Doctor Studied 4000 NDEs: Uncovered the TRUTH About Near Death Experiences with Dr. Jeffrey Long

Jeffrey Long 0:00
In a near death experience talking with these other beings, and if up ahead of them is a bridge chasm, a fence crossing their path. I know what's going to happen, they stop there. And that's what's called the boundary. And beyond that there really isn't a realm of return. And often near death experiences will say that other it can be described in other ways where they're aware of if they go through that door is a good common example.

Alex Ferrari 0:24
I'd like to welcome to the show, Dr. Jeffrey Long. How're you doing Dr. Jeff?

Jeffrey Long 0:38
Doing fantastic Alex.

Alex Ferrari 0:40
Thank you so much for coming on the show my friend you I, I've seen you in my travels. But you came up the other day. And I was like, however, and I had this man on the show yet. I mean, I've talked about near death experiences. Now we've I've done myself, which seems a pale in comparison to how many interviews you've done, but are studied. But I've done about 100, in depth interviews with near death experiences. So I have a fairly good base baseline of these things. And it's hard to talk to someone else who has that kind of experience with it. Like Dr. Raymond Moody is one of them and these kinds of folks, so you have studied is it 4000?

Jeffrey Long 1:24
Yeah, yeah, we've got in our research database over 4000 yes.

Alex Ferrari 1:29
Wow! So, Dr. Long what got started with the with near death experiences, and when did you start?

Jeffrey Long 1:37
Sure, I was. No, I'm a physician. Radiation Oncology is my specialty the use of radiation to treat cancer. Decades ago, I was in my residency training. And that was pre internet that dates me I guess, but us pulling through a bound volume of the Journal of the American Medical Association looking for a cancer related article, completely by accident, I come across an article that has in the title, the term near death experience. And I'd never heard of that before. I mean, you either dead or alive, and what's his near death experience stuff? So puzzled, I went ahead and read the whole article and was immediately fascinated. I mean, shoot Alex, how can you not wonder what's going to happen when you die. So here's a, a well known cardiologist heart doctor who studied people that had cardiac arrest and had near death experiences. And amazingly, what they were seeing during their near death experiences with consciousness above their body. When they came back and checked it out later, accurate, down to the finest detail, we're talking to a couple dozen people. So I was amazed, and thought to myself, if this is real, if this happens consistently, this just changes my view of the universe brand. So that was the founding moment where I became very interested in learning more and ultimately studying near death experience.

Alex Ferrari 2:52
So were you a religious person, spiritual person, or agnostic or like atheist before that article came into your life?

Jeffrey Long 3:01
Sure. Many, many decades ago, I did what just about everybody else did in that era, we'd all go to church. I didn't know you know how strongly I believed it was probably if anything more of a social outlet, I was not certainly firm in any religious beliefs, that's for sure. And certainly, as I started studying near death experiences in earnest Well, once I start doing that any preexisting religious beliefs of mine go off and my science coat goes on and, like making the same decisions I make, in my near death experience research as I would for medical decisions that guide how I treat patients with cancer. Where's the evidence? Where's the reasoning behind that evidence? You know, what, what's that's, that's science. And that's what I've been doing every step of the way.

Alex Ferrari 3:44
So when you started hearing these stories, what are some of the the common elements that you found in your research?

Jeffrey Long 3:54
Sure. The elements I found are what basically all other researchers find because there's so consistently seen in near death experience, I call them the the elements, what happens typically, frequently observed, and generally in very consistent order, too. So just to get everybody up to speed about these elements. What happens in the near death experience? Well, first of all, no two are the same. But when you study a lot of them, which you certainly have Alex and I have, you can see this often there's that life threatening event or so physically compromised, their unconscious or physically clinically dead with absent heartbeat. So at that time, they shouldn't have any conscious experience at all they do. And that's the experience part of a near death experience. Often the first element is out of body experience, consciousness rises above that physical body, typically on the ground below. And from that vantage point they can see and often hear ongoing, earthly events, including frantic efforts of people trying to bring them back to life. They may pass into or through a tunnel. At the end of that tunnel, there's often a beautiful unearthly light Unlike anything they've known on earth, when they go through that tunnel, they're in an unearthly realm often called a heavenly realm, which is a reasonable description given that there can be landscapes. There can be buildings, there can be deceased loved ones there that they interact with, that includes pets. And often the colors there, for example, are so beautiful, they may say, this beautiful beyond anything even possible on Earth. And they may be an earthly music, again, beautiful beyond anything even possible on Earth. Around this time, they may have a life review seeing part or all of their prior life. At this time, they're almost always feeling intensely positive motions, beyond anything that they ever knew. And around this time, they may have to make a decision about whether to stay in that beautiful realm or return to their physical body and continue to struggle for their life. And ultimately, whether they're sent back to their body voluntarily or involuntarily. Once they recover from that close brush with death. They've got a near death experience to share.

Alex Ferrari 6:03
And generally, from my understanding, in my research, it's it's been that they are changed forever. Be very involved with their comeback, Oh, nothing happened.

Jeffrey Long 6:13
You can just from what you've heard about the elements, just imagine the impact of personal experience. And yeah, yeah, that's actually been a major recent research study of mine. Studying our last version of our survey had 834 people the near death experience, and it's just off the scale, how that can change people. We asked them about certain values and beliefs when they had their near death experience. And then again, when they shared it, a median and average of about 15 years later, but overwhelmingly, consistently these what we call after effects, these consistently observed changes, obviously, and increased belief in an afterlife. Well, no surprise there, they know what lies beyond death's door, because they experienced it. Same reasoning behind their almost uniform, decreased fear of death, they become typically more compassionate, more interested in loving relationships, either with a significant other or where they work, they become less materialistic, I would emphasize it can take literally years to fully integrate these changes. But when they fully do, the people that have known them may say, Hey, this is a completely different person, and yet a completely more positive, loving, compassionate person than they ever knew before.

Alex Ferrari 7:25
Have you noticed that in recent years, from when you started to where we are now, the concept of near death experience with Dr. Raymond Moody, who, from I understand, coined the phrase back in the 70s. It was very, almost taboo in some circles, and not very well known in others. But now and people would hold on to this. I've talked to near death experiencers, who apply it for 30 years. It didn't change them internally, but they kept quiet for 30 years. Have you noticed in more recent years, that people are so much more open to share their experiences now more than ever?

Jeffrey Long 7:59
Yeah, absolutely. yes to that question. I've been doing this for now a little over 25 years. And in modern times, more and more people, including healthcare, people, great in the great majority know about near death experience and accept its reality. For example, in 2021, a Pew Forum, which is a very respected survey firm in the United States, they found that 72% of people they surveyed believed that they considered near death experiences to be the soul departing from the body. So the significant majority of people certainly understand your death experience, understand it at that level, and know quite a bit about it from a lot of media events, and certainly very importantly, shows like your to, you got, so more people are aware of near death experience. And that makes more people comfortable and confident and sharing it with their friends, family loved ones, and health care teams. So we've got more and more people willing to share their near death experiences now than certainly they did several decades ago.

