Divine Encounters Episode 015 | Near-Death Experience Story
Ellyn Dye was adopted as an infant and never knew her biological parents. In this Divine Encounters episode she tells Alex Ferrari what she says happened when a driver crossed into her lane at an intersection: she watched from above her car, was drawn through a tunnel into peace, met family she had known and family she had never met, and stood before tall beings who, she says, loved her for all of it.
Key Takeaways
- Ellyn says she felt no impact at all, and found herself looking down at the top of her car from about 12 or 15 feet up.
- She describes a tunnel and a feeling of peace, love and joy that grew stronger the closer she came to the other end.
- She says she met her late mother, her grandparents, and her biological father and grandparents, whom she had never seen in this life.
- She recalls learning that a plan A and a plan B had been made around her adoption, and that her family knew each other from the other side.
- She describes about twelve very tall beings who knew everything about her and “loved me for all of it.”
- She says she was shown her past lives and a future humanity of peace, and agreed to return after being shown what she could accomplish.
- She says it took about forty years to bring what she learned from her head to her heart, with self love at the center.
| Guest | Ellyn Dye |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 015 |
| Before | Adopted as an infant; her adoptive mother died when Ellyn was 12 |
| What Ellyn says happened | A driver crossed into her lane at an intersection and she left her body |
| Where she says she went | Up above her car, through a tunnel, into a realm of light, then a landscape with a gazebo |
| Who she met | Her late mother and grandparents, her biological father and grandparents, and about twelve very tall beings |
| The message | Self love comes from inside, and laughter is a gift |
| After | About forty years of integrating what she learned |
Who Is Ellyn Dye?
Ellyn was adopted as an infant and did not know who her biological parents were. When she was 12, her adoptive mother died. Ellyn says her mother appeared in her bedroom the night she died, while she was still in the hospital, and told her everything was going to be okay. She said she loved Ellyn and would be watching over her.
Ellyn got up, walked into the living room and told her grandmother that her mommy had died. Her grandmother said no, that could not be. Then the phone rang. It was her father calling from the hospital to say her mother had passed. That was the moment, Ellyn says, when she realized there was a lot more going on than she had been told.
Her religious upbringing was a patchwork. She started in a Presbyterian church, went to a Lutheran elementary school and then to a Methodist church. Her father later married her stepmother, who was Catholic. So she did a little bit of all of it. At some point she also noticed that each tradition seemed to think it was the only one that was saved. Somebody, she figured, had to be wrong.
The Intersection
Ellyn was driving down a road when another car came up the other way. They entered an intersection with a light. Just as they did, the other driver came into her lane. She says she had enough time to recognize what was happening and to know he was going to hit her.
“And that was it,” she says. She felt no impact. The next thing she knew she was looking down at the top of her car from perhaps 12 or 15 feet up. Her reaction was surprisingly light: she thought, cool, she was out of her body, and “I always wanted to do this.”
She watched the other driver get out of his car and walk over. She looked inside her own car. She thought how nice it was that he wanted to see whether she was okay. Then, she says, he turned off her headlights. She understood this was because the state had contributory negligence, and he wanted to put the blame on her.
Then a quieter thought arrived. She could see and hear everything in every direction. If she was up here looking at the top of her car, and her body was in the car, who was she? She had thought she was her body, she says, but apparently she was not.
The Tunnel and the Ocean
Because she had read about near-death experiences, Ellyn expected a tunnel and a light somewhere nearby. She heard it first, a sort of whoosh from the side, and felt it before she saw it. She describes “sublime, gorgeous, peaceful, loving energy” seeping out of it. It pulled her in. The tunnel was not very long.
As she neared the other end, she says, the peace and love and joy and bliss grew stronger and stronger. She arrived in what she calls an atmosphere or realm. It did not seem like a place, because it was all light. But the feeling was unmistakable: this is where I am supposed to be. The world she had left felt foreign. Here she belonged. All the burdens and worries and stresses fell off.
She reaches for a picture to explain it. When the ocean comes up on the beach, it sometimes leaves little pockets of water behind. She felt like one of those bits of water, stranded on the sand in a hostile place. Now the wave had come back, picked her up and carried her home to the ocean. She says she could have stayed forever.
