Tom Sawyer on Oprah

Recorded: Podcast in 2025, Tom Sawyer interview in 1986
Duration: 1h 10m 13s

Description:
This episode of The Oprah Podcast features Dr. Bruce Greyson, one of the world’s leading experts on near death experiences. As a scientist and physician, Dr. Greyson has been studying these fascinating phenomena for decades. He and Oprah dive deep into near death encounters and speak with people who have undergone their own transformative episodes, including Oscar nominated actor Jeremy Renner, who described his event as harrowing but also exhilaratingly peaceful. Their stories reveal striking similarities and shed light on how facing death transformed their understanding of not only life, but what comes after. Most people come away from a near death experience with an expanded view of consciousness and consider the possibility that death might not be the end. As Dr. Greyson explains, this “knowing” has caused people around the world to reexamine their own life’s journey and view death as nothing to fear.

Raw Transcript

00:00:00.480 Hi there everybody and thanks so much
00:00:02.720 for joining me here on the Oprah podcast
00:00:04.880 and for watching us on YouTube which is
00:00:08.320 the place to watch everything now I hear
00:00:11.280 uh billions of people uh all over the
00:00:14.480 world are watching so many things and
00:00:16.960 I’m so glad you’ve joined us here.
00:00:18.560 Here’s a question. Have you ever
00:00:20.680 wondered what happens after we die? I
00:00:25.119 think if you live long enough you
00:00:26.720 actually start asking yourself that
00:00:28.400 question. And I know we all have
00:00:30.560 different beliefs on what lies beyond.
00:00:33.840 And for some, they believe there is no
00:00:36.280 beyond. We’re asking today, what if
00:00:39.360 science could help illuminate the
00:00:41.840 mystery? What if science could do that?
00:00:44.640 Okay. So, I have always been fascinated
00:00:47.440 by near-death experiences. I did um more
00:00:52.239 than 20 episodes of the Oprah Winfrey
00:00:54.960 Show uh talking with people who had died
00:00:59.039 and come back to life to tell a story of
00:01:01.920 an otherworldly experience. Well, my
00:01:04.479 guests this morning have either been
00:01:06.080 pronounced clinically dead or have
00:01:08.320 suffered severe trauma after being
00:01:10.439 revived. They tell incredible stories of
00:01:13.360 their near death experiences. Stories
00:01:16.320 they believe are proof of an afterlife.
00:01:19.200 I was deeply impacted by every time I
00:01:21.920 heard these stories. And over the years,
00:01:23.840 I noticed that there were so many
00:01:25.520 similarities in their stories that it
00:01:29.360 actually got me wondering, there must be
00:01:32.799 something to this, right? So, I’m
00:01:35.280 excited to welcome Dr. Bruce Grayson to
00:01:37.680 the tea house. Dr. Dr. Bruce Grayson is
00:01:40.240 a psychiatrist, professor emmeritus at
00:01:42.960 the University of Virginia, and one of
00:01:44.560 the world’s foremost experts on
00:01:46.079 near-death experiences, also known as
00:01:48.920 NDEs. For nearly 50 years, Dr. Grayson’s
00:01:52.000 pioneering research has explored the
00:01:54.000 depths of our relationship with death,
00:01:56.320 life, and our understanding of
00:01:58.240 consciousness. I’ve seen so many
00:02:00.000 examples of people whose brains were
00:02:01.680 obviously not functioning well, if at
00:02:03.680 all, and yet they described their
00:02:05.600 consciousness as more vivid than ever
00:02:07.200 before. In 1981, he co-founded INS, the
00:02:10.959 International Association for Near-Death
00:02:13.040 Studies, a group dedicated to research
00:02:15.520 of this phenomena. He’s identified many
00:02:18.160 universal experiences that surfaced
00:02:19.920 through countless stories from people
00:02:21.360 who were pronounced dead and came back
00:02:23.360 to life. I was told that it was my time.
00:02:25.760 I had to go back to Earth. I had more
00:02:28.080 work to do. In his latest book, After, a
00:02:30.959 doctor explores what near-death
00:02:32.480 experiences reveal about life and
00:02:34.239 beyond. Dr. Grayson suggests there’s
00:02:36.800 more to the human mind’s experience
00:02:38.560 beyond what we know here on earth. I
00:02:41.360 just almost felt this hand I felt like
00:02:43.440 it was the hand of Jesus and just being
00:02:45.519 like nope not yet not yet to hear this
00:02:49.360 voice say it’s not yet time just blew my
00:02:52.000 mind because that’s what I heard. And we
00:02:54.720 talked with Academy Award nominated
00:02:56.480 actor Jeremy Rener who shared details of
00:02:59.519 his near-death experience. I was dead on
00:03:02.000 the ice cuz it took every effort,
00:03:05.120 physical effort to squeeze out air to
00:03:08.400 suck air back in. And that’s when I was
00:03:11.120 gone. It is a collective divinity of
00:03:13.599 love. It’s love is the only thing that
00:03:15.280 you take with you when you die.
00:03:19.760 First of all, welcome to the tea house.
00:03:21.280 Thank you, Oprah. I’m delighted to be
00:03:22.720 here with you today. I’m so I love this
00:03:25.560 conversation. I love having this
00:03:28.000 conversation. How do you define a
00:03:30.799 near-death experience? Near-death
00:03:33.120 experiences or NDEEs are profound things
00:03:36.400 that happen to many people when they
00:03:38.640 come close to dying or sometimes are
00:03:40.400 pronounced dead but then recover. And
00:03:43.360 they include what they’re often
00:03:45.280 perceived as mystical or spiritual
00:03:47.519 experiences like leaving sense of
00:03:49.680 leaving your body uh seeing other
00:03:51.840 entities that may be deceased loved ones
00:03:53.599 or deities reviewing your life and
00:03:56.239 coming to some point of no return beyond
00:03:58.159 which you can’t keep going and still
00:03:59.680 come back and then you do come back. Uh
00:04:02.080 what what what struck me about uh the
00:04:04.480 indie experience of so many different
00:04:06.519 people you describe in your book is how
00:04:09.439 similar they all are. Yes. So, you know,
00:04:12.720 I’ve talked to people who experienced
00:04:15.519 the whole tunnel, people who haven’t
00:04:17.839 experienced the tunnel and the tunnel of
00:04:19.680 light, but what are the elements? And
00:04:21.918 it’s not just about the white light. No,
00:04:24.320 no. The common elements are the same
00:04:26.639 around the world with different
00:04:27.840 cultures. We can see the same features
00:04:30.000 in ancient Greece and Rome accounts of
00:04:32.639 um of near-death experiences. They
00:04:34.720 include a sense of leaving the physical
00:04:37.320 body, being in a place of priests and
00:04:41.280 love and sense of well-being. Um, often
00:04:45.360 uh encountering other entities that they
00:04:47.280 may interpret as being deities or divine
00:04:49.120 beings or deceased loved ones. Uh, that
00:04:51.759 sometimes guide them through a life
00:04:53.400 review and at some point they come to a
00:04:56.160 decision to return to life or they’re
00:04:58.000 sent back against their will to life.
00:04:59.840 Well, we don’t have an opposing opinion
00:05:02.000 uh here today because we’re going to
00:05:03.440 hear from people who’ve had this
00:05:04.639 experience, but I have done shows and
00:05:07.199 had multiple conversations where there
00:05:09.600 are people in your same field uh and
00:05:13.120 scientists who say that this is some
00:05:15.600 form of a hallucination based on
00:05:18.160 chemicals in the brain that’s causing
00:05:20.400 these experiences. And I’m obviously
00:05:22.960 sure you’ve heard this too. You’ve had
00:05:24.880 to come up against this for many years.
00:05:26.960 And what do you say about that? Well, I
00:05:28.639 understand it because I started from
00:05:30.080 that perspective. I was raised in a
00:05:32.000 materialistic household and went through
00:05:34.080 traditional training in science and and
00:05:36.000 medical school where we were taught that
00:05:37.360 the mind is what the brain does and when
00:05:39.919 you die that’s that’s just it. Um, but
00:05:43.440 I’ve been a psychiatrist for half a
00:05:45.360 century now. I know what mental illness
00:05:46.800 is like. I know what hallucinations are
00:05:48.320 like and they’re not at all like
00:05:50.160 near-death experiences. Tell us what got
00:05:52.160 you into this because there was a young
00:05:53.919 girl. Yes. Yeah. As I said, I went
00:05:57.039 through medical school uh with this
00:05:58.720 materialistic mindset. And one of my
00:06:00.880 first weeks as a doctor, as a
00:06:03.520 psychiatrist, I was asked to see a
00:06:05.199 patient who overdosed in the emergency
00:06:06.720 room. When I went to see her, she was
00:06:08.800 unconscious. I could not arouse her, but
00:06:11.039 her roommate had brought her in and was
00:06:12.960 waiting down the hall to speak to me in
00:06:14.560 another room. So, I went down to speak
00:06:16.639 to the roommate and got information
00:06:18.880 about the patient. Mhm. Went back to see
00:06:21.280 the patient. She was still unconscious.
00:06:22.960 So she was admitted to the intensive
00:06:24.400 care unit overnight. When I went to see
00:06:26.720 her the next morning as soon as she woke
00:06:28.400 up, I went to see her and introduced
00:06:31.440 myself and she stopped me and said, “I
00:06:32.800 know who you are. I remember you from
00:06:34.240 last
00:06:35.240 night.” That’s kind of stunned me. So I
00:06:37.360 said, “You know, I thought you were out
00:06:38.960 cold when I saw you.” And she said,
00:06:40.080 “Well, I was, but I saw you talking to
00:06:42.160 my roommate Susan down the hall.” And I
00:06:44.720 just got startled about it. I didn’t
00:06:46.479 know what she was talking about. I
00:06:48.560 assumed someone’s playing a trick on me
00:06:50.000 here. Mhm. But then she went on to tell
00:06:52.000 me about the conversation I had with her
00:06:53.680 roommate, what I said, what the roommate
00:06:56.240 answer, what we were wearing, to fine
00:06:58.680 details, and I didn’t know how she could
00:07:01.120 have known all this. Yeah. So that threw
00:07:03.039 you. It threw me. It I cuz nothing in
00:07:05.440 medical school had prepared you for
00:07:06.560 that. Not at all. Nothing in my life had
00:07:08.160 prepared me for this. Yeah. This is the
00:07:09.919 thing that I remember. She remember she
00:07:12.240 knew that you had a stain on your tie.
00:07:15.120 Right. Right. And when I went to the
00:07:17.039 emergency room, it was covered up by my
00:07:18.560 white lab coat. I had opened it to talk
00:07:20.960 to the roommate and it was a very hot
00:07:22.400 night in late in Virginia and then I
00:07:24.720 closed it up again before I left. So no
00:07:26.080 one but the roommate had seen that spot
00:07:28.319 and somehow the patient who was
00:07:30.240 unconscious the whole time knew about
00:07:32.240 it. So when you first started to talk
00:07:35.759 about this or had the courage to
00:07:37.520 actually mention you know things that
00:07:40.240 you had experienced with with patients
00:07:42.479 and knew uh were being awakened to NDEs
00:07:46.400 even when we weren’t calling them that
00:07:49.280 you got a lot of crit criticism and
00:07:51.880 ostracism. Well, I I didn’t I still do
00:07:54.560 to some extent, but I understand that.
