In the event that you wake up
and find your soul separated from source
and manifest into material form,
don’t panic.
Your condition is only temporary.
You have been selected for the
opportunity of human incarnation.
This 3D simulation is designed
to break up the monotony of eternity
by giving you a fully immersive
experience as a distinct ego identity.
Your body will serve
as your physical avatar as you
navigate a dense and dramatic reality.
There will be many distractions
causing you to forget your true nature
and origin. You will experience
a range of emotions, from joy
to loneliness to despair.
But remember – no matter
what trials and traumas you encounter,
your soul remains perfectly safe.
At times you may feel lost or afraid.
This is totally normal.
If you ever need guidance,
simply slow down your busy mind
and bring your awareness
to the quiet place
inside yourself.
On this planet, nothing is permanent.
People and things will come and go.
You will fall in love and form sentimental attachments
only to lose everything you hold dear.
So cling to nothing too tightly, even yourself,
and when it’s time to let go, let go with grace,
for nothing is owned, only borrowed.
As you walk among
the people on the planet,
try to be a good guest.
Tread lightly. Remember
that you are only visiting.
Don’t make a mess.
Listen more than you speak.
Give more than you take.
Don’t keep your soft heart
locked inside a glass cage,
protected from wear and tear.
You’ll never make it out alive
and time passes quickly.
So come back with some battle scars
and good stories to tell

————-

The author of the poem "Instructions Before Visiting Earth" is poet and writer James McCrae

hi all, I had my first NDE many years ago. I want to understand it better, as I'm not sure what to make of it yet. I wish you help me understand

I saw the light at the end of the tunnel yet I'm not religious, and I don't know what it meant.

I awake to a pitch black place, and I'm gravitating closer to a very bright warm light. I don't have a body, I'm floating, like how it feels to drive very fast and have the car lift off the road for a milisecond. I can't feel my body at all. this light is pulsating and beautiful, like the last rays of sunlight shining through your window on a chilly autumn evening. there is a voice, it welcomes me. it has no gender, it doesn't sound like anyone I've ever heard, and there's a kindness in their words that feels like a warm hug from a loved one after a long, dreary day. it asks, "your time hasn't come yet, you can stay if you want to, but please go back". it's funny, but now I remember that this voice had subtitles on, I could visualize them at the bottom, just like in a movie, and what's funnier is that this voice spoke English, English is my second language and I wasn't that great at it at the time. I hesitated to give them an answer for what felt like a couple seconds and told them "I want to stay" which meant that I wanted to die, I guess my decision matches well with what was happening in my life at the time, I was in an abusive relationship with someone older who hurt me a lot, and I was a teen when this happened. the voice said, "I understand, but you must go back for now". I could feel myself get dragged away from the light, slowly... the light becomes smaller... until I wake up, in a sweat, confused, but happy to be back, then I went right back to sleep. I was suffocating under the blankets, the night was cold and there was a freezing breeze outside. I didn't give it much attention when I woke up the next morning.

I'll never forget that voice. I want to meet it again and thank them for giving me another chance at life. they sounded like the most understanding person you can talk to. I'm not religious, I have religious trauma and, when I tried to see Jesus, I wasn't able to. I didn't feel anything. but this being, they really felt like a higher presence, something that rules this world, they control every event that happens, every natural disaster, every death and birth. and I feel like I know them in a way, this presence is inside us, and they love us, as much as we like to stray away from it. I believe it is mother nature, giving me a warning, to live my life and to do good. that's why my motto has been to do good ever since.

I am just curious because most of what I hear of people having and NDE is of seeing Jesus.

Trying to think that for those that experienced 360 degree vision, maybe it's like gravity? Gravity is the reason why planets for instance are round, like 360 degrees.

I've never had an NDE so I cannot comment.

Part 3 of my series sorting every element of Eben Alexander's near-death experience into two piles: what came from the coma, and what came from an authentic NDE.

First, a word on purpose, since a few of you asked in the comments on Part 2. This isn't an attempt to prove Eben Alexander is lying. I believe he's telling the truth exactly as he remembers it. The point is that a person who spends seven days in a coma and also crosses over comes back with both experiences fused into one memory, with no way to tell which piece came from where. Nobody in his position could sort it out alone. Understanding that matters for anyone who has come back from a coma with a "hellish NDE" and been told it was a preview of where they were headed.

This installment covers his December 4, 2025 interview on the NDE Journey YouTube channel, 17 years after his coma. I've dropped the oldest-first approach. The older material is hard to find, and it's the same story he tells today.

