Divine Encounters Episode 098 | Near-Death Experience Story
William J. Peters says he was an ordinary suburban kid from the San Francisco area when a hard fall on a ski slope fractured his spine and, he says, sent him drifting above the mountain, through a review of his first 17 years and toward an enormous light. In this Divine Encounters episode he tells Alex Ferrari what he says he experienced, a second experience in an ICU at age 30, and how both led him to sit beside the dying.
Key Takeaways
- William says a skiing fall at Squaw Valley fractured his spine, and that everything went dark while he stayed an “observing self” without worry.
- He describes moving away from his body, seeing the ski area, Lake Tahoe and the Colorado Rockies, then drifting through a galaxy.
- He says a life review of his first 17 years played in the background, with the focus on how his actions affected other people.
- He describes a tunnel and a pulsating light, a sudden knowing that he had been here before, and a plea to stay in this life.
- He says the light gave a clear, solemn message: make something of your life. Then he felt a gentle push back toward Earth.
- He describes a second out-of-body experience in an ICU in 1992, and later a shared death experience at a hospice bedside.
- He says a bus ride, a roadside rescue attempt and a quiet sense of thanks showed him what it means to serve.
| Guest | William J. Peters |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 098 |
| Age at the time | 17 (first experience); 30 (second experience, in 1992) |
| What William says happened | A bad ski fall fractured his spine; years later a blood condition put him in the ICU |
| Where he says he went | Above the ski area, out over the Rockies and into a galaxy, then through a tunnel toward a light |
| What he went through | A detailed life review focused on how his actions affected others |
| Who or what he met | A vast, pulsating light he related to God |
| The message | Make something of your life |
Who Is William J. Peters?
William describes his early life as “a pretty standard life for a suburban kid” in the San Francisco area. He grew up Catholic. He skied often at Squaw Valley, a well-known ski resort outside Lake Tahoe, and that mountain is where his story begins.
Alex opens the conversation with a simple question: what was your life like before you died? William’s answer is plain and unhurried. Nothing in his teenage years, he suggests, pointed toward what was coming. The suburban normal is part of what makes his account land. He was not looking for anything.
The Fall on the Slope
William says he took a very bad fall while skiing and fractured his spine on impact. What he remembers next is that everything went dark right away.
But he did not lose himself. He describes an observing self that was not an ego, just observing consciousness. The dark was there, and he was simply watching it. He puts it this way: “I wasn’t the least bit worried.” For a young man who had just broken his back, that calm is one of the first surprises in his account.
Moving Away From His Body
Then, William says, he began moving away from his body. He could see it down on the ski slope. The darkness started to lighten, as if the light had come back on. He could see the ski area, then Lake Tahoe, then the Colorado Rockies, then the continental United States as he rose quickly away.
There was no pain, he says. He was enamored by the whole thing. Eventually he was gazing into a galaxy, at peace and enthralled. If you want a plain-language overview of how people describe leaving the body and what often follows, our complete guide to near-death experiences is a good place to start.
A Life Review Playing in the Background
While he was taking in the galaxy, William says he noticed that a review of his life was running in the background. It covered his first 17 years, and it was being played back to him in detail. Several things were happening at once, he says, but his attention moved to the review.
The focus, as he describes it, was on how his actions influenced other people. He calls it “a real lesson in karma,” and says it was not a pleasant one. What stood out were the times he had been unkind, selfish or mean. The lesson he took from it was that everything matters.
This part of his story lines up with what the glossary calls a life review, an experience many people describe in which their life is shown back to them from the inside. William does not describe it as a punishment. He describes it as information about how his choices landed on other people.
The Tunnel, the Light and a Plea
At some point William says he found himself in a tunnel of sorts, with a light in the distance. At first the light did not mean much to him. As he drew nearer, though he was still far away, he realized he was dying.
Then came what he calls another download of realizations. He says he had been here before, not once or twice, but maybe hundreds or thousands of times. It felt very familiar. And right alongside that familiarity, he says, a strong emotion rose: “I don’t want to die.”
He says he felt he had not completed what he came into this incarnation to do. He found himself pleading with God. He grew up Catholic, and the light, he says, was clearly where the power was. He describes it as lovely, persuasive and alluring, pulsating. He is careful not to overstate it. He says he saw only a piece of it, and that it was enormous.