Alex Ferrari 9:01
Yeah. And I've known a lot of near death experiencers, who have gone back and started working in hospice, because they want to help people cross over and share just that not to be afraid. And it's one thing to talk about it from an academic point of view. And other ones like, I died, I came back, you need to relax. I know it's scary. And they walk them through that process. Have you met people like that as well?

Jeffrey Long 9:26
That's a great point. Absolutely. We actually received a number of communications from people that are hospice nurses that also had near death experiences. And so just like you said, There they come back with a very special gift ability to work with people that are dying in hospice. And you can just imagine the comfort that they bring to these people dying, not knowing what lies beyond death's door, their friends, family, loved ones all concerned for that person dying. And yet, here's that profound message of hope and inspiration from the hospice nurse who actually experienced what lies after death and afterlife a wonderful afterlife. So incredibly reassuring hats off to all hospice nurses in general anyway, especially those that have had near death experiences and can share from their own personal experience, that important message that helps decrease that fear at the end of life.

Alex Ferrari 10:20
Now we've, we've, from near death experiences all like you say, generally have the same, have elements that are the same. I've had people who walk touring through heaven, I've had people, you know, talking to their loved ones, their animals, deities, these kinds of things. And we'll go into a little bit more detail on that in a minute. But what isn't spoken about a lot are the negative, near death experiences, the dark, near death experiences, people who've gone to a hellish place, only to be eventually saved and brought up to that place that we're talking about. But they have to go through that. How many of those have you read in your research have you come across?

Jeffrey Long 10:59
Yeah, the negative and near death experiences we call them in those scholarly literature, frightening or distressful experiences, we avoid any pejorative terms, but they're actually very, very uncommon. The problem that we have a near death experience research is that when people have very frightening experiences, in my research experience, they're generally not near death experiences. Very common confounding experience is what's called Intensive Care Unit delirium. typical scenario, auto wreck accident, they're unconscious in a coma for two weeks in the intensive care unit, have a very frightening experience. But right at the end of that experience, boom, that is a time exactly that they wake up after two weeks. Well, that's if it's a very frightening experience, especially if it has hallucinatory unreal content. That's almost certainly going to be intensive care unit delirium, we see that fairly commonly in the intensive care unit, where people are sick, sleep deprived. Moses buzzers going off all night, people coming in and on all night. So it takes a certain amount of savvy to understand the difference between a true near death experience and those types of experiences occur that really aren't near death experiences. But I will tell you, even with my abilities physician to carefully spot those, it's a very, very small percentage, no more than than several percent. And in fact, without going too far afield here, we just recently worked with a gentleman who used an artificial intelligence model, a really high powered one. And we're able to use that to pull out the experiences that describe hellish content. And in my review of what AI pulled out, once again, the significant majority were describing things in what was posted on our website, but was not actually a near death experience, or an experience that wasn't exactly occurring during the actual near death experience. So while they do occur, hellish content near death experiences certainly happen. They're very, very unusual.

Alex Ferrari 13:02
Yeah, they're extremely unusual. And from what I understand, at least, I think out of all of them, I've maybe had like two or three out of 100. It's a very, very, very small amount. And, and most of them, I think, if not all of them told me that they had to go through that hellish experience because of their own belief systems, that they believe that like, Oh, if I had to go, go here, because of my own programming, or my own trauma that I dealt with, and then eventually to get saved, and brought back into the light, it was a process that they individually chose to go through, if that makes sense.

Jeffrey Long 13:39
No, absolutely. No, that's exactly what we're seeing. In many, if not most of the true hellish near death experiences that I've investigated. The people come back and they'll say, you know, literally, they needed a if you will, a spiritual kick in the pants. I mean, this is something that they had to have. And there was no other way for them to confront those issues in the life they have they anger, that guilt that resentments, that bitterness, those those certain issues, that was impairing the earthly life. But once confronted in a near death experience, these people can go on and live as other near death experiences do have those same after effects where they're more compassionate, loving, and they go on not fearing that that is something they're fated for, for their, for eternity after death. They just simply realize that's a product of a loving greater intelligence to help them to live their earthly life better and in a way that they couldn't possibly have faced without that type of experience. Yeah, we, we hear that a lot.

Alex Ferrari 14:36
Now, you say that people when they come back, they're changed. My experiences are that not only are they changed, but sometimes they come back with new abilities. And this is where we're gonna get slightly woowoo. But I'd like to hear what you say in your research, where that sometimes they come back with psychic ability sometimes to have a extrasensory perception of some saw the ability to there's just multiple different abilities that connection to the other side, some come back as mediums are able to speak to the other side. Have you found that in your research as well?

Jeffrey Long 15:13
Well, I've investigated that most recent survey of 834 near death experiencers, we asked the survey question very directly, Did you receive any psychic or paranormal gifts as a result of your experience? So moderate, non trivial percentage say yes. And then we encourage a narrative response. So again, I've analyzed literally hundreds and hundreds of narrative responses to that question, looking at a very special way and sequentially shared near death experiences you what exactly they're talking about. So when they when they come back with special abilities, certainly there seem to be more psychic in the sense that they're intuitive. They can understand people better, they can read emotions, they can be aware of those nonverbal clues. But I think a lot of that is because they're way, way more compassionate, loving, they're focused on people, they're paying attention, they value their interactions with other people. So they can, basically out of that attentiveness, sort of pick up more than than they could have before, then perhaps most other people can. So that seems to be the major part of psychic phenomena. There are certainly people that come back that believe they have mediumistic abilities, and they'll often spend the rest of their life being a medium and we'll work with other people on that. There's, there's a whole sort of variety of other paranormal psychic exists, gifts that they believe that they've had, and that again, it's fascinating study to read that. I really wish we could study that more formally, there's been relatively literal, literal, good formal research on that. But that's it's sort of an exciting field in terms of the abilities that they bring back that they didn't have before that certainly suggests some non ordinary ongoing functioning of their mind and consciousness.

Alex Ferrari 16:58
What's fun what I do in the show, I'm very non judgmental with the people that come on the show. And I'm very practical, very grounded person as a general statement. But and I talked to psychics, I talked to mediums I talked to quantum physicist, I talked to doctors like yourself, I talked to all spectrums of people. And the phenomenon that is the psychics and mediums and channelers, and things like that. It's quite remarkable. And I also have spoken to hundreds of them as well. It's really interesting how a lot of this information is becoming more and more accepted. And there is more people like yourself, we're doing real research in it. I mean, I mean, the government had a program, it's not a tin hat, controversy or conspiracy, but they actually did have a CIA had some sort of remote viewing, and psychic, basically psychic spies. So the government was doing it back in the 80s and 90s. So there's something there. But you're right. It hasn't been delved into very deeply, because I guess there's still some taboo attached to that. Would you agree?

