After Death (2023)

[bunniefuu]

[musical swirl]

[water drop]

[crackle]

[rockslide]

[musical tone]

[music]

[music continues]

[doors opening]

Mr. Black: It was

July 18th, 1969.

It was early in the

morning, about 5:30 a.m.

It was a beautiful

day to fly.

No wind to speak of.

So how could

it be better?

We start up the engines.

We were full of fuel.

Everything was fine.

And we started taxiing.

[Engine rumbling]

And then sure enough,

the aircraft

started to climb.

Chuck brought the landing

gear up.

We were accelerating

and climbing

above the runway,

and I think we were about

100 feet above the ground

when I started noticing

that something was wrong.

[intense music boom]

You have one engine

at higher rpm,

another low rpm.

Now that can happen

with an engine failure.

[intense music boom]

And I mean,

I grabbed the chairs

and held on

and looked out

and I saw a bunch

of green grass

and it looked

like a city park

And I thought, well,

worst case scenario,

we've always been trained

to just land in a park.

But the next thing

I noticed was

towering trees

were filling our windshield

[trees hitting the plane]

Chuck grabbed

the flight controls,

and he yanks them all

the way left.

As far as they'll go.

And then he pulls them

all the way back,

against his chest.

[intense music]

[crash]

[soft music start]

I suddenly found myself

above the crash site,

but unaware

of what I was

looking at or why.

I was not in any pain.

I was not in any fear

or discomfort.

I was just above this

crash site.

[picture click]

I could see an airplane

and I could see a pilot.

First of all, my eyes

went right to one pilot.

This was Gene.

And then I went over

and I saw another pilot

right next to him

five feet away.

And I recognized this

as Chuck.

And while I'm processing

what I'm looking at,

I see a third pilot also

about five feet away.

And this is me.

[low rumbling]

[music]

Mr. Burke: Imagine if what

we're living here on this

earth is really being

lived on a flat, black

and white

painting on a wall,

and death is separation.

So when we die, our

spirit separates

from our physical body.

[music and rumbling]

You die and

you're ripped off

that flat,

black and white

two-dimensional painting

your brought out into a

three-dimensional room

of color all around you.

[building music

and rumbling]

You're experiencing things

you've never

experienced before,

even though you can

see your world

is contained

within this world,

[music]

then imagine

you're put back into

that flat,

black and white painting,

and you have to describe

three dimensions of color

in two-dimensional

black and white terms.

How would you do it?

[dramatic music]

[music continues]

Dr. Sabom: Medically,

Scientifically,

the point of death

cannot be defined.

What we do know is there

is a process of dying

during which I feel the

near-death

experience occurs.

75% of the people in that

first study

have had a documented

cardiac arrest.

Part of the

experience is they

said they floated up

out of their body

and they can see

what was going on

during the resuscitation.

I felt that myself,

as a cardiologist

could pick that apart.

[button click, reel stops]

Mr. Burke: This is clinical

death as we know it,

sometimes

for a few minutes,

sometimes 30 minutes,

sometimes hours.

And yet modern medicine

or the miraculous,

I don't know,

resuscitated them

and they were able

to come back

and talk about it.

You may think

you've d*ed.

Dr. Sabom: All definitions,

medically,

scientifically,

and legally

state that once you go

across that red line,

i.e. you die,

you don't come back.

And I like to say doctors

resuscitate,

not resurrect

their patients.

[low music]

Mr. Burke: I was actually

an agnostic.

I didn't know if I

believed there was a God.

I thought, I don't

know if I believe

there's a heaven or not,

but my dad was

dying of cancer

and someone gave him

the very first research

on what's now called

near-death experiences.

And I saw it

on his nightstand,

picked it up

and read it in one night.

And that just

got me curious.

So I kind of opened my

my eyes, my mind,

and I started

to explore from there.

[pages turning]

I found it fascinating,

kind of, the train

of how this

whole near-death

experience phenomenon

started to get

traction in America.

Dr. George Ritchie

was the first one

to really talk

publicly about this.

He was actually

at Camp Barkeley

getting ready to go

fight in World w*r II.

Joan Rivers: What happened

during those 9 minutes?

What did you see?

What happened?

Dr. Ritchie: I met

the Christ

because I was told

to stand up, you are

in the presence

of the Son of God.

He came into my room

and he conducted me

through four different

realms of life

after death.

Life really is

forever. We don't die.

Death is nothing

more than just a gateway

through which we go.

Mr. Burke: Dr. Moody

actually heard him lecture

at the University

of Virginia,

where he was

a visiting professor

and heard him talk about

this near-death

experience.

Dr. Moody: In 1969,

I became a professor

of philosophy

at East

Carolina University

and in teaching

courses on Plato.

I began to hear these

experiences

from my students

and also from other

faculty members.

Dr. Sabom: I was

brought into this

field kicking

and screaming.

I was at the University

of Florida in Gainesville

with Sarah Kreissinger

who was a psychiatric,

social worker

at the hospital

I was working at.

And she had picked up

Raymond Moody's book

Life After Life,

about two months

after it was

initially published.

She read it.

She gave it to me.

She asked me

what I thought.

Anchor: This is Dr. Raymond

Moody,

noted psychiatrist,

lecturer, and researcher.

He is perhaps best

known as the author

of the groundbreaking

examination

of the near-death

experience.

The bestselling book,

Life After Life.

It has sold upwards

of 15 million copies,

and has been printed in

14 different languages.

Dr. Moody: They tell us,

first of all,

that they seem,

from their point of view,

to leave

their physical bodies

to float up above the

scene of the resuscitation

and to watch the events

going on down below.

They tell us that they go

through a narrow

passageway or a tunnel

into an

incredibly brilliant

and warm and loving light

Dr. Sabom: Hogwash.

I never heard

these experiences before.

I went into the hospital

asking some of the

older physicians,

"Hey, you ever heard

a patient say this?"

"No."

[music]

So I was very skeptical

that these things

were even occurring.

And if they were

occurring,

they were either

hallucinations

or delusions or whatever.

[music continues]

In cardiology, we're about

scientific studies.

So I asked a few people

who had been resuscitated,

and the third patient

I talked to had

an experience

similar to what

Moody talked

about in his book,

Life After Life.

So, Sarah and I said,

Well, maybe we ought

to look into this further.

[typewriter clicks]

We devised a

scientific protocol

to interview

these people.

We tape recorded

the interviews.

We took down

their background data,

the demographics,

etc.. And...

this went

on for five years.

First of all,

I'd get permission

to tape record it

and then say,

okay, go...

Dr. Sabom: These

people say,

"I've never told anybody

about this, doc.

And by the way, I'm

the only one

that's ever had this."

So the near-death

experience at that time,

and that's about 45 years

ago was not well known.

And so these people

were sort of

coming up

with it on their own,

and they were suspicious

of me asking the questions,

which to me

lent credibility to what

they were telling me.

Dr. Moody: Many of them

said, for example,

that they had tried to tell

their doctor about it

or a minister about it and

that they were dismissed.

And in those initial years,

the people that I talked

with were just very happy

that at last somebody

would listen to them.

Mr. Storm: I started at

Northern Kentucky University

in 1972.

I was hired as an assistant

professor and I was

offered a promotion

to full professor

at the age of 25, and

I was also given tenure

[music]

my third year.

Seven students, myself

and my wife

toured Amsterdam

and then went up

to Denmark.

Spent a few days there,

went to Sweden for a day.

And last week, it was

a three week trip,

and our last week,

was a week in Paris.

It was an art tour, it was,

pretty much all museums.

[music continues]

On that Saturday morning,

June 1, 1985,

and I had the most acute

pain I'd ever

experienced in my life

in the center of

my abdomen. Right there.

[rumbling]

It was terrifying

because it

it just came from

nowhere.

And I never experienced

such acute pain.

I mean, this was like

the kind of pain

that blows

the top of your head off.

