Divine Encounters Episode 089 | Near-Death Experience Story
Dean Brinson was about 75 or 76, in a Chicago hospital in 2019, when he says he quietly slipped out of his body and found his spiritual teacher waiting, just as promised. In this Divine Encounters episode he tells Alex Ferrari about flying to the sun, traveling through a tunnel to the astral region, and crossing into a causal plane and a plane of salvation, with a master’s love flowing through each. The conversation explores karma, rebirth, the role of a teacher and his belief that we are all miniature forms of God.
Key Takeaways
- Dean says he clinically died in a Chicago hospital in 2019, at about 75 or 76, and that it was painless.
- He describes leaving his body and finding his teacher waiting, then discovering that people in the room could not hear or see him.
- He says he traveled faster than light to see the sun up close, then moved up through a tunnel into the astral region.
- Dean describes the astral world as a place of unconditional love, instant knowledge and telepathy, where deception is not possible.
- He says good karma and bad karma both bring us back, and that the three bodies and the busy mind keep us from going higher.
- He describes a causal plane holding the total Akashic records, and above it a plane of salvation filled with a master’s love.
- He says he asked to stay and was told no; he had to return, do his duties and share what he learned.
| Guest | Dean Brinson |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 089 |
| Age at the time | About 75 or 76 |
| When and where | Chicago, 2019, in a hospital |
| What Dean says happened | He left his body painlessly as he went in for a procedure |
| Where he says he went | The sun, a tunnel, the astral region, the causal plane and a plane of salvation |
| Who he met | His teacher, and souls he says he had known for centuries |
| The message | Do your duties, meditate with devotion and love everyone; a teacher helps us go home |
A Hospital Hallway in Chicago
Alex asks Dean what his life was like before he died, and Dean starts with the moment itself. He says he clinically died in Chicago in 2019, when he was about 75 or 76. He adds one detail first: it was painless.
He had gone into the hospital, and on the way up to the fourth floor for a procedure, his wife was wheeling him in a wheelchair. They argued. Dean said he had eaten plant-based food for nearly fifty years and did not feel he needed it. His wife was firm. As he went through the door, he says, he became very quiet and said nothing.
Leaving the Body, and a Teacher Right There
Dean says he left his body painlessly, and his teacher was right there, as he had promised. Nobody else could see them. He tried to stop the staff from cutting off his expensive jacket, and his hands went through their bodies, which he compares to the movie Ghost.
He tried to talk. His teacher told him, “They can’t hear you.” In a ghost body, he was told, you cannot be heard. They should leave. Before flying up through the roof, Dean said he wanted to see the sun.
Flying to the Sun
His teacher asked why. “You see it every day.” Dean said he would like to see it up close. So they flew there, faster than the speed of light, in less than a second, he says.
He describes a huge ball of fire, a nuclear explosion, with gases. He says he could not hear too much, because his teacher toned down the explosion, and they were obviously not suffering from the heat. His teacher asked why he was so fascinated, then suggested they leave that glory in place and go to the heavens.
The Tunnel and People He Had Known for Centuries
As they traveled upward through a tunnel, Dean says, he saw people he had known for centuries. Many did not know him. Some did. They asked if he was from America, what state, and he said Chicago. They asked for his phone number, and he gave it, knowing that they would cross a valley or river of forgetfulness and take birth.
This leads Dean to an idea he returns to often. Most human beings, he says, develop what he calls spiritual Alzheimer’s. We do not recall past lives, though a few moments of this feels familiar, like I have seen this before. He says we have lived before, millions of times, since creation began, and that the universe is much older than the thirteen billion years estimated. He adds that souls can learn through different species. For a short overview, see the glossary entry on reincarnation.
The Astral Region: Love, Knowledge and Telepathy
Dean says they reached the middle part of the astral region, where he saw many people he knew. Everyone was loving, with a strange, almost unconditional love. They embraced him. No one needs to study. They look at something and are infused with knowledge of it.
They also have telepathy. Words can add beauty, but most of the time they simply read your mind. They can listen to your thoughts and see them. So, Dean says, “there’s no possibility of being deceived when you’re in that world.” Deception can only take place in the physical world.
Karma, Three Bodies and a Busy Mind
Dean says to be human, you have to be born with both good and bad karma. Good karma, he says, is not the end of the story, because it keeps you coming back just as bad karma does. He describes time and space as a kind of principle that does not want you to escape, and says you need a body to be in the physical, astral or causal universe.
