Divine Encounters Episode 073 | Near-Death Experience Story
Jacob Cooper was three years old, climbing the last rung of a playground slide, when he says he lost his breath and crossed over. In this Divine Encounters episode he tells Alex Ferrari about the euphoria he says he felt, the spirit guides and countless angels he saw, the question he was asked about staying, and why he chose, as a small child, to say yes to life.
Key Takeaways
- Jacob says he lost his breath on a playground slide at age three and felt his brain “snap in half” before everything on the other side opened.
- He describes ascending at an infinite rate through a tunnel, from intense suffering to endless euphoria, toward a golden palace he understood as the source of all life.
- He says he saw a male and a female spirit guide, and an infinite array of childlike angels sending love and asking for nothing back.
- He describes watching people shake his body on the playground floor and wanting to tell them, “I am better than ever.”
- He says he was given a choice about staying or going, was shown a life review and past lives, and chose to return for the work he saw ahead.
- His parting thought: trust the path, find joy in this moment, and remember “the afterlife is not after.”
| Guest | Jacob Cooper |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 073 |
| Age at the time | Three |
| What Jacob says happened | He lost his breath on a playground slide and crossed over |
| Where he says he went | A tunnel, a golden palace and a shoreline of loved ones |
| Who he met | Two spirit guides, many angels and his soul family |
| The choice | Stay on the other side, or continue life as a three year old |
| The message | Trust the path; find joy in the moment |
Jacob Cooper on the Playground
When Alex asks what life was like before he died, Jacob answers with one moment. He was at a playground, climbing up the ladder of a slide. He climbed to the last rung, no pun intended, he says, and he suffocated.
He attributes it to suffocation as a result of whooping. He compares it to drowning and trying to grab onto a log, with nothing to grab. “I lost every bit of my own human breath,” he says.
He was three years old.
The Breath of Eternity
Losing his own human breath, Jacob says, forced him to surrender to something else. In his book he calls it the breath of eternity. Nothing was going on in his brain or his body.
When he surrendered, he says, he felt his brain literally snap in half, like a plug yanked from a wall. He felt a large crack in his head. That was when everything on the other side opened up. He could see his own spirit guides and an infinite array of angels floating in front of him.
He was rushed to the hospital. He was responsive in the ambulance and stayed for a couple of days, and thankfully, he recovered. What saved him, he says, was choosing to say yes to life. Many near-death experiencers are told it is not their time and to go back. Jacob says he was given an option. “I was given an option as to staying or going,” and once he chose to continue life as a three year old, everything left, and he woke in a hospital bed.
He says he sees the same thing in his work as a psychotherapist. “I believe trauma could be a great gift,” he says. Some people push it away. Some carry it imprinted for life.
Ascending Without a Cap
Before he went to the hospital, Jacob says, he crossed over. He credits his colleague Dr. Raymond Moody for describing much of this in his book Life After Life. Jacob felt himself ascending at an infinite rate, higher and higher, into a tunnel that felt familiar.
In our bodies, he explains, we are used to a limit on how high we can go and how good we can feel. On the other side, they talk about infinity. It is not only time. It is infinite love and infinite euphoria. What he remembers most is that there were no limits on how high he went or how good he felt.
He describes the contrast. He moved from an intense depth of despair to incredible euphoria, a bit like a Billy Joel song, he says. When we think of energy, we think of vibration, and that is what he felt: vibration ascension, with no end to it.
For a wider view of how people describe tunnels and light, our complete guide to near-death experiences brings together the common themes.
The Golden Palace and Oneness
At the back of the right side of his head, he says, he saw a golden palace. God represents itself in different ways, he says. This was so bright and beautiful that he almost could not look at it. He heard beautiful octaves and frequencies coming from it, and he understood it as a depiction of where all of life flows from.
He uses the word God, with its religious connotation, for that center point where life stems from in its purest form. Some people might call it the center of the universe. He felt connected to it and at home. He felt at peace, with no concern. He felt in oneness with the endless pinnacle of life itself.
