Otherworld - Beyond the Wall Pt. 1

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

In 1989, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nina was on the street outside her workplace when she was approached by a man identifying himself as a police officer. He said that he needed to tak...e her in for questioning in regard to her boyfriend, which made sense given the people her boyfriend was involved with at the time. She got into the police car, and as they drove through the streets of Berlin, she had a terrible feeling something was not right.Warning: This series covers many different difficult topics; sex trafficking, violence, assault and abuse.

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:14 Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner. Part of the reason I wanted to start this show in the first place is that I knew that so many people are out there who have experienced something unexplainable, but don't feel comfortable talking about it for a variety of reasons. I'm sure everybody's heard me say that many times. I also suspected that there might be many people who have lived through incredible but non-paranormal
Starting point is 00:00:43 events in their lives that they do talk about, but maybe have one strange, unexplainable aspect of that story that they leave out of the version they tell to the public because it's just too weird or hard to explain. I used to find myself wondering how many of the people I'd see on the news every night who had gone through the most extreme things in life had something like that, a strange, unexplainable part of their story that they've always kept to themselves. It's always been my hope that I could end up being able to talk to some of these people and hear the full version of already shocking stories.
Starting point is 00:01:24 This episode is one of those. Although for the most part, this story is not about the paranormal, it is far more intense than most episodes, and I think you'll understand what I mean once you hear it. It comes from a German woman named Nina, and it takes place in 1989, in West Germany, right after the fall of the Berlin Wall. For those unfamiliar, Germany was divided up after World War II, West Germany being supported by the Allies and East Germany being controlled by the Soviet Union.
Starting point is 00:02:01 The wall was built between these sides later on, dividing the city of Berlin in half, and the wall became a powerful symbol of the Cold War. In 1989, the wall was physically torn down by protesters and eventually Germany unified into one. I say all of this because I think it's so wild to me to know that this story takes place immediately in the wake of that event. And if you haven't seen photos or videos of the wall coming down, I highly recommend looking that up so you fully understand. Nina has been through so much in her life. She has an incredible life story. I spoke to her for over six hours
Starting point is 00:02:45 and feel very lucky to have heard all of this. What's interesting is that Nina was very concise in her original submission. She was very matter of fact, and to the point, she did not include much about herself in that email, and I only learned certain things while reading the very limited amount of information available. about what happened to her.
Starting point is 00:03:08 I ended up asking her about these things early into the interview and wound up learning a lot more about Nina's life than I ever expected. It turns out that Nina had a quite difficult childhood and is a survivor of sex trafficking. At a very young age, she found herself in the red light district of West Berlin,
Starting point is 00:03:30 which is where the story takes place. So, that's where we will begin and there is a lot more coming. I'm going to let Nina take it from here and tell the rest herself. I don't want to give any spoilers, but this episode covers many difficult topics. Sex trafficking, violence, assault, abuse.
Starting point is 00:03:55 There is a lot, and I just want to give a blanket warning before we start. This episode is called Beyond the Wall Part 1, and you're listening to Otherworld. Is it Bobby? At its core, the science, you can't argue. I'm not worried about all the science. Open the sky.
Starting point is 00:04:18 It's almost frustrating that it's happening. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. It's just like wrong. Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them a minute. My name is Nina Ashbourne. I am over 50 years young. I live very close with my family.
Starting point is 00:05:10 We have private property and I love gardening there. And I am an author. Help people in crisis, well, not in crises, but to understand themselves better or through grief. I grew up in West Berlin when the wall was still up. And so original, my family came from the south of Germany, which was Bavaria. And my mom divorced my dad, and she moved to West Berlin
Starting point is 00:05:55 because it offered much more freedom and more open-minded people. And the reason it was so was because after the Second World War, when the four alleys got together, The west part of Germany, including West Berlin, this is why it called West Berlin, was occupied by France, England and Americans, because the Germans were not allowed to have unsupervised military anymore after that happened with Hitler. So Berlin, West Berlin was a very artistic, very spiritual growing up with those, I see that today as a privilege. So you would feel safe. So I grew up as a teenager where you could always find a bus that would bring you home. You would always find a subway to get you home.