00:07:56.400 Um, you know, part of me is still
00:07:58.160 looking for that materialistic
00:07:59.440 explanation for it. But I’ve seen so
00:08:01.759 many examples of people whose brains
00:08:03.440 were obviously not functioning well, if
00:08:05.440 at all, and yet they describe their
00:08:07.520 consciousness as more vivid than ever
00:08:09.319 before, and they have memories that were
00:08:12.240 sharper than memories of other events at
00:08:13.840 the same time in their life, decades
00:08:15.759 after the event. So that tells you what
00:08:18.560 that it is not a hallucination. is not
00:08:21.520 even a quote normal memory because
00:08:23.840 they’re remembered so much more vividly
00:08:25.840 that there’s something greater than the
00:08:27.280 brain that the mind is might be greater
00:08:29.199 than the brain. That’s the implication.
00:08:31.039 Yes. Yes. That that when the mind is is
00:08:33.679 functioning very well, the brain is not
00:08:35.839 and there’s no medical explanation for
00:08:38.080 how that can be. Okay. Many people
00:08:40.880 you’ve interviewed use similar phrases
00:08:43.200 like during this experience they knew
00:08:46.399 everything and were part of everything
00:08:48.800 that there was no time uh that the
00:08:52.320 experience was more real than anything
00:08:55.360 they knew to be real. There’s also an
00:08:58.360 overpowering feeling from all the people
00:09:00.959 that I read about in your book and also
00:09:02.640 in every experience I’ve encountered
00:09:04.320 interviewing people. There’s this
00:09:05.959 overpowering similarity of people talk
00:09:08.320 about unconditional love, right? And
00:09:10.320 that e whether they’re surrounded about
00:09:12.320 by by light or not, whether the light
00:09:15.279 becomes a religious figure for them or
00:09:17.959 not, that there is the overwhelming
00:09:20.959 sense of love and connectedness to
00:09:23.040 everything, right? And and I’ve heard
00:09:24.800 that from people. What do you make of
00:09:25.839 all those similarities? Well, I I think
00:09:27.360 they must be talking about something
00:09:28.720 that that’s real because everyone has
00:09:30.560 it. How they describe it is based on
00:09:34.480 what they’re what they’re familiar with,
00:09:35.920 what what analogies they’re familiar
00:09:37.440 with. Cuz they all say, “There isn’t any
00:09:39.440 word to describe what happened to me. I
00:09:41.360 can’t describe me. Love is not strong
00:09:43.279 enough word. God is not a strong enough
00:09:44.880 word.” But I experienced this thing that
00:09:46.720 was just overwhelming for me. And I’ve
00:09:48.640 heard this from people who were not
00:09:49.920 religious at all. That’s right. So have
00:09:51.600 I. So have I. And yet they say, “I I
00:09:54.000 can’t deny this. This is more real to me
00:09:55.600 than talking to you right now. And this
00:09:57.600 is definitely what’s going on.” Well, it
00:09:59.920 does feel like a different realm, like
00:10:02.320 it’s a like it’s not a part of, right?
00:10:05.279 And and one of the first times I had a
00:10:07.839 conversation with somebody about it uh
00:10:10.720 was actually a gentleman that you talk
00:10:12.959 about in in the book after Tom. Sorry.
00:10:15.839 And I when we were preparing for you to
00:10:18.399 come on the show, I mentioned to my
00:10:20.480 longtime producer Tara, I said, I
00:10:22.399 remember years ago, it was between 90
00:10:24.480 and 94. And the reason I remember it
00:10:27.279 because I was so struck by what he said
00:10:30.399 and it changed me. It changed the way I
00:10:33.440 thought. So Tom Sawyer had had an
00:10:35.920 accident where a car had fallen on him.
00:10:37.920 Yes. And I remember him being on the
00:10:40.480 show and saying that he used to be a
00:10:44.240 really cruel person and that or I
00:10:47.279 started the questions were like, “I
00:10:48.320 heard you used to be cruel.” And he
00:10:49.360 goes, “Oh, that’s that’s pretty harsh.”
00:10:51.040 But he used to be a really pretty cruel
00:10:52.880 person and was abusive to his
00:10:56.040 wife. And yet he in that near-death
00:11:00.480 experience experienced everything he’d
00:11:02.079 ever done to his wife. Here’s Tom
00:11:04.040 Sawyer. Remarkable things happened to
00:11:06.240 Tom Sawyer during a near fatal highway
00:11:08.800 accident where he was pinned under a
00:11:10.320 truck. I understand you felt every bit
00:11:12.320 of pain that you had ever caused to your
00:11:14.880 wife and you’d been pretty cruel to her.
00:11:17.839 Yeah. Uh boy, that’s pretty sharp. Yes,
00:11:20.720 that’s true. Um, in my life review, of
00:11:23.120 course, uh, the tunnel, the light at the
00:11:24.560 end of the tunnel, immersed with uh, a
00:11:26.640 connection to total knowledge and God’s
00:11:28.640 unconditional love. Having said that, as
00:11:30.959 part of my life review, uh, I know not
00:11:34.079 only was myself at any bit or time of
00:11:36.720 chronological age, but regarding any
00:11:39.120 inter relationship with the 31 years
00:11:40.959 that I’ve been with my wife Elaine, um,
00:11:43.519 I experienced being her. I don’t mean
00:11:46.640 like her or a movie, but I was her
00:11:49.600 psychology. I was her physical body. I
00:11:52.480 was as though I was not just in her
00:11:54.560 body, but I was her. So things such as
00:11:58.000 the uh verbal abuse, the physical pain,
00:12:01.519 the psychology, the sociology, all that.
00:12:04.560 I was that. You know, if you don’t need
00:12:07.120 much more of a lesson than total
00:12:09.040 knowledge, what does the human
00:12:11.040 experience, how does it compare to
00:12:12.880 whatever that other realm of knowing is
00:12:15.200 like?
00:12:16.880 Well, goodness, I don’t even know if
00:12:18.720 it’s comparable. Uh, first of all, uh,
00:12:21.519 the the form of communication is super
00:12:24.000 lumininal telepathic communication. In
00:12:25.920 other words, it requires no time, no
00:12:28.000 chronology, no anything. You’re simply
00:12:30.320 are whatever you are know totally as you
00:12:33.120 are a 100red years in time.
00:12:35.200 simultaneously and you just kind of know
00:12:37.440 that. In other words, you experience it
00:12:39.360 firsthand. You are whatever it is you
00:12:41.839 think you are every inter relationship
00:12:44.880 with everything in the universe. Wow.
00:12:48.240 This is 1994. I’m looking at the woman’s
00:12:50.160 face behind like, whoa, what is he
00:12:52.399 saying? Um, have other people that you
00:12:56.079 have studied talked about the
00:12:58.800 similarities of reliving other people’s
00:13:01.200 experiences? The reason why that made
00:13:02.959 such an impression on me, I actually got
00:13:05.120 goosebumps when he said he felt
00:13:06.959 everything that he’d ever done. I
00:13:08.720 thought, “Oh, that makes sense. That is
00:13:12.639 complete karmic sense that the life
00:13:16.000 review would be that you feel everything
00:13:18.639 you’ve ever done.” Yes. Yes. Yes. You
00:13:21.120 really feel things from other people’s
00:13:22.800 perspective. And Tom talks in about
00:13:25.920 beating someone up when he was a
00:13:27.120 teenager and feeling it from that
00:13:28.480 person’s point of view or doing
00:13:30.959 something nasty to his grandmother and
00:13:32.639 felt it from her perspective. But I’ve
00:13:34.959 also heard from people that they
00:13:37.680 experienced not only what they were what
00:13:39.839 they were doing to other people, but
00:13:41.040 they experienced the other person’s
00:13:42.240 emotions which made them more
00:13:44.000 compassionate. For example, as a woman,
00:13:46.160 that’s what he that’s what he was saying
00:13:47.680 that I felt what my abuse to my wife. I
00:13:50.880 felt how she felt and therefore I come
00:13:54.160 back trying not to be that kind of
00:13:56.000 person. Yes. But they often feel things
00:13:57.839 that they didn’t do but other people did
00:13:59.360 to them. For example, someone I knew was
00:14:01.440 was a woman who had an abusive
00:14:03.560 childhood. And when she went back
00:14:05.519 through her life review, she experienced
00:14:08.079 her mother meeting her from the mother’s
00:14:10.440 perspective and realized her mother was
00:14:12.639 trapped in this mode and she didn’t know
00:14:14.320 how else to relate to her daughter. And
00:14:16.000 she came away feeling tremendous
00:14:17.440 compassion for her mother for the first
00:14:18.800 time in her life. M and Tom and this
00:14:21.760 woman, they all come back with this idea
00:14:23.680 that we’re all the same, that there’s no
00:14:26.160 barrier between me and you. And this
00:14:27.920 leads them basically to the golden rule,
00:14:29.519 which is part of every religion we have
00:14:31.199 on this planet. Yeah. That when you hurt
00:14:33.199 someone else, you’re hurting yourself as
00:14:34.639 well. Yeah.
00:14:36.600 Because many people that you have
00:14:38.720 studied have felt that connection to the
00:14:40.959 oneness of all that we read about that
00:14:43.440 all religions teach about. But somehow
00:14:46.560 when you go to the other side or go to
00:14:48.240 the other realm, you become a part of
00:14:50.160 that and you understand it differently.
00:14:52.079 And that’s why after is so profound.
00:14:54.560 It’s not just about the life after
00:14:57.600 death. It’s about how you choose to live
00:15:00.399 your life after death. That’s right.
00:15:02.240 Yes. Right. They come back totally
00:15:03.760 changed. For them, the golden rule is
00:15:06.399 not a guideline we’re supposed to
00:15:07.600 follow. It’s the law of the universe
00:15:09.040 that they’ve experienced. There’s no
00:15:11.680 That’s the ultimate rule. Yeah. Well, so
00:15:13.839 on New Year’s Day of 2023, two-time
00:15:17.040 Oscar nominated actor Jeremy Rener was
00:15:19.760 pronounced
00:15:22.440 dead after a harrowing accident at his
00:15:25.360 home in Lake Tahoe. Jeremy joins us from
00:15:28.240 the set of his hit show, Mayor of
00:15:30.600 Kingtown. Jeremy, I’m so glad to see
00:15:33.360 that you made it because I remember
00:15:34.880 hearing that that day and feeling, I
00:15:38.240 can’t
00:15:39.399 believe that that had happened to you.
00:15:42.880 So, you’ve been listening to us. Thanks
00:15:44.480 for joining us. What happened on that
00:15:46.000 snowy day in Lake Tahoe?
00:15:50.240 That’s a lot to ask. Good to be seen.
00:15:53.440 Good to be heard. Um, that’s for sure.
00:15:55.759 I’m happy to be here with you. Uh, it’s
00:15:57.759 been a minute. Um, yeah, it was a uh an
00:16:00.720 incident really, not even an accident at
00:16:02.639 this point. Um, as it’s been reduced to.
