Oprah and a Doctor Explore What Near Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond

Summary

Podcast Title: The Oprah Podcast
Episode: Oprah and a Doctor Explore What Near Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond
Release Date: April 29, 2025

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In this thought-provoking episode of The Oprah Podcast, host Oprah Winfrey engages in an enlightening conversation with Dr. Bruce Greyson, a leading expert on Near Death Experiences (NDEs), alongside guests Jeremy Renner, Tom Sawyer, Dr. Mary Neal, and Harmony (Gabrielle). The discussion delves deep into the mysteries of what happens after we die, exploring personal experiences, scientific insights, and the profound impact of NDEs on individuals' lives.

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Introduction to Near Death Experiences

Oprah opens the conversation by posing a fundamental question about the afterlife: "Have you ever wondered what happens after we die?" She reflects on her extensive exploration of NDEs through over 20 episodes of The Oprah Winfrey Show, sharing stories of individuals who have come back from the brink of death with compelling accounts of otherworldly experiences ([00:00]).

Notable Quote:
“Have you ever wondered what happens after we die? I think if you live long enough, you actually start asking yourself that question.”
— Oprah Winfrey ([00:00])

Dr. Bruce Greyson’s Expertise on NDEs

Dr. Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist and professor emeritus at the University of Virginia, introduces himself as one of the world's foremost experts on NDEs. He discusses his nearly 50 years of research into human consciousness and the afterlife, highlighting the universal elements found in countless NDE narratives, such as leaving the body, experiencing profound peace, encountering deceased loved ones, and undergoing a life review ([01:38] - [02:54]).

Notable Quote:
“The common elements are the same around the world with different cultures... often encountering other entities that may be divine beings or deceased loved ones.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson ([04:23])

Jeremy Renner’s Personal Near Death Experience

Actor Jeremy Renner shares his harrowing experience of being pronounced dead after an accident, only to return with vivid memories that defy medical explanations. He recounts how he recalled specific details about conversations he had while unconscious, sparking his interest in exploring NDEs further and leading him to connect with Dr. Greyson ([03:00] - [07:33]).

Notable Quote:
“Near Death experiences... mystical or spiritual experiences, like leaving your body, seeing other entities... reviewing your life... then you come back.”
— Jeremy Renner ([03:23])

The Scientific Skepticism Surrounding NDEs

Oprah raises the issue of scientific skepticism regarding NDEs, questioning whether these experiences are mere hallucinations caused by brain chemistry. Jeremy Renner responds by emphasizing that his extensive research, which includes thousands of NDE accounts, cannot be satisfactorily explained by traditional scientific hypotheses such as oxygen deprivation or endorphin release ([05:28] - [08:16]).

Notable Quote:
“When the mind is functioning very well, the brain is not. And there's no medical explanation for how that can be.”
— Jeremy Renner ([08:25])

Tom Sawyer’s Transformative NDE

Jeremy introduces Tom Sawyer, an actor who survived a severe accident that left him physically altered. Tom describes his NDE as a profound encounter with unconditional love and a comprehensive life review, which led him to adopt a life centered around compassion and empathy. His experience reinforced the idea that love transcends physical existence and shapes how we live after such profound events ([09:23] - [16:28]).

Notable Quote:
“Love is the only thing that you take with you when you die.”
— Tom Sawyer ([21:15])

Dr. Mary Neal’s NDE and Personal Loss

Orthopedic spinal surgeon and best-selling author Dr. Mary Neal shares her NDE during a kayaking accident, where she experienced a deep sense of love and understanding without judgment. She was instructed to return to Earth to fulfill specific purposes, including coping with the premature death of her son a decade later. Dr. Neal discusses how her experience has influenced her approach to life, emphasizing the continuation of consciousness beyond death ([33:41] - [43:41]).