[rumbling]

A doctor

came very quickly,

got me up

off the floor,

with a great deal of

difficulty because

I couldn't move.

He knew exactly

what was wrong.

and told me that I

had a perforation

of the duodenum.

Which means I had a hole

go through my

small stomach.

What was happening

was the hydrochloric acid

and the enzymes

and the bacteria

in everything

are now migrating, leaking

into my abdominal cavity.

To put it in crude terms.

I was digesting myself,

on the inside.

[liquid expl*si*n]

Without exaggeration,

what it felt like

was fire.

[fire expl*si*n]

my wife riding alongside me

in the back of

the ambulance

as we traveled

70, 80 miles an hour

through the streets

of Paris to the big

city hospital

[emergency sirens]

they confirmed basically,

if I didn't have the

surgery in an hour,

I would die.

[squeaky wheel]

So they sent me

to the surgical hospital.

And because it was

the weekend,

there was no doctor

available.

No surgeon

available at the hospital

they sent me to.

So I was put in a room.

[moaning and yelling]

I begged, I screamed,

I yelled,

[intense music]

and my wife begged

and yelled and screamed,

Beverly: Nurse, can someone

please come in here?

[intense music]

Mr. Storm: Sorry.

We need a doctor

to prescribe something

Beverly: Can you please talk

to someone who can help us?

There has to be somebody,

how can there not be

someone here?

[intense music]

Mr. Storm: There I

was for 10 hours.

About once an hour,

the nurse would come in

and ask how I was doing,

and I would tell her in

French and English

that I was dying and

shrug their shoulders

and walk away.

I wasn't in fear.

I was in terror

Because I was 38 years old,

very successful

in my career

at the university,

you know, wife and two

kids, nice house, two cars.

The thing

that kept going through

my mind is this

can't be happening.

This can't be happening.

This can't be happening.

[clock ticking]

People ask me,

How do you know

you were dying?

It's like the stupidest

question in the world

when you're dying,

you know it

with every breath.

I felt like I had one more

breath to go.

[women crying and pleading]

Nurse came into the room

at 8:30 that night

and said they were sorry,

but they were

unable to locate a doctor

and they would try

to find one the next day,

which was Sunday.

Well, when she said that,

I was like,

okay, it's over. Done.

You know,

I can't do this anymore.

You know, I'm exhausted.

And I looked

at her [Beverly],

and it was horrible to

see her crying like that.

And I closed my eyes and

stopped trying to breathe.

And I went unconscious.

[flat-line tone]

I was an atheist,

and I knew that

when you die,

it's just over.

It's like the big nothing,

you know, void the end.

[music building]

Mr. Black: The official

impact speed recorded

by the National

Transportation Safety Board

was 135 miles an hour.

We impacted

right below the cockpit

with that impact speed.

It just exploded

the cockpit into...

We just,

everything was opened up.

We hit that dome and fell,

boom,

right down to the ground.

I'm told by the curator

of the mausoleum,

that the mausoleum

was six stories,

seven stories tall.

And we slammed

right into the top of it.

I can remember today

as well as I could five

years ago, ten years ago.

You realize

that you are not

a body.

I believe it's

what happens to everyone

when they die.

Mr. Storm: I awoke

from unconsciousness

standing there

next to the bed,

feeling better than I ever

felt before in my life.

My vision

was greatly increased.

Instead of seeing 106

degrees, I could see

almost 360 degrees.

My depth of field

was total.

When I looked at something

close, I, everything

far was in focus.

Being an artist and being

a visual person, not much.

The first thing I was like,

Wow, I've never been able

to see like this.

Then I realized I

could hear,

smell, taste, touch, everything.

I could feel

all the little nuances

in the cold linoleum floor.

I could hear the buzzing

of the fluorescent lights

in the ceiling

really loudly.

All of my senses were

greatly, greatly enhanced.

Mr. Black: I'm looking

down and I'm realizing

there's my body,

but I'm up here.

I can't be dead because

I've never felt more alive.

[music and waves]

I was not only alive,

I was free.

And I didn't understand

this.

But I realized then, okay,

I am a spirit.

I have a soul.

And I used to live

in that body.

I was pressed up against

the instrument panel

and was motionless.

It was 16 minutes

before the fire department

got there.

The paramedics

got there right after

[emergency sirens]

they put me and Chuck

in the same ambulance.

And I have tremendous

strong memories

that I'm watching my body

and Chuck and I'm chasing

that ambulance as it goes

through the streets.

I have no idea

how to explain

a lot of the things

we're talking about.

But chasing that ambulance

without really any effort.

How did I do that?

I don't know.

[music and sirens]

I wasn't worried.

I wasn't in pain.

I wasn't concerned really.

I was questioning,

what is this all about

Dr. Long: Now, while no two

near-death experiences

are the same,

they have a very consistent

pattern of elements

or what occurs

during the near-death

experience.

That typically occur in

a very consistent process.

[backround conversation]

[medical equipment beeping]

The very first thing that

happens is that close

brush with death.

They're unconscious.

They may be clinically dead

with absent heartbeat,

absent breathing.

At that time when

they shouldn't

have any experience at

all, they do.

Often the first thing

that happens is

what's called

an out-of-body experience.

Mr. Burke: People leave

their bodies.

They're, they're watching

the resuscitation

many times, but they say

they still have

a spiritual body.

Dr. Long: From that

vantage point,

they can see ongoing

earthly events

and often later describe

frantic efforts

at their own resuscitation.

[backround conversation]

[medical equipment sounds]

Mr. Burke: They move out

of that place

of their resuscitation,

and they come to a place

of exquisite beauty.

- Dr. Sabom:

- They very commonly

see a light at times.

They interpret

that as a religious figure.

Mr. Burke: And this light was

light that is love and life.

It was palpable

and not hard to look at,

but it came out

of everything,

and yet it made everything

vibrant.

The colors,

they say, are far

beyond our color spectrum.

Dr. Long: Music has been

described so beautiful

that they say they've never

heard anything like it.

Nothing like that

is possible on earth.

Dr. Sabom: Deceased

relatives or friends often

come to meet them there.

Mr. Burke: You know, they say

we still have all our memories

our humor,

we're the same people.

But we meet again

on the other side.

Dr. Sabom: And some of them say,

well, I reached a place where

I felt like

if I went any further,

I wouldn't come back

Dr. Long: At that time,

they may then have

a life review.

They may see part

or all of their prior life.

[breathe sound]

Dr. Sabom: The whole

experience is

very calm,

it's very peaceful.

Some people don't

want to come back.

[music and whooshing]

Mr. Burke: And then many talk

about a God of light

and love

that they experience

in this presence.

This light is brighter

than the sun,

but again, not just light

like we would see

here on earth.

And they feel an

unconditional love

and peace and acceptance

from this God like they've

never experienced before.

[violin music]

- Dr. Long:

- Ultimately, they either

make the choice to return

to the earthly body or

sent back involuntarily.

Mr. Burke: This God almost

always says to them,

Your time is not up yet.

You still have a purpose

on Earth.

Sometimes he asks them,

Do you want to stay

or do you want to go?

Many times he says,

You got to go back.

None of them want to go

back.

[music]

Mr. Burke: Not every

single one of

them experiences

all the commonalities.

Some do, some experience

three, four or five,

some ten, 20,

some, all of them.

But those

commonalities overlap.

But there are uniqueness

to each experience.

Like when they encounter

this god of light and love,

each one of them feels like

they are the only

one God loves.

And yet,

they all feel that way.

[click and rolling]

[Historic illustrations

of the afterlife]

[music]

Mr. Burke: You know actually,

these near-death

experiences are not new.

Plato wrote in the Republic

about

a soldier who comes to

on his funeral pyre

and had an experience

like this.

Paul in the New Testament,

who wrote much of

the New Testament,

I believe in

Acts chapter 14,

He's stoned to

death in Lystra

and left for dead.