00:16:05.839 Um but uh I could say the takeaway
00:16:08.880 moment is is really it’s really quite a
00:16:10.639 quite a glory moment for me and my
00:16:13.120 family and uh and life. Um but the
00:16:16.560 semantics of it was a a snowcat um
00:16:19.199 incident and um we had terrible weather
00:16:22.800 and I was trying to clear the driveway
00:16:24.320 with my nephew and he was going to get
00:16:26.240 run over. I tried to jump back on the
00:16:28.079 machine to prevent the machine from
00:16:30.000 running him over. It’s a giant tank like
00:16:32.959 uh with metal tracks type of 15,000lb
00:16:35.279 machine. Um and I tried to jump on it to
00:16:38.079 stop it and I failed and got ran over
00:16:40.800 and crushed and broke 38 bones uh on my
00:16:44.480 face, my skull um all throughout my
00:16:47.440 entire body and then eyeball came out of
00:16:49.360 my head and all these type of things and
00:16:51.360 then I had to struggle to breathe for a
00:16:52.800 while and then uh stopped breathing. So
00:16:55.600 what happened after that?
00:16:59.440 the big can of worms that got open. Um,
00:17:01.680 essentially, uh, I got tired, uh, in my
00:17:04.640 mind of because my lung, everything was
00:17:07.119 collapsed, my ribs and and all that sort
00:17:09.280 of thing. So, the physical Could you
00:17:10.480 move and did you have a sense of
00:17:11.599 awareness? Could you move? And did you I
00:17:13.439 never passed out at all. If I would have
00:17:14.880 passed out, I’d have been dead on the
00:17:16.240 ice, okay? Cuz it took every effort,
00:17:19.199 physical effort to squeeze out air to
00:17:22.400 suck air back in. And I was suffocating
00:17:25.520 myself with my rib cage, my dislocated
00:17:27.760 shoulder and arms and everything falling
00:17:29.679 upon my pop lung and uh things like
00:17:32.000 that. So I was really drowning. I was
00:17:33.760 drowning in my own from my rib cage and
00:17:36.559 my bones. My So my nephew was able to
00:17:39.120 like lift some of the bones off my
00:17:41.760 pressure off my lung as I was able to
00:17:44.080 breathe and I breathe as long as it was
00:17:47.280 like doing a a one- arm push-up just to
00:17:49.840 exhale then just inhale. Yeah. Exhale.
00:17:52.320 So, I just got tired after like probably
00:17:54.880 30
00:17:55.799 minutes. Um, and that’s when I was gone.
00:17:59.600 U, I had my neighbors there that came to
00:18:01.600 help at my aid and um, it was too icy
00:18:05.200 for it took forever for the ambulance to
00:18:07.200 get there because the the road
00:18:08.640 conditions were awful. Um, and anyway,
00:18:12.320 the passing for whether it be for 10
00:18:14.960 seconds or 10 minutes, it’s all still
00:18:16.559 quite the same. I’ve never knew anything
00:18:18.640 about near death, by the way. I knew
00:18:20.960 nothing about it and everything you guys
00:18:23.280 are talking about I knew and I still
00:18:25.039 even after experiencing it and
00:18:27.120 explaining some of what I um felt and
00:18:30.080 witnessed or was a part of is exactly
00:18:32.799 what you guys are telling me what the
00:18:34.720 stories you’ve heard. I mean it’s almost
00:18:36.720 word for word what I said. So I’ve
00:18:38.320 written a book and I’ve said these exact
00:18:39.919 same phrases and it’s my jaw is on the
00:18:43.919 floor. I’m astounded to to know that
00:18:47.440 this is really a thing. Oh, it’s a real
00:18:49.840 thing. I’ve been talking about it for 30
00:18:53.039 years. It’s a real thing. And I know now
00:18:54.880 you’ve written a memoir called um My
00:18:57.679 Next Breath. Perfect title based upon
00:19:00.000 what you’ve described. On page 75, you
00:19:02.640 describe a part of your experience like
00:19:04.400 this. I could see my lifetime. I could
00:19:08.000 see everything all at once. It could
00:19:10.720 have been for 10 seconds. It could have
00:19:12.240 been for 5 minutes. It could have been
00:19:13.960 forever. Who knows how long? In that
00:19:17.520 death, there was no time, no time at
00:19:20.080 all. Yet, it was also all time and
00:19:23.039 forever. What were you seeing? And more
00:19:25.360 importantly, what were you
00:19:27.240 feeling? It’s it’s kind of none none of
00:19:29.919 those things. It’s just that the word is
00:19:32.480 is. You just are or is. It’s all
00:19:35.520 everything all at once all encompassed.
00:19:37.440 There is no time, place, or space. It
00:19:39.360 just it just is. It’s the most
00:19:41.960 exhilarating piece. It just is. and
00:19:45.840 you’re there. It’s just these words are
00:19:47.679 so like cavemanlike that I’m saying, but
00:19:50.320 it that’s just the way it is. It’s not
00:19:52.160 it’s not even like a conscious thought
00:19:54.000 thing. It’s not you’re you’re removed of
00:19:56.160 the burdens of your earthly measures of
00:19:59.440 like gravity and tooth decay and all
00:20:01.360 these type of things, right? You’re
00:20:02.720 you’re it’s you’re relieved of those
00:20:04.240 duties of that on on the spinning rock.
00:20:06.799 you’re out into into
00:20:09.960 this, you know, it’s it’s to me it’s a
00:20:12.640 beautiful, beautiful, beautiful space
00:20:14.720 and um really really quite tragic that I
00:20:17.840 had to come back into a busted body.
00:20:19.840 Well, we’re glad you did cuz we get
00:20:21.600 there’s my eyeball, my twisted legs. I’m
00:20:23.360 like, why’ I come back? You know, um
00:20:26.640 yeah, and I know it’s pretty pretty
00:20:27.919 amazing to me. It’s it’s what I would
00:20:29.520 define, you know, God to be or it’s it’s
00:20:31.440 just what was the divinity of the
00:20:34.000 collective of love in the human. Did you
00:20:36.799 have any spiritual beliefs before? Did
00:20:38.559 you have any? Yeah. Well, my dad was a
00:20:40.480 theologist, so I studied all religions
00:20:42.320 growing up. Yeah. But I wasn’t a part of
00:20:44.480 any of those religions. I became
00:20:47.039 educated to them all and the studying of
00:20:49.280 them all, even Eastern philosophies. And
00:20:51.360 I think they’re all very fascinating and
00:20:52.799 interesting. Um it just for me
00:20:54.080 personally I I wasn’t going down any of
00:20:56.640 those paths for me. Um I held my own
00:20:59.600 sort of spirituality but uh I just don’t
00:21:02.400 want anything to divide me from anybody
00:21:04.320 else. Yeah. Which I sometimes religions
00:21:06.640 can do. So I’m more um I I just I just
00:21:10.400 kind of hold that kind of kind of that
00:21:11.679 space under my own. But I really have a
00:21:14.640 definition of of God in in all religions
00:21:18.559 now. It’s not some bearded man in the
00:21:20.720 sky. It’s not this. It’s not this. It’s
00:21:22.640 to me it is a this collective divinity
00:21:25.280 of love. It’s love is the only thing
00:21:27.039 that you take with you when you die.
00:21:28.880 Wow. That’s
00:21:30.760 so not ex cannot exist. It it rides in
00:21:34.159 the coattails of love like everything
00:21:35.919 else does in life. Nothing else freaking
00:21:38.400 matters outside what you love. And love
00:21:40.880 unequivocally. It is per in perpetuity.
00:21:43.760 Does not change. Wow. Love is the only
00:21:46.880 thing you take with you when you die.
00:21:48.960 Only thing. The only thing. So I I I
00:21:51.919 read in an interview where you said that
00:21:53.520 the this incident muted all the white
00:21:57.200 noise in your life. What does that mean?
00:22:00.000 Well, it kind of comes from that because
00:22:01.600 I know what I take with me and what I
00:22:03.760 what I hold and cherish in value. So I
00:22:06.640 what I gave credence to prior I do not
00:22:10.000 at all. you have one iota, one care, one
00:22:13.360 even insecurity or like it’s just say
00:22:15.440 something ridiculous like a bad review
00:22:16.880 or some this or just just the nonsense
00:22:19.840 of what we give credence to here on this
00:22:22.720 planet, man. It’s just unless it’s
00:22:25.280 unless it’s in sub subservient to to to
00:22:28.400 love and kindness and thoughtfulness and
00:22:30.159 the collectiveness of of who we are as
00:22:33.440 as humans and that I think humanity is
00:22:36.200 is closely related to what love is. I
00:22:39.200 think humanity is beautiful in love. I
00:22:41.200 think the human part of humanity gets a
00:22:43.200 little dodgy, right? We get into like
00:22:44.960 capitalism, all these other things and
00:22:46.799 and wars and all type of things, but I
00:22:48.960 think that the the basic pure fuel for
00:22:52.080 humanity is love. And I focus just on
00:22:56.080 things that fuel that and just don’t
00:22:58.080 give credence to those that that are
00:22:59.679 that deviate from it. Well, as you as
00:23:02.799 you’ve been listening to us, Jeremy,
00:23:04.480 here with me is Dr. Grayson, who’s been
00:23:06.000 studying near-death
00:23:07.320 experiences as a scientist for 45 years.
00:23:10.960 So, when you were saying in the
00:23:12.240 beginning, you didn’t even know there
00:23:13.440 was anything to this. He’s been studying
00:23:14.960 it for 45 years and has talked to
00:23:16.720 hundreds and hundreds of people in the
00:23:18.880 field. Well, for I mean, all that he was
00:23:22.159 saying prior to to me even coming on was
00:23:24.480 was just it blows my mind. It’s that
00:23:26.880 there’s so many similarities. You could
00:23:28.480 probably keep telling me more
00:23:30.080 similarities that you found from talking
00:23:32.080 to so many people and I’ll probably pick
00:23:34.799 out eight of those 10 that are like
00:23:36.720 that’s exactly what I would say almost
00:23:38.480 word for word like it’s scripted and
00:23:41.520 like I don’t know if I have a question
00:23:43.039 for you per se except you could probably
00:23:45.120 maybe read your
00:23:47.159 book you know it’s it to me it all it
00:23:50.559 really does though it it just feels um
00:23:53.440 maybe even more confirmations opra an
00:23:56.480 affirmation
00:23:58.880 out of out of information is the
00:24:01.200 confirmations of what I learned post the
00:24:04.400 instant. I I also wanted to ask you
00:24:06.159 this. Uh you were just saying that you
00:24:08.159 realize what matters and what doesn’t
00:24:09.840 matter and that you know bad reviews or
00:24:11.679 whatever and you know I I just consider
00:24:15.080 how you know
00:24:17.080 devastating and demolishing to your
00:24:19.760 physical body. You know eyeball is out
00:24:21.679 and your ribs are all that that you were
00:24:24.799 able to put yourself back together and
00:24:27.440 physically speak and physically move.
00:24:31.039 How has this experience affected your
00:24:33.840 acting?
00:24:36.080 Uh, I don’t know if it’s in a positive
00:24:38.480 way to be honest. It was hard to even
00:24:40.559 want to go back
00:24:41.880 to fiction. I have to worry about my
00:24:44.880 next freaking breath. I got to worry
00:24:46.480 about my next step. I have to consider,
00:24:49.760 you know, every joint of my body was
00:24:52.960 crushed and like I I I don’t want to
00:24:54.880 live a life of uh of pain, right? So, I
00:24:58.880 had to focus on a lot of life stuff.
