Part Two: Dead for 4 Minutes at Six. Dead Again at 39. He Came Back Without His Rage | David A. Williamson

Summary

Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown

Part Two: Dead for 4 Minutes at Six. Dead Again at 39. He Came Back Without His Rage | David A. Williamson

Release Date: August 12, 2026
Host: Mayim Bialik, with Jonathan Cohen
Guest: David A. Williamson

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Episode Overview

This episode continues the profound conversation with David A. Williamson, who experienced two clinically dead moments—first at age six, then at thirty-nine, with transformative aftereffects. The dialogue explores what happened after David's most recent Near Death Experience (NDE), focusing on how returning from death catalyzed a dramatic transformation in his worldview, emotional life, relationships, and understanding of consciousness. Seeking a bridge between science, spirituality, and lived experience, the hosts unpack David's journey of integrating his NDE, as well as its resonances with ancient mysticism, psychic phenomena, and our collective struggles with anger, hope, and love.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Moment of Return (02:42–06:24)

• David describes regaining consciousness during resuscitation:
  • He believes he was defibrillated twice, and his first thought was, “These assholes woke me up.” (03:49)
  • Instinctively, he checked on others in the room: “Are you okay?” (04:01)
  • David recalls no pain from defibrillation—“I felt nothing.” (04:16)
  • He encounters a mysterious figure reminiscent of Shaggy from Scooby Doo, unsure if it was real or spirit. When asked, “What did you see?” he answers, “Blackness,” mimicking the figure’s big eyes. (05:55)

Medical Aftermath and Early Recovery (06:24–08:43)

• Details of his heart repair: implanted pig valve, stents (06:37).
• Extreme pain post-surgery; overwhelming despair:
  • “The pain initially was so extreme, I didn’t want to be alive [...] I wanted to go.” (07:39)
  • Emotional memory of chest pain: “The wailing sounds [...] didn’t even come from me.” (08:43)
• Rapid return to daily life before emotional integration.

Depression, Anger, and Relationship Impact (08:43–11:44)

• Post-surgery depression deeper than lifelong existential dread since his first NDE at age six.
• “I was probably more depressed after heart surgery. [...] I had been in an existential crisis for 34 years.” (10:21)
• Attempts to prepare for his own anticipated death led him to harshly train a protective dog for his son:
  • “I was not healthy, mentally, spiritually, in any way.” (09:57)

Long Integration & First Telling of the Story (11:44–17:16)

• Three and a half years of silence and depression:
  • “It took me three and a half years to talk about it.” (10:21)
  • Clubhouse app during COVID pandemic became a pivotal space for sharing and meeting others (14:10)
  • Guidance from global spiritual teachers and mystics helped contextualize his experiences with ancient texts, quantum physics, and mysticism.
  • “Everything that happened to me is there, like everything [...] I had to have that book to help me understand what happened to me after I died.” (16:05)

Knowledge, Belief, and Letting Go (17:16–19:22)

• David on memory and authenticity:
  • “I only share what I saw. I don’t share what I believe about what I saw.” (17:45)
  • “Belief is the lowest form of knowing... If you had the energy... just go do it.” (18:27)
• He now lives with an open, non-dogmatic approach:
  • “I don’t have to believe anything [...] Our delusions should serve us. So many of our delusions don’t serve us.” (18:27–19:22)

How the NDE Changed Him (19:22–20:23)

• The experience fundamentally altered his baseline emotional state:
  • “When I came back, I didn’t have an attachment to the ideas [...] I still can get triggered, but... I just can correct it before it goes awry.” (19:31)
• Cognitive and behavioral changes:
  • The “brain rewired,” especially the limbic (emotional) brain, calming fight-or-flight, dissolving old anger and hatred, making him more self-aware and able to self-regulate.

Love, Consciousness, and Radical Transformation (20:23–26:29)

• Discusses whether it was physiological, psychological, or a direct infusion of “love” that changed him:
  • Mayim: “Did love change your brain?” (22:06)
  • David: “My body changed. My spirit changed... if it doesn’t make sense from the nano to the cosmic, it’s a human idea that’s made up.” (22:07)
• Describes NDE “void” experience as ultimate love:
  • “Closest thing to it is your first love or the person you love most in a full body orgasm multiplied times 10,000.” (24:44)
  • “When I came out of the void, I didn’t have much memory of David… I didn’t have personal references...” (24:44)
  • Stopped taking things personally, learned his attention shapes experience.

Intuition, Self-Judgment, and Responsibility (26:29–29:10)

• His intuition is now a constant, guiding (sometimes critical) voice.
• Realization that thoughts shape outcomes:
  • “If you can’t check your thoughts, then it really doesn’t matter what behavior you engage in because it’s an act.” (27:28)
• Now recognizes personal responsibility in life outcomes and interpersonal dynamics.

NDEs, Psychedelics, and Integration (29:10–34:49)

• David sees overlap between NDEs and psychedelic/meditative experiences, but stresses the importance of integration:
  • “It’s not about the experience, it’s about the orientation, the pivot afterwards. If you are the same idiot before your NDE that you were after... who cares?” (30:02)
• The “life review” during the NDE—a rapid, energetic awareness of how he’d affected others, especially through not keeping promises or debts. (33:06–34:49)

Mystical Perception, Past Lives, and the Grid (41:20–47:33)

• Skeptical of religious dogma before NDE; now sees unity in all systems.
• Describes a “grid” at the back of space during his NDE—what Indian tradition calls “the Web of Indra.” (45:15)
  • “Behind space was a grid… the framework upon which all of this was placed.” (45:13)
• Wonders about the boundaries of consciousness and the limits of human perception.

Angels, Guides, and Spiritual Responsibility (49:19–51:38)

• On angels and guides:
  • “If I traveled long enough [disembodied], I probably could have found this place while disembodied and… been considered an angel… angels, in my opinion, just serve. They serve humanity.” (49:42)
• Spiritual guides may be energetic relatives, past-life connections, or simply aspects of self.

