Divine Encounters Episode 010 | Near-Death Experience Story
Dennis Bullock was grieving his mother, living in Montreal and far from his best self when, he says, an edible far stronger than he expected pushed him to the edge of death in a hospital bed. In this Divine Encounters episode he tells Alex Ferrari what he says happened next: stepping out of his body, playing with time and a drop of water, hearing a gentle voice that offered him a choice, and a flood of understanding about love, religion and why souls come here.
Key Takeaways
- Dennis says he was raised Christian but not religious, was very close to his mother, and that her death when he was 29 felt like someone had turned out the lights in his life.
- He says he began drinking two weeks after she died, and that a mentor figure later introduced him to drugs before dying himself, which Dennis calls a wake-up call.
- He says he saw his late mother standing at the hospital reception as he was wheeled in, and believes he could see her so clearly because he was so close to death.
- He describes popping out of his body in a hospital bed, standing beside it, and discovering that he could stop time over a falling drop of water.
- He says he made five of himself appear around the drop and laughed until it echoed like a laugh in the Grand Canyon, going on into eternity.
- He says a gentle voice told him that if he did not go back now, he might have to stay, and that it felt like a choice.
- He says he came back with many understandings, including that there is no right or wrong, only perception, and that the true religion is love.
| Guest | Dennis Bullock |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 010 |
| Age at the time | 34 or 35, he says |
| What Dennis says happened | After eating too much of a marijuana edible in Montreal, he felt his body shutting down, was taken to the hospital and left his body there |
| Where he says he went | Standing beside his own body in a hospital room, in a place of expanding information |
| Who he met | His late mother, seen at the hospital reception, and a gentle voice he felt might be God |
| The message | “The true religion is love” |
| Note | This account involves grief, alcohol and drug use, told without detail about how |
A Close Bond With His Mother
Alex asks Dennis what his life was like before he died. Dennis says he was raised in a Christian home, but he was not religious at all. Up until about 12 years old they went to Sunday school and church, he says, but it was never a serious religious background. He would have called himself Christian, but not a practicing one.
What mattered most was his mother. He says they were super, super close. She had been a legal secretary, but she quit her job to marry his father, and she and his father were getting along great. She was the joy of the house. She would ask him, “see the birds in the morning,” and say how beautiful they were. That, he says, was who she was.
When the Lights Went Out
When she got sick and died, Dennis says, his whole world crashed. It felt like “somebody turned out the lights in my life.” She died when he was 29. Two weeks after, he began to drink. Every night became a routine: he would go to the bar, drink, and then come home to his apartment in Montreal, Canada, turn off the lights, sit on his bed and cry himself to sleep.
During that time he was following a man who sang with a renewed version of The Platters, not the original group, a man who had record deals in Germany and America. Dennis saw him as a mentor. He had success, and Dennis wanted success too. Then one night, he says, that man introduced him to drugs, and Dennis started taking them with him. He says it is something he is not proud of.
Then the man died. Dennis did his last show. And that death, Dennis says, was a wake-up call. He stopped cold turkey. He replaced the hard drugs with marijuana, which he tells himself was a lesser thing, an occasional joint. That was where his life stood when the night in this story arrived.
A Night That Went Too Far
Dennis was with his new girlfriend, and they ran out of marijuana. Most musicians know where to get it, he jokes. He called a friend, who offered to bring over a chocolate cake. Dennis had never had it that way before. He says he found out only afterward just how much the cake contained.
They each ate a piece. Ten minutes went by and nothing happened, so they each ate more. Ten more minutes went by, and then more. Then the feeling arrived, and it was not a high. It felt like their bodies were shutting down. Dennis says he would be talking to his girlfriend and forget to breathe. It became hard for him to move. She told him to call 911 while they still could.