And then he gets back up

and he talks about

how he had an experience

of going to heaven

[music]

Dr. Moody: In the ancient world.

Presumably these

experiences were very rare.

By the time

I started investigating it

in the 60s

and 70s,

the advent

of cardiopulmonary

resuscitation

had greatly increased

the number of people

who had been to the brink

of death and recovered.

So there were

a lot of cases.

Dr. Sabom: Some of them say,

well, I reached a place where

I felt like

if I went any further,

I wouldn't come back.

And I get questioned

about this a lot.

And the question

is, well, is that really

a barrier or not?

And my answer is,

well, I've not been able

to interview

any of them

that didn't come back.

So I assume

that if they do go over

that, it very well may be

a point of no return.

I have no evidence

to suggest that,

except I have no evidence

to refute it either.

[button clicks and

machine starts]

Raymond Moody heard

about our work,

so he called us up

to his house,

along with two

other researchers.

Dr. Moody: And that's when I met

all of these wonderful people

Bruce Grayson and Mike

Sabom and Kenneth Ring.

Dr. Sabom: We got together,

we compared notes

and we said, you know,

we ought to form

a group and share with one

another what we're doing.

And it eventually

turned out to be

what's now known as IANDS

International Association

and Near-Death Studies.

[music and pictures moving]

Mr. Burke: After five years of

doing research, Dr. Sabom

ends up writing

a book convinced that

this really does show that

there is life after death.

But then even more

fascinating, he publishes

in the Journal of the

American Medical

Association

his findings and what

changed his mind.

Dr. Long: I was in my

residency training

and I was going through

a bound journal

looking for a cancer

related article.

And completely by accident,

I found in the title

of an article the

term Near-Death experience.

[music and low rumble]

Dr. Long: Everything I knew as

a doctor said,

This is medically

inexplicable.

In this article

all around

the world, were people

having these experiences

while they were unconscious

or even clinically dead

who can't be mystified

by that question

of what happens

after you die?

[music]

Dr. Moody: As I've traveled

around the world to China

and Japan and India

and North and South America

and all over Europe,

people all over the world

use the word light,

but they say that it's not

the light that comes

from a light bulb

or from the sun.

But universally

the description is that the

light of complete

compassion and love.

And people also say

that they learned

from their experience

that what we call

death is a transition

into some other reality.

So they

lose their fear of death.

[rolling thunder and raindrops]

Don Piper: The day was

January 18th, 1989,

very chilly by

South Texas standards.

I almost stopped

in a little town

before you cross

all the bridges to get some

some coffee. I didn't.

The people who were

on the highway ahead of me,

she wanted some coffee.

They pulled over.

I drove past them

and they came in behind me,

d*ck and Anita,

Onarecker.

Anita: It was foggy

and a slight rain.

It was wet

Don: and I knew I would have to

cross some bridges.

[thunder and rain]

It was an old bridge

and it is very narrow.

I'm just really focused

on getting back

to Alvin, Texas,

where I lived.

I was headed back that way

and looking forward

to seeing my family,

which I missed for three

days, especially my wife.

What I didn't know

was that steep

embankment was there.

[gears engaging]

It's like going on a tunnel

because you had this

big metal superstructure

above you,

on both sides of you.

You can see only really

to the end of the bridge

and then

the highway goes up.

So I couldn't see beyond

the end of the bridge.

Out of nowhere, a tractor

trailer truck

hit the car in his lane,

then came over to my lane

and hit me head on.

[Crash]

[Thunder]

Anita: When we approached

the bridge,

the first thing on

the right

was this large 18 wheeler,

and then the next

thing on the left,

I believe, was a gray car.

It had a single older

man in it.

Then the next thing

was Don's red car

that was all crushed

and smashed.

So we were only

four vehicles on the bridge

at that point.

Swen Spujt: I was stationed

in Walker

County at the time.

I said,

How does it look for him?

And they said,

"not good at all."

That was, you know, just

something I never forgot.

I mean, was seeing that

it was a miserable,

miserable day.

Don: Traffic is backed

up from miles

in both directions

because at that time

there was the only bridge

across that lake,

in fact, d*ck Onarecker.

And Anita

had to leave their car

and walk up on the bridge

to get to where

the accident was.

Anita: Police approached

d*ck first and said,

Don't even bother

with that man.

I've already checked him

and he has no pulse.

And then d*ck did check,

and he could not

identify any pulse.

[music]

Don: You could see from this

wrecking yard picture that

the trajectory of the truck

as it went over.

[music]

When the truck hit me,

it literally took

this arm over my shoulder

into the back seat.

The steering wheel

actually went horizontal

and into my chest

My head had banged up

against the metal side

of the interior of the car.

My right leg

was broken at the knee,

but I must have slid on

the seat a little sideways

because it hit

from that angle.

And when it did, it

literally severed my left

leg just above the knee,

and four and a half

inches of the femur

was ejected from the car

and actually never found.

I had been

k*lled instantly.

My heart was not b*ating,

so it was not

pumping blood.

I d*ed on the bridge.

[bird song]

Dr. Neal: I'm a board certified

orthopedic spine surgeon

and physicians

spend their entire career

evading death.

We believe that

if we are smart enough,

if we are

well-trained enough,

and if we do a good enough

job that we can control

the outcomes, that we can

control the variables

and we can cheat death.

My husband and I

were avid kayakers.

Kayaking is

both challenging

and exhilarating.

We began to go down

the river.

We went over

the first couple of drops.

It was very high flow,

very high

current, strong current.

There is another client

that sort of bobbled

her way past me and

ended up sideways at the

entrance to the chute.

So my only option

was to veer over

and go over the

main part of the waterfall

[water splashing]

and the

front end of my boat

became pinned

[waterfall sounds]

[music intensifying]

and the boat and I

were then

completely submerged under

8 to 10 feet of water.

[waterfall sounds]

I recognized that I was

probably going to drown.

[waterfall sounds]

I would think about

the fact that

I must be dead,

but I didn't feel dead.

I felt more alive

than I've ever felt.

I felt this

incredible experience

like I was just

part of the water.

I felt magnificent, actually.

I knew that

I was being held by Christ

as purely as I know,

anything.

I know it sounds crazy,

but it's just

something that

is outside of our language.

Peter Panagore: We went up a

world famous climb,

maybe 500 feet,

three pitches up

David Ditchfield: As the train

started pulling out,

I just thought, This is it.

I'm going to die.

Jeremain: I took a corner

to a 90 miles

an hour, flipped over,

and it landed on the top.

All I remember seeing was a

big white, white light.

Kristen: The Kn*fe had gone all

the way through my liver.

I had a punctured lung and

I started feeling myself

leave my body.

Oprah: You were in the hospital

bed, right?

But you had left your body

and you

Betty Eadie: My body was on

the bed and my spirit ...

Peter: and I could see

in every direction.

Barbara: Up on the ceiling

looking down.

There was this feeling of a

presence. It felt like God

David: Not like this guy

up in the sky.

Anne: And that was God.

I just know it was God

Hila: The meaning of life,

of everything,

Johnnie: It was unlike anything

I've ever experienced.

David: I have no fear of death.

Tom:...it's with total knowledge

and unconditional love...

Hila: It was all the love that

is in the universe.

Kirat: Death is not the end.

It's probably the beginning.

Dean: I looked into his eyes,

It was like

I was looking

at forever inside of him,

and I could see the love

he had for me.

Hillary: You know,

people don't believe you

when you say the story,

but it's just so real.

[music]

Dr. Neal: Almost 30 minutes

had gone by.

Enough time had passed

that they had shifted from

a rescue mode to purely

a body recovery mode.

I could see this

bloated purple body

and I never felt alive

and then dead.

I never felt conscious

and unconscious.

I felt conscious

and then more conscious

I felt alive

and then more alive.

Dr. Sabom: I came into this

thing skeptical, mean

I could have very easily

blown this whole thing off.

