Doctor Studied 5000 NDEs; Discovers UNBELIEVABLE Near Death Experiences SECRETS! with Dr. Jeffrey Long

Dr. Jeffrey Long 0:00
I mean, first and foremost, we are far more than just our physical bodies and our physical brain functioning. Every shred of evidence of Near Death Experiences times, many, many 1000s, we are contained within us a soul, a soul that is going to live forever, that's going to have an eternal life, that's going to live in an afterlife. In fact, it's very, very important to have that insight, and we know something about the afterlife, time there is either radically different, or most people say time doesn't even exist in that afterlife realm. Communication is telepathic, instantaneous sharing of thoughts, context emotions, with no possibility of misunderstanding. Movements, non fits, not a and I, it took me a while to learn this, but in that afterlife realm, it's it's not a separate, independent physical, three dimensional physical realm like we have here.

Alex Ferrari 0:53
I like to welcome back to the show returning champion Dr. Jeffery Long, how you doing Dr. Long?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 1:08
Oh, it's wonderful to be back, Alex. And hey, we've got a lot to talk about today.

Alex Ferrari 1:13
Oh, thank you so much. Our last conversation seemed to hit a nerve. You know, did very, very, very well, and people loved our conversation about near death experiences. And you know, just when you think that you like you know, I've heard everything I've seen. I mean, I've interviewed 120 of them myself at this point, and and I've heard a lot, and I've interviewed great people like yourself. I'm like, they can't be anything new under the sun is there. And then you email me like, Hey, I got a new press release here. I've there's a whole bunch of new stuff we got to talk about. So I'm very excited about this conference, because I'm always I'm very curious, and I'd love to learn. So I'm open. So if you want to start off with some of the bit, the big things that you have found new, new discoveries in the near death experience research field, please. Let's start it up.

Dr. Jeffrey Long 2:04
Oh, hey, I would be delighted Near Death Experience Research, and what we've learned keeps progressing. And I was honored to have a major research article that I did published by a major peer review article. It's actually archived in the National Library of Medicine. So this is a big, big deal. And what makes it such a big deal is it's the largest study ever reported of what we call near death experience after effects. And those are the kind of typical changes that occur following a near death experience. I mean, there's profound, major lifelong changes. And we studied that in a group of over 800 people that had near death experiences. And our major research question was, okay, are these major life changes that occur after they they're close brush with death? Is that due to their having nearly died, or is it due to the actual near death experience? So Alex, we had a control group of 42 people that had a life threatening event. I mean, they nearly died but did not have a near death experience. And over and over again, in the aspects of life changes afterwards that we investigated, the group that had near death experiences had profoundly more positive changes. They had a greatly reduced fear of death, a greatly increased belief in an afterlife compared to our control group, an increased belief in God, interestingly, a greatly increased level of compassion compared to how they were prior to their near death experience. So a very dramatic new, actually, a line of evidence that significantly suggests the reality of near death experience. You don't change your life profoundly like that, unless you've had an experience that you know deep down is true. That's got to be the foundation before you make your major life changes.

Alex Ferrari 3:49
So So I was just fascinating. So the people who had did in the in this, in this research, did you have ever do a control group, where not control group, but just a comparison of people who had, like, accidental or traumatic deaths, with a near death experience, versus something that was non traumatic, you know, something that you know might have been in under an operating you know, the anesthesia went crazy, or something along those lines, versus a car accident or something very violent happening to them to to cause their death. Have you ever seen research in regards to those two and what that reaction is difference?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 4:26
Yeah, that's a good one. There has been some prior research that, interestingly, for people that have that are closer to death as a result of their accident or injury and have a near death experience, well, if they're if they have a very severe accident, basically cardiac arrest. Their heart stops in that group of people that have that very severe traumatic event, they're actually more likely to have a near death experience than people that are, if you will, less close to death. But again, everyone in my research group was so severely compromised by that accident or injury that. Led to their near death experience. Every one of them were unconscious or clinically dead with no heartbeat.

Alex Ferrari 5:06
What is the longest person who's been dead and came back because I had one of your researchers on yesterday, and I can't believe I lost her name, but she was one of your researchers that she worked with you on, and she gave me some numbers in regards to, in regards to how long, like, I thought it was, you know, an hour, two hours, but she was throwing some numbers around that. I'm like, Are you kidding me? So what did from your research, how long has someone been dead and it's come back,

Dr. Jeffrey Long 5:40
Right! You kind of have to define death, like, after you got that bad auto accident, you can be in a coma for days, for weeks, but you're not really dead, dead, dead, dead, no heartbeat, right?

Alex Ferrari 5:51
No heartbeat. Blood is stopped. Brain is not cooking,

Dr. Jeffrey Long 5:55
Right! One of the longest that that I've been recalls where they did resuscitation for about an hour and a half. I haven't really studied that specifically, but I mean, these can be people getting CPR far longer than we would have given CPR say when I was in medical school some decades ago. So these are people that have verifiably absent heartbeat for well over an hour. And of course, these people are more likely to have a near death experience because the severe, closeness to permanent, irreversible death they're in. And indeed, they report it just absolutely amazing that people can be down that long, have that severe an event, have CPR going on that long, big hats off to the healthcare team that didn't give up. And so yes, that's that's exactly be interested in your the numbers that the person you talked to yesterday said,

Alex Ferrari 6:44
Yeah. So the numbers were pretty, pretty remarkable. To say the least. The numbers I heard were obviously 10 hours, 12 hours people waking up in the morgue. Like, literally, there was one story that that the researcher told me that she was the body. Was basically the brother had come to to identify the body, and in the bot, she was crying, she was in her body. Her soul was back in the body, but couldn't move yet, because rigor mortis has already said it. I mean, I was, like fascinated by this, and she started to cry. So she the brother, turns to the doctor and goes, or to the to the whoever the morgue, the morgues, mortician, if you will, said, Do dead bodies cry? And they go, No. And then slowly but surely, they got a beat. And she said that that person it hurt because the blood had to, kind of like, it's like, cranking up an old engine, like, just trying to get it through and stuff. I was like, I've never heard of those. I've personally interviewed people who've been out for at least four hours, eight hours, I've seen that, but I hadn't heard a couple days, two, three days,

Dr. Jeffrey Long 8:04
Yeah, and, and you're absolutely right there. I have a series of patients that recovered consciousness while they were in the morgue. I want to emphasize this was typically near death experiences decades ago, before they were less sure about a declaration of death, as we are today, but absolutely, we have a series, and it's just like that. Actually, I'll correct my prior comment, yeah, these people were declared dead. Obviously, they go to the morgue. It's cold there, and incredibly. And I think it's apt to use a term, miraculously, they return to life. And I mean, some people think that near death experiencers aren't really dead. Oh, yeah, go talk to someone who has had a near death experience and woke up in the morgue. Yeah, that's, I mean, it's about as dead as you could get rigor mortis. So yeah, no question about that. Yeah, that is actually, you're right. That is actually a period of many, many hours between a declaration of death, getting them toe tagged. This often happens in a hospital, taking them down and securing them in the morgue. But yeah, just absolutely dramatic recoveries that we see with that remarkably, in my series of patients that were had that close brush with death that they recovered in the morgue. Remarkably, they don't seem to have any lasting brain damage, as best I can tell you. Just think about that. That's just, you know, again, did I say miraculous? I mean, the some of these cases, near death experiences with with that kind of circumstance, is absolutely just mind boggling.