That was the embarrassing part, he says. He had to tell the dispatcher they had eaten too much marijuana in a cake and felt like they were dying. Because it involved a narcotic, the police came with the ambulance, but the cake was gone, so there was nothing to charge anyone with. It was four o’clock in the morning. They were on the third floor, carried down the stairwell on separate stretchers while neighbors looked out their windows. It looked, he says, like a scene out of a Mick Jagger or David Bowie overdose.
Holding On, and a Familiar Face
In the ambulance, Dennis says, he was holding on for dear life. He knew he did not have much time. His heart was trying to beat and everything was going stiff. He was glad when the paramedics arrived.
When they got to the hospital, something strange happened. At the reception desk, he says, he saw his mother. She was standing there looking through papers, in the shirt she used to wear for her women’s club. As they rolled him past, he said to himself, that is strange. Later, putting two and two together, he came to believe that he was so close to death that he could see her as clearly as he saw Alex in the interview.
They put him in one room and his girlfriend in another. He was given a black drink. He thought it was tar, he says, but later found out it was charcoal. It tasted horrible. He lay back in the hospital bed telling himself that they had finally found him, that he was going to be all right.
Popping Out of the Body
As he relaxed on the bed, Dennis says, he began to hear his heart in his ear, as if someone had put his heart in his ear: beep, boop, boop. And when it did that, he popped out of his body, just like jumping off a couch. He thought, I’m out. His body was in the bed and he was standing beside it.
He looked at his hand. He compares it to the static on a television late at night when the emergency broadcast comes on. If you look at static, you can see colors, he says. His hand looked gray with a light blue tint all around it.
Across from the bed was a sink with a drop of water falling. He says that out of his body his “curiosity was like at 1,000%,” and that “to a soul, a drop of water was amazing.” He thought, I would like to see that up close, and the instant he thought it, his vision went right up close and then back again.
Stopping Time, Five of Himself and a Laugh Into Eternity
Then he thought he would like to stop the drop and stop time so he could see it, and as he describes it, it was like remembering how to ride a bike after twenty years. He waved his hand across the air, and the drop of water froze in midair. He had stopped time. The soul, he says, was not surprised.
He decided he wanted to see the drop from every angle. He opened his hand, and five of him appeared around it. One was on the right, one on the left, one was underneath the water looking up, one watching the others, and him watching all of them. When he closed his hand, they all snapped back into him. He did it again. Then he added a little shake, and they all shook. It turned into something like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, back and forth, and it was so funny that he burst out laughing.
On the other side, he says, it was like “I was laughing in the Grand Canyon.” The laugh went on and on into eternity.
A Gentle Voice and a Choice
After the laugh, Dennis says, he felt that somebody was watching. He heard a voice that sounded, he says, like a parent speaking to a child at a playground: “Don’t run around the corner too fast.” Then: “If you don’t go back now, you might have to stay.”
He agreed right away. His heart could not stay stopped much longer. He did not question who was speaking. He felt it was probably God, but it was gentle. It was not a command to go back. It felt almost like a choice. If he did not go back now, he might have to stay, and that was up to him. He was a young man, 34 or 35, and he wanted to go back.
He pointed himself toward his body. He says he never wanted to look at it fully, because he was afraid he would see a look of death and be scared. He saw only his leg. He willed his soul into the body, and it went in. His heart started to beat, giving a double beat, and that was it.
Information Expanding Like Alka-Seltzer
There was something else, Dennis says. When he was outside his body, “information was expanding like that,” like Alka-Seltzer dissolving in water. He calls it downloads. It was information about everything on earth and about why souls come here, much of it things he had not believed before, and it blew his mind. This time, he says, he was able to bring it back and remember it.
He lists what he says he knew when he came back. On the other side, “there is no right or wrong, only perception.” Souls come here not to grow or go to school, because they are already perfect, but to experience. If someone hands you a book on how to drive a car and you have never driven, you have the knowledge but not the experience. He says it is like that.