Jeffrey Long 18:06
Yeah, I think so. And I think the problem is the taboo is from organizations that could fund this that could really be the driving force economically to say, Hey, this is teaching us through these people with psychic ability, medium abilities, channeling abilities. Heck, we can learn from these people. And it's not just about them we can learn from, we can learn about something that informs impacts all of us in the world, about that kind of extra sensory perception abilities that we may all have, we may all have the ability to develop. So it's a real tragedy. There isn't from all this research, and from all the people you've talked to, it's real tragedy, there isn't more funding from people that would have the ability to fund this so that we can really learn about this, learn the strengths and weaknesses of these paranormal abilities. And I think, in my opinion, help inform us significantly, about aspects of consciousness that we all have that it's just simply understudied, and yet absolutely fascinating.

Alex Ferrari 19:02
So when people come back, I've heard it being said that when they're on the other side, a feel like a giant coat has been layers of clothes have been taken off of them, they feel lighter. But when you come back, I in love to hear what you think of this analogy. And their sensitivities and possibly abilities that they bring back is that the layers of of clothing that we all carry around with, which allows us to kind of function in this dimension in this 3d 3d reality that we're in those layers gets stripped away a little bit, and they leave a couple of those layers behind in the closet on the other side, if you will, and they come back a little bit more raw, not as protected with or heavy, so they're a little bit kind of like taking taking those layers off. And that's why the sensitivities are there. That's why the abilities that we all parently have ability to access to but we can't get to them because we have so much muck on top of us that right He's kind of taken away a little bit. Would you agree with that?

Jeffrey Long 20:02
Oh, absolutely. And just to give one example out of many, it's typically communication in these unearthly heavenly realms is what's called telepathic. In other words, they're sharing. And I know you've heard this a zillion times. It's true, hey, it's real. We've seen this literally, I'd have say, like, over 1000 times, but in these unearthly heavenly realms, communication with other beings that are fairly common, typically other beings there is the best English word we have is telepathic. But it's actually beyond that. Communication is an instantaneous sharing of all information, the emotion behind that information in the context of the information quickly, clearly and unambiguously with no possibility of error. So that's, I guess, telepathy on steroids.

Alex Ferrari 20:50
It's like it's instant, there is no space or time. So it's only instant from what I understand as well as that. And this is some more of the more detailed, near death experiences near death experiences, generally or short. There's not a tremendous amount of detail, a lot of the things you said, but some of these other ones that have gone deeper, they say a couple things, one, that they're able to access, basically the knowledge of the universe. So if they're like, Hey, what is quantum physics? And you're like, oh, no, I understand quantum physics. They generally don't bring that information back with it. But they remember understanding it on the other side, would you? Is that what you found as well?

Jeffrey Long 21:26
This kind of funny, Alex, but when I started my research over 25 years ago, over and over, I heard that exact concept. It's called universal knowledge that they get when they're in these have unearthly heavenly realms. And they often describe it, as I'm sure you've heard, like, like a down dump a dump of all the information, all that there is to know and it kind of irritates me. They say, Oh, it's so easy. It's so obvious. Well. So yeah, you've heard that too. So for very early in my research, I kept waiting, okay, come on, come on, bring something back, do something you know, that you can knowledge, share something and we can prove to the world, you know, from knowledge you couldn't possibly have had the Near Death Experiences are real. And wouldn't that be exciting. So the years went by, and I kept hearing this universal knowledge and how they had it, and were aware of it and how important it was and interesting to them during the time, but they couldn't bring it back. And finally, I was educated by one person who had a near death experience, who says dr. long, that universal knowledge when you use come back to your earthly body, it's like trying to fit an ocean of knowledge into the tea cup of your physical brain. It just doesn't work. It can't fit. And so it was like an aha moment for me. But yeah, it's fascinating that there is the bigger picture of overwhelming knowledge is very beautiful, wonderful, inspiring to people having near death experiences. But bottom line here, after I've been hearing about this for over 25 years, people aren't allowed able to, if you will bring back that knowledge in a way that we can use it in Earthly physical life. Unfortunately, that's a big

Alex Ferrari 23:04
Well, yes, let's try to play a video game from today in 1980s, you know, the first Mac that showed up, or the first, you know, laptop that showed up is impossible. If the hardware is not able to process that information, you need a higher processor. And our processors here are pretty basic. And it's hard for us to grab on

Jeffrey Long 23:24
I like that, that is a great analogy. The nail on the head there Yeah, I love it.

Alex Ferrari 23:30
So in your in your research, this is another area of Near Death Experiences that fascinate me, is we always hear about the Western, near death experience. I always say Jesus is the hardest working man in show business because he's always showing up in near death experiences. But in the West, and I'm like, Well, what is it like for a tribesmen in the Amazon, or an aborigine who can't get resuscitated and does come back. That's the big people like why there's so many near death experiences now. Because we can resuscitate people now. They're CPR people can't come back when they couldn't before. What in your research? How have you seen international near death experiences and cross cultural as well?

Jeffrey Long 24:13
Okay. Well, Alex, you're asking the right guest. Let me explain that. My wife is the webmaster. She's a licensed attorney, but has stepped down to work full time working on our website where we have these over 4000 Near Death Experiences posted but thanks to Jodi's heroics, portions of our website, including the critical survey that we asked people has been translated into over 30 different languages. And it's been up like that for years and years. So as a result, we have by far the largest cross cultural study of Near Death Experiences that's ever been possible. So I will tell you from actually having studied this carefully, we have near death experiences, obviously from all around the world because of the ability for people to share in their native language by the way We use human volunteer translators to share these non English training, non English experiences, translate them and then post them back up in English. So we don't even use the, you know, the sort of online engines were very, very careful with human volunteers. So, with all that effort and work, first of all, regarding near death experiences all around the world, their content is strikingly similar. It doesn't make any difference where in the world you are, or even what age you are, the content we discussed earlier is going to be strikingly similar, you're probably not going to be able to tell the difference between a near death experience shared in a non English area of the world with a typical English area of the world. So that's how that works. Now, as an interest of mine, a research study of mine is non western near death experiences. These are defined as countries that are not predominantly Judeo Christian. And non western countries, of course, have very different cultures, their background, their belief system, very different from what we know in the western country. But we've received probably at this point close to 100, non western near death experiences. So I can say conclusively from having compared statistically, those elements that occur between those two groups and non western near death experiences and Western shared and English near death experiences. And once again, the elements what occurs during the Near Death Experience strikingly similar. It is amazing to me even to this day, that it doesn't seem to make any difference whether you're saying Muslim in Egypt, or a Hindu and India or a Christian in the United States, anywhere on the planet, that you have a near death experience, what occurs is going to be strikingly similar. Now interpretations may vary interpretations after the near death experience, what they saw what they heard, may be filtered in the environment that they're in. I mean, let's not forget, there's areas of the world where if you come up and say you had a near death experience that clashes with prevailing religious beliefs, for example, at that time, you're in big trouble. So people obviously don't, don't express that. But in terms of the non western near death experiences we've received, and actually I've written several scholarly articles with an Iranian near death experience or looking at Muslim near death experiences. So again, from that source, a couple dozen near death experiences, there are written conclusion we published near death experiences strikingly similar between non western countries and Western countries.

