Special: Near Death Experiences

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0:59Hello, I'm Oprah Winfrey. Your heart stops. Everything goes black. Your doctor says that you're dead, but you're not dead at all. You're floating above the hospital bed or meeting relatives who have been dead for years. You see a bright light and experience unconditional love and peace. Your life literally flashes in front of you. Does this sound like sheer madness? Or does the experience of a person whose heart temporarily stopped really give us a glimpse at a life after death? When my guests this morning have either been pronounced clinically dead or have suffered severe trauma after being revived, they tell incredible stories of their near-death experiences, stories they believe are proof of an afterlife.

1:45Please welcome Barbara Harris, Jane Smith, and Helen Nelson to the show.

1:53Your near-death experience came when, Barbara? Eleven years ago after major surgery on my back, I was suspended in a striker-framed circle bed, which is a bed for paralyzed patients. It looked like a Ferris wheel. It had two circles and a hammock in the middle where I was suspended. And the day after surgery, I went into all kinds of complications and became critically ill, and I was in a lot of pain and really wanted to die. The last thing I remember when they were hooking me up to the machinery was screaming, I want to die. And in the middle of the night, I woke up and I was out in the hallway.

2:27And I looked up and down the hall and didn't see anybody. So I turned around to go back into the room, and I realized that I was looking into the PA system. I was like nose level, looking into the speaker. And when I came into the hospital, the speaker was at least three feet above my head. So I realized something was strange. How do you know this wasn't a dream? Because dreams, after a while, fade. and this has become more and more vivid as the years have gone on. It's so real to me now. It's more real than yesterday. Really? Yeah. So you're up there nose-to-nose with the PA system, and you say, something's off here.

3:02I thought to myself, I better get back in the room or I'll get into trouble. Yeah. So I went back into the room, and I looked down, and I saw myself, my body, lying there in this circle bed. I hadn't seen the circle bed until then. And the only thing I thought of at that point was that there was tape around my nose holding a tube in, and that the tape really looked funny. And the next thing I knew, I was in total blackness. I was somewhere else, and it was totally black. And I thought my grandmother, it felt as though my grandmother was embracing me, and she had been dead for 20 years. But I could feel her love.

3:33It was going right through me. Did you see your grandmother? No, I felt her through and through. I couldn't see anything at that point. And it felt as though she was embracing me and cradling me, and it was going back to when I was a little girl. And if I had done anything bad, you know, you run to your grandma, She puts her arms around you and everything's OK. And that's what it felt like. Everything was OK. And then I started moving through what I've since learned to call a tunnel. I didn't know what it was, but I was moving through this. And there was this cool breeze going around my body. And I could feel my hands expanding, just like they were becoming as big as they could become, just going out there.

4:09And I heard this low droning noise. And way, way off in the distance, I looked out was this pinpoint of light that was incredible, and I wanted to get to that light. And I've heard people talk about this light, and every one of you here has seen the light, right? Yeah. And so sometimes I close my eyes and I try to see it. Is it like a light bulb? Is it a candle? Is it a describable kind of light? To me, because it was so far off in the distance, it could be described maybe as the sun. As sunlight, okay. It was golden. But it's different because I was drawn to it. I wanted to get to it. And what I had felt and what I thought was my grandmother's arms was emanating from this light.

4:50It was this incredible love. I was uncomfortable later for a long time using the word God because I had gone into this experience an atheist. But when I saw the movie Star Wars and I heard them talking about the force, I knew immediately that that light had been the force and I was being drawn to it. So you were an atheist, not believing in God or any power greater than yourself before? This was it. Yeah. You know, solid reality. And I mean, I came out of that knowing. It wasn't a belief. I knew. I experienced it. Mm-hmm. So now what religion are you? Do you come out and you say, let me get to church?

5:23Well, I go to church and I go to synagogues and I read Buddhism. I mean, everything is saying the same thing. Mm-hmm. You know, we're just, everybody has their own way of saying it. There are different paths going to the same place. Same place. Same place. Same place. I woke up in the morning and tried telling people that were coming into my room what had happened. and they all kept telling me I was hallucinating. And then about a week later, I was not critically ill anymore, but I was very, very upset. They had rotated me forward onto my face, which is uncomfortable in a circle bed. And it felt as though they had forgotten about me, although I'm not sure.

5:55And nobody was coming into the room, so I started crying, and then I got hysterical. And we've found out since that incredible amounts of emotion, without being close to death, can stimulate the experience too. So I was hysterical and screaming for them to come into me, and nobody came, and I drew out of my body. And I was about 50 feet above it at that point. And it was as though my body was in this circle bed, in this bubble. And I looked out into space, and I saw myself at about maybe 14 months old, face down in my crib, crying in a bubble. And as I went with that baby in the crib, yeah. Brainstorm depicts this very well, the movie Brainstorm.