Fatherhood After NDE (51:38–54:06)

• David’s son noticed his transformation:
  • “‘You used to be an asshole… you don’t fuss that much anymore. You’re just calmer.’ And from him, that means the world to me.” (51:48)
• Proud of his son’s happiness and groundedness—a direct contrast to David’s own childhood existential misery.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On first words post-resuscitation:
  • “These assholes woke me up.” —David (03:49)
• On coming to terms with the experience:
  • “I didn’t think I was going to live after the experience, so I was really... I didn’t expect to live.” (08:55)
• On love and the void:
  • “Closest thing to it is your first love or the person you love most in a full body orgasm multiplied times 10,000.” (24:44)
• On belief vs. knowledge:
  • “Belief is the lowest form of knowing…” (18:27)
• On responsibility in life:
  • “If you can’t check your thoughts, then it really doesn’t matter what behavior you engage in because it’s an act.” (27:28)
• On psychedelics and NDEs:
  • “It’s not about the experience, it’s about integrating and grounding it.” (30:02)
• On past lives and mysticism:
  • “You are a soul… it’s not really destructible… nothing happens to it [after death].” (42:44)
• On the “grid” at the edge of space:
  • “As far as I could see, behind space was a grid… the framework upon which all of this was placed.” (45:13)
• On change as a parent:
  • “[My son] said, ‘You used to be an asshole. You don’t fuss that much anymore. You’re just calmer.’” (51:48)

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Important Timestamps

• 02:42: Mayim asks David to describe the resuscitation room.
• 03:49: David’s first thought after revival.
• 04:14: David surprised by feeling nothing from defibrillation.
• 06:37: Post-surgery heart repair and stents explained.
• 07:39: Pain, despair, and overwhelming sadness post-surgery.
• 10:21: Three and a half years silence before sharing.
• 14:10–16:05: Integration via Clubhouse, ancient texts, spiritual dialogue.
• 17:45: Difference between what he saw and what he believes.
• 18:27: “Belief is the lowest form of knowing.”
• 19:31: Self-regulation, behavioral change post-NDE.
• 22:06: Mayim asks: “Did love change your brain?”
• 24:44: Describing the void as ultimate love.
• 27:28: Importance of monitoring thoughts over behavior.
• 30:02: NDEs vs. psychedelics: experience vs. integration.
• 33:06–34:49: Describing the “life review” and emotional debts.
• 41:20–45:13: Past lives, grid behind space.
• 49:42: What “angels” and guides are.
• 51:48: Son’s observation: “You used to be an asshole… you’re just calmer.”

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Conclusion and Takeaways

The episode presents a nuanced, deeply personal account of loss, transformation, and the complex interplay between near-death experience, mental health, spiritual wisdom, and cognitive science. David’s journey exemplifies how profound trauma, anchored by radical conscious experience, can catalyze not just emotional healing, but fundamental changes in perception, relationships, and the very sense of self. The conversation underscores the importance of integration—whether from mystical revelation, meditation, or psychedelics—and the humility required to transform knowledge into genuine transformation.

David’s story is a unique, contemporary synthesis of ancient teachings and modern understanding, wrapped in humor, candor, and a palpable drive to be of service—both on this side of consciousness and (perhaps) beyond.

Transcript

[A]

Hi, I'm Imbialik.

[B]

And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

[A]

And welcome to part two of our conversation with near death experiencer David A. Williamson.

[C]

Ten years ago he had a heart attack and a torn aorta and what

[A]

happened to him when he was on the table is indescribable. We talk all about it in episode one. In part two of our conversation with David, he's going to talk about what

[C]

happened once he woke up from his

[A]

near death experience when he was brought back to life in the cardiac unit.

[C]

He'll talk about how he started telling

[A]

his story three and a half years after it happened. What is beyond space and time? What did he experience in the afterlife that has changed the way he views his entire life and our humanity? All of that and more is in part two of our conversation with David A. Williamson.

[D]

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[A]

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[C]

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[A]

Break it down. I want you to take us back to the room where you were being resuscitated. Right. Because I want to get to all these points once we, you know, literally put you back in your body. So you. You're. Ha. You have all of these experiences in the. In the void as you're describing it, which sounds like. Yeah, some sort of jumping black holes, kind of like. It's unbelievable. So at some point, you're watching them try and literally bring your dead body back to life. How many times did they defibrillate you?

[D]

I saw one time. I saw one time when I. And this is what made me say four minutes is because the protocol for defibrillation is if you don't respond after, like, a minute and a half, they defibrillate. And then if you don't respond after a certain amount of time after defibrillation, then they do it again. So I opened my eyes, and the guy that was holding the defibrillator pads was leaning in to defibrillate again. So my assumption is that was the second time. Great. Yeah.

[A]

And what was the first thing you said?

[D]

It was like, these assholes woke me up. That was the first thought I had, was, these assholes woke me up. But I looked at the woman in the corner that was holding her face, and I blurted out almost instantly when I opened my eyes, are you okay?

[A]

Well, you finally had a body and

[D]

a mouth to be able to tell

[A]

the things that you had been thinking.

[D]

Exactly. And it just blurted out. And then I looked at the guy with the defibrillator pads, and I said, are you okay? You know, and he cut me off and he said, no, are you okay?

[C]

You just died.

[D]

I didn't even. The guy to the right said, you didn't feel that? And I think he was talking about defibrillation. And I was about to say, feel what? Because I felt nothing. I felt nothing. And I looked down and I saw this, like, a gel pack on my chest that had indention marks from that look, the same size as defibrillator pads in front of me. And I looked and I said, you really just died. Like, my mind caught up, My human mind caught up with it, and it was like, you really did just die. All of those things you saw, you. You did experience that. And. And it was amazing, like, to. To be back in the body.

[A]

So what happens next?

[D]

Funny, funny, funny part of the story that I just started sharing because I didn't. I thought it was. I don't like to share Stuff that's confusing, honestly. Because I feel like people who are. Who supposed to be here to bring clarity often are confusing. You know, I just want to ground a message that makes sense. So even with all the mystical stuff, like, to me is, treat each other better and this planet will be better. I don't care how mystical you are. If we treated each other better, this planet would be better. Okay? But when I came back and I. I was. You know, I said to the lady, are you okay? I spoke to the people. I asked the guy if he was okay. I leaned back and I was exhausted, and. And there was a face, like. This guy's face was like, literally this close to me. And I did, like, that. Like, to kind of look at him. And he said his eyes got really big as a white guy that looked like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. And I don't know if he was a real person or a spirit. I got to this day, I don't know. But he looked at me, and his eyes was really big. And he said, what did you see? And I looked at him and I made my eyes big. Cause I didn't. I couldn't explain everything. So I made my eyes really big like his. And I said, blackness. And that was so funny to me. Even. Even after dying, I thought that was so funny. Like, I was like, I'm already being an asshole again. I'm back. You know? But that was funny. But I don't know if he was a real person or not. And after that, I kind of. I think I just fell asleep. It was over, and that was the end.