Sometimes in life we feel there is a cap to how good we can feel, he says. This had no cap. It was a euphoric, endless energy.
His Spirit Guides
A couple of steps later, he says, he could see in front of him and to the sides. On his right and left were his spirit guides. In the UK some people call them guardian angels, he notes. In the US they are called spirit guides. In his understanding, they are angelic beings we are assigned to before we get to the body, contracted to us, here to guide us.
There was a male and a female guide. To be transparent, he says, he knew their exact names in that moment, but he cannot reliably recall them now, so he calls them the guides. They were the most immaculate beings he could imagine, with a shimmering radiance. Imagine the admiration you feel toward someone you adore, he says, then multiply it by a million.
He also felt embarrassed, he says, that he had forgotten they were with him the whole time. He had his blinders on. He sometimes felt them but was not connected as fully as he was in that moment.
If you would like more on how people describe guides, see our glossary entry on spirit guides.
Pushed Down the Slide
Jacob says he felt himself being pushed down the slide by his angels, who he says can manipulate physical things. He was on the floor, unresponsive to the people calling to him. He saw his body, but his form was off to its side. He still felt he had a form.
People were shaking his body and asking if he was okay. He wanted to shake them back and say, “I am better than ever.” Death is a fiction, he says. He could empathize with how those who have crossed over feel when they try to reach us. They are constantly communicating with us and seeing us, but we do not always hear or see them.
He was able to look at the people at the playground and see them with transparency. We tend to reserve spiritual titles for a select few, he says. He loves Wayne Dyer’s image: take an orange, squeeze it, and you get orange juice. Squeeze each one of us, and you get pure, infinite spirit. That is what he saw in each person. They were so much more than their human emotional side, or what he had thought of them.
He could see auric fields and their guides. A lot of the barriers to clear sight were gone, he says, and he was a pure soul seeing without filters.
An Infinite Array of Angels
The angels were different from the guides, Jacob says. They had no distinct characteristics that he saw. They were childlike and youthful, uniform in appearance, with far fewer human characteristics. They were sending energy and love, and he could hear a beautiful sound from them.
He tried to look at them, but they were not looking at him. They looked straight ahead, sending love, needing nothing in return. They were, he says, like minions of God. He really had to pinch himself.
He believes they are “just a thin layer separating this reality and the other side.” They are right around us, he says. It is like a radio dial. Turn it a slight fraction higher than this reality, and all of this is here. The other side felt millions of miles away when he ascended, and also right here on Earth. For more on this, see our glossary entry on angels.
The Shoreline and His Soul Family
Jacob asks the listener to imagine standing at the shore of a beach. He often uses the shore in his talks, he says, because it describes the cycle of life, death and eternity: we come from an infinite ocean, we come onto the shoreline, and we go back, like inhale and exhale. Now imagine your loved ones slowly coming to you from that ocean of love.
He saw beings coming to him in that way. He refers to them as soul family or spiritual family, though he finds that term unfortunate because people sometimes think they do not have one. We all do, he says. It is a kind of nuclear cast, like Shakespeare’s players on a theater of life, with each of us taking different roles.
He felt embarrassed again. It was not their judgment, he is clear. “There’s no judgment from loved ones on the other side.” It was his own. He compares it to joining the military, throwing a big party, making promises, and then two weeks later saying, I’m not feeling this, and going home. He felt that a lot of people were let down. But that thought was taken from him, and what he received was love, embrace and acceptance.
The Question, the Life Review and the Choice
Then the question was posed by his guides, the angels and his soul family: would he continue life on the other side, or continue as three year old Jacob? He says it was the most difficult question of his life.
He asked a question back. “Why am I here?” he asked, and what would his life look like if he stayed? That is the most common question he is asked in his seminars, he says.
He was given a life review, which he describes as a panoramic understanding of your life, not only from what you see but through the lens of others and the impact you have. People might say that cannot have been much for a three year old. His answer: “but rather the life within those years.” The years matter less than the life inside them.
He was also shown several past lives, spanning the globe, in different civilizations and cultures. The one that drew the most parallels was his last lifetime, which he feels is most closely related to why he had a near-death experience in this one. For more on this idea, see our glossary entry on the life review.
