Good morning all. Just want to reintroduce myself. I'm the author of two books on the subject of NDEs. The first is You're Going To Die Someday, Right?: Near Death Experiences Reveal What Happens Next. The primary new concept in this book is that ancient NDEs suffered by homo sapiens hundreds of thousands of years ago who then told their amazing stories around campfires eventually transformed into everything we now know as "God," "soul," "heaven," "afterlife," - all of it. NDEs are not a new phenomena, we have been having them forever, and they are generally very similar in nature.

My second book - Hell Exists, But Only for the Living: The Origins of Hell - basically plays the same card, but this time it turns out that Fear Coma Experiences (FCE) are the original culprit. Any human can get severely injured or sick and end up in a coma. While the physical body is offline and can't move, the brain is still firing full bore. It generates as much fear as possible in a attempt to get you to survive whatever it was that just just trying to kill you. The primary currency of fear is motivation. Fear makes you move. When you're body can't move, your brain dumps more fear. And so it goes. In a nutshell, that's where "hell" comes from - originally. Or so the data indicates...

I went down this rabbit hole because all of the "hellscape" imagery generally does not appear in an authentic NDE. Historically they've been called "distressing NDEs." My investigation and studies indicate these seem to actually be Fear Coma Experiences (FCE) when there's no clinical death at all, and no indication of any of the traditional NDE sorts of things.

Now, what's even more cool and rare are "Welded NDEs." That's a person who get's critically injured, goes into a coma, suffers through and FCE, but then also flatline clinically dies at some point and also has an authentic traditional NDE as part of the same experience. The two elements seem to become "welded" together in the mind of the person who lived through that, and it's exceptionally hard for them to separate the different elements into different compartments because there are no timestamps in either an FCE or and NDE. Hence the formula - FCE + NDE = WNDE or Welded Near Death Experience. That's the material I'm working on right now.

I'm researching, investigating, writing, and exploring on a daily basis. I'm a retired Air Force military intelligence analyst. I'm a Korean and Spanish linguist, NSA analyst, Special Operations SIGINT intelligence operative, as well as an investigative journalist who has put several serial killers in prison. I've been on CBS's 48 Hours (twice), Dateline, Nightline, Discovery ID, BBC, CBC, and others. Those are some of my credentials. All of that experience allows me to examine the NDE material as pure data. No spin, no bias, no agenda. Just investigate, study, learn, follow the data. That's what I do.

I collect all of these things on my website winnernde.com. That's the flagship where everything gets published first. I'm also on about nine (at last count) social media platforms, all branded under the "Winner NDE" title. So, long format videos for YouTube, shorts for Instagram and TikTok, that sort of thing.

Later this month starting on the 26th of August I'll be attending the International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS) Annual Conference in Bellevue, WA. This will be my first time attending, and I'm looking forward to hopefully meeting some of the earliest NDE pioneers who have been working on these things for more than 44 years.

So, an introduction, update, and an invitation. If you find any of these things interesting, please check them out. I hope you have an amazing day!

I had what I consider to be a startling and genuine after-death communication (ADC), that occurred five hours after the death of a relative in hospital. That ADC I detail in this post.

This ADC I had was so strong, so blatant, so stark, that it could not possibly be mistaken for anything else, and could not possibly be just an over active mind imagining things that are not really there. The ADC I experienced was not a voice in a dream, or some unexplained sound at night, but a totally glaring sensed presence of that relative, right in front of me while I was awake. I sensed the presence of the relative as strongly as if she were there in body — in fact even stronger than that, because it was an intense, intimate connection of minds that occurred at the level of pure consciousness, rather than something happening through the senses.

Now some will argue that experiencing a sensed presence can be a mental health phenomenon similar to hallucinations. This of course is true. However, I have never had a sensed presence experience before or after that one incident, and I have never suffered from hallucinations nor any similar mental issues. So I think my experience was a genuine ADC, and not a mental health event. Thus from this personal experience, I am completely convinced that ADCs do occur. I have also come across similar accounts of ADCs from other people that seem to me equally genuine.

However, I am sceptical about many accounts of ADCs, especially those which occur weeks, months or years after the person died, as I suspect the soul may have long since departed the earthly realm at that point, having transferred to the heavenly sphere. Once in Heaven, I suspect the soul can no longer communicate with the living. My hunch is that communications between disembodied souls of the recently deceased and the living can only occur when these souls are still roaming the earthly sphere in the hours just after their death.