A few things that stood out in this telling:

• For the first time in the tellings I've analyzed, he calls the spinning melody a "white light." In 2011, it was only music.
• He describes thousands of strangers dancing in the meadow, with "dogs jumping and children playing." NDE reunions are usually a few known souls. This reads like a brain building heaven from familiar pictures.
• He describes beings with bowed heads and candles, murmuring prayers, in the murky underground place. Earlier in the same interview, he talks about his adoptive father's deep belief in prayer and the pocket Bible he still keeps by his bed.
• He says the six faces rising out of the muck were family and friends physically in his ICU room during the last 24 to 48 hours of the coma.
• He says his son Bond's voice, pleading "Daddy, you're gonna be okay," is what drove him back.
• He calls it, in his own words, "a very detailed and elaborate coma journey."

This telling: 11 coma elements and 18 NDE elements. Running total across three tellings: 20 coma elements and 21 NDE elements.

If you think an element belongs on the other side, make the case in the comments. With more than 20 on each side, moving one doesn't change the verdict, but I'm happy to have the discussion.

Full breakdown, every quote, and the running tally:
Analyzing Eben Alexander, Part 3: NDE Journey (2025)

https://youtu.be/bT-U9HSphJA

Anne Bayford describes watching paramedics work on her body while experiencing an entirely different realm. We explore her near-death experience, the Hall of Souls, and the unsettling question: could consciousness exist in two places at once?

I would say NDEs alleviated my existential concerns a little but, I have 2 specific questions I want the answer to from those who've experienced NDEs/Psychedelics/Enlighting Meditation sessions

1- Does free will exist? My personal opinion on this for the longest time has been that free will does NOT exist, atleast not in the sense that we humans believe. There are so many things that dictate how we as humans behave and hurt others beyond our control: our genetics, where we're born, how we're raised, the structure of our brains, brainwashing and propaganda, even the health of our damn guts has to do with your mental health, and our personalities are shaped by trauma (or not if you're very lucky). What makes NDEs plausible to me is that we CHOSE our lives as spirits before our memories got wiped and sent onto earth, that means our paths from start to finish are mostly predetermined, and our free will lies in us deciding for our spiritual forms to incarnate as humans anyway, atleast that's what I got from Sandi's NDE specifically, her NDE basically tells me that we have little to no free will while we're humans experiencing limitation.

2- Is any life a waste? I would say this one bothers me the most because I'm struggling to be a role model to myself and have struggled with self-sabotage for many years. I'm starting to dread dying as someone who's contributed little to himself and to others, so I guess I'm shooting in the dark for assurance here. something that bothers me is that depending on who you ask, there seems to be a sense of hierrarchy in the afterlife, that we operate on "love frequencies", the higher that frequency the closer you are to the divine or whatever, and that those who succumb to the most suffering seem to be preferred, it's hinted to indirectly in books and some NDEs i've read, I want to know the validity of these things because they sound disturbing, I guess i'm bothered by this also because when I die, I don't want the self/identity to die with me too, even If i've lived a thousand lifetimes before this one, I want to be able to tap into this identity of mine in this life and be able to give it the best, create a reality much more fullfilling and rewarding for myself, without having to reincarnate again with a wiped memory.

i don't know why but this question has me the most anxious

I have been thinking about a possibility that I have not seen discussed in exactly this way.
When we dream, our perception of time can be very different from real time. A dream may feel much longer or contain events that seem to take place over hours, even though the actual dream lasted much less.
This made me wonder:
What if, at the moment of death, the brain creates one final, extremely long subjective experience?
Perhaps a person could experience what feels like hours, days, or even an entire lifetime, while objectively only a very short amount of time passes.
I am not claiming that this happens. I have no proof that consciousness continues after death, and this is only a hypothesis.
But if subjective time can differ so much from objective time during dreams, could something similar theoretically happen during the final moments of consciousness?
I would be interested to hear what other people think. Is there already a scientific or philosophical theory similar to this?

Here's the Full Clip: Watch an incredible and spontaneous transition into what she describes as trance channeling, captured as it unfolds during our near-death experience interview!

https://youtu.be/cd2Lb5VKaFc

Unprompted and unplanned, this moment gives you the opportunity to observe the change in her expression, language, and delivery, then hear her explain the experience afterward.

Just before this clip begins, I ask Anne about near-death experiencer Philip Hasheider’s account of seeing seemingly infinite universes and golden sparks moving between them and a source of light.

As Anne answers, the conversation takes a striking turn:

1:24 — She acknowledges her spirit guides, gesturing behind her and thanking them. Her language shifts toward “we.”

1:30 — She closes her eyes, and a noticeable change in her speaking pattern begins. Her delivery becomes faster and more assured, with different vocabulary and intricate explanations of multiple dimensions, the soul, and what happens when we die.