Starting point is 00:07:01 It was not a city where you had to be careful or you had to watch yourself because this was a ghetto area or something. No, it was really very protected, open, no matter if you were part of nightlife or day life or both. Like I was, I was 20, you know, my whole teenager years there. But like with 15, 16, when you start to discover disco takes, this is where you would go and you would always feel safe. safe to go home no matter what time. Or even, you know, when we experimented with drinking, we would always watch out for each other. When we were in West Berlin,
Starting point is 00:07:45 we still had the subways that would pass part of East Berlin. So East Berlin is like the other half from Berlin, right? From the whole Berlin, which they just divided. So the subways that we used would also go through the dark, through the train stations from the east side, which we were not allowed to. So the train slowed down. The lights were just little lights on the train stations. There were East Russian soldiers. And it was always, they don't open the door.
Starting point is 00:08:26 They have fire on you. So for a child like me or a girl, I always thought there's no sun in East Berlin. There was no sun shining because we always had to take the subway and it was always dark. So as a teenager in West Berlin and having a mom like I had, my mom was not, she didn't want to be a mom. And because I was a very sensitive girl and I think this is important for to understand my entire story. is that my mom decided when I was 12 years young to give me away.
Starting point is 00:09:06 Not because I was a bad girl or did things I shouldn't have done. It was because I needed her attention that she was not willing to give. So I was always calling her saying, Mom, come home, Mom do this with me. Mom, I want to do homework. Please come, come, come. And my sister was different. My sister was more a tomboy. I was not.
Starting point is 00:09:29 I played with dolls and all my teddy bears. I was playing with butterflies. I was a complete different breed than my sister. And I needed my mom. And that was too much for my mom. And my mom would bring me to a place, usually runaway kids run to. So with 12, she would pick me up when I had a sleepover. And all my suitcases were already.
Starting point is 00:09:59 in the car and she just dropped me off and that was the story with my mom. We had a very great relationship all those years after. I'm just saying that. But back to when I was 12, this is what my mom did and I was allowed to find myself a new home. The new home because I was a very, like I said, very gentle girl, well-mannered. The government or the state, they saw. for me to be in a place where I would learn to ride a horse and like mother fancy. And I didn't want to.
Starting point is 00:10:39 There were over 200 girls and I was scared. So I found a little home and it's tough for 12 year old to find her home. So I found a home that had 11 other teenagers. It was super wise. We all live together like roommates. It was a very awesome, a very, very. very awesome time to look back to. Now you have to imagine there, of course, is happening a trauma, right?
Starting point is 00:11:11 There's a 12-year-old girl. She doesn't know that her mom doesn't want to have her anymore. Right, like so that was, of course, traumatic for me as a kid. I appreciated the home I was in. But then it settled down with 16. I got my first apartment and I still saw once a week. my supervisor and I worked after school in a daycare voluntarily. It was just something I wanted to do. And then when I was 17, I met, I got a dog, my first dog, and I took a walk with that dog
Starting point is 00:11:52 and in the park. And there was a man, a very good-looking man. He came to me and said, well, it must be very difficult to train a young dog all yourself. And I looked at him and I said, oh my gosh, he looks so nice. And he was so kind. And I said, no, it's okay. You know, I'm learning. And then he said, if you want to, you know, we can have a hot chocolate. It was no time where I was drinking coffee.
Starting point is 00:12:30 So it was hot chocolate. So I met him and then we met again. We started to date and we dated more and more and more and more and more and I fell in love with him. I was 17 and he was probably 25, 26. I fell drawn to him. I would listen to him. I learned from him and I was in love with him. them. And then one day he said, hey, on Sunday we will have a meeting and I want to introduce
Starting point is 00:13:08 you to very rich people and you have to dress nicely. And I remember I told my sister and because I said, what do I wear? I don't know what to wear. And she said, I help you to put stuff together. And she, when I told her, she said, don't go. There's something off. And it was, but I didn't listen because I was in love. Of course, I wanted to do it. So he picked me up. I dressed nicely. I had a mild makeup on and I would come to this place and there were eight men sitting in suits around a big long table. So we sat down and everything was focused on me. So she is the one, she wants to do that.