What Dennis Says He Understood
These are Dennis’s own statements about what he was shown, and they are strong ones. He says that only some things in the Bible are correct, and that the rest is manipulation by the priests and governments of the time who wanted to control the people. He says that there is a Christ consciousness, which is just unconditional love, and that we are all sons of God. He says we are part of God, with a capital G, and also gods ourselves. We can have multiple lifetimes at the same time, he says, and we use only a fraction of our power to have a lifetime like this one. You can read more about the idea in our glossary entry on Christ consciousness.
On hell, he says that some people experience it when they die because of what they believed. Because they are such powerful gods, he says, what they believe they create. He points out that under some religious teachings, if you go to hell you never get out, yet hundreds are getting out. His explanation is that “God is only love” and will never torture anyone. He also says there is no such thing as karma, but there is a law of attraction and frequency, a theme explored in our glossary entry on the law of attraction.
He says even his mother needed an escort to come to her, because it takes time for souls to get used to the other side. It does not happen automatically. It goes slowly, in a way that is comfortable for the individual. That is why someone into Buddha or Krishna may see Buddha or Krishna, and a Muslim may see Allah. It is meant to make you comfortable. But, he says, “the true religion is love.”
How Dennis’s Story Fits and a Gentle Note
Leaving the body, a gentle voice and a sense of a choice are all themes that appear in near-death accounts. What stands out in Dennis’s story is the playfulness, the time-stopping and the laughter, alongside real grief. For the wider picture, see our complete guide to near-death experiences.
His account involves grief, alcohol and drug use. We share it as his own experience, without medical claims. If any of that sounds familiar, you deserve support from people you trust. Dennis himself says the loss of his mother, and then of his mentor, was what started his turning.
Questions to Sit With
- Dennis says that losing his mother felt like the lights going out. Who or what has been a light in your life, and how do you keep it on?
- He says the voice was gentle and left the choice with him. Where do you want to be invited more than told?
- He says the true religion is love. What would it mean to let that be the test of how you practice your own beliefs?
This week, do one thing that makes you laugh out loud, however small. Notice how a good laugh feels in your body, and let yourself have it.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Dennis says that on the other side there is no right or wrong, only perception.
- He says souls come here to experience, not to learn lessons, because they are already perfect.
- He says God is only love, and what people believe in strongly can shape what they experience.
- He says souls are gently met in ways that are comfortable for them, and that it can take time to adjust.
- He says the true religion is love.
Please enjoy my conversation with Dennis Bullock.
Guest Links: Connect With Dennis Bullock
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Dennis Bullock?
Dennis Bullock is a near-death experiencer who shares his story in this Divine Encounters episode with host Alex Ferrari. He says he lived in Montreal when he had his experience, at about 34 or 35.
What was Dennis Bullock’s life like before his near-death experience?
He says he was raised Christian but not religious and was very close to his mother. After she died when he was 29, he began drinking, and later took drugs with a mentor before changing course.
What happened the night of Dennis’s experience?
Dennis says he and his girlfriend ate a marijuana cake that was far stronger than they realized, and their bodies began to shut down. They called 911 and were taken by ambulance to a hospital.
Did Dennis see his mother?
He says he saw his late mother standing at the hospital reception looking through papers as he was wheeled in. He believes he could see her so clearly because he was so close to death.
What happened when Dennis left his body?
He says his heart sounded loud in his ear and then he popped out of his body and stood beside it. He noticed his hand had a gray and light blue tint, and he was fascinated by a drop of water falling in a sink.
What did Dennis do with the drop of water?
He says he stopped time with a wave of his hand, froze the drop in midair, and made five of himself appear around it to see it from every angle. When he closed his hand, they all snapped back into him.
What did the voice tell Dennis?
He says a gentle voice, like a parent at a playground, told him not to run around the corner too fast, and that if he did not go back now, he might have to stay. He felt it was probably God, and that it left the choice to him.
What did Dennis say he learned about hell and religion?
Dennis says people can create hell through their beliefs and that God is only love. He says the Bible is only partly correct, and that the true religion is love.
