Hi there everybody and thanks so much for joining me here on the Oprah podcast and for watching us on YouTube which is the place to watch everything now I hear uh billions of people uh all over the world are watching so many things and I'm so glad you've joined us here. Here's a question. Have you ever wondered what happens after we die? I think if you live long enough you actually start asking yourself that question. And I know we all have different beliefs on what lies beyond. And for some, they believe there is no beyond. We're asking today, what if science could help illuminate the mystery? What if science could do that? Okay. So, I have always been fascinated by near-death experiences. I did um more than 20 episodes of the Oprah Winfrey Show uh talking with people who had died and come back to life to tell a story of an otherworldly experience. Well, my guests this morning have either been pronounced clinically dead or have suffered severe trauma after being revived. They tell incredible stories of their near death experiences. Stories they believe are proof of an afterlife. I was deeply impacted by every time I heard these stories. And over the years, I noticed that there were so many similarities in their stories that it actually got me wondering, there must be something to this, right? So, I'm excited to welcome Dr. Bruce Grayson to the tea house. Dr. Dr. Bruce Grayson is a psychiatrist, professor emmeritus at the University of Virginia, and one of the world's foremost experts on near-death experiences, also known as NDEs. For nearly 50 years, Dr. Grayson's pioneering research has explored the depths of our relationship with death, life, and our understanding of consciousness. I've seen so many examples of people whose brains were obviously not functioning well, if at all, and yet they described their consciousness as more vivid than ever before. In 1981, he co-founded INS, the International Association for Near-Death Studies, a group dedicated to research of this phenomena. He's identified many universal experiences that surfaced through countless stories from people who were pronounced dead and came back to life. I was told that it was my time. I had to go back to Earth. I had more work to do. In his latest book, After, a doctor explores what near-death experiences reveal about life and beyond. Dr. Grayson suggests there's more to the human mind's experience beyond what we know here on earth. I just almost felt this hand I felt like it was the hand of Jesus and just being like nope not yet not yet to hear this voice say it's not yet time just blew my mind because that's what I heard. And we talked with Academy Award nominated actor Jeremy Rener who shared details of his near-death experience. I was dead on the ice cuz it took every effort, physical effort to squeeze out air to suck air back in. And that's when I was gone. It is a collective divinity of love. It's love is the only thing that you take with you when you die. First of all, welcome to the tea house. Thank you, Oprah. I'm delighted to be here with you today. I'm so I love this conversation. I love having this conversation. How do you define a near-death experience? Near-death experiences or NDEEs are profound things that happen to many people when they come close to dying or sometimes are pronounced dead but then recover. And they include what they're often perceived as mystical or spiritual experiences like leaving sense of leaving your body uh seeing other entities that may be deceased loved ones or deities reviewing your life and coming to some point of no return beyond which you can't keep going and still come back and then you do come back. Uh what what what struck me about uh the indie experience of so many different people you describe in your book is how similar they all are. Yes. So, you know, I've talked to people who experienced the whole tunnel, people who haven't experienced the tunnel and the tunnel of light, but what are the elements? And it's not just about the white light. No, no. The common elements are the same around the world with different cultures. We can see the same features in ancient Greece and Rome accounts of um of near-death experiences. They include a sense of leaving the physical body, being in a place of priests and love and sense of well-being. Um, often uh encountering other entities that they may interpret as being deities or divine beings or deceased loved ones. Uh, that sometimes guide them through a life review and at some point they come to a decision to return to life or they're sent back against their will to life. Well, we don't have an opposing opinion uh here today because we're going to hear from people who've had this experience, but I have done shows and had multiple conversations where there are people in your same field uh and scientists who say that this is some form of a hallucination based on chemicals in the brain that's causing these experiences. And I'm obviously sure you've heard this too. You've had to come up against this for many years. And what do you say about that? Well, I understand it because I started from that perspective. I was raised in a materialistic household and went through traditional training in science and and medical school where we were taught that the mind is what the brain does and when you die that's that's just it. Um, but I've been a psychiatrist for half a century now. I know what mental illness is like. I know what hallucinations are like and they're not at all like near-death experiences. Tell us what got you into this because there was a young girl. Yes. Yeah. As I said, I went through medical school uh with this materialistic mindset. And one of my first weeks as a doctor, as a psychiatrist, I was asked to see a patient who overdosed in the emergency room. When I went to see her, she was unconscious. I could not arouse her, but her roommate had brought her in and was waiting down the hall to speak to me in another room. So, I went down to speak to the roommate and got information about the patient. Mhm. Went back to see the patient. She was still unconscious. So she was admitted to the intensive care unit overnight. When I went to see her the next morning as soon as she woke up, I went to see her and introduced myself and she stopped me and said, "I know who you are. I remember you from last night." That's kind of stunned me. So I said, "You know, I thought you were out cold when I saw you." And she said, "Well, I was, but I saw you talking to my roommate Susan down the hall." And I just got startled about it. I didn't know what she was talking about. I assumed someone's playing a trick on me here. Mhm. But then she went on to tell me about the conversation I had with her roommate, what I said, what the roommate answer, what we were wearing, to fine details, and I didn't know how she could have known all this. Yeah. So that threw you. It threw me. It I cuz nothing in medical school had prepared you for that. Not at all. Nothing in my life had prepared me for this. Yeah. This is the thing that I remember. She remember she knew that you had a stain on your tie. Right. Right. And when I went to the emergency room, it was covered up by my white lab coat. I had opened it to talk to the roommate and it was a very hot night in late in Virginia and then I closed it up again before I left. So no one but the roommate had seen that spot and somehow the patient who was unconscious the whole time knew about it. So when you first started to talk about this or had the courage to actually mention you know things that you had experienced with with patients and knew uh were being awakened to NDEs even when we weren't calling them that you got a lot of crit criticism and ostracism. Well, I I didn't I still do to some extent, but I understand that. Um, you know, part of me is still looking for that materialistic explanation for it. But I've seen so many examples of people whose brains were obviously not functioning well, if at all, and yet they describe their consciousness as more vivid than ever before, and they have memories that were sharper than memories of other events at the same time in their life, decades after the