If you go

to the resuscitation

for 20 minutes

and you've been

without oxygen

for 20 minutes or whatever,

you're going to lose

some neurons,

You're going to

have brain damage.

You may not

live either.

You'll die a

neurologic death

general rule is, the longer

without the oxygen.

Normally, the more brain

damage you're going to have,

and it's progressive

until it's restored.

CBS News: A new study may

provide answers

to the age old question

What happens to our brains

when we die?

[music]

Dr. Zemmar: The brain has always

been the most fascinating

and the most interesting

organ to me

because to the world

it is completely

unexplored.

I was working in Vancouver

at the Vancouver

General Hospital.

This was the 87 year

old gentleman.

He came during

the emergency shift

with a bleed between

the brain and the skull.

We call it

a subdural hematoma.

And we decided to operate.

We removed the skull.

We removed the bleeding.

He did fairly well

after the surgery

for about three days.

And then he started

having seizures.

So we went and applied

an EEG to see

where the seizures

are coming from

and how to treat them.

Once we had this applied,

he had a heart

att*ck and d*ed.

[music]

So that left us with

the rare recording

of the human brain

that went from a life

to death.

[flatline tone]

CBS: It's the first ever

recording of a dying human

brain, one that happened

entirely by chance.

We've heard about people

before who have faced

near death experiences.

Describe this moment

where they were

the important moments

in their life

flashed before their head.

Is that

what we're talking about?

Is that what this is?

- Dr.

- Zemmar: From what

this case of

One tells us

all the things

they are consistently

being described

by people who undergo

near-death experience.

These guys have exhibited

these brain waves

that exactly the same ones

we're measuring

when we record the activity

of this patient

30 seconds

before the heart stops

b*ating

and 30 seconds after

the heart stops b*ating,

that we found

was quite astonishing.

After searching

and searching,

we had not found anybody

at the time when we wrote

the manuscript

and submitted it

that had full brain

recordings

from the dying human brain.

Under acute

clinical environments.

brain waves

are always present

in our brain.

They differ in frequency,

meaning how many times

per second they oscillate.

The high frequency waves

are called gamma waves.

Then the lower ones

we call them

beta, theta,

alpha and delta waves.

Those are slower

frequent oscillations.

We found

an increased interplay

of these oscillatory bands

with each other.

[music]

We looked at how this,

for example,

theta waves that are

known for memory recall,

how do they couple

with gamma waves?

And we found an increased

coupling of the

two after a heart

stopped b*ating.

The brain is a prediction

machine that is designed

for survival.

So we see something,

we interpret the signal,

we generate a response

in all kinds of responses

that the brain generates.

The only one we can measure

right now is movement.

[music]

We can't measure

what we call thinking.

Can you measure emotions?

Feelings?

I don't know what

to answer you.

We can't measure

all these things.

We know that the brain

somehow does these things.

We may never understand

what exactly happens.

And maybe that's not the most

important thing either.

If the science

can contribute even

a minute percentage

and can shed light

on the nature

of the human brain dying.

If I could go to

my patients

and I could tell them,

it may be that your loved

one is replaying

some of the memories

of their life.

It somehow

makes things easier.

It tells them

they're not suffering.

That, I think, would help

patients in that

tremendously

difficult time.

[music]

[pages turn]

[music]

Kang: Growing up in South Korea.

I grew up in a

Buddhist home.

Ever since the age

of six, seven,

I was asking questions

like, Why are humans made?

Why are we born?

What is the purpose

of mankind?

Why am I here?

The Buddhist

monks at the temple

would say things like,

Oh yeah, Steve,

you can go to heaven,

you can go to hell,

come back,

you can get reincarnated

into an animal

or a different species.

They taught you how to do

right and do wrong,

and try to earn

your salvation.

My mother, who was trained

as a registered nurse,

she got recruited

by a VA veterans

hospital in Boston.

You know, she prepared

the way for us to come.

So I came with my younger

brother in elementary school.

[music]

Kang: The older I got,

middle school and

even up to freshman year,

and I remember

feeling a lot of confusion.

I remember looking

in the mirror and saying,

How come I'm the only one?

How come I have

to be Korean?

And it was a big struggle

and led me to become

a little rebellious.

Like I joined the garage

band. I tried to...

I think I tried

a little harder

than others

to try to fit in.

And I just remember,

you know, always feeling

a little empty, feeling

confusion and emptiness.

You know, from high school.

I remember

in the summer of 1998,

we will get high

in the morning,

in the afternoon, in the

evening, the whole summer.

I don't remember

being sober for an hour.

And my mom and brother

were getting super worried.

I called the Buddhist

temple for help.

They didn't help either.

So I realized, like,

this is something that is

beyond my power ability to

to to save myself from.

You know, people

say when they see demons

or evil spirits,

they might think

somebody comes

with a pitchfork and horns.

But I had an open eye

vision of all Asian

grandpa coming.

He's talking to me

like I'm talking to you.

He said, Hey, Steve,

I know you're

having a hard time.

If you commit su1c1de

and take your own life,

then I can give you 50,000

less years of hell.

And I'm like,

That's a great deal.

[music]

I went to the kitchen.

I grabbed the biggest

Kn*fe I could find.

Got on my knees.

So I grabbed a Kn*fe

and I cut my

neck open here,

which, you know,

was very painful.

My mom sees the

event happening,

so she calls 911.

The cops came,

and then there's

the Grandpa spirit is

still there speaking to me,

says, Steve,

you got to hurry up.

You're going

to miss your chance.

Go for the stomach.

So I cut my stomach open,

which actually is,

you know, the scars

go down all the way here.

I lost a big part

of my blood.

The cops came

and whacked me with a bat.

I dropped the Kn*fe.

I remember

losing consciousness.

The whole living was

bloody red.

My mom was crying.

I remember hearing her.

They put me

in the stretcher

because already I'm

very damaged.

I'm losing blood,

like at a very fast rate

and I'm going in of conscious.

The grandpa spirits gone

and then it was just into

the unknown after that.

I remember coming out,

seeing my body and then

seeing the E.R. room.

I remember going through

just darkness, like even

seeing rocks and stones

around me just falling.

It just felt like I was

falling in an elevator.

And I don't know how to

put it into words exactly,

but I knew I was going

to a different place.

There was still real,

more real than anything

here on Earth.

I was still fully

conscious.

Everything's happening,

but now it's like

there's different

set of rules,

there's a different set

of awarenesses.

And you're saying

goodbye to Earth.

I knew I was saying

goodbye to Earth.

And going to

another place of eternity.

And then God came to me

and like a ball of light,

that became

like a triangle.

Behind it I saw the city,

I looked up and it was

glittering like gold.

The walls were gold.

[music]

I don't know how it works,

but it's definitely

a place we go.

I heard a voice

before I woke up.

I love you.

And I open my eyes and I'm

in the emergency room.

I was like,

Oh my God, I'm alive.

So first of all, I was

so thankful I was alive.

I look around,

my mom's there,

she's crying, grabbing

my hand, son, you know,

you, you regained

consciousness.

And I was still trying

to process what happened,

but I just knew

I was back on Earth.

They said it took two

surgeries to cover

the blood vessels

that were cut.

A specialist had to fly in

at the last minute,

and if he was late,

they told me I would

have been bye, bye forever.

My heart and blood wouldn't

go back up.

We just kept

sinking, sinking, sinking,

during the whole surgery.

And they said

it was a miracle.

Good timing.

[slow rumbling]

I know one thing, we all

live once and die once.

And there is

judgment after.

[low rumbles]

Dr. Sabom: I think

that there are

a lot of people that do

take advantage of this.

The novelty

and the fascination

of this experience.

We're all to die

and we all want to know

what's going to happen

once that happens.

So, I mean,

this is speaking to us all.

And of great importance.

That can be abused.

Some of these these cases

are transmitted through

several different people

before they get in print.