Starting point is 00:14:10 Are you sure? And he said, yeah, I'm sure. And I was not supposed to say anything. So I didn't. And then the boss there was, would say, okay, then she starts next Sunday at 7 p.m. And I didn't know what it meant. And then on the way back, when he brought me back home,
Starting point is 00:14:38 he explained that I have to work in a kind of like hotel environment with rich people to escort them. And I said, I can't, oh my God, oh my God, like, no. and I started to cry I was super overbound and then he got very upset and he hit with his fist his doors from inside the car
Starting point is 00:15:12 and he would say I paid a lot of money for doing so and if you don't do it now they're going to kill me I am 17 still West Berlin with a wall right so I did go trying and it was said okay here is a bar and if you have a customer you have to have him buying you a drink
Starting point is 00:15:44 if he doesn't buy the drink you have to pay for the drink if you buy if he buys champagne you have like 10 customers for free like there were rules there were rules And I panicked more and more. There was a woman and she came and she would say, so what's your name? And I told her my name and she said, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't have your real name here. So I invented a different name. And because I didn't know how to wear makeup, I didn't know what to wear, I didn't know what to do,
Starting point is 00:16:22 this fancy society world was not something that I have explored yet. It was fascinating to me. So she took me under her wing and she showed me how to put makeup on, how to do my hair, how to style myself, how to not go for cheap perfume. It was all about being classy, having good material on your body because this is important for your skin. I mean, it was so educative. and it was so fascinating to me.
Starting point is 00:16:58 It was nothing at that time then, even when I was scared, where I felt forced to because it was a new world. It was so fascinating. And we women became sisters. And I was very welcome there. We women hold together and we help each other.
Starting point is 00:17:21 We watch out for each other. Then the lady who took me under her wing because I was 17, right? And even if it was allowed to let's say the word prostitution, no matter what, if you say hostess,
Starting point is 00:17:39 if you say escort, no matter what you want to put on it, right? It would come down to eventually that you have a customer who wants to have being intimate with you. We don't have to put a blind eye
Starting point is 00:17:54 on that. And yet this lady who put me under her wing, she knew two things. One, I was 17. It's not allowed. Everybody knew. And that was a great protection for me. The other part was that she said important is that you will do anything so that you don't have to sell your body. And here's how.
Starting point is 00:18:22 And she taught me. She initiated me and she did it by that she would never let me be alone. She would say in the first month of your work, I will take you with me and you observe how I communicate with a client. And I did. And I learned. I aligned with my customers. Those were customers like doctors, lawyers, scientists, like really high. society people it was not about having sex it was about either when they were married it was such a
Starting point is 00:19:05 unhappy marriage for so many reasons and we were the one who would understand them so my teacher so to speak she taught me how to really listen and how to remember what they shared with you so when they see you again that you could ask, hey, how's your daughter? Did she pass a test? How was this deal that you were about to sign? And I learned to interact with people in a way that they felt seen. And the advantage for me was that I was protected. There was not one man in the entire career at that time that was unhappy and said, I just want to have sex with you. Not once. Nevertheless, there was still the whole Pimp milieu, right? The whole Pimp stories. So the man that I had, and he becomes, again, a typical Nina story, this man, to meet with those men, how he got there,
Starting point is 00:20:22 and how he had the idea that he wanted to have a woman walking for him. This is how we would call it. She is walking for him, right? So I am his prostitute. So his parents have been separated. His father was part of the Hell Angels. He has never met. When he knew and learned about his father,
Starting point is 00:20:48 he knew that his father delivered young, woman to the whole prostitution pimp milieu field. So now he was 26 of what he was, 27 maybe, he learned that about his dad that he has never met and that when he learned about it was when he met me in the park and he wanted to be a good boy. And this is how he contacted his father. I have a girl that wants to work in that field.