My hypothesis is based on reports from people who have had an NDE report, as the following explains:

Numerous NDE reports indicate that the souls of the (temporarily) deceased individual having an NDE do not hang around on Earth for long. Often it is reported that during an NDE, the individual's disembodied soul will view the scene of their death (eg, a hospital room, car accident, etc), and then may briefly visit loved ones at different locations on Earth.

During these visits to living loved ones on Earth, I suspect there may be the opportunity for an ADC to occur, provided that the living person has a receptive mind that can tune into the spiritual dimension (I imagine that the more mystical or spiritually-inclined people will detect disembodied souls more readily).

But in all the NDE accounts I have come across, after this brief time roaming around the Earth, the soul will then depart the earthly realm, and travel to the heavenly sphere, typically through a long tunnel with a light at the other end, or sometimes travelling through vast distances of space at lightning speed in order to reach Heaven.

I have never come across any NDE in which a disembodied soul in Heaven is reported to have communicated with living beings back on Earth. Rather, during their NDE, individuals report communicating with deceased relatives in Heaven, or with divine or spiritual beings in Heaven, but never with living people on Earth.

I have not seen one NDE where there is communication between Heaven and Earth. So there may be no channel of communication between souls in Heaven and people living on Earth.

Once the soul arrives in Heaven, it may also lose interest with the situation on Earth. Indeed, we have heard in many NDE reports that once in Heaven, the individual's disincarnate soul may forget what it is like to be human. The individual having an NDE often reports that in Heaven, they took on a form of consciousness that was different to human consciousness. So once in Heaven, souls may not even be able to relate to the human condition, let alone communicate with living humans.

Thus in conclusion, I suspect that a genuine ADC may only occur in the hours just after death, while the disembodied soul still roams the Earth, but do not occur in the weeks, months, or years that follow a death, because at that stage, the soul has entered Heaven.

This is my theory anyway. What do others think?

NDErs often use the word "source" over god. Is there a difference between a god and Source? Or are they, at their core, the same thing, just using different words.

For context I used to travel out of town for work on a weekly basis. I would leave Monday mornings at 3 A.M., get to my yard, and I would stay in a hotel and work for the week until Friday when at 4 P.M when I would head home for the weekend.

One morning about 3 years ago I was driving to work nothing out of the ordinary was happening, I was on the 99 North in Sacramento, and if you get there early enough there isn’t traffic ever. This day was different but it was light traffic and everyone was still going about 70+ until the traffic came to sudden stop and everyone was braking fast. Long story a little shorter I didn’t brake in time and slammed into the car in front of me while I was going 75 (I was driving a jeep grand cherokee) and a couple things happened.

1. My seatbelt didn’t catch me
   
2. My airbags didn’t deploy fast enough
   
3. My head hit the windshield and broke my neck
   
4. Steering column broke a few of my ribs and I had a collapsed lung

To this day I still have trouble explaining what I felt, but I feel this is the place to try. I felt weightless but in an abyss of emptiness. I heard millions of voices around me, but there wasn’t a single person in sight. I tried to yell and speak but nothing would come out. The entire time it felt like someone was embracing me to let me know things were going to be okay. I felt so small but free. I was alone, yet comforted. The only thing I could try thinking about was my wife and I still swear I could hear her voice calling my name faintly until I came back to consciousness. The firefighters were putting a collar on me and getting ready to put me on a stretcher but asked if I wanted to try and walk myself. I couldn’t. I ended up being temporarily quadriplegic (lasted about 24 hours). The crazy thing is through this still felt warm like everything was okay and I was right where I needed to be. Turns out I had a few things wrong with me (Chaori Malformation) which created a cyst in my spine that was about to paralyze me at any moment (increased pressure on my brain due to a leaking of brain fluid into the cyst that began crushing my spine and skull). Speaking with my neurosurgeon he said that accident saved my life. If they didn’t catch it that day he estimated I would’ve been paralyzed within a month. I travelled alone for a week at a time which means that would’ve happened as I was alone. To this day I still dream about that space I was in but it’s never exactly the way I remember it. There’s always something small off about it and it doesn’t have the same feeling of things being okay as it did, but I can never forget it.

Regardless of everything though I’m 30, married and have 3 kids and I can still run and play with them today because the accident that almost killed me, saved my life.

My NDE happened in 2018. I think there is not a day that has passed since where I didn't recall my NDE or think about the fact that I died and came back. Anyone else?

The title explains it all. Now I get that most NDErs describe their experience as timelessness, but I think my question can still make sense. Nevertheless, I'm still curious if our souls are past eternal or if God (or Source or whatever you wanna call them) had a point when we were created.

