Oprah and a Doctor Explore What Near Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond

This episode of The Oprah Podcast features Dr. Bruce Greyson, one of the world's leading experts on near death experiences. As a scientist and physician, Dr. Greyson has been studying these fascinating phenomena for decades. He and Oprah dive deep into near death encounters and speak with people who have undergone their own transformative episodes, including Oscar nominated actor Jeremy Renner, who described his event as harrowing but also exhilaratingly peaceful. Their stories reveal striking similarities and shed light on how facing death transformed their understanding of not only life, but what comes after. Most people come away from a near death experience with an expanded view of consciousness and consider the possibility that death might not be the end. As Dr. Greyson explains, this “knowing” has caused people around the world to reexamine their own life's journey and view death as nothing to fear. BUY THE BOOK! "After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond" by Dr. Bruce Greyson https://amzn.to/4gdJiKK "My Next Breath: A Memoir" by Jeremy Renner https://amzn.to/4xh9oCm "7 Lessons from Heaven" by Dr. Mary C. Neal https://amzn.to/4fSE6dT "To Heaven and Back" by Dr. Mary C. Neal https://amzn.to/4fS1Sa9 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@Oprah Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprah/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 0:30Oprah Winfrey?

  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. Billions of people 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?

• 1:15Oprah Winfrey?

  So I have always been fascinated by near-death experiences. I did more than 20 episodes of The Oprah Winfrey Show 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...

• 1:59Oprah Winfrey?

  It actually got me wondering, there must be something to this, right? So I'm excited to welcome Dr. Bruce Greyson to the Tea House. Dr. Bruce Greyson is a psychiatrist, professor emeritus 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.

• 2:29Speaker 03

  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.

• 2:37Oprah Winfrey?

  In 1981, he co-founded IENS, the International Association for Near-Death Studies, a group dedicated to research of this phenomenon. He's identified many universal experiences that surfaced through countless stories from people who were pronounced dead and came back to life.

• 2:53Speaker 04

  I was told that it was my time, I had to go back to Earth, I had more work to do.

• 2:59Oprah Winfrey?

  In his latest book, "After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond," Dr. Grayson suggests that there's more to the human mind's experience beyond what we know here on Earth.

• 3:11Speaker 05

  I just almost felt this hand, I felt like it was the hand of Jesus, and just being like, no, not yet, not yet.

• 3:18Oprah Winfrey?

  To hear this voice say, "It's not yet time," just blew my mind, because that's what I heard. And we talk with Academy Award-nominated actor Jeremy Renner, who shared details of his near-death experience.

• 3:31Speaker 06

  I was dead on the ice, because 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, love is the only thing that you take with you when you die.

• 3:49Oprah Winfrey?

  First of all, welcome to the Tea House.

• 3:51Speaker 03

  Thank you, Oprah. I'm delighted to be here.

• 3:52Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm so, I love this conversation. I love having this conversation. How do you define a near-death experience?

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Near-death experiences, or NDEs, 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 your body, 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.

• 4:31Oprah Winfrey?

  What struck me about the NDE experience of so many different people, you describe in your book, is how similar they all are.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 4:41Oprah Winfrey?

  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.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  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 near-death experiences. They include a sense of leaving the physical body, being in a space of priests and love and sense of well-being, often encountering other entities that they may interpret as being deities or divine beings or deceased loved ones, 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.

• 5:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, we don't have an opposing opinion 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 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?

• 5:58Speaker 03

  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 medical school, where we were taught that the mind's what the brain does. And when you die, that's just it. 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.

• 6:21Oprah Winfrey?

  Tell us what got you into this, because it was a young girl.

• 6:24Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah. As I said, I went through medical school with this materialistic mindset. And one of my first weeks as a doctor, as a psychiatrist, I was asked to see a patient who had 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. 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, "I thought you were out cold when I saw you."

• 7:09Speaker 03

  And she said, "Well, I was, but I saw you talking to my roommate Susan down the hall." 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. But then she went on to tell me about the conversation I had with the roommate, what I said, what the roommate answered, what we were wearing, to find details. And I didn't know how she could have known all this.

• 7:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, so that threw you?

• 7:33Speaker 03

  It threw me.

• 7:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Because nothing in medical school had prepared you for that.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  Not at all. Nothing in my life had prepared me for this.

• 7:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. This is a thing that I remember. She remember, she knew that you had a stain on your tie.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  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's a very hot night in late 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.