[A]

And then there's some sort of recuperative process by which they have to repair something or, like, make you not dead anymore. In terms of, like. Was there any procedure they did on your heart at that time?

[D]

Well, when I came in, they thought it was blockages, so they put stents in. Two valves. They put two. Two stents in. And they were trying to put a third stent in, but they couldn't. Cause the valve was ripped, all the pieces. And so I have two stents, and I think they pulled it the third one. Well, even if they didn't, the surgery replaced the valve with a pig valve. Yeah, yeah. The option was a pig valve or mechanical valve. And with the mechanical valve, you have to take a blood thinner for the rest of your life. I already had a bad experience with a blood thinner. I was taking a blood thinner for hypertension for some reason. Yeah. And then I poked myself with a glass that broke, and the blood shot to the.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[D]

To the ceiling of my house. And I was like, I'm not taking blood thinners anymore. Yeah.

[A]

You know, so they put a pig valve in and put your heart back together.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

And then what is the process by which you start trying to make sense of what your experience was when you died?

[D]

I'm never. I had to go back to work, so I didn't really have time to integrate.

[A]

When did you go back to work after dying?

[D]

Very. As soon as I could. I would say a few days after I got home. A week after I got home. I was driving. Everything still hurt. My chest hurt bad. Nah, I ain't gonna say a week. It took a long time for me to. But it was very fast that I felt comfortable enough to move. But the pain initially was so extreme, I didn't want to be alive. Like, I was like, why did they even save me? Like, why would you save somebody? And they had just, you know, the chest cracked open. Like, what is this? Why would you do this to me? Like, I wanted to go because I woke up one morning and I sneezed, and it literally felt like my whole chest just opened back up, and all I could do was wail. Like, I. And I. Every time I share this part of the story, I can get emotional because the wailing sounds like, it didn't even come from me. It was like I was hearing it. Like, what is this sound? And it was the saddest sound ever. Yeah. And it hurt.

[A]

What was it like? You know, you had a son, you know, a little boy. What was that like? And what was your kind of orientation with what you had experienced and what you had to come back to?

[D]

I didn't think I was going to live after the experience, so I was really. For a long time, my heart wasn't beating right. I felt like I had two hearts. It was the beat, the rhythm wasn't. It just wasn't rhythming. So I just knew that that wasn't healthy. And I couldn't. It wasn't gonna. I wasn't gonna live if it stayed that way. And so I didn't expect to live. And so I got a dog. I this story recently, and it was a pit bull. It got big, and my thought was, I'm gonna die, so maybe I can train this dog to be a protector. My son and his mother. And I was harsh, real harsh with the dog, because I wanted it to be as mean as I was and be a protector. And it's a pit bull. You don't really have to Teach a pit bull to protect. And I was going overboard, and I felt horrible, and I was. I sold a dog because I realized that it wasn't safe with me. It wasn't healthy for me because I was. I thought I was dying, and I wanted it to replace me. And that's not a healthy thing for a dog, you know? So this guy used to come by to cut grass for my neighbors, and he always loved the dog. Like, the dog loved him instantly. And I didn't want to let the dog go, but I felt like it. It needed to go to that guy because I was not healthy, mentally, spiritually, in any way. I wasn't healthy.

[A]

Your boy was still young. So how. How long is it like this before you have some sort of crack where you're able to incorporate? What happened when you died?

[D]

It took me three and a half years to talk about it. Wow. And for three and a half years, it was just. I was probably more depressed after heart surgery. The depression was so extreme. They told me that I would be depressed after heart surgery, but I had been depressed for 34 years. You know, I've been in an existential crisis for 34 years, since I drowned at age 6. I hated this place for 34 years. So there was nothing that he was saying that made me feel like depression was going to matter. But after the heart surgery, the depression was so extreme, and it took a long time for me to. Even when I was angry, happiness. I didn't like happy people. I thought happiness was fake because I'd never really felt happy, in a way, any extended period of time. I mean, the town I'm from, Yanceyville, Caswell county, was the poorest county. So I was like. I had never been happy. But what I did feel was my mom's love was safe. She loved me. And that's so for happiness. I stopped even caring about it. But I understood what love was, and I felt safe with love. And. But I don't know. It's just the anger. I don't know. It blinded me. I couldn't see reality for what it was. All I could see was how I judged it, how it made me feel. And after I detached from all of that, all I see is reality.

[B]

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[D]

and other limits in terms of.

[A]

Yeah. So what changed? Like, what happened after three and a half years?

[D]

I shared it. It was during COVID It was 21. 2021. During 2020. 2021. It was during COVID And the clubhouse app had come out or had gotten popular. Yeah.

[A]

So you die, you have this experience, you have this surgery, you come back, you're just holding all this in your

[D]

soul, trying to go work.

[A]

And what did you think of that experience? You were just like.

[C]

Like what.

[D]

What story you told about it? Because I want people to think I'm crazy, you know? Yeah. I don't understand it. So I. I can't even talk about it in any kind of intelligible way. I didn't know what happened to me, you know? So for the. It took me and my friend Zachariah. We've been. We've talked. You know, we've. We take breaks, but we've talked almost every day for, like, three, four, five. Four or five years. And that. Talking. We talked about everything. Ancient Egyptian stuff, Ancient Greek stuff. Did you meet him during COVID on the Clubhouse app?

[B]

Oh, wow.

[D]

We both were sharing that we had these experiences.

[A]

Okay, so. Okay, so you found this clubhouse app, which we all kind of laughed about because we're like, is this gonna be a thing? Right. But, like, some of us tried it out.

[D]

I love it. I don't even use it as much now because the environment has changed a lot. But I will always speak highly of clubhouse.