A Message: Make Something of Your Life
In the light, William says he felt blissed out and comfortable in one way and agitated in another. He wanted to go back. He had already done 17 years, he says, and he did not want to start over with another childhood. He was working it through in his mind, with specific ideas about what he did and did not want.
It did not take long. He felt a gentle push on his being. At first he thought he was simply being pushed out of the light. Then he understood what the light was saying, and he describes it as a solemn, direct, clear message: “make something of your life.”
It shook him up, he says. He turned away from the light and began to move back. He could see no Earth at first, only a beautiful galaxy, but he felt a kind of gravitational pull, a force guiding him. Eventually he saw the planet, then the ski area, and then he landed in his body.
Cold Snow and a Silent Scream
The first thing he felt on landing was the cold of the snow. He was covered in it, and he had no feeling in his body. William says he screamed one last time, an internal scream, and he recalls its words: “don’t let me be paralyzed.”
Then, he says, feeling began to come back, starting in his feet, toes and fingers and moving inward, like standing under a warm shower. He opened his eyes. His friend John came over and said, in William’s recollection, “that was a Wipeout.”
What happened next is almost as striking as the experience itself. William says he forgot about it for a decade. He did not even know he had had it until a second experience reopened the memory.
The Second Experience: Above the ICU
In 1992, at age 30, William went into the emergency room with what he describes as a blood imbalance. The staff did a blood test right away and put a fall alert on him. The next thing he knew, he says, he woke up on top of a ceiling somewhere. He understood it was an ICU.
Once again he was an observing consciousness with no connection to any identity. He roamed around the ceiling of the ICU at Kaiser Oakland, and he overheard nurses talking about a man in bed three, thirty years old, super healthy, with no known history. At some point he moved himself to look at the body and realized it was his own. But it did not hold his attention long. He was more curious about wandering the halls of the tenth floor.
When the hematologist came in and tapped his hand, saying his name, William says he did not feel it. He was above, looking down at the top of the doctor’s head. He wondered whether to answer, and what might happen if he did. So he decided to try. He said yes. Energy moved across his body as it had on the ski slope, he opened his eyes, and his view changed from looking down on the doctor’s crown to looking up at him. Then they had a conversation.
Hospice and a Shared Death Experience
These two events, William says, awakened him to the idea that consciousness can exist independent of the physical body. When he later went to work in hospice, he began having out-of-body experiences while someone was dying. He calls this his gateway into what is now called a shared death experience.
He tells the story of a man he calls Ron, who was unresponsive and semi-comatose. William used to read him Jack London adventure stories. One afternoon, as he read, William found himself suspended above his own body, still reading, and he could see himself doing it. Ron lay in bed with no change. Then William looked to his right and saw Ron’s big face, eyes open, smiling, blissed out. It was as if Ron were saying, “Hey, check this out, William.” William feels Ron invited him there. He says he cannot explain how, and notes that this is one of the shared death phenomena, which he calls a co-experienced out-of-body experience.
A Bus, a Roadside and a Promise
Between his junior and senior years of college, William traveled to Europe with two friends. They wanted to go beyond the Iron Curtain, and the quickest route ran through Yugoslavia, which was a blank on the map. They took an overnight bus toward Dubrovnik. Waking groggy in that in-between state, he pulled back the curtain and saw a plaza in what he knew was Bosnia, filled with women in burqas, most with babies on their backs.
He started weeping. He was hiding intense back pain from his old injury and refusing to slow down, but in that moment he made a commitment to himself: these people had something to teach him, and he would work with underprivileged people living close to the edge.
Later he worked with a center for working children in a town filled with refugees from a civil war. Driving back from the beach one evening, his group came upon a body on the road, a campesino in his Sunday best. His Peruvian friends in the car said not to stop. William said no, they were stopping. He turned the man over, found no alcohol on his breath, found a very slight pulse, and began mouth-to-mouth.
With the first breath, he says, his vision narrowed and his sensory field grew large. He felt presences, undifferentiated, not specific beings or angels, and a sense of clear guidance: yes, do this. The man was taken to a hospital and died a couple of days later. When William heard, he walked into the courtyard on a clear, warm day. The presences returned, and he felt the words, “Thank you for caring.” He says it felt as good as anything he has felt in his life.