Alex Ferrari 27:26
And what I from the research I came across was, that like aborigine, which is we're now getting into more native and ancestral if you will, races of people on the earth, that they wouldn't understand what a tunnel is, yeah, because you've never seen a tunnel. So there's was a knot in the hole in a tree, and they walked on a gravel path to get there. So again, similar concept, but just customized for their own belief system.

Jeffrey Long 27:58
Right! Yeah, they, I mean, if you if you're an aborigine, you're not going to go into a realm where there's towering landscape skyscrapers like other near death experiences described, so, you know, not not unknown, unusual and sort of a something that you would expect. So again, no surprise, near death experiences, by the way, have often been called ineffable, which means impossible or certainly difficult to describe in words. And so imagine you've got that barrier. And then you've got an aborigine or some of these less developed cultures that and then we have the language translation necessary for the investigators. Now, you can just imagine how difficult it is to study near death experiences from some of these areas, very remote areas of the country. And yet, we do have a few accounts. And, again, that's very, very helpful for us to learn and see the big picture of near death experiences.

Alex Ferrari 28:49
So I'm going to get a little quantum physicsie on you. In regards to the life review, this is something I've heard, I'd love to hear what you've come across in your research, is that a lot of times in a life review and to explain the life review for my understanding of it, and please correct me if I'm wrong, you go in, there's generally a bunch of screens up around you, very similarly to, if I can use an example of Minority Report with Tom Cruise, where there's like the screens and you can kind of move around, and you're seeing your entire life all the same time again, we can't process that, but there we can, and you feel in every scene that they show you. You feel how you felt when you were doing something to somebody else, and you also feel how they felt. So you feel if you hurt someone, you feel that hurt, and you go, Oh God, it's almost like a teaching lesson. But what's interesting about a couple of people there's like, Have you ever wondered like when you're there that wonder if I would have married Sarah, what would have happened? And they would go hold on and they would show a lifetime. A Parallel Reality of that of your life. Well, this is what what happened if you got if you married Sarah. Uh, this is, uh, this is a life if you wouldn't have moved to New York and stayed in your little town in Kentucky, you know, instead, instead of taking that big job in New York or in San Francisco and some big city in Paris or something like that, this is how it would look, have you come across this parallel lifetime review?

Jeffrey Long 30:16
Wow, I would, I need to listen to that show. Because I certainly that's certainly possible and remarkable near death experiences. But a life reviews occur about 20% of near death experiences. So I've heard about 800. But I can't recall right off the top of my head, if somebody actually had an experience like that, I believe that I think it probably happened. And that would be certainly what we would call an exceptional near death experience. But that would be you know, very much a part of the learning that you could have during a near death experience, that sort of processing about your life. And as you put there, just even an alternative life path. So again, part of the really real fascination of life reviews during near death experiences.

Alex Ferrari 30:59
Have you come across this concept and I've this has been talked told to me by swamis, yogi's spiritual masters near death, experiencers channels and psychics. And this isn't a concept that is extremely difficult for our brains to understand. But I've I kind of understand it to a certain extent. Okay, that that, before I even get to that point, do you at least in your research, believe in or do they believe in multiple lifetimes, past lifetimes, that you come back and there's reincarnation? Is that a general concept that you see?

Jeffrey Long 31:33
Yeah, we a survey question about that most recently here. And I reviewed the narrative responses and there is striking, I think the proper term would be overwhelming evidence for the reality of prior lives or the reality of reincarnation based on near death experience evidence, yes.

Alex Ferrari 31:50
Okay. So, with reincarnation, I lost my train of thought I was actually going off and I get this. What was they saying right before that?

Jeffrey Long 31:59
You had the swami'susing the channelers. And we're

Alex Ferrari 32:02
Yes, thank you. Got it. Got it. I'm back. Thank you, sir. You see the processor. Not so good down here. That, so instead of there's the concept of past lives, there's a concept of future lives. But they tell me that that doesn't exist, that all lives are happening at the same time. Where, right now you and I are in Egypt, somewhere in Atlanta somewhere. And also, we're in 2500 BC, and all these lives are interacting with us. Meaning that if we learn a lesson here, it ripples, and we use the word backwards and forwards because we live in a linear time reality. Has anything like that come across your, your, your research, in regards that kind of knowledge.

Jeffrey Long 32:47
Oh, sure, very regularly, people will talk about, you know, multiple lifetimes. Occasionally we hear about if you will, like parallel universes or parallel realms of existence. So we hear that periodically. It's not real common, but we do hear about that, and near death experiences. And that is kind of mind blowing. To think that we have you know, I mean, think about that, you know, what are we doing here you and I, Alex? Yeah, and some other continents. So kind of mind boggling. You know, again, it's just an excellent example of what we don't know from near death experiences far exceeds what we do know, and how fascinating that investigation is up till now. And for future investigations, we learn more about that. Absolutely. Amazing. And again, like I say, it's not not even just fascinating, that directly affects you were alluding to like quantum phenomena, or sort of how the universe all fits together. I mean, we're learning information that helps us see if you will, the big picture of consciousness of physics of how the universe works in a way that is beyond our current conventional understanding.

Alex Ferrari 33:52
I also another element that I've come across is the point of no return. Generally speaking, and I in this is not always from my experience, in my research, that there's a choice, you can go back or you can stay, a lot of times there isn't a choice. And they're like, Nope, this is not your time, and they don't even have a conversation about it, you just get slammed back in. But a lot of times there is a choice. And there there is a point of no return where like if you pass that if you go into the grassy knoll over there, you can't come back. Did you find did you find that as well in your research?