Alex Ferrari 9:29
Yeah, and that was a, you know, coming from your point of view as a doctor. When you hear these stories, you know, how can scientifically anyone you know? I mean, I'm sure you've heard of Dr. Eben Alexander, who was a neurosurgeon, and he was legally brain dead, like gone, and he had his doctor follow up, and he's a neurosurgeon, so he understood how the brain worked, and he was out for a few hours that there was just no way that a brain can come back from that a heart. Maybe, but a brain is the big thing. So being gone for four or five six hours, you're supposed to be brain dead after what, seven minutes without oxygen, or 10 minutes without oxygen, or something like that.

Dr. Jeffrey Long 10:12
Oh, absolutely. Got no doubt about that. I actually saw the CT, the CAT scans of Eben Alexander with his bout with meningit meningitis. And I will tell you, even as a seasoned doctor, I got chills. It was horrifying to see all the meninges everywhere on their scan light up with this horrible infection. I mean, I know that's, that's brain death. I saw that. And yet, amazingly, he recovered. He recovered full, fully functional. I mean, I've hung out and talked with Evan quite a bit. Again, as a physician and a scientist, Alex, I am very reluctant to use the word miracle for these kind of things, but I have no other word for Eben, for the people that wake up in the morgue and for many, many of these other people that have near death experiences and recover under such amazing circumstances and come back with such seemingly remarkable healing from that life threatening event.

Alex Ferrari 11:03
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Has anyone ever done any research on the brain, maybe do some sort of scan of the brain after they came back that they were gone so long, they're like, how is the brain working? Is it working differently? Like I've seen channels, I'm sure you're familiar with channeling channels who've been thrown under a scanner. I forgot the scan, but they hook up their brain, and when they're channeling their brain waves go to a scientifically, their brain waves are going somewhere else. That is very different. So there is some reference point to miraculous things now being able to be tested at least somewhat by by science. Has anyone ever done any research like that?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 12:41
Oh, I would love it if somebody did research like that. I mean, you'll think about that. Here's people that are basically as dead as dead gets, as you would define medically, and yet they go on living just fine. The study I think you were talking about is the EEG, or electroencephal Thank you. Yes, yeah, you put up a whole bunch of leads on the brain, and it's a very accurate measure of brain, cortical or outer electrical activity. I wish so we had the funding or the interest of somebody to go look at the brains of these people that survived when they shouldn't have and see if how the brain works. So you could get, like, functional MRI scanning too, and look at it anatomically, but it what we don't know about near death experience, the changes afterwards, far exceeds what we do know. It's a wide open field for that kind of innovative thinking about research, like you just said there. I hope we see more of it.

Alex Ferrari 13:33
Yeah, because it just seems that, you know, based on my experience, just talking to so many near death experiencers. They have physical changes in them. There's the emotions. I'd love to talk to you a little bit about that. So when people come back, obviously they there's obviously a physical situation, meaning that they were brought back to life. Now, some are, you know, within a few seconds. Some are maybe a few minutes of CPR, but some like we're talking about our minutes, sometimes hours, I heard as far as a day or two, three days later, which is the one that was in the in the morgue, like that, with that they were the brother was identifying the body. But there's also a lot of of talk, if regards, or in regards, in my research as a interviewer, that they bring back other sets of extra sensory skill or perception, whether that be a psychic ability, whether that be, I haven't heard too many mediums, but a psychic ability. I just spoke to literally right before you, I had another interview with a near death experiencer who had precognitive dreams and has had them for 35 years since she had her near death experience. She still gets dreams of a plane crash with the flight number these kind of things, horrific things, but she sees them again and again and again and again, and she gets these dreams constantly so. So that's a very fascinating area to delve into. So what have you heard in your research?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 15:07
That's a great question. We actually have surveyed literally several 1000 near death experiencers with our key survey question that says, After your experience, did you develop any paranormal or psychic gifts? So we've actually studied that, and a modest percentage of people answer that survey question yes, and then what they say in the narrative response to that is amazing. Exactly like you said, many of them do come back believing that they do have that pre cognitive ability. They're more intuitive. That's one of the most common things that they say. They will call that psychic, but I think a lot of that is they're more, if you will, compassionate or aware of people. And so just out of that sort of connection, loving awareness of people around them, I think they can pick up more on these non verbal clues or things that lead to understand that person's emotional state, sort of, you know, something on their mind. Are they troubled? So we see a lot of that sort of, you know, emotional, intuitive kind of thing. But above and beyond that, like you say, there are certainly plenty of people that are that fully described, pre cognitive experience. I mean, being aware of plane crashes before they happen, helping search teams find bodies of people that that have died and they can't recover. So there's a lot of that kind of buzz and near death experience that's just crying out for a prospective study, we need a registry of these kind of premonitions right when they happen, and then follow up and get a better sense for just how often they come to fruition or how come they don't? But again, it's just back to what I said earlier. What we don't know about near death experience far outweighs what we do know wide open field. I'm sure there's some major discoveries as we continue to investigate them.

Alex Ferrari 16:53
Would it make sense as this analogy goes, that when we're here on earth work in living our life right here, in this incarnation, we're essentially under the ocean. We're in the ocean. It's very dense, very heavy. Can't really move around very much. When you have a near death experience, you pop up above, see above the water, and you're in the air, as this analogy goes. So you're now aware of the air. Everybody in the water is not aware of the air. They've heard of the air, but they haven't been aware of it. They're able to go up there, experience it, but then they get put back down in the water. But there seems to be a sensitivity or connection that they're at the very top of the of the ocean. You're not in the in the Mariana Trench, with a deep, deep, deep down that you can't even see it, but there seems to be a little bit closer to the surface, hence they're able to connect to that side easier. That's the compassion, the kindness, the intuition, that kind of stuff. Does that make sense?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 17:51
Yeah, you know what? I love that analogy about. You know, here we are living our earthly, physical life in the water. And as you've heard, I'm sure, from from scores of near death experiencers you've talked to, and of course, me too, in my research, once you have that near death experience, boom consciousness, all that we are, everything that we have been throughout our earthly, physical life, is no longer physical, typically rising above the body, analogous to rising out of the ocean waters. They feel free, for example, even though they may have been in agony with that life threatening illness or injury that caused the near death experience, boom, once they're in that non earthly, non physical state above their physical body, they almost never report any pain or any concerns, anxieties are almost always gone. So it's truly amazing to be like literally in a different environment in terms of physical versus non physical. So that's why I like that. It's absolutely true. And then when people come back from the say, near death, experiences that freedom from their physical body and come back to their body, just like your analogy of being in the air and coming back into the water, they have that knowledge, they have that awareness. They have that connection. Is as if when the near death experiencers, if you will, bring back a little piece of heaven when they have their near death experience and are able to relate that during the rest of their earthly life in some very important ways.

