eventually managed to stand in the fire and smoke and walked 'calmly' out of the inferno. I suffered severe burns but felt little or no pain at the time, although later on the pain was intense. I was hospitalised, grafted here and there etc and I recovered in due course. The out of body experience I remember vividly and it has left me with no fear now to face the inevitable whenever the time and place comes around. I think I experienced the 'safety mechanism' that the mind and body put into effect in such dire circumstances to face the unfaceable. I have no particular faith, but I do love the experience of mornings and evenings, I relate more closely to animals for some reason, and I appreciate more fully all the things which I had taken for granted previously.

"I think I experienced the 'safety mechanism' that the mind and body put into effect in such dire circumstances to face the unfaceable."

Endorphins are natural opiates.

In fact, opiates bind to endorphin receptor sites.

You were naturally anesthatized.

I assume this was a military experience... Thank you for your service and personal sacrifice.