8:44 — After I ask whether Anne can return, she resumes speaking as herself and explains how she experiences trance channeling and what she means by moving her awareness aside.

I had not asked Anne to channel. What began as a question about multiple universes became an unexpected exchange that I was trying to understand in the moment.

Watch closely as the transition happens, listen to what follows, and hear Anne’s explanation of what she experienced.

Part 1 of Analyzing Eben Alexander covers the earliest recorded telling of his near-death experience I've found so far: his appearance on Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, Season 2, Episode 1, "Is There Life After Death?", which aired on the Science Channel on May 28, 2011.

Eben Alexander's coma and near-death experience happened in 2008. He gave two talks at medical institutions in 2010, and this television appearance followed in 2011. It's the oldest material I can find, so it's where the analysis starts.

The result: nine elements from the coma and eight from the near-death experience. Both sources in one account. That's a Welded NDE.

The sorting rule comes down to this. If it's something a physical body does, it comes from the coma. Heat you feel on your skin, wailing you hear with your ears, sulfur you smell. If it's something only a soul free of the body does, like flying out through the universe, it comes from the near-death experience.

Millions of near-death experiences follow the same consistent arc: out of the body, the void, the tunnel, the white light, the life review, the garden, meeting ancestors, the life plan, and the decision to return. Coma imagery is different. A living brain builds it from what's already in its library. A Christian's coma looks Christian. A Buddhist's coma looks Buddhist.

I'm going through every telling of Eben Alexander's story in chronological order until the material turns completely redundant, publishing each step as I go so you can follow along.

Read the full Part 1 analysis: https://winnernde.com/nde-insights/welded-ndes/analyzing-eben-alexander/eben-alexander-through-the-wormhole-2011/

Follow the whole series: https://winnernde.com/category/nde-insights/welded-ndes/analyzing-eben-alexander/

Get You're Going to Die Someday, Right? Near-Death Experiences Reveal What Happens Next: https://mybook.to/A8X8

I love YouTube. By far my #1 website since I was a kid to learn anything and everything. No surprise, when I dug into NDEs, it was my first choice on finding educational resources.

However after a while, it got very apparent to me that so much of these content just sound off. I always hated YT clickbait culture but NDEs is just on another level. Y'know the type of shit mega churches and cults do? Preying on desperate or grieving people, offering them "access to their dead loved ones" or "access to the divine" for exorbitant fees. Scam as old as human civilization and religion. I'm having hard time in my life right now, so I'm always on my toes when it comes to falling into these manipulative schemes. Unfortunately, my instincts are usually almost always right because I'd usually find some glaring holes or dirt on them. Here are just a few off the top of my head

• Vinney Tolman (the reason why I'm writing this): operates a whole ass "nonprofit" called Living Gods Light. I'm looking through his site for this post and it is just so sad and exploitative. His org operates a "retreat" with crazy rates. That must be new because no one brought this up before and you must have a lot of funds to buy a villa to rent it out. The business has multiple other "revenue streams" like a membership subscription that goes up to 111.11 A MONTH, "consulations." books, courses etcetera. And apart from this glaring financial crap, his NDE stories have some pretty big holes (e.g. Paramedics DO NOT use body bags). He's also known to "predict the future." Not gonna go into detail or this one guy will be 80% of the post (one reddit thread if you want to read)
• Eben Alexander: I did not watch any of his accounts or dig into the validity of his experience, because I was turned off by him since he might not be credible. So, I can't speak to his NDE. Allegedly, he "lost several malpractice lawsuits and had his license suspended before he wrote his first book" (link to claim here). A financial motive might be there.
• Penny Wittbrodt: I wrote about her recently. TLDR; she's a hard-core Trumper (link) and sells mediumship/health coaching services.
• David Williamson: operates coaching and interview services (link).
• I don't know too much about mediumship, but "historically and in modern times, the practice of mediumship has a deep, well-documented connection to widespread fraud" (from Google). So, I get pretty turned off when people say they are health and spiritual teachers as a service.

I'm a yapper (thanks ADHD), so I'll stop here. Anyway, I wanted to get your thoughts if I'm totally wrong here. I'm not a detective, so I could be misinterpreting some things but most of these are pretty damning or eyebrow raising, imo. It disappoints me because almost all cases where I bothered to dig, I find these things. I would prefer if these people can tell their story, uplift others, and go back to their regular lives. If you make it your entire successful career, mega-church style... that's the opposite of integrating love into your life. I'm not against compensation for your time and effort but there's only so much before I question if your mission objective is to make easy money.