00:25:00.640 Real real like life stuff like to go
00:25:04.000 entertain and tell jokes or um entertain
00:25:07.520 in the fiction world was it was was kind
00:25:09.360 of so far-fetched for me. I didn’t know
00:25:11.039 if that was ever going to happen. It now
00:25:13.520 that my body’s, you know, back in put
00:25:16.720 back together like Humpty Dumpty at some
00:25:19.080 point, I feel um blessed that I’m able
00:25:22.720 to get back into it. I feel I don’t know
00:25:26.240 if it makes me better to be honest. Uh I
00:25:28.880 don’t know if it makes me worse. It’s um
00:25:31.200 I don’t know like I enjoy my job. I love
00:25:33.520 my job. Um but still in the back of my
00:25:37.200 mind I know what really has value to me.
00:25:39.440 Wow. You know, I can quit this job any
00:25:41.760 day and be like and never look back and
00:25:44.480 be so happy and be around my family, be
00:25:47.039 around those that I love and have great
00:25:48.559 shared experience with them and that’s
00:25:50.000 all. I think that’s a common reaction,
00:25:51.919 isn’t it, Dr.
00:25:53.520 Everybody who goes through this, they
00:25:55.360 come back and the priorities for living
00:25:58.400 have shifted. Right. Right. So many
00:26:00.559 things you said, Jeremy, are so typical
00:26:02.240 of near-death experiences, having no
00:26:03.840 sense of time, feeling the love, feeling
00:26:06.400 like you don’t really need the body and
00:26:08.000 all its restrictions. But let me ask
00:26:09.919 you, with all this new understanding,
00:26:11.840 how does it change your day-to-day
00:26:13.360 interactions with people? Uh, you know,
00:26:16.000 I’ve never been more connected. Uh, it’s
00:26:18.799 released any sort of social anxiety I
00:26:21.039 have. I have never felt felt more like
00:26:24.400 more confident. I get there some
00:26:25.679 something that comes like a peace. I
00:26:26.880 have this exhilarating peace and which
00:26:29.600 is such an antithesis of words but I
00:26:31.760 feel so at peace you know I’m getting I
00:26:35.760 got a wink from the the universe saying
00:26:37.440 like hey you know now you you got to see
00:26:39.919 behind the curtain. Um so I got to come
00:26:42.080 back and be and do exactly what I want
00:26:44.400 to do and nothing is in my way. There’s
00:26:46.640 no obstacle. I’ll never I’ll never
00:26:48.480 afforded a bad day. I’ve been tested to
00:26:50.880 my limits of pain. So pain is just
00:26:53.760 that’s nothing. That’s just a human
00:26:55.279 construct. I mean it’s nothing. So I
00:26:58.159 live my life um so connected. So always
00:27:02.159 with love driven um I it it it’s
00:27:06.400 definitely changed in the sense of like
00:27:07.919 I don’t pursue things that I would
00:27:11.039 pursue before because I just don’t find
00:27:13.120 any value in it anymore. Um, which I’m
00:27:16.080 sure are many just sort of normal things
00:27:17.600 that I think a lot of normal people just
00:27:19.120 go about doing. Yeah. And there’s
00:27:20.559 nothing wrong with that. For me, I’m
00:27:22.080 just very very very There’s like two or
00:27:24.640 three things that I’m gonna be doing in
00:27:25.919 my life and that’s it. And I’m so happy.
00:27:29.360 I’m happy to wake up. I’m happy to be
00:27:31.440 walking on these two busted old legs,
00:27:33.120 man. I’m happy to be breathing right
00:27:34.400 now. Happy. I’m just like I just have
00:27:36.400 nothing but joy in my life. I don’t I’m
00:27:38.400 not afforded a bad day, right? It’s just
00:27:40.240 pretty amazing. Pretty blessed.
00:27:42.320 What has been the reaction from your
00:27:44.960 friends, your loved ones, colleagues
00:27:47.039 with this new new look at life? There’s
00:27:51.520 there’s with with that Oprah, there’s
00:27:54.159 that’s where a lot
00:27:55.559 of it’s it’s was it was all a connected
00:27:58.480 thing anyway. It wasn’t just it just
00:27:59.919 didn’t just happen to me, right? I might
00:28:02.559 have gotten ran over, but I affected so
00:28:05.120 many people in my life that I love
00:28:06.399 dearly. So many people that and the
00:28:08.080 ripple effect of that goes beyond. Yes.
00:28:10.080 Right. We’re here still talking about it
00:28:11.360 now on a podcast two years later. So, I
00:28:15.760 held responsibility to that and used
00:28:19.120 that as fuel to heal my family and those
00:28:22.720 that I’ve hurt and giving the I I gave
00:28:26.320 them a lot of toxic awful images and
00:28:28.880 dreams. And my my poor nephew, he had to
00:28:31.919 watch me holding my arm die in the ice
00:28:33.679 and my eyeball out. He can’t unsee that,
00:28:35.919 right? Yeah. So in in me never worrying
00:28:39.039 about getting better, I just had to get
00:28:40.640 better to help them. So whatever my
00:28:43.200 physical um milestones were, they were
00:28:46.720 always fueled by number one my daughter
00:28:49.679 and then the rest of my family to cuz I
00:28:52.240 love them so
00:28:53.960 deeply.
00:28:56.360 Um I couldn’t bear the responsibility of
00:28:59.520 giving them um nightmares for the rest
00:29:02.799 of their lives and might die some. So,
00:29:05.120 I’m going to take this one-way road of
00:29:07.960 recovery and god damn it, I’m going to
00:29:10.159 recover. And god damn it, I’m going to
00:29:11.600 get better every damn day for my family,
00:29:14.159 for my daughter. And that’s how I got
00:29:16.640 better so fast. So, and then there’s
00:29:19.120 miracles involved at every turn here
00:29:21.279 with every doctor, every my, you know,
00:29:23.360 there’s it took a thousand people to
00:29:25.120 keep me alive. Okay. But to get better
00:29:27.360 once I wasn’t dying, it was my family
00:29:29.440 and my love, my deep love, the safe
00:29:32.320 landing spot of love that I have with my
00:29:34.640 family all my life. Um, and not wanting
00:29:37.840 to disappoint them. Um, so fortunate
00:29:40.240 that I had that one-way road of
00:29:42.320 recovery. And I saw your post on on of
00:29:44.880 all the medical people who saved you.
00:29:46.799 That is that’s a lot of people. That’s a
00:29:48.960 team. You had an army going to war for
00:29:52.399 you. Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I
00:29:56.799 can’t wait till your book comes out. I
00:29:58.399 want to tell everyone that Jeremy’s
00:30:00.080 memoir, My Next Breath, and we see why
00:30:03.679 it’s called that, is available on April
00:30:05.919 29th. And I know all of the people who
00:30:08.159 love and support you, your your viewers
00:30:10.240 and fans throughout the world are
00:30:11.840 looking forward to reading more about
00:30:13.120 your story, Jeremy. Thank you for taking
00:30:15.120 time out for filming for Mayor of
00:30:18.000 Kingstone today to be with us. Thank
00:30:19.919 you. Thank you so much for having me. I
00:30:22.880 appreciate it. It’s always lovely
00:30:24.240 talking. All right. Great. Great. Well,
00:30:27.120 I mean, I think for him to discover that
00:30:30.240 this has been happening to many, many,
00:30:32.559 many people in twothirds of the cases
00:30:35.360 you study, people say that they met um
00:30:39.279 they met people from the other side. I’m
00:30:41.120 wondering because all these years,
00:30:42.880 having interviewed certainly not as many
00:30:45.200 people as you have, but interviewed a
00:30:46.640 lot of people, I it feels like the NDE
00:30:51.120 is specifically designed for you.
00:30:54.200 So some people experience what they’ve
00:30:56.799 done to other people. Other people
00:30:58.240 experience what people have done to
00:30:59.600 them. I mean it it feels like there are
00:31:01.440 commonalities but there are also
00:31:03.440 specifics. Right. Right. People often
00:31:05.360 people often say that it was designed
00:31:07.840 specifically for them like they had a
00:31:09.200 role in creating it for them. And maybe
00:31:11.600 that’s just the way they perceived it.
00:31:13.440 And we all perceive the same experience
00:31:15.679 in different ways. That’s right. So
00:31:17.279 maybe it’s just that the way what they
00:31:18.880 take back from the experience is what’s
00:31:20.240 relevant to them. And everybody does.
00:31:23.440 For everybody that’s different, right?
00:31:24.880 Right. Yes. If you and I took a plane to
00:31:26.480 to Paris, we’d come back with very
00:31:28.000 different memories because we have
00:31:28.960 different interests, even if we were on
00:31:30.320 the same plane. Exactly. Absolutely. So,
00:31:32.880 orthopedic spinal surgeon and two-time
00:31:35.440 New York Times bestselling author, Dr.
00:31:36.960 Mary Neil joins us from Jackson Hole,
00:31:39.120 Wyoming. Dr. Neil, you also had a
00:31:41.279 near-death experience, I understand, 30
00:31:43.760 years ago on a kayaking trip. What
00:31:46.159 happened? Welcome. Yes. Well, uh, first
00:31:49.279 of all, thank you for having me on and
00:31:51.519 thank you for having this topic because
00:31:54.399 it’s really important. Like Jeremy said,
00:31:57.600 none of us are aware of these
00:32:00.679 experiences until someone opens our
00:32:04.880 eyes. But my own experience began when I
00:32:08.080 was whitewater kayaking in South America
00:32:11.039 with my husband and friends of ours who
00:32:13.519 are own a raft and kayak company.
00:32:17.120 And circumstances were such that I went
00:32:20.240 over um a waterfall or a drop that was
00:32:24.480 maybe 10 or 15 ft high. And when I hit
00:32:29.200 the bottom, my boat became pinned or
00:32:32.720 stuck in the rocks and the underwater
00:32:35.159 features. And the boat and I were then
00:32:37.519 completely submerged under 8 to 10 ft of
00:32:40.559 water.
00:32:42.960 The weight of the water and the force of
00:32:44.880 the current was such that there was no
00:32:47.039 way to, you know, pull the spray skirt
00:32:49.960 out. So, I was under there for almost 30
00:32:55.519 minutes. Whoa. And while I was there,
00:33:00.120 um, I lost consciousness. It’s a funny
00:33:03.840 thing. I mean, I was never conscious and
00:33:05.760 then
00:33:06.519 unconscious. I felt like I was conscious
00:33:09.039 and then more conscious. you know, alive
00:33:11.840 and then more alive. Wow. And like
00:33:16.159 you’ve already heard, you know, there
00:33:18.320 was a shift in time and dimension so
00:33:21.399 that I could be underwater and still
00:33:25.360 feel the weight of the water. I could
00:33:27.200 feel the plastic of my boat, but at the
00:33:30.159 same time, I began to have
00:33:33.399 this inexplicable experience. At a
00:33:37.200 certain point, asked that God’s will be
00:33:39.600 done. And I was immediately overcome by
00:33:42.960 a very physical sensation of being held
00:33:45.120 and comforted and reassured that
00:33:47.279 everything would be fine regardless of
00:33:49.039 whether I lived or died. And you know, I
00:33:51.039 had four little kids and I was told
00:33:53.360 that, you know, they’d be fine. And I
00:33:57.519 was uh being held kind of like a baby
00:34:00.799 and reassured and taken through a life
00:34:04.240 review that was nothing that I
00:34:06.720 personally could have imagined. It had
00:34:09.359 nothing to do with judgment and
00:34:12.159 everything to do with understanding and
00:34:15.918 love. I had Did you have a life review?