Why does Dennis say souls come here?
He says souls come here to experience, not to grow or go to school, because they are already perfect. He compares it to having a book about driving but no experience of driving.
Is a near-death experience proof of an afterlife?
Next Level Soul shares near-death experiences as lived experiences told in the person’s own words. Researchers continue to study and debate what they mean. Nothing here is medical advice or a medical claim.
Keep Exploring
- The complete guide to near-death experiences
- What Christ consciousness means
- What the law of attraction is
- Margot McKinnon on meeting her deceased mother
- Branden Densmore on an overdose and being shown the future
- Alysa Rushton on an overdose and ancient wisdom
- Betty Guadagno, an angry atheist and addict, on who she met in heaven
- Nancy Rynes on being shown love without dogma or religion
- 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.
Dennis Bullock 0:08
I was raised in a Christian home, but I was not religious at all. Okay, I mean, up until about 12 years old, we did go to Sunday schools to church, you know, was a Christian background, but it was not like a serious, serious religion background. But that was about it. As far as religion goes, you know, I was not a serious, I would say I was Christian, this pretty much was what I believed, but I was not a serious practicing Christian. My mom, me and my mom, we were very close. I mean, super, super, super close. I mean, my mother didn't have a job. She used to be a legal secretary, but she had quit her job to marry my father. So she didn't have a job. And her and my father were getting along so great. She was just the joy she brought to life. She would tell me I did you see the birds in the morning. It's so beautiful. You know, she was the joy. And when she got sick, and died, my whole world crash, because it was like, what what? Somebody looks like somebody turned out the lights in my life. And I said, well, that when that happened, two weeks after she died, I was I started to drink. She died when I was 29 years old. And I started to drink. And every night I had a routine, you know, I go to the bar, drink, and then come back home. I was living in Montreal, Canada at the time, and I come back home to my apartment, sit turnout, come in my room, turn off the lights, and I'm sat in my bed and could cry myself to sleep. And I was following this guy who was one of the lead singers of the platters, the renewed platters, not the not the original, but the renewed. And he had record deals he had, I mean, everywhere in Germany, America here. So I was I was following him. Until one night, he introduced me to drugs. And, and I started taking drugs with him. Something I'm not so proud of. I was following him. He was like my mentor, I thought, you know, he's got success. This must be the way you know, I want success too. So, you know, when he offered me drugs, I started taking drugs with him. Then he died. I did his last show. And he died. And when he died, that was like a wake up call for me. I said, That's it. So So I stopped, I stopped cold turkey, no drugs, no nothing. And but I replaced it. And what I replaced it with was marijuana. So I decided, instead of doing the, you know, real hard drugs, I'm going to do a little marijuana. And that's it. smoke a joint every now and then. Okay. So that's what I was doing. And with my new girlfriend at the time, and one night, we ran out of marijuana, we just didn't have any that day. Sadly to say, this is not no push against musicians, but most musicians know where to get marijuana. So I'm in Montreal, Canada, still. And we we ran out of marijuana. So I called a friend. And of course, he has marijuana, he says to me, Hey, I'll bake in a cake for you and bring it over. I said cool, because I never had it in the cake before. So he baked it was a chocolate cake. He filled it with so much marijuana, which I found out now after the fact. But at that time, I didn't know but he must support the kitchen sink in that thing. But so he brought the cake over, left, and he left me and my girlfriend there. So I cut my girlfriend a piece and I cut me a piece. We ate a piece and 10 minutes went by and nothing happened. I said, I think we probably got to eat a little bit more, because it takes maybe, you know, maybe he didn't pay a lot in there. And we have to that's why we don't feel anything. So we took another page, she took another piece, she took half and I took her because we wanted to we wanted to get high. So she took half and I took half 10 minutes went by again, nothing that's it must be a bad batch or something. You don't feel anything. I mean, either, then another 10 minutes would lie, then we start feeling so. And what we were feeling was not necessarily that we were getting high, but more like our bodies were shutting down first first, like I will be talking to her and I would forget to breathe. You know? And then it started to be a little bit hard for me to move. And my girlfriend said, Hey, you better call nine one or something. Because while we still can. You still can. I said yeah, you're right. And it was hard for me and I dial 911 And