Choosing Yes
In that moment, Jacob says, he was one with people and with his message. He saw the eyes of the people he would speak to in the lectures and workshops he does in this life. As beautiful as the other side is, he thought, the chance to bring this information forward is something he could not turn down.
He decided to say yes. The other side will always be there, he understood, but this window might not.
Then he doubted. How would he know he would attain all this? How would he know it would all work out? He was, he says, turning down heaven. His spirit guide left him with a last thought: “the power of trusting the path, the power of trusting your blueprint and your thoughts.” It means putting more trust in infinite intelligence, he says, than in our fears and limited understanding.
Joy in the Road Itself
Jacob says we often wait to find joy at the end of the road, when the road has no end. The biggest spirituality we can have comes from the depth and richness of the experience we have in this life. People talk about ascension, he says, and sometimes bypass the actual life in front of them.
So he says the world is a beautiful place. Travel it. Experience it. Hold nothing back. “Our life is our afterlife in a degree,” he says, because what we experience here, we carry over. The lives we live are also our loved ones’ afterlife, because they are connected to what we do.
“So the afterlife is not after,” he says. It is here in this life, too. It is about trusting, and reframing the small sense of self into the deeper expansiveness we all share.
Questions to Sit With
- Jacob felt embarrassed in front of a loving family and was met only with acceptance. Where are you braced for judgment that may not be there?
- He says we wait for joy at the end of the road. What are you postponing?
- He says to trust the path and your blueprint. What would trusting more look like this week?
Do one thing today that you have been saving for later, such as a walk somewhere new or a call you keep postponing. Do it fully, with nothing held back.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Jacob says he was met with infinite love, and that nothing was held against him.
- He says angels and guides are a thin layer away, like a radio dial turned slightly.
- He says a life is measured by the life within the years, not by the years themselves.
- He says to trust the path and your own blueprint.
- His view is that the afterlife is not after, but here in this life too.
Please enjoy my conversation with Jacob Cooper.
Guest Links: Connect With Jacob Cooper
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Jacob Cooper?
Jacob Cooper is a psychotherapist, author and speaker who tells host Alex Ferrari about a near-death experience he says he had at age three on a playground.
What does Jacob say happened?
He says he lost his breath at the top of a slide, surrendered, and crossed over. He says he was rushed to the hospital, was responsive in the ambulance and recovered after a couple of days.
What did Jacob see first?
He says he saw his spirit guides and an infinite array of angels, then ascended through a tunnel into endless euphoria, toward a golden palace.
What are spirit guides, according to Jacob?
He describes them as angelic beings we are assigned to before we come to the body, contracted to guide us in this life. He says he saw a male and a female guide.
How are angels different from guides?
He says the angels looked childlike and uniform, with fewer human characteristics, and were sending love without needing anything back.
What did Jacob say about death?
He says death is a fiction, and that those who have crossed over are constantly communicating with us even if we do not always hear them.
What was Jacob’s life review like?
He describes a panoramic understanding of his life, including how others experienced his impact, and says it is the life within the years, not the number of years, that matters.
Why did he choose to come back?
He says he saw himself speaking to people in his lectures and workshops, and decided that the chance to bring this information forward was something he could not turn down.
What did his guide tell him at the end?
He says the last thought was the power of trusting the path and your own blueprint.
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 is a near-death experience? (glossary)
- Who are angels? (glossary)
- Who are spirit guides? (glossary)
- A girl meets three angels during childhood surgeries
- A woman crossed over at four years old and describes what happened next
- A man who died at four is shown the blueprint behind reality
- A woman is told by angels to go back
- A woman who drowned at age two describes what she saw
- 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.