How William’s Story Sits Beside Other Accounts
Leaving the body, a tunnel, a light, a review of one’s life and a sense of being sent back are all themes that people who report near-death experiences describe often. William’s first experience touches nearly every one. What is distinctive in his telling is the way the story keeps going. He does not treat the ski slope as the end of the story. He treats it as the first of several moments that pointed him toward service.
Researchers have tried to put language around these accounts. Bruce Greyson published the 16-item NDE Scale in 1983, one way of describing the features people report. What these accounts mean is still debated. Here we share them as experiences, in the person’s own words, and we do not make medical claims. For a short definition, see our glossary entry on near-death experience.
A Grounding Thought: Everything Matters
If one thread runs through William’s episode, it is that small moments of unkindness and small moments of care both register. He did not come back from the ski slope with a grand theory. He came back with a nudge to make something of his life, and then a decade of forgetting, and then a slow, practical turn toward people who needed help.
You do not need a dramatic event to take that seriously. A pause before a sharp word. A phone call to someone who has been on your mind. Staying with a person when everyone else says to keep driving. Those are the places, in William’s telling, where the guidance showed up.
Questions to Sit With
- William says the review showed him how his actions affected other people. Where in your own life do you wish you had been kinder, and what would repair look like?
- He forgot his first experience for ten years, then it returned. What have you set aside that might be asking to be remembered?
- When have you felt a quiet sense of yes, do this while helping someone, and what did you do with it?
This week, choose one person you have been avoiding or meaning to thank, and reach out with a short, honest message. No agenda. Just care.
Spiritual Takeaways
- William says a life review focused on how his actions affected others, and that everything matters.
- He says the light’s message was to make something of his life, delivered without fear.
- He describes consciousness continuing outside the body, on the ski slope, in the ICU and in the hospice room.
- He says service to people living close to the edge became his commitment after a bus ride in Bosnia.
- He says that sitting with the dying can open a shared experience, and that guidance can feel like a quiet thank you.
Please enjoy my conversation with William J. Peters.
Guest Links: Connect With William J. Peters
Listen to the Episode
- Watch this episode ad-free on Next Level Soul TV
- Download the MP3
- More episodes: Divine Encounters
- Listen to Divine Encounters on Apple Podcasts
- Listen to Divine Encounters on Spotify
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is William J. Peters?
William J. Peters is a near-death experiencer who grew up in the San Francisco area and later worked in hospice. In this Divine Encounters episode he shares a ski-slope experience, a second experience in an ICU, and a shared death experience.
What happened to William during his first near-death experience?
William says he took a bad fall while skiing at Squaw Valley and fractured his spine. He says everything went dark, then he moved away from his body and saw the ski area, Lake Tahoe and the Rockies.
What did William learn from his life review?
William says the review covered his first 17 years and focused on how his actions influenced other people. He says the times he was unkind, selfish or mean stood out, and that he learned everything matters.
What did the light say to William?
William says the light gave a solemn, direct, clear message: make something of your life. He says he felt a gentle push back toward Earth right after.
Did William want to come back?
No, he says. He pleaded with God because he felt he had not finished what he came to do, and he did not want to start another childhood. He says he was both blissed out and agitated.
What was William’s second near-death experience?
William says that in 1992, at age 30, he went to the ER with a blood imbalance, and woke up above the ceiling of an ICU. He listened to nurses, then answered the hematologist and returned to his body.
What is a shared death experience?
It is an experience in which someone who is with a dying person feels they take part in it. William describes finding himself above his own body at the bedside of a hospice patient he calls Ron, and seeing Ron smiling.
Why did William go into hospice work?
He says a commitment he made after seeing women and babies from a bus window in Bosnia, plus years working with underprivileged people, led him toward people at the edge. He later worked in hospice.
What happened on the road with the campesino?
William says his group found a man on the road, and he gave mouth-to-mouth. He says he felt guiding presences, and after the man died two days later, felt a message of thanks for caring.
Why did William forget his first experience?
He says he forgot about it for a decade and did not know he had had it until the second experience. He does not offer a reason for the gap.
Does Next Level Soul say a near-death experience is real?