then they said, how can we help you? And this was the embarrassing part. Because we had to tell them, you know, well, you know, we have too much. Maybe too much marijuana and a cake. We feel like can you come and help us? We feel like you're dying. Yeah. You know, and they said, Okay, well we'll be right on on our way. Now when you call them about any narcotic. They also call the police. So the police came with them. But we ate all the cakes so there was nothing nothing to charges with. So they they left the cops left and took us in a stretcher. Now this was at four o'clock in the morning. We were on the third floor on a stairwell case. And we were talking in stretchers, each separate stretchers for clogged lights of lashing neighbors looking out the window like this as we coming down the stairs in front of the window. What happened, you know, and, and it looks like a scene out of Mick Jagger, David Bowie overdosing or something. It just looks wild man. So they put us in the ambulance. And we're in the ambulance. And they're rushing, I'm happy that they arrived because I was like when they arrived that was really holding on to dear life because I knew that I didn't have much time because my heart was trying to beat and everything was coming stiff. I couldn't move. Anyway, we got to the hospital. And another strange thing happened was when we got to the hospital at the reception, I saw my dead mother again, she was standing at the reception, looking through papers, she had this this shirt on that she wears, she had like a women's club. And she was looking through the and I said as they were rolling me past the reception. I said That's strange. There's more. Now later on that as I put two to get to two together, I was so close to death. At the time when they rolled me in. That's why I was able to see her as clear as I see you standing right now. And so they rolled us in, they put me in one room, they put my girlfriend in another room, and they gave me this black drink to drink. I thought it was tar. But later on, I found out there was charcoal. So they left me in a room gave me this drink and I'm on the bed hospital bed. And I'm saying thank God, they finally find me I'm going to be alright, I'm gonna live, I'm gonna live. And so I drink the drink down. tastes horrible man tastes horrible though. I drink the drink down. And I lay back and I'm saying, I'm going to be okay. I'm going to be alone. And as I relaxed back on the bed, I start to hear my heart in my ear. It's like somebody put my heart in my ear. And I start to hear it beep boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. And when it did that popped out of my body that just popped out. Like, as if I would just jump off the couch here, I popped out of my body. And the first thing I said, Then I said, I'm out. And my body was in the bed, and I was standing beside it. And then I looked at my hand, I was looking at my hand. And the way to describe that was, I describe it, like, if you watch television too late, and those emergency broadcasting system comes on, and you have all that static. And if you look into static, you can see colors. If you look really hard, it's not just gray. And when I looked at my hand, there was like a gray with a light blue tint all around it. And I was just looking at it like that. And then across from my bed was a sink. And in the sink, there was a drop of water dropping. And for some odd reason. When I was out of my body, my curiosity was like at 1,000%. And to a soul, a drop of water was amazing. And I said, Wow, a drop of water. I said, I would like to see that water up close. And the minute I thought it, my vision went directly up close and back again to where I was. And then here's the other part. Then I said to myself, I would like to to stop this drop of water and to stop time till I can see it because it was called bop bop. And there was this if if you don't ride a bike, a bicycle, and 20 years and I give you a bike, you still gonna be able to ride it. It was like that. For me. It was like I was remembering. And I just wave my hand across the air. And the drop of water froze in midair, I stopped time. And for some odd reason, the soul or me I didn't wasn't so surprising, you know. And then I said I'd like to see that drop of water from every angle. And then I just opened my hand. And five of me appeared at the sink at the drop of water. One was on the right one was on the left one was was was underneath the water looking one was watching them. And I was watching all of them. And and I was looking at it. Wow. Wow, this is amazing. And when I would close my hand, they would all sock back to me. Okay, then I would open my hand then I'll be back. And it started to be funny. I started to do that. And then I said this time we're going to add a little shake. And I went through and they all appeared and they all shook like that a little bit and we just kept going back and forth and it's basically turning into Bugs Bunny man. It was like Bugs Bunny man that was Going back and forth. Oh my god, this is funny until I burst out laughing when I burst out laughing on the other side. It was like I was laughing in the Grand Canyon.