And they get

a lot of attention

because they're fantastic.

But what I've tried to

do is remove

some of the subjectivity

to these experiences.

And put data out there

that's been scientifically,

rigorously collected.

There's no way

you can verify

the transcendental part

of the experience.

The person feels like they go

to an otherworldly

environment

as opposed

to their environment

right there in the room

with them.

Mr. Burke: What really convinced

me and what convinced

many skeptical doctors,

oncologist, cardiologist,

is that when people

initially leave their body,

they say that many times

they were in the room

still where they were being

resuscitated or worked on

many times up

near the ceiling,

looking down, watching.

They felt incredible peace,

even though

it was chaotic.

oftentimes in the room

where they were

working on their body,

When they would come back,

they were able to give

corroborative evidence

that they actually saw

what was going on

in the room,

even though

they were unconscious

at the time they

were worked on.

They shouldn't have

been able to see this.

Dr. Sabom: Autoscopic means

self-visualization.

They were visualizing

themself from the ceiling,

lying in bed, lifeless,

or being resuscitated.

That is the verifiable part

of a near-death experience,

where you can go back

and either verify what

they said they saw

or what

actually occurred.

And that's what I wanted.

That was the main thing

that got me hooked

on this thing.

And I paid

very little attention

to the tunnel, the light,

the deceased relatives

and friends,

the religious figures.

For me as a

cardiologist, scientist,

and a physician,

I wanted some verification,

I wanted

some medical records.

I wanted to talk to people

who had been there

and seen what had

happened in the room.

[light music]

Dr. Greene: Back in

the early 1990s,

when I was a resident

training and neurosurgery

at Phoenix and at the Barrow

Neurological Institute,

one of the best places

to go in the world.

It was a destination center

for neurosurgery.

I was on the Chairman

Service,

Dr. Robert Spetzler

and Dr. Spetzler is

world renowned.

There was a patient

who came to him

named Pamela Reynolds,

Dr. Spetzler: What we're looking

at is the aneurysm that she had.

Which is at the very

base of the brain.

This is the balloon

that can burst

and cause this

incredible catastrophe.

It's all the way at the

very base of the brain.

And that is why it's so

incredibly difficult

to get there.

Dr. Greene: The anatomical

location of the basal

artery is a neurosurgeons

no man's land.

She underwent an operation.

Again,

pretty unusual operation

called cardiac standstill.

I came in several times

into the operating room

because it's a cardiac

standstill case

and they're fascinating.

Dr. Sabom: If you were going to

do a laboratory experiment,

this is the perfect

experiment.

She was put on the

operating room table

and immediately put under

general anesthesia.

Dr. Greene: The cardiac

standstill operation requires

teams of medical providers,

surgical providers,

all of which is designed to:

1. drop the temperature of

a person's body.

2. Drain out all the blood

out of their body.

3. Keep them in a state

of suspended animation,

shut down brain function.

And you've actually

stopped the heart.

[backround noises

and conversations]

Dr. Sabom: They had these things

in her ears

that emitted 95 to 100

decibel clicks.

If the click went off

and you saw spike

on the EEG

that was measuring

the brain stem,

then you knew

the brainstem was active.

Dr. Greene: No heart

that's b*ating,

a brain that's no

longer functioning.

Dr. Sabom: And what they had to

do is get it

so that those clicks

were eliciting no

brainstem reactivity, i.e.

it was flatlined.

So was pretty

much totally isolated

from the environment

physically.

And medically,

she was in a--

that's why they call

procedure standstill.

Everything

was at a standstill.

Tom Wilkinson: She would be

clinically dead

for a whole hour

of the operation.

[music]

Dr. Sabom: She had a three part

near-death experience.

The first part

was out-of-body,

autoscopic part,

When Spetzler first started

up the brain saw

she heard the conversation

between Spetzler and

the surgeon

about the artery

being too small

in her right

femoral artery,

and they had to switch

over to the left.

The visual part.

She saw the bone saw,

which I didn't even know

what it looked like myself

as a cardiologist.

Pam: And I was then

looking down at the body.

I knew it was my body,

but I didn't care.

My vantage

point was sort of

sitting on the doctor's

shoulder.

I remember the instrument

in his hand.

It looked like the handle

of my electric toothbrush.

Dr. Sabom: And then she said

that there was this tray

of instruments

to the right of Spetzler,

that it looked like

the socket wrench set that

her father used to have.

And then the other stuff

was the same autoscopic.

And in between

those two experiences,

which she relates

the experience

as a continuous experience,

she had the transcendental

experience.

Pam: I felt a presence.

I sort of turned around

to look at a

pin-point of light.

Dr. Sabom: Well, how do you know

the transcendental

experience happened

when the blood was drained

out of her head?

Well, you don't.

All you can do is infer it.

You can't prove it.

The other two are

time anchored.

The middle is not.

[medical equipment beeping]

Dr. Greene: Pam came back,

I believe,

the following day.

As with every patient,

I'm rounding on her

in the intensive care unit

before the chairman rounds

and she's awake

talking with me.

You know, usually ask the

typical questions

How are you feeling?

after that tube was removed

from her by extubation

and she was able

to control her airway

and she was becoming

more lucid?

Well, she

had a lot to talk about.

She began to

describe some details

about her operation.

And as she spoke,

I became spooked.

She talked about her

blood vessels and her

groin, being canulated

and being too small.

[music]

She talked about her

heart being shocked twice.

Giving me details that

she just shouldn't know.

I sort of put the kibosh

on the conversation.

"Pam, you need

to get some rest.

I'll come back later."

I went to my chairman

and told Dr. Spetzler,

"You need to talk

with Pam Reynolds.

She's describing stuff that

she just shouldn't know.

This ain't right."

Functionally speaking,

Pam, was dead.

Dr. Moody: Typically, when

people are coming out of a dream

in the morning,

they feel like they're

coming back to reality.

But people who have

a near-death experience

say that is they

go into that experience,

it's this life

that becomes dreamlike.

People feel that

when they, from the world's

point of view, are dying,

they actually are waking up

to a reality that

this state of existence

that we're in now

seemed like a dream or

as though you're asleep.

[music]

Dr. Sabom: I think

the near-death

experience is where

science meets religion.

There is a big difference

between proof and evidence.

This is all evidence,

but enough evidence

at some point

makes it so close to proof

that most people would say

it's right,

it's real.

[music]

I got to watch what I say

because I don't want to

unnecessarily

alienate people.

I think skepticism is good

skepticism, true

skepticism.

But rigidity is not.

In other words,

if you have an

ideological opposition

to something

and you fight tooth

and nail to support it,

or at least advocate it

and refuse

to look at the other side,

that's not being objective.

Dr. Long: There's a lot

about the afterlife

that we don't know

for sure.

We'll all know for real

only after we die.

And not completely

before then.

Mr. Burke: There have been lots

of alternate theories

fighter pilots syndrome.

[crash]

You're pulling G's,

It feels like you're

going through a tunnel.

Some say

psychedelic dr*gs like

DMT or LSD or mescaline,

vibrant colors and, and,

maybe going to

another place,

Dr. Long: You name it, DMT,

Ketamine, LSD,

those are

generally illicit

substances that produce

hallucinatory effects.

And in fact, many people

that take these

illicit substances

and the difference between

the experience they have

and the typical near-death

experience

is very striking.

Mr. Burke: The problem is that

all of those might describe

one aspect.

[music]

You have people

and we're talking thousands

and thousands of people

all around the globe, old,

young, sighted

people, blind people.

And they're saying

the same thing,

though on the other side,

blind people can see

they have to adjust to it,

to describing things

that they see, but

they see the same things.

And there was one study

done with 23 blind people,

14 of them

blind from birth,

two of them that I report

about describe the light

coming out of everything.

Dr. Long: There's the near-death

experience of Marta.

She was a five-year-old

girl and totally blind.