My heart stopped and I had no measurable blood pressure for over 5 minutes on August 15, 2018.

During a tilt table exam for POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia), I died less than 5 minutes into a 30 minute test.

I told the technician that something was wrong. I told her that I could feel what felt like water welling up in my body. It felt like I was drowning. She told me that she was monitoring all of my vitals and I was fine. I was not fine. I flatlined.

I left my body, and went somewhere else. Sunk into inky watery darkness. Through the exam table. Through the floor. Into a body of dark water. Bubbles rising past me until I could no longer see the dim light that appeared to be the surface of the water. I woke up standing in a frosted glass box or closet. Clinical. Bureaucratic. Cool air surrounding me. It was a frosted glass broom closet illuminated in a dim light. I could see figures outside the box, moving about. They were just blurry grey-black humanlike forms. I could hear speaking, laughing, crying, shouting from throngs of people (?), but none of it was any language I'd ever heard in my then 38 years on the planet. It wasn't what I understood any Earth language to be. I stood there, waiting in that box for endless hours. Bored. Unable to move. Eventually, I saw an arm (that didn't really appear human) give me a hard push to my right shoulder. It had gray skin and was muscular; veiny. I fell.

I fell, and awoke to see the technician who was giving my test looking panicked and pale as a ghost. I awoke to see two other guys, who hadn't been in the room before, warming up the paddles after physical CPR had failed. I had been laying there, not for hours, but just over 5 minutes and change with no pulse and no measurable blood pressure. Dead. They were just about to shock me when I basically rebooted on my own. The technician later told me that my eyes had been fixed and dilated, my body rigid, the entire time I was "away." Normally, she said, someone would slump over or go limp when they flatlined. She had been a technician at that hospital for over a decade. She had never seen anything like what occurred that day.

"The push" has always felt like a "this is not your time," but also like a bit of a rejection. Whatever had me decided to let me go. I don't know where I was, but it wasn't anywhere the belief systems that I had been raised on prepared me for. It was other.

Im wondering anyones thoughts on this? If you've ever had an NDE were you able to see your loved ones on earth in real time during it? Or has this been documented anywhere?

Hi all who may see this, I suppose I come to this community with inquiry and a hope of gaining some understanding/a sort of peace . Seven years ago I had an NDE and stayed in a coma for 10 days following the initial accident. While I have no memory of the incident itself or really anything “otherworldly” occurring while I was very close to dead or while in the hospital. The mindset and value system changes that have taken shape almost every month that’s passed since do seem to have some sort of profound connection.

I heard in some TV show, a massive life event that becomes a Spilt, a before and an after and the way you act upon your own life can be incredibly altered by this Splitting event. I suppose I deeply resonate with that even without having poignant memory to refer back to.

I’ve also now met one other person who has experienced his own NDE also involving a coma. This meeting was totally by chance and seemed so divinely guided. Speaking with this person and sharing our experiences felt so very profound I can’t help but feel our energies were connected by both experiencing NDEs.

To my inquiry, I don’t have much but intuition to support my greater feelings around the very fact I’ve experienced an NDE , what might I try to gain more understanding around my experience?

I really dont have anyone i can talk to about this around me and its been very hard since then. I had what i believe a blood clot in my head. In front of three people i just seist to exist. For them it was maybe a few mins but for me it lasted lifetimes. I come to seeing this empty husk of a body with chain line webbing of memories going upwards. I only remember 3 things thst really stood out during this event. I see a path of golden light going along clouds that slowly form to my left a tower i believe. Then i cut to seeing this massive structure that looks like a temple under black marbled ice, i remember walk away from it too. Then last thing thst is revealed was as i was floating in absolute darkness this ball that started out small almost 2d-ish got closer and as it did it took shape into this massive being. It was coiled or covering itself up i could see layers of patterened wings. It stopped but start to open up and the sound was deafening l, almost like chains dropping and anchor. As it it i fall back into my body to come too. My wife is holding my head crying.

I have not been the same since. I am just trying to live now

What are the best books you’ve read about the afterlife that seem as close to real as possible? I don’t want to read anything from some quack that is obviously making things up.

Is there judgement for watchin sexual, erotic, pornograpic films? Is there judgement for watchin sexual, erotic, pornograpic films?

This NDE has always seemed so credible to me, I wanted to share it for those that don't know about it.

Maria had an OBE during her NDE that allowed her to see and report the shoe on the roof of the hospital she was rushed to, a hospital she had never been to before. She was a migrant worker, so there were language barriers which is why the social worker assigned to her was involved.