• 8:03Oprah Winfrey?

  So when you first started to talk about this, or had the courage to actually mention, you know, things that you had experienced with patients and knew were being awakened to NDEs, even when we weren't calling them that, you got a lot of criticism and ostracism.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  Well, I didn't. I still do to some extent, but I understand that. You know, a 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.

• 8:46Oprah Winfrey?

  So that tells you what?

• 8:48Speaker 03

  That it is not a hallucination. It is not even a "normal" memory, because they're remembered so much more vividly.

• 8:55Oprah Winfrey?

  That there's something greater than the brain, that the mind is, might be greater than the brain?

• 8:59Speaker 03

  That's the implication, yes.

• 9:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  That when the mind is functioning very well, the brain is not. And there's no medical explanation for how that can be.

• 9:09Oprah Winfrey?

  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, 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.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:40Oprah Winfrey?

  And that whether they're surrounded 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.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  Right. And I've heard that from people.

• 9:55Oprah Winfrey?

  What do you make of all those similarities?

• 9:56Speaker 03

  Well, I think they must be talking about something that's real, because everyone has it. How they describe it is based on what they're familiar with, what analogies they're familiar with, because they all say, "There isn't any word to describe what happened to me. I can't describe it." Love is not a strong enough word. God is not a strong enough word. But I experienced this thing that was overwhelming for me. And I've heard this from people who were not religious at all.

• 10:20Oprah Winfrey?

  That's right. So have I. So have I.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  And yet they say, "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.

• 10:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, it does feel like a different realm. Like it's not a part of...

• 10:34Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 10:35Oprah Winfrey?

  And one of the first times I had a conversation with somebody about it was actually a gentleman that you talk about in the book After.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  Tom Sawyer.

• 10:45Oprah Winfrey?

  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.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 11:08Oprah Winfrey?

  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 with like, "I heard you used to be cruel," and he goes, "Oh, 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... 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.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, boy, that's pretty sharp. Yes, that's true. In my life review, of course, the tunnel, the light at the end of the tunnel, immersed with a connection to total knowledge and God's unconditional love. Having said that, as part of my life review, I know I not only was myself at any bit or time of chronological age, but regarding any interrelationship with the 31 years that I've been with my wife Elaine, I experienced being her. I don't mean like her or a movieola, 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 verbal abuse,

• 12:30Speaker 03

  the physical pain, the psychology, the sociology, all that, I was that. Now, if you don't need much more of a lesson than total knowledge...

• 12:40Oprah Winfrey?

  What does the human experience, how does it compare to whatever that other realm of knowing is like?

• 12:46Speaker 03

  Well, goodness, I don't even know if it's comparable. First of all, the form of communication is superluminal telepathic communication. In other words, it requires no time, no chronology, no anything. You're simply are whatever you are. No, it's totally, because you are 100 years in time simultaneously.

• 13:06Oprah Winfrey?

  And you just kind of know that.

• 13:07Speaker 03

  In other words, you experience it firsthand. You are whatever it is you think. You are every interrelationship with everything in the universe.

• 13:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow, this is 1994. I'm looking at the woman's face behind him like, whoa, what is he saying? 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.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:50Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  Yes, you really feel things from other people's perspective. And Tom talks 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're doing to other people, but they experienced the other person's emotions, which made them more compassionate. An example, as a woman.

• 14:16Oprah Winfrey?

  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.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  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 beating 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, which was compassionate for her mother for the first time in her life. 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.

• 15:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  That when you hurt someone else, you're hurting yourself as well.

• 15:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, because.

• 15:07Oprah Winfrey?

  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.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  That's right. They come back totally changed. For them, the golden rule is not a guide language we're supposed to follow. It's the law of the universe that they've experienced.

• 15:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. You know that that's the ultimate rule.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you for your company today for this fascinating conversation. When we come back, we'll hear the harrowing details of Oscar-nominated actor Jeremy Renner's near-death experience. And for the first time, he sheds light on the impact it continues to have on him.

• 15:58Speaker 07

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• 16:43Speaker 07

  Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Epglis. Before starting Epglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection.

