Man who died when he was 20 says the afterlife is real

Ray Catania was declared dead following a gas leak at his home.

Rat Catania, now 57, was declared dead after a gas leak that filled his room and set fire to his parents’ home as he slept.

Speaking to Metro, the man recalled: "All night long, the gas was rising into my bedroom, and I was breathing it in.

"There was a big ball of flames, and the wall caught fire. My father put it out with a fire extinguisher."

Catania woke to the sound of police radio's and firetrucks, but when he attempted to get out of bed, he couldn't.

"I couldn’t move my legs at all. They were completely paralysed. I couldn’t get my head off the pillow; I couldn’t yell or speak," he said.

He managed to pull himself off his bed, resulting in him falling onto the floor.

"I didn’t feel anything because I wasn’t in that body anymore, I was above it, in the corner of my room looking down. I could see my lifeless body.

"And I was soaking wet, because the first thing you do when you die is pee yourself."

He further revealed that in one corner of the room he could see a bright light.

"It was a huge cone shaped white light, but not a light. It was everything. It was love, painlessness, peace, joy, enlightenment. It was not separate from me. I was part of it."

Catania said an unknown being called him to the light, and that 'nothing has ever felt as good as that moment.'

"I don’t think anything ever will again until I go back to the light."

As he approached the light, the man said he could see his distraught father storm into the room and lift his body from the floor.

"He was screaming for the paramedics. Distraught, in tears," he explained.

Before he knew it, Catania was back in the house, downstairs being resuscitated by paramedics.

He said: "I woke up and they were on top of me with all their tools and gadgets. But still I felt no pain."

Despite making a full recovery, Catania was told that he died several times en route to the hospital.

When he opened up about hs out of body expreience, his family and friends dubbed him 'crazy'.

For years he believed them, until he realised that this had not been his first brush with death or the afterlife.

At age 10, Catania suffered a swimming incident while at a beach in New Jersey, and years later while working at a New York bar, he escaped a shooting. after a ‘mystical being’ ushered him away from the danger.

He began investigating life and death further after visiting a medium in his 40s who explained to him how psychics see life and death.

Now, a trained metaphysical counsellor, Catania has written a book about what he’s seen

"There’s definitely an afterlife,’ he insists. ‘At the end of the day, we’re all one, we’re all part of this light."