event. So that tells you what that it is not a hallucination. is not even a quote normal memory because they're remembered so much more vividly that there's something greater than the brain that the mind is might be greater than the brain. That's the implication. Yes. Yes. That that when the mind is is functioning very well, the brain is not and there's no medical explanation for how that can be. Okay. Many people you've interviewed use similar phrases like during this experience they knew everything and were part of everything that there was no time uh that the experience was more real than anything they knew to be real. There's also an overpowering feeling from all the people that I read about in your book and also in every experience I've encountered interviewing people. There's this overpowering similarity of people talk about unconditional love, right? And that e whether they're surrounded about by by light or not, whether the light becomes a religious figure for them or not, that there is the overwhelming sense of love and connectedness to everything, right? And and I've heard that from people. What do you make of all those similarities? Well, I I think they must be talking about something that that's real because everyone has it. How they describe it is based on what they're what they're familiar with, what what analogies they're familiar with. Cuz they all say, "There isn't any word to describe what happened to me. I can't describe me. Love is not strong enough word. God is not a strong enough word." But I experienced this thing that was just overwhelming for me. And I've heard this from people who were not religious at all. That's right. So have I. So have I. And yet they say, "I I can't deny this. This is more real to me than talking to you right now. And this is definitely what's going on." Well, it does feel like a different realm, like it's a like it's not a part of, right? And and one of the first times I had a conversation with somebody about it uh was actually a gentleman that you talk about in in the book after Tom. Sorry. And I when we were preparing for you to come on the show, I mentioned to my longtime producer Tara, I said, I remember years ago, it was between 90 and 94. And the reason I remember it because I was so struck by what he said and it changed me. It changed the way I thought. So Tom Sawyer had had an accident where a car had fallen on him. Yes. And I remember him being on the show and saying that he used to be a really cruel person and that or I started the questions were like, "I heard you used to be cruel." And he goes, "Oh, that's that's pretty harsh." But he used to be a really pretty cruel person and was abusive to his wife. And yet he in that near-death experience experienced everything he'd ever done to his wife. Here's Tom Sawyer. Remarkable things happened to Tom Sawyer during a near fatal highway accident where he was pinned under a truck. I understand you felt every bit of pain that you had ever caused to your wife and you'd been pretty cruel to her. Yeah. Uh boy, that's pretty sharp. Yes, that's true. Um, in my life review, of course, uh, the tunnel, the light at the end of the tunnel, immersed with uh, a connection to total knowledge and God's unconditional love. Having said that, as part of my life review, uh, I know not only was myself at any bit or time of chronological age, but regarding any inter relationship with the 31 years that I've been with my wife Elaine, um, I experienced being her. I don't mean like her or a movie, but I was her psychology. I was her physical body. I was as though I was not just in her body, but I was her. So things such as the uh verbal abuse, the physical pain, the psychology, the sociology, all that. I was that. You know, if you don't need much more of a lesson than total knowledge, what does the human experience, how does it compare to whatever that other realm of knowing is like? Well, goodness, I don't even know if it's comparable. Uh, first of all, uh, the the form of communication is super lumininal telepathic communication. In other words, it requires no time, no chronology, no anything. You're simply are whatever you are know totally as you are a 100red years in time. simultaneously and you just kind of know that. In other words, you experience it firsthand. You are whatever it is you think you are every inter relationship with everything in the universe. Wow. This is 1994. I'm looking at the woman's face behind like, whoa, what is he saying? Um, have other people that you have studied talked about the similarities of reliving other people's experiences? The reason why that made such an impression on me, I actually got goosebumps when he said he felt everything that he'd ever done. I thought, "Oh, that makes sense. That is complete karmic sense that the life review would be that you feel everything you've ever done." Yes. Yes. Yes. You really feel things from other people's perspective. And Tom talks in about beating someone up when he was a teenager and feeling it from that person's point of view or doing something nasty to his grandmother and felt it from her perspective. But I've also heard from people that they experienced not only what they were what they were doing to other people, but they experienced the other person's emotions which made them more compassionate. For example, as a woman, that's what he that's what he was saying that I felt what my abuse to my wife. I felt how she felt and therefore I come back trying not to be that kind of person. Yes. But they often feel things that they didn't do but other people did to them. For example, someone I knew was was a woman who had an abusive childhood. And when she went back through her life review, she experienced her mother meeting her from the mother's perspective and realized her mother was trapped in this mode and she didn't know how else to relate to her daughter. And she came away feeling tremendous compassion for her mother for the first time in her life. M and Tom and this woman, they all come back with this idea that we're all the same, that there's no barrier between me and you. And this leads them basically to the golden rule, which is part of every religion we have on this planet. Yeah. That when you hurt someone else, you're hurting yourself as well. Yeah. Because many people that you have studied have felt that connection to the oneness of all that we read about that all religions teach about. But somehow when you go to the other side or go to the other realm, you become a part of that and you understand it differently. And that's why after is so profound. It's not just about the life after death. It's about how you choose to live your life after death. That's right. Yes. Right. They come back totally changed. For them, the golden rule is not a guideline we're supposed to follow. It's the law of the universe that they've experienced. There's no That's the ultimate rule. Yeah. Well, so on New Year's Day of 2023, two-time Oscar nominated actor Jeremy Rener was pronounced dead after a harrowing accident at his home in Lake Tahoe. Jeremy joins us from the set of his hit show, Mayor of Kingtown. Jeremy, I'm so glad to see that you made it because I remember hearing that that day and feeling, I can't believe that that had happened to you. So, you've been listening to us. Thanks for joining us. What happened on that snowy day in Lake Tahoe? That's a lot to ask. Good to be seen. Good to be heard. Um, that's for sure. I'm happy to be here with you. Uh, it's been a minute. Um, yeah, it was a uh an incident really, not even an accident at this point. Um, as it's been reduced to. Um but uh I could say the takeaway moment is is really it's really quite a quite a glory moment for me and my family and uh and life. Um but the semantics of it was a a snowcat um incident and um we had terrible weather and I was trying to clear the driveway with my nephew and he was going to get run over. I tried to jump back on the machine to prevent the machine from running him over. It's a giant tank like uh with metal tracks type of 15,000lb machine. Um and I tried to jump on it to stop it and I failed and got ran over and crushed and