A Reunion With Family, Known and Unknown
Then she heard a commotion. She looked over and saw a whole throng of people. Her mother, who had died, was the first she recognized. Then all of her grandparents and a couple of aunts and uncles. They had a wonderful reunion.
Her family told her, “we’re so proud of you.” Ellyn answered that she had not done anything. They told her they were proud of her just for getting up every day and doing her best, because “life on Earth is hard.” She laughs as she retells it. You got that right, she thought.
The most surprising part came next. She saw other people she knew immediately, though she had never met them in this life. They were her biological father and her biological grandparents. They knew her and had come to greet her. In that moment she saw that the family she grew up with knew these people too. There had been a plan, she says, and she had a plan A and a plan B. She thinks it depended on whether her biological mother decided she could keep her. All of them had been involved in planning it. Her reaction, she says with a smile: “did anybody consult me?” Nope.
If you are curious how people describe pre-planned family and life patterns, our glossary entry on soul contract offers a gentle starting point.
The Landscape Appears
The reunion felt as if it lasted forever. Then Ellyn began to feel uncomfortable. It was not a place, and she is used to colors, three dimensions, scenery. She thought: “I wish it looked more like a place.”
The scene changed right then, as if a big hand with brushes had come over and painted the landscape. Suddenly there was grass, hills, trees, and animals. Dogs and cats ran about, and all of her cats who had died came to see her. They were having a ball.
Even so, she felt she was meant to see someone else, though she did not know who. She noticed a pathway in the background and decided to follow it. Along the way she saw colors that we do not even have words for, because we have never seen them. The grass spoke to her as she walked past. She went through some woods and over a little brook and came out in a clearing with a gazebo. People were standing in it.
Beings Who Knew Everything and Loved Her Anyway
There were about twelve of them, very tall, twelve to fifteen feet. Ellyn is five foot four, and she makes sure we remember it. At first, she says, they just beheld her. It is the only word she has ever found for it. She knew they knew everything about her: every thought she ever had, every action, every word, every inaction. And they loved her. In her words, “they loved me for all of it.”
You might expect that to be intimidating. It was not, she says, because they were so loving. They embodied the very feeling of joy and bliss and love. They communed with her for what seemed like a long, long time.
At one point she asked what the meaning of it all was. She told them Earth is rough, people are mean, and she did not think there was any love on that planet. She was not going back.
They showed her, as on big television screens, all of her past lives. She could see the progression of what she had learned and what she carried from one life to the next. It felt to her as if it takes forever to learn anything there, and always through pain. They also showed her what is coming for humanity: a magnificent world of peace and prosperity, with equality, less competition and more collaboration. She thought it looked great. But she said again, “I’m not going back and you can’t make me.”
They answered kindly. That was okay, they said. She did not have to go back. She had already accomplished the main thing she wanted to accomplish. But then they said, let us show you “what you can accomplish if you go back.” For a wider look at how people describe the idea of many lifetimes, see our hub on reincarnation.
Waking in the Emergency Room
The next thing Ellyn knew, she was awake in the emergency room, and she started to swear. Even so, she says, she knew they had not made her come back. They had shown her something that changed her mind. The trouble was that she could not remember what it was.
They also told her something she treasures: her laugh is one of her best gifts to the world. And, they said, “laughing is one of the most spiritual things you can do,” as long as it is not at someone else’s expense.
In the emergency room she kept asking a nurse why she was there. The nurse told her, again and again, that she was in the hospital because of a car accident. No, Ellyn said, why am I here? Never mind, she finally decided. It is a funny moment, and she tells it that way.
Forty Years of Integration
Ellyn says that was the start of roughly forty years of integration. She calls herself a slow learner. She had all the metaphysical information in her head, but had never moved it from head to heart or built it into her life. People toss the word integration around, she says, without realizing how hard it is.
Some of it was humbling. She learned that “being sarcastic at people was a hostile act.” That meant changing her personality.
One of the big conversations in her experience had been about why she had put herself through the experiences of her childhood, which she calls horrible. They told her she wanted to master self love. She had tried in many lifetimes and had not managed it, and because of what she wanted to do later in this life, she would master it or die trying. It almost killed me, she told them. Yes, they said, almost.