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 a life review is
- What a shared death experience is
- A woman faces every soul she hurt after dying for eight minutes
- A hospice nurse on what happens moments before we die
- A dying father and a shared death experience
- A drowning, a life review and an afterlife story
- A man who describes an orientation center and a message of no death
- 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.
William J. Peters 0:08
I was living a pretty standard life for a suburban kid in San Francisco area, basically, and skiing on the Squaw Valley mountain, really well known ski resort outside Lake Tahoe. And it took a very bad fall and fractured my spine and on impact. And then what I remember is that everything went dark right away, but I still had an observing self. You know, it wasn't an ego. I don't think it was just observing consciousness. Things were dark, but I was just watching this. I wasn't the least bit worried. And then I started moving away from my body, I could see my body on the ski slopes. Things started to lighten up. At that point. I had the, you know, the light came back on, if you will. I could see the ski area, Lake Tahoe. Then, you know, Colorado, Rockies, continental US. And I was moving quickly away, enamored by the whole experience, you know, no pain, like I said. And then as I was taken up in the in the beauty of it all, I was watching a life review that was of my life up to the first 17 years of my life, that was being played back to me, really in the background. I mean, I was kind of, you know, there's multiple things happening, but I was enjoying looking at the Galaxy just at peace, really enthralled. And then I noticed this whole life review was going on, and I was my attention focused on that, and I was like, wow, there's this is my whole life in detail and focusing on how my actions in particular influenced other people. So it was a real lesson in karma, not a pleasant lesson either. Because the things that really stuck out was the times when I was unkind or selfish or mean or what have you, and I learned that everything matters. And so in that, as I was going through that, at some point, once again, all this thing stuff happened in simultaneously, I then found myself in this tunnel of sorts, and in the distance, I could see a light. And the first the light didn't mean a whole lot to me. But then as I got closer to the lot it got, you know, not that much closer, I was still pretty far. I realized, oh boy, I'm dying. And then I then I had a whole nother download of realizations, which is, I've been here before, and I was and not just once or twice, like, I think, hundreds, maybe 1000s of times. So it's very familiar to me. And I was, then I felt emotion arise within me that expressed, I don't want to die. I didn't complete what I came to this incarnation to do. I don't want to die. At that point, I was pleading with God, if you will, because I grew up Catholic. As I looked at the light, it was clear to me, that's where the power was, and it was, it was a lovely, persuasive, if you will, alluring, pulsating light, and I was just seeing a piece of it. By no way would I claim that I saw the whole I could just say, Oh my gosh. I'm just getting a sense for this light, and this thing's enormous. And so finally, I'm in the light, and I'm stopped in the light, and I'm more blissed out and comfortable in a certain way, but I'm still agitated in another way, like, I want to go back. You got I can't, I can't leave this life. I've already done 17 years. I don't want to go back and do another childhood. It's like, you know, I was kind of really working it in my mind, and it's in some really specific details about what I did and did not want. So I don't know how I was up there pleading, but it wasn't that long then I felt a gentle push on my being, if you will. And I started heading back. At first, I just thought I was being pushed out of the light. And then I realized, wait a minute, that light, God, if you will, said, make something of your life. And it was a very solemn, direct, clear message. And I got it, it kind of shook me up, like, make something of my life. And then I started moving back, kind of moving back towards at that point, I didn't know what I was moving towards, except I had a sense of, oh, I am going back. I turned my vision away from the light and started looking back to where I thought was Earth. I could see nothing. I mean, I was just gazing into a beautiful galaxy. There was no earth in sight. But I realized I was being pulled along in some way, guided. There was a more of an energetic feeling of gravitational pull. And I just went with it. Somebody realized, oh, there's some force guiding this. So eventually I could see planet Earth. And then, you know, ski area, then I landed in my body. And I remember I landed in my body, I felt the coldness of the snow that because I was covered in snow on my back, and if I had no feeling in my body. And then I screamed one last time. I don't know if it was, must have been an internal scream. I think I know now as I think about it was an internal scream, don't let me be paralyzed. God, don't let me be paralyzed. And then I felt feeling come back into my body from the extremities, first, like from my feet and toes and fingers, and they just got to move back into the