Marta went into a lake

and drowned,

and her consciousness rose

above her body.

She described vividly

details of birds' feathers,

birds' eyes,

details on telephone poles.

It's remarkable to me

how someone totally blind

can be fascinated

by mundane

things that you and I

would not consider

to be so exciting.

Seeing this

for the first time

while she's unconscious

and below the

surface of the water

and yet having a

near-death experience.

Mr. Burke: So how do you get

a lucid experience

that happens both

for people who have had

[rumbling]

hallucinogenic

dr*gs potentially

in the hospital or,

you know, anesthesia,

But they're saying

the same things as those

who have had no anesthesia

and the same things

that little kids say,

the same things that people

from different

religious

backgrounds and cultures

say you don't have mass

hallucinations.

[music]

Don: The moment

the truck struck me,

I was standing

at the gates of Heaven.

[wind blowing]

[waves crashing]

And it was magnificent.

It was like the

inside of an oyster.

It was pearl and dazzling,

almost like it was living.

It just looked that way

because of the light

reflecting off the gate.

Heaven is light.

God is light.

It's... it's astounding.

[music]

Don: One of the most

difficult things

about talking about heaven

is that you have to do it

with earthly words,

and there are no earthly

words that do it justice.

[wind blowing]

Mr. Black: I did think

for a moment, okay, I d*ed.

Okay, I'm gone.

And was I sad?

No, not at all.

[music]

I wasn't worried

about my mom or dad

or what they would think

or my--, nothing.

I was only looking forward

to where I was going

and it was nothing but joy

and peace, love and unity.

[water sounds and music]

Don: I was surrounded by people

I knew and loved in life.

[backround video conversations]

The first person

I saw was my grandfather.

I was very close

to my grandfather.

The last time I saw him,

he was in a casket.

At his funeral, he did

not look good.

Now I'm standing

at the gates of Heaven,

and there he is

to greet me.

And he looked really good.

He extended his hands to me

and spoke a language

I've never heard before,

but fully understood and

said, Welcome home, Donnie.

[music]

Mr. Black: I recognized this

group of people.

These people are looking

at me with such love.

[music]

They're all seemingly

at the prime of their life.

And these people

were greeting me

and they were so delighted

that I was there,

Dr. Neal: And I knew that they

were there for me,

to welcome me,

to greet me, to to love me,

to make me feel known.

And I knew that

they had known loved me

as long as I've existed.

[music and wind]

Don: The music was phenomenal.

Thousands of songs at the

same time without chaos,

all manner of music,

instrumental,

choruses,

Astoundingly,

they just inv*de you.

I mean, you're permeated

by the music.

[waves of water and music]

My senses were

incredibly vivid,

you know, touch and taste

and feel and hearing.

It was just all.

It's just the most

real thing

that's ever happened to me.

After I greeted

the people, they parted

and I could see

through the gate.

There was

a long boulevard that

really bisects the city

and it appears

to be constructed of gold.

So many of the things

that we experience here

are there,

but much infinitely

more glorious and perfect.

I wanted to climb that hill

and fall at the

feet of the great

God of all

creation and say,

"Thank you for

letting me come."

That was my objective.

[loud closing sound]

Mr. Burke: Not every near-death

experience is a good one.

23% of those who come

forward talking about them

talk about how they had

hellish experiences.

[TV Static]

Paul: At that time,

I, I felt really empty.

It just seemed like

the best thing to do

was just to die

at that point.

If I die,

then it's game over.

And if I die, then the pain

and the suffering,

the depression,

the darkness,

all this is going to stop.

Well,

if I do enough cocaine,

then maybe my heart

will stop b*ating

because it feels like it's

racing out of my chest.

[heartbeats]

[heartbeats stop]

[whooshing]

And I didn't see

a bright light.

I saw a black tunnel.

It felt like somebody

grabbed me and dropped me

in this outer darkness.

As I started racing down

this tunnel,

it seemed like infinity.

It was like

a bottomless pit.

I don't know how,

but I was no longer high.

All my senses

were at 1,000.

I knew that I had d*ed,

and it was one of

the scariest moments

in my entire life.

And I'm racing

down this tunnel

that seems like forever,

like a thousand miles an hour

as I'm just freefalling.

[low violin tones]

If I'm going to hell,

there's got to be a mistake

because I never

k*lled anybody.

I didn't rob a bank.

I mean, I'm a good person.

I'm not a bad guy.

The only person I hurt

was myself.

When I began to justify

how good I was,

it went faster

like 2,000 miles an hour.

It speeded up the process.

Like, now you're

really going to Hell.

I remember at that point

I cried out

with all desperation.

I said, "God, you need to

come help me right now.

because I need you.

If you really exist,

I need your help.

So you got to come help me.

Please, God,

I need your help."

[low tones]

Mr. Storm: In the bed

that I had been in

was this big slab of meat.

And when I looked

at the face,

it bore an amazing

resemblance to me.

And I could not understand

how that could resemble me.

But I was perfectly

well standing there,

perfectly alive,

looking at this,

hunk of meat.

The other thing

that bothered me was that

my wife would not

respond to me.

Well, at first I started

talking in a nice voice,

and then I started yelling

at her, like, you know,

what the

hell is going on here?

Look at me. Talk to me.

You know,

I'm all better.

You know, what's that

thing in the bed?

How did it get there?

I was very upset,

very distressed.

And then I heard people out

in the hallway

outside the well-lit room

in the darkish-gray,

hazy hallway.

[music]

And there was

a group of people standing

outside the light

of the room in the hallway.

I said, "I'm sick.

I need a doctor."

And they said, "We know.

We know all about you.

It's time for you to

come with us."

So I thought that they were

hospital personnel

to take me to a doctor.

[low tones]

When I left the room

and went into the hall,

I can't explain how I knew,

I couldn't go back

into the room.

The door didn't close,

but I knew that

it was impossible

for me to go back

into the light of the room.

So I hesitated and

the people became very...

Hurry up,

Let's go. Let's go.

We can't wait anymore.

You know.

We've been here a long time

waiting for you.

Hurry up.

So I gave in

and went with them

and they immediately

surrounded me

and moved me forward

into that greyness.

[dramatic music]

As we moved along,

I could not perceive walls,

ceiling, any

feature at all.

And we walked

and walked and walked.

And after a while

I was like, okay,

this hospital's

not that big, you know?

I mean, we walked miles

now, and it's like,

where's the stairs?

You know,

where's the up and down?

Where's the walls?

And there was nothing.

We just walked and walked.

So I was asking the people

around me like,

this isn't the hospital,

This isn't right, you know,

where are we?

Stuff like that, and,

their response

was, "Shut up, be quiet.

Keep moving.

Move, move, move!"

[dramatic music]

They'd say,

"You're going to find out.

You'll find out.

You're going to get there."

[low background voices]

There was a lot of

people around us,

possibly hundreds,

I don't know.

They were

being very vulgar, very

threatening, very scary.

I'm in abject darkness.

I have absolutely no

idea which way

is forward, backward.

I mean,

all I knew was I wanted to

get away from them.

[music and crackling]

They said, "No,

you've got further to go."

And they started to push

and shove me.

And I fought back.

They began by punching,

shoving, kicking.

And then they started

biting, scratching

[sinister laughter]

and tearing me apart, literally.

disemboweling me,

gouging my eyes.

And it was all accompanied

with a great deal

of laughter and joy.

[dark noises]

[backround laughter]

I thought about

my whole life

and everything seemed like

what was the point.

And I realized

that my relationships

with my mother

and father were a disaster.

My relationship with

my sisters wasn't good.

My relationship with

my wife was very troubled.

[music]

I was not proud or pleased

with my relationship

with my two children.

[music]

I sank into

a pit of despair

and hopelessness

that I can't begin

to describe.