She asked about the rejection and abandonment. They explained that self love has to come from inside. It does not come from other people or from outside validation. So, she says, you give yourself rejection and abandonment over and over until you get it.
Learning Who You Are
First, she says, she had to learn who she was. She had “twisted myself into a pretzel” before and did not know. She thinks many people do not know who they are because they have spent their lives trying to please others. She brings up the line often credited to Oscar Wilde: be yourself, because everyone else is taken.
It took her years to work out how to figure out who she was. Then came the next question. Now that she thought she knew, how could she carry that into the world and be authentic?
She has come to believe, through her work since, that this is one of the most important things to be learned on the planet. In her words, “if everybody had self love, the world would be a totally different place.” For more on what people mean when they talk about being a spiritual being in a human life, see the complete guide to near-death experiences.
How Ellyn’s Story Fits Common Near-Death Themes
Many accounts of near-death experiences share a handful of features: seeing the body from above, a tunnel, a light, relatives who have died, a review of life, and a decision about whether to come back. Ellyn’s story includes nearly all of them. What is distinctive is the sense of a family-wide plan, the landscape that appeared when she wished for one, and the humor that runs through her telling.
As with every episode of Divine Encounters, these are personal accounts. We share them in the person’s own words and make no medical claims.
Questions to Sit With
- Ellyn says her family told her they were proud of her just for getting up every day and doing her best. Who in your life could use hearing that, and could you say it to yourself?
- She says self love has to come from inside. Where do you still look for approval from outside?
- Where could a bit more laughter, the kind that does not cost anyone else, fit into this week?
Write down one thing you did today that took effort, even something small like getting up. Then say, out loud or on paper, “I’m proud of you.”
Spiritual Takeaways
- Ellyn says life on Earth is hard, and that simply doing your best each day is worthy of pride.
- She describes being loved completely, with nothing hidden, by beings who knew all of her.
- She says laughter is one of the most spiritual things you can do, when it is not at someone else’s expense.
- She says self love cannot come from outside validation. It has to be built from within.
- She says integration takes time, moving what we know from head to heart.
Please enjoy my conversation with Ellyn Dye.
Guest Links: Connect With Ellyn Dye
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Ellyn Dye?
Ellyn Dye is a near-death experiencer who was adopted as an infant. She says she left her body after a driver crossed into her lane at an intersection and experienced what she describes in this Divine Encounters episode.
What happened to Ellyn Dye during her near-death experience?
Ellyn says she felt no impact, then found herself looking down at her car from about 12 or 15 feet up. She describes a tunnel, a realm of light, a reunion with family, and a meeting with very tall beings.
Who did Ellyn meet on the other side?
She says she met her late mother, her grandparents, some aunts and uncles, and her biological father and biological grandparents. She had never seen the last group in this life but knew them immediately.
What is the plan A and plan B Ellyn describes?
Ellyn says she realized her adoptive family knew her biological family, and that everyone had planned her arrival. She thinks the two plans depended on whether her biological mother decided she could keep her.
Who were the tall beings in the gazebo?
Ellyn describes about twelve beings, twelve to fifteen feet tall, who knew everything about her and loved her for all of it. She does not give them names, and says the word she has for what they did is that they beheld her.
Why did Ellyn say she did not want to return?
She says she told them that Earth is hard and that people are mean. She was shown her past lives and a hopeful future for humanity, then shown what she could accomplish if she went back, and she agreed.
What did the beings say about laughter?
Ellyn says they told her that her laugh is one of her best gifts to the world, and that laughing is one of the most spiritual things you can do, as long as it is not at someone else’s expense.
What does Ellyn mean by integration?
She means bringing spiritual knowledge from the head to the heart and into daily life. She says it took her about forty years and meant changing habits such as sarcasm.
What does Ellyn say about self love?
She says she was told she had chosen to master self love in this life, and that it has to come from inside, not from other people or outside validation. She believes the world would be very different if everyone had it.
Is a near-death experience proof of an afterlife?
Next Level Soul shares near-death experiences as personal accounts 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 soul contract is, in plain language
- What reincarnation means in spiritual teaching
- Jane Thompson on why we come to Earth to be human
- Nancy Rynes on love without dogma or religion
- Toni Reilly on past lives and soul contracts
- Ginette Biro on seeing parallel lives while clinically dead
- Amber Kasic on her dying father and love that never dies
- 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.