Starting point is 00:21:26 Can you help me? They have never met before. And this is why he flipped when I said, I don't want to do it. It was not because he was afraid they could beat him up or kill him. Like he yelled at me. No, it was he wanted to be the good son in the eyes of his father. What was the split? like what was he taking from you each client?
Starting point is 00:21:54 He would come and he would say so how much did you make? I would say 300 on this one client and then he said give it to me. I never kept a penny. Oh my God. And then the girls would ask me between clients. They said, why is he always showing up? This is not typical. Usually the man drops off the pimp, man drops of the woman.
Starting point is 00:22:19 they leave and then at midnight or two, three a.m., they come, pick you up and then you tell them how much you made and you keep a certain amount. Why? Because you have to buy clothes, you have to buy makeup, you have to take care, you know, you go to beauticians and, you know, you take care of yourself. And he took everything. So they started to ask me and I said, oh, so you keep money? Like I didn't, I had no, I mean, I was so innocent. I had no clue what the rules were. I, you know, grew into them and with them. And then they complained at the main boss,
Starting point is 00:23:02 and they said he's coming after every customer. He is taking all her money. She has nothing. She is not allowed to keep anything. And we want him gone. And he got kicked out by the main boss. He said, if you ever come close to her, again if you ever show up here you will be in trouble so they paid him out because he paid
Starting point is 00:23:29 to the stead for me or you know the father had to pay those people so he had they out of honor like i said there were laws of honor unspoken so he got paid out and it was agreed on that he will never ever be part of that night life again and here i was with no No pimp. Okay, we have to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with the rest of Nina's story. So the new guy came and he said, I know who you are. It's okay for you to be here, but you have to pay me a weekly fee and I make it very low for you. You don't have to have a man because I made myself a name by now.
Starting point is 00:24:47 I was very honored. I was appreciated. And then I met my boyfriend. So it was easy to go back. It was in the beginning with my boyfriend, of course, conflicts. He was sad. He didn't like it. And then he just sniffed the money too.
Starting point is 00:25:13 And, you know, I spoiled him. And it was then easier to accept and to live with. So before the war came down, so we are now in 1989, and it started, if you see the geographic part, we had concerts in front of, it called Reistak, it's a very monumental historical place, and there were always concerts. It was a place where Hitler had his rules from, and we had always. concerts towards our side. And now it started in the very beginning of the year, like, let's say, around March, 89, April, 89 forward. We had concerts there, but the loudspeakers were turned around to the east side and artists from around the world, like Bruce Springsteen, they would sing songs, they would sing songs, also German artists, they would start to sing songs,
Starting point is 00:26:13 you are not forgotten, we help you, we are here. We are here. We are. we go through that. And that caused that on the East Berlin side, people started to go on the streets. The first time in over 25, 27 years, they were not afraid anymore to get killed. That was always, there were many people killed. And now they started to revolt. And we heard that in our news. And we thought, like, oh, my gosh, but nobody would ever think that the wall came.
Starting point is 00:26:48 would come down. That was never occurred to no one. Not on the east side, neither on the west side. So it was a Thursday night and I was out with my friends and we walked the streets around and I get really emotional in that moment because it's like 7 p.m.
Starting point is 00:27:12 And the streets are just normal. Normal cars like always Thursday nights. Like it was just West Berlin night or evening life. You would know, you go to a bar, you go to a club. And all of a sudden, the whole scenery changed. All of a sudden, there were so many cars, and they stink, they had cheap cars,
Starting point is 00:27:33 and you just know those are from the east. The West side would not build those cars. And they were all of a sudden traffic. It was like in between like 20 minutes from 7. p.m. on to 7.30. All of a sudden there was traffic everywhere, stinky cars. The cars were stinky because of the gasoline that they used. I don't know if it was diesel or even less than diesel. Nobody could go forward or backwards. Berlin was full. It was so full. And we would say, what happened? Like, you know, people had their windows down. It's cold. It's November. And they had
Starting point is 00:28:18 The windows rolled down and we said, what happened, what happened? And people were screaming saying the wall came down, the wall came down. And all of a sudden, everything has changed because the people were not only insider. It was not the people from West Berlin. All of a sudden the borders were open. We had people in tremendous amounts from Poland, from Romania. and they do really have mafia going on and we have not been used to those.