[C]

So that's.

[D]

So you started sharing.

[A]

So you started connecting, and that's the place you started sharing.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. And people poured into me from all over the world. Shamans, Indian, like, mystics. Like, these people were like gurus who knew these ancient texts inside out. So when I said stuff, they would be like, oh, this is that. Oh, this is that. And I'm like, they blowing my mind, like, because everything that I was saying, they were able to explain it through the text that they knew. And so I started reading more Vedic texts and more Hindu texts and ancient Greek stuff, Ancient Egyptian stuff. And everything that happened to me is there, like, everything. Even Terence Howard started talking about Walter Russell. Walter Russell's stuff. I had Walter Russell's book in college and didn't read it because it was too dense. After my nde, I looked at Secrets of Light. It's describing how I. The void.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[D]

How I came. It's describing it. And it's weird to me now you know all of it, because there's so much that I had in my possession before I had the NDE that now I know why I had. I had that book, because I had to have that book to help me understand what happened to me after I died. But I got it. I was 18, 19 years old and didn't understand it.

[A]

Well, you had also had all these experiences that your soul had been racking up in this. Right. In this incarnation of almost dying, of having all these mystical experiences, of relying on your mother's love to get you through.

[D]

Yeah, it seemed as though. Because I have now probably close to 5,000 or more books, and most of them are about spirituality, quantum physics, psychology, neuroscience. And I had these books before I had this experience. So when I had the experience, now I have a whole library to go dig through to help me explain what happened to me.

[A]

So this is pretty recent that you're talking about it?

[D]

Yeah, it happened in 2017.

[A]

But you. But it was during COVID that you

[D]

started about 2021 is when I first shared it.

[B]

What was that first experience of sharing like? Did you have that whole story formed because you had been suppressing it for all these years?

[D]

It poured out the same way it pours out now, except I have more details now because sometimes I remember more, you know, but it's been people who've heard me share it the first time. They say you say it the same way every time. Because I remember it that way. And I'm not trying to embellish. I only share what I saw. I don't share what I believe about what I saw.

[A]

They're different things.

[D]

They're different things. Yeah. And I don't really have belief anymore. Either I understand it or I don't, you know, and if I don't understand it, I can try to understand it. If it's still too difficult for me to understand, I can move my attention somewhere else. Like, I don't have to fixate on any idea on this planet anymore because there's an infinite number of ideas here, and I don't have to understand them all. So I don't fixate on anything here. If I understand it, I can understand it. If I don't, I don't. I don't have to believe. I don't have to force an idea from a misunderstanding.

[A]

I love this notion, and it's something we've talked about with a lot of the materialists that we speak to. Oh, what do you believe and what do you. And I think that's such. That's so beautifully said. It's not about belief. At a certain point, it's either like a yes or a no.

[D]

That's it. Belief is the lowest form of knowing. You know, I believe this. But you could go find out whether or not that belief is close to accurate or far from accurate. If you had the, you know, the energy or the wherewithal and just go do it. But I don't have to believe anything, and I don't have to question anybody else's beliefs either. You know, I don't. Because we all are in delusion. I mean, our perception is imperfect. It's processed here. Not, you know, and if we are traumatized and influenced by culture, our perception is being influenced by that. So we're not seeing reality ever. We're living in a personal delusion, and our delusions should serve us. And so many of our delusions don't serve us, you know, And I think that we should consider that some of the ideas that we entertain, they're anti life. They're hopeless. And we don't have to entertain these ideas. Our ideas should serve us, that we entertain. The delusions that we accept about this place should serve us.

[A]

I know. It's such a simple question that has such a complicated answer. How did you change after, you know, after this experience?

[D]

I think I wouldn't have changed were it not for the experience. So I don't take any kind of credit for it. It was graceless. I died, and when I came back, I didn't have an attachment to the ideas, but I had to live for a while to realize that. I remember getting in an argument with my son's mother after I died, and I was talking loud, and I remember hearing myself talking loud. And it's like, why are you talking so loud? You know, you're not angry at anyone. And I thought it was ridiculous, you know, and I saw. But I still can get triggered, you know, I still can get frustrated every now and then and impatient, but for the most part, I hear my thoughts, I hear my. I see my behavior, and I just can correct it before it goes awry or I can correct the thought before the thought becomes anything that I have to vocalize or act on.

[A]

You described a little bit that your brain changed, Right. And the. One of the only ways to explain this, and I think, you know, we've spoken to many incredible people who have had NDEs, and Betty's a great example of someone who really was, you know, one specific chemical drug addiction.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Was lifted for her kind of instantly. Right. The rest had to still continue unfolding. But, you know, we spoke to Elizabeth Crone, and, you know, she's a friend of the podcast, or like, she physiologically changed. She was struck by lightning. Right. There's things that you can kind of point to, but what you're describing I've never heard anyone describe, like this, that it's as if your brain rewired and the parts of you that were geared for hatred, right. Or for generalizing about a group of people or, you know, that amygdala response of everyone's against me and fuck you, and I'm gonna get my backup no matter what. It's like that. Calm down, right? It's.

[B]

It changed the death. Did it change something structural or was it that you experienced a level of love that allowed you on an emotional level to know that there was an alternative? Right. We only see how wound up we are once we're able to fully relax, and we're never able to fully relax because we're so wound up.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

You got taken to this alternative state, this version of an afterlife, and you experience the ultimate love.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

That may have been the only way for you to see just what you were carrying.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Now, did that change your brain? Probably. But was it the brain that changed first or the love that we experienced?

[A]

Did love change your brain?

[D]

The way I see even what a human being is, it's probably like eight, at least eight pieces, you know, and the body is just one of them, you know? But my body changed. My spirit changed. And that's not easy to talk about. But if you speak about it in terms of the brain, it is the limbic brain. If it's extremely active, you're going to have a lot of fight or flight and anxiety and, you know, bad storytelling, making up stuff about reality, lying on reality, that's going to be normal. So I know that that's where those things resides in the body. And analogically, that's your spirit. And there is no separating the body from. From these other concepts. It's just a. It's analogical. Everything is analogical in ancient thinking. And if it doesn't make sense from the nano to the cosmic, it's a human thought, it's a human idea that's made up, and there's nothing wrong with that. But our delusion should still be aligned with reality, and a lot of our delusions aren't aligned with reality. And that's when it creates problems in reality.