Jacob Cooper 0:08
I went to a playground. I was just climbing up the ladder on slide, and at the last rung of the ladder. No pun intended, I climbed up the last ladder on this slide and I suffocated nothing. I was not able to hold on to anything, you know, if you could imagine, if you're drowning and trying to just grab onto a log or something and but there was nothing to grab onto, and I lost every bit of my own human breath. And that from losing my own human breath, I was really forced to surrender to something else that, you know. I refer to in my book as the breath of eternity. There was nothing going on in my brain and my body, and once I surrendered to my breath of eternity, I felt my brain literally snap in half, and as if you're plugged into a wall, and that plug is just yanked from that wall, and I felt this large crack in my brain. That's when everything on the other side opened up, seeing my own spirit guides, you know, being able to see infinite array of angels that were floating right in front of me. I was rushed to a hospital. I was responsive, you know, in the ambulance, and I had to stay in a hospital for a couple of days, and thankfully, I recovered. But it was really what saved me, was choosing to say yes to life. I know a lot of near death experiencers. They're told, hey, it's not your time go back. And for me, I was given an option as to staying or going, and once I chose to continue living my life as that three year old kid, that's when everything just kind of left. When I was awakened to a hospital bed before I went to the hospital, I crossed over. I was on the other side. This is in the playground, and it was really due to suffocation as a result of whooping. You know, like I said before, I believe trauma could be a great gift, certainly. As a psychotherapist, I see that every day in my practice, you know, that there some people could really push away their trauma, or could be so heavily imprinted that it's there with you for the rest of your life. When I crossed over, I experienced a beautiful and I know my colleague, Dr Raymond Moody, life after life highlights a lot of this, and I do give him credit, but I experienced myself ascending at an infinite rate, going higher and higher, you know, into a familiar tunnel. The way that I could describe this is, when we're in our bodies, we're used to almost like a limitation with how high we can go and how good we can feel. And when you're on the other side there, they talk about infinity. You know, infinite isn't just limited to time. It's, it's it's unlimited, and it's versatility. You know, it's also infinite love and infinite euphoria. So for me, what I most remember is that there was no limitations with how high I was going and how good I was feeling, and the energy that I was connected to on a deeper level, and that was what was happening to myself. And then it kind of full unfolded, you know, with the Series events after that. But what I most remember first happening was just myself ascending past this incredible just diametric opposition of intense suffering to incredible euphoria. It's kind of like the Billy Joel song about bipolar disorder. It's just kind of like this intense depth of despair to this contrasting degree of euphoria that I felt I fully crossed over. I remember into the back of the right side of my head seeing this beautiful Golden Palace, which God represents itself in different ways. But this golden palace. When I looked at it, it was so bright and so beautiful that I just almost couldn't look at it. And I was hearing beautiful octaves coming out of this and sounds and frequencies, and I knew that this was a depiction, at least for myself, to understand, of where of all of life itself flows from. And the way that I could describe this in our vernacular has a religious connotation, but that would be the term God, but to me, it's the center point of where all of life stems from in its pure and truest form, which, you know, many viewers could be called the center the universe, or God, whatever your vernacular is. And I was connected to that particular point, and I just felt at home. I felt at peace, you know, there wasn't any concern to have at that point, you know, I felt in oneness with the endless pinnacle of life itself. You know, there was no sometimes in life we feel there's just a cap to how good we could feel, or the cap of reality. This was a euphoric, endless energy that had no cap to it. There was no limit with how beautiful, how euphoric, and how high it was. And so when you think of energy, we think of vibration, and on the other side, that's exactly what I felt, just vibration ascension. And the vibration didn't have an end to it, didn't have a cap to it, didn't have a limitation to it. Couple steps later, I was able to see in front of me, you know, this started off like panoramic to the sides, and then eventually is able to see, you know, in front of me, but to the sides of me, you know, couple steps later, I was able to see my own spirit guides, which was the right and left side of me. Now, there's different terms for spirit guides. I've heard some people, like in UK, call them the guardian angels, you know, here in the US, we call them spirit guides, but spirit guides are angelic beings that we are assigned to before. Before we get to this body, they're contracted to us. We're both called to each other, and they're here with us contractually before we get here to really kind of guide us in this life. And so when I saw them, there was a male and female guide, and