Divine Encounters Episode 134 | Near-Death Experience Story
Dr. Eben Alexander is a neurosurgeon who says that in 2008, at age 54, he spent a week in a coma and journeyed through realms he describes as more real than waking life. In this Divine Encounters episode he tells Alex Ferrari about the face that drew him back, a gateway valley of music and reunion, a core of infinite love, and what he came to believe about life reviews and the time between lives.
Key Takeaways
- Dr. Alexander says his experience took place in 2008, when he was 54, during a coma that he says lasted about a week.
- He says the final face he saw was his 10 year old son Bond, pleading for him to be okay, and that another soul needed him is what drew him back.
- He describes a journey from a murky, primitive starting point to a spinning white light with a musical melody.
- He says the Gateway Valley is a realm of reunion with loved ones, life reviews and planning next incarnations.
- He describes the core as an infinite blackness filled with divine love, where consciousness is sourced in a God force from which we are never separate.
- He says judgment in a life review comes from our own higher soul and soul group, not from a higher being.
- He says regular daily meditation is critical for living this life and learning who we are.
| Guest | Dr. Eben Alexander |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 134 |
| Age at the time | 54, in 2008 |
| What Eben says happened | A week in a coma, with no memory of his own life during the journey |
| Where he says he went | An Earthworm’s eye view realm, the Gateway Valley, and the core |
| Who he met | Souls between lives, angelic choirs, and a guardian angel |
| What he was told | You are not here to stay; you will be going back |
| The message | We are never separate from a loving God force; meditate daily |
Faces at the Bedside
Dr. Alexander begins with the date: 2008, when he was 54 years old. He says there has been a tremendous amount of growth and understanding in the years since, and that he has used meditation to get a deeper hold on it.
He explains that the essence of what he calls his exit point came from faces of people who were physically present during the last 24 to 48 hours of his coma. Because of that, he says, the vast majority of the spiritual experience had to happen between days one and four or five, and he and his colleagues have explained all the timing based on those faces, who they were and how they appeared to him.
The Face of His Son
It was the last of those faces, he says, that really got his attention. It was a 10 year old boy. Dr. Alexander is clear that he did not see him with his eyes or hear him with his ears. He says he was far too gone from this world, and that this is documented in the case report and his medical records. It was his son Bond.
He did not recognize him at the time because of his amnesia. All through the journey, because of that amnesia and a presumed anonymity, with no sense of responsibility to other souls, he thought the whole thing could continue or cease, and it did not matter.
But now, in witnessing Bond, everything changed. What he witnessed, he says, was Bond at the bedside of his ICU bed, with Dr. Alexander on the ventilator on day seven of the coma. The doctors had just held a conference with the family and said his chance of survival had gone from 10 percent to 2 percent, with no chance of recovery.
A Son Who Would Not Give Up
Bond knew he had not been told the real news, and that it was much worse. He came running down the hallway and pulled open his father’s eyelids, one eye looking one way and one the other, to see if the pupil was working. Dr. Alexander notes that anyone in medicine knows that is a horrible picture of brainstem damage, because the meningitis was trying to take him out.
Bond was pleading: “Dad, you’re going to be okay.” As if somehow that would make it so. Dr. Alexander says he did not understand the words, but he sensed the pleading. “There was another soul out there that needed me,” and that, he says, is what drew him back to this world.
He started fighting the ventilator, and they pulled out the breathing tube. That is when he said thank you.
The Dreams That Faded and the Memories That Did Not
He was still in for about a 36 hour paranoid delusional ICU psychosis that was just beginning. The interesting thing, he says, is that he knew those psychotic, nightmarish dreams were delusional as they happened. The rich spiritual memories, in contrast, seemed way too real to be real, and they are as sharp today as if they happened yesterday. The memories of the 36 hours of post coma ICU psychosis vanished within a few weeks.
He is glad he wrote everything down. It was very important to have the memories recorded. Within two months, he says, he was back to normal, and all his memories had returned even more complete than before.
As he studied his medical records, he says, he was shocked. How could he have such a robust, profound, ultra real experience when, as he puts it, the parts of the brain that neuroscience says are necessary were inactivated by the meningitis? He adds that in the backstory of the case report, the peer review editors challenged the authors on how to explain the recovery. This is his own account of it, and Next Level Soul does not offer it as a medical claim.