6:35It was as though I just exploded through this cloud of bubbles, and every bubble contained an event in my life. And as I relived my life in this explosion that seemed to take 32 years also, I learned so much about myself. I had judged myself so much during those 32 years and I had really concealed who I thought I was because I didn't want people to know. I was really neurotic, had a lot of problems. And I could see the patterns as I was re-experiencing it. I could see where I had placed myself in those roles and kept redoing each role of being the victim. What about sin and pain that you cause other people?

7:11What about people who are just venomous, who say horrible things and bad things and write bad things to other people? What happens to those people? And if you have done that in your life, when you have this experience, what about what we know as the judgment? Well, I was judging myself at that point, but it felt as though when I know that I had this being that was much greater than myself, loving me through all of it and accepting what had gone on. and I was getting information on myself. Yeah, there were moments in my life where I had done things that I thought were incredibly wrong or sinful.

7:44And as I was watching it, there was none of that. What I was seeing was the patterns I had set up and that although I thought it was me, it was coming from all of us. We were just all acting out our own neurotic patterns, you know. So there was no sin and there was no good. There was just life going on. And then that was over and I came back. Did you, though, experience the pain that you or anguish that you caused other people, did you then experience that for yourself? I experienced what they were going through, too. What they were going through. Yeah, it was as though I had no boundaries at this point.

8:18I was my mother. I was my dad. I was my husband. I was my kids. And it was all, after that experience, I realized we don't end in our skin. You know, that we go way, way out beyond who we think we are. Yeah, it's a difficult concept for a lot of people to acknowledge. But it was one big play of consciousness. And it wasn't just me and it wasn't just them. It was situations that we hope we were learning. So the things that you do together, because I live my life now, and I haven't had a near-death experience, and I feel very blessed that at 32 I figured what all of you are saying out and what we read in Life After Life, that life is reciprocal and that you are responsible for yourself and that really the only thing that matters is what is in your heart, right, and what you think.

9:04And what comes back to you is what you think about other people and feel about other people in your heart, not so much what you do. Isn't that true? Yeah, but what you think gets in the way of your heart. What I've come away with in all of this is that what I'm feeling through my heart is the higher choice of how to respond to the other people that I love instead of trying to intellectually work it through in my head. Yeah, because it's not an intellectual process at all. You follow your heart. You follow your heart in everything. Right. I got it. Good, I don't have to die to figure that out. That's great.

9:36And for you, Jane, for a long time, for you, you never even said anything to anybody about it because it was in the 50s when you had this experience. Yes, 1952. I had my experience during the birth of my daughter, Julie. And at that time, I had never heard of such a thing as a near-death experience. And so I only told my husband because I thought it was too much to ask anybody to believe such an incredible story. And yes, and everyone wants to know, well, how do you know you're not dreaming and you're hallucinating or you were sick or, you know. Yeah. Well, the thing that happened to me was that in the middle of labor, I suddenly felt my essence or my spirit or whatever wish out the top of my head.

10:20I felt this happen. I found myself standing in a gray mist. I realized immediately that I had died. I mean, I simply knew it. Now, is that frightening? Because we all think that it's, I mean, that's what we're all dreading. Well, it wasn't frightening to me. And I'll tell you why. Because I had always thought probably death is the end, right? And yet here I was very much aware of who I was. So were you surprised when you realize you're dead? Do you say, well, I'll be darned. Well, what I said was, wow. I mean, it was this incredible burst of, oh, thank you, God, you set it up this way. You know, I always hoped you did, but I wasn't sure.

11:02And I was just really elated out of my senses because here I still was, even though I knew I had gone on. And while I was really pouring out these feelings of thanksgiving to God, that this is the way it was. Because you believed in God. I believe there must be some kind of higher power. That's about as far as it went. I hadn't really figured it out at all. But while I was really just kind of, and this was very involuntary, pouring forth praise silently from my being, this incredible light infiltrated my consciousness, and it just simply took over my consciousness. The light. I fused with the light, yes.

11:47Whoa. It was, it came into me, I expanded out into it, I lost all feeling then of any kind of body. I was just the light, the consciousness, the love. So it doesn't matter what size your hips are or anything. They could care less. They could care less. That's a relief. Okay. But there was this, the thing that the light brought with it, Oprah, was love. Love in such measure that there's not even anything to compare it with. Or describe it. You really can't. There is no way. So the love that you have for your family, for your children, for your friends, can't compare to that love? No, it's probably a pale reflection of.