Ellyn Dye 0:03
I was adopted as an infant, didn't know who my biological parents were. My adoptive mother died when I was 12. And she showed up in my bedroom the night she died, she was in the hospital and told me everything was going to be okay. And she loved me. And she'd be watching over me. And so I walked into the living room, I got up and walked into the living room and told my grandmother that you know, mommy died? And she's like, No, no, that can't be. And then we got the phone call from my father at the hospital saying she had passed. That was when I realized that there was a lot more going on. And they were teaching me in Sunday school, I went to Presbyterian Church at the beginning, then Lutheran elementary school, then then we went to the Methodist Church. And then my father married my stepmother who was Catholic. So I did a little bit of all of it. And I also kind of realized at some point, you know, they all sort of think that they're the only ones who are saved. So somebody's got to be wrong. Well, I was going down down the road, and there was another car coming up the road, and we entered this intersection with a light. And just as we entered the intersection, he came over into my lane, I had enough time to recognize that that was happening. And he was going to hit me. And that was it. I didn't feel any impact at all. But the next thing I knew, I was looking down at the top of my car from maybe 12 or 15 feet up, I'm looking around, going cool. I'm out of my body, I always wanted to do this. And I saw the other driver get out of his car and walk over and I looked inside my car. And I thought isn't that nice? He wants to see that I'm okay. And he turned off my headlights. And because it was a state with contributory negligence, and he wanted to blame me for the accident. So I'm outside my body. And it occurs to look around in every direction. And it occurs to and I can hear everything and see everything and occurs to me that way. If if I'm here looking at the top of my car, and my body's in the car, who am I I thought I was that but apparently I'm not. So I thought because I had read things I thought there was gonna be a tunnel a light around here somewhere. And I heard it like wish up from from the side, I felt it before I could see it. And there was this just sublime, gorgeous, peaceful, loving energy, like seeping out of it. And it pulled me pulled me in through the through the tunnel, it wasn't a really long tunnel. And as we got to the other end of the tunnel, this, this feeling of peace and love, and joy and bliss got stronger and stronger. And I got to the end, and I was in this atmosphere or realm or something didn't seem like a place because it was just all kind of light. But I was just really vibing on what it felt like. It's like, oh, this is this is where I'm supposed to be that place was foreign. And I didn't belong there. And this is where I this is where I belong. And you know, all the burdens and worries and stresses just fell off. I had felt like, you know, if when the ocean comes up on the on the beach sometimes leaves little pockets of water when it rains, you know, and, and I felt like I was one of those little bits of water that had been stranded on the sand in a hostile environment. And somehow the wave had come back and picked me up and brought me back, you know, into the ocean. So I was just loving that. It's like I could stay here forever. And then I heard this kind of commotion and and I looked over and there's this whole throng of people there was my mother who had died. She was the first one I saw. And all of my grandparents and a couple of aunts and uncles, we just had a wonderful reunion and they said, you know, we're so proud of you. And I said, but I haven't done anything. But we're we're proud of you just for getting up every day and doing your best because life on Earth is hard. And I'm like you got that right. Really interesting part of it was that I saw these other people and I knew them immediately. And they were well it was my biological father and biological grandparents. Now in my 3d life I had never seen them or knew who they were but I knew immediately who they were and they knew me and they were there to greet me and big were union. And I realized that my family that I grew up with who were there knew these people too, and that there had been this plan and and that I had a plan A and a plan B. And I think it was based on whether my biological mother decided she could keep me or not. And they had all been involved in planning this thing. And I'm like, did anybody consult me? No. So we have this great reunion, and it felt like it lasted forever. And then I started to feel uncomfortable, because it wasn't a place and we're used to colors and then 3d and dimension. And I thought, I wish it looked more like a place and and that was when the scene just changed as if this big hand with with brushes or something came over and painted the landscape. And suddenly there's, you know, grass, and hills and trees and animals, dogs and cats running around all of my dead cats came to see me and they were having a ball. And I thought, you know, I'm glad I'm seeing these people. But I think I'm supposed to see somebody else. And I don't know who it is. And I saw this pathway at the kind of background. And I thought, well, I'll go down there. So I follow this pathway. And along the way, I'm looking at these colors that we don't even have words for with