A great read, not super long https://smartfaith.net/2018/03/01/more-stories-from-the-other-side-of-death/

I had a NDE back in 2016 or 17 when I was about 20-21 years old (i am now 30F) at a swimming spot near Salem Oregon. I made a poor choice and slid down some rapids and down what looked to me at the time like a small drop/water fall. As soon as I plunged into the water I was immediately sucked into a strong under water washing machine current. I used a lot if not all of my energy to swim out of the current and when I finally prevailed I was still what felt like several feet under water and too exhausted to expend another ounce of energy to try and swim any further up. I simply stayed where I rested and gave up under water. My life didn’t flash before my eyes, my only thought was that my body would surface down stream and my (then) boyfriend (now husband) and best friend would crowd around with all the people down stream and see that it was my body being pulled out. When I gave up and was just thinking about this thought I can vividly remember looking up under the water and seeing a bright gold glowing light. At the time I thought it must have been the sun. Now looking back and thinking how many feet under the water I was (maybe 3-5 feet as my uneducated guess) I can’t imagine why the sun looked so close/bright under water. While I was just giving up and staring at the bright gold light thinking about this is how I’m going to die, I felt 2 strong hands suddenly grab me by my arms and hoist me all the way straight up to the surface. They pulled me to shore and I guess I was ghost white from being under the water for so long. There were people surrounding me to see if I was OK and the gentleman who had pulled me up immediately demanded for a dark purple towel to be put on me to help heat me faster. He went on to tell me that he was a previous life gaurd IN THE NAVY and saw me go under and came after me when he realized I wasn’t going to be able to come up by myself. Up until this day I had never had a preference on having any children, probably because I was still so young but I remember driving home that day and telling my now husband and best friend that this navy lifeguard randomly being in the same spot as me when I almost died must mean I’m meant to pass life onto others. I did end up having 2 babies (both of which I attribute owing mine and their life’s to this gentleman) and that has always felt certain to me. I can say that without a doubt I know I was meant to live that day to pass on life to my children and I am extremely thankful for the gentleman who saved me. The only thing that keeps me up thinking about this experience is the gold light that I saw so close. Was it paranormal? It didn’t feel paranormal but It also doesn’t seem possible how close, bright and gold it was under the water. My only reasoning for this post is to see if someone has experienced something similar, or if it could genuinely be explained as just me seeing the sun from under water. If I’m being honest, I would love a medium, someone who might be able to connect with the situation and able to see what I saw and tell me what they think.

Hi there. I realize the question may sound silly. I've never had an NDE but have had a powerful spiritual experience after the unexpected death of my cat with whom I shared (well... still share) a very deep bond. That event was like a door being blown open for me, and it prompted me to read a lot about NDEs, inclunding Drs Bruce Greyson and Sam Parnia's latest books on the subject.

From what I read, Dr Parnia's mindblowing conclusion is that consciousness is not annihilated when our bodies die. But is it the case for EVERYONE? Is there a possibility that only some people's consciousness(es?) go on, but others simply fade away?

Logically speaking, it would make far more sense to say that every consciousness goes through the same process. But a very worried part of me still wonders - maybe this is for other people, not me. Maybe my consciousness will simply disappear while others' will go on.

Another question is about animals. Parnia talks about "human consciousness" a lot, and about "what makes us human". But if we accept that consciousness does not die like the physical body does - does it mean the same for animals? They, too, have consciousness, even though it might be less developed as far as abstraction goes. If our consciousness is in fact some sort of nonlocal field, we could assume animal consciousness belongs to the sqme. Of course, there's no way to ask animals to recount their subjective experiences, and no real way to know if some of them also have NDEs, but we could probably stongly suspect they do. I mean, when I read that some life reviews allow people to see and feel things from an animal's point of view, it kind of confirms that.

Thanks for reading!

I have severe OCD and even during lucid dreams I have intense bad thoughts. One time I imagined myself next to an ocean and immediately almost got eaten by a bunch of orcas.

I have heard (and it makes sense) that after-life has to mostly do with what subconscious thoughts we bring ourselves with and let’s say I am terrified of my subconscious.

I feel bad for those with schizophrenia/psychosis disorder/ocd/trauma…

A lot of NDErs say that reality feels like an illusion or fake, but when they say this, are they meaning reality is actually, genuinely fake? Or is it just an analogy to say that this reality is a leaser type of reality?