it's the one element about my nd to be transparent that I don't know exactly, because in the moment, I knew their exact names, and that came to me. And at times I feel like I know it, but that's the one thing I might do for whatever reason. I just kind of like Paul sell, like I just call them the guides at this point, but it was I knew it was a male and female guide, and when I saw them, it was the most immaculate beings that could ever imagine. They were just beautiful, and their radiance was shimmering. And then imagine they have that same degree of admiration feeling that you have towards them now multiply that by like a million, and that's what I felt like with my spirit guides when I did see them again, but also a feeling of just embarrassment that I forgot that they were with me this whole time. And I know guys are more prone to this, but I just blocked, you know, I had my blinders on. I kind of felt them at times, but I just, you know, wasn't connected to them as fully as I was in this moment. You know, they were right with me. Next beings that I had. Well, I felt myself just really pushed down the slide with my angels as my spirit guides, as crazy as that sounds, you know, energies that could manipulate physical stuff. You'd look at lights and, you know, they have the power. And I just felt myself pushed down the slide, and I was on the floor. I was irresponsive to all the people that were calling me. I saw my body, but my form was to the side of my body, so I wasn't in my body, but I still felt I had a form. And I saw everyone was people were shaking my body. They were like, are you okay? Are you alright? And I wanted to shake them back to say, I am better than ever. You know I am, you know, death is a fiction, and I could really empathize with how probably those who cross over feel on the other side, although they don't like have any bad feelings about this, but they're constantly communicating with us, and they're seeing us, but not always do we hear and see them. And so that's kind of how I felt. But I was able to look at all the people that I went to at the at the playground at that day, and I was able to really have transparency with who they are. You know, you see, in our culture, sometimes we in our world, rather, we reserve spiritual titers titles for, you know, select few. We'll say, if someone you know is ascended, they're all of a sudden spiritual. But I love what Wayne Dyer would say, where he would say, you take an orange, you squeeze an orange out, you get orange juice, and you take each one of us, you squeeze each one of us out. There's pure, Infinite Spirit. And that's what I saw from each individual that I saw, that they were so much more than the human emotional side represented, or what I thought of them. And I think that goes that holds true with all of us. We are so much more than what we think and how we perceive our fellow brethren. But I was able to really see their auric fields and their spirit guides, and I just had a lot of information that wouldn't be privy to some of the best, top mediums on the world, but really, a lot of those barriers to clear sight and clear vision were gone, and I was just a pure soul that was seeing these things with no possible filters. But in that moment, I just saw an infinite array of angels that were floating right in front of me. Now, contrary to the spirit guides, the angels really had no distinct characteristics that I saw. And these were very child and youthful angels that I saw, or you could call referred to as a cheer up, but they all looked pretty uniformal in their presentation. They had a lot less human characteristics, if you will. They were just there, sending energy, sending love. And I could hear their beautiful sound emanating from them. And I was just trying to look at them, but I saw they weren't really looking at me. They were just looking straight ahead and just sending love and not needing or wanting anything back in return, which is so far. And they were just kind of like minions of God, if you will just sending energy. And I really just had to pinch myself, because it's just like, Jesus is like, literally, like, looking at you right now, this is right in front of me, happening right in front of my eyes. The angels that I saw are just a thin layer separating this reality and the other side. They are right here around us. And it's just like you take a radio dial, and I'm sure you hear this at every interview, but true rings true. You take that radio dial, you just turn it just a slight fraction higher than this reality. All of these things are around us, even at this, you know, surrounding this Earth reality, they're here. So the other side, in some ways, felt like millions of miles away when I ascended this infinite vibration. But it also the other side is right here too. It's really, you know, right here on earth too. Just a thin veil separates the, what we call the other side and this side. What happened next was common to a lot of near death experiencers, and this happened to myself. I, you know, kid, imagine yourself being at like the shore of a beach, and I use the shore as like in a lot of my talks, because it describes the cycle of life and death and eternity, where we come from this infinite ocean, and we go on the shoreline, we come back to the ocean, and it's a continual cycle, inhale and exhalation. But imagine viewers, imagine yourselves just being at that shoreline and just seeing your loved ones, just slowly coming from that shoreline, from this infinite. Energy of this