Why the Amnesia Mattered
Dr. Alexander says that in terms of believing the experience was real, the amnesia mattered. He says he had no memories of his own life and no knowledge of Earth, humans or this universe. It was an empty slate, and only in the months and years after his coma did he realize why that was so important in convincing him that the whole thing really happened. It just did not happen in the material realm, he says.
He then walks through the elements of the journey, very quickly.
The Earthworm’s Eye View and the Spinning Light
It started, he says, in an Earthworm’s eye view, a primitive, unresponsive starting point, like being in dirty jello, very murky. Luckily, it did not last forever.
“I was rescued by a slowly spinning white light associated with a perfect musical melody.” Music became a terribly important theme in his journey, he says, since it is basically how he could navigate these spiritual realms, through memories of cadence, rhythm and melody.
The Gateway Valley
In the first ascent through the spinning melody of light, he ended up in what he calls the Gateway Valley. He describes it as a realm of extreme richness and ultra reality. This is where, he says, we reunite with souls of departed loved ones, go through life reviews, plan next incarnations and dive back in. It had many Earth-like features, but in many ways it was like Plato’s world of ideals, for the individual soul.
That is why life reviews are so relevant there. We relive the events of our lives when possible, make amends and try to do it better. He says “a lot of the hardships and difficulties are there to serve as engines of growth,” and that it is best to work through them in this lifetime and build on that understanding in the next, rather than repeating. He gives an example of a hardcore narcissist who might make no progress in one life and have to repeat everything from a different perspective.
There, he had no body awareness. “I was a speck of awareness on a butterfly wing.” Below were thousands of beings dancing, whom he later called souls between lives. There were children playing, dogs jumping, and festivities driven by swooping orbs above, angelic choirs emanating chants and anthems that thundered through his awareness. And he was not alone on that butterfly wing.
You can read more about how people describe this time in our glossary entries on life between lives and the life review.
Time Is Not Part of the Underlying Reality
The next stage, he says, was witnessing a collapse of four dimensional space time, and a collapse of that rich spiritual realm. He points out that the spiritual realm is not locked into Earth time. “Earth time is not part of our underlying reality,” he says, but it is part of how the universe enables us to experience things in a way we can make sense of.
He adds that elements of reunion with departed loved ones and the beginnings of a life review have also been described in hospice and palliative care literature, not only in near-death literature. Our glossary entry on deathbed visions touches on this.
The Core
As the realm of eternal souls collapsed, he entered what he calls the core. “The core was an infinite inky blackness filled to overflowing with that divine love of that God force.” In the core realm, he says, he recognized that his conscious awareness, and ours, is directly sourced in that God force, “so we’re never separate from it.” We may fool ourselves into thinking so in this world, he says, but when we leave the body at bodily death, we come into direct contact with that infinite loving force at the core of the universe.
He says any judgment sensed in life reviews does not come from that higher force, “but that higher God force is simply this beautiful golden light of love, unconditional love.” Against that light, any misdoings, being greedy or selfish or handing out pain, look especially bad. That is where the sense of judgment comes from. It does not come from a higher being, he says. It comes from our higher soul and soul group, witnessing the way we behaved.
He mentions that studies of life reviews, he says, show about three quarters stress the review from the perspective of many of the participants. That is why, he thinks, the golden rule, “treat others as you would like to be treated,” seems written into the fabric of the universe. If you have hurt others, you feel the pain you dished out by becoming them.
In the core, he says, there was a complete resolution of all dualities: masculine and feminine, dark and light, good and evil, compressed into pure oneness and unconditional love. That, he says, is what we all go through between lives, followed by the process of forgetting. Our glossary entry on the soul group may help with that term.
You Are Not Here to Stay
The last things he saw, he says, were being surrounded by thousands of beings going off into the distance, back down in the Earthworm’s eye realm where it all began. He realized, as he was told every time he entered the core, “You’re not here to stay. You’ll be going back.”
He tried to conjure the musical notes of the melody that had let the light portal lead him up, and it no longer worked. To say he was sad would be an understatement. But he also knew he could trust he would be taken care of, and he had been reassured many times by both his guardian angel and the infinitely loving God force at the core. That trust, he says, is what led him back toward this world.
