How Clinton Saw the Light During Surgery

Bill Clinton has seen the dark side but - fittingly in a week in which Star Wars mania has swept America - was saved by the light.

A new extract in the paperback edition of his autobiography reveals that the former US president was prey to bizarre apparitions while under anaesthetic for heart surgery last year.

"At first I saw a series of dark faces, like death masks, flying towards me and being crushed," Mr Clinton writes.

Then, in what could be a metaphor for his political trials and tribulations during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he reveals that his family pulled him through.

"Then I saw circles of light with the face of Hillary, Chelsea, and others I cared about flying towards me, then away into a bright, sun-like source," the former president says.

When Mr Clinton regained consciousness after surgery he apparently "waved to people, said I was all right and laughed". At least that is what his wife, Senator Rodham Clinton, told him. The former president does not remember.

The paperback edition of My Life is due to go on sale in the US at the end of the month. Much of the new material - a 12-page afterword, and a brief preface - summarises his recent activities, including his fundraising for tsunami relief.

He also offers a quick analysis of last year's presidential election, urging his fellow Democrats not to move "hard to the left".

He also acknowledges that the book - which one critic likened to being trapped "in a small room with a very gregarious man who insists on reading his entire appointment book, day by day, beginning in 1946" - might have been a bit too long.

"Most people thought it was too long - a fair criticism. Thomas Jefferson once said that if he had had more time he could have written shorter letters," he writes in the afterword which helps to make the paperback even longer, at a terrifying 969 pages.