Alex Ferrari 19:16
Now, how does, how do near death experiences challenge the traditional views of consciousness, which is a very hot topic in the spiritual, in the spiritual space, conscious, and in the science space, for that matter, as well, they're trying to figure out to define consciousness. So how does it challenge with all this new knowledge of the other side and near death experiences, how does it channel the traditional views?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 19:39
Sure, the traditional views, are what we would call physicalism. In other words, many scientists believe that all that we are, ever have been, and ever will be, is due to the physical function of our brain, and there cannot possibly be any kind of consciousness that is not produced by the physical brain. Well, I have a one word response to that bulk based. Based on our Near Death Experience Research. And you know that and viewers that have heard near death experiences talk, you know that also near death experiences by the 1000s. There have been 1000 in my research data set, we have way over 4000 people that had a near death experience. We know that consciousness separates from the body, their physical body. It's unconscious or dead. I mean, look up unconscious in the dictionary. It means no ability to have a memory at that time you're it's like lights out. And yet, by the 1000s, people do report having consciousness separate from their physical body in a very different state. Movement is typically non physical, by the way, what they see or hear with their consciousness over the body during a near death experience is almost invariably accurate down to the finest details, and that includes observations far from the physical body. I mean, like hundreds of yards, even over a mile, which we have many meaning, near death experiences report absolutely beyond any physical sensory awareness when they have that consciousness, what they're seeing and hearing is amazingly accurate in absolutely, medically, inexplicably, that kind of consciousness, and there's no way that that could be due to physical brain function. So, yeah, we have all the evidence that I think any reasonable person could possibly want. We you. Everybody watching this video is far more than just the functioning of your physical brain. We have that immaterial part of us. Many people call it the soul, but that's what seems to go on during the near death experience, who we are, everything that we are, still survive bodily death, and that's a very strong line of evidence provided by near death experience regarding consciousness.

Alex Ferrari 21:44
I kind of compare near death experiences with medic with meditation, in the sense that science really looked at meditation as like, This is crazy. There's no real benefit to it. It's just some Hokey Pokey stuff from back in the dates, woo, woo stuff, but now it's been one of the most researched things in the world, and they understand that the depth of benefits, not only mentally, but stress, and what happens to the body and so on. I'm feeling that near death experiences, and please correct me if I'm wrong, are starting to get a little bit more respect, not completely yet, but more now, than they did five or 10 years ago in the scientific community, in the medical community, would you agree?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 22:24
Oh, absolutely no. I've been doing this, Alex, believe it or not, for over 25 years. When I started out my near death experience research, 25 years ago, I literally did my research in secret because I was afraid of what the medical community would think about that I didn't want to alienate my colleagues that we all work together with. I'm a radiation oncology doctor, as you know, I treat patients with cancer with radiation therapy. So we all work as a team, and it's very, very important not to have a barrier between me and the so many other doctors I interact with regularly. I was literally on the website, my research website, Dr Jeff, it was only when my New York Times best selling book came out I couldn't really hide anymore. But yeah, back in that era, there was a lot of people that that really skeptical of near death experience. I mean, I could kind of understand that it seems so unworldly, unlike anything we have. And yet a Pew Forum survey done in 2021 found that in the United States, 72% of the people agreed with the statement that a near death experience was an observation of an essence, leaving the physical body at the time of life threatening event. So that's how things are in the modern era, the significant majority of people in America embrace not only the concept of near death experience, but that core definition of what it is, that essence. I noticed they avoided using the soul. Other people use that or consciousness. Those are both synonymous terms, but absolutely due to public awareness, excellent podcast, like what you have, and a lot of other media and a lot of people just sharing interpersonally their near death experience as a result of that in America, a huge shift over the last 25 years, and that extends to the healthcare arena too, nurses, doctors. Now virtually everyone knows about near death experiences and understand that they're certainly real

Alex Ferrari 24:20
In your experience, have you met nurses? Because I found that nurses are a little bit more connected to the patient, no offense, because they spend more time with them on a day to day basis, but especially when they're dying and they come back. Some of these nurses who've been in the field for a long time. They've just seen it again and again. And I had one near death experiencer come in and say, Oh, when I came back, I had to sell somebody. And the nurse was right there. I'm like, I saw this, this and this, Oh, baby, you just went to heaven and came back. Like it was just such a natural thing for that nurse to say, Oh, you just went to the other side. And came back. It happens all the time. Yeah, so what's your experience? What's your experience with that? Have you met nurses like that?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 25:07
Yeah, absolutely. That's a great observation, and I want to give a big shout out to nurses, because they are likely than doctors going to be talking to the patient, spending time. And you know, especially in the last several decades, it was the nurses that really got the reality of Near Death Experiences. Patients would often be more comfortable sharing with a nurse they are trained to be, perhaps a little more non judgmental, a little more open minded than doctors are. So no question about that. Over decades, nurses have really been at the front line, if you will, of working with the patients, encouraging them to share their near death experience, emphasizing to that patient, hey, what you had was absolutely a normal experience and literally a blessing, literally something that has the potential to change your life in a very positive way. So nurses have been very instrumental in that we're now not to pull away from doctors. Well, shout out to doctors too, because now more and more they're also aware of Near Death Experiences. Interested and, you know, it's interesting, even though they're the doctors, and they went to medical school and they're the professionals, they learn. The doctors learn about near death experiences from their patients. They talk to that that have the courage to share with their doctor, probably better than any other source of information.