Placing His Account Beside Others
Dr. Alexander’s account includes many of the themes people often describe: a light, music, loved ones, a life review, a loving presence, and a sense of being sent back. In 2001, a study in The Lancet by Pim van Lommel and colleagues reported that 62 of 344 cardiac arrest survivors, about 18 percent, said they had a near-death experience, which shows how many people describe something in this territory. What it all means is still debated. At Next Level Soul we share these accounts as experiences in the person’s own words.
For more background, start with our complete guide to near-death experiences.
Why He Meditates
When our lease is up, Dr. Alexander says, and we leave the physical body and brain once and for all, we are liberated to a much higher level. That is something we can anticipate, predict and even mimic through meditative experience.
That is why, to him, “regular daily meditation, to me, is absolutely critical” in living this life, learning more about who we are, where this is headed, and helping the world the most. If you would like to begin, our glossary entry on meditation is a gentle start.
Questions to Sit With
- Dr. Alexander says it was a son’s pleading that drew him back. Who in your life gives you a reason to keep going?
- He says a lot of hardships are there to serve as engines of growth. Which of your difficulties might be doing that work?
- He says we are never separate from a loving source. What would change in your week if you believed that?
This week, sit in quiet for ten minutes each morning. When thoughts come, return to a simple rhythm, like your breath or a favorite melody.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Dr. Alexander says we are never separate from a loving God force.
- He says the judgment we feel in a life review comes from our own higher soul and soul group.
- He describes hardships as engines of growth.
- He says Earth time is not part of our underlying reality.
- He says regular daily meditation is critical.
Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Eben Alexander.
Guest Links: Connect With Dr. Eben Alexander
Listen to the Episode
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Dr. Eben Alexander?
Dr. Eben Alexander is a neurosurgeon and the guest on this Divine Encounters episode. He says he had a near-death experience in 2008, at age 54, during a coma.
What drew Dr. Alexander back from his experience?
Dr. Alexander says he sensed his 10 year old son Bond pleading with him to be okay, and that there was another soul out there who needed him.
What is the Gateway Valley?
Dr. Alexander describes it as a realm of extreme richness and ultra reality where souls reunite with departed loved ones, go through life reviews and plan next incarnations.
What does Dr. Alexander mean by the core?
Dr. Alexander describes the core as an infinite inky blackness filled with divine love, where he recognized that our consciousness is sourced in a God force.
Why does Dr. Alexander say amnesia mattered?
Dr. Alexander says he had no memories of his own life or any knowledge of Earth, which later convinced him the experience was real, though not in the material realm.
What does Dr. Alexander say about life reviews?
Dr. Alexander says we relive events when possible, make amends and try to do better. He says the judgment we sense comes from our higher soul and soul group, not a higher being.
What does Dr. Alexander say about hardship?
Dr. Alexander says many hardships serve as engines of growth, and it is best to work through them in this lifetime.
Does Dr. Alexander say time is real?
Dr. Alexander says Earth time is not part of our underlying reality, but is part of how the universe lets us experience things in a way we can make sense of.
What was Dr. Alexander told at the end?
Dr. Alexander says he was told every time he entered the core that he was not there to stay and would be going back.
Why does Dr. Alexander recommend meditation?
Dr. Alexander says regular daily meditation is critical for living this life and learning who we are, and that it lets us anticipate and mimic the higher level we are liberated to later.
Is this a medical claim?
No. Next Level Soul shares these stories as lived experiences in the guest’s own words. Nothing here is medical advice, and researchers continue to debate what such experiences mean.
Keep Exploring
- The complete guide to near-death experiences
- Life between lives explained
- What a life review is
- Dr. Eben Alexander on a neurosurgeon’s near-death experience and reincarnation
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- Wendy Rose Williams on meeting her soul group and past lives
- Rob Gentile on being shown the quantum secrets of the divine
- Natalie Sudman on what she saw after a blast
- Dr. Anoop Kumar on being shown heaven
- 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.