[A]

You just defined God is everything or God is nothing, which you hear a lot in 12 step meetings. Right?

[D]

Yeah. I speak about that program so highly because I tell people that I've met who've gone through it, they speak my language, you know.

[A]

But that notion of like, from the nano to the right, like, like if it doesn't make sense everywhere, it actually doesn't make sense.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

Right.

[D]

I never heard that from that. But I would have just admit, for aa. Right, right. That whole orientation, it gives the person going through it. Right. Spiritual autonomy, agency back, and that's. That's what's necessary.

[A]

It was like dying taught you how

[C]

to stop hating everyone.

[A]

Yeah, right. Like it. And. And I think Jonathan asks such a, you know, a. A nuanced question. Right. Like, was it the experience or was it what you experienced because, you know, we're all told love is the answer. Love of. And like, you see, I'm just going to go on a limb here, you know, whatever you want to call God. Like, you experienced God's love. You experienced a love that is outside of the. The physical being. It's outside of our understanding and comprehension. And once you experience it, you're actually not supposed to necessarily come back because it means you died. Right. Like, that changed your brain. Right. That infused your body with something that it took time to percolate.

[D]

But, you know, I think when I came out of the void, I didn't have much memory of David. And I think that's. That void felt like an intense love. Like the closest thing to it is your first love or the person you love the most in a full body orgasm multiplied times 10,000. That's what it felt like. And I felt like I was fixed when I came out of the void. I didn't have personal references to my experience like that. It was like I understood everything, but it wasn't because I learned it as a. As David.

[A]

Well, you stopped taking everything so damn personally. Yeah, right?

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Like literally.

[D]

Literally you were.

[A]

You were given the experience of you're gonna go through your life taking everything personally or, you know, feeling that, you know, the. The in the entire fight is yours to win. Right. Or that you have to save the world. I'm gonna save the world.

[D]

Especially, you know, at that time.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And so the experience, the experience is like, well, what if we remove you from everything about yourself and then what's left over?

[D]

Attention. That was what I was, in my opinion. And I know now that even here, my attention creates my experience. If I put my attention on hopeless ideas, I'm going to experience hopelessness. If I put my attention on hopeful ideas and responsible things, accountable ideas, then I'm going to experience that. And if I see problems and I'm in a hopeful state, I want to solve them, not talk bad about, you know, the issues. You know, that's what my experience. The biggest change is that the things that made me angry now, I could think about them, maybe think about solutions to them. But in my anger, I never. I never had a solution to anything. I just had anger.

[B]

What is your relationship with your intuition now? Or that voice that had guided you through childhood?

[D]

It's constant now. I felt like torture for a while because I was all. It felt like I was judging myself, but it's really just guiding myself, you know. But it. But it. For a while before I was I was still very graceless. I was always having to course correct, always. So the voice was always saying, it was, it felt like judgment, like it was nitpicking over behavior. But what I'm learning is that what I learned even from my nd, is that the thoughts are the problem too, you know, so if you can't check your thoughts, then it really doesn't matter what behavior you engage in because it's an act. Your thoughts are your energy. The behavior is an act. So if you, if like I used to go to job interviews and I would go into the job interview and there's a white guy interviewing me and as soon as I came, oh, this white guy, I hate him, he hates me. I'm not gonna get the job and I not get the job. And then I would leave and say he was racist. That's why I didn't get the job. None of my thoughts influenced that, none of my prediction influenced that, none of my attention, you know, so now I blame myself for those types of encounters because I came in already predicting that it wasn't going to work. I came in not even having the capacity to love this person in front of me, but I expected this person to somehow get some advice, to say, yeah, he's the one that doesn't work that way. There's nothing in his being that would have said that it was safe to have me working with him. The way that I behaved in the

[A]

way that I thought, it's such a humbling experience. And I think that's something we see in a lot of NDEs. It's like everything you thought, everything you thought was important or valuable, it's just like it's such a humbling experience, right?

[D]

And I was a know it all, you know. So now I have no solid conclusions and I don't speak with extreme certainty about most things. I'm open to learning and refining my perspective.

[A]

Always what you describe is something that, you know, most people will never experience. And I'm actually very curious and this is just me being a nerd, like I'm very curious, you know, when your death happened. Because about 30% of people with cardiac, you know, events like this, right when they are resuscitated will report a near death experience. So many people, you know, in cardiac units, unfortunately, you know, they, they die, they do come back. When people do come back, when they're brought back the way you were brought back, about 30% remember something. And I'd like to believe that everyone's having these experiences, but only some people are Given this gift to kind of bring it back, Right?

[D]

Kind of like dream. Everybody don't remember dreams.

[A]

Yes, exactly. But the things that you experienced, many people try and touch with transcendental meditation, other forms of meditation, and, and there's been a lot of conversation, and indigenous communities for thousands of years have used plant medicine to kind of get at these things. And there are both plant medicines and also synthetic medic medications that, you know, kind of pull that veil of consciousness up and allow you to have experiences. I don't want to say that are similar because. Okay, great. Well, you're the one who gets to say it because you're the one who

[D]

died and I've had psychedelics.

[A]

Is this something you're comfortable talking about? Because I'm curious, where's the overlap, right? Like, what's actually happening? Because we can't just dismiss these drugs as like a good time and it's

[C]

just a party drug.

[A]

Something's going on.

[D]

I'm one of those people who, if you fall, bump your head and have an experience, it's no different than what I experience. If you have the same orientation afterwards, to me, it's not about the experience, it's about the orientation, the pivot afterwards. If you are the same idiot before your ND that you were after the nd, who cares about the experience? And there's a lot of people who take psychedelics regularly that are idiots still, you know, and you, every single time you speak to them, I'm all tripping on this. You're still an idiot. So what's the point of this? You know? So for me, it's not about the experience, it's about integrating and grounding it. And, and because so many people have these experiences and they try to tell you about the. The purple elephant that was flying and it's like, well, what does it mean if I don't care to hear about a purple elephant flying? It doesn't mean anything to me. But if you could sit with your experience before you feel the need to always yell it from the rooftop, because it's not always, and just ground it first, then you will see that the response, the reception to it will be different. The three and a half years that I took to not share it, just ruminating over it, and then four years or so of talking it out with another person, even as I was sharing it, has allowed me to not view any of the experience itself, as the experiences are important. But it's you, how you integrated and grounded on the other side.