broke 38 bones uh on my face, my skull um all throughout my entire body and then eyeball came out of my head and all these type of things and then I had to struggle to breathe for a while and then uh stopped breathing. So what happened after that? the big can of worms that got open. Um, essentially, uh, I got tired, uh, in my mind of because my lung, everything was collapsed, my ribs and and all that sort of thing. So, the physical Could you move and did you have a sense of awareness? Could you move? And did you I never passed out at all. If I would have passed out, I'd have been dead on the ice, okay? Cuz it took every effort, physical effort to squeeze out air to suck air back in. And I was suffocating myself with my rib cage, my dislocated shoulder and arms and everything falling upon my pop lung and uh things like that. So I was really drowning. I was drowning in my own from my rib cage and my bones. My So my nephew was able to like lift some of the bones off my pressure off my lung as I was able to breathe and I breathe as long as it was like doing a a one- arm push-up just to exhale then just inhale. Yeah. Exhale. So, I just got tired after like probably 30 minutes. Um, and that's when I was gone. U, I had my neighbors there that came to help at my aid and um, it was too icy for it took forever for the ambulance to get there because the the road conditions were awful. Um, and anyway, the passing for whether it be for 10 seconds or 10 minutes, it's all still quite the same. I've never knew anything about near death, by the way. I knew nothing about it and everything you guys are talking about I knew and I still even after experiencing it and explaining some of what I um felt and witnessed or was a part of is exactly what you guys are telling me what the stories you've heard. I mean it's almost word for word what I said. So I've written a book and I've said these exact same phrases and it's my jaw is on the floor. I'm astounded to to know that this is really a thing. Oh, it's a real thing. I've been talking about it for 30 years. It's a real thing. And I know now you've written a memoir called um My Next Breath. Perfect title based upon what you've described. On page 75, you describe a part of your experience like this. I could see my lifetime. I could see everything all at once. It could have been for 10 seconds. It could have been for 5 minutes. It could have been forever. Who knows how long? In that death, there was no time, no time at all. Yet, it was also all time and forever. What were you seeing? And more importantly, what were you feeling? It's it's kind of none none of those things. It's just that the word is is. You just are or is. It's all everything all at once all encompassed. There is no time, place, or space. It just it just is. It's the most exhilarating piece. It just is. and you're there. It's just these words are so like cavemanlike that I'm saying, but it that's just the way it is. It's not it's not even like a conscious thought thing. It's not you're you're removed of the burdens of your earthly measures of like gravity and tooth decay and all these type of things, right? You're you're it's you're relieved of those duties of that on on the spinning rock. you're out into into this, you know, it's it's to me it's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful space and um really really quite tragic that I had to come back into a busted body. Well, we're glad you did cuz we get there's my eyeball, my twisted legs. I'm like, why' I come back? You know, um yeah, and I know it's pretty pretty amazing to me. It's it's what I would define, you know, God to be or it's it's just what was the divinity of the collective of love in the human. Did you have any spiritual beliefs before? Did you have any? Yeah. Well, my dad was a theologist, so I studied all religions growing up. Yeah. But I wasn't a part of any of those religions. I became educated to them all and the studying of them all, even Eastern philosophies. And I think they're all very fascinating and interesting. Um it just for me personally I I wasn't going down any of those paths for me. Um I held my own sort of spirituality but uh I just don't want anything to divide me from anybody else. Yeah. Which I sometimes religions can do. So I'm more um I I just I just kind of hold that kind of kind of that space under my own. But I really have a definition of of God in in all religions now. It's not some bearded man in the sky. It's not this. It's not this. It's to me it is a this collective divinity of love. It's love is the only thing that you take with you when you die. Wow. That's so not ex cannot exist. It it rides in the coattails of love like everything else does in life. Nothing else freaking matters outside what you love. And love unequivocally. It is per in perpetuity. Does not change. Wow. Love is the only thing you take with you when you die. Only thing. The only thing. So I I I read in an interview where you said that the this incident muted all the white noise in your life. What does that mean? Well, it kind of comes from that because I know what I take with me and what I what I hold and cherish in value. So I what I gave credence to prior I do not at all. you have one iota, one care, one even insecurity or like it's just say something ridiculous like a bad review or some this or just just the nonsense of what we give credence to here on this planet, man. It's just unless it's unless it's in sub subservient to to to love and kindness and thoughtfulness and the collectiveness of of who we are as as humans and that I think humanity is is closely related to what love is. I think humanity is beautiful in love. I think the human part of humanity gets a little dodgy, right? We get into like capitalism, all these other things and and wars and all type of things, but I think that the the basic pure fuel for humanity is love. And I focus just on things that fuel that and just don't give credence to those that that are that deviate from it. Well, as you as you've been listening to us, Jeremy, here with me is Dr. Grayson, who's been studying near-death experiences as a scientist for 45 years. So, when you were saying in the beginning, you didn't even know there was anything to this. He's been studying it for 45 years and has talked to hundreds and hundreds of people in the field. Well, for I mean, all that he was saying prior to to me even coming on was was just it blows my mind. It's that there's so many similarities. You could probably keep telling me more similarities that you found from talking to so many people and I'll probably pick out eight of those 10 that are like that's exactly what I would say almost word for word like it's scripted and like I don't know if I have a question for you per se except you could probably maybe read your book you know it's it to me it all it really does though it it just feels um maybe even more confirmations opra an affirmation out of out of information is the confirmations of what I learned post the instant. I I also wanted to ask you this. Uh you were just saying that you realize what matters and what doesn't matter and that you know bad reviews or whatever and you know I I just consider how you know devastating and demolishing to your physical body. You know eyeball is out and your ribs are all that that you were able to put yourself back together and physically speak and physically move. How has this experience affected your acting? Uh, I don't know if it's in a positive way to be honest. It was hard to even want to go back to fiction. I have to worry about my next freaking breath. I got to worry about my next step. I have to consider, you know, every joint of my body was crushed and like I I I don't want to live a life of uh of pain, right? So, I had to focus on a lot of life stuff. Real real like life stuff like to go entertain and tell jokes or um entertain in the fiction world was it was was kind of so far-fetched for me. I didn't know if that was ever going to happen. It now that my body's, you know, back in put back together like Humpty Dumpty at some point, I feel um blessed that I'm able to get back into it. I feel I don't know if it