Notable Quote:
“God is love. And the fact is, where God is present, there is always some version of love, be it compassion or empathy.”
— Dr. Mary Neal ([37:50])

Harmony (Gabrielle)’s NDE at a Young Age

Harmony, a Grammy-winning songwriter, recounts her NDE at the age of 13 following a severe car accident. She describes hearing a loving voice—interpreted as God—informing her that it was "not yet time" for her to die. This experience instilled in her a deep sense of purpose and a desire to prioritize love and meaningful connections over material pursuits. Harmony discusses the challenges of integrating such a profound experience into her teenage life and her subsequent creative endeavors ([47:26] - [66:32]).

Notable Quote:
“Love is the only thing you take with you when you die.”
— Harmony (Gabrielle) ([62:16])

Common Themes Across NDEs

Throughout the episode, guests and Dr. Greyson highlight recurring themes in NDEs, such as the transcendence of time and space, the overwhelming presence of love, and the life-changing impact these experiences have on individuals. These commonalities suggest a universal aspect to NDEs, challenging the materialistic view of consciousness tied solely to brain activity.

Notable Quote:
“When you hurt someone else, you're hurting yourself as well.”
— Jeremy Renner ([14:34])

Scientific and Spiritual Implications

The conversation bridges scientific inquiry and spiritual belief, with Dr. Greyson emphasizing the need for open-minded research into NDEs. Jeremy Renner suggests that while individual scientists may remain skeptical, the collective evidence from thousands of NDE accounts points toward consciousness existing beyond the physical brain.

Notable Quote:
“We see experiences, like near death experiences and lots of others as well. They say they're separate, disprove that.”
— Jeremy Renner ([46:10])

Impact of NDEs on Life’s Priorities

Guests discuss how NDEs have led them to reevaluate what truly matters in life. Common outcomes include a greater appreciation for personal relationships, a shift away from materialism, and a commitment to living more authentically and compassionately. Oprah underscores the importance of these lessons in leading a well-lived life.

Notable Quote:
“How do you live your life knowing this?”
— Jeremy Renner ([69:08])

Conclusion and Final Reflections

Oprah concludes the episode by reflecting on the transformative power of NDEs, emphasizing that understanding these experiences can lead to a more meaningful and connected existence. She encourages listeners to consider how such insights might shape their own lives, fostering a deeper sense of empathy and purpose.

Notable Quote:
“Living the golden rule... makes life much more meaningful, much more purposeful.”
— Jeremy Renner ([71:26])

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This episode of The Oprah Podcast offers a comprehensive exploration of Near Death Experiences, blending scientific research with deeply personal narratives. Through engaging dialogues and heartfelt testimonies, Oprah and her guests illuminate the profound ways in which NDEs challenge our understanding of life, death, and consciousness, inspiring listeners to reflect on their own lives and the legacy they wish to leave behind.

Transcript

[Oprah Winfrey]

Hi there, everybody, and thanks so much for joining me here on the Oprah podcast and for watching us on YouTube, which is the place to watch everything now. I hear billions of people all over the world are watching so many things, and I'm so glad you've joined us here. Here's a question. Have you ever wondered what happens after we die? I think if you live long enough, you actually start asking yourself that question. And I know we all have different beliefs on what lies beyond. And for some, they believe there is no beyond. We're asking today, what if science could help illuminate the mystery? What if science could do that? Okay, so I have always been fascinated by near death experiences. I did more than 20 episodes of the Oprah Winfrey show talking with people who had died and come back to life to tell a story of an otherworldly experience. While 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. I was deeply impacted by every time I heard these stories. And over the years I noticed that there were so many similarities in their stories that it actually got me wondering. There must be something to this, right? So I'm excited to welcome Dr. Bruce Greyson to the teahouse.

[Dr. Bruce Greyson]

Dr. Bruce Greyson is a psychiatrist, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia, and one of the world's foremost experts on near death experiences, also known as NDEs. For nearly 50 years, Dr. Grayson's pioneering research has explored the depths of our relationship with death, life, and our understanding of consciousness.