Alex Ferrari 26:25
Now, from your research, what does the increased belief in the afterlife after someone has a near death experience, or even people watching have a near death experience or watch an episode of someone talking, what is their what is their life, day to day change? How does it change? How do they move through life a little bit differently, understanding that this NDE thing is, is a thing that there is another side, if they have this belief in their programming, if you will?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 26:59
Yeah, that's a great question that directly is from my very recently published research. They compare their belief in an afterlife per survey questions we ask at the time of their near death experience and when they shared their account with us, which is often 1520, years later, and their increased belief in the reality of an afterlife increases like three to four fold. This isn't a small percentage. Alex, I mean, this is huge. So near death experiencers absolutely come back with a far greater belief in the reality of an afterlife. But again, that's not surprising, is it? I mean, from their point of view, they know what lies beyond death's door because they lived it. They experienced it. So they know from personal experience that beyond death's veil is an afterlife and a wonderful afterlife. And so it's not surprising that they have that increased belief, certainly a very dramatic shift in that belief. But how does that affect them on a day to day? Well, I think it affects them in a lot of sort of overt and subtle ways. Certainly overtly, they're going to be less afraid of living life and its challenges. I think they face life with more courage, certainly when they you know, in the past, they may have worried about what happens after they die, their friends or family, their loved ones. I mean, are they gone forever? And they know they're not. They know that there's a wonderful afterlife. So I think it helps them to deal with their their own mortality and the mortality of other people around them. It's certainly doesn't take away the grief of a loss of a loved one, but it can sure, certainly dole that down and make the the pain a little less sharp, knowing that when someone dies, they're in an afterlife, and as I tell my patients that when they have lost a loved one, they're in a much better realm than you and I.

Alex Ferrari 28:47
They're they're well, let me ask you, how many spiritual trends formations have you seen? What kind of spiritual transformations have you seen? Because obviously atheist to just believing something, or Christian or Jewish, and then switching over to more spiritual I've actually heard of people who I've interviewed, people who were Christian before, and that after their near death experience, became even more Christian, even went down deeper down that path, but not in the dogmatic way of, let's say, the Vatican or the or the Catholic Church, but a little bit more towards what Christ actually talked about, as opposed to the dogma and the fear based stuff. But I have seen that. What did your research say?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 29:30
Oh, absolutely, we study the religious beliefs of people the time of their near death experience, and then their religious beliefs after their near death experience. So but the significant majority of people actually, even after their near death experience, retain their same religious affiliation that they had before. So I mean, that can be their social group, it can be their life. It can be a very important part of their connections with their community. So not surprisingly, they maintain their religious affiliation. But like you point. Out, even within that religious affiliation, they will often, usually have different values. They're certainly less concerned about, you know, they're not, they're not going to be as open to fear based preaching, because they know there's nothing to fear life after death. They go. They know that that the afterlife and a wonderful afterlife is a reality. So they don't need convinced by by anybody in any religion or any other spiritual group. So I think it and of course, some other people do make significant changes in their religious affiliation. You tend to see people after a near death experience tending in the direction of being more spiritual, but not religious. But again, like you said, other people simply become more devoted to their pre existing religious belief. And what a blessing that is to that religious community, as they can share their near death experience and help in so many ways, sort of reinforce, if you will, at the great religions have been teaching for 1000s of years. There it is in near death experiences and afterlife, a God, a, you know, some and we're all eternal beings. So again, that most profound message that the great religions have been teaching, reinforced by people that have near death experiences.

Alex Ferrari 31:16
It's fascinating because, you know, I had a Jewish, a Jewish NDEer on, and she's like, she spent years trying to talk to the rabbis and the rabbis just like, nope, nope, nope, not going to talk about it. Nope, nope. Same thing with the, you know, Catholic priest things, and it's if it's outside of the dogma or outside of the traditional way of looking at things. It's difficult only when you find an open an open minded priest or an open minded rabbi, where that becomes a little bit more open. But that's why I think a lot of nd ears don't often go down the same path that they went on religious religion wise, because it's just not accepted generally in these religions. Though there is a great nde in the Bible about this little there's a really big one.

Dr. Jeffrey Long 32:06
Yes, I couldn't help but notice you're right on that one. Oh, absolutely. You know it's a real shame that and you're right. If someone has the most important experience in their life, their near death experience, and they know it, and they know it's the most important experience, it's going to be very difficult for them to stay with a group, social group, religious group, where their experience is rejected. They know darn good and well it's real. And by the way, we have a survey question on that. Again, no surprise, we do a lot of survey questions, but we asked near death experiencers what they think about the reality of their experience at the current time, and 94% say it's definitely real, and probably about another three and a half 4% say it's probably real. Bottom line is overwhelmingly people that have a near death experience are aware of its reality, and you really have to accept people that will generally understand in their life what's real and what's a not real experience. To have that overwhelmingly high percentage believe that their experience is real, you really need to take pause with that. And I hope everybody that encounters people that share a near death experience is open to their deep, gripping, personal understanding that their experience really happened and it's really important, and they're generally changing their life significantly in response,

Alex Ferrari 33:26
In your research, Dr. Long, how many of, how many of these experiences? Because we're talking about a beautiful afterlife, it's very lovely. It's very nice. There's pure love. You know, we're seeing our pets and our family and spirit guides and angels, and it's all sounds fantastic, but there are nd ears who have hellish experiences that are not positive, negative experiences. I know that percentage, at least, from from my understanding, is small, comparatively to the majority. Why do you believe? First of all, did you find that as well? And secondly, why do you believe those experiences happen to those people versus the majority are very positive.

Dr. Jeffrey Long 34:07
Yeah, that's a great question. It's about 2% of people that share their near death experiences will have some hellish content. About half of those will sort of see a hellish realm at a distance, like when there are these unearthly heavenly realms, and they're sort of shown a, what, you know, basically walled off, if you will, segregated area of that unearthly heavenly realm where they they sort of sense, or are aware of there's some evil entities there. And by the way, when people say there can't be hell in heaven, that's correct, because it is a distinctly segregated portion of heavens. We do see that, and about the other half of people that report these are actually involved in the hellish realm. Well, couple observations. One, first of all, in my research, the significant majority of people that have hellish experiences, it wasn't due to a near death experience. There's a compounding experience called. Intensive Care Unit delirium, and that's a fairly common thing that happens to people in intensive care units. It's a type of delirium, so it's hallucinatory, and they're more often, much more likely to be frightening than near death experience. So we have to be very careful about that. Secondly, we have people that have shared these types of experiences, even hellish. It's fascinating to hear them say, Hey, I needed an experience like that to change my life around, to become more loving and compassionate, to let go of that resentments, that bitterness, that that unloving attitude I had to people, and I really needed, if you will, a spiritual kick in the pants. And so a lot of these people that have these experiences, even hellish, will go on to live better, more loving lives and and show all those positive After Effects life changes that people that have conventional near death experiences have. You know, it kind of makes me think, wow, there's that greater wisdom that really knows the best thing for each person that has a near death experience. But I want to emphasize the viewers me and I don't think essentially any near death experience researcher that studied a lot of these. None of us believe in a permanent, involuntary hell. There seems to be, you know, at best, these people, in fact, when they see the near death experience or see that segregated, walled off area where there's evil entities. What that tells me is Wow, even in the afterlife, even in a realm of pure beauty and bliss and light love, there still operates free will. In other words, there can be those malevolent entities that choose to be together and choose to be separated from everybody else, out of free will and expression of that, even in the afterlife and to these evil entities all gathered in that hellish realm, think about it this way, to them, that's their heaven. That is what they wanted to do. That's their choice, and that's their comfort level to be around other malevolent beings like them. I mean, it's just a example of spiritual sickness that seems to occur in the afterlife.