makes me better to be honest. Uh I don't know if it makes me worse. It's um I don't know like I enjoy my job. I love my job. Um but still in the back of my mind I know what really has value to me. Wow. You know, I can quit this job any day and be like and never look back and be so happy and be around my family, be around those that I love and have great shared experience with them and that's all. I think that's a common reaction, isn't it, Dr. Everybody who goes through this, they come back and the priorities for living have shifted. Right. Right. So many things you said, Jeremy, are so typical of near-death experiences, having no sense of time, feeling the love, feeling like you don't really need the body and all its restrictions. But let me ask you, with all this new understanding, how does it change your day-to-day interactions with people? Uh, you know, I've never been more connected. Uh, it's released any sort of social anxiety I have. I have never felt felt more like more confident. I get there some something that comes like a peace. I have this exhilarating peace and which is such an antithesis of words but I feel so at peace you know I'm getting I got a wink from the the universe saying like hey you know now you you got to see behind the curtain. Um so I got to come back and be and do exactly what I want to do and nothing is in my way. There's no obstacle. I'll never I'll never afforded a bad day. I've been tested to my limits of pain. So pain is just that's nothing. That's just a human construct. I mean it's nothing. So I live my life um so connected. So always with love driven um I it it it's definitely changed in the sense of like I don't pursue things that I would pursue before because I just don't find any value in it anymore. Um, which I'm sure are many just sort of normal things that I think a lot of normal people just go about doing. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. For me, I'm just very very very There's like two or three things that I'm gonna be doing in my life and that's it. And I'm so happy. I'm happy to wake up. I'm happy to be walking on these two busted old legs, man. I'm happy to be breathing right now. Happy. I'm just like I just have nothing but joy in my life. I don't I'm not afforded a bad day, right? It's just pretty amazing. Pretty blessed. What has been the reaction from your friends, your loved ones, colleagues with this new new look at life? There's there's with with that Oprah, there's that's where a lot of it's it's was it was all a connected thing anyway. It wasn't just it just didn't just happen to me, right? I might have gotten ran over, but I affected so many people in my life that I love dearly. So many people that and the ripple effect of that goes beyond. Yes. Right. We're here still talking about it now on a podcast two years later. So, I held responsibility to that and used that as fuel to heal my family and those that I've hurt and giving the I I gave them a lot of toxic awful images and dreams. And my my poor nephew, he had to watch me holding my arm die in the ice and my eyeball out. He can't unsee that, right? Yeah. So in in me never worrying about getting better, I just had to get better to help them. So whatever my physical um milestones were, they were always fueled by number one my daughter and then the rest of my family to cuz I love them so deeply. Um I couldn't bear the responsibility of giving them um nightmares for the rest of their lives and might die some. So, I'm going to take this one-way road of recovery and god damn it, I'm going to recover. And god damn it, I'm going to get better every damn day for my family, for my daughter. And that's how I got better so fast. So, and then there's miracles involved at every turn here with every doctor, every my, you know, there's it took a thousand people to keep me alive. Okay. But to get better once I wasn't dying, it was my family and my love, my deep love, the safe landing spot of love that I have with my family all my life. Um, and not wanting to disappoint them. Um, so fortunate that I had that one-way road of recovery. And I saw your post on on of all the medical people who saved you. That is that's a lot of people. That's a team. You had an army going to war for you. Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can't wait till your book comes out. I want to tell everyone that Jeremy's memoir, My Next Breath, and we see why it's called that, is available on April 29th. And I know all of the people who love and support you, your your viewers and fans throughout the world are looking forward to reading more about your story, Jeremy. Thank you for taking time out for filming for Mayor of Kingstone today to be with us. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. It's always lovely talking. All right. Great. Great. Well, I mean, I think for him to discover that this has been happening to many, many, many people in twothirds of the cases you study, people say that they met um they met people from the other side. I'm wondering because all these years, having interviewed certainly not as many people as you have, but interviewed a lot of people, I it feels like the NDE is specifically designed for you. So some people experience what they've done to other people. Other people experience what people have done to them. I mean it it feels like there are commonalities but there are also specifics. Right. Right. People often people often say that it was designed specifically for them like they had a role in creating it for them. And maybe that's just the way they perceived it. And we all perceive the same experience in different ways. That's right. So maybe it's just that the way what they take back from the experience is what's relevant to them. And everybody does. For everybody that's different, right? Right. Yes. If you and I took a plane to to Paris, we'd come back with very different memories because we have different interests, even if we were on the same plane. Exactly. Absolutely. So, orthopedic spinal surgeon and two-time New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Mary Neil joins us from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Dr. Neil, you also had a near-death experience, I understand, 30 years ago on a kayaking trip. What happened? Welcome. Yes. Well, uh, first of all, thank you for having me on and thank you for having this topic because it's really important. Like Jeremy said, none of us are aware of these experiences until someone opens our eyes. But my own experience began when I was whitewater kayaking in South America with my husband and friends of ours who are own a raft and kayak company. And circumstances were such that I went over um a waterfall or a drop that was maybe 10 or 15 ft high. And when I hit the bottom, my boat became pinned or stuck in the rocks and the underwater features. And the boat and I were then completely submerged under 8 to 10 ft of water. The weight of the water and the force of the current was such that there was no way to, you know, pull the spray skirt out. So, I was under there for almost 30 minutes. Whoa. And while I was there, um, I lost consciousness. It's a funny thing. I mean, I was never conscious and then unconscious. I felt like I was conscious and then more conscious. you know, alive and then more alive. Wow. And like you've already heard, you know, there was a shift in time and dimension so that I could be underwater and still feel the weight of the water. I could feel the plastic of my boat, but at the same time, I began to have this inexplicable experience. At a certain point, asked that God's will be done. And I was immediately overcome by a very physical sensation of being held and comforted and reassured that everything would be fine regardless of whether I lived or died. And you know, I had four little kids and I was told that, you know, they'd be fine. And I was uh being held kind of like a baby and reassured and taken through a life review that was nothing that I personally could have imagined. It had nothing to do with judgment and everything to do with understanding and love. I had Did you have a life review? Did you have a life review? I