[crackling]

My mind offered up a memory

of myself as a little boy

going to a Sunday school

singing "Jesus Loves Me"

When I was a little boy

and I was afraid,

like having nightmares

at night or whatever,

I would pray to Him and

He would chase the

lions and tigers.

and bears away.

And as a child,

it was, like, mostly

in the image

of like a superhero.

Jesus was like a superhero.

And so...

that's it.

That was all I knew.

So I called out to him

in complete desperation,

A tiny little star

appeared in the sky,

[thunder rumbling]

and very rapidly

it got brighter

and brighter and brighter.

Mr. Black: I started moving

helplessly

without direction.

I had nothing to do

with this.

I started moving

out of the room.

I next realized that

I have left the hospital

and now I'm traveling

almost like a rocket ship,

just moving

out of this atmosphere.

[boom and rumbling]

As if in deep space.

Mr. Storm: I realized we were

not on the ground anymore.

We were moving upward,

straight upwards.

[thunder rumbling]

So I've got my face

buried in His chest

hanging on to Him.

I'm like, I don't want to

let me go because I,

I'm afraid if I let go,

or if he lets go, I'm

going to fall back

into that horrible

place again.

Mr. Black: And there was a beam

of light that was lighting

the pathway

of where I was going.

[music]

Paul: My whole life

flashed in front of me

as big as the sky,

Mr. Black: Tiny spheres

of light.

They weren't planets,

they weren't stars.

These were beings

going to Earth

Mr. Storm: Where we were going

is what I first thought

was a galaxy.

A huge world of light.

Mr. Black: The light that

I'm looking at,

is coming from none

other than God Himself.

[music]

Inside the light was life,

And inside

that light was love.

And my body is

still on Earth.

My brain and eyeballs

are back there.

But, I'm sensing

and discerning

all of these things.

Paul: When you leave this earth

and you step into

the eternity,

everything is

crystal clear.

[music]

Mr. Black: I knew I was coming

to this holy area

and obviously

it took another second

to connect the dots.

This is Heaven.

[music playing]

Mr. Storm: And he spoke to me

for the first time

in his voice,

but it was telepathic

but it wasn't

a thought of mine.

It was his voice

in my head.

And then he said,

I've got some people

that I want you to meet.

They've recorded your life

and they want

show you your life.

So they proceeded to

show me my life

in chronological order.

[movie reel clicks]

What I saw, to

summarize it, was

happy youth

pretty much

going to adolescence,

everything going sour,

particularly

with my relationship

with my father.

Because of my father's

cruelty to me,

I was cruel back.

My father was physically

and emotionally abusive

every day to my mother,

my sisters and to me.

I mean, it never stopped.

The only way

that I could deal with it

was to try

and not feel anything.

And all he wanted for me

was to be

a little duplicate of him,

you know,

just be subservient to him.

You know,

being being disobedient

had immediate

physical consequences

of being kicked

or punched or hit.

And I saw myself striving

to become emotionless

and feeling-less,

which was a way for

me to protect myself

from being hurt.

[music]

As I became

more manipulative

and successful,

the more the angels

and Jesus expressed

their disappointment

and sadness

with me and my life.

And it really hurt

to disappoint them

because I here

I have these newfound

friends, my big rescuer,

you know, best friend

I ever had.

And I'm-- and I'm

looking at my life

and I'm a big, huge

disappointment.

[music]

and you should put me back.

I don't belong here.

[crying and music]

You know,

you've made a mistake.

I don't belong here.

And he said,

"We don't make mistakes.

You do belong here."

[music]

Dr. Neal: At this point.

I had had

a number of operations and

I was finally able

to be upright instead of

wheelchair bound.

But I,

wasn't

able to walk very well.

When I was

sent back to my body,

I knew that

sharing my experiences

with other people

was part of the deal.

I knew that part of that

was writing about them.

And so I woke up

and I spent the

next week or so

getting up at three

or four in the morning and

writing for a few hours

before the morning routine.

And so I, you know,

made my final revisions.

And when I hit

the save button,

I took my youngest son, who

was still living at home

into town to get ice cream

so we could celebrate.

And so as we were

driving into town

to celebrate,

I called my older boys

because my oldest son

and his brother

were at the time

living in Maine.

They were ski training.

[music]

And I called them

to share this great news.

And the coach

answered the phone

and told me that Willie

had just been hit

by a car and k*lled.

[holding back tears]

and um,

[music]

I mean,

I reacted

like any mother would.

[emergency sirens]

The depth of my spiritual

knowledge,

does not protect me

from grief.

It doesn't protect me from

sorrow or any of

those things.

The depth of pain,

of losing a child is,

I don't think, a

pain that can be

replicated by

any other human

experience.

I mean, I was devastated

[music playing]

[rain falling]

[distant thunder]

Don: And it all stopped

just as quickly I arrived.

[emergency sirens]

That accident happened

at 11:45 in the morning.

I arrived at Hermann

Memorial Hospital

at like 6:15 that night.

So they went and got my

wife out of her classroom,

brought it down

to the office

and told her the news.

Eva: And I walked down the

hall and into the office,

and our assistant principal

came out

from around her desk

and just wrapped me

in this hug.

And she says, "Don's

been in an accident."

And that's all that

we knew.

Don: I was taken into surgery

that evening

and was in surgery

for 12 hours.

The next day

was when I realized

I was in the recovery room.

Eva: The emergency room

had called

and the nurse said,

he can't hold the phone,

but I'm going to put it

next to his ear

so he can hear you.

And I started with

the questions,

"Are you okay?

What happened?

Do I need to

come out there?"

just, you know, rambling

sort of things.

And all I could hear

him say was,

"I just want to go home.

I just want to go home."

[hospital machine sounds]

[wheezing breaths]

Later, I understood

that he meant his

Heavenly home.

Don: Had I had a choice,

I would not have

come back here.

I mean, I've had 30

wonderful years here,

but I would still rather

be there.

I know what happens next,

and it's it's always

better there

than it will ever be here.

So I didn't really want to

come back, but

I didn't get a choice.

Eva: He went into a deep

depression.

And I would go in, and

he would just lay there.

He wouldn't talk to me.

He wouldn't acknowledge me.

I would bring papers

to grade.

I would sit over in the

corner and grade

and stay there

till about 11:00

almost every night.

And then I'd tell him

goodnight,

and I'd leave.

[music]

[deep crying breaths]

And it was hurtful, because

I thought, you're alive.

You know, you're alive.

You're back with us.

Don't you love us enough to

be glad to be back with us?

And to me, that

was harder to deal with.

The depression was harder

to deal with

than the physical injuries,

which were massive.

And I remember one night,

I thought, you know what?

I'm going to go home

early tonight,

and I'm going to take

a warm shower,

and I'm going to

crawl in the bed,

and get a good

night's sleep.

So I gathered up

all my stuff,

and I just said,

well, I guess I'll

see you tomorrow.

No response.

That night, something

clicked inside of me,

and I had had it.

And I dropped

that book bag,

and I stomped my way over

to the side of the bed,

and I let him have it.

What is wrong with you?

Why aren't

you glad to see us?

Why aren't you glad

that you're back with us?

It was just--

it just tumbled out.

[music]

And so I grabbed

my stuff up,

and I'm walking

out the door.

And there was a big mirror

next to his bed.

And I looked over there,

and he was crying.

Just tears.

So I walked myself back

over, and I kind of had to-

he had so many metal

things that we had kind of

got my way in and I just

wrapped him in my arms.

And I said, It's

going to be okay.

And I realized then that

I had to accept that

sometimes

he was going through things

I didn't understand.

[music]

Mr. Storm: Finally,

I got through it.

Jesus said,

"Do you have any questions?"

I said, "I've got a million

questions."

He said,

"What do you want to know?"

So I asked him

everything that

I could think of to know,

And if we went

through that,

it would

take us several years.

And He gave me a whole

new understanding

of everything.

I said, "Great,

Now that I understand,

I want to go to heaven."

He said, "um um,

You're not ready

for Heaven yet."