It just went, ha ha ha ha. It went into eternity. Yes. And then, after the laugh, I felt somebody was watching. And I heard a voice. And this voice said, kind of like a parent would say to a child at a playground, don't run around the corner too fast. You might fall, it said to me, if you don't go back now, you might have to stay. And I said, Oh, yeah, that's right. My heart can stay stopped like that too much longer. I said, Yeah, that's right. You're right. And I didn't question who was talking to me, I felt like it was probably God, because of the but it was gentle. It was not saying you must go back, it was like almost like a choice. If you don't go back now you might have to stay. And it was now up to me to make that choice if I wanted to go, to stay or to or to go back. But I mean, I was, you know, a young man 34-35 I wanted to go back. So I pointed myself in the direction of the body of the body. Now, the interesting thing was that I never wanted to look at my body man. Because I was No, I only saw my leg, but I didn't want to look at the whole body because I was afraid I was gonna have some facial, you know, look of death. And, and I didn't want to be scared. So I never looked, I only saw my leg. And I knew I was standing on the side of the bed and my body was there because I can see my leg. But I didn't want to look. So I pointed myself in the direction of the body. And then I just wheeled my soul to go into it. And it went into it. And my heart started to beat and it just did a double purple. And it started to beat and then that was it. But there was something else I have to mention that as I was out of my body. This was another thing that was happening all the time. It's like, I don't know if you have Alka Seltzer. You know Alka Seltzer. You put Alka Seltzer into water. And it's dissolving, right? When you when I was outside of my body information was expanding like that. And I got a lot of doubt, when I call we can call downloads or information about everything about the earth about why souls come many things that I didn't believe in before, and they blew my mind. But I got all that information. And this time, I was able to bring it back. This time, I was able to remember it. And yeah, and then my heart started beating, everything was okay. But I knew a lot of things that I didn't know before. Oh, for example. On the other side, there is no right or wrong, only perception. The reason why souls come here is to experience not to grow or not to go to school, they're already perfect. They come here to experience if I give you a book to read on how to drive a car, but you've never driven a car, you know, it's like that you have the knowledge but you don't have the experience stuff like oh, the Bible, the Bible, there's only some things that are are correct in the Bible. The rest is manipulation from the priests and the governments that wrote that was controlling the people at the time. The other thing Christ Christ is like, there's a Christ consciousness, just under unconditional love. It's a consciousness but it's not. It's we all are sons are gods. Oh, yes. The other thing, we are Gods with a big G, we are part of God. But we also are gods, we can have multiple lifetimes at the same time. We can. There's so many things that we can do. And we only use a fraction of our power to have a lifetime like we're having now. I learned so much about Yeah, here's another one about the hell yeah. Why people experience Hell, some of them when they die. Because what they believed in because they're such powerful gods, what they believe then they actually create it. Now, according to the Christian religion, if you die and you go to hell, you're never supposed to get out right? Why is hundreds are getting out? Why? Because they created that God is only love only and will never torture you. And there's another one no karma. There's no such thing as karma. Karma is not it's not just thing, but there is a such thing as law of attraction frequency, and also learn that even even from my mother, she needed an escort to come back to her because you have it takes time for different souls to get used to the other side. Everything isn't quite automatic. It goes slowly and slowly and slowly in a comfortable way that's comfortable for the individual. So that's why you may see comfortable things a guy who's into Buddha Krishna, they may see Buddha guy who's until Muslim may see Allah that that is to make you comfortable okay but the truth the true religion is love.
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