• 16:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Ask your doctor about Epglis and visit epglis.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. Thank you for joining us on the Oprah Podcast here. I'm so glad you are here. And I'm speaking with one of the world's authorities on near-death experiences, Dr. Bruce Greyson, who's author of the book "After." And we're about to dive into some stories from people who've come so close to death and returned. They were technically dead. How similar are these experiences? You're going to find out soon. Well, so on New Year's Day of 2023, two-time Oscar-nominated actor Jeremy Renner was pronounced dead.

• 17:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Dead. After a harrowing accident at his home in Lake Tahoe, Jeremy joins us from the set of his hit show, Mayor of Kingstown. Jeremy, I'm so glad to see that you made it because I remember hearing that that day and feeling, oh, 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?

• 17:59Speaker 06

  That's a lot to ask. Good to be seen, good to be heard. That's for sure. I'm happy to be here with you. It's been a minute. Yeah, it was an incident, really not even an accident at this point, as it's been reduced to. But I could say the takeaway moment is really, it's really quite a glory moment for me and my family and life. But the semantics of it was a snowcat incident. And it 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, with metal tracks

• 18:42Speaker 06

  type of 15,000 pound machine. And I tried to jump on it to stop it, and I failed and got ran over and crushed and broke 38 bones on my face, my skull. It all threw out my entire body. And then a highball came out of my head and all these type of things. And then I had to struggle to breathe for a while and then stopped breathing.

• 19:04Oprah Winfrey?

  So what happened after that?

• 19:08Speaker 06

  They can't have words that got open. Essentially, I got tired in my mind because my lung, everything was collapsed, my ribs and all that sort of thing. So the physical part of my body.

• 19:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Could you move and did you have a sense of awareness? Could you move and did you have a sense of awareness?

• 19:22Speaker 06

  I would never pass out at all. If I would have passed out, I'd have been dead on the ice. Because 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 things like that. So I was really drowning. I was drowning in my own. From my rib cage and my bones, maybe. 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 one arm push up just to exhale than just inhale.

• 20:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 20:00Speaker 06

  Exhale. So I just got tired after like probably thirty minutes. Um, and that's when I was gone. Uh, 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 road conditions were awful. Um, and anyway, uh, the passing for whether it be for ten seconds or ten 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 uh, felt and witnessed or was a part of is exactly

• 20:41Speaker 06

  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 it's my jaws on the floor. I'm astounded to to know that this is really a thing.

• 20:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, it's a real thing. I've been talking about it for thirty 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 seventy five, 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 ten seconds. It could have been for five 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?

• 21:37Speaker 06

  It's kind of 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 peace. It just is. And you're there. It's just, these words are so like caveman-like 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 removed of the burdens of your earthly, the measures of like gravity and tooth decay and all these type of things, right? You're, you're relieved of those duties of that, on the spinning rock. You're out into this.

• 22:19Speaker 06

  You know, 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.

• 22:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, we're glad you did, because we get to-

• 22:30Speaker 06

  There's my eyeball, my twisted legs, and I'm like, why did I come back? You know? Um, yeah, and I don't know, it's pretty, pretty amazing. To me, it's what I would define, you know, God to be, or it's just, it was the divinity of the collective of love.

• 22:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Did you have any spiritual beliefs before? Did you have any?

• 22:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, my dad was a theologian, so I studied all religions growing up.

• 22:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 22:52Speaker 06

  But I wasn't a part of any of those religions.

• 22:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 06

  I became educated to them all, and the studying of them all, even eastern philosophies. And I think they're all very fascinating, 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.

• 23:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 23:14Speaker 06

  Which I, sometimes religions can do. So I'm more, um, I just, I just kind of hold that, kind of, kind of that space under my own. But I certainly 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 just collective divinity of love. It's, love is the only thing that you take with you when you die.

• 23:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. That's so powerful, Jeremy.

• 23:40Speaker 06

  It 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, in perpetuity, does not change.

• 23:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. Love is the only thing you take with you when you die.

• 23:58Speaker 06

  The only thing.

• 23:59Oprah Winfrey?

  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?

• 24:09Speaker 06

  Well, it kind of comes from that because I know what I take with me and what I what I hold and cherish and value. So I what I gave credence to prior. I do not at all give one iota, one care, one even insecurity, or like it's just saying 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 in it's subservient to to to love and kindness and thoughtfulness and the collectiveness 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 and love. I think the human part of humanity gets a little dodgy.

• 24:53Speaker 06

  Right? We get into like capitalism and all these other things and and wars and all these type of things. But I think the 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.

• 25:10Oprah Winfrey?