had a life review that took me through every one of the most painful, wounding, horrible experiences of my life. And I had an absolute understanding of everyone involved. me, the other people, not just the emotions, but as Jeremy said, I was the other people involved and I was me. And I had a complete understanding of what brought each of us to that situation. Yeah. Every time I've heard this, it feels like the the truth to me because, you know, I was raised very very strict religiously and the word you just said here uh was was resonated with me with such jud that when you die there's going to be the judgment. And I remember the first time I heard someone talk about this on the show, I thought, "Oh, the judgment is actually the way you've lived and the feelings that you've created with other people. Everything you've ever done comes back to you. That's the judgment. Yeah. I mean, the fact is every single person who has had a profound spiritual experience would say the same thing. And that is that God is love. And the fact is where God is present, where God's love is present, there is no room for destructive emotions of guilt and remorse and shame and awe, anger, bitterness, all of those things. What I discovered is that where God is present, there is always some version of love. Be it compassion or empathy or understand, kindness, kindness, all of that. All of it. So, you received a warning. You received a warning during your near death experience. What was it? Well, I did. I had this incredible experience of leaving my body, going to heaven, God's world, spiritual realm. I was told that it wasn't my time. I had to go back to earth. I had more work to do and I was given a list of things that I still had to do. And one of the things on this list was uh had to do with the coming and unexpected death of my oldest son. And he at the time was nine and healthy. And I of course asked why obviously and when I asked that I was taken back to my life review where I'd been shown again and again and again that beauty really does come of all things. Then I was taken back to my body and and 10 years later your son actually passed away. So I this is what I was wondering since you've been given that warning that your son is going to die. How do you live in this world of density for 10 years knowing that your son is going to die early and that's part of one of your assignments? How do you live not in fear every day? Or is it because you had that loving near-death experience, you know that whenever he passes, it's going to be okay. There is no way any person could shoulder that burden without having an absolute knowledge, understanding and trust that God is real and present. That we are really just spiritual beings living in this three-dimensional body. That there really is life after death, continuation of our consciousness. Again, however you want to describe it. Because knowing that without any shred of doubt gave me a confidence that if indeed his death came to pass, great beauty would come of it, he would have been joyfully welcomed home as I had been, and that he wasn't lost to me. The fact is, I know he'll be there waiting for me when my time is done. But until then, you know, I'm here on earth with more left to do, you know, and we're here. It's it's this great adventure, this great opportunity to learn and grow and reflect God's love to others. And how did you now in human form again, not in that loving all connected space, come back knowing that your son is going to die and nobody else around you knows that. So now you have to move through the world and and you weren't told when it was going to die. So you don't know if he's going to die next week or next month. And then years pass and he doesn't die. So you're thinking maybe that I didn't even hear that. Maybe that wasn't even real. I woke up every day wondering if that would be the day. Got it. That's that's that's what I'm saying. Again, it's not um your question is how do you get through that day? Well, you get through that day with this absolute trust that God is real and present in my life, in my son's life, in my family, in the world. If that is part of the plan for his life and our lives, then great beauty would come of it. Can you explain to us uh how he died 10 years later? people listening will want. Yeah, he was doing a dryland ski training and was hit by a car. So he, you know, he was killed instantly. And so when you got that message that your son is gone, you thought, "Okay, there it is." Yeah. And I'm not going to say that, you know, I said, "Oh, hey, that's great." No, I was as devastated as a mother could be. Mhm. But I will honestly tell you that even in the midst of my sorrow, I experienced great joy. And that joy is because of knowing, trusting spiritual truth. Yeah. I always say when you lose a loved one, tell me if you agree with this or not. But since I started hearing these near-death experiences and also know that I have a whole posi, I have a team on the other side. I feel them all the time looking out for me. That that's one of the reasons why I've had a life that I've had because of all that's come before me. And where are all those people with me right now? And uh I I I I'm just wondering if you you know still feel him. You still feel connected to that. Do you feel that that that sense of awareness? Yeah, I sure do. I mean my my concept of it is we don't live here and they live here. We live and exist within the spiritual realm. There is no uh time in the spiritual world. There's no dimension. I don't have the words but it exists within each other and everything exists simultaneously although independently. So yes, I believe we live within the spiritual world even though our three-dimensional brains can't see it. We don't always acknowledge it. Yeah. But the fact is there is spiritual crossover. Yeah. You can the brain doesn't acknowledge it but I can tell you I can I experience it. Yes. Through stillness. I can sit amongst the trees and literally become one with them. I mean I can you know I know that sounds crazy but I can. So I think that there is a there is a way to do it but I also feel that the density of the body keeps you from doing it. It's why I always do say though when people have loved ones that pass Dr. Grayson, it's like now you have an angel you can call by name. Now you have somebody who's crossed over to the other side. Thank you so much, Dr. Neil. Dr. Neil's books are to heaven and Back and Seven Lessons from Heaven. We could listen to you all day cuz we love this conversation. We love this conversation. It's my favorite conversation. It's my favorite conversation, too. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. Oprah, I've known Mary for a number of years, and what you don't see in this interview is that she's a downto-earth, nononsense orthopedic surgeon who is very much making her her career in this world by treating us our physical bodies. And yet, she's been aware for decades of this other world that we're part of as well that's more important than the physical. Yeah, I think that's so cool. So obviously when since you had the experience with Holly who's in the ICU and completely out of it that you were telling us earlier in this conversation and the next day you come in and she remembers a conversation that you had down the hall with a friend of hers and knows that there was a stain on your tie. You start to think differently about all of this. So what do you make of all of this? Well, that first episode with Holly was just a fluke and I thought, well, you know, she's a psychiatric patient. Who knows what's really going on. Yeah. There's got to be an explanation. So, I started collecting other cases of people who had come close to death or been been pronounced dead and had these fantastic stories to tell. And I was trying to find some consistency. Are they related to oxygen deprivation? Are they related to drugs? Are they related to heart arrhythmias? You know, what's going on with these people? And over the last 50 years, we've talked to thousands and thousands of people, done some physiological measurements on people when they were close to death, and