There are three bodies in his account: the physical, the astral and the causal. He calls them inhibiting factors that block you from going higher. The mind is the biggest, he says. It thinks over sixty thousand thoughts a day, according to modern psychologists, and anyone who has sat in meditation knows it runs all over the place, back to childhood, back to high school. You cannot control it, no matter what.
If you would like a plain-language entry on this idea, see karma in our glossary.
Sleep, Dream Bodies and a World That Looks Like This One
Dean says that when we fall asleep we create another body, and we tend to think that is us. He describes falling from the sixth floor of the body to the fifth. We become hazier and finer, and we immediately create a world that looks just like this one. He compares it to a holographic universe. It looks as real as this world, he says, with airplanes, helicopters, people in the street, a lady wheeling a grandbaby, an old man on a new building asking a younger man for bricks.
Food tastes exactly like food in this world, except the texture and quality are slightly different. In this region, he says, the process is actually creating time.
Astral Records, a Planet-Sized Ocean and a Land of Light
The astral part has what he calls astral records. You do not go to a library. You concentrate attention and examine them, including your own, and see how you lived long ago, even in the time of Jesus, perhaps as a tree or a creature or a human being.
He says the astral world holds all kinds of planetary systems. If this universe is a quarter, the astral plane would be the Pacific Ocean. And in the realm he describes crossing next, everybody is full of light and sound and music. Even the trees make music. The animals do not fight each other, and he says that is true in the Bible, too.
The Causal Plane and the Danger of Thinking You Are God
The causal plane, Dean says, contains the total Akashic records, the totality of every species you can become. He warns that if you go far enough in the astral plane without a teacher, you can start having the false feeling that you are God. You can create. You can control destiny. You can project time and space. That, he says, is how dangerous it is to go without a teacher.
He describes the causal space as much larger than the astral world, twice as large as the Pacific and Atlantic oceans put together, with all karma stored there and a ruling presence that controls everything. For a short explanation, see our glossary entry on the Akashic records.
The Plane of Salvation and a Master’s Love
In a flash, Dean says, they crossed that world, and his teacher took him to what he calls the plane of salvation. There, he describes “tremendous love, enormous love, unconditional love” flowing from the master to you. You become unconditionally and fanatically loving toward him as a friend, he says. The master befriended you on Earth, and that friendship lasts all the way up.
Dean asked if he could stay forever. No, his teacher said. But if he returned to Earth, did his duties, met the people and shared this knowledge, he would pass through all of these worlds quickly and go back to his original home. “Can I go back on my own?” Dean asked. His teacher said he could try, but described a dark region beyond, with whirling tones and caves, where you would simply end up where you started.
Souls Who Stay and Souls Who Return
Dean describes souls in a deep, dark region who create islands of themselves and populate them with their own consciousness, being worshiped like a person in a dream. He says that when he takes souls through this world, some ask to come back to Earth. He tells them yes, but they must come all the way down. Many say no. He compares it to leaving Hollywood with a billion dollars and being told you will live in a tent. A few accept.
He says it was estimated by what he calls perfect living masters that only about ten percent of souls asked God, before leaving, what to do if they got frustrated and wanted out. The Lord laughed, Dean says, and answered, “I myself, will come and get you.” No angel, no preacher. He would come as a human being.
Why a Teacher Matters, in Dean’s View
Dean says human beings are “all miniaturized forms of God,” made of the same spiritual stuff, but we need a spiritual teacher to cultivate us, teach us meditation and help us go home. He says the teacher promised to return to souls who asked and become their friend, so they would fall in love with him as a human being, and he would take them back quickly.
Dean says he came back because his teacher pulled him back, and that he used to get mad about it. His teacher told him he had duties to do, otherwise he would bring him back anyway.
Free Will, Humans Above Angels and a Lonely God
Dean says free will is an illusion that the Lord created. “the illusion of free will is necessary,” he explains, because if you knew everything you could not seek. Angels have knowledge, but cannot seek, so in a sense, he says, humans are higher than angels. Only human beings can go back to God.
He says that means learning lessons, living a fulfilled life in the shadow of the Lord, meditating with devotion, and loving everybody, even enemies, because once you go inside you do not really have any enemy. He closes with a thought he says he normally does not share. God, he says, is lonely, and each of us, if we were alone on Earth, would feel the same.
Placing Dean’s Account Beside Other Experiences
Many near-death accounts describe leaving the body, a tunnel and a sense of unconditional love. What stands out in Dean’s account is the map: physical, astral, causal and a plane of salvation, each taught by his teacher. It reflects his own spiritual tradition and training, and should be heard as his understanding. Start with our complete guide to near-death experiences, and if the word astral is new, the glossary entry on astral projection is a gentle place to begin.