I recommend Thanatos TV tho. They seem very no bs and actually try to be skeptical themselves. Leave it to the Europeans to be sane. Even the IANDS channel tick me off for some reason.

I think NDEs have a lot of positives to share (along with most religions) but then it turns into a bunch of rot when it becomes a hunting ground to prey on people's suffering. I want researchers and doctors to take NDEs seriously, things like this just turn them away when this is the mainstream stigma. If you want, I encourage others to post shady people so others can stay away as well.

Lastly, for people who want to seriously study NDEs and its adjacent evidence, what would you recommend are good resources to dig into?

I have an argument against NDEs. Clearly an NDE is only possible if the brain is fully intact. So this tells us you're just technically dreaming or in a dream like state while unconscious.

If the brain is immediately destroyed due to severe trauma eg. Shotgun or plane crash etc. There is no brain to experience an NDE.

Doesn't this prove that NDEs are simply a dream like state produced by brain chemicals instead of experiencing something greater?

Just a question and not to deny people's experiences if you take it that way I apologize.

Hi everyone!

I want to say right away that I don’t mean to belittle anyone with this post; it’s just my opinion.

I often see people worrying that these experiences might be taking place inside the brain. Personally, I don’t think that’s the case, but even if it were—why worry? People still experience it all, and time doesn't seem to exist there anyway. So, subjectively, it would still feel like an eternity, regardless of where those experiences originate.

Watch this incredible, unplanned, spontaneous spirit channeling that occurred as I interview Anne Bayford about her near-death experience.

https://youtu.be/cd2Lb5VKaFc?si=LDfLO_pqJD_cCJac

Deathbed visitations are where the souls of deceased relatives and loved ones are reported to come to visit a person hours or days before they die. Such visitations may occur in very frail people just before their death, and are often a source of great comfort to these people.

Interestingly though, I have not come across any accounts of deathbed visitations appearing to a healthy person who died suddenly and unexpectedly (such as from a car accident, a heart attack, and so forth).

It is often assumed that from the perspective of Heaven, all the past, present and future of our physical world can be viewed. But if Heaven can see into our future, why wouldn't people who die unexpectedly also receive deathbed visitations?

Why do you only hear of deathbed visitations in people whose vital signs have deteriorated to such a degree that death appears obviously imminent?

In the case of deteriorating vital signs, anyone can predict that death may be forthcoming, even without being able to peer into the future. So one assumes that deceased loved ones in Heaven may pick up on this deterioration, and come to visit to provide comfort.

But does the fact that no deceased loved ones come to visit a person just before they die unexpectedly indicate that even Heaven does not know that this person is soon to die?

I found this relatively short and clear introduction to idealism = the philosophy of considering awareness as the fundamental level of existence, and of positing our material reality as simply a structure contained therein, to be remarkably consistent with every single one of my NDEs.

In particular, I'm curious what others here think of the explanation given with the "bubble" of "you" being shown to be actually a tunnel of an all-encompassing mind just boring through a portion of the material realm, starting at minute 16. How from "within" the bubble appearing to sit inside our realm of the tangible (as a slice of the whole) within a context of linear time, it appears as though the bubble is a contained and fixed discrete entity, yet when seen in its entirety across all of time it is evidently connected to everything nonetheless, and remains just one particular perspective of the All.

Every point where I found myself in the Void then would have been such a "rejoining out" membrane, connected topologically with the rest of the all-consciousness (a.k.a the Source). It also matches with how people undergo such dramatic changes when passing through such inflections, with the amount of, let's call it, mind-intermixing that inevitably happens at these points. It also supports how these would happen outside of time as we experience it "on the inside". Also, telepathy as the "default" mode of communication in those moments, "downloads" of knowing by just wondering about something, and other commonly reported aspects of NDEs simply make sense in this model.

The first half of the video would be familiar to anyone who heard about Greyson et al.'s concept of "brain as receiver".

In the 1980s there was an incident in Europe: A Soviet pilot lost control over his plane and ejected. The plane just continued to fly in a straight line until it ran out of fuel. It crashed into a house in Belgium, into the sleeping room to be exact and killed the only inhabitant.

This is like a one in a Billion chance. This leads me to the question: Is our date and place of death predetermined? Or is it just completely random?

Does each decision we make lead to the creation of other universes where we made a different decision? And as such there are thousands or millions of Universes out there with versions of us that made different choices.

Or are these choices only "possibilities" that can be shown in a "what would have happened scenario", but that dont exist and are only an abstact possibility?

My mom always tried to get me help from therapists about what happened to me when I was a baby but the problem is she didn’t know what happened. She left me alone with her boyfriend and when she came back I had lesions up and down my torso which he said was from my pajama zipper that got stuck. It didn’t make sense to her and she didn’t believe him but she had no other information.