12:30That's a great description of it. But this was just something that cradled me, and I began to be blissful, ecstatic, rapturous. You know, I simply expanded and expanded into this love. Now, at that moment, because one of the reasons why, I mean, I used to fear death a lot. And one of the reasons was because I thought I was going to miss what was going on here. I'd go past graveyards and say, I'm going to be under a tree somewhere, and everybody else is going to be doing things, and I'm going to miss that. Do you, during this level of consciousness, think about the people over here? During the experience where the light and I were one, I had no thoughts at all.

13:14It was simply a matter of my taking in all the time. nothing was going on up here. I was just feeling, experiencing. Did your life pass before you too? No, it didn't. I was given, while I was in the light, a great block of knowledge came into my consciousness. And I suddenly knew that I was immortal, that I was indestructible, that I went on forever and ever, that I was utterly safe in this universe, that there is absolutely nothing that can happen to us. We can't get lost in a crack. I mean, we just go on. We always have been. We always will be. Well, then what about all the people who apparently or seemingly are lost in the cracks, who are struggling, who are struggling?

14:04They are not lost in the cracks. You mean here on this earth? Here, yeah. Nobody is lost. We're learning. We're learning. We're having experiences all the time to help us be more compassionate or whatever it is we need to learn to do. And so that's the first block. And I'll tell you why I say that. When the second block came in, it was the knowledge that the world is part of a perfect plan. The whole thing is perfect. We cannot understand that from our perspective. But I remember so well the sentence, and it is all working itself out in its perfection. and you see I absolutely knew that was true I mean there was just no doubt about it I knew I was getting capital K knowledge you know and I reached the point is this a voice saying this to you or is it just no this was a field of consciousness a you just knew it a field of consciousness that came in presented itself all in a blop you know and I just went and you sort of expand into that you know.

15:12And you know that. Yes. And so then the third thing that you knew was. Well, that was really, they were the only two things that I was given while I was in the light. I reached a point of such rapture that I suddenly had my very first thought of the whole experience, and that was, I wonder how much I can stand of this before I shatter. I had just reached my optimum point of being able to take in bliss. And the very minute I said that to myself, the light began to dissipate. Yeah. And then... It's like you start to question it. It means you're not really ready. I wasn't really questioning. It was just all that I could take.

15:50You know, it was all that I could take. Somebody else maybe could have gone on a little longer. But when the light began to dissipate, I then found myself standing in a beautiful green meadow. and I was looking at flowers, shrubs, colors that I had never seen before, never seen before. I was awestruck because I knew I was looking at things I had never seen before. I thought I'd seen all the colors. Don't we all feel we've seen it all? So are the colors different? The colors are. It's just, I guess, a broader spectrum of color. I could see also the light in every living thing. All the plants had their own inner light, and they just sort of glowed with this beautiful light and this beautiful color.

16:41That's amazing. After I had finished looking at these incredible flowers, I looked up and saw that there were maybe 19 or 20 people standing up on a hill. And they were dressed in very beautiful robes of all these gorgeous colors. and I... If you're just joining us, these are people who had near-death experiences in case you say, Oprah's talking to the crazy people today. They've all lost their minds. Now they're on a show. Okay. Why not? I thought, I think I thought myself up to this hill. I don't remember climbing it. I really think all I had to do was want to be there and I was there. I hear that over there that everything's telepathic.

17:23That's right. You think something and it is. You think it, you know. It's like God created the heavens and the earth and He thought it, and that's how it came to be. Yeah, well I think I just thought myself to the top of the hill, and I know three or four men detached themselves from this group of people and came to speak with me. And I do remember, I thought my questions to them, and I received their answers back in my head. I could hear the sound of the voice, but we were not moving our mouths. I remember that very well. But does your body have form, or are you still dismissed? You know, I don't even remember looking at my body, but the people I was talking to, their bodies had form, so I think I was aware of having a body, too.

18:08I mean, we don't sit and look at our body now, you know. But, yes, I felt that I had a body. And when these men came to me, I said, I know what has happened. I know that I've died. I understand what's going on. Who were the men, though? Was it Peter, James, or John, or Paul, or anybody we would know? Who knows? Okay. The one man who did all the talking to me wore a purple robe, had an incredibly beautiful face, very noble, very spiritual, but he didn't say, I am Peter Paul, nor did I think to myself, that must be Peter Paul. Or he was just a spiritual authority figure. and when I told him I knew I had died, he said, that's right, but you aren't going to be staying here because it isn't time for you to be here yet.

18:59And I said, well, you know, everything that has happened to me since I have come over here, everything that I have seen is so perfect and so beautiful. What about my sins? And he said, there are no sins, not the way you think of them on earth, he said, what is in your heart? He told me the only thing that mattered was what we think, and then asked me the question, what is in your heart? So he wasn't asking me, think with your mind. He was talking about what we think with our heart. And I was enabled in some way that I do not understand at all, to look absolutely into the very deepest core of my being and see that I was love.