[Jeremy Renner]

I've seen so many examples of people whose brains were obviously not functioning well, if at all, and yet they describe their consciousness as more vivid than ever before.

[Dr. Bruce Greyson]

In 1981, he co founded IANDS, the International association for Near Death Studies, a group dedicated to research of this phenomena. He's identified many universal experiences that surfaced through countless stories from people who were pronounced dead and came back to life.

[Dr. Mary Neal]

I was told that it was my time. I had to go back to Earth. I had more work to do.

[Dr. Bruce Greyson]

In his latest book, After a Doctor explores what near death experiences reveal about life and beyond. Dr. Grayson suggests there's more to the human mind's experience beyond what we know here on Earth.

[Harmony]

I just almost felt this hand. I felt like it was the hand of Jesus. And just being like, nope, not yet, not yet.

[Gabrielle]

To hear this voice say it's not yet time just blew my mind because that's what I heard.

[Dr. Bruce Greyson]

And we talk with Academy Award nominated actor Jeremy Renner, who shared details of his near death experience.

[Tom Sawyer]

I was dead on the ice because it took every effort, physical effort, to squeeze out air, to suck air back in. And that's when I was gone. It is a collective divinity of love. Love is the that you take with you when you die.

[Oprah Winfrey]

First of all, welcome to the T house.

[Jeremy Renner]

Thank you, Oprah. I'm delighted to be here with you today.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I'm so. I love this conversation. I love having this conversation. How do you define a near death experience?

[Jeremy Renner]

Near Death experiences, or NDEs, are profound things that happen to many people when they come close to dying or sometimes are pronounced dead, but then recover. And they include what they often perceive as mystical or spiritual experiences, like leaving your body, seeing other entities that may be deceased, loved ones or deities, reviewing your life and coming to some point of no return beyond what you can't keep going and still come back. And then you do come back.

[Oprah Winfrey]

What struck me about the indy experience of so many different people you describe in your book is how similar they all are. So, you know, I've talked to people who experience the whole tunnel, people who haven't experienced the tunnel and the tunnel of light. But what are the elements? And it's not just about the white light.

[Jeremy Renner]

No, no. The common elements are the same around the world with different cultures. We can see the same features. In ancient Greece and Rome, accounts of near death experiences, they include a sense of leaving the physical body, being in a place of peace and love, and sense of, well, being, often encountering other entities that they may interpret as being deities or divine beings or deceased loved ones that sometimes guide them through a life review. And at some point they come to a decision to return to life or they're sent back against their will to life.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, we don't have an opposing opinion here today. Cause we're gonna hear from people who've had this experience. But I have done shows and had multiple conversations where there are people in your same field and scientists who say that this is some form of a hallucination based on chemicals in the brain that's causing these experiences. And I'm obviously sure you've heard this too. You've had to come up against this for many years. And what do you say about that?

[Jeremy Renner]

Well, I understand it because I started from that perspective. I was raised in a materialistic household and went through traditional training and science and medical school where we were taught that the mind is what the brain does. And when you die, that's just it. But I've been a psychiatrist for Half a century. Now. I know what mental illness is like. I know what hallucinations are like, and they're not at all like near death experiences.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Tell us what got you into this. Because there was a young girl.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yes. Yeah. As I said, I went through medical school with this materialistic mindset. And one of my first weeks as a doctor, as a psychiatrist, I was asked to see a patient who had overdosed in the emergency room. When I went to see her, she was unconscious. I could not arouse her, but her roommate had brought her in and was waiting down the hall to speak to me in another room. So I went down to speak to the roommate and got information about the patient, went back to see the patient. She was still unconscious. So she was admitted to the intensive care unit overnight. When I went to see her the next morning, as soon as she woke up, I went to see her and introduced myself, and she stopped me and said, I know who you are. I remember you from last night. That kind of stunned me. So I said, you know, I thought you were out cold when I saw you. And she said, well, I was, but I saw you talking to my roommate Susan down the hall. I just got startled by it. I didn't know what she was talking about. I assume someone's playing a trick on me here. But then she went on to tell me about the conversation I had with her roommate. What? I said, what? The roommate answer. What we were wearing to find details. And I didn't know how she could have known all this.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. So that threw you?