  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 forty five years. So when you were saying at the beginning, you didn't even know there was anything to this. He's been studying it for forty five years and has talked to hundreds and hundreds of people in the field.

• 25:28Speaker 06

  Well, 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 ten that are like, it's exactly what I would say, almost word for word, like it's scripted. And I I don't know if I have a question for you per se, except you could probably maybe read your book. But you know, it's to me, it all it really does, though, it it just feels um. Maybe even more confirmations?

• 26:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, an affirmation, confirmation and affirmation.

• 26:07Speaker 06

  Out of information is the confirmations of what I learned post the incident.

• 26:13Oprah Winfrey?

  I also wanted to ask you this. 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 just consider how, you know, devastating and demolishing to your physical body, you know, eyeball is out and your ribs are all that you were able to put yourself back together and physically speak and physically move. How has this experience affected your acting?

• 26:45Speaker 06

  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 gotta worry about my next step. I have to consider, you know, every joint in my body was crushed and like I don't want to live a life 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 entertain in the fiction world was, it was, was kind of so far fetched for me. I didn't know if that was ever gonna happen. Now that my body's, I know, back and put back together like Humpty Dumpty at some

• 27:27Speaker 06

  point, I feel blessed that I'm able to get back into it. I feel, I don't know if it makes me better, to be honest. I don't know if it makes me worse. It, I don't know, I like, I enjoy my job. I love my job.

• 27:45Speaker 06

  But still in the back of my mind, I know it really has value to me.

• 27:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 27:48Speaker 06

  You know, I could quit this job at 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.

• 27:59Oprah Winfrey?

  I think that's a common reaction, isn't it, Dr. Grayson?

• 28:01Speaker 03

  It certainly is.

• 28:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Everybody who goes through this, they come back and the priorities for living have shifted.

• 28:08Speaker 03

  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's it changed your day to day interactions with people?

• 28:24Speaker 06

  You know, I've never been more connected. It's released any sort of social anxiety I have. I have never felt like more confident. I get there's something that comes like a peace. I have this exhilarating peace. Which is just an antithesis of words, but I feel so at peace. You know, I'm getting, I got a wink from the universe saying like, hey, you know, now you've 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'm never afforded a bad day. I've been tested to my limits of pain. So pain is just, it's nothing. That's just a human construct. I mean, it's nothing.

• 29:06Speaker 06

  So I live my life, um, so connected. So always with love driven. Um, I, 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.

• 29:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 29:29Speaker 06

  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 going to 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 to be, 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.

• 29:50Oprah Winfrey?

  What has been the reaction from your friends, your loved ones, colleagues with this new, new look at life?

• 30:00Speaker 06

  There is, there is, with, with that Oprah, there's, that's where a lot of, it, it's, it was, it was all a connected thing anyway. It wasn't just, it just didn't just happen to me. Right? I, I might've gotten ran over, but I affected so many people in my life that I love dearly. So many people that are in the ripple effect of that goes beyond.

• 30:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 30:19Speaker 06

  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 gave them a lot of toxic awful images and dreams and like my poor nephew, he had to watch me holding my arm die in the ice, my eyeball out.

• 30:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 06

  He can't unsee that, right?

• 30:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 30:47Speaker 06

  So, and in me, never worrying about getting better, I just had to get better to help them. So whatever my physical milestones were, they were always fueled by, number one, my daughter, and then the rest of my family too, because I love them so deeply. I couldn't bear the responsibility of giving them nightmares for the rest of their lives and it might die.

• 31:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 31:14Speaker 06

  So I'm going to take this one-way road of recovery and goddammit, I'm gonna recover and goddammit, I'm gonna 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. And not wanting to disappoint them. So fortunate that I had that one-way road of recovery.

• 31:51Oprah Winfrey?

  I saw your post 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.

• 32:01Speaker 06

  Oh, man. Oh, boy. Yeah, yeah.

• 32:04Oprah Winfrey?

  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 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.

• 32:29Speaker 06

  Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. I always love to talk.

• 32:33Oprah Winfrey?

  All right. Great, great. Well, I mean, I think for him to discover that... This has been happening to many, many, many people. In two thirds of the cases you studied, people say that they met, 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, 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 feels like there are commonalities, but there are also specifics.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 33:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Is that true?

• 33:14Speaker 03

  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.

• 33:25Oprah Winfrey?