[A]

So in that sense, what do you See, in terms of psychedelics, is that a tool?

[D]

Like it's an adjunct, but you get to a place where you don't need the adjuncts. You know, like, once you awaken to that way of seeing reality, the adjuncts aren't necessary. I still would like to use some of these adjuncts because I never have before, and I would like to be able to compare them to the nde. So I'm still gonna try some more.

[A]

Right.

[D]

You know, just to even be able to speak about it, you know, and compare it. Because that is a big question.

[A]

We recently were talking about, you know, some of the incredible research, you know, with dmt, which is a serious, very strong medication.

[C]

Well, right.

[A]

Cause what people report, and, you know, there's some very interesting studies, you know, trying to get people who know nothing about the expectation of the study to describe what they're seeing. And, you know, you have all these independent reports of very specific images and imagery which, you know, is it the brain producing it or is it really reality that we're peeking into?

[D]

To me, like, the biggest difference between psychedelics and the NDE is every single time. I've had psychedelics, mainly mushrooms, but I've done lsd and I have a whole movie idea that came down and downloaded after that. It was weird, but I call it the curators. Oh, yeah. But mushrooms. The visuals I could see, somebody I could see. I've seen when I had my nd, that was. Was moments of just really strange visuals, especially as I was dying.

[A]

Like what?

[D]

Just stuff not looking the way it looked when you were alive. Like the. It just kind of. I call it. I got. I. I had to make myself remember stuff. Like, I always. Like I called it whatever you're caught with. I said C, O, T, W, F. Whatever you're caught with when you die is. It's what you're going to experience in the transition. And caught with, to me, is the collapse of the wave function. So wherever it collapses, and whatever your awareness is in that moment, you're going to experience things from that angle. And so if you're angry, upset, and your wave function collapses, you're going to experience things as that energy. In my opinion. Same with NDEs, but with psychedelics, whatever you're caught with is stronger because it's still flowing through your body and it's still real. You know, when you leave the body, there's no anchor to the body. So you can leave those things and you have the life review, and that looks different. I've seen people describe TV screens showing them their whole story. For me it was, I saw brief flashes of images, but it was mostly like a maybe 10 seconds second, 5, 7 second dump of energy to where I understood how I made people feel. One of the biggest things that I the simplest way to describe it would just be lying, but telling people that you're gonna do something and not doing it. I felt that I'd done that a lot, you know, agreed to do something and I didn't follow through. And I could feel the disappointment from people who I had agreed to do

[B]

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[A]

You could feel other people's feelings and

[D]

debts, and it's not always money debts, but it is money debts. If you, if I thought about those people that I owed money to as I was leaving there, but it was also not just the money, it was the grace that they extended to me. I don't think I extended, you know, so the feeling of reciprocity wasn't there. And that person probably felt that and I felt it in that moment. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, it's definitely different than the other Life reviews that we've heard about. But I'm thinking of even Betty. Betty was able to sort of actively experience the pain of the people she had hurt. She experienced her father's pain at leaving her.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Like all these things and, you know, it's almost like an emotional, you know, reconciliation. Right.

[D]

That's what I view it as. I, I don't view that Life review as something that, that you should take and be like, oh, man, my Life review showed me this. Oh, man. No, it's. This is the final time for you to detach from the things that you held your attention on so, so deeply in this experience. The Life Review is always going to be the things that your attention, that stuck in your attention always. Wow. If it, if. Because if you did, if you were Christian and you. And you didn't worship Jesus, you wouldn't see Jesus all the time.

[A]

There's a lot of people who also feel like if you, if people see Jesus during NDEs, it's proof that Jesus is the true God. Which, like, I don't have much attachment to truth in that sense just because it's all one anyway.

[D]

But I have an extreme amount of respect for the idea of Jesus and Christianity, like, deeply, you know, even from the point, from the point of seeing that energy in different forms in the past and loving them then, you know, so it's not a thing of me trying to question people's religion. It's just the way that we approach religion oftentimes is divisive and violent and we've been killing ourselves, each other over bad storytelling for Far too long, you know?

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And these stories have origins and it's not where we are with these stories. It's not where these stories began. And killing each other over. It doesn't make sense to. To me.

[A]

You mentioned past lives. What's your current understanding of not just your past lives, but how the system is set up?

[D]

Yeah, I think that there were coaches who, who. They created reincarnation. They practiced practices that brought back certain types to keep society stable. You know, if a person performed well in this role, then let's bring them back and perform well in this role again. And I think that's what happened in ancient times. But there's no practice of reincarnation. There's no people calling certain spirits back anymore. And so it's willy nilly now. So a pharaoh can be born in Norway, you know. But I do think that we come and we go. And most of the traditions, the ancient mystical parts of it spoke about, that's what it's speaking about. Becoming aware in this life that you're not a body, that you have the agency to come and go. Almost all of the mystical teachers, teachings are trying to ground people in that knowing that you're not a body, you are a soul, or whatever you want to call it. And it's not really destructible. And you're. And when you leave the body, you realize that you are actually experiencing reality from that thing. And it's not physical and it's strange, but that's what you are and nothing happens to it.

[A]

And I think one of the things that's so interesting to me about even the conversation about past lives, like before you died, you weren't the dude who

[D]

was like, let's talk about past lives, even NDEs. I was cynical about NDEs because of what you said. Everybody was seeing Jesus and saying, and now you have to believe in Jesus now, because I saw Jesus when I. And it's like, that doesn't mean I have to believe.

[A]

This is common in other others that we've spoken. It's like you've been given a new identity.

[D]

Right.

[A]

As someone who can speak to this stuff and had experiences firsthand, which Jeffrey Kripal, who worked with Elizabeth Crone, he was a professor of religious studies at Rice, you know, he said there is a context for all of these experiences that goes back thousands of years. We're just dropping into them.