Starting point is 00:28:56 Even those pimps or those business pimps you know they had their jobs and had their positions and have been honored and acknowledged and all of a sudden especially Romania they came and they would just they say I want to have this part of the street
Starting point is 00:29:19 So how do I get in there? Yeah, you can't. Well, we will see. And then all of a sudden, it was very brutal. It became violent, brutal. And all those unspoken codes of honor didn't count anymore. And what happened then one night was, so my at that time, still boyfriend, he started to hang out with a rock.
Starting point is 00:29:49 people and he changed his character has changed and I could not rely on him anymore but we had the plan that I that we will save all the money that I give it him in trust and he invests in trusts in he became very sloppy he would start to hang out with other women and he started to take cocaine and, yeah, there were drug deals involved. So there was a lot of things that I didn't even know because this is nothing you speak with your woman about. Yeah, and then one night when I was outside, I was waiting for my boyfriend. We had a date for 1 a.m.
Starting point is 00:30:56 And then he didn't show up, but five minutes later, this undercover cop show. up instead. A man, he pulled up with his car and he came towards me and he said, I have to arrest you because we have to ask questions about your boyfriend. He had like an undercover car. And so when he pulled up and he was wearing like those calves on his belt, he had. He had a radio in his hand, he had a badge. There was no indication for me to doubt. There was no spark of doubt. I believed he was an undercover cop.
Starting point is 00:31:49 We just didn't know them. Or I just didn't know him because usually we would know them. Right? You stand there. There's a cop. He says he has to arrest you because they want to ask you questions. So now it was plural. It was not him alone.
Starting point is 00:32:06 And it was, for me, clear, it was just about the transportation. So I go in his undercover car and we would go to the police department. This is what I believed is going to happen. It is December. The wall was down three and a half weeks. So everything was still very new. It was like, okay, so we go. there were short moments where I thought why would we go to that police department
Starting point is 00:32:40 why wouldn't we go to the other one there were like short moments where thoughts come up and yet there was still no doubt he's a cop and I wanted to protect my boyfriend because I was at that point so concerned about him I'm 20 years now I'm with him for or no him for over a year and we are together for nine months and I wanted to protect him because I was so worried about him
Starting point is 00:33:13 that he meets and hangs around with the wrong people and I thought oh my gosh this might be it so I will protect him and then he and I can have a conversation later and say hey we should withdraw from the entire scenery
Starting point is 00:33:28 and that was the only moment where I thought okay if I get jailed or if I have to go into an interview, I will not have fresh air. So I rolled down the window. While I was doing it, there was a second way I thought, I should scream out
Starting point is 00:33:45 and say somebody has to write down the license plate. This was just like a tiny, idiot, moment, but I didn't. I did not scream. So now I roll down the window, the traffic light turns green, and he says, roll up the window.
Starting point is 00:34:03 So I have no handcuffs on nothing, right? I'm still free-ish. And she said, and I said, no, if I, you know, if I have to be with you now in the department, I try to get fresh air as much as I can, which was sassy for me, which I was, that was not typical for my character. So there might have been something that I felt intuitively, but I can't really, recall. But still it was no doubt he is a cop. It was not about like, or could he be a fake cop. He was still a cop in my entire, well, not the entire time. At some point it changed, but at that time, absolutely. So now he didn't like it that the window was open because he knew what he wanted
Starting point is 00:34:58 to do. I didn't. So he stopped his car and he said, okay. I have to put handcuffs on you. And I voluntarily, like, right, like voluntarily would hand him my hands in front of me. I put my wrists over across. And I said, here, do it. And he said, no, not in front of you in the back. And I was still, okay. So I bent forward and I put my hands on the back of my back.