Alex Ferrari 37:08
So my understanding too, that they, when they have a hellish experience, that if they choose to leave, they can leave the moment that they figure out they're like, You know what, I just, God help me? Or I want to get I want to leave. Or some, once they make that decision again, from what I've heard, an angel will come down, a light will come down. Jesus will come down, someone will come the light will shine. Everything, everybody will scatter because they can't handle the light. And then they're basically taken up into the more positive area of heaven, if you will, is that what you heard as well?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 37:44
You just nailed it right there. That's the, again, the expression of free will that we have on Earth, that we also have in heaven. Yes, absolutely, we have that ability there, in a free will, even if we're there to ask to be out of that environment, you know, prayers and asking and that's what we see over and over in these types of hellish near death experiences. So again, as I've said, I don't think anybody needs to worry, at least for my research, about a permanent, involuntary hell. What rules this universe we hear overwhelmingly consistent from near death experiences. What rules the afterlife is that overwhelming love beyond anything that we could possibly know on Earth, that compassion, and we're certainly in a very good environment in the afterlife. And I think that's where all of us that choose to be in the afterlife, there's going to be virtually everybody. That's why I say we can all look forward to that profoundly positive life after death.

Alex Ferrari 38:43
And even even the Pope, who I, you know, I don't, I don't, don't partake in the Vatican and what they do. But even the Pope said recently publicly, you know, hell, not really a place, more of an idea, and that through the Catholics into a furry. If you can imagine, a flurry, if you can imagine,

Dr. Jeffrey Long 39:04
Yeah, I can imagine. I think that's very insightful, but and certainly consistent with the research I've done, certainly sounds like the exact thing you're hearing from your near death experiences. So again, the bottom line is going into an afterlife, whether it's your own concern about what lies beyond death's veil or your loved ones, I think basically it's going to be beautiful. It's going to be wonderful. And in fact, the expectation of a beautiful, wonderful afterlife for us, for all of us, is really one of the most profoundly positive messages for all of humanity that's even conceivable.

Alex Ferrari 39:43
Now there's this thing that I've kind of crossed that's come across my path, and I call it the life review effect. The Life Review effect is very powerful, because even people in my life who watch these shows in these epic. Those on near death experiences, they actually start to get concerned about the life review. It's fascinating to watch, but they get concerned because they're like, Well, I don't want to feel what the other person that I did something wrong to feels like. I better get my act together so it is almost like it's and there's no judgment, there's no judgment, there's no punishment. It is just an experience like, Hey, this is how the other person feels. So you can learn from this experience. But it's fascinating. The way the mind of the of the human being goes that it automatically turns into, like, I want to avoid that pain. I want to get away from that and it kind of like I must get on the right road. I can't be mean to anybody anymore. Have you found that as well?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 40:42
Yeah, absolutely. This is great. I gotta tell you this story. Here. It was literally after my book evidence the afterlife came out as a New York Times bestseller, and boom, there I was in my community giving my very first public talk about that. So I went through what happens during a near death experience, and got to the life review and talked about how, as you know, you can see part or even all of your prior life. Just amazing, isn't it, you could be unconscious or clinically dead for minutes, and yet you can review decades of your life. So while I was sharing that, I was aware that the audience seemed concerned, there was a different mood, and I kind of go, okay, am I saying something wrong? What about? Geez, I haven't talked about this before. What's going on here. So it was only afterwards that old line formed up. People came up and asked, and I had over and over people would come up and say, to the effect, dr, long, I am concerned about the life review. I've done things I'm not proud of. And so immediately after that was a one and only time I didn't give the caveat in talking about the life review to emphasize exactly what you just said, that essentially never Is there any sense of external judgment when you're reviewing your life. Yes, you can be aware of of what you did that was good, loving, compassionate, unloving, uncompassionate, how affected other people, and you imagine seeing that, but it's very important for people to know there's essentially never any external judgment. Now, of course, the person having the Near Death Experience is out of free will. They can form any opinion they want. They can think about, wow, I you know, that was good. I really nailed that one. It was really loving compassion and and, gee, look how it affected that person's life so positively, because I reached to them out in that very good way. And, you know, learn like, Oops, you know, maybe I shouldn't have stolen that popsicle from that child when I was a kid. So that can be, it's very important to know that there's, there's not going to be that external judgment. And in fact, the life review, there's a real silver lining to that cloud, and people can be transformed by that. Learn, see, I mean, I can't think of a better way to inform living the rest of your life than a life review to really understand in that very dramatic way, what you what was good, what was loving, how you want to live your life and how you don't want to live your life. So a life review has that tremendous potential to really help people to be better people for all the rest of their life and and really deep down, understand how important their interactions are with other people. And certainly it helps them to be much more aware of their interactions, much more focused on how they can reach out positively to others, to the world, than they possibly did before. It probably underlies a lot of these very important value changes that we see the after effects of near death experiencers

Alex Ferrari 43:32
And Dr. Long near death experiences, to me, seem to be a form of spiritual awakening. Now, I've talked to many people who've had spiritual awakenings, from yogis and swamis to mystics and even to near death experiences and experiencers? From your research, how many of them consider this a spiritual awakening, to the point where they are more connected to source, they're more connected to a god, and in a way that is transformative, not only for them, but for the people around them.

Dr. Jeffrey Long 44:06
Yeah, that's good. In my recently published research, again, the change in their increased belief in life after death, decreased fear of death, increased compassion, increased belief in God. That was about a three or four fold or more increase in the percentage of people that said definitely have those values, from the time they had their near death experience to when they shared it many, many years later. So they may not use the term spiritual awakening, but I mean glaringly, that's what it is. I mean they are more compassionate. They are less afraid in living their earthly life. They have more confidence. So everything that I think you would define as a spiritual awakening is what we see so commonly, so consistently in people that have near death experiences. So I would have to say absolutely yes, we see that. It's overwhelming consistent. Like and very dramatically. And in fact, that spiritual awakening that people have, that near death experiences have, those, those changes in values, the After Effects, they actually become more pronounced in the years to decades after the near death experience. I mean, they keep changing and evolving and growing spiritually years even decades after their near death experience.