  That's right.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  So maybe it's just that the way, what they take back from the experience is what's relevant to them.

• 33:30Oprah Winfrey?

  And everybody does, for everybody, that's different.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 33:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  If you and I took a plane to Paris, we'd come back with very different memories because we have different interests.

• 33:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Even if we were on the same plane?

• 33:39Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 33:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Absolutely. Thanks for being here with us. After this message, we're going to hear from more people who were pronounced dead and then came back to life. You won't want to miss what they say about what happened in between. I think it's so fascinating how so many people have a similar experience. Don't you? Stay with us. I thank you for being here with me on the Oprah Podcast. Dr. Grayson and I are discussing the remarkable insights in his book, "After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond." So, orthopedic spinal surgeon and two-time New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Mary Neal, joins us from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Dr. Neal, you also had a near-death experience, I understand, 30 years ago on a kayaking trip.

• 34:25Oprah Winfrey?

  What happened? Welcome.

• 34:27Speaker 04

  Yes, well, 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 own a raft and kayak company. And circumstances were such that I went over a waterfall or a drop that was maybe 10 or 15 feet high.

• 35:06Speaker 04

  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 eight to 10 feet 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.

• 35:35Oprah Winfrey?

  Whoa.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  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.

• 35:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 35:54Speaker 04

  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, you know, they'd be fine.

• 36:35Speaker 04

  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

• 36:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Did you have a life review? Did you have a life review?

• 36:59Speaker 04

  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.

• 37:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 37:15Speaker 04

  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.

• 37:29Oprah Winfrey?

  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 was was resonated with me with such judge that when you die, there's gonna 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.

• 38:03Speaker 04

  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.

• 38:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Grace, kindness.

• 38:39Speaker 04

  Kindness.

• 38:39Oprah Winfrey?

  All of it, all of it. So you received a warning. You received a warning during your near death experience. What was it?

• 38:45Speaker 04

  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 was 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 I had to do with the coming and unexpected death of my eldest 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

• 39:28Speaker 04

  that beauty really does come, of all things. Then I was taken back to my body.

• 39:34Oprah Winfrey?

  And 10 years later, your son actually passed away. So 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 OK?

• 40:04Speaker 04

  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,

• 40:50Speaker 04

  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 this great adventure, this great opportunity to learn and grow and reflect God's love to others.

• 41:12Oprah Winfrey?

  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?

• 41:26Oprah Winfrey?

  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 gonna die. So you don't know if he's gonna 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.

• 41:44Speaker 04

  I woke up every day wondering if that would be the day.

• 41:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Got it. That's, that's, that's what I'm saying.

• 41:49Speaker 04

  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.

• 42:07Speaker 04

  If that is part of the plan for his life and our lives, then great beauty would come of it.

• 42:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Can you explain to us how he died 10 years later? People listening will want to know.

• 42:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was doing a dry land ski training and was hit by a car.

• 42:27Speaker 04

  So he, you know, he was killed instantly.

• 42:30Oprah Winfrey?

  And so when you got that message that your son is gone, you thought, okay, there it is.

• 42:36Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I'm not gonna say that, you know, I said, oh, hey, that's great. No, I was as devastated as a mother could be.

• 42:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:45Speaker 04

  But I will honestly tell you that even in the midst of my sorrow, I experienced great joy.

• 42:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Hmm.

• 42:54Speaker 04

  And that joy is because of knowing, trusting spiritual truth.

• 43:04Oprah Winfrey?

  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 posse, 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'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?

• 43:44Speaker 04

  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 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.

• 44:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 44:24Speaker 04

  But the fact is, there is spiritual crossover.

• 44:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, you can. The brain doesn't acknowledge it, but I can tell you, I can, I experience it.

• 44:32Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 44:33Oprah Winfrey?

  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.

• 44:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Now you have somebody who's crossed over to the other side. Thank you so much, Dr. Neal. Dr. Neal's books are To Heaven and Back and Seven Lessons From Heaven. We could listen to you all day because we love this conversation. We love this conversation.

• 45:09Speaker 04

  It's my favorite conversation.

• 45:11Oprah Winfrey?

  It's my favorite conversation too. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  Oprah, I've known Mary for a number of years. And what you don't see in this interview is that she's a down to earth, no nonsense orthopedic surgeon, who is very much making 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.

• 45:34Oprah Winfrey?

  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?

• 46:05Speaker 03

  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?