[D]

Yeah. Even I've read, like, strange things that make strange suggestions about even what baptism was. It's like an archeology of baptism, I think, is A book about it, and it talked about how they literally were drowning people so that they could have experiences.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, well, well. And also, I mean, I can speak

[C]

to that just as a Jewish person,

[A]

because baptism comes from a ritual purification, which is called the mikvah. And the mikvah was supposed to be. It's a rebirth. You have an opportunity to essentially spiritually die and be reborn. And for women, when I was married, I went every month. It's a practice that we still do in traditional communities. And that is the notion is that when you immerse, you have the opportunity

[C]

to be born again. Every part of you, the water has to touch every part of you as

[A]

if you're coming out of amniotic fluid. So when you put these things together historically, it's like, yeah, we're all just kind of like, trying to get at this same sort of concept, right?

[D]

I think so. I always. Now everything is one to me. I can hear somebody speaking about something that they think should contradict with how I think. I'm like, no, I believe that too. I accept that as a possibility, too. All of it is possible, because when I was out of my body, here's another thing I saw that I don't talk about much, is that at the

[A]

back of space, which already is an amazing phrase.

[D]

Yeah. As far as I could see, it was like, behind space was a grid. It was a grid. And I've mentioned it to an Indian. I call him a guru because he knows everything. Whoa.

[A]

What kind of grid? I mean, I have an idea.

[D]

He called it the. The Web of Indra, but it just looked like a web, a grid. It looked like the framework upon which all of this was placed. So before my nde, when people said matrix, this is a. This is a matrix, I would be like, yeah. You can't explain that, though. So I don't really care what you say about it. It's just a bunch of. You watched the movie Matrix. Now that word is stuck in your head. Was like a uniform grid because it was enveloping everything. It didn't look like perfectly shaped. It was, like. May have been some angle to it.

[A]

Yeah, it's gonna bend.

[D]

Yes, it was bend. It was bending, but it was a grid.

[A]

I mean, you're just, you know, enough about physics. You're also describing sort of the way people, you know, have that we can lay out time and matter, and it's like, you know, there's universal things that our brains can understand.

[B]

As someone who thinks about tech, if this world was created and placed Somehow it needs to be placed somewhere. That grid is the thing that just keeps.

[A]

Like the Truman Show.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

It's like the boundary of our existence whereby the Earth prevents the Earth from drifting out slowly.

[A]

It's the boundary of our consciousness.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Because there's something beyond us. I think you may have gone there, but meaning the grid is as much as we can understand.

[D]

Even where I went, I feel like it's a part of this system.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. That grid is. Is past where you went.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

The back of space.

[D]

Yeah. It was like. It was like. It seemed like the end of it. And it was this grid.

[B]

Just cords and cables. Beyond simulation.

[A]

No, but like, if it's a simulation, that's what it's going to look like. It's the Truman Show.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

It's just Elon servers passing.

[C]

Stop it.

[A]

Stop it.

[D]

I almost feel like, you know, what's passed there is if it is. If there is a God that isn't as a thing, a personality, or if it's an alien that has the intelligence to create this type of reality, that's who's back there is that. That's the realm where they exist.

[B]

It's just a gray office filled with people typing to make sure that this doesn't fall apart.

[D]

I don't know how to explain. Explain that part of it at all. That's when, to me, the imagination becomes necessary, you know, because it's beyond. It's beyond what's normal. It's beyond. I can think about it, you know, but I. I would be using tips from my ancestors. Ancient texts. Ancient texts tell us some of this stuff. We. We think every God that has the capacity to create something is worth worshiping. That's not the case.

[A]

I think social media has taught us that you can worship that too.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Like even Sophia, after she created Demiurge, said she went to God, the ineffable God, and said, this is the worst thing I've ever done was create Jehovah. Because him and his humans are up to so much mischief, and there's no limit to what they can do. Now, I know that that could be. That's not me making this up. That's in the. The Gnostic text. That's in the Nag Hammadi library. Sophia created Ejaldabar. Who is considered. Is it Yahweh? I think Yahweh. And that's who we worship. And some people say that that is just a creator, but he was created and she tricked him into breathing the breath of God into humans and make them Walk upright. Because she went to God to ask for advice as to what she could do, because she recreated Jehovah and he was a problem. And she was like, I made this mistake. I always make it and put it in my language. And I don't know what to do with this badass God over here. He's just acting up and made these stupid little humans, and they don't know what to do. And he's telling them to do all this. And. And he's. God told her just, I. I breathe my breath into you. You breathe your breath into him, get him to breathe his breath into them. And now we all one pretty much.

[C]

Are there angels?

[A]

Do you believe in them?

[D]

That word?

[B]

Probably.

[D]

Because I have a history of always trying to be ornery and contrarian to religion. I don't like a lot of religious words, but, yes, if you were to

[A]

put into your own words what other people would call angel, like, do people have guides?

[D]

When I was traveling through space, I felt like if I traveled long enough, I probably could have found this place while this and my embodied, and I would have had an agenda here. And if I learned how to communicate with people, I would have been considered an angel. But it was because I have responsibility to this place, whether I'm embodied or disembodied, and I will come back here to try to serve. So I think angels, in my opinion, just serve. They serve humanity. They might have an affinity to particular people because of anything. It could be literally that they inhabited a body that was related to this person at a different time, and now I'm going to come serve you. Sometimes people, there's an affinity, and it could just be an energetic affinity or it could be a. An experienced affinity, you know, But I think people have. And even in ifa, it's a West African tradition, you have a concept called egbe, and this is like your spiritual family. And they care about you. They're not embodied, you know, but they care about you.

[A]

Vinny Tolman?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Do you know Vinny Tolman?

[D]

Yeah, I met him a couple times at conferences.

[A]

Vinny's guide, when he died, it turned out he found out later, was actually someone who was related to him. Right. So just even this notion that we

[D]

have guides like that, I think sometimes we do use too much imaginative language to describe this and too much religious language to describe it, but I think it's no less real. It's real. I think it's. That's honestly the voice that speaks to me constantly. I could say that that's an angel. I could say that it's Egbe. I could say that it's a spirit that loves me. I could say that it's me, you know, whatever. But I do. As long as the messages are hopeful and responsible and not pointing fingers or judging others, I know that there's a voice worth listening to. But as soon as that voice is critiquing reality and telling you that something's wrong with someone or calling people evil, that's not a voice worth listening to.