Jeffrey Long 34:27
Absolutely. The point of no return is off the call of like a boundary and so this occurs again, and that an earthly heavenly realm. There's usually other beings spiritual beings with them. And I've seen this pattern so much I know exactly what's going to happen if there was fucking along a path in a near death experience talking with these other beings. And if up ahead of them is a bridge chasm, a fence crossing their path. I know what's going to happen. They stopped there, and that's what's called the boundary and beyond that there really isn't a realm of return and Often near death experiences will say that other can be described in other ways where they're aware of if they go through that door is a good common example, then they can't come back to their earthly life. So at that point, there may be a decision. And that decision may be made with the other beings with now, I would point out the significant majority of near death experiences, even the detailed ones, boom, they go right back to their body, and there's no discussion and there's no choice. But in that minority of near death experiences where there's a choice, that is a fascinating discussion. So when they're given a choice about returning to the earthly body are staying in that beautiful and earthly realm, the significant majority of people having a near death experience do not want to return to the earthly body. Right? Think about that. The friends, family loved ones, everybody they've known for decades, typically of their life, every memory that they had, they would literally be apart from choose to be apart from but that shows how overwhelming ly compelling that afterlife realm is, I mean, at that realm, you have to forget they're feeling overwhelming sense of peace and love, fairly common for them to say that they understand that heavenly beautiful realm is their real home, and their earthly life really isn't their earthly home. So they feel that sense of connection, that sense of love. And of course, don't forget, they may, they were on death's door at the time, they had their near death experience. And by this time, they're essentially never feeling any pain or any problems. So not surprising to me that people would choose to want to stay in that beautiful, earthly realm. So that can lead to a lot of interesting discussion with those other beings there. We have a small series of how these other beings tried to convince them to go back to their earthly life. One scenario is to show them, here's your funeral, here's what happens if you don't return the earthly body. And that's grippingly chilling, when we got those near death experiences where they're shown that I mean, you see, like these little two year old children kind of giggling at the funeral because they don't understand death. And you kind of go Oh, yeah, that's, that's real. But ultimately, for a variety of reasons and discussion, who have more to do in your earthly life, you've got a lot to experience. You know, here's the people that will be hurt. If you don't return to earthly body, ultimately, they will typically make that decision to go back to earthly body. And when they recover, they've got their near death experience to share with the world.

Alex Ferrari 37:26
Would you think? And it just came to me as you were talking. Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol is essentially a near death experience.

Jeffrey Long 37:36
Yes, absolutely. Very beautiful and vivid type of a near death experience with a, you know, it's you, I would call that quite a typical content in terms of what we see, you know, in our research near death experiences, but I think it really made it captures the essence of that. I mean, you're really, you know, like, at the very end of Scrooge, that last visit that last ghostly visit there, Jack Stone, and how powerfully persuasive that is for him to change his life around in

Alex Ferrari 38:05
He has a life review. He has a life review, as is a multiple of reviews.

Jeffrey Long 38:09
Yeah, absolutely. So that's really an interesting analogy. I wonder if Dickens knew somebody that had a near death experience, if that was the inspiration when one can wonder.

Alex Ferrari 38:18
I mean, I don't think in Dickens time, there was a lot of resuscitations as a general statement. But I do believe I do believe that there is there there's definitely some sort of, with these great masters, some sort of channeling that happened, when the ideas come, they just get plucked out from the ether all the time and these kinds of the Shakespeare's and then the Einsteins, and the Vinci's and they were able to come up with ideas that but that was essentially a near death experience. I never thought of it that way. But it is.

Jeffrey Long 38:51
That's really cool. I that's a great insight. I love it. No, that sounds that's really interesting. So each write an article about that a comparison of near death experiences to Dickens A Christmas Story.

Alex Ferrari 39:02
Yeah, because it is absolutely I mean, he has life reviews, he has the ultimate death I mean it's he's he senses and feels, what his actions are doing in the present and in the past lost opportunities from the past what he's doing like it just shows them everything in such a pretty magical way and even has a beam a Marley come in and warn him as a being would come in and kind of walk them through what was gonna happen. Oh my god, we should write an article

Jeffrey Long 39:39
Too bad Dickens isn't around to interview.

Alex Ferrari 39:41
I know right. So with with the beings now let's talk about the beings that are seen on the other side from your research. What are typical beings that they're seeing, and, and we can go from there. Yeah.

Jeffrey Long 39:56
Well, again, we're, you know, obviously early on when they have that out of body experience, they see ongoing earthly events. So hey, no surprise there. But it gets interesting obviously, when they're in that unearthly heavenly realm where they encounter other beings now, they could be most of the time they're anthropomorphic, like deceased loved ones, they're recognized immediately. Even if they died at advanced age or disfiguring chronic illness, they're essentially always picture perfect health. And these are almost always joyous reunions, even if the relationship was strained and earthly life and there can be a lot of sharing a lot of communication. And hey, animal lovers, deceased pets are seen there regularly. I mean, you name it, dogs, cats, birds, horses, I've seen it all. And so once again, joyous reunions and awareness that that the deceased beloved pet is back there and in picture perfect health. So Paul appearance is most often anthropomorphic, and very other beings may appear sort of humanoid, but not really formed features or maybe more like, you know, energy or some kind of light, that is not really anything like human appearance at all, even when they're not humanoid, or a very different type of appearance, significant majority of the time, they describe a strong sense of love of these beings, a lot of compassion, they really feel very happy to be in their presence. And you know, again, there's that telepathic communication with a lot of beautiful sharing and understanding. So that's, there's sort of a range of, of how beings are described, but the overriding thing is that typical awareness of their love and acceptance of who they are and, and that's really a neat part of near death experiences, actually, any angels? Yeah, a lot of people. And again, you know, angels mean different things to different people. So it's a fairly common descriptor of people to call them angels. Now, the significant majority of these beings in near death experiences don't have wings. But on the other hand, they can, you know, it's reasonable to call them angels, I mean, gosh, they, they're not bound by the physical laws that we have here on Earth. So they couldn't be above the ground, they can move non physically, again, communication, telepathic, and of course, you've got that overwhelming sense of love. And oh, especially the angels or other spiritual beings can be described as having a beauty, both in terms of what they look like and what they're wearing, again, far beyond anything they ever knew in their earthly life. So, again, you know, part of the really fascinating, very beautiful part of the experience,

Alex Ferrari 42:33
Now that the belief systems of these people who are dying, from my understanding, do kind of help. I wouldn't say taint, but kind of set up the scene, a lot of times to make them feel comfortable. Every every new death experience is custom built, bore the person at the stage of life that they're at. So you know, you're not going to have you're not going to have Jesus show up to a three year old. And we'll talk about kit and we'll talk about children in a minute. But what's your experience with deities, ascended masters, God like, you know, you know, the Jesus's the Buddha's, you know, those kinds of people?

Jeffrey Long 43:17
Well, we'll start with God. In near death experience, I wrote a book on this, it starts out God in the afterlife. In this book we studied 277, near death experience accounts where they are aware of or encountered God. So in their encounter with this being first of all, near death, experiencers often say, God is a human word. And that can't begin to describe this overwhelming being of love, compassion, knowledge, connection with anything and everything creation. But they just say that's the best word we have, even though it falls flat. And in the face of this God that they encountered during near death experiences. The good news is the god variably described either can be less likely humanoid, more likely described as an amorphous light kind of thing. But the one thing very consistent is that over whelming sense of love far beyond anything that they could have possibly known during the earthly life. So over and over, they say God, to they're often their surprise, accepts them for who they are, what they are, everything they are, and often well, always sensually, always without judgment, which is very much a relief to many people having a near death experience. So that can be God. God may be present at a live review, God may be a lot of interaction. It's fascinating when they start at the near death experience or x s bunch of questions. But that's where you can learn a great deal about if you will, the bigger picture thing. So that's God as far as deities. About 7% of our near death experiences describe an awareness or an encounter with the being they call Jesus. Don't forget the significant majority of the experiences shared with us even recently, are still from Typical Judeo Western countries where especially with those with a Christian background, you'd expect them to encounter Jesus, Jesus in near death experiences again variably described in terms of appearance, size, hair, hair length, color, eye color varies. Clothes can vary fairly significantly. And again, not a big surprise to me, I gotta give you this example because I love it. So there was a near death experience, this person was a hardcore atheist that had a near death experience. And so there was during the near death experience, Jesus appears, and Jesus has on a business suit. And the atheist kind of goes, well, what are you doing? What's going on here? You, what are you wearing a business suit for? And Jesus response was, hey, if I appeared in robes, you wouldn't believe it, would you and they both had a good laugh. So again, showing the occasional humor that pops up in these near death experiences. And like you were saying, sort of that custom, if you will add sharing of near death experiences to share the customized type of experience that's specific for that individual good example of that, by the way, that person is no longer an atheist.

