Another amazing experience. The precedent for the "cloud" as a symbol of heaven is interesting. Thank you for sharing.

Recently, I was reading about similar experiences in a book by a skeptical writer of popular science.

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife is an entertaining investigation into the paranormal by the popular science writer Mary Roach. Roach, an agnostic and a skeptic, seeks the mundane explanation for the phenomena she encounters (like table turning and mediumism) and in most cases finds it. But the data on out of body experiences seems to give her pause.

In one case, representative of many others, a heart attack patient reports to a nurse that he floated up through the ceiling and saw a red shoe on the hospital roof. "A skeptical resident gets a janitor to let him up onto the roof where he finds a red shoe—and loses his skepticism."

A cardiologist in Atlanta, Michael Sabom, performed a controlled study on 116 cardiac arrests survivors and found six who could recall specific medical details. These details were then compared to their medical files and, "in no instances did the medical report contradict the statements in the patients' medical description. Nor were there any medical errors." The study becomes especially compelling when the control is introduced,

Curious to see whether any old heart patient could come up with a convincingly detailed description of a cardiac resuscitation, Sabom interviewed twenty-five people who had spent time in coronary care units under similar circumstances to those of his subject group. All of them were familiar with the visuals of cardiac emergency: EKG monitors, defibrillator paddles, IV poles, crash carts. The controls were asked to describe, in as much detail as possible, what they would expect to see if their heart stopped beating and hospital staff attempted to resuscitate them. Twenty-two of the twenty-five descriptions contained obvious medical gaffes.

There is a great deal of literature on OBE. It is a very promising area of study with enormous implications for spirituality and religion.