because we've never seen them. And everything was a lot like the grass talk to me as I walked past it really fascinating. So I walked through this down this path and through some woods and over this little brook, and came out to a clearing that had like a gazebo in it. And I could see that there were people standing in there. So I went up there and and saw this group of about 12 people beings very tall 12 to 15 feet, and I'm five, four, remember. So at the beginning, they just be held me that's the only word I can ever come up with that they they beheld me and I knew that they knew everything about me, they knew every thought I'd ever had, they've seen every action, they'd heard every word every inaction, and they loved me, for all of it, every ounce of me, they loved me for all of it. And you'd think they'd be intimidating, but they weren't because they were so loving. And they kind of embodied that that feeling of joy and bliss and love. So we commune with each other for what seemed really seemed like a long, long time. And they I said at one point, you know, what was the meaning of all of that? I mean, that places nexty. And, you know, people are mean, and you know, I don't think there's any love on that planet. And I don't I'm not going back, you know. And they showed me, they showed me all like, like on these big TV screens. They showed me all all of my past lives. And I could see the progression of things that I'd learned and things that I carried over from one life to another. And I'm like feeling it takes forever to learn anything there. And it's always through pain. And they showed me that it's like, look what's coming for humanity. And I see this magnificent world where there's peace and prosperity for people. And there's a quality and people. It's there's no competition, there's more collaboration. And I'm like, Well, that looks great. But you know what, I'm not going back and you can't make me and they're like, yes, you're that's okay. You don't have to go back you you basically did. You accomplished what the main thing that you wanted to accomplish, and you don't have to go. I'm like, and then they said, but let us show you what you can accomplish if you go back. So I woke up in the emergency room and I started to swear I woke up in the emergency room and Sona. And the thing was, I knew that they did not make me come back. They showed me something that made me change my mind. But I couldn't remember what it was. And they told me actually that my laugh is is one of my best gifts to the world. And, and that laughing is one of the most spiritual things you can do. As long as it's not at somebody else's expense. I thought okay, so you know, I'm in the, in the emergency room and swearing and the nurse comes over and I said Why am I here? You know, I was saying Why am I here? And she's like, you're in the hospital because you were in a car accident. And I'm like, no, why am I here? You were in in the hospital. Because of a car accident.
I'm like, nevermind, you know, so that that started the like 40 year integration period of everything I had learned, I think I must be a really slow learner because it took me a long, long time, because I had all of this information in my head, all the metaphysical stuff, but I had never integrated it, I'd never brought it from the head to the heart, I had never integrated it into my life. And, you know, we toss around the word integration. But Do people understand what, how difficult that is? I learned that, you know, being sarcastic at people was a hostile act. And I had, I had to change my personality. But one of the things that we had talked about during my NDE was, you know, why did I put myself through all of those experiences as a child, it was horrible. And they said, well, because he wanted to master self love, and you had tried in many lifetimes, and you haven't been able to and because of what you wanted to do later in this life, you knew that you had you were going to master it or die trying. And I said, it almost killed me. And they said, Yeah, almost. And I said, But you know, rich, abandoned men after abandonment, rejection after rejection. And they said, Well, if you want to learn, learn self love, that's what you have to go through. Because the Self Love has to come from inside yourself, not from other people, not from outside validation, you know, so yeah, you give yourself rejection, you give yourself abandonment, over and over and over again until you get it you know, and so that that ended up being kind of the focus for me of learning, self love. And first of all, I had to learn who I was because I had twisted myself into a pretzel before and didn't know who I was. And I think a lot of people don't know who they are, because they've spent their lives trying to please others and be some as Oscar Wilde said, these be yourself because everyone else is taken, you know. And so, you know, the whole concept of it. It took me years to figure out who I was, or even how to go about figuring out who I was. And then it's like, Okay, now that I think I know who I am, you know, how do I take that out into the world and be authentic, and I have come really to believe from from working with the lion beings that that that's one of the most important things on the planet that needs to be learned. Because once you have self love, if everybody had self love, the world would be a totally different place.
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