Alex Ferrari 45:23
Now, how do you as a doctor interpret the enhanced sense of empathy that near death experiencers have? Because it's pretty profound. Many of them will even stop eating meat and go vegetarian. Many of them will become hospice volunteers. They'll just, they'll just become more empathetic to not only the people around them, but to the world. I'd love to hear what you what you found.

Dr. Jeffrey Long 45:50
Oh, oh, absolutely. I mean, talk about a part, important part of spiritual awakening to understand how profoundly important love is in near death experiences. Please understand the two most common words that people use to describe what happened in the near death experience was light and love. So generally, people that have a near death experience have that overwhelming sense or awareness of love. Almost always, they say it is love they felt loved for who they are, all they are, through and through and beyond anything they could have possibly known in their earthly life. I mean, wow. So once you have a sense of that and know from their near death experience just how important that is, not surprising to me at all that they say carry that little piece of heaven back to their earthly life, they've understood from personal experience just how critical love and just like the glue that holds the universe together, if there's encounter God, they're almost invariably going to describe God as overwhelmingly loving. They encounter other beings almost always described as overwhelmingly loving. So I think when they come back to Earth, and of course, you know, life reviews, they see the importance of love there. So it's probably the single most informative possible life event about how important love is, and how important it is to manifest that love, not only to themselves, you know, take love themselves, but also loving other people around them, and love the Earth, love animals that we see that over and over again, remarkably consistently.

Alex Ferrari 47:26
Now, in your research, do near death experiencers approach major life decisions in a different way than they used to? I mean, like I know you said, they take a little bit more risks in life and live life a little more fully, but major life decisions, do they just start looking at the at a completely different perspective?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 47:45
Yeah, yes, absolutely, to have that kind of huge, huge shift in values, not surprisingly, that impacts life's little and big decisions. So, for example, near death experiencers commonly come back less materialistic. They understand that what's far more important than the amount of money they made or their prestige or their dang degrees, what really matters is how they live their life in love to themselves and to other people, and how important it is for the manifesting that. So if they're at a job where they can't manifest their newfound values of love and compassion to other people. They may change jobs, and we see that quite a bit. I mean, they may be in a job where they're they're ordered to act unlovingly or deceitfully, even to other people. I mean, they're just going to have a lot of trouble with that. We do see people leaving unloving relationships if they can't, the other partner can't accept them for who they are, those new found values. If they can't accept the reality of their near death experience or simply they they're aware, the near death experiencer is often described a completely different person. So change, sometimes change is difficult, even if it's very profoundly positive change, and so sometimes it creates some strife, not because they're not more loving. You know, I think a lot of people would say, you know, better, easier going, compassion and caring people. But sometimes with the partner, that's not what they want in a partner. So there can be stress, and unfortunately, there can be separations that result from that. I mean, most of the time it seems to result in a tighter marriage. I mean, the people change, but for the better, they're a better couple. They can share more. They've learned to talk more. So I don't want to paint a glum picture about relationships. After New death experiences, they're much more likely to be positive, open, sharing, compassionate and to the benefit of both people in a relation,

Alex Ferrari 49:41
To my understanding, it's generally very, very difficult for near death, the people around near death experiencers, if they're not open minded, if they're scared, if they're just at a different if I may, get woo, woo for a second, a different frequency of energy, if they will. It's just at a different place, because. Yeah, it's just, it's just kind of like when you have two people with two different value sets in a marriage, yeah, you didn't start off that way, but all of a sudden, one becomes more evolved than the other. One wants to stay in high school.

Dr. Jeffrey Long 50:13
Oh, absolutely. I mean, think, for example, if you had a couple where one person has a near death experience with all the trimmings that we've been talking about, and their partner is a hard died in the wool. Atheist doesn't believe there's an afterlife. Everything we are is physical, brain function. Nothing else is possible. There can't be any god. There can't be any greater reality. I mean, can you imagine how hard that would be? I mean, the near death experiencer knows darn good. And well, that's not true. There's a spiritual realm, a very important spiritual realm. And you can imagine how difficult that would be to talk to their partner with that huge clash in values. And so obviously we think that would be a real difficult discussion, discussion on something we have on that. And, you know, and there's just people that aren't going to learn from their spouse even learn very important positive, spiritual messages. So those diet in the wool and calcitrient type, you know, atheist types that can't believe that happened. Obviously you can see how that's going to cause some stress in a relationship. You know, unfortunately.

Alex Ferrari 51:14
Now what? What insights do these near death experiences give us in regards to just the human experience in general?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 51:22
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, first and foremost, we are far more than just our physical bodies and our physical brain functioning. Every shred of evidence of near death experiences, times, many, many 1000s is all converging on the conclusion that we have that unearthly part of us. We have that non physical, best word I can think of as a soul. We are contained within us, a soul, a soul that is going to live forever, that's going to have an eternal life, that's going to live in an afterlife. In fact, it's very, very important to have that insight. And we know something about the afterlife time there is either radically different or most people say time doesn't even exist. In that afterlife realm, communication is telepathic, instantaneous sharing of thoughts, context, emotions, with no possibility of misunderstanding, movements, non fits, not a it took me a while learn this. But in that afterlife realm, it's it's not a separate, independent, physical, three dimensional physical realm like we have here, radically different. It's not physical people don't age. They're all your loved ones that you've known all your life, that have died are going to be there, even beloved pets. So attention pet lovers. We have a huge series of your you name it, deceased dogs, cats, birds, horses. I've seen it all. These are all just like with your deceased loved ones, joyous reunions, a lot of sharing and communication. So I think all of this is a near death experience. Is a profound message of hope, a message of understanding the greater reality of who we are and everybody on this earth is in a very exciting and important way.

Alex Ferrari 53:05
Now what? What part does reincarnation play in your studies? Because it is obviously one of the oldest concepts to humanity. It's been talked about for 1000s and 1000s of years. Many Western religions don't really believe in that stuff, like Catholics and Muslims and Jewish people as well religions, but the East has, the East does definitely have part Buddhism and Hinduism In the near death experiences. What part does this play in their stories and their understanding of why we're here and what we're doing here.