Starting point is 00:35:33 and he puts the handcuffs on. And they have been very tight. Like really tight. I have never been in handcuffs before, but it was definitely not necessary to have them so tight. And then he rolled up the window and he knew that was a moment. He knew he got me. And then we kept driving and it was still in the direction
Starting point is 00:36:03 of the police department. I was still convinced it's a cop. And then I said, hey, can you losing them a little? It's like they cut my wrists. And he didn't answer. There was no, he knew he got me. And we passed the police department. And as we pass, he says, before we go there, we go somewhere else.
Starting point is 00:36:35 And in that moment, I had really faster heartbeats. It started that I not panicked, but I thought, oh my gosh, this is one of those cops that beat up prostitutes or escorts or, you know, like, you know, from movies. And then he, you know, I will come all bruised up to the police department. and he will not admit that it was him. Still convinced he is a cop. Now, as we pass, when you know that area, the police department was in a nearby one of the main parks, beautiful park in Berlin.
Starting point is 00:37:27 So when he passed there, there was right behind it, a little area where truck drivers could park overnight so they got their sleep. And it was a little downhill and there was no truck driver. It was just him and I. And he got his car to stop. I was still convinced now I thought, okay, I will get raped, I will get beaten up and then we will go to the police department.
Starting point is 00:38:01 That's what I thought. But that did not happen. What happened was, so he turns on the interior light and he pulls from the back seat a backpack in the middle between the passenger and the driver's seat on this console. And he opens it. Every move was like he knew every move was so precise. And then he pulled out a head. a knitted head and he pulled it over my head. So now I have my visual scent.
Starting point is 00:38:46 It's gone. So now everything was about what I hear. His breathing, his arm motions. I was very dependent now on my ears, still thinking it's a cop. and I could see through those little because it was a knitted head they had those little loops and you still see the light so I knew the interior light was still on
Starting point is 00:39:15 but he was busy with his backpack he was doing things and then I heard a canister with a liquid in there you can hear that you know those noises from those aluminum cans or what they're made out of and you hear liquid in there. And I thought, oh my gosh, this is the guy who burns women alive.
Starting point is 00:39:43 This is gasoline. This is it. I'm going to die. And this is what I then was convinced of that now he will pour gasoline over me and will lit me up and I'm going to die, burn to death alive. And I started to take deep breaths and was just, okay, this is it. That it's over, it's done. It's like your life, it's gone.
Starting point is 00:40:15 But instead, that didn't happen. I heard a cloth and this cloth was going in that container. And I started to smell ether. And I knew the scent because. like I said, I wanted to be a veterinarian since I was eight. And when I was in eighth grade, we could work somewhere for two weeks in the area. We wanted to work in the future just to see how it is. So I worked as a veterinarian.
Starting point is 00:40:54 And with the ether liquid, we would take bandages of the fur from the animals. So I knew the scent. So he used that cloth and he was, so see, I'm in the car with a head over and then he just puts it over my nose and mouth and he presses it on it and it's wet, it's soaked wet. And I think, don't breathe it in, but then out I was. So the next thing that I remember is that I thought I was. I'm on an island in a hammock, the view of the ocean, and I am just very happy because I'm on this island. And there's a warm breeze from the wind, from the warm wind, from this beautiful island and from this beautiful ocean. this is the first I remember after getting knocked out
Starting point is 00:42:09 and not knowing I was getting knocked out so I'm on this island and then I hear like and I realize Vata Ma there's a now realities come try the brain tries to make sense out of it and it was the heater that I heard and the warm wind
Starting point is 00:42:34 was from the heater system because as I said it was December so he had the heater on and very slow I came out of this island out of this hammock and I thought wait wait wait oh my wrists are hurting
Starting point is 00:42:53 why are my wrists so hurting because I was laying on them and the handkerers were so tight so I was in pain and the pain started to increase the more conscious I became. And I don't know if I made any noises, but I became very...
Starting point is 00:43:16 So the puzzle pieces came together. Wait, you have been out there. There was this guy, he said, he's a cop. I replayed very slowly. And then, oh my gosh, I'm still here. This was not a dream. Oh, my gosh. I'm, you know, like I realize I'm gonna, he didn't kill me and I don't know what he's up to.