Dr. Eben Alexander 0:08
It happened back in 2008 when I was 54 years old. So tremendous amount of growth and understanding those 18 years, and I've used meditation to get to a deeper hold on it. But the essence of my exit point was those were faces of people physically present the last 24 to 48 hours of coma, meaning that the vast majority of the spiritual experience had to happen between days one and four or one in five, and we explain all the timings of that based on those faces and who they were and how they appeared to me. At any rate, it was the last of those faces that really got my attention, and that final face was a 10-year-old boy. And I didn't see him with my eyes and hear him with my ears. I promise, I was far too gone from this world, and that is all well documented in those in that case report and my medical records. It was my son Bond. Now I didn't recognize him at the time because of my amnesia. All through this journey, because of my amnesia and that kind of presumed anonymity and no sense of responsibility to other souls, I thought that this whole thing can continue or it can cease. It doesn't matter. But now, all of a sudden, in witnessing him, and and what I witnessed was him being at the bedside of my ICU bed. I'm on the ventilator. It's day seven of coma. The doctors have just held a conference for the family where they said I've gone from 10% to 2% chance of survival, no chance of recovery, and that's where Bond knew he'd not been told the the real news here, and this was much worse than he had been told. So he came running down the hallway, pulled open my eyelids, one eye looking over there, one eye over there, need the pupil working. Anybody in medicine knows that's a horrible picture of brainstem damage because this meningitis was really trying to take me out, and he was pleading with me, "Dad, you're going to be okay. Dad, you're going to be okay. As if somehow that would make it so. And that's what I sensed was his pleading nature. I didn't understand the words, but there was another soul out there that needed me, and that's what drew me back to this world. And I started fighting the ventilator. They pulled out the breathing tube. That's when I said thank you. But I was still in for about a 36-hour paranoid delusional ICU psychosis that was just beginning. So the interesting thing is those kind of psychotic nightmare dreams. I knew they were delusional as they were happening, and all of the rich spiritual stuff that seemed way too real to be real; those memories are as sharp today as if the whole thing happened yesterday. Whereas the memories of that 36-hour post coma ICU psychosis-they vanished within a few weeks. So I'm glad I wrote everything down. It was very important to have those memories recorded. Within two months, I was back to normal, and all memories had returned even more complete than they had been before. As I studied my medical records and realized it was so shocking, because how did I have this robust, profound, ultra-real experience when all those parts of my brain that neuroscience says are necessary to make that happen were inactivated by the meningitis? And not only that, but in the backstory to that case report, you find that the peer review scientific editors challenged the the authors of that case report and said, "How do you explain this unprecedented, apparently miraculous recovery? They said, "It's because he had a near death experience. And in terms of my buying into it and believing in the reality of it, and that was amnesia. I had no memories of Evan Alexander's life, no knowledge of Earth, humans, this universe. It was an empty slate, and only in the months and years after my coma did I realize why that was so important to actually convince me that the whole thing really happened. It just didn't happen in the material realm. So, in that setting and that backdrop, very quickly. We'll go through the elements. It started in Earthworm's eye view, primitive course, unresponsive starting point, like being in dirty jello, kind of very murky. Luckily, that didn't last forever.