00:34:18.399 Did you have a life review? I had a life
00:34:20.719 review that took me through every one of
00:34:25.040 the most painful, wounding, horrible
00:34:28.159 experiences of my life. And I had an
00:34:30.960 absolute understanding of everyone
00:34:33.839 involved. me, the other people, not just
00:34:37.199 the emotions, but as Jeremy said, I was
00:34:40.960 the other people involved and I was me.
00:34:44.320 And I had a complete understanding of
00:34:46.320 what brought each of us to that
00:34:48.719 situation. Yeah. Every time I’ve heard
00:34:50.560 this, it feels like the the truth to me
00:34:53.520 because, you know, I was raised very
00:34:56.480 very strict religiously and the word you
00:34:59.359 just said here uh was was resonated with
00:35:02.320 me with such jud that when you die
00:35:05.680 there’s going to be the judgment. And I
00:35:08.160 remember the first time I heard someone
00:35:09.760 talk about this on the show, I thought,
00:35:11.280 “Oh, the judgment is actually the way
00:35:14.400 you’ve lived and the feelings that
00:35:16.640 you’ve created with other people.
00:35:18.560 Everything you’ve ever done comes back
00:35:20.560 to you. That’s the judgment.
00:35:23.520 Yeah. I mean, the fact is every single
00:35:26.880 person who has had a profound spiritual
00:35:28.880 experience would say the same thing. And
00:35:31.280 that is that God is love. And the fact
00:35:35.440 is where God is present, where God’s
00:35:38.240 love is present, there is no room for
00:35:41.280 destructive emotions of guilt and
00:35:43.200 remorse and shame and awe, anger,
00:35:46.160 bitterness, all of those things. What I
00:35:48.480 discovered is that where God is present,
00:35:51.599 there is always some version of love. Be
00:35:54.320 it compassion or empathy or understand,
00:35:57.920 kindness,
00:35:59.440 kindness, all of that. All of it. So,
00:36:01.520 you received a warning. You received a
00:36:03.359 warning during your near death
00:36:04.720 experience. What was it? Well, I did. I
00:36:06.720 had this incredible experience of
00:36:09.119 leaving my body, going to heaven, God’s
00:36:12.480 world, spiritual realm. I was told that
00:36:14.880 it wasn’t my time. I had to go back to
00:36:17.119 earth. I had more work to do and I was
00:36:19.839 given a list of things that I still had
00:36:22.560 to do. And one of the things on this
00:36:25.680 list was uh had to do with the coming
00:36:30.160 and unexpected death of my oldest son.
00:36:33.040 And he at the time was nine and healthy.
00:36:36.880 And I of course asked why obviously and
00:36:41.599 when I asked that I was taken back to my
00:36:44.480 life review where I’d been shown again
00:36:47.119 and again and again that beauty really
00:36:49.920 does come of all things. Then I was
00:36:53.280 taken back to my body and and 10 years
00:36:56.079 later your son actually passed away. So
00:36:59.200 I this is what I was wondering since
00:37:00.960 you’ve been given that warning that your
00:37:03.119 son is going to die. How do you live in
00:37:05.440 this world of density for 10 years
00:37:09.440 knowing that your son is going to die
00:37:11.040 early and that’s part of one of your
00:37:12.800 assignments? How do you live not in fear
00:37:15.520 every day? Or is it because you had that
00:37:18.480 loving near-death experience, you know
00:37:20.480 that whenever he passes, it’s going to
00:37:22.720 be okay.
00:37:24.800 There is no way any person could
00:37:27.680 shoulder that burden without having an
00:37:31.560 absolute knowledge, understanding and
00:37:34.440 trust that God is real and present. That
00:37:38.480 we are really just spiritual beings
00:37:40.640 living in this three-dimensional body.
00:37:43.880 That there really is life after death,
00:37:47.359 continuation of our
00:37:49.160 consciousness. Again, however you want
00:37:51.119 to describe it. Because knowing that
00:37:55.119 without any shred of doubt gave me a
00:37:58.400 confidence
00:37:59.720 that if indeed his death came to pass,
00:38:04.160 great beauty would come of it, he would
00:38:06.640 have been joyfully welcomed home as I
00:38:09.040 had been, and that he wasn’t lost to me.
00:38:12.800 The fact is, I know he’ll be there
00:38:16.240 waiting for me when my time is done. But
00:38:19.200 until then, you know, I’m here on earth
00:38:21.920 with more left to do, you know, and
00:38:25.040 we’re here. It’s it’s this great
00:38:26.800 adventure, this great opportunity to
00:38:29.599 learn and grow and reflect God’s love to
00:38:31.839 others. And how did you now in human
00:38:35.760 form again, not in that loving all
00:38:38.400 connected space, come back knowing that
00:38:42.880 your son is going to die and nobody else
00:38:47.280 around you knows that. So now you have
00:38:49.839 to move through the world and
00:38:51.880 and you weren’t told when it was going
00:38:54.079 to die. So you don’t know if he’s going
00:38:55.280 to die next week or next month. And then
00:38:58.160 years pass and he doesn’t die. So you’re
00:38:59.920 thinking maybe that I didn’t even hear
00:39:02.160 that. Maybe that wasn’t even real. I
00:39:04.960 woke up every day wondering if that
00:39:07.119 would be the day. Got it. That’s that’s
00:39:08.960 that’s what I’m saying. Again, it’s not
00:39:11.920 um your question is how do you get
00:39:13.839 through that day? Well, you get through
00:39:16.480 that day with this absolute trust that
00:39:20.560 God is real and present in my life, in
00:39:23.680 my son’s life, in my family, in the
00:39:26.440 world. If that is part of the plan for
00:39:29.760 his life and our
00:39:31.880 lives, then great beauty would come of
00:39:34.480 it. Can you explain to us uh how he died
00:39:38.160 10 years later? people listening will
00:39:40.079 want. Yeah, he was doing a dryland ski
00:39:43.440 training and was hit by a
00:39:47.000 car. So he, you know, he was killed
00:39:49.599 instantly. And so when you got that
00:39:51.720 message that your son is gone, you
00:39:54.160 thought, “Okay, there it is.” Yeah. And
00:39:57.680 I’m not going to say that, you know, I
00:40:00.320 said, “Oh, hey, that’s great.” No, I was
00:40:02.320 as devastated as a mother could be. Mhm.
00:40:05.640 But I will honestly tell you that even
00:40:09.200 in the midst of my
00:40:10.839 sorrow, I experienced great joy. And
00:40:15.599 that joy is because
00:40:19.640 of knowing,
00:40:22.520 trusting spiritual truth. Yeah. I always
00:40:25.680 say when you lose a loved one, tell me
00:40:27.359 if you agree with this or not. But since
00:40:29.280 I started hearing these near-death
00:40:30.640 experiences and also know that I have a
00:40:32.880 whole posi, I have a team on the other
00:40:35.119 side. I feel them all the time looking
00:40:38.320 out for me. That that’s one of the
00:40:40.160 reasons why I’ve had a life that I’ve
00:40:42.880 had because of all that’s come before
00:40:46.640 me. And where are all those people with
00:40:48.960 me right now? And uh I I I I’m just
00:40:54.079 wondering if you you know still feel
00:40:57.839 him. You still feel connected to that.
00:41:00.079 Do you feel that that that sense of
00:41:03.280 awareness? Yeah, I sure do. I mean my my
00:41:06.880 concept of it is we don’t live here and
00:41:12.079 they live here. We live and exist within
00:41:15.040 the spiritual realm. There is no uh time
00:41:20.000 in the spiritual world. There’s no
00:41:23.160 dimension. I don’t have the words but it
00:41:26.160 exists within each other and everything
00:41:30.160 exists simultaneously although
00:41:32.160 independently. So yes, I believe we live
00:41:35.680 within the spiritual world even though
00:41:39.040 our three-dimensional brains can’t see
00:41:41.920 it. We don’t always acknowledge it.
00:41:44.480 Yeah. But the fact is there is spiritual
00:41:47.200 crossover. Yeah. You can the brain
00:41:49.440 doesn’t acknowledge it but I can tell
00:41:50.800 you I can I experience it. Yes. Through
00:41:53.800 stillness. I can sit amongst the trees
00:41:56.560 and literally become one with them. I
00:42:00.319 mean I can you know I know that sounds
00:42:02.480 crazy but I can. So I think that there
00:42:04.720 is a there is a way to do it but I also
00:42:07.200 feel that the density of the body keeps
00:42:08.960 you from doing it. It’s why I always do
00:42:11.040 say though when people have loved ones
00:42:12.880 that pass Dr. Grayson, it’s like now you
00:42:15.839 have an angel you can call by name. Now
00:42:17.839 you have somebody who’s crossed over to
00:42:19.359 the other side. Thank you so much, Dr.
00:42:21.280 Neil. Dr. Neil’s books are to heaven and
00:42:23.440 Back and Seven Lessons from Heaven. We
00:42:25.839 could listen to you all day cuz we love
00:42:27.520 this conversation. We love this
00:42:29.440 conversation. It’s my favorite
00:42:30.880 conversation. It’s my favorite
00:42:32.319 conversation, too. Thank you so much.
00:42:34.240 Thank you for joining us. Oprah, I’ve
00:42:36.160 known Mary for a number of years, and
00:42:37.760 what you don’t see in this interview is
00:42:39.520 that she’s a downto-earth, nononsense
00:42:42.079 orthopedic surgeon who is very much
00:42:44.960 making her her career in this world by
00:42:46.720 treating us our physical bodies. And
00:42:48.480 yet, she’s been aware for decades of
00:42:50.640 this other world that we’re part of as
00:42:52.720 well that’s more important than the
00:42:54.480 physical. Yeah, I think that’s so cool.
00:42:58.319 So obviously when since you had the
00:43:01.520 experience with Holly who’s in the
00:43:05.079 ICU and completely out of it that you
00:43:08.000 were telling us earlier in this
00:43:09.640 conversation and the next day you come
00:43:12.079 in and she remembers a conversation that
00:43:14.640 you had down the hall with a friend of
00:43:16.079 hers and knows that there was a stain on
00:43:18.079 your tie. You start to think differently
00:43:20.400 about all of this. So what do you make
00:43:23.119 of all of this? Well, that first episode
00:43:27.119 with Holly was just a fluke and I
00:43:29.280 thought, well, you know, she’s a
00:43:30.319 psychiatric patient. Who knows what’s
00:43:31.680 really going on. Yeah. There’s got to be
00:43:33.280 an explanation. So, I started collecting
00:43:34.880 other cases of people who had come close
00:43:37.920 to death or been been pronounced dead
00:43:39.920 and had these fantastic stories to tell.
00:43:42.319 And I was trying to find some
00:43:44.359 consistency. Are they related to oxygen
00:43:47.200 deprivation? Are they related to drugs?
00:43:49.200 Are they related to heart arrhythmias?