we found that none of these simplistic hypotheses turns out to be true. It's not oxygen deprivation. It's not drugs. It's not endorphins being produced by the brain. It's not erratic electrical activity in the brain or the heart. These things just don't explain what's going on. Why is there such resistance to it? is because the very nature of scientists and the medical field is to question what you don't know. What we're taught in college and medical school is that the mind is what the brain does and all our thoughts and feelings must come from the brain. And people who are trained to this way tend to accept that and not look at the data that contradict that. And I think that doctors and science so they're taught the mind is what the brain does, right? Yeah. But we see experiences like near-death experiences and lots of others as well. They say they're separate, disprove that. And yet many scientists are reluctant to acknowledge this evidence that doesn't go along with what they were taught. I wish they were more skeptical about what they were taught and be more open to the evidence. Okay. Harmony joins us. Harmony is uh in Los Angeles, a Grammyinning songwriter and producer who also had a near-death experience at the age of just uh you were 13. 13 years old. Yes. 13 years old. Tell us. Hi, welcome Harmony. How you doing? I am doing so good. We we want to know what happened. What happened to you? Well, uh I come from a very very very religious background. I was born in London uh by Nigerian parents and my parents were very strict and raised us in the church. Uh I was yeah was playing I was a musician in the church for years. So I had a true understanding of having a relationship with God and having a spiritual side uh from a very young age. Uh but this particular week was interesting because a few days prior to the accident, my mother had uh an inkling to pray because she had a dream that the middle child was going to was in a car accident. Fast forward, last day of school, we go on a school bus, well red bus in London. Yeah. And we're on our way back and it's the last day of school and an interesting thing took place as I was crossing the road to get to the other side. It was a dangerous road and the car that was coming behind it, didn't see the bus, so swerved right past the bus to avoid the bus. And I'm in the middle of the road. So, oh my goodness. Um, from what I was told, I flew over the car and my face hit the windscreen and basically ripped my whole face open. So, this whole I have a scar right now, which is this small, but when it like my whole lid was open. Um, and supposedly I got up and fell right back down. Um, what I experienced was what felt like slumber. Like I felt like I fell asleep and then I woke up in this dream. In this dream, it seemed like I could see my reality and it was me floating over everything that was taking place. The accident didn't actually see me in the accident, but I could see the crowd, the bus, the car, my sister that was walk crossing the bridge ran running back down. That's my brother. That's my brother. and I'm floating and and and I'm experiencing this scene, right? And I'm it feels like a dream. Then whilst that there's this aura and this feeling of something great that just comes around. It's not a light. It's not It's bigger than that. It's it's so big and it's so consuming. It feels loud, but it feels so quiet at the same time. It's so great and grand, but at the same time, it's very peaceful and simple. I didn't feel afraid at all. Yeah. You didn't feel afraid at all. But didn't you hear them say you're dead? Didn't you hear them say he's dead? So, go ahead. So, they pronounced me dead. I I didn't I I I heard that when I woke up. They had pronounced me dead. My sister, they had run to my mom and said, "Your son has been pronounced dead. They're wrapping him up right now about to put him in. How How How did this change you as a 13-year-old? Just blew my mind because that's what I heard. It was like, "It's not yet time." And it wasn't it's it it's such a big voice, but it was such a tender voice. It was so loud, but it was a whisper. It's like it's it just took over. And I was sure I knew who it was. I knew exactly who it was. And then I woke up. Who was it? And when I Who was it? Who was it? God. God for me. Okay. It was God for me. It was like the everlasting whoever created this earth spoke to me and said it's not yet time. So I wake up from what I thought was a dream with this sheet over me and I'm like and there's like he's alive. He's alive. And I'm like yo what is everybody doing in my bedroom? Like why are y'all in my bedroom? So, I'm thinking I'm in my bedroom and I'm still in the middle of the street. Yeah. Cuz they had covered you with the sheep. You're gone. And they basically ready like they were ready to kind of be like, "He's done. He's finished. He's cooked. He's he's he's dead." You know? Um and like I said, they told my mother, I was dead at the scene. They my sister had been had basically been told he's dead. Like he's he's not waking up. And you heard the voice of God as you know it to be. Um 10% you felt I heard when I was 9 years old. Yeah. You heard the voice say it's not your time. And then did that's when you you felt that you came back into your body. That's when I came back. And ever since then that same voice has guided me in so many ways. Yeah. Uh, and it's like I said, it's a voice cuz it's it's really faint and it's peaceful, but it's really big and loud at the same time. It's I've never I've never I can always tell it's like, "Okay, there it is." Cuz it comes in such a way that it's unexplainable, but it's it's very different from the mind. It's very different from, you know, all the other voices that can be distracting and come and, you know, distort idea in your mind. It's very I know I I know Harmony, you have a question for Dr. Grayson. What is it? Now that you've heard so many stories that have similar experiences, Doc, is it safe to say that there is life after this life? As a scientist, I can't say we've proven that. But as a person who's hear these stories, I find it hard to deny that there seem to be so many cases where people are pronounced dead and yet seem to be thinking clearly and in fact more vividly than ever before. And if that can happen without the brain being active, that opens the possibility that we it keeps going forever or as long as we can measure. So what would prove it to the to the scientist? Because I don't know what you need other than thousands of people who've experienced it. Well, for many scientists, they have to experience it themselves, and they may do that eventually. Yeah. But I wanted to ask you a question, Harmony. Um I know we've heard from so many um adult near-death experiences how hard it was to go back to a quote normal life after this. What was it like for a 13-year-old to go back to school and to do the usual activities of a teenager? There was a different understanding of what my life was going to be consider how my life was going to go. I knew from that moment on, my life was going to move differently. And tracing everything up to this day, the people I've met, the experiences, uh the places and the platforms that I've been on, I've understood that signific that day made a signific significant difference in my life. And there was a confidence I had to start walking in. And there was an understanding deep down no matter what was around me, no matter who was around me, no matter how things played around me, I had to trust that voice every time. And anytime I lost weight, I would always go back to that it's not yet time, which may which also made me understand I got a time period to do some things here. Do you know what I mean? I have some significant things to do while I have the time because in this lifetime run runs out now in the life after this time probably continues but there are things that I believe he kept me for using the words it's not yet time is just it just allows me to know like I I have a time period to get some things done and I think the beautiful thing one of the other beautiful things that you've said here and I have