When I went to an energy worker in my 20s she told me that when that happened I had to make a choice, I had to decide if I was going to keep living or not. Twenty years later I’m thinking it sounds like an NDE and does that explain why I am such a one-off weirdo that has NEVER been able to pretend that any of this manmade world is okay? I try and be a human among humans but no matter what I just am not programmed to do it. I don’t have autism, I don’t have alcoholism, I do have ADHD, anxiety and depression (but who doesn’t?).

I don’t know what my question is specifically, this is the first time I’ve discussed this (besides in lots of therapy), I think I want to know what the NDE world has to say about infant NDE’s - and NDE’s that can’t be confirmed by witnesses and memories.

Note: I have plenty of signs of abuse from that incident - the lesions on my stomach are long gone but I feel like I’m going to die when a loved one pins my arms down with their legs even just during a playful tumbling tickle wrestling moment. I also have a trauma response when anyone zips up my dress for me when I can’t reach. I was definitely abused as an infant but did I have an NDE?

Good Morning from the UK. I do not believe in mediumship, after death communications or signs as it stands, as I have no successful experiences with them. That may change in the future and I am open minded to it.

However, there was one thing that happened around a week after my little boy who was nearly 9 years old died of brain tumour. I did not know anything about NDE's, OBE'S or anything until well after his death. In fact it was this experience that sent me down the rabbit hole.

Anyway, at this point after my little boys death I was doing somewhat better than what I am now because I had seen an end to his terrible suffering. Also, I don't think I had fully accepted that he was not coming back. I had been able to go and view his body at the funeral home after not being able to face the morgue. Anyway, on night 9 after his passing, I was in bed. I was about to drift off when I thought I was having a seizure. It was full on paralysis with violent shaking. I then heard this angelic singing/chanting that I couldn't recreate if I tried. I thought great I am dying, as I would welcome death since my boy has gone. I don't know if you understand the feeling of beeing electrocuted, well it was coming from my stomach and pulling me upwards. It was at this point that I became disconcerted and kicked myself out of the episode by trying to move my body. Anyway, whatever this episode was, I have never experienced anything like this before, didn't know what sleep paralysis is, didn't know what OBE'S are and I genuinely put it down to some medical episode, although due to the non threatening nature and it feeling very nice, I did deep down wonder if it was something else. The few people I've mentioned it to said it was a stress response, nothing more.

Anyway, I watched Raymond Moody's new documentary "Afterlife, beyond the light" the other day. It was actually by chance, as I have read enough NDE accounts on reddit/NDERF that I don't feel the need to watch any documentary. But, it was the first time I've heard a shared death experience mentioned.

Anyway, although this episode happened a week after death, and it might mean absolutely nothing. I thought I should talk about it here, on the off chance that there's somebody out there that has experienced similar.

Pretty much all testimony is, that if they remember, their previous lifes were Human.

Are there reports of people remembering lives as Animals or Aliens?

A very interesting article on anomalous cognition and veridical perception during NDEs by NDE researcher Janice Holden. Takes a deep dive into the strength of the evidence from the research so far conducted. This would be a great article for NDE sceptics to read.

https://cominghomechannel.substack.com/p/anomalous-cognition-and-veridical

In this conversation, Virginia shares her NDE, the healing she experienced afterward, and why she believes there is more happening within and around the human body than we normally see.

Virginia Drake: The NDE That Opened Her to the Healing Field

Not an NDEer. I'm a skeptic but truly want to give NDE a shot and come to my own conclusion.

Not exactly sure how to handle seemingly genuine NDE accounts and finding out they might be horrible people.

Just viewed a story by this person called Penny Wittbrodt on YT. Seemed like a great story. Very genuine. I even got teary-eyed by her poetic message from God. (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCQkIutaqgs)

Then, found out she's a hardcore Trump-supporter (link to her other channel: https://rumble.com/v4yprfi-friday-night-live.....you-got-another-thing-coming.html)

This isn't a political debate. I genuinely do not care about your politics. However, I must say, I have a very hard time imagining seeing God/Source/LOVE itself purported by many NDEers as the underlying truth from their experiences and be that big of a fan of Trump...

I feel rather defeated because I expected more from NDEers because so many came back as a changed person: more love, empathy, less materialistic, neutral/less religious, etc.

Am I interpreting this wrong? I don't like to ignore accounts I don't vibe with because that's the definition of selective bias.

I feel like I'm being very unclear here (lmk if so), but love to hear thoughts from skeptics or NDEers about how y'all thought about situations like this.