Alex Ferrari 46:11
Yeah, I figured as much. Yeah, I've discovered that the other side has a great sense of humor. They a lot of joking going on on the other side sometimes. And even even when they're on when there's, I've heard like, they're, well, let me let me ask you this. Have you heard about the council of elders? This this table this quote unquote, table with like, eight did not deities but beings of some sort. They said feel like they've known them all their existence. But they are there to help them with their soul blueprint, which we'll talk about in a second. What's your experience with the elder council of elders?

Jeffrey Long 46:56
Oh, yeah, we see. I mean, it isn't always described council of elders, but the concept of having a near death experience and being at a table, a forum, even tables are described other spiritual beings around them, you know, once again, they feel overwhelming sense of love, compassion, connectedness, non judgment from these beings, and it can be a lot of dialogue. There may be one of these beings, that seems to be sort of the lead being or hey, you know, and Jesus can be there, or so we get we see that with some regularity.

Alex Ferrari 47:27
Now, with the the left, before we get to the soul blueprint, what's your experience with children who have had near death experiences because as a child, you don't have the processing the experience the mental development, in many ways to walk in to even understand basic things that we take for granted as being a more experienced human? So what's your what's your take on children who have near death?

Jeffrey Long 47:55
Well, I'm glad you asked. Because for the viewers that are probably Recognizing this, there's a pattern here I've studied it. So I was curious to I mean, you know, small children having a life threatening event, I mean, that pulls at the heartstrings. You're a parent. So, but I was fascinated by this. So I studied 26, children age five and younger, their median and average age three and a half years old. And just like you're saying, I mean, they're practically a cultural blank slate. I mean, they have no real ideas about death, or what lies beyond they really thought about it can't conceptualize it should generally don't have well formed religious beliefs or any sense of that at all. And almost certainly, they've never heard of near death experiences or wouldn't understand them if they did, and yet, boom, here are these very young kids having a near death experience. So when I compared 26, very young children age five and younger, to the older children and adults as a group using statistics, chi square statistics, and looking again, at 33 of these elements, what occurs during a near death experience, I found my substantial surprise that there was no statistical difference between the two groups at all, which is amazing. So what occurs during the near death experience seems to be identical in the two groups now, obviously, with children, yes, there's going to be some differences in the sense that they may not they will, they'll be more likely to have a being a sort of like a mother or father, being with them a little more likely for that to happen. They may process it, certainly after the experience and an age specific type of interpretation, no surprise there. But interestingly, during the experience, we've had a number of these very young children come back and when they share it knew many years later, like when they're adult even they're aware that they were thinking at a level processing information, their level of consciousness was far greater than an age specific a child would have been at that time. So again, that type of very consistently observed acceleration greater consciousness during the near death experience, fairly commonly described and very young. children as well. And no, not many life reviews that I looked at that too. I know there was a prior study that assumed I know who wrote it, I won't mention names. But there was an assumption that in very young children, they'd have less life reviews, they certainly do have life reviews, my very recent analysis of a much larger groups suggest that maybe we're getting to the point where they statistically significantly have a little bit less life reviews. But it's still I mean, in an absolute sense, the, they still have close to the same percentage of life reviews as older children and adults, interestingly. And that's, I mean, like, I know, so here you are, you know, three, three and a half year old, what life have you lived, I mean, real life if you live or remember, you know, given that you're not going to remember much when you're one year old, and yet, you know, that's what the data shows. So again, just absolutely fascinating to me, you, you have to be careful what you assume, and near death experiences. I've had a lot of my presumptions popped as I do the research and crunched the numbers and read the experiences myself, and it learned a great deal. And that was one learning thing.

Alex Ferrari 51:03
So let me ask you this from my research, I've come across many, if not all of them, say that this happened to them for a reason that we all don't have near death experiences, though it is a fairly quite high percentage now that I've heard some words, one in 25, I might be mistaken. Whatever that is, if it's a one in 100, it's a 121, 125 people haven't?

Jeffrey Long 51:27
Yep, I'll take it.

Alex Ferrari 51:28
And that's a pretty insane, that's a pretty significant statistic. That I mean, that's pretty insane. So if the thing I heard is that they these happen for a reason that they've been there, either off the path that they're supposed to be on, which is the soul blueprint, which we'll speak about in a second, or something needed to shake them up, or they needed some sort of proof or something that was so vital to the rest of their journey that this had to happen. So have you heard that?

Jeffrey Long 52:03
Yes, and I'll give you a good story that illustrates that. Only about 10 to 20% of people that nearly die will have a near death experience. So 80 to 90%, don't, me and other researchers were quite puzzled by that until I believe I found the Rosetta Stone answer of that in near death experience. So this was a person who was having a typical, overwhelmingly blissful, highly emotionally positive, near death experience, and was so enamored with this during her near death experience with feeling this peace, love beauty off the scale that she'd ever known. And in her presence was God. So she asked God directly, why me? Why am I so special that this happened to me, and God's response to her was, every one is special. This is the experience you needed to live your earthly life. So I think that really hit the nail on the head. Again, I think this was really, some people need near death experiences. Apparently, the majority don't have the people that do have near death experiences that seems to be important, formative for that specific individual, for that specific near death experience, to live the rest of their life.

Alex Ferrari 53:15
Now let's talk a little bit about the soul blueprint and or the soul plan, as they've called it, to my understanding from talking to so many, not only near death experiences, but spiritual masters and others, that there before we are born, there is a pre birth experience, where we sit down with a council of elders, we lay out a battle plan for I'd like to call a mile markers. These moments in your life that you will have, that you will hit how you get to those markers is completely and totally up to you. That's where your free will comes in. But you're requesting I want this experience. And I need to go through this and I need to go through that these are big giant, you know, markers on the road, and then you're born. And they're you're born to the parents that are going to teach you the lessons, you're going to have people come into your life and situations that are going to teach you what you're supposed to learn. Is this what you've come across in your research.