[A]

Final question. What is it like to be a dad? To raise a kid with the information and the experiences that you've had? What does he think?

[D]

He. I talked to him and I said, do you remember how I was before? Before? And he's. And he just says. He said he used to be. And I let my son speak his mind. Cuss. I don't. I try to tell him, don't cuss out. But I'm sure he's cussing out. You know what he said? He said, you used to be an asshole. And he was like 9 or 10 when he said this. He said, you used to be a real asshole. He said you were mean. He said, you don't fuss that much anymore. He said, you just calmer. And from him, that means the world to me. Now, what I want to do when I think he's. And I inject little things here and there. I try to teach him without it being obvious that I'm trying to teach him. So I'm trying to help him see reality in a way that is healthy. Healthy without it being a philosophy.

[A]

Is he dreamy like you were?

[D]

I think he's more grounded than I am. I was in those clouds always. He's grounded. He's happy. And I love that because I was miserable. I was. I was a depressed kid having an existential crisis, asking about death. Like, scared of death at age seven, you know, And. And he's just happy. And to see him happy is like, he's not like me. You know what I'm saying? And that is. I don't want him to grow up with the anger that I did with very useless philosophies, you know, that single out one thing and act as though there's nothing else in existence, you know, like, that's not healthy. And so he, to me, me, is. He's well rounded, he's intelligent. He's just turned 12 in March, right? But he's 5 8, like 180 pounds. He's a giant. And he's. But he's. He says Some people call him a gentle giant because he's not mean at all like I was. He's competitive, but he's happy, you know, and that for me to be. To come from where I came from and have the disposition that I did, to have a child that is just happy. Happy, it means a lot to me. That means a lot.

[B]

Great gift. That's a great gift.

[A]

David Williamson. This was absolutely unreal. You're absolutely unreal. Thank you so much for sharing with us.

[D]

Thank you. Thank you all for having me.

[A]

Of course.

[B]

He said something about how when he hears people talking, that he. That they think it's about different things, but it's really about the same thing. Thing. And we had a similar experience. It wasn't really philosophical per se, but I was talking about a deck. You were talking about a platform. We fought for weeks about this, and it was. When we actually started to unpack it, we both were talking about a version of the same thing. Maybe There was a 15% difference, but it divided us. And I just thought, we can continue to come together realizing that it's all the same.

[A]

I think that sometimes you call rugs carpets, and it confuses everyone.

[B]

It's my Canadian upbringing.

[A]

I don't know what happens in Canada, but sometimes words. We were actually. You know what? This is a good time to bring this up. We were watching something, and you're like, it's a set.

[B]

Oh, okay. I'm showing her the future of filmmaking. There's, like, these videos. I got sent it by a producer friend of mine. And it's an immersive sound stage where it's like. It's not even a green screen. It's like this amazing new technology.

[A]

It looked like the Universal Studios tram ride with King Kong around you.

[B]

Yeah. So you're in this, like, massive warehouse, and the guy's walking in the warehouse. And then it's an immersive environment. So the entire. The floor is a screen, the. The background is a screen, and. And you can create anything. So all of a sudden, he's walking, and now he's in a desert. And it looks like a 3D environment. And then, like, a dinosaur comes in and, like, looks like it just goes right past his head.

[A]

I don't spend any time in AI World. I do barely spend any time on the Internet looking at anything, like, visually interesting, innovative. Like, I watch my documentaries and I type things and I interact with you guys. I don't know what things look like these days. So Jonathan says to me, it's a screen.

[B]

No, I Say. I say, it's an immersive studio.

[A]

Merciful. No, you didn't use the word immersive. You were just like, oh.

[B]

I said a digital studio.

[A]

He said, it's a digital studio. And I don't understand. I'm like, well, what do you mean?

[C]

Where are we?

[A]

And you're like, what. What don't you understand about digital studio?

[C]

Hold on.

[A]

How could you not understand what I mean? And I'm like, I don't know what I'm looking at.

[B]

So sometimes you ask me questions and they are. I don't know what it is that you want me to explain. So it was very playful. You were like, what is. What is that? I said, it's a digital studio. Kept saying those words, said what? And so I wanted to see what part of that you were going to pick apart or if you were going to ask me another question.

[C]

I'm going to relate this to the

[A]

episode in a second.

[B]

What I'm looking for is you to say, like, that guy. Like, how are they making those images appear on the. On the wall? Like, where did the dinosaur come from? So I will answer that. I'll be like, oh, they create that in AI and that's how. And everything's a screen. But what you say is, what is that again? And I say digital studio. And then you say, what? And I say digital studio.

[A]

So this is just like communication 101. If someone doesn't understand something, it doesn't help for you to just repeat the same thing.

[B]

Just ask a question. Don't just say what.

[A]

The reason. The reason this relates to the episode is that when we kind of, like, looked into it deeper, there were some words missing that were helpful.

[C]

Those.

[B]

Immersive.

[A]

Immersive.

[B]

Digital studio. There's just one after word I added. And you still said what?

[A]

The reason it relates to this episode,

[B]

though,

[A]

is, you know, it depends on how you look at things. Right?

[B]

And Sophia breathed breath into humans and then we stopped understanding each other and we're optimistic. Mischief. That's.

[A]

I mean, this is. This is really, you know, a very, very unique. A very unique NDE in that it encompassed so many other of the NDEs that felt so unique, right? His. His experience, his understanding, and in particular the exploration he's done after, I think, I don't know, just feels like it ties together so many of the other themes that, you know, keep coming up for us here. One of the things we didn't get to speak about as much was a lot of the physiological challenges that actually David continues to experience. And we actually have a link. There's yeah, there's actually a place where you can learn more about what he's been going through and be part of that if you would like to. So we'll include that link as well. Really, really such a phenomenal conversation. Just really feel so blessed to get to meet David Williamson. So please join us on Substack. We There'll be a lot of conversation about this episode and there's content there that you can't get anywhere else. So head over to bialikbreakdown.substack.com and for more breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We will see you next time.

[D]

It's Maya Bialik's breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two and now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down

[B]

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[E]

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