• 46:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  There's got to be an explanation. So I started collecting other cases of people who had come close to death or 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? 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.

• 46:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Why is there such resistance to it? Is it because the very nature of scientists and the medical field is to question what you don't know?

• 47:04Speaker 03

  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 scientists-

• 47:19Oprah Winfrey?

  So they're taught the mind is what the brain does?

• 47:22Speaker 03

  Right. But we see experiences like near-death experiences and lots of others as well-

• 47:26Oprah Winfrey?

  They say they're separate.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  -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.

• 47:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. Thanks for joining us for this episode. When we return, Dr. Grayson reveals what it would take for scientists to believe these accounts of near-death experiences.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by HBO Max. For your awards consideration, HBO Max presents Rooster. Starring Steve Carell, this new comedy series focuses on the complicated relationship between a successful author and his daughter. Don't miss the series IGN called hilarious and brilliant. Rooster is streaming on HBO Max. Watch now.

• 48:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Welcome you back to the Oprah Podcast. Dr. Bruce Grayson is here shedding light on the greatest mystery of all time. What happens after we die? What you hear may surprise you or maybe inspire you. Harmony joins us. Harmony is in Los Angeles, a Grammy winning songwriter and producer, who also had a near death experience at the age of just, you were 13?

• 48:34Speaker 06

  13 years old, yes.

• 48:35Oprah Winfrey?

  13 years old. Tell us, hey, welcome Harmony.

• 48:39Speaker 06

  How you doing?

• 48:40Oprah Winfrey?

  I am doing so good. We want to know what happened. What happened to you?

• 48:44Speaker 06

  Well, I come from a very, very, very religious background. I was born in London by Nigerian parents and my parents were very strict and raised us in the church. I was, yeah, I 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 the spiritual side from a very young age. But this particular week was interesting because a few days prior to the accident, my mother had an inkling to pray because she had a dream that the middle child was gonna, was in a car accident. Fast forward, last day of school, we go on a school bus, well, red bus in London.

• 49:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 49:28Speaker 06

  And we're on our way back and it's the last day of school. And the 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.

• 49:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Didn't see the bus, so swerved right past the bus to avoid the bus and I'm in the middle of the road. 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 was 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.

• 50:26Oprah Winfrey?

  And it was me floating over everything that was taking place, the accident. They 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 I'm experiencing this scene, right? And 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.

• 51:11Oprah Winfrey?

  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?

• 51:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Go ahead. So they pronounced me dead. 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 thirteen 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 was, 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. Look 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 woke up. Who was it, Harmony? Who was it? God for me. Okay.

• 52:04Oprah Winfrey?

  It was God for me. It was like the everlasting, whoever created this earth spoke to me. And said, it's not your time. So I wake up from what I thought was a dream with this sheet

• 52:19Oprah Winfrey?

  over me and I'm like, and it'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. Because they'd covered you with the sheet. You're gone. Yeah, 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. Hundred and ten percent. You felt it. When I was nine years old. Yeah, you heard the voice say, it's not your time.

• 53:03Oprah Winfrey?

  And then did you, 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 because it's, it's really faint and it's peaceful, but it's really big and loud at the same time. Yeah. I've never, I've never, I can always tell. It's like, okay, there it is. Because it comes in such a way that it's unexplainable. But it's just 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 clear. I, I know, Harmony, you have a question for Dr. Grayson. What is it?

• 53:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Now that you've heard so many stories that have similar experience.

• 53:51Speaker 03

  This is Doc. Is it safe to say that there is life after this life?

• 53:59Speaker 03

  As a scientist, I can't say we've proven that. But as a person who's heard all 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 it keeps going forever, or as long as we can measure.

• 54:23Oprah Winfrey?

  So what would prove it to the scientist? Because I don't know what you need, other than thousands of people who've experienced it.

• 54:30Speaker 03

  Well, for many scientists, they have to experience it themselves. And they may do that eventually.

• 54:35Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 54:35Speaker 03

  But I wanted to ask you a question, Harmony. I know we've heard from so many 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?

• 54:49Oprah Winfrey?

  There was a different understanding of what my life was gonna be considered, how my life was gonna go. I knew from that moment on, my life was gonna move differently. And tracing everything up to this day, the people I've met, the experiences, the places and the platforms that I've been on, I've understood that they made a 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 also made me understand,

• 55:33Oprah Winfrey?