center of my body. I can't remember was that way or the other way anyway, but it was like moving across my body, like you're under a warm shower, that type of sensation after that, I came, got back my body, and then I opened my eyes. I was covered in snow. My friend John came up to me, said, Wow, that was a Wipeout. And I forgot about the experience for a decade. I didn't even know I had it until I actually had. A second near death experience in 20 I must have been 13 years after, yeah, I was 1992 I was 30 years old, yeah, and that was just an ICU experience, blood imbalance, idiopathic thrombocytopenia, yeah, kind of a hemophiliac condition. And I went into the ER, and they immediately did a blood test, put a fall alert on me, and next thing I know, I wake up and I'm on top of a ceiling somewhere. I know it's an ICU. Once again, I am this observing consciousness, whatever, with no connection to any, to me or to anyone. I'm just roaming around the ceiling of the ICU Kaiser Oakland hospital, and no identity until the nurses are talking about the various patients, and they mentioned this guy in bed three, who's 30 years old, super healthy, no known history. You know, we don't know what he's doing here. What you know, the doctor's coming in a little bit later to check them out, the expert from the medical center. And I'm just watching this, I think at some point I just roll, move my move myself, because I can move myself, my conscious. I look over at that body, I go, Oh my gosh, that's me. But that didn't really catch my attention very long either. I guess kind of remember saying, okay, that's me. But then I went around roving and that because I was much more curious about being on the 10th floor of the in the ICU. I just remember moving down the halls and just kind of checking things out. And that was it. The doctor came in. That's one other thing. This was interesting. So when the doctor came in, the hematologist, he approached me, or he approached my physical body. He tapped on my hand and said, Mr. Peters, Mr. Peters. And I remember that getting my attention, but I didn't feel it. I was above my body, and I was looking down at the top of his head and at my body, and then I had this question, well, do I answer him? Do I not answer him? What if I do answer him? What will happen? And I thought to myself, well, I'll just answer him and see what happens. And so I just said, yeah. So I was very slow, yes. I started filling in my body energetically. It was a similar experience to being on that ski slope, you know, where all of a sudden, the energy moved across my body, and then I opened my eyes, and then my whole perception, my perception feel, changed in the sense that now I was looking up at the doctor from as opposed to looking on top of his him from on top and seeing his crown. And that was that. And then we had a conversation. So those are the two early experiences of that really awakened me to these experiences of being out of body, having a sense of self and consciousness that exists independent of the physical body, and a whole host of other phenomena you've heard already. So now, when I went to work in hospice, I started having these experiences, and that is, someone is dying, and I would pop out of my body and I would be with them. So it was what I call my gateway experience, into my own shared death experience. I'm at the bedside of this gentleman, Ron, we'll call him, and the book is referred to as Ron, and he's dying, but he's unresponsive, so he's been what we call, you know, unresponsive, semi comatose state. So but I was always reading to him stories. He loved these Jack London adventure stories, and so I would read to him these stories on a regular basis. And on this afternoon, I was reading to him, and once again, to be really clear, he was just almost like sleeping on the bed, and looked to be at peace. And I found myself suspended above my body, looking down at my body. I was still reading. I didn't stop reading, and I could see myself reading. And I looked over at Ron in his bed, and he was prone. No changes. But then I look to my right, and there's Ron, and Ron's got a big face. Now it's not Ron's full body. He's got his big face. His eyes are open, he's smiling, he's that he's blissed out, as if to say to me, Hey, check this out, William. Check this out. So I feel like he kind of invited me there in a certain way. I can't explain how that happens. This is kind of one of the shared death phenomena, where it's called the CO experienced out of body. After I had my first near death experience, I went on to college the following, you know, four years or such. And so between my junior and senior years in college, I went to Europe, as so many college students do in those days, it was so economical, especially the way we traveled was like, you know, we ever had a let's go Europe. And so I remember being in Greece with two of my buddies I was traveling with, and we wanted to go up beyond the Iron Curtain. Wanted to go to Budapest and East Berlin, but the quickest way on the map was to go through what was Yugoslavia, but that was beyond the Iron Curtain, and there was no information on Yugoslavia. It was like, it was just like a blank on the map. So no one was really going there, even though, as we know, Dubrovnik is one of the most beautiful tourist areas in the world, we just