00:43:51.440 You know, what’s going on with these
00:43:52.560 people? And over the last 50 years,
00:43:55.760 we’ve talked to thousands and thousands
00:43:57.680 of people, done some physiological
00:43:59.680 measurements on people when they were
00:44:01.040 close to death, and we found that none
00:44:02.880 of these simplistic hypotheses turns out
00:44:05.119 to be true. It’s not oxygen deprivation.
00:44:07.680 It’s not drugs. It’s not endorphins
00:44:09.839 being produced by the brain. It’s not
00:44:11.520 erratic electrical activity in the brain
00:44:13.200 or the heart. These things just don’t
00:44:15.520 explain what’s going on. Why is there
00:44:17.200 such resistance to it? is because the
00:44:19.359 very nature of scientists and the
00:44:21.200 medical field is to question what you
00:44:23.280 don’t know. What we’re taught in college
00:44:25.359 and medical school is that the mind is
00:44:26.800 what the brain does and all our thoughts
00:44:28.960 and feelings must come from the brain.
00:44:31.119 And people who are trained to this way
00:44:33.599 tend to accept that and not look at the
00:44:36.800 data that contradict that. And I think
00:44:39.040 that doctors and science so they’re
00:44:40.640 taught the mind is what the brain does,
00:44:42.640 right? Yeah. But we see experiences like
00:44:44.800 near-death experiences and lots of
00:44:46.160 others as well. They say they’re
00:44:47.520 separate, disprove that. And yet many
00:44:50.160 scientists are reluctant to acknowledge
00:44:52.079 this evidence that doesn’t go along with
00:44:53.920 what they were taught. I wish they were
00:44:56.160 more skeptical about what they were
00:44:57.359 taught and be more open to the evidence.
00:44:59.839 Okay. Harmony joins us. Harmony is uh in
00:45:03.599 Los Angeles, a Grammyinning songwriter
00:45:05.440 and producer who also had a near-death
00:45:07.520 experience at the age of just uh you
00:45:09.760 were 13.
00:45:11.680 13 years old. Yes. 13 years old. Tell
00:45:14.160 us. Hi, welcome Harmony. How you doing?
00:45:17.599 I am doing so good. We we want to know
00:45:19.599 what happened. What happened to you?
00:45:21.920 Well, uh I come from a very very very
00:45:24.400 religious background. I was born in
00:45:25.839 London uh by Nigerian parents and my
00:45:29.119 parents were very strict and raised us
00:45:30.960 in the church. Uh I was yeah was playing
00:45:34.640 I was a musician in the church for
00:45:36.319 years. So I had a true understanding of
00:45:38.400 having a relationship with God and
00:45:39.680 having a spiritual side uh from a very
00:45:42.240 young age. Uh but this particular week
00:45:46.319 was interesting because a few days prior
00:45:48.800 to the accident, my mother had uh an
00:45:52.800 inkling to pray because she had a dream
00:45:55.440 that the middle child was going to was
00:45:57.839 in a car accident. Fast forward, last
00:46:00.720 day of school, we go on a school bus,
00:46:03.599 well red bus in London. Yeah. And we’re
00:46:06.240 on our way back and it’s the last day of
00:46:07.760 school and an interesting thing took
00:46:10.640 place as I was crossing the road to get
00:46:14.880 to the other side. It was a dangerous
00:46:17.280 road and the car that was coming behind
00:46:19.400 it, didn’t see the bus, so swerved right
00:46:23.280 past the bus to avoid the bus. And I’m
00:46:25.760 in the middle of the road. So, oh my
00:46:27.440 goodness.
00:46:29.160 Um, from what I was
00:46:31.560 told, I flew over the car and my face
00:46:35.359 hit the windscreen and basically ripped
00:46:38.000 my whole face open. So, this whole I
00:46:40.079 have a scar right now, which is this
00:46:41.520 small, but when it like my whole lid was
00:46:43.800 open. Um, and supposedly I got up and
00:46:47.839 fell right back down. Um, what I
00:46:51.640 experienced was what felt like slumber.
00:46:56.240 Like I felt like I fell asleep and then
00:46:57.839 I woke up in this dream. In this dream,
00:47:01.280 it seemed like I could see my reality
00:47:03.520 and it was me floating over everything
00:47:05.920 that was taking place. The accident
00:47:08.000 didn’t actually see me in the accident,
00:47:09.520 but I could see the crowd, the bus, the
00:47:12.400 car, my sister that was walk crossing
00:47:15.280 the bridge ran running back down. That’s
00:47:17.520 my brother. That’s my brother. and I’m
00:47:19.119 floating and and and I’m
00:47:21.240 experiencing this scene, right? And I’m
00:47:24.400 it feels like a dream. Then whilst that
00:47:28.160 there’s this aura and this feeling of
00:47:30.240 something great that just comes around.
00:47:33.599 It’s not a light. It’s not It’s bigger
00:47:36.079 than that. It’s it’s so big and it’s so
00:47:38.520 consuming. It feels loud, but it feels
00:47:41.200 so quiet at the same time. It’s so great
00:47:43.760 and grand, but at the same time, it’s
00:47:46.319 very peaceful and simple. I didn’t feel
00:47:49.040 afraid at all. Yeah. You didn’t feel
00:47:51.440 afraid at all. But didn’t you hear them
00:47:53.520 say you’re dead? Didn’t you hear them
00:47:55.040 say he’s dead? So, go ahead. So, they
00:47:58.880 pronounced me dead. I I didn’t I I I
00:48:01.200 heard that when I woke up. They had
00:48:02.800 pronounced me dead. My sister, they had
00:48:05.520 run to my mom and said, “Your son has
00:48:07.599 been pronounced dead. They’re wrapping
00:48:08.800 him up right now about to put him in.
00:48:11.280 How How How did this change you as a
00:48:14.720 13-year-old?
00:48:16.560 Just blew my mind
00:48:18.359 because that’s what I heard. It was
00:48:20.560 like, “It’s not yet time.” And it wasn’t
00:48:22.319 it’s it it’s such a big voice, but it
00:48:25.760 was such a tender voice. It was so loud,
00:48:27.520 but it was a whisper. It’s like it’s it
00:48:30.079 just took over. And I was sure I knew
00:48:32.640 who it was. I knew exactly who it was.
00:48:35.440 And then I woke up. Who was it? And when
00:48:37.280 I Who was it? Who was it? God. God for
00:48:41.119 me. Okay. It was God for me. It was like
00:48:43.280 the everlasting whoever created this
00:48:45.359 earth spoke to me and said it’s not yet
00:48:49.160 time. So I wake up from what I thought
00:48:53.680 was a dream with this
00:48:56.119 sheet over me and I’m like and there’s
00:48:58.400 like he’s alive. He’s alive. And I’m
00:48:59.839 like yo what is everybody doing in my
00:49:01.760 bedroom? Like why are y’all in my
00:49:03.200 bedroom? So, I’m thinking I’m in my
00:49:05.160 bedroom and I’m still in the middle of
00:49:07.680 the street. Yeah. Cuz they had covered
00:49:08.960 you with the sheep. You’re gone. And
00:49:11.280 they basically ready like they were
00:49:13.440 ready to kind of be like, “He’s done.
00:49:15.920 He’s finished. He’s cooked. He’s he’s
00:49:17.520 he’s dead.” You know? Um and like I
00:49:20.079 said, they told my mother, I was dead at
00:49:22.400 the scene. They my sister had been had
00:49:25.440 basically been told he’s dead. Like he’s
00:49:27.760 he’s not waking up. And you heard the
00:49:29.839 voice of God
00:49:31.839 as you know it to be. Um 10% you felt I
00:49:35.680 heard when I was 9 years old. Yeah. You
00:49:37.599 heard the voice say it’s not your time.
00:49:40.800 And then did that’s when you you felt
00:49:42.720 that you came back into your body.
00:49:44.800 That’s when I came back. And ever since
00:49:46.480 then that same voice has guided me in so
00:49:50.319 many ways. Yeah. Uh, and it’s like I
00:49:53.520 said, it’s a voice cuz it’s it’s really
00:49:55.760 faint and it’s peaceful, but it’s really
00:49:57.839 big and loud at the same time. It’s I’ve
00:50:00.480 never I’ve never I can always tell it’s
00:50:02.880 like, “Okay, there it is.” Cuz it comes
00:50:04.880 in such a way that it’s unexplainable,
00:50:08.240 but it’s it’s very different from the
00:50:10.160 mind. It’s very different from, you
00:50:12.400 know, all the other voices that can be
00:50:14.079 distracting and come and, you know,
00:50:15.760 distort idea in your mind. It’s very I
00:50:18.240 know I I know Harmony, you have a
00:50:19.760 question for Dr. Grayson. What is it?
00:50:22.960 Now that you’ve heard so many stories
00:50:27.200 that have similar experiences,
00:50:29.480 Doc, is it safe to say that there is
00:50:32.400 life after this
00:50:35.240 life? As a scientist, I can’t say we’ve
00:50:37.839 proven that. But as a person who’s hear
00:50:41.040 these stories, I find it hard to deny
00:50:42.720 that there seem to be so many cases
00:50:44.720 where people are pronounced dead and yet
00:50:47.760 seem to be thinking clearly and in fact
00:50:51.040 more vividly than ever before. And if
00:50:53.200 that can happen without the brain being
00:50:55.559 active, that opens the possibility that
00:50:57.680 we it keeps going forever or as long as
00:50:59.839 we can measure. So what would prove it
00:51:01.440 to the to the scientist? Because I don’t
00:51:03.359 know what you need other than thousands
00:51:05.200 of people who’ve experienced it. Well,
00:51:07.680 for many scientists, they have to
00:51:08.960 experience it themselves, and they may
00:51:11.280 do that eventually. Yeah. But I wanted
00:51:13.119 to ask you a question, Harmony. Um I
00:51:15.040 know we’ve heard from so many um adult
00:51:17.280 near-death experiences how hard it was
00:51:19.680 to go back to a quote normal life after
00:51:21.760 this. What was it like for a 13-year-old
00:51:23.760 to go back to school and to do the usual
00:51:25.920 activities of a teenager? There was a
00:51:27.760 different understanding of what my life
00:51:29.359 was going to be consider how my life was
00:51:31.839 going to go. I knew from that moment on,
00:51:34.720 my life was going to move differently.
00:51:37.119 And tracing everything up to this day,
00:51:39.760 the people I’ve met, the experiences,
00:51:42.800 uh the places and the platforms that
00:51:44.960 I’ve been on, I’ve understood that
00:51:47.520 signific that day made a signific
00:51:49.440 significant difference in my life. And
00:51:51.280 there was a confidence I had to start
00:51:52.960 walking in. And there was an
00:51:54.800 understanding deep down no matter what
00:51:56.720 was around me, no matter who was around
00:51:58.319 me, no matter how things played around
00:52:00.480 me, I had to trust that voice every
00:52:02.640 time. And anytime I lost weight, I would
00:52:05.119 always go back to that it’s not yet
00:52:07.119 time, which may which also made me
00:52:09.520 understand I got a time period to do
00:52:11.680 some things here. Do you know what I
00:52:13.359 mean? I have some significant things to
00:52:15.680 do while I have the time because in this
00:52:19.599 lifetime run runs out now in the life
00:52:21.760 after this time probably continues but
00:52:24.800 there are things that I believe he kept
00:52:27.040 me for using the words it’s not yet time
00:52:30.240 is just it just allows me to know like I
00:52:32.559 I have a time period to get some things
00:52:34.319 done and I think the beautiful thing one
00:52:36.000 of the other beautiful things that
00:52:37.359 you’ve said here and I have tried to be
00:52:39.599 guided by that voice my whole
00:52:42.040 life Uh, also never had an indie or near
00:52:45.920 near-death experience, but I remember
00:52:47.760 being on the back porch. My grandmother
00:52:49.599 was washing clothes and I was like four
00:52:52.400 or 5 years old and she said, “You better
00:52:54.960 watch me now, Opra Gale, cuz one day
00:52:56.559 you’re going to have to learn how to do
00:52:57.680 this for yourself.” And I distinctly
00:53:00.240 heard the voice say, “No, you won’t.