Dr. Eben Alexander 3:52
I was rescued by a slowly spinning white light associated with a perfect musical melody. Music ended up being a terribly important theme in my journey because it's basically how I could navigate these spiritual realms, these memories of musical cadence and rhythm and and melody and things like that. Now, in that first ascent through this spinning melody of light, of musical light, I ended up in the Gateway Valley. It's a realm of extreme richness and ultra reality. This is where we'd reunite with souls of departed loved ones, go through life reviews, plan next incarnations, dive back in. It had many Earth-like features, but in many ways, it was like Plato's world of ideals, but for the individual soul. So that's how come life reviews are so relevant there, because we would relive the events of our lives when possible, make amends, try and do it better in in our life review, so that we don't have to repeat all the issues facing us in this life and the next life. You find that a lot of the hardships and difficulties are there to serve as engines of growth, and it's best to work our way through them in this lifetime. And then have a whole new set of progressive, you know, improvement on our understanding of our relationship with the universe in the next lifetime, and not have to come back and repeat. I mean, there's some people, for example, a hardcore narcissist sociopath who might make no progress at all in this life and have to repeat everything in the next life, and they'd have to do it from kind of a different perspective, since the cards that were dealt in this lifetime didn't seem to work to help them move in that direction. Anyway, so in this Gateway Valley, I had no body awareness. I was a speck of awareness on a butterfly wing. There were 1000s of beings down below dancing. I in the writings weeks later, I call them souls between lives, and I remember in all that festivity and joyous celebration. There were children playing, dogs jumping, incredible festivities, all being driven because up above were these swooping orbs, angelic choirs emanating chants and anthems, hymns that would thunder through my awareness. And the best part about it all was I wasn't alone on that butterfly wing. People who've heard my story before, or have read Proof of Heaven, or heard any of these 1000s of podcasts out there that I've given on this topic will realize that you know I was in for this incredible journey, and that led to the next stage. And the next stage was actually witnessing of a collapse of four-dimensional space time, and also a collapse of that rich spiritual realm. And note very importantly that spiritual realm is not locked into into Earth time. Like and and there, I would I would point out that Earth time is not part of our underlying reality, but Earth time is part of how the universe enables us to kind of experience things in a way that we can make sense of now between lives in a NDE and a life review, and this has also been shown to happen in the hospice palliative care literature. So it's not just the NDE literature, but in palliative care terminal care, you find a lot of examples of people reuniting with souls of departed loved ones and beginning elements of a life review, even as they're there in that hospice setting. So, very important thing to to recognize. At any rate, I saw all of that collapsing down, and the angelic choirs that had been emanating these chants and anthems and hymns that were just thundering through my awareness and reminding me of the beautiful kind of spiritual home nature of this journey. Well, all of that led to another collapse, and witnessing all that spiritual realm of eternal souls collapsing down, I entered what I call the core. The core was an infinite inky blackness filled to overflowing with that divine love of that God force. In fact, in the core realm is where I recognize that my very conscious awareness, as I believe it is for us all, is directly sourced in that God force, so we're never separate from it.
Dr. Eben Alexander 7:44
We may fool ourselves into thinking that in this world, but as especially as we leave the body at the time of bodily death, that's where we come into direct contact with that infinite loving force at the core of the universe, and we realize that any judgment that is sensed in these life reviews doesn't come from that higher force, but that higher God force is simply this beautiful golden light of love, unconditional love, and against that light, any kind of our misdoings on our behalf, being greedy or selfish, handing out pain or suffering to other people, it looks especially bad in that light, and that's where that sense of quote judgment comes from. It's not coming from a higher being. It's really more from our higher soul and soul group in witnessing the way we behaved in this lifetime, and especially when you when you learn that scientific studies of life reviews reveal that about three quarters of life reviews stress that the review is from the perspective of many of the participants. That's why we often say the golden rule: treat others as you would like to be treated. Is written into the very fabric of the universe because of the structure of those life reviews and how, if you've hurt others, you feel that pain that you dished out by becoming them in the life review. At any rate, in this core realm where I had a complete resolution of all dualities. You know, in our world, we have masculine, feminine, dark light, good, evil, etc. All these different specter of possibilities that are compressed into pure oneness and unconditional love in that spiritual realm, and that's what all of us go through between lives. And then, of course, there's the the process of program forgetting. So the last things I saw in my journey, one was being surrounded by 1000s of beings going off in the distance, and this occurred back down in that earthworm, my view realm, that where it all started in the first place. And this was when I finally came to realize, as I was told every time I entered the core, "You're not here to stay. You'll be going back. We'll teach you many things. And but now I tried to conjure up the musical notes of the melody that had allowed that light portal to lead me up into the Gateway Valley and the core, and it no longer worked. To say I was sad would be an understatement, but because I also knew I could trust that I would be taken care of, I've been reassured many a time in this near-death experience by both my guardian angel. And by that infinitely loving God force at the core of the universe, that I would be taken care of. So I knew I could trust in that, and that's what ended up leading me back towards this world. When our lease is up and kind of leave the physical body and brain once and for all, we're liberated to that much higher level, and that's something we can all start to anticipate and predict and and and mimic and duplicate through meditative experience. This is why regular daily meditation, to me, is absolutely critical in kind of living this life and learning more about who we are, where this is all headed, and helping the world the most.
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