Questions to Sit With
- Dean says the mind thinks tens of thousands of thoughts a day. What would a few minutes of quiet change for you today?
- He describes a teacher as someone who befriends us and walks us home. Who has played that role in your life?
- Dean says our duties here matter. Which one have you been avoiding?
This week, sit for five minutes with your eyes closed and simply notice your thoughts without chasing any of them. When you finish, send a thank-you to someone who has guided you.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Dean says unconditional love is the nature of the astral world and the plane of salvation.
- He says good and bad karma both bring us back, and the mind is the biggest obstacle to going higher.
- He describes the physical, astral and causal bodies as limits that we eventually move beyond.
- He says human beings are miniature forms of God, and a spiritual teacher helps us remember.
- He says he was told to return, do his duties and share what he learned.
Please enjoy my conversation with Dean Brinson.
Guest Links: Connect With Dean Brinson
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Dean Brinson?
Dean Brinson is a professor and near-death experiencer who says he clinically died in a Chicago hospital in 2019, when he was about 75 or 76. He shares his account with Alex Ferrari on Divine Encounters.
What happened to Dean Brinson in the hospital?
He says he argued with his wife on the way to a procedure, went quiet, and left his body painlessly. He says his teacher was right there as promised, and the medical staff could not hear or see him.
Why did Dean fly to the sun?
He says he asked to see it up close. His teacher asked why, then took him there faster than the speed of light, and Dean describes a huge ball of fire before they left for the heavens.
What is spiritual Alzheimer’s in Dean’s account?
It is his phrase for how most people forget their past lives when they are born, after crossing what he calls a river of forgetfulness. He says occasionally we get a feeling that we have been here before.
What did Dean say about the astral world?
He says it is full of unconditional love, telepathy and instant knowledge, with no possibility of deception. He says it is vast, with light, music and animals that do not fight.
What does Dean say about karma?
He says everyone born as a human has both good and bad karma, and that both keep us coming back. He says the way beyond is a teacher, meditation and devotion.
What are the causal plane and plane of salvation?
Dean describes the causal plane as holding the total Akashic records, and the plane of salvation as a place of tremendous, enormous, unconditional love from a master.
Why did Dean return?
He says he asked if he could stay forever and was told no. His teacher told him to return, do his duties, meet people and share what he learned, and then he would go home quickly.
What does Dean say about free will?
He says the Lord created an illusion of free will, and that it is necessary, since if you knew everything you could not seek.
Is Dean’s story proof of an afterlife?
Next Level Soul shares near-death experiences as personal accounts in the guest’s own words. Researchers continue to study and debate them, and nothing here is medical advice or a medical claim.
Keep Exploring
- The complete guide to near-death experiences
- A plain-language entry on astral projection
- What karma means, in plain words
- A guide to reincarnation
- Bill Letson on astral realms and beings of light
- Mark Hodges on other dimensions and past lives
- Rev. Bill McDonald on a boy’s encounter with Mahavatar Babaji
- Mariko Frederick on hidden realms and life between lives
- Browse more free masterclasses and the Divine Encounters podcast.
Follow Along with the Transcript
Alex Ferrari 0:00
Tell me what your life was like before you died.
Dean Brinson 0:08
When I had the experience of clinically dying in Chicago in 2019 I was about 75, 76 something like that. And when I died, it was painless, because when I was in the hospital, I got into an argument with my wife. She got a temper as we were in the hospital, my wife put me in a wheelchair, and she took me up to the fourth floor to meet and have colonoscopist do this thing. But before we got up to the fourth floor, we got into an argument, and I said, Oh, you know, I told you I didn't need colonoscopist operation. I've been eating plant based food for nearly 50 years, my veins, my arteries. Oh, it's pure Esther snow. She raised her hand like she was going to slap me. Keep your mouth closed. You go through this. I don't care what you say. So as I go through that door to see the colonoscopy, I became very quiet, and I didn't say anything. I nauseously and painlessly left the body, and my teacher was right there, as he had promised. Nobody could see us. I immediately tried to stop them from cutting off my expensive jacket, and my hands went through their body, just like in the movie Ghost Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, I tried to talk. He said, they can't hear you. You in a ghost body. They can't hear you. Let's get out of this place. So before we start flying through the roof, I said, I wanted to see the sun. He said, Why do you want to see it? You see it every day. I said, No, I like to see it up close. So he said, Okay, we flew to the sun in less than a fraction of an nanosecond. You can fly faster than the speed of light. We were there in less than a second. And so when we got there, I looked at the sun, and it was nothing but huge ball of fire, nuclear explosion, atomic implosion, gasses. But I couldn't hear too much. He toned down explosion. Obviously them experiencing the heat. And he said, Why you so fascinated? Let's leave this glory in place, and let's go to the heavens. So as we travel upward through a tunnel, I ended up knowing people, seeing some of them that I had known for centuries, and many of them didn't know me, but some of them knew me. And then they asked me a question. He said, Oh, we recognize you. Are you from America? I said, Yes. What state you live in? I said, Chicago. What's your phone number? I gave it to him, knowing that they will go through this valley or this river of forgetfulness and take birth. Knew they would do that.