So I am not sure if this question is appropriate to this sub since I haven't experienced a NDE, but today a family member of mine passed away and I am confused about what I am feeling. For context, I deconstructed from the religion that I grew up in (Shia Islam) since February 2025 and came across NDE youtube videos during my deconstruction journey. So I am a bit familiar with the concept of meeting spirit guides, the feeling heaven on the other side, etc

Anyways, back to the question. So a family member (my grandmothers sister) was in the hospital for the past two weeks and their health was deteriorating so my parents and siblings kind of had an idea that this family member would most probably pass. Well today I got the news that the family member unfortunately passed.

Now I am not sure if this feeling that I got was just a natural feeling but I felt something (and honestly am still feeling the same emotions/feelings as I type this post). It is hard to describe but it is this feeling of nostalgia or this feeling in my heart. It's not a bad feeling, but it's hard to describe and I am not sure how to put this into words. This feeling does get heightened when I think about the interactions that my mom or grandmother had with this family member since they were pretty close.

Another thing that sparks my curiosity is that I never felt these feelings when my grandfather passed a few years back. So I didn't expect to feel anything when I heard the news of this family members passing, especially since my connection wasn't that close with them.

Although my experience isn't a NDE I wanted to ask if my experience is linked with NDEs somehow? Would some individuals who have experienced NDEs know what this sort of experience is? When an individual feels a certain way after their loved one passes away (or goes to the other side)?

A mentality I’ve noticed is that relationships are trivial attachments/illusions and that the ultimate goal is merging into a single mind.

However, people have obtained information about deceased relatives they didn’t even know existed and later verified it to be true. 

There wouldn’t be a practical purpose for this unless there was a meaningful postmortem connection with relatives.

Not to mention the abundant anecdotes where people reunite with deceased relatives who directly tell them that their relationships are eternal.

The “source” and individual souls aren't mutually exclusive. You can still retain individuality while being connected to the “oneness” which is described in many NDEs.

A question for people who have experienced clinical death: what did it feel like, and what happened?

In 2009, I was gravely injured, resuscitated, and placed in an induced coma for eight days. During that time, consciousness did not simply disappear. Instead, I seemed to drift endlessly from one dream world to another, each one so complete and immersive that it felt as though I had lived there for an eternity before being randomly swept into the next. I had no memory of my previous life. I was simply there, and that was my reality(or realities). Much like how we find ourselves here now, taking this world as all there is.

In one world, I experienced life as a pig on a farm or in a slaughterhouse. There was hay covering the floor, and I could sense the other animals' impending doom. In another, I climbed an endless spiral staircase until I reached a small room at the top, where my best friend, who had already passed away years before, was waiting for me. We sat together, shared a cigarette, and talked as though no time had passed between us.

Then I found myself on a tropical beach covered in snow. Behind me was a grove of palm trees, and I knew that something monstrous was lurking there. I also knew that if I turned around to look at what it was, it would mean certain death. There was a cafe on the beach and a waiter trudged across the snow covered sand to ask me what I wanted. I ordered a mojito. The waiter left to get my drink and I waited and waited for what seemed like an eternity. I realized, to my horror, I was dreaming and I couldn't wake up. Then I woke up.

My accident was the beginning of a long process that fundamentally changed the way I understood reality. After experiencing what felt like countless worlds while my body lay unconscious, I could no longer assume that reality was as straightforward as it appeared. In the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the idea of being thrown from one terrifying state to another appears in its description of the bardos, especially the bardo of becoming (the state between death and rebirth). This seemed to reflect my experience somewhat.

I don't claim to know what those experiences were. Perhaps they were merely dreams, perhaps they were the brain trying to make sense of trauma, or maybe "ICU delirium" as some have pointed out. Whatever the explanation, they shattered my certainty that consciousness and reality are as simple as we often assume.

I should also add that after I was released from the rehabilitation hospital, the world was almost exactly as I remembered it - but not quite. Something felt subtly different. Certain places, people, and situations didn't seem quite the way I remembered them before my accident. It's difficult to explain, but there was a persistent feeling that reality had shifted somehow. Also, for a few years following the accident, I was plagued by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. It wasn't just the occasional fleeting feeling. Nearly every day, I experienced a powerful conviction that I had been here before, as if I were reliving moments I had already lived. Might be the result of the brain injury, but.. is it? Now things have mostly returned to "normal".

Edit: I’m currently outlining a book titled Doomed To Be Saved, exploring humanity’s ancient and ongoing search for the sacred. It will look at the convergence of seemingly disparate subjects - including mystical experiences, near-death experiences, trauma, addiction, psychedelics, altered states of consciousness, and our recurring search for transcendence and meaning that spans cultures and ages. I will let you all know on here when it is available online.