decided to take a bus ride up to Dubrovnik because we knew Dubrovnik was cool. But I woke up. On an overnight bus ride. And you know how that is, when you're waking up, you have that you're kind of, there's a it's a liminal state. You know, sometimes I have a lot of visions, and just a lot of good stuff happens psychically just as I'm waking up. And as I woke up, I pulled back the window, the drapes on the windows, I was really groggy, and I looked out and I saw we were on a plaza, and I know this is Bosnia. Now I did the I know where it was. Was in Bosnia somewhere. So a Muslim culture. As I looked out, all I could see was women, the dark eyes of women with their burqas on and their hands like this. These were young women, most of them had babies on their backs. And I was just blown away. I started weeping as I looked out that window. And in that moment, I realized something. Now, I should say I was suffering from chronic pain from the back injury, so I was looking kind of normal, but I was hiding the fact that I was in intense back pain, and wasn't willing to slow down my life. So the looking in the eyes of these women, I made a commitment to myself that people like this, these people had something to teach me, like I needed to learn. And I don't know where that came from, but I made a commitment to myself that I'm going to work with underprivileged people who are living close to the edge in poverty. And one evening, so I was working with Center for Working children, working with very, very people on the edges. It was, there was a civil war going on. There were refugees all in our town from coming down from the war torn areas of the highlands. And we would go as a group try to get out to the beach. We were about 50 minutes inland on a car ride during the summertime there every now and then, and on this Sunday afternoon, we're driving back from the beach, and we're on the pavement. You know, well, when those were driving on this two lane road, must seven, eight o'clock at night, and we see, see something on the road, and as we're approaching it, we finally realize that's a human body. And you know the we had a couple Peruvian people in the car, and they said, Don't stop. Don't stop. If the police come, they'll blame you for it. Take you to jail. And I said, No, we're stopping. And so I got out of the car and I walked over to the body. Could see that it was a peasant in Spanish at campesino, a man of the of the field, a man of the land. This was an agrarian worker, and he was in his Sunday best too, because they work six days a week and but he so it seemed like he'd been perhaps struck by a car, but I turned him over, his face down, I turned him over, and I realized that he did not have alcohol in his breath. So this wasn't a belligerent you know, this wasn't recklessness here. So I was kind of trying to figure out, Is he safe or not? And at that time, I took his pulse and realized he had a very slight pulse, but he wasn't breathing. So I started mouth to mouth with him right there, and then the car pulled up. We had a wagon here. And so as we were doing that, all of a sudden, I felt just with the first breath after that. All of a sudden, my world got really tunnel vision. We call this the change in the time, space continuum. All of a sudden, my vision got narrow, my sensory field got really big, and I started feeling presences. Like, all of a sudden I felt like there's something here. I wasn't registering it. And it was very sublime. And I got the sense that you're doing the right thing, like, all of a sudden I got this sense of guidance. Like, yes, do this. There was clarity, there was focus, there was guidance. I can't say that I felt specific beings or angels. No, I couldn't say that it. Could say that there was presences around undifferentiated that I was feeling. We took him to the hospital, and I felt like I was in this altered state during this entire experience, we finally dropped him off at the hospital, and they said they would take care of him, and I said, I come back the next day. They said you could give blood the next day. And I felt this incredible connection with this campesino, and it was just weird. And I the connection, I believe, came because of this deep spiritual experience that we had shared together in a certain way, he completely unconscious. They did tell me that he had severe brain damage, and they would not be coming. If he did come back, he would not be normal. And then he died a couple days later. And then I came, when I realized that he had died, I came in the morning Two days later, and they said he died, you know, earlier this morning. And then when I heard that, I went out into the courtyard and the hospital, there's a clear blue day, but it was just clear and warm as summertime. And then again, those presences came back, and I got this sense of this real guidance, of like, Thank you, you did well, or you you just did what you were supposed to do. It was doesn't like anything. It was just like, Thank you for caring, and that felt like as good as I felt in my life, really.
Our Sponsors
- Next Level Soul TV: exclusive spiritual films, series, audiobooks, courses and events. Get the app.
- Earthing.com: discover the science-based healing powers of earthing and grounding.
If you enjoyed today’s episode, watch and subscribe to Divine Encounters on YouTube.