So as they got into the body, became human. Every human being, when they take birth, not all of it, but a few. But most human beings develop what I call spiritual Alzheimer's. They don't recall anything. They do recall Alzheimer to most people. Mean, I've seen this before. I've done that before. I can't recall and that comes occasionally in some people lives. The Lord has put that in the consciousness of people for them to figure it out. But if you go deep into trying to understand it, you have lived before. You have been in this world before, millions of times, ever since this creation started. We know that this universe, the physical universe, is, they estimated to be 13 billion years, but it's much older than that. So as we travel through these different species, because we have an opportunity to learn by being in a different species. So as we travel in the through this tunnel and got into the middle part of the astral region, I saw so many people that I knew everybody is very loving. Everybody has a strange, almost unconditional love. They embrace you. They got great knowledge. You don't have to go to school and study like we do in this world. They just look at something, and they get infused with the knowledge of that activity or that something we call that. They also got telepathy. You need to use words to speak. They can words add to the beauty of the conversation. But most of the time, they just read your mind, reading your mind. They can actually listen to your thoughts. They can actually see your thoughts. So there's no possibility of being deceived when you're in that world. Deception can only take place in the physical world. So we all have good and bad comma. In order to be human, you have to be born with good and bad karma. It's impossible to be a human being without good and bad good and bad takes place. Now good karma, we think, is good, but good karma keeps you coming back and again and again. Bad comma keeps you back coming again. The system has been set up by me use a principle, time and space, if you want to call it a being, time and space doesn't want you to escape from itself. And so as you go back in time and space, you keep going back. You have to have a body in order to be in the physical universe or astral universe or the causal universe. You have to have a body, and these bodies are traps. You have three bodies, the physical body, the astral body and the causal body. These three bodies are actually inhibiting factors, blocking you from going higher up. The mind is the biggest inhibiting factor. Modern Day psychologists who've done research, they said, The mind thinks over 60,000 thoughts to a day, running through it today. And when people meditate, if you ever sat in meditation and you're quiet, this mind is running all over the place. It can go back to child swimming, need high school. It does not stop. You cannot control it, no matter what you do. Let me go to sleep. We fall asleep, and then we create another body. Which we tend to think is us. We fall from the sixth floor, which is the sixth floor of this body, and we fall to the fifth floor, which is in this area. And we always get into that floor. And three things happen to us. We become hazier and hazier, finer and finer, and we fall to the fifth floor. When we fall, we immediately create a world which looks just like this world, or the holographic universe. By Michael tablot. He talks about the hologram. He said, As we fall into this room, we immediately created a world that looks like this world. It looks as real as this world. And we see airplanes in the sky, helicopters. We see people in the street. We see a lady wheeling a newborn grandbaby down this road. You see an old man at the top of a new building asking for bricks from the younger man. And below that, process is actually creating time. It tastes exactly like the food in this world, except that the texture and the quality is slightly different. So anyway, so as we go into the astral part, the astral part got partial astral records, a casting record, if you go there. You can examine them, depending on your ability to concentrate attention. You don't have to go to a library. You just go and concentrate attention. And you can examine some of the astral casting records. You can examine your own. You can see how you live way back, even during the time of Jesus, you may have been a creat or tree, or you may have been a human being. After I went into the astral world, it got all kinds of planetary systems, huge world. If you were to compare that world with this world, in this universe, this universe would appear like a quarter, and that astral plane would be the Pacific Ocean. That's how huge that is. As we cross that world and went into the red world, everybody is full of light, full of sound, music. Even the trees are making music. The animals are making news. Everything is wonderful, beautiful with joy and happiness, even the animals don't fight each other. That is true in the Bible. But as we cross that world and go into the causal plane, the total Akashic records exist there, the totality of all species you can become, if you go far enough in the astral plane, you start having the false feeling that I am a God. That's how dangerous it is without a teacher, because you can do almost everything that God does. You can create, you can control the destiny of everybody. You can project time and space. You can do everything that God does. Once you get out of time and space, you immortal. You in the area of salvation, which the Christian call you don't have to reincarnate. That space in the causal plane is much huger than the astral world. It's like silver dollar and the causal in the astral world. I mean the causal astral world, the causal world would be as twice as big as the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean put together. That world is huge, gigantic. All of the comma exists in that world, and that President of that world controlled everything. So as we cross that world in a flash of a second, we end up in going, he took me to the vashu and God that's in the interim. That's the plane of salvation. And in that salvation, tremendous love, enormous love, unconditional love, is flowing from the master to you, and you get infected with this. You become unconditionally and fanatically loving him as a friend. The master befriended you on earth, and that friendship lasts all the way up. As I was experiencing a great love and happiness in that vision, I asked my teacher, could I stay here forever? He said, No, but if you do what I tell you to do, and after you come back to Earth and perform all your duties and meet all of the people and share all of this knowledge with them, you will immediately go through all of these worlds quickly and go back to your original home. And I asked him a question. I said, Can I go back on my own? He said, you can try, because the light of your body is that of 16 suns, physical suns and bangwagufa, which is the next stage before your total home is huge, dark, extremely dark, and it has whirling tones caves. So as you try to go, you end up moving this way in the cave, turning you end up where you started. You will have souls there for, I don't know how much time, because time doesn't exist, and they're there having a good time enjoying themselves. They can create islands of themselves and populate these islands with their own consciousness. So they're extremely happy, there'd be consciousness that's there, worship them and love them like in a dream. If you were in a physical world, if you had the ability to create children and women and countries and different kinds of society, and everybody worship you. And sometimes, when I take different souls through this world, I have to hide duck them, because they'll come to me and ask me if they can come back to Earth. So many of them that I see, I tell them, Yes, you can go back, but you have to come all the way back down to earth. Many of them said, No, it's like leaving Hollywood and you got a billion dollars, and you being told you're going to be in a tent, homeless in the street. So it's hard to make that decision, but there were some who made that decision. There was so much suffering from happiness that they wanted to get more, and so they asked the masters. Sometimes they would say, yes, they're willing to pay that price. The baby that only wants to live back. So if you want to know how we came back and why we came back to this world, there were uncountable amount of souls. You can't even count them, because on a pen, there are millions of souls on a pen of an E they can shrink and they can grow as big as an elephant, big as the universe. Many of them said they wanted to come back to the spiritual fun towns and Disney World, which are these regions? Because they had wonderful experiences here and they wanted to come back. But only a few. It was estimated by these Perfect Living Masters, only 10% of the souls asked God at that time before they left, if we get frustrated and we don't like this, be rigid, how do we get out? The Lord laughed and said, I myself will come and get you. You don't have to. I won't send an Angel. I won't send any preachers. I won't send anybody. I myself, will come and get you as a human being like Christ said, I'm the father one. Nobody can go back to the Father except for me. We human beings are all miniaturized forms of God. We are God's children. We made up the same spiritual stuff that he's made of, but we have to meet a spiritual teacher in order for him to fertilize us, to cultivate us, to associate with us, to teach us how to meditate, and then we can become God. So I don't think I left out anything else, but those souls that said they wanted to come back, the teacher, the PLM, said he will personally come back, and they'll become his friend. They'll fall in love with him as a human being, and he will take them back as quickly as possible. I came back. My teacher pulled me back. I used to get mad at him. He said, you have to do your duties, otherwise, I'm gonna bring you back. So I want to come back. So now I'm here dressed in white, black, like you are, and the Lord knows you don't have any free will. He created the illusion of free will. It's extremely important if you knew everything you couldn't see. So the illusion of free will is necessary, but God see it as a blessing, because the angels can't seek. They got knowledge. So in the sense the Bible said, you higher than angels. Even though you on earth, they in heaven. You hire in a sense that you can see, and if you seek intensely, perfect, even teacher will come to earth and take you back. That's the beauty of the human, and the Lord loves the human more than anything else, because only the human beings can go back to God. They just want to go back. They have to become human, any being. That's how to the causal plane. Have to come back and become a human. And they're learning lessons, living a fulfilled life, living in the shadow of the Lord, practicing meditation deeply with devotion and love and love everybody, including your enemies. Because you don't really have any enemy once you go inside and doing your worldly duties, God is omniscient everywhere present and has total power. He's the only thing that exists. He has a problem too. He does not know how to create another being. He only create illusions of himself. And he does it for a reason. I normally don't say this, but the Lord is lonely yourself, any all, your whole audience. If they were to examine their consciousness, they would be lonely if there were no people or animals on earth and they were living here by themselves.
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