ocean of love that we come from, that we're connected to, just coming to you. And I was able to really see all these beings that come that were coming to me, and the best way I could describe it as these beings were what I would refer to, what is referred to as soul family, or spiritual family. Now I think that is an unfortunate term, because sometimes people take that like, we're not a part of a soul family. We all are, but there's a nuclear component to it, where Shakespeare describes, you know, we're just on this theater of life, and we take on different roles and different acts, but we're a part of many ways of a similar nuclear crew and cast. But we're all interconnected and our own roles in this life. But I was able to see my own, you know, soul family, and I became, again, embarrassed when I saw them. It wasn't their judgment of me. Again, I want to be clear that there's no judgment from loved ones on the other side. There's just awareness, there's love. But my judgment was, would be like, imagine you're going to the military, and then you have this tremendous party, you're making all these promises, and everyone's getting all hyped, and then two weeks later, like, I'm not feeling this, and then you go home, it's like you felt like, you know, a lot of people were let down. You had a lot of excitement that you generated, and that's how I felt. But then that thought was taken from me, was just love, embrace, acceptance, you know, from my soul family. And then, you know, that's when everyone kind of came together. And I was posed this question between my guides, you know, the angels around me, my soul family, which was what I would do? You know, what I continue? You know, life continues here or there, what I continue my life on the other side? Or what I continue my life? You know, as three year old Jacob. And I guess I was faced with the most difficult question of my life. So I posed a question back, and I just asked, you know, what if I were to stay, what would my life look like? Why am I here? Which is the most common question that I'm asked in all of my seminars. And it's a very pivotal question that we have our Whys are very important. And then I was given what's referred to as a life review, which, for those viewers who haven't heard of it, a life review is really a panoramic understanding of your life, not only from what you see, but also through the lens of others and the impact that you have. And you could say, well, that must have been like a two second video that you saw, you know, just three years old. And what I would say is, it's not a matter of the years, the years of your life, but rather the life within those years. And so chronologically, we could be here a very short time, but that could feel like an eternity, in many ways, for the for the greater good. But I was also able to really see, you know, a couple different past lives that I saw. You know, I saw myself to spanning the globe, having a lot of different past lives and seeing myself in different, you know, forms of the plan and different civilizations and cultures, but the most life that I really has drawn a lot of parallels with and why I had stuck most closely to me. And I don't know if your viewers would be interested in that, if I would bore them by sharing that, you know, but that, but my what my last lifetime is, the lifetime that I feel is most closely related to why I believe I had a near death experience in my life right now, I was just one with people, one with the message, and I saw the eyes of people that I was speaking in front of in the lectures and workshops that I would be doing in this life. And I just thought like as beautiful as the other side is this window to bring forward this information to others is something that I can't turn down. And then with that thought, you know, I just decided to say, Yes, I understood the other side. It'll always be there. But this window may not. You know, this is a beautiful window that I wanted to venture down in this life. And then I just had doubt, where I just said, How do I know I will be able to attain all this? How will I How will I know this will all work out? I was just began to doubt myself, turning down heaven, and that spirit and my guide just left me with a with a last thought, which was the power of trusting the path, the power of trusting your blueprint and your thoughts. So it's really to put a lot more trust in this infinite intelligence, more than our fears and our limited understanding. But really it's sometimes, you know, we're waiting to find joy at the end of the road, and we understand the road has no end. And so I think it's really finding joy within this moment to recognizing that the biggest spirituality that we could have is from the depth and the vast and the rich experience that we have in this life. You know, people like talk about ascension and doing all these things, and sometimes they bypass the actual life that's in front of them. And so the world's a beautiful place. Travel it, experience it. You know, you know. Hold nothing. Hold nothing back. Because what we experience here, we carry over, over there, and and our life is our afterlife in a degree. And the lives that we live are the loved ones afterlife, because they're connected to what we do. So the afterlife is not after. It's here in this life too, but it's really about trusting and reframing the small sense of self to really connecting to how incredibly expansive we all are on a deeper esoteric level.
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