Dr. Jeffrey Long 53:44
Yeah, that's good. When I started my near death experience research, I will admit I didn't believe reincarnation was at all possible, and I'd see accounts of reincarnation and your experiences and again and again and again and again. And I'm a man of science, I adjust my beliefs to the reality of the evidence that I see. And I see now in near death experiences over and over that there's very strong evidence for the reality of reincarnation. I don't fully understand it, but I do know near death experiencers, at this point, literally by the hundreds, have described reincarnation, awareness of prior lives, very vivid reincarnations. I guess philosophically, I can accept that by saying, If you believe in a universe of unlimited possibilities, well that would include the possibility of reincarnation. So I think that's sort of the initial opening the door to understanding that. But beyond that, there's just the overwhelming number of people that have near death experiences that describe that and and what impressed me is when near death experiencers talk about their past lives, it's not like they were Cleopatra. It's not like they were some famous person of 1000s of years ago. Almost invariably, they describe people in very mundane lives. These were. The flocksum and gypsum, of people that live centuries ago, millennia ago, and in very standard lives. And they could be if they're male, now they could be female. Then if they're female earthly life, they might be male. So they're skipping around a little bit. So the evidence for reincarnation now, there's certainly other lines of evidence for the reality of reincarnation. I point to Ian Stevens work in the University of Virginia, but certainly near death experiences are also, I think, a very significant corroboration of the near of the certainly the potential for reincarnation. Like I said, this is one of these things where it's I don't know that we fully understand that. It's an excellent line of near death experiences. It needs a lot more good scholarly research. But do we have that evidence from reincarnation and near death experiences? The answer Yes.

Alex Ferrari 55:55
Now in in the in your research, how many of or what percentage of near death experiencers also, not only saw their past lives, but also got a glimpse at not only their future in this life, but future versions of themselves and other lives in the future as well,

Dr. Jeffrey Long 56:18
Having studied over 4000 near death experiences, I will say, awareness of unearthly future lives in detail beyond their current earthly life is very rare. So I don't have enough of a series on that to really talk about that. If people are aware of the future of their earthly life, the most common scenario, interestingly, is like this now, when people have a near death experience and they're in that heavenly realm, when they're if they're given a choice about returning to their earthly life and all the friends, family and loved ones they knew for years to decades, versus staying in that unearthly heavenly realm. Interestingly, the great majority of near death experiencers don't want to leave that heavenly realm. I mean, they feel an overwhelming sense of peace love, and they often have that strong sense that this is their real home and that their earthly life really wasn't so even though everything they knew up to the time of their experience was of their earthly life, their connections, their loved ones, they are literally the significant majority of near death experiencers willing to walk away from that and stayed that unearthly, heavenly realm. So when they do make a choice, and there's often, typically other beings around them that will dialog with them, and often they're trying to encourage the person to make a choice, to return to their earthly life. But we have a series of people as part of the spiritual beings trying to persuade them you really need to go back to your earthly life. They may see glimpses of their near future. What's going to go on on the earth in the near future if they don't choose to go back to earthly life. We have a series of them being shown their own funeral. And these are gripping when when we run into these near death experiences, for example, just one example out of a large number. There they were observing their own funeral, and there were these little two and three year old kids sitting near the front, and they were giggling at the funeral because they didn't understand death. They didn't know what was going on. And is, you see, this almost gives me chills. So not surprisingly, when near death experiences are shown that they choose, no, we don't want to hurt people like that. You know, the loss of the suffering would be too great from my friends, family and loved ones and they they return, make the choice to return to their earthly life, ultimately. But I will tell you, it's a difficult decision. I and it's interesting to talk to the spouses, spouses of people that are that wanted to stay in the unearthly realm that's difficult, you they, I hope each and every one of them really understand just how overwhelmingly strong that sense of love, of that connection, that awareness that the loved ones they leave on Earth are going to be okay. We're all going to be back together again. So but obviously that that can be sort of a big pill for the spouses of near death experiencers when they share that particular part of what happened.

Alex Ferrari 59:10
Now from your research, how do near death experiencers balance living a three dimensional life, a life like you and I are living with this massive, enlightened knowledge of the other side, because I've heard as well that they are, many of them long to go back like they don't want to stay here anymore. They don't want to be here because it's so painful, it's so difficult they have to deal with, you know, people like you and me, you know, all the time, or or running around with people, it's just, it's just so different there seems they have to learn to balance this knowledge, because it's, I can't believe, on a psychological standpoint, it's easy to just function in this world knowing, like, why am I going to pay my taxes? It doesn't really matter. I. To pay taxes. I'm going to pay taxes.

Dr. Jeffrey Long 1:00:01
Yeah, that's a good one about taxes there. That's great. It's very it's fairly common immediately after a near death experience for them to go through depression. I mean, that's lost. They've lost the most beautiful realm they've ever known, or could even conceive of, far off the scale of anything wonderful. And they really do strongly yearn to go back to that realm. It takes them months, maybe even over a year, before they slowly adapt to that part of what they've learned in their near death experience is that the earthly life that we all go through, however difficult it is, is profoundly meaningful and important. We're all here for a reason. We're all here to learn things, to have experiences that we couldn't when we're in that perfect, unearthly, heavenly realm. In fact, people that have had committed suicide and had a near death experience. So come to learn about how meaningful and significant the earthly life is that suicide attempters essentially never try suicide again after their near death experience, they may have that same depression, they may have those same emotional issues, but they know how important that earthly life is, how big of a deal it is that they stay alive in spite of all the difficulties. And that's just a very vivid example of how people sort of come to grasp the fact that we're here for a reason. It's important, and it's a better life for them too, because of their new positive values and their new optimism and their new generally complete lack of fear about what lies beyond death. So that helps them too, in some very significant way.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:36
Is is the film? It's a Wonderful Life, essentially a near death experience?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 1:01:42
Yeah, you know what? I don't recall that right up off the

Alex Ferrari 1:01:46
Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy Stewart, Jimmy Stewart, It's a Wonderful Life. He he's having a rough time of it. He goes about to commit suicide, and this angel Clarence, shows up and basically takes him through his entire life, review of what his life would be without him in it, and all of the different things that would have gone wrong, and then he has a chance to go back.