00:53:03.599 Your life will be
00:53:05.160 different. No, you won’t. Your life will
00:53:07.440 be different.” And I remember that
00:53:10.000 feeling. And that feel that voice is
00:53:12.480 different than the voice that’s just in
00:53:14.240 my head. It’s the that goes on and I
00:53:16.559 have tried to
00:53:19.319 be obedient to that voice. So when you
00:53:22.800 said Harmony, oh there it is. Oh, there
00:53:25.760 it is. Anytime I’m in a crisis and I’m
00:53:28.559 thinking and I don’t know what should I
00:53:30.000 do, what I should do, I go and get
00:53:31.680 myself still so I can hear that voice
00:53:34.640 and go, “Oh, there it is.” and be guided
00:53:37.119 by that thing. And that you never go
00:53:39.359 wrong. Yeah, you never go wrong. And and
00:53:42.400 I believe we’re all connected to that
00:53:44.079 thing. And I believe we all have the
00:53:46.240 ability to hear that thing, research
00:53:48.960 that thing, feel that thing, and be
00:53:51.599 guided by that by that thing. By that
00:53:54.079 thing could be all kind of things to
00:53:56.160 different people. Everybody has a
00:53:58.000 different understanding of what that
00:53:59.520 thing is. It’s God to me. It’s something
00:54:02.000 else to somebody else. And I respect it
00:54:04.720 all that they all have something similar
00:54:07.839 which is God is the all-encompassing
00:54:09.680 word. Yes. Yeah. And I and often times
00:54:12.640 when I pray at my table and there are
00:54:14.720 different people from different
00:54:16.160 backgrounds I say by all the names we
00:54:19.040 call God in the universe so that it is
00:54:21.920 inclusive of whatever you that is is to
00:54:24.800 you and and and it is just it is all one
00:54:28.000 thing. It is all one being one existence
00:54:30.640 but whatever you choose to call it.
00:54:32.319 Well, thank you. Keep being led by the
00:54:34.720 voice, Harmony. Thank you so much, God.
00:54:37.280 The honor and the blessing of being in
00:54:39.040 this room. I appreciate it. Uh, thank
00:54:40.480 you so much. Thank you so much. Thank
00:54:42.160 you so much. So, I mean, I think what
00:54:44.800 Harmony was able to share, I I don’t
00:54:47.200 know of a lot of kids have had that
00:54:49.240 experience. Uh, I haven’t dealt with a
00:54:51.599 lot of children, but those that I that I
00:54:53.119 have talked to often have difficulty
00:54:56.000 taking life seriously at that point. And
00:54:58.720 it’s one thing when you’re 30, 40 years
00:55:00.319 old and you realize there’s nothing more
00:55:02.000 important. But when you’re a kid trying
00:55:03.440 to figure out who you are anyway to have
00:55:05.440 this thrown at you makes it much harder
00:55:07.200 to figure out what is my life all about?
00:55:09.440 What am I going to do with it? Yeah. But
00:55:12.319 I thought what he said about the voices.
00:55:14.000 So that’s amazing. We have Gabrielle.
00:55:16.319 Gabrielle joining us from Natural Dam,
00:55:18.079 Arkansas. She’s a country singer who had
00:55:19.760 a near-death experience two years ago
00:55:21.359 just before discovering that you had a
00:55:23.280 brain tumor. Welcome. take us back to
00:55:24.960 that night your mom found you in the
00:55:27.920 room bedroom growing up. Yes. Thank you
00:55:30.880 so much for having me, y’all. Yeah, it
00:55:33.240 was it was pretty bizarre to be honest.
00:55:36.000 I was driving home from Nashville. I was
00:55:37.920 7 and a half hours away and um that
00:55:40.880 night I got a really bad migraine and
00:55:43.359 usually if I’m feeling sick I’ll just
00:55:45.040 stop at a hotel and just stay the night
00:55:48.079 and then go the rest of the way. That
00:55:50.000 night, I just believe that there’s
00:55:51.920 something supernatural that kept me
00:55:54.720 moving. And so, I stopped in
00:55:57.720 gradu when I get back to my parents
00:56:00.400 house. I um I went to bed. I was like,
00:56:03.440 I’m just tired. I’m exhausted. And we
00:56:06.559 believe that there is something that
00:56:08.640 just woke my mom up. We believe in, you
00:56:11.119 know, Jesus, but Jesus just woke her up.
00:56:14.079 and she felt like she needed to do
00:56:15.440 laundry, which is right next to my
00:56:18.240 childhood bedroom. So, she hears me
00:56:20.640 throwing up in the bathroom and um she
00:56:24.160 comes in to check on me. I’m telling
00:56:26.640 her, “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.” And
00:56:29.359 as I as I’m telling her this, I start
00:56:31.599 having seizures. Wow. And so, she’s
00:56:34.400 like, “You are not
00:56:36.040 mine.” So, we um had this horrible storm
00:56:40.160 that was happening that night. for
00:56:41.760 ambulance was weren’t running. Um we
00:56:44.559 live in the boonies and so uh they um
00:56:48.160 called the private ambulance company.
00:56:50.319 They met my family uh my sister, my now
00:56:54.520 husband, everyone. We we loaded up. They
00:56:57.440 loaded me up into this ambulance and
00:57:01.040 we’re only able to make it to Portsmith,
00:57:02.880 which is about 45 minutes away. It’s not
00:57:05.440 the place you’d want to get your um you
00:57:07.839 know, brain surgery at because there
00:57:09.440 wasn’t specialists there. But um if it
00:57:13.040 wasn’t storming that night, they would
00:57:15.599 have taken me all the way to Little
00:57:16.799 Rock, which is 2 and a half hours. And
00:57:19.200 since they didn’t, I actually ended up
00:57:22.480 in that hospital 45 minutes away,
00:57:24.680 flatlined, and needing to be intubated.
00:57:27.839 So, um that was just the beginning of
00:57:30.559 the miracle. If it wasn’t for that storm
00:57:33.760 and me going to the first hospital and
00:57:36.000 those amazing doctors there saving me
00:57:37.839 and intubating me and bringing me back,
00:57:40.319 then I I would not have made it. Well,
00:57:42.319 there’s there’s multiple multiple
00:57:43.920 miracles that you have. I mean, first of
00:57:46.960 all, Jesus waking your mama up and she
00:57:49.359 wants to do laundry in the middle of the
00:57:50.880 night. Let’s just start with that one. I
00:57:53.760 I mean, listen, I believe in all of
00:57:56.240 that. I know exactly what you’re talking
00:57:59.040 about when they like, gosh, I just feel
00:58:01.119 like doing laundry. Don’t know why, and
00:58:03.119 there you are throwing up in the
00:58:04.960 bathroom. So, tell us about the
00:58:06.319 near-death experience. What did you see?
00:58:08.079 What did you feel? Did you see Jesus?
00:58:10.079 So, as I’m, you know, it I I’m listening
00:58:13.280 to these stories and it’s so wild that
00:58:15.280 everyone seems to kind of be on the same
00:58:17.440 page of the no time and this complete
00:58:21.520 peace and rest. And for for me, I um I I
00:58:27.760 apparently flatlined for 30 seconds to a
00:58:30.119 minute and there was no time. I just
00:58:33.839 almost felt this hand. I felt like it
00:58:35.839 was the hand of Jesus and just being
00:58:37.760 like, “Nope, not not yet. Not yet.” And
00:58:40.640 so I had this knowing just knowing of it
00:58:45.040 wasn’t my time. And it wasn’t this voice
00:58:49.280 or anything like that. It was like
00:58:51.200 everything that I was saying in my heart
00:58:54.400 was being heard and everything that
00:58:56.640 whatever it was saying talking to me
00:58:58.319 whether it be an angel or Jesus um was
00:59:01.680 letting me know they were saying it
00:59:03.640 telepathically. It’s so wild how that
00:59:06.079 happened because people are always what
00:59:08.319 you see what you see. I’m like I just
00:59:10.359 knew. I just knew. So what she’s
00:59:13.680 describing is what so many people
00:59:15.040 describe to because what I’ve heard too
00:59:17.760 and you write about in in in after is
00:59:20.960 that words fail you. Words are a
00:59:24.480 creation of this realm and you
00:59:29.000 know language which is necessary for us
00:59:32.400 to communicate but that you don’t need
00:59:34.680 that on the other side in the in in the
00:59:37.760 other realm. Correct. That’s right.
00:59:40.240 That’s right. Everyone uses whatever
00:59:41.599 language they can think of, but they
00:59:42.960 always say it’s not the Jesus I was
00:59:45.440 taught about. It’s much bigger than
00:59:46.640 that. You know, they said it’s I can’t
00:59:49.119 give you words for it, but it’s there.
00:59:51.599 And after your NDE uh your near-death
00:59:54.799 experience, I heard Gabrielle that
00:59:57.440 everything just felt trivial after that.
00:59:59.760 Tell us about that feeling. Oh my gosh,
01:00:01.920 it so I woke up a week and a half later
01:00:05.040 and I had a big gauze patch on my head
01:00:08.319 and um I had Bell’s palsy severe on my
01:00:11.359 the right side of my face and um my
01:00:14.559 brother, he’s he’s a duo and he was
01:00:17.520 there and I didn’t expect him to be
01:00:19.200 there and if you’ve heard of the duo Dan
01:00:21.440 and Shay. Yeah. Yeah. And so my brother
01:00:24.760 Shay just scured on down there. My
01:00:27.440 sister Erica was in there in the room.
01:00:30.000 Um, I remember waking up and my brother
01:00:32.960 being at the end of my bed and I I had
01:00:36.319 no idea what had happened. I I was like,
01:00:38.400 “Oh, what what are you doing here?” And
01:00:41.520 everything that I did after that, you
01:00:43.839 know, I was supposed to release an
01:00:44.960 album. I was supposed to go on tour all
01:00:47.040 in 2023. I was supposed to do all these
01:00:49.760 things that people expected of me and
01:00:52.240 that, you know, needed from me. And it
01:00:55.280 took me so long to even be able to think
01:00:59.440 about trivial things of the world like
01:01:01.599 money or fame or or get my music out
01:01:05.359 there. It was just I had this spiritual
01:01:08.400 experience that just made me want to
01:01:11.440 love on people and love on my family.
