This was an out-of-body experience which comes under the classification of a vision. I didn’t die.  This wasn’t a near-death experience.  I don’t fit the scenario in Luke 16 as I didn’t come back from the dead.  I’m not trying to persuade anyone with my testimony, but only to point them to the Word of God.  As Paul said in 2 Cor. 12:1-2, in his vision he said, whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell.  He didn’t know, where as I was simply shown.  In Ez. 8:3, Ezekiel was picked up by his hair and carried from Babylon to Jerusalem in his vision.  In verse 8 he dug through a wall.  In Ez. 3:2 he ate a scroll, and it was in his mouth as honey for sweetness.  In verse 14 he went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit.  In verse 13, he heard the noise.  In 3:3 it says, cause thy belly to eat.  In 11:1, the spirit lifted me up and brought me unto the east gate.  You can see that he had hair, a mouth, a belly.  He could taste, hear, feel bitterness, dig through a wall.  He had a spiritual body that in every way resembled our physical body.

In Revelation 5:5 and 10:10, John talked to an elder, he ate and his belly became bitter.  He wept and he talked back, and all heard him.  He was in the spirit (vs. 4:2).  In Genesis 15:1-5, Abraham had a vision and the Lord brought him forth abroad.  He also traveled in his vision.  In Job 7:14 it says, you scare me with dreams and terrifiest me through visions.  You do have a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:44).  Matt. 10:28 says, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.  Prov. 1:12 says, Let us swallow them up alive as the grave, and whole as those who go down into the pit.  Ez.32:27 talks about those who have gone down into the pit and mentions, his iniquities shall remain upon his bones. He has bones. In a vision, you can experience things the same as you could in our physical bodies. 

In Jonah 2:2, it states, out of the belly of hell cried I.  In Jonah 2:6, the earth with her bars was about me forever.  The Tyndale Old Testament Commentary states, Jonah is on the verge of entering Sheol, and like a Palestinian city, Jonah views the underworld as having a gate which was locked secure by bolts and bars. (pgs. 114-116)

In the New International Commentary it states on pages 216-217, he had been in Sheol’s belly.  Sheol, the world of the dead, is depicted as a monster in whose maw Jonah was trapped.  He was as good as dead before Yahweh graciously answered his appeal.  Also, the gates of hell prevailed against him, clanging shut with a terrible finality or so it seemed.  Here is a believer that was either inside the gates or just outside the gates of Sheol.  I include that to show that there is someone in the Bible who experienced Sheol.  This is not in any way to compare my experience with this great prophet, but merely to establish a scriptural basis for my experience.