Dr. Jeffrey Long 1:02:09
Yeah, perfect. You're right. Okay, I remember, Oh, absolutely. That's a vivid example of how you know, seeing that information, learning about how important and meaningful and significant life is, could can really help people to adapt, respond to in a positive way, to life's difficulties, even miseries. So that's a great analogy. That movie. There just a vivid example of how that kind of information can really be very positively, spiritually transformative.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:38
Now, in your with your research, have you found that there are many nd ears that once they're on the other side, they have this instant download of all the knowledge of the universe that they literally have connected into the the internet. Some call it the Akashic field, the Akashic records. Quantum physicists call it the Akashic field of all knowledge. And if they're like, Oh, I get quantum physics now. Oh, I understand physics. Oh, I know how to make a rocket. Oh, like, like, you know, I completely understand humanity, the human anatomy, at a level that nobody Oh, I know how to heal. Like, it's just instant knowledge. And it's, it's not knowledge in the way that you and I understand it. It's this instant, knowing that without 1000 words or 10,000 words, it's just there and it's instant. But they generally don't, oh, they maybe can come back with a couple of tidbits, but this hardware can't handle it. We can't process it in this old DOS, old DOS floppy disk system. You know, while that's a quantum computer, essentially, you know what I mean. So is that,

Dr. Jeffrey Long 1:03:48
Yeah, having been in the DOS area, I think that's a great analogy there. But let me tell you what that's that's a really good point. We call it universal knowledge, and we hear that fairly commonly when they're in that unearthly, heavenly realm, they get like immediately, a download. But it's an most often described as an instantaneous knowing. They seem to know, and I mean really universal knowledge, all the mysteries, math, science, you know, the history, everything that we study years and years for here on Earth, boom, they suddenly know. And it's in my early days of Near Death Experience Research, I'll admit this, I was dang frustrated when people would say, Wow, I knew everything. And it's it was so simple, it was so easy. And I'm going, well, sheesh, okay, share it with that. And then they come back to Earth, and almost invariably, they know. Most commonly, they don't retain any of that, or at least, like I say, just fragmentary knowledge. And finally, one day again, near death experiencers are my greatest teacher in my life. One near death experiencer helped me to understand that by saying, Yeah, we had universal knowledge in that heavenly realm. We knew everything, but coming back to our physical Earth. Life That's like trying to put an ocean of knowledge into the teacup of our physical brain. You just can't do it. And that was a, oh, wow, I get it now a moment. And so that's really how it all works. But yeah, no question about that, as part of the wonderful afterlife is we're going to be, you know, we're not going to have that, that kind of ignorance, that that huge difficulty we face in life to learn some things, there'd be information, knowledge, beautiful, wonderful knowledge shared freely.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:29
Doc, I have to ask you, after 25 years of doing this work, how have you evolved spiritually?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 1:05:37
Enormously from where I was beginning of studying near death experiences and again, true confessions. Time I went into this basically as a skeptic, near death experiences seem so unworldly, so beyond anything I knew in my experience, beyond anything I knew as a doctor, as being possible. I sort of went at this as a skeptic. I'm a prove it to me, kind of guy. I require evidence in my professional medical practice to give patients the best chance of being cured with my modality of radiation oncology. So given all that, that was where I started from, 25 years ago. But by the 1000s, people that had near death experiences shared this, and it has affected me profoundly. I know full well that I've incorporated so many of the values that near death experiencers had to nearly die to incorporate in their lives. There's no question that what I know about near death experiences has made me a much more compassionate doctor. I'm much more inclined to listen to my patients if treat treat them with a greatest level of courage I can my patients have a life threatening illness, cancer, it's scary. They don't know what the treatment is going to be like. They don't know what the outcome is going to be like. But with what I know about near death experiences, I can be a partner in their journey, in fighting cancer far more courageously, openly, and I think at some level, more effectively than I ever could before. Certainly patients appreciate that. The families love it. We have our what we call the Press Ganey scores patient satisfaction, and we're the group I work with is perennially in the 99th percentile, and that says a lot about the group I work with, but I know part of that's me. Patients know they come here. They know I care. They know I'm I'm concerned about them. They know that I'm going to give them my very best. And that is absolutely changed over the last 25 years

Alex Ferrari 1:07:32
Now, Doc, if there's somebody watching right now who is dying themselves, watching someone they love die, or has someone who's just passed what advice do you have for them? What message do you have for them?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 1:07:47
We've all, or nearly all of us, have lost a loved one, and it's first of all, it's okay. Even knowing about near death experiences, it's okay to grieve. Grief is a response to a loss. It's someone you loved, you cared about. They're a part of your life, and boom, all of a sudden, they're not living so understand that near death experiences may help reduce grief, sometimes for people a little and sometimes a lot, but it's still normal to have that sense of loss and grief as a result. But the advice would be certainly understand from near death experiences. Do all, I mean, go to the website where we have over 4000 near death experiences posted, nderf.org, that's the Near Death Experience Research Foundation.org, and I think if anybody reads even 30, even 20, of these experiences, especially what we call exceptional experiences, we have a category of that, I think you can vividly see not only everything we've talked about here, but even the deeper patterns that go even beyond that. And it can be profoundly transformative in terms of confidence in life after death, confidence that we'll all be together, confidence that cancer, misery, accidents, illnesses, are going to be gone when we exit our earthly life, and we're going to be in a realm where we don't have what we've known so much of our earthly misery. And I think that's important. I think that that helps the adjustment after a loss, to moving on to letting go of grief that impairs your life, and being able to move forward to live life more positively.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:23
Now Doc, where can people find out more about you and the amazing work you're doing, sir?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 1:09:28
Well, I appreciate that certainly. You know, as I just mentioned, the web, the Research website, Near Death Experience Research Foundation, nderf.org, over 4000 near death experiences, by far the largest publicly accessible collection of near death experiences in the world. Also, portions of that website and near death experiences have been translated into over 30 different languages. Anybody, essentially, anybody on the planet, is going to find the language they understand there and can be informed. And inspired by these remarkable near death experiences. But you know, certainly the book I published those years ago, evidence of the afterlife, the science of near death experience, continues to be both inspirational as well as informative to people today here, carrying in a lot more detail about we've talked about. And certainly you just want to keep do look at your podcast. There's really almost no substitute. I think, from just listening to somebody who had a near death experience, watch carefully. They may have some doubts about the time or what happened before their near death experience. When they talk about their near death experience, it's almost like they're more alive. Their lights. Eyes light up. They're more confident. They're more fluent. You'll see that over and over, there's no substitute for talking to people or listening to people that had a near death experience to really help convey the reality and significance of it.

Alex Ferrari 1:10:52
And Doc, do you have any final messages for the audience?

Dr. Jeffrey Long 1:10:56
No, these have been a fantastic discussion. I think we've really covered a lot of important material. I really am honored to have a chance to share this, as I said earlier, and I think it's worth reiterating near death experience, and it's overwhelmingly consistent evidence for its reality, and overwhelming evidence that we have an afterlife, a wonderful afterlife, is indeed perhaps the most profoundly positive message of hope and reinsurance for all of humanity that is even conceivably possible.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:28
Dr. Long, I appreciate this conversation more than you know, and I appreciate all the work you're doing to help awaken this planet. So thank you again, so much for being on the show. I look forward to our next conversation.

Dr. Jeffrey Long 1:11:40
I look forward to and thank you so much for helping enlighten this world spiritually and bring this world forward. Thanks to you and great discussion today.