01:01:15.200 And it made me realize that there’s
01:01:16.880 nothing in this world that matters. You
01:01:20.079 can’t take it with you when you go. You
01:01:21.760 can get a Grammy. You can get money. You
01:01:24.880 can have beautiful homes, but you’re not
01:01:27.119 taking it with you. Yeah. And so the
01:01:29.119 legacy you leave behind is the most
01:01:31.920 important thing. And the love that you
01:01:33.760 leave behind with your family. I loved
01:01:35.520 earlier when Jeremy was on Jeremy Rener
01:01:37.920 and he was saying love is the only thing
01:01:40.400 you take with you. Love is the only
01:01:42.559 thing you take with you. Do you do you
01:01:44.480 have a question for Dr. Grayson? I
01:01:47.040 actually do. So after I had my
01:01:50.000 experience, it was so hard for me to
01:01:51.599 acclimate. Do you find that that is
01:01:53.599 common from people that have had
01:01:55.440 near-death experiences to be able to
01:01:57.440 kind of go back to their hustle? Yes,
01:02:01.520 it’s very common. People differ how hard
01:02:03.839 it is because some of them have a
01:02:05.520 spiritual life to begin with and others
01:02:07.119 others don’t. And we’ve done some
01:02:09.359 studies recently looking at who people
01:02:11.520 turn to for help and what types of help
01:02:14.000 help and which ones don’t. And what
01:02:16.000 seems to be most helpful is talking to
01:02:17.520 other people who have had near-death
01:02:18.880 experiences and who have been through
01:02:20.319 this before and come up with their own
01:02:21.920 ways of dealing with this. So, if you
01:02:24.079 can find a group of other experiencers
01:02:25.839 who have gone through this, they may be
01:02:27.599 the most helpful thing for you. And I
01:02:29.920 hear you have an album coming out this
01:02:31.440 summer, right? And did did you did you
01:02:33.520 did you write a song about this
01:02:34.799 experience? I’m actually writing
01:02:37.119 several. Um, it’s it’s funny because we
01:02:40.480 uh we started this song called Coming
01:02:42.960 Back to You. And it’s not just about my
01:02:44.880 husband. and I love him so much. He’s
01:02:46.400 perfect. Um, in fact, while I was in the
01:02:48.480 hospital, I had Bell’s palsy and one
01:02:50.559 eyeball was open and I knew I was going
01:02:52.640 to marry him when my sister told me that
01:02:54.559 he just went over and just closed that
01:02:56.160 little eyeball for me. So, well, I have
01:02:59.280 so many
01:03:00.760 songs. I have so many songs written
01:03:03.200 about him, but we have one um that we’re
01:03:05.680 writing called Coming Back to You and
01:03:07.119 it’s about f my family and um my husband
01:03:10.559 just um being able to share their life
01:03:13.319 experiences with them cuz that’s the
01:03:15.599 thing that you’d miss out on is their
01:03:18.319 lives. You know, people think that it’s
01:03:20.559 just your life you’re missing out on.
01:03:22.400 Good luck to you on that album. Great
01:03:24.559 success, Gabrielle. And thank you for
01:03:27.039 joining us. Thank you so much for
01:03:28.400 sharing your story. I mean, and let me
01:03:30.960 just say, you got a good man if he came
01:03:32.799 over there and closed that little
01:03:33.920 eyeball. He is the best. I got to say
01:03:37.039 that’s one of the best love love moments
01:03:39.920 I’ve heard. I think that’s I know that’s
01:03:42.240 looked kind of crazy, you know. I just I
01:03:44.480 just think that’s so endearing. Thank
01:03:46.400 you so much. Thank you so much. Thank
01:03:48.160 you. So, Dr. Grayson, Dr. Neil, Harmony,
01:03:52.400 and Gabrielle, they all describe hearing
01:03:54.480 a voice or the message. Yes.
01:03:56.920 uh it’s not your time whether it’s
01:04:00.400 physically hearing it as as Harmony did
01:04:03.280 or as in the case of Gabrielle she said
01:04:06.799 she didn’t hear that but she felt that
01:04:09.920 it’s not your time is that common for
01:04:12.559 most indes because as you’re coming back
01:04:14.799 into the body you come back yeah it’s
01:04:17.760 common but it’s not universal by any
01:04:19.359 means some people say that they were
01:04:20.640 given a choice do you want to stay here
01:04:22.880 or do you want to go back and finish
01:04:24.319 something and they make a decision to
01:04:26.640 come back and finish something they have
01:04:28.480 left undone whether it’s uh helping a a
01:04:31.039 deceased or dying person um pass over or
01:04:34.319 raising a child or writing a book about
01:04:37.280 it um but they have some reason they
01:04:39.680 chose to come back and to say they are
01:04:41.599 set back up against my will well you
01:04:44.000 know all of this reminds me I read I had
01:04:46.160 read um song of myself I think in high
01:04:48.960 school or college and then the very
01:04:50.880 first time I s Walt Whitman’s song of
01:04:54.240 myself and the very first time I had uh
01:04:56.960 an interview with somebody with an NDE.
01:04:59.359 Their experience reminded me of what he
01:05:01.520 says in Song of Myself. He says, “All
01:05:05.039 goes onward and outward. Nothing
01:05:08.200 collapses and to die is different from
01:05:12.000 what anyone
01:05:13.480 supposed luckier.” Has anyone supposed
01:05:17.119 it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform
01:05:20.720 him or her. It is just as lucky to die
01:05:24.880 and I know it. I pass death with the
01:05:28.000 dying and birth with the new washed babe
01:05:31.839 and am not contained between my hat and
01:05:36.240 my boots. So when I went back and reread
01:05:39.200 that, I thought Walt Whitman must have
01:05:40.960 had an
01:05:41.880 indie. Yes. Yeah. Well, a near-death
01:05:45.920 event is only the most common way in our
01:05:47.839 culture to have this type of experience,
01:05:50.079 but it’s a common spiritual experience.
01:05:52.000 It’s been happening for people for
01:05:53.119 centuries all around the globe. Uh for
01:05:55.280 in different reasons for different
01:05:56.559 reasons. Some get it through meditation
01:05:58.319 or through prayer or just spontaneously.
01:06:01.359 Uh and the near-death experiences is one
01:06:03.440 one precipitant for that experience. So,
01:06:05.599 the title of your book after, as I uh
01:06:08.880 started out talking about at the
01:06:10.079 beginning of our conversation, has
01:06:11.839 multiple meanings for you. What are
01:06:14.319 they? Well, the most obvious one was
01:06:16.319 what happens after we die. And I
01:06:18.799 speculated about that. You asked before,
01:06:20.559 what would it take for scientists to be
01:06:22.240 to show that this is true? Scientists
01:06:24.880 don’t deal with proof. They deal with
01:06:26.559 the weight of the evidence. So they can
01:06:28.319 say the evidence points to the fact that
01:06:30.799 we survive, but they can never say it’s
01:06:32.720 proven. Scientists don’t do that. Yes.
01:06:34.480 And the scientist to me says, I can’t
01:06:36.480 say for sure. Yes. But I believe it
01:06:38.640 does. I believe I believe the evidence
01:06:40.559 points. I can’t think of another
01:06:42.000 explanation for these experiences. Um,
01:06:45.280 so one one that’s one of one of the
01:06:47.440 meanings what happens after the other is
01:06:49.599 what happens to people after they’ve had
01:06:51.119 a near-death experience and come back to
01:06:52.799 this world. Yes. And how do they live
01:06:54.640 their lives after the near-death
01:06:56.960 experience? Yeah, that’s what Gabrielle
01:06:59.039 was saying. Yes. And for most near death
01:07:00.480 experiences to say that’s the most
01:07:02.400 important lesson of the NDE. How do you
01:07:04.880 live your life knowing this?
01:07:08.480 And the final reason for the book being
01:07:10.319 called after is to make you think about
01:07:12.960 what am I going to do differently after
01:07:15.119 I’ve read this book? What do I do now
01:07:17.359 with this knowledge? Mhm. And there have
01:07:19.920 been some studies now of how knowing
01:07:22.240 about NDEs affects people’s lives.
01:07:25.280 They’ve done studies with looking at
01:07:26.720 college students who’ve taken a course
01:07:28.400 in NDEs and looked at them before and
01:07:30.720 after. And some of the same after
01:07:33.359 effects you see with near death
01:07:34.640 experiences becoming more spiritual,
01:07:36.160 more compassionate, less materialistic.
01:07:38.480 We see those with people who are just
01:07:39.839 exposed to NDEs.
01:07:42.319 And you often see this in family and
01:07:43.920 friends of near-death experiences that
01:07:45.839 they also become more spiritual, less
01:07:48.319 driven to achieve in this world. Well, I
01:07:50.880 tell you this is from the very first
01:07:53.359 time I started hearing about them and
01:07:55.200 just had the aha that makes sense to me.
01:07:59.280 That’s how religion meets
01:08:02.440 spirituality. Um, and also becoming
01:08:05.119 aware of the army of people that have
01:08:07.599 come before me. Um, it helped me to not
01:08:11.200 fear death. To not fear death because I
01:08:14.960 believe as Whitman says that whatever is
01:08:18.080 there on the other side is going to be
01:08:20.000 the big surprise that being born in this
01:08:23.439 realm was. And so, do you fear death?
01:08:26.158 Oh, definitely. That’s the most common
01:08:27.759 thing people say after a near-death
01:08:29.279 experience. No matter what the NDE was
01:08:31.198 like, whether it was blissful or not
01:08:33.520 blissful, they say, “I’m not afraid of
01:08:35.439 dying anymore.” And that’s what makes
01:08:37.439 the near-death experience so different
01:08:38.719 from other people who have come close to
01:08:40.158 death. Most people who almost die come
01:08:42.719 back valuing life more. They want to be
01:08:45.839 more alive, more vibrant than they were
01:08:47.719 before, but they’re also more afraid of
01:08:50.238 dying unless they’ve had a near-death
01:08:52.238 experience. And then they’re not afraid
01:08:54.158 of dying either. They say, in fact, if
01:08:56.479 you’re not afraid of dying, then you’re
01:08:58.158 less afraid of living to the fullest.
01:09:00.319 Oh, and that brings me to the question I
01:09:02.880 like to ask everybody all the all the
01:09:04.640 time here on this podcast is how do you
01:09:07.040 define a well-lived life?
01:09:11.439 I think you heard it from from Jeremy
01:09:13.198 and from uh Tom Sawyer as well that you
01:09:17.120 you live your life knowing that what’s
01:09:19.120 important is how you treat other people
01:09:21.600 and that living the golden rule not just
01:09:24.560 giving lip service to but actually
01:09:26.158 living it in your day-to-day life makes
01:09:28.238 life much more meaningful much more
01:09:29.759 purposeful. Yeah. Well, thank you Dr.
01:09:32.560 Bruce Grayson, thank you Jeremy Ritter,
01:09:35.198 Dr. Mary Neil, thank you. Harmony,
01:09:38.080 Harmony and Gabrielle for sharing your
01:09:40.560 experiences with us. Dr. Grayson’s book
01:09:42.319 is After a Doctor Explores what
01:09:45.359 near-death experiences reveal about life
01:09:48.319 and beyond, and it’s available wherever
01:09:51.120 you buy your books, wherever books are
01:09:52.640 sold. Fascinating read. Go well
01:09:54.840 everybody. You can subscribe to the Over
01:09:57.120 Podcast on YouTube and follow us on
01:09:58.960 Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
01:10:01.040 listen. I’ll see you next week. Thanks
01:10:03.280 everybody.