tried to be guided by that voice my whole life Uh, also never had an indie or near near-death experience, but I remember being on the back porch. My grandmother was washing clothes and I was like four or 5 years old and she said, "You better watch me now, Opra Gale, cuz one day you're going to have to learn how to do this for yourself." And I distinctly heard the voice say, "No, you won't. Your life will be different. No, you won't. Your life will be different." And I remember that feeling. And that feel that voice is different than the voice that's just in my head. It's the that goes on and I have tried to be obedient to that voice. So when you said Harmony, oh there it is. Oh, there it is. Anytime I'm in a crisis and I'm thinking and I don't know what should I do, what I should do, I go and get myself still so I can hear that voice and go, "Oh, there it is." and be guided by that thing. And that you never go wrong. Yeah, you never go wrong. And and I believe we're all connected to that thing. And I believe we all have the ability to hear that thing, research that thing, feel that thing, and be guided by that by that thing. By that thing could be all kind of things to different people. Everybody has a different understanding of what that thing is. It's God to me. It's something else to somebody else. And I respect it all that they all have something similar which is God is the all-encompassing word. Yes. Yeah. And I and often times when I pray at my table and there are different people from different backgrounds I say by all the names we call God in the universe so that it is inclusive of whatever you that is is to you and and and it is just it is all one thing. It is all one being one existence but whatever you choose to call it. Well, thank you. Keep being led by the voice, Harmony. Thank you so much, God. The honor and the blessing of being in this room. I appreciate it. Uh, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. So, I mean, I think what Harmony was able to share, I I don't know of a lot of kids have had that experience. Uh, I haven't dealt with a lot of children, but those that I that I have talked to often have difficulty taking life seriously at that point. And it's one thing when you're 30, 40 years old and you realize there's nothing more important. But when you're a kid trying to figure out who you are anyway to have this thrown at you makes it much harder to figure out what is my life all about? What am I going to do with it? Yeah. But I thought what he said about the voices. So that's amazing. We have Gabrielle. Gabrielle joining us from Natural Dam, Arkansas. She's a country singer who had a near-death experience two years ago just before discovering that you had a brain tumor. Welcome. take us back to that night your mom found you in the room bedroom growing up. Yes. Thank you so much for having me, y'all. Yeah, it was it was pretty bizarre to be honest. I was driving home from Nashville. I was 7 and a half hours away and um that night I got a really bad migraine and usually if I'm feeling sick I'll just stop at a hotel and just stay the night and then go the rest of the way. That night, I just believe that there's something supernatural that kept me moving. And so, I stopped in gradu when I get back to my parents house. I um I went to bed. I was like, I'm just tired. I'm exhausted. And we believe that there is something that just woke my mom up. We believe in, you know, Jesus, but Jesus just woke her up. and she felt like she needed to do laundry, which is right next to my childhood bedroom. So, she hears me throwing up in the bathroom and um she comes in to check on me. I'm telling her, "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine." And as I as I'm telling her this, I start having seizures. Wow. And so, she's like, "You are not mine." So, we um had this horrible storm that was happening that night. for ambulance was weren't running. Um we live in the boonies and so uh they um called the private ambulance company. They met my family uh my sister, my now husband, everyone. We we loaded up. They loaded me up into this ambulance and we're only able to make it to Portsmith, which is about 45 minutes away. It's not the place you'd want to get your um you know, brain surgery at because there wasn't specialists there. But um if it wasn't storming that night, they would have taken me all the way to Little Rock, which is 2 and a half hours. And since they didn't, I actually ended up in that hospital 45 minutes away, flatlined, and needing to be intubated. So, um that was just the beginning of the miracle. If it wasn't for that storm and me going to the first hospital and those amazing doctors there saving me and intubating me and bringing me back, then I I would not have made it. Well, there's there's multiple multiple miracles that you have. I mean, first of all, Jesus waking your mama up and she wants to do laundry in the middle of the night. Let's just start with that one. I I mean, listen, I believe in all of that. I know exactly what you're talking about when they like, gosh, I just feel like doing laundry. Don't know why, and there you are throwing up in the bathroom. So, tell us about the near-death experience. What did you see? What did you feel? Did you see Jesus? So, as I'm, you know, it I I'm listening to these stories and it's so wild that everyone seems to kind of be on the same page of the no time and this complete peace and rest. And for for me, I um I I apparently flatlined for 30 seconds to a minute and there was no time. I just almost felt this hand. I felt like it was the hand of Jesus and just being like, "Nope, not not yet. Not yet." And so I had this knowing just knowing of it wasn't my time. And it wasn't this voice or anything like that. It was like everything that I was saying in my heart was being heard and everything that whatever it was saying talking to me whether it be an angel or Jesus um was letting me know they were saying it telepathically. It's so wild how that happened because people are always what you see what you see. I'm like I just knew. I just knew. So what she's describing is what so many people describe to because what I've heard too and you write about in in in after is that words fail you. Words are a creation of this realm and you know language which is necessary for us to communicate but that you don't need that on the other side in the in in the other realm. Correct. That's right. That's right. Everyone uses whatever language they can think of, but they always say it's not the Jesus I was taught about. It's much bigger than that. You know, they said it's I can't give you words for it, but it's there. And after your NDE uh your near-death experience, I heard Gabrielle that everything just felt trivial after that. Tell us about that feeling. Oh my gosh, it so I woke up a week and a half later and I had a big gauze patch on my head and um I had Bell's palsy severe on my the right side of my face and um my brother, he's he's a duo and he was there and I didn't expect him to be there and if you've heard of the duo Dan and Shay. Yeah. Yeah. And so my brother Shay just scured on down there. My sister Erica was in there in the room. Um, I remember waking up and my brother being at the end of my bed and I I had no idea what had happened. I I was like, "Oh, what what are you doing here?" And everything that I did after that, you know, I was supposed to release an album. I was supposed to go on tour all in 2023. I was supposed to do all these things that people expected of me and that, you know, needed from me. And it took me so long to even be able to think about trivial things of the world like money or fame or or get my music out there. It was just I had this spiritual experience that just made me want to love on people and love on my family. And it made me realize that there's nothing in this world that matters. You can't take it with you when you go. You can get a Grammy. You can get money. You can have beautiful homes, but you're not taking it with you. Yeah. And so the legacy you leave behind is the most important thing. And the love that you leave behind with your family. I loved