Jeffrey Long 54:07
Yes, we have scores scores and scores of what we call pre birth remembrances, it says where over and over, they'll describe a wareness of an unearthly that heavenly realm other beings may around be around them. And you know, just like you're saying, there may be a choice of families there may be, you could call it a blueprint, but it's really sort of what they are to learn during the earthly life. I mean, that's really a bear isn't it to be in a realm of unearthly beauty, peace, love and have to go down to an earth we live for there's often misery want needs, difficulties we all experience and so that that would take a lot but the earthly lessons seem to be that important. And so the earthly lessons can be selected major life directions, major lessons that they need to be learned and that may directly result in these people making these conscious decisions. Don't forget at this realm, they're typically at a much higher level of consciousness and alertness and those of us in earthly life. So they're choosing very wisely, and making decisions that will be important in living their earthly life for the lessons that they need to learn as a best soul. And so yeah, we see a lot of this and it's really fat. Again, fascinating. When you think about that big picture that, you know, our life is really again, the product of a choice, a choice, even before we're born, I mean, talk about an expression of freewill. And yet, you know, here we are making that decision to come down to earth and learn those lessons. That's how important all of our earthly lessons are big lessons, little lessons. I mean, it's not like, you know, the big thing, the big lessons that we all think are most important in life, sometimes it's a little things that that lack of compassion, that act of loving, that that ability, willingness to go the extra mile, everything we do down here is important, in every moment, and in every little big way.

Alex Ferrari 55:58
Have you come across the walk in? So what experience in your research have you talked about? And if you do know what the what I mean, if you have to explain to the audience what a walk in Seoul is, and from my understanding that it typically happens during a near death experience is when that opportunity comes in. So I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Jeffrey Long 56:18
Yeah, yeah, this is another fascinating and yet understudied area that associated with near death experiences. Occasionally, again, this is a very, very low percentage and the near death experiences shared with us, people will come back and say they feel completely different, they seem to have a different personality, different likes different dislikes, they may feel disconnected from that person that was them prior to their near death experience. And unfortunately, their their loved ones may also perceive that they're very different and don't have the same values they did before. So this can be you know, certainly some kind of a change, if you have this where your phenomena where you're concerned about being a walk in, that typically occurs immediately after the near death experience. It's not like an after effect, which may take years to develop, I mean, they come back and boom, right? Right off the bat, they're a different person, the compounding medical situation, and this is, don't forget these people nearly died. I mean, they may have had some neurologic injuries and may have had some trauma. And so, you know, even with my awareness of this is a little hard for me to pick out what people had their life change, just as a result of physiologic neurologic damage, basically, from their personality. I mean, just even if you don't have a near death experience, and you have a bad enough head injury, you can be changed substantially personality wise. So I think there's certainly a lot of that that goes on that people call walk ins. But on the other hand, I think walk in in an infinite universe full of infinite possibilities, you have to say, yes, that's part of the spectrum of what by definition is possible. And so in the few fairly well documented walk ins we've seen, again, fascinating they seem to be in typically after their near death experiences very different people. And it's almost like they have to sort of relearn who they were, who they're relating to. And I mean, that can be very challenging and difficult to them as well.

Alex Ferrari 58:14
Now, a lot of critics have near death experiences, which I'm sure you've run into many, in your, in your research, who say, especially from the medical community in the scientific community, that this is a bunch of hogwash. This is just a bunch of synapses of a dying brain that create all of the similar, you know, visions and things like that. And, and then it happens across the world across cultures, because we're all human. And that's what happens. And brain activity is just dying down. And that's what this is. What is your opinion of that? And what do you have to get?

Jeffrey Long 58:48
Well, I do have a thing to say. First and foremost, let's talk about skeptics, alternative explanations and near death experience. There's over 30 of those that have been advanced over the decades now, you might be saying over 30 alternative explanations a near death experience, well, Geez, why so many? And the answer is very simple. And there's so many of them, because there's no one or several of these skeptical explanations that make any sense at all to the skeptics as a group. I mean, think about it, if any one or several, you know, is it brain chemistry? Is that brain electricity? Is it psychological? Is it physiologic? Is it endorphins? Is it Catlins? Is it you know, if any one or several of those really made sense and really explained what you saw during a near death experience, you would need over 30 Different skeptical explanations floating around and a new one every year. But to expand on that a little bit. One reason that there's so many skeptical explanations is they can't explain what occurs during a near death experience we talked about out of body experiences when consciousness goes up above the body while the body's unconscious or dead, what they see when they come back and verify it later, is accurate and mice. Edie little over 98% of the time down to the finest details, and that includes observations far from the physical body, way beyond any possible physical sensory awareness. For example, we relatively recently had a near death experience where they saw and observed things going on, like about a mile away from their body. And yet, once again, they're what they saw, and what they heard was accurate down to the finest details. And we got scores of such experiences. Also, we have near death experiences, and those that are blind, including totally blind, and yet they have highly visual near death experiences. So again, absolutely beyond any possible medical explanation. And then let's not forget scores of experiences we've had when their heart stopped. But while they were having surgery, and under general anesthesia, so under general anesthesia, you should have no conscious experience. And when your heart stops, you should have no conscious experience, even theoretically possible. But you put the two together, it's doubly impossible to have a conscious remembrance, if you believe the skeptics, but people do by the scores, they've shared near death experiences, and they are, the Near Death Experience occurs while under general anesthesia. Again, the content isn't exactly the same as near death experiences. Under all other circumstances, skeptics can explain that that blows away. And those are, those are just three out of, you know, literally over a dozen strong lines of evidence that have been developed over the years. And obviously, you can see, even from those three examples, skeptics have no chance of explaining that based on physical brain function.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:34
And there's also in that out of body experience, I've heard of them. Basically hearing what the thoughts were going on in the nurse, or in the doctor at the time as well, that literally freaks them out when they come back. And they're like, you know, you said this, and like, that's impossible. You were out cold when I said that. Verify that kind of verifiable proof is?

Jeffrey Long 1:01:54
Absolutely, yeah, we've seen a lot of that. And I'm a doctor too. So I gotta be real careful if I'm around a coding patient, hotel. Yeah, better is better think only good thoughts and non judgmental, that I would anyway, I mean, you know that that's very true. That's, that's yet one of the zillions of lines of evidence for the reality of near death experience and to do. And when they go back and ask the nurse or the doctor, geez, you know, this is what you were thinking about? Or, you know, I'm sorry that you were, you know, I was giving you a hard time because I was coding and you were worried about your problems at home. I mean, that yeah, that just freaks out the health care professionals. Yes, we see it, but we see a lot of that.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:29
Is it do you? Do you feel that there is so many skeptics and people who just won't believe and there's, there's physicists who think quantum physics is is hogwash. So there's always something and there's establishment, old thought patterns that won't look at the new thought patterns. Because if they even entertain the idea that a near death experience exists, like you did at the very beginning, it changes your entire concept of how the universe works. And that's terrifying. To some people, would you agree?