  I got a time period to do some things here. Do you know what I mean? And I have some significant things to do while I have the time because in this life, time runs out. Now, in the life after this, time probably continues.

• 55:47Speaker 06

  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.

• 55:57Oprah Winfrey?

  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. 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 five years old. And she said, you better watch me now, Oprah Gail, because one day you're gonna 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 feeling, that that voice is different than the voice that's just in my head. It's the that goes on and on.

• 56:38Oprah Winfrey?

  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.

• 57:04Speaker 06

  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. And 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.

• 57:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, God is the all encompassing word. Yes, yeah. And I and oftentimes 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 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.

• 57:59Speaker 06

  Thank you so much, God, the honor and the blessing of being in this room. I appreciate it.

• 58:02Oprah Winfrey?

  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 if a lot of kids have had that experience.

• 58:13Speaker 03

  I often dealt with a lot of children, but those that I have talked to often have difficulty taking life seriously at that point. 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 gonna do with it?

• 58:33Oprah Winfrey?

  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.

• 58:53Speaker 05

  Thank you so much for having me, y'all.

• 58:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 58:55Speaker 05

  It was... It was pretty bizarre, to be honest. I was driving home from Nashville. I was seven and a half hours away. And 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 believed that there's something supernatural that kept me moving. And so, I stopped to grab some Excedrin. When I get back to my parents' house, 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,

• 59:38Speaker 05

  which is right next to my childhood bedroom. So she hears me throwing up in the bathroom. And she comes in to check on me. I'm telling her, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. And as I'm telling her this, I start having seizures.

• 59:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 59:56Speaker 05

  And so, she's like, you are not fine. So, we had this horrible storm that was happening that night. So our ambulance weren't running. And we live in the boonies. And so, they called the private ambulance company. They met my family, my sister, my now-husband, everyone. We loaded up. They loaded me up into this ambulance. And we're only able to make it to Fort Smith, which is about 45 minutes away. It's not the place you'd want to get your, you know, brain surgery at because there wasn't a specialist there. But if it wasn't storming that night, it would have taken me all the way to Little Rock, which is two and a half hours.

• 1:00:41Speaker 05

  And since they didn't, I actually ended up in that hospital forty-five minutes away, flatlined and needed to be intubated. So 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, they're saving me and intubating me and bringing me back, then I would not have made it.

• 1:01:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, there's 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.

• 1:01:15Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 1:01:16Oprah Winfrey?

  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 and 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?

• 1:01:33Speaker 05

  So as I'm, you know, 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 me, I apparently flatlined for thirty 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, no, 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

• 1:02:18Speaker 05

  that whatever it was saying, talking to me, whether it be an angel or Jesus, was letting me know, they were saying it telepathically. It's so wild how that happened because people are always, what'd you see? What'd you see? I'm like, I just knew. I just knew.

• 1:02:35Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. So what she's describing is what so many people describe to. Because what I've heard too, and you write about in After, is that words fail you. Words are a creation of this realm and, you know.

• 1:02:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Language, which is necessary for us to communicate, but that you don't need that on the other side, in the other realm, correct?

• 1:03:02Speaker 03

  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. They said, I can't give you words for it, but it's there.

• 1:03:14Oprah Winfrey?

  And after your near death experience, I heard Gabrielle that everything just felt trivial after that. Tell us about that feeling.

• 1:03:23Speaker 05

  Oh, my gosh. So I woke up a week and a half later, and I had a big gauze patch on my head. And I had Bell's palsy severe on the right side of my face. And my brother, 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.

• 1:03:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:03:45Speaker 05

  And so my brother Shay just scurried on down there. My sister Erica was in there in the room. I remember waking up and my brother being at the end of my bed, and I had no idea what had happened. I was like, oh, 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 getting my music out there.

• 1:04:28Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:04:50Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:51Speaker 05

  And so the legacy you leave behind is the most important thing and the love that you leave behind with your family.

• 1:04:57Oprah Winfrey?

  I loved earlier when Jeremy was on, Jeremy Renner, and he was saying, love is the only thing you take with you. Love is the only thing you take with you. Do you have a question for Dr. Grayson?

• 1:05:09Speaker 05

  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?

• 1:05:23Speaker 03

  Yes, it's very common. People differ how hard it is because some of them have a spiritual life to begin with and 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 have been through this before and come up with the wrong ways of dealing with this. Also, if you can find a group of other experiencers who have gone through this, they may be the most helpful thing for you.