Starting point is 00:43:42 And I panic. So this panic, I mean, I wanted to pull up my legs and I wanted to hit him. And I don't know where we are. I have no clue. Are we still on that parking lot? Did we drive? Were we driving by I was waking up? I have no idea.
Starting point is 00:44:01 I just know the sound of the heater and the wind or the warm air that came out of it and stroke my skin. So now I'm panicking. I try to pull up my legs to kick him. Even wouldn't have done anything. And I noticed that my feet were tight together. So I didn't make it very far. And then I wanted to say something and I couldn't speak because now I also had a gag in my mouth.
Starting point is 00:44:36 I was really tied up, absolute tight up. And then I hear him saying, hey, hey, hey. And I wanted to respond. I obviously, he obviously sensed or knew that I wake up because I tried to kick him. And I don't know if I made any noises like, oh, when I started to remember, like, I don't know. And then he, then I wanted to respond to him with, yeah, I'm here kind of like when he said it, hey, hey. And that made him beating my head and face and whatever he could reach with his fists.
Starting point is 00:45:25 and I remember then I got more ether. But I don't remember did he stop the car, where we're driving, where we still there? I just remember then him calling me and I try to respond and get beaten up. And then I have again this cloth with the ether on my nose and mouse. Yeah, so I wake up again. When I woke up, I was, there was no time in between where I had to puzzle things together. I was awake like that, like absolute aware. And I knew this is a moment I'm going to die.
Starting point is 00:46:17 It was like a, like, I just knew. So I come up with my upper body and I wanted to tell them, hey, you can stop. I'm leaving. And there was no fear, there was no anger, there was no sadness, it was just like, it's done, I'm leaving, I'm out. And I couldn't because I had the gag in my mouth. So I remember I sank back in the seat and in myself. Like I got very relaxed in my body. and now the entire awareness shifted inward.
Starting point is 00:47:06 I heard a very loud noise and this noise was like Z-Zoom! Later in studies I figured it's the blood. You hear your blood stream. I paid attention to that noise and it became so intense that my eardrums, I could feel my eardrums vibrate. And it was so uncomfortable that I thought
Starting point is 00:47:40 if I don't center myself, my eardrumbs will explode because the pressure was built up so high and the noise was like really like drums. Like very loud. It was very loud. Unbearable. loud at some point. So I told myself, center, center, center.
Starting point is 00:48:06 And it's so fascinating because it's still physical awareness. It's just from inside. I don't know what he did. I didn't hear him breathing anymore. There was nothing that had anything to do with the exterior of the physical world. It was all inside. my body very inside. You could have broken my hands or fingers and I wouldn't have awareness about it because
Starting point is 00:48:39 everything was focused on inside. So I withdraw and the noise fades away and I enter this really fast, speedy spiral. And when I say that, so many who had a near-death experience, they describe the tunnel. And it is like a tunnel. But it has,
Starting point is 00:49:16 for me, it has a spiral motion from the bottom to the top. And it's almost, so when we talk about tunnel, so it's wider and then it gets narrow and narrow. And I was just spinning in it like crazy. Like if you would take a ride at the roller coaster and you know one more spin and you vomit.
Starting point is 00:49:45 And as I became aware of that, I commanded myself again to center. And the spinning didn't stop, but I became centered. so I could observe the spins without being part of the spin. So now I'm in that spiral, but I am not part of it. I am the observer and it spins and it's just amazing, nothing's threatening. And the tunnel becomes more narrow and all of a sudden it makes a loud boom and I feel it in my head like an explosion and out I am.
Starting point is 00:50:34 So I know I'm dying. I have this experience. I finally press through what I call a membrane and I know I'm out of my body. I'm completely gone. There's no memory. There's no connection to the body whatsoever and everything is black.
Starting point is 00:50:53 A ocean of stillness. Nothing. Zero. There's nothing. But it's not lifeless, nothing. And while I become aware of that, light sparkles, let's say. Sparkles of a beautiful light appear, golden white. And yet when I say golden light, It's not golden light.