Jeffrey Long 1:03:04
Oh, absolutely. Hey, here I am receiving mountains of evidence, you know, what would ultimately be 1000s of near death experiences, and even with that impetuous to change and learn. I mean, it's literal, I'm sharing things sort of fluidly. But hey, don't be fooled. It took me years to integrate this amazing information to change what I thought I knew, as a scientist, as a physician to really understand all of these really important, you know, universe, life, world changing concepts that we've been discussing here today. I mean, it's, I can I can understand, you know, how hard it is for people that have near death experiences to embrace these new values, or certainly the skeptics if they haven't heard about that. I mean, this literally seems unworldly and yet when you have overwhelming evidence, and certainly it's a basic scientific principle, that What is real is consistently observed. And that's exactly what you got near death experiences profound, overwhelming consistency of all these remarkable content and all sort of all those different lines of evidence converging on the reality that near death experiences are in a word real

Alex Ferrari 1:04:09
Now what would you say is the biggest mystery or unanswered question in near death experience?

Jeffrey Long 1:04:14
Right! Now given that there's an overwhelming evidence of you know, what we see overwhelmingly consistently Love Light connection a unity is often described God deities you know, beautiful realms beauty off the scale. I'm still mystified somewhat by the fact that some near death experiences, I have hellish content very frightening. So I've just now with the assistance of artificial intelligence, got a large pool of Near Death Experiences are posted on our website that describe this. So I'm motivated to go back and take a hard look at that and try to find some sort of, if you will, the final frontier answers and the final frontier of near death experience research to help understand why they occur, what they mean what's going on here and just see if I can Learn more about near death experiences in general. So that's sort of my final frontier going forward here.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:05
Dr. Long, I could keep talking about this stuff forever as you can, as you can see, I've, I am a student, sir of this topic and, and have have had so many amazing conversations with souls who have talked to me on the show explaining their experiences. But now I'm going to ask you a few questions, ask all my guests. What is your definition of living a fulfilled life?

Jeffrey Long 1:05:27
Sure, living a fulfilled life, that's going to be individual, each person has to come up with what their own concept of fulfillment is, I would sort of hope and expect that such fulfillment would follow sort of general spiritual principles where that would involve reaching out to other patient people compassionately, that means yourself to trying to be the best that you can be helping other people to be the best that they can be. expanding knowledge helping to learn, not only individually, but the world as a whole, just basically reaching out to make the world a better place and yourself better place, day by day, year by year,

Alex Ferrari 1:06:03
And you had a chance to go back in time and talk to little Jeffrey, what advice would you give him?

Jeffrey Long 1:06:07
Oh, that's interesting. I would, I would just say, keep an open mind. I mean, Jeffrey, what you're about to learn and what you're about to see, based on 1000s of experiences is going to be so radical. Keep an open mind and try to embrace that profound truth that you're going to be encountering and, and try to incorporate them into your life so that you can share them with the world maybe a little bit quicker. I mean, don't forget, I've been doing this over 25 years.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:34
Yeah, I'm assuming that you had to kind of overcome your own programming and own bias by walking into this.

Jeffrey Long 1:06:43
Oh, absolutely. I mean, here I am, as a doctor, and I'm talking about these incredibly unworldly things, you know, things that are far outside of the experience of most people. I mean, yeah, that's, that's tough. I mean, it took me a long, in fact, I wrote my first book evidence of the afterlife. And it was literally, only then that I crunched the numbers and did the research. And it was like, wow, I kind of was pretty sure I was right. But my gosh, look at this. I mean, you know, this is hardcore science. This is reality and the near death experiences and all these messages. So that was, obviously my personal Sentinel moment where I really convinced myself with the most stringent scientific methods possible, that what I was thought I saw, what I certainly hoped I saw to be true, was indeed, near death experiences expressing that greater reality,

Alex Ferrari 1:07:30
How do you define God or Source?

Jeffrey Long 1:07:33
God or source we talked about that earlier briefly, that the you have to be aware that God is a human word. And I think you have to embrace the concept that this god or Supreme Being or all, or one has been variously described, but these are all very appropriate apt words for this being the consciousness, the creator, God is such a big thing that it transcends anything that we can put in English words, or in any language words, that is something so all embracing, and yet you know that we all seem to be connected in a very to in a very real way, that it simply defines the identifies, I should say, any single word or description, but it's all sort of that compilation of all those concepts in one and a lot more.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:19
What is love?

Jeffrey Long 1:08:20
Love. And again, that's a great question. Because to a lot of people love means different things, in my opinion of love has changed as I've gone through my life, I would define sort of love as you know, in some real way, the will to extend yourself to expand your own spiritual growth life or the spiritual growth life of other people reaching out in some effortful way.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:44
What is and what is the ultimate purpose of life?

Jeffrey Long 1:08:47
I think the ultimate purpose of life is to grow as we are souls, it would be, ideally, hopefully, as many people as possible, and gosh, this your shows really help. But to help people realize we're not just our physical body, we're not just going through life dragging. And at the end of the life, we're done physically. So we're done. No, not at all. Each and every one of us are in our deeper reality, or more significant reality, a soul that part of us that will live eternally. And so I think that's, if you will, you know, the concept of the bigger picture. And, you know, that ties directly back into why I'm so interested in near death experiences. I think, in my sort of summary here, I think the messages of Near Death Experiences are the most profoundly positive message that is even conceivable for all of humanity.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:35
And where can people find out more about you and the amazing work you're doing in the world?

Jeffrey Long 1:09:38
Sure. You can go to the website, nderf.org stands for the Near Death Experience Research Foundation. Hey, see for yourself over 4000 Near Death Experiences posted. If you want to be on the fast path, you just go to that tab at the top that says experiences, drop it down to exceptional experiences, and I will bet you if you just read 10 Near Death experiences that we consider to be exceptional. Your perspective of Near Death Experiences understanding and ability to relate to what's being shared in near death experiences will grow enormously. So that's that would be one thing we could do. I've written two books called evidence of the afterlife, the science of Near Death Experience gets into a lot of the science on this. And then my next book, God in the afterlife gets into my study of God and some of the bigger spiritual things we did talking about.

Alex Ferrari 1:10:28
And do you have any parting messages for the audience?

Jeffrey Long 1:10:30
Sure, do greatly appreciate your interest. You know, email me if you have any questions, I'm not hard to find if you go to the website, and there's no substitute, I guess I would say, well, we talk about near death experiences, and we give you a resource of reading literally 1000s of Near Death Experiences are really no substitute. If you know someone, or finding someone who has had a near death experience, there's no substitute for actually talking to someone we said earlier about one out of 25 people or so had a near death experience. So in your life, if you're fortunate enough, and you probably will be to find someone who's had a near death experience, especially a detailed one. Just let them know you're interested and listen to what they have to say listen openly. Listen, non judgmentally it could literally change your life.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:17
Dr. Long, it has been such a pleasure and honor talking to you, my friend, thank you so much for the amazing work you're doing in bringing light and science to a phenomenon that is still truly unexplainable in so many ways, and helping awaken the planet. So I appreciate you my friend.

Jeffrey Long 1:11:33
Thank you great interview. It's been fantastic.