• 1:05:52Oprah Winfrey?

  And I hear you have an album coming out this summer, right? And did you, did you, did you write a song about this experience?

• 1:05:59Speaker 05

  I'm actually writing several. It's funny because we, we started this song called Coming Back to You. And it's not just about my husband. I love him so much. He's perfect. 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 I have so many songs. I have so many songs written about him. But we have one, the writing's called Coming Back to You, and it's about my family and my husband, just being able to share their life experiences with them. Because that's the thing that you'd miss out on is their lives.

• 1:06:42Speaker 05

  You know, people think that it's just your life you're missing out on.

• 1:06:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Good luck to you on that album. Great success, Gabrielle.

• 1:06:48Speaker 05

  Thank you so much.

• 1:06:49Oprah Winfrey?

  And thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I mean, let me just say, you got a good man if he came over there and closed that little eyeball.

• 1:06:57Speaker 05

  He is the best.

• 1:06:58Oprah Winfrey?

  I gotta say, that's one of the best love, love moments I've heard. I think that's fantastic.

• 1:07:04Speaker 05

  I mean, that looks kind of crazy, you know?

• 1:07:06Oprah Winfrey?

  I just, I just think that's so endearing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

• 1:07:10Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:07:12Speaker 07

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• 1:07:42Oprah Winfrey?

  So Dr. Grayson, Dr. Neal, Harmony and Gabrielle, they all describe hearing a voice or the message.

• 1:07:48Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:07:49Oprah Winfrey?

  It's not your time, whether it's physically hearing it as Harmony did, or as in the case of Gabrielle, she said she didn't hear that, but she felt that.

• 1:08:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:08:03Oprah Winfrey?

  It's not your time. Is that common for most NDEs? Because as you're coming back into the body, you come back.

• 1:08:09Speaker 03

  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 helping a deceased or dying person pass over, or raising a child, or writing a book about it.

• 1:08:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:08:31Speaker 03

  But they have some reason they chose to come back. You know, this is they are set back against my will.

• 1:08:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, you know, all of this reminds me, I had read Song of Myself, I think in high school or college. And then the very first time I, Walt Whitman's Song of Myself, and the very first time I had 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 and 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.

• 1:09:19Oprah Winfrey?

  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 NDE. Yes.

• 1:09:36Speaker 03

  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 that's been happening for people for centuries all around the globe for different reasons, for different reasons. Some get it through meditation, or through prayer, or just spontaneously. And the near-death experience is one precipitant for that experience.

• 1:09:58Oprah Winfrey?

  So the title of your book, "After," as I started out talking about at the beginning of our conversation, has multiple meanings for you. What are they?

• 1:10:07Speaker 03

  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 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.

• 1:10:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 1:10:27Speaker 03

  And the scientist to me says, "I can't say for sure."

• 1:10:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 1:10:30Speaker 03

  But I believe it does. I believe the evidence points. I can't think of another explanation for these experiences.

• 1:10:38Speaker 03

  So one...

• 1:10:39Oprah Winfrey?

  That's one of the meanings.

• 1:10:40Speaker 03

  What happens after the other is, what happens to people after they've had a near-death experience and come back to this world?

• 1:10:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 1:10:46Speaker 03

  And how do they live their lives after the near-death experience?

• 1:10:50Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, that's what Gabrielle was saying.

• 1:10:52Speaker 03

  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?"

• 1:11:01Speaker 03

  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?" And there've 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 experiencers, that they also become more spiritual, less driven to achieve in this world.

• 1:11:43Oprah Winfrey?

  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."

• 1:11:57Oprah Winfrey?

  And also becoming aware of the army of people that have come before me, 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?

• 1:12:19Speaker 03

  Oh, definitely. That's the most common thing people say after a near-death experience, no matter what the end of it 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 the difference from other people who've 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.

• 1:12:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh. And that brings me to the question I like to ask everybody all the time here on this podcast is, how do you define a well-lived life?

• 1:13:04Speaker 03

  I think you heard it from Jeremy and from Tom Sawyer as well, that 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, but actually living it in your day-to-day life, makes life much more meaningful, much more purposeful.

• 1:13:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Well, thank you, Dr. Bruce Greyson. Thank you, Jeremy Renner, Dr. Mary Neal. Thank you, 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 Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.

• 1:14:06Oprah Winfrey?

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