earlier when Jeremy was on Jeremy Rener and he was saying love is the only thing you take with you. Love is the only thing you take with you. Do you do you have a question for Dr. Grayson? I actually do. So after I had my experience, it was so hard for me to acclimate. Do you find that that is common from people that have had near-death experiences to be able to kind of go back to their hustle? Yes, it's very common. People differ how hard it is because some of them have a spiritual life to begin with and others others don't. And we've done some studies recently looking at who people turn to for help and what types of help help and which ones don't. And what seems to be most helpful is talking to other people who have had near-death experiences and who have been through this before and come up with their own ways of dealing with this. So, if you can find a group of other experiencers who have gone through this, they may be the most helpful thing for you. And I hear you have an album coming out this summer, right? And did did you did you did you write a song about this experience? I'm actually writing several. Um, it's it's funny because we uh we started this song called Coming Back to You. And it's not just about my husband. and I love him so much. He's perfect. Um, in fact, while I was in the hospital, I had Bell's palsy and one eyeball was open and I knew I was going to marry him when my sister told me that he just went over and just closed that little eyeball for me. So, well, I have so many songs. I have so many songs written about him, but we have one um that we're writing called Coming Back to You and it's about f my family and um my husband just um being able to share their life experiences with them cuz that's the thing that you'd miss out on is their lives. You know, people think that it's just your life you're missing out on. Good luck to you on that album. Great success, Gabrielle. And thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I mean, and let me just say, you got a good man if he came over there and closed that little eyeball. He is the best. I got to say that's one of the best love love moments I've heard. I think that's I know that's looked kind of crazy, you know. I just I just think that's so endearing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. So, Dr. Grayson, Dr. Neil, Harmony, and Gabrielle, they all describe hearing a voice or the message. Yes. uh it's not your time whether it's physically hearing it as as Harmony did or as in the case of Gabrielle she said she didn't hear that but she felt that it's not your time is that common for most indes because as you're coming back into the body you come back yeah it's common but it's not universal by any means some people say that they were given a choice do you want to stay here or do you want to go back and finish something and they make a decision to come back and finish something they have left undone whether it's uh helping a a deceased or dying person um pass over or raising a child or writing a book about it um but they have some reason they chose to come back and to say they are set back up against my will well you know all of this reminds me I read I had read um song of myself I think in high school or college and then the very first time I s Walt Whitman's song of myself and the very first time I had uh an interview with somebody with an NDE. Their experience reminded me of what he says in Song of Myself. He says, "All goes onward and outward. Nothing collapses and to die is different from what anyone supposed luckier." Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her. It is just as lucky to die and I know it. I pass death with the dying and birth with the new washed babe and am not contained between my hat and my boots. So when I went back and reread that, I thought Walt Whitman must have had an indie. Yes. Yeah. Well, a near-death event is only the most common way in our culture to have this type of experience, but it's a common spiritual experience. It's been happening for people for centuries all around the globe. Uh for in different reasons for different reasons. Some get it through meditation or through prayer or just spontaneously. Uh and the near-death experiences is one one precipitant for that experience. So, the title of your book after, as I uh started out talking about at the beginning of our conversation, has multiple meanings for you. What are they? Well, the most obvious one was what happens after we die. And I speculated about that. You asked before, what would it take for scientists to be to show that this is true? Scientists don't deal with proof. They deal with the weight of the evidence. So they can say the evidence points to the fact that we survive, but they can never say it's proven. Scientists don't do that. Yes. And the scientist to me says, I can't say for sure. Yes. But I believe it does. I believe I believe the evidence points. I can't think of another explanation for these experiences. Um, so one one that's one of one of the meanings what happens after the other is what happens to people after they've had a near-death experience and come back to this world. Yes. And how do they live their lives after the near-death experience? Yeah, that's what Gabrielle was saying. Yes. And for most near death experiences to say that's the most important lesson of the NDE. How do you live your life knowing this? And the final reason for the book being called after is to make you think about what am I going to do differently after I've read this book? What do I do now with this knowledge? Mhm. And there have been some studies now of how knowing about NDEs affects people's lives. They've done studies with looking at college students who've taken a course in NDEs and looked at them before and after. And some of the same after effects you see with near death experiences becoming more spiritual, more compassionate, less materialistic. We see those with people who are just exposed to NDEs. And you often see this in family and friends of near-death experiences that they also become more spiritual, less driven to achieve in this world. Well, I tell you this is from the very first time I started hearing about them and just had the aha that makes sense to me. That's how religion meets spirituality. Um, and also becoming aware of the army of people that have come before me. Um, it helped me to not fear death. To not fear death because I believe as Whitman says that whatever is there on the other side is going to be the big surprise that being born in this realm was. And so, do you fear death? Oh, definitely. That's the most common thing people say after a near-death experience. No matter what the NDE was like, whether it was blissful or not blissful, they say, "I'm not afraid of dying anymore." And that's what makes the near-death experience so different from other people who have come close to death. Most people who almost die come back valuing life more. They want to be more alive, more vibrant than they were before, but they're also more afraid of dying unless they've had a near-death experience. And then they're not afraid of dying either. They say, in fact, if you're not afraid of dying, then you're less afraid of living to the fullest. Oh, and that brings me to the question I like to ask everybody all the all the time here on this podcast is how do you define a well-lived life? I think you heard it from from Jeremy and from uh Tom Sawyer as well that you you live your life knowing that what's important is how you treat other people and that living the golden rule not just giving lip service to but actually living it in your day-to-day life makes life much more meaningful much more purposeful. Yeah. Well, thank you Dr. Bruce Grayson, thank you Jeremy Ritter, Dr. Mary Neil, thank you. Harmony, Harmony and Gabrielle for sharing your experiences with us. Dr. Grayson's book is After a Doctor Explores what near-death experiences reveal about life and beyond, and it's available wherever you buy your books, wherever books are sold. Fascinating read. Go well everybody. You can subscribe to the Over Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks everybody.