Starting point is 00:51:25 It is one of those colors that you barely can describe. And poets and artists try to find beautiful words for one of those sunrises. And this light at a certain second is just so enchanting. And you know it's not gold and you know it's not white. And you know it is kind of white and it is kind of gold. and it is kind of gold. Like the sunrise is the closest to that light that appears
Starting point is 00:52:02 when we're going to die. And here it is and it starts to fill the void and there's a motion. And this motion I describe as an infinite exhale and simultaneously an infinite inhale.
Starting point is 00:52:23 And it's not, neither of it. It's not an inhale and it's not an exhale, but it is at the same time. And it's just peaceful and all I felt was love. Such a tremendous love. Really beautiful love. Unconditional, endless, infinite. And you are it or I am it. I'm not. separated. I am that love. And in that moment it started to, I say it, and I would prefer to stay with that. It started to talk. But not in words, and yet it was words, because I interpreted it as words that I knew when I came back. And it would ask, are you ready to leave? Now, I'm Even when there's no conscious awareness of the physical body and you have not this ego identity
Starting point is 00:53:44 because I really was separated from the body, there seems to be an individual part of every being on earth and in a body and without a body that still has our imprint of who we are. It just is not as a personality that separates things. It's like, or it doesn't compete. It doesn't, you know, but it's an imprint. So you have a complete different personality as an energetically imprint than I do. And this is what we take with us. And some call this is a soul that always remembers past, life's future,
Starting point is 00:54:35 and the current now. And I would confirm that through the experience I had that night and everything after that followed. And so now it asks me. So my personality is very curious. I always have been. I need stimulation all the time. I need to know new things
Starting point is 00:55:02 because there are so beautiful things to know about. Things that I don't know, I want to know. If things are possible, I want to experience them. And it takes a while to overcome human fears and limitations. But if things are possible as a human, I want to know them. So it asked me, and that was for me not a yes or no question. It was rather me asking a question back. and I have asked who are you because I was so enchanted so mesmerized so in awe that I needed to know what that's the source is because this is what everybody feels this is what everybody desires as a human this is how much you love your mom when you are a child and when your parents
Starting point is 00:56:03 parents get upset with you, you just wish they could feel how much you love them and it's not necessary to punish you or yell at you because this love is so bombastic, like everything that you are. So I ask, who are you? And it said, I am your Holy Spirit. And there it was no doubt. It didn't say, I'm God, I'm Buddha's best friend and I'm here to pick you up. No, so many who had a near-death experience get picked up. I didn't get picked up.
Starting point is 00:56:52 Nobody shows up for me. So there it is saying, I am your Holy Spirit. And I just feel this relief and this, yeah. This is me. This is me. And this is everybody, everybody. And I got asked again, are you ready to leave? And I said, no, no.
Starting point is 00:57:33 I mean, humans need to know. and boom it was so fast it went down and I say down and I mean it in the meaning of gravity this is exactly how it felt downwards like
Starting point is 00:57:52 when you have children or toddlers they start and don't ever get upset with them they always throw stuff down because they discover gravity it's so beautiful to see how beautiful a human being
Starting point is 00:58:10 starts to learn and how fascinating because where we are all from there is no gravity it's amazing everything that you take in your hand and you let it you open your hand and it falls down and so does the soul when the soul incarnates in her body it drops down and it's a it's uh it's uh dark it's cold it's fast and there I was that brings us to the end of part one but luckily you can listen to the rest of Nina's story right now
Starting point is 00:59:11 in part two I want to thank Nina once again for sharing this difficult story with us this has been Beyond the Wall part one and you've been listening to Otherworld Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself Jack Wagner our producers are Theo Schaefer
Starting point is 00:59:30 Theo Krantz, Haley Pearson, and Nikki Kate Delgado. Our theme song is by Cobra Man. The soundtrack of this episode is by Wiccafe's Springs Eternal, Juice Jackal, and North Americans. Our artwork is by Coldassack Studios. Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends about the show. If you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld,
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