[music]

Finally, I said, "What do

you want me to do?"

"I want you to love

the person

that you're with."

I said, "Okay, yeah,

but then what

do you want me to do

after I do that?"

And He said, "No, that's

what I want you to do."

I said, you know, "What

good is that going to do?"

He said, "It's going to

change the world."

And I said, "That's

going to change the world?

I don't think so, no."

I said,

"You don't understand.

The world is like

a terrible, cruel place.

Even if I love someone,

they're just going to go

get b*at up somewhere else

and not going to--"

He said, "No, if you

love someone,

they'll take that love

out into the world

and maybe they'll love

somebody and it'll

grow and grow and grow."

I said, "It's not going to

work."

And He said,

"It's God's plan.

It's going to work."

Well, when he pulls out

the God's plan work,

you know,

I mean, like,

what can you say?

[dramatic music]

And so finally I conceded.

and I said, "Okay,

I'll go back."

And with that, bang,

I'm in the body,

I'm in the bed.

[dramatic music]

The nurse who'd

been in the room

comes in and says,

a doctor has arrived

at the hospital and

we're going to prepare you

for surgery.

When I awoke,

I knew that

what had happened to me

was the most

important thing in my life.

[music]

Because now my life had

real meaning and purpose.

I was very, very weak.

I had been in

surgery for hours.

I'd spent

most of the morning

trying to think of how

I was going

to tell my wife

what had happened.

I said to her,

"It's all love."

She said, "I love you."

And I said, "I know you

love me, but it's all love."

[music]

She said, "What are you

talking about?"

And I said, "It's

an ocean of love.

And you have to just go in

into that ocean of love

and be a part of it."

And she said, "Okay, honey,

Try to get some rest."

[music]

Here I am. I'm I' giv--

I'm giving her

the abbreviated

wisdom of God.

And she's basically

telling me,

you know,

you're making no sense.

It's crazy talk.

[music]

From that day forward,

I tried to tell people

about God, Heaven, Hell,

what I'd experienced,

and nobody,

nobody took me

seriously at all.

I was a zealot.

I was a complete zealot.

And it was

not good

for my relationship

with my kids

because the more that they

did not respect what

I was trying to tell them

and the more they told me

I was nuts and crazy

and stuff like that,

the more...

it totally alienated them

from the Bible,

from God, from me.

I mean, it was completely

counterproductive.

It was a disaster.

[music]

My wife left me.

She poisoned the

kids against me.

They've rejected me.

They don't want anything

to do with me.

They think I'm a crazy man.

It's all going to work out.

[music]

I know that God works

stuff out.

It just doesn't happen

on our time frame.

I mean, I'd like it now.

It's not happening

right now,

but it could happen

tomorrow.

It might take a long time.

I don't know,

[music]

Eva: A couple of years

down the road

when I found out

about the Heaven

experience,

people have asked me,

"Aren't you mad that

he didn't tell you?"

Not really.

I was relieved

because now I understand.

You know,

if you've been to Heaven,

why would you want to be

back in the pain

that he was in?

[musical tones]

Don: I found myself

on a daily basis

with all these devices

attached to me

and unable to move at all.

I couldn't do a

single solitary thing

for myself at all.

38 and then 39 year old man

who was completely

helpless.

[low piano chord]

Why?

You let me see that,

And you brought

me back to this.

What is going on here?

What was the purpose

of this?

[piano music]

Dr. Moody: In my studies

of psychiatry,

I quickly realized

that practically

everybody

is chasing something.

Some chase fame

or money or power.

But what I quickly realized

in talking with people

who had near-death

experiences

is that whatever

they were chasing

before this experience,

convinced them that

what life is all

about is learning to love.

[music]

Mr. Burke: And they all come

back all around the globe

with the same "aha".

That God is love.

And that how we treat and

love one another

is what matters

most to God.

You have people

who have these experiences

and come back

and their life

is radically changed.

[music]

Mr. Storm: When I came back

one of the things I knew

I wanted

to make friends

with my dad.

Not only was

I able to forgive my father

because I understood

that he was just messed up

because of his messed up

childhood.

All my father

really wanted to do

was to be loved but he

didn't know how to do that

in an appropriate way.

So he tried to be loved

in inappropriate ways.

He thought obedience

and discipline.

And my mother

and my sisters

were really angry with me

because they all told me

several times

"You and Dad

hated each other

and now you're

his best friend. Why?"

And I'd say, "Because

he's my dad."

Grace is passed along

and passed along

and passed along.

And it's powerful.

It's powerful because

people change lives

for the good.

They find hope, peace,

love, joy, contentment.

You know.

And they also find

God and eternal life.

[music]

Dr. Neal: When I was being shown

the ripple effect

of my own actions

and my own words,

I was able to see this

20, 25, 35 times

removed from me.

That's

a big distance.

I understood all the hurts

and sorrows and dreams.

Everything that had brought

me to that point in time

when I may have hurt

someone else.

I also had this complete

understanding

of the back story

or the, you know,

the life story

of the other

people involved

and everything

that had brought them

to that moment in time

where they hurt me

or they

hurt someone I loved

What we

each say and what we

each do and the choices

we make matter.

They really do.

[music]

[video conversations]

Dr. Neal: When I talk

about my son's death,

I know that he went home,

and I'm sure that he didn't

want to come back either.

I'm sure he was reassured

that we would be fine.

When my time

on earth is done,

my oldest son

will be there to greet me,

my father, my stepfather.

I now know

other people who have d*ed,

people who I love, people

who are important

in my life.

I don't see

us here on Earth, and God's

world is over here.

I think we exist

in the midst of it.

[music]

I had the most

overwhelming sense

of being home,

of being where

I really belong,

where we

really belong, all of us.

Kang: It took about a few

months to recover fully.

I was still feeling

the pain,

feeling a little down,

depressed. Seeing Hell

and Heaven, changed me to

kind of prioritize others.

So at the age of 35,

I joined the Army Reserves.

I became a chaplain.

People just

came back from w*r

and you could tell

that they had

a very heartbroken

experience

or a psychological damage,

or the atrocities of w*r.

So we did a lot

of counseling.

We would pick up

phone calls at two,

three in the morning,

go with them to training,

hang out with them.

I would tell them that

there's hope.

I would tell them that

depression is not forever.

I believe

all over the world,

there are so many unique

NDEs, near-death

experiences,

and so many cultures

and backgrounds, American

or not,

all types of religions,

because

death is as real as life.

And I believe God

in his mercy,

no matter what

religious background

you are, allows you

to go through that

so that you can seek Him

in the process.

Don: I don't know why

some people survive

and some people don't.

I wish.

I wouldn't have survived.

I've had some

very real things

happen to me on Earth.

The birth

of five grandchildren,

seeing my children

all graduate.

I mean, it's

been glorious in many ways,

but nothing compares

to Heaven.

It's just, that's

the most real thing.

That is my reality.

This is not.

Mr. Burke: What do we have

more in common

as humanity than death?

And to know that there is

hope beyond this life,

that there truly is beauty,

and relationship and love

and adventure ahead.

You know, that

all of our our history

and our memories,

they don't end and we don't

become something else.

It goes on.

[music]

Dr. Sabom: People ought to

keep an open mind

to what's going on,

not accept everything

they hear

from people, from me,

from anybody.

Be skeptical,

ask questions,

think about it.

There are things that we

can't explain, and I think

it needs to be documented

as much as we can.

Documentation's important.

Without that,

it's an interesting story,

and that's it.

We can only do so much.

You know,

we're human beings

and we do the best we can.

I think

most people really do.

We don't have

all the answers,

and I don't think we ever

will have all the answers.

In the scientific realm.

What is a human

soul? Is a human soul?

does it live after death?

I don't think science

is going

to answer those questions.

I think all of these

near-death experiences

suggest that

that's possible.

[somber music]

[Clicking of machine]