19:47That is the core of a human being. I was just pure love, perfect love, loving perfection, whatever you want to call it. And I remember saying to him, of course. And I had the feeling that I used to know that. I have known that before. and how did I forget anything so important? Wow. And then I said, going for the big one, can you tell me what it's all about, everything, the whole world? And he said yes. And he told me in two or three short, simple sentences, I remembered it all. I mean, I again said, of course. And how did I forget that? And then I said, since I can't stay here, and there are so many people I want to take all of this back to, can I take it all back?

20:39And he said, you can take the answer to the question about sin, but your second question, the answer to that, you won't be able to remember. So you forgot the answer? Absolutely. Yeah. He told me. He said, you will not be able to remember it. And he was right. And I tried for at least 15 years when I was in a meditative state to pull that information back in. And sometimes I think I've almost got it. But no. No. Helen, do you know it? I think partly I do know it, yes, and it's almost beyond words, actually. My experience happened ten years ago, and the girls here have covered just about everything that I experienced, the beautiful tunnel.

21:23I had a cardiac arrest, and it was three or four days before I was found. I was alone when this happened. And my son found me, and I was rushed to a hospital, and it was in the emergency room that I'm up here looking down as they're working very violently on my body, and I felt no concern, no fear, nothing. All I felt was just wonder that I was looking down and who's that poor creature there. And then all of a sudden, bang, I find myself going through the tunnel into this, and I find myself in a place of the most exquisite light that I've ever seen. Now, do you call that light God now? Do you find that light is what God is?

22:04Well, cosmic consciousness, light the source. Let me ask you this, because I've heard people talk about, and when Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson last year wrote, we are the world, we are the children, I've come to know that we're not the children, not only the children, but we're the old folks too. And cosmic consciousness says that we are all one. Did you come to know this or see this or understand? It's really hard, though, when you're looking at people who you feel are less than what you want to be in your life and to say, that's me, I'm like that. It's difficult. Can you explain that to us?

22:39I think that when we reach this point of total awareness, and I believe it is very, very deep awareness, there is within us an understanding that I am everyone about me. I am my children. I am my parents. I am my friends. And every time I look at someone that is suffering or angry or violent, I stop back and take a look and say, now that could be me, that is me. And in the work that I do now with people, I try to emphasize the necessity for balance, for peace, for love, for understanding. because this experience was somehow gave me the awareness that life is absolute love. I don't find that love anywhere with my children or with my husband, ex-husband, I should say.

23:35And it has put me in a place where I find that I love everyone, but not everyone the same way. that is almost impossible, but it gives one the opportunity to look very deeply into the self. And when you do this, you see who you are and you see that you are the world and you are the children. It's beautiful. Over the past 20 years, my next guest has interviewed a thousand people and more who had near-death experiences, almost without exception. He has found the experience leads each of these people with the belief that life does not end at death, he pioneered the field of near-death research with his book.

24:17It's called Life After Life, and it's in paperback and easy to afford. Please welcome Dr. Raymond Woody, Jr. to our show.

24:27Moody, Jr., Raymond Moody, Jr. Are all these experiences that we've heard here today similar to the ones you've documented? Yes, yes, very similar. Very similar. The same sorts of things, right? Yeah. Caller, you say what, though? Hello. Hello. Good morning. I'm saying that all these people here are saying that they had good experiences. I had an experience with the birth of my son, and I saw a light, but it wasn't a pleasant one. It was like I was on the operating table. I could look down and see myself, and I saw myself going into a circle. At this point, it looked like hell. It looked like I was descending into hell.

25:04I saw demons. It was not pleasant. I think that happened because I had done some pretty bad things. you know, in life. And God wasn't just going to let me leave. I think it was his way of telling me, you have to go back and get this in order. I don't think it's as simple as these people are saying, you see light and all that hunky dory stuff. Well, that's not my experience. I knew that there was a thing that was wrong. What kind of person were you before, though? What kind of person were you before? I was not religious. I mean, I was okay. You know, I tried to treat people like I wanted to be treated.

25:33But I had done some nasty things. And some people, I had fights with some people, you know, just normal things. But I think, and he let me know that that wasn't all right, that I had to fix that before I could leave. Yeah. Is that experience, I mean, did you find people who had some uncomfortable experiences? You know, I've never talked directly with anyone who had that kind of experience, but obviously they occur. I've heard of a very few of them. Yes. Indirectly. You were telling me. Stand up here. Yes. I do believe that the mind is something we don't have full research on, so we use such a small capacity of it.