[Jeremy Renner]

It threw me.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Because nothing in medical school had prepared you for that.

[Jeremy Renner]

Not at all. Nothing in my life had prepared me for this.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. This is the thing that I remember. She remembered she knew that you had a stain on your tie.

[Jeremy Renner]

Right. And when I went to the emergency room, it was covered up by my white lab coat. I had opened it to talk to the roommate, and it was a very hot night in Virginia. And then I closed it up again before I left. So no one but the roommate had seen that spot. And somehow the patient, who was unconscious the whole time, knew about it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So when you first started to talk about this or had the courage to actually mention, you know, things that you had experience with, with patients and knew were being awakened to NDEs, even when we weren't calling them that, you got a lot of criticism and ostracism.

[Jeremy Renner]

Well, I did, and I still do to some extent. But I understand that, you know, part of me is still looking for that materialistic explanation for it, but I've Seen so many examples of people whose brains were obviously not functioning well, if at all. And yet they describe their consciousness as more vivid than ever before. And they have memories that were sharper than memories of other events at the same time in their life decades after the event.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So that tells you what?

[Jeremy Renner]

That it is not a hallucination. It is not even a, quote, normal memory. Because they remembered so much more vividly.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That there is something greater than the brain, that the mind might be greater than the brain.

[Jeremy Renner]

That's the implication. Yes, yes. That when the mind is functioning very well, the brain is not. And there's no medical explanation for how that can be.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay. Many people you've interviewed use similar phrases, like, during this experience, they knew everything and were part of everything. That there was no time, that the experience was more real than anything they knew to be real. There's also an overpowering feeling from all the people that I read about in your book and also in every experience I've encountered interviewing people, there's this overpowering similarity of people talk about unconditional love and that whether they're surrounded by light or not, whether the light becomes a religious figure for them or not, that there is the overwhelming sense of love and connectedness to everything.

[Jeremy Renner]

Right. And I've heard that from people.

[Oprah Winfrey]

What do you make of all those similarities?

[Jeremy Renner]

Well, I think they must be talking about something that's real, because everyone has it. How they describe it is based on what they're familiar with, what analogies they're familiar with. Cause they all say there isn't any word to describe what happened to me. I can't describe. Love is not strong enough word. God is not a strong enough word. But I experienced this thing that was just overwhelming for me. And I've heard this from people who were not religious at all.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's right. So have I. So have I.

[Jeremy Renner]

And yet they say, I can't deny this. This is more real to me than talking to you right now. And this is definitely what's going on.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, it does feel like a different realm. Like it's a. Like it's not a part of. And one of the first times I had a conversation with somebody about it was actually a gentleman that you talk about in the book. After Tom Sawnnet and I, when we were preparing for you to come on the show, I mentioned to my longtime producer, Tara, I said, I remember years ago, it was between 90 and 94. And the reason I remember it because I was so struck by what he said. And it changed me. It changed the way I thought. So Tom Sawyer had had an accident where a car had fallen on him.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yes, yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And I remember him being on the show and saying that he used to be a really cruel person. And that. Or I started the questions were like, I heard you used to be cruel. And he goes, oh, that's pretty harsh. But he used to be a really pretty cruel person and was abusive to his wife. And yet he, in that near death experience, experienced everything he'd ever done to his wife. Here's Tom Sawyer. Remarkable things happened to Tom Sawyer during a near fatal highway accident where he was pinned under a truck. I understand you felt every bit of pain that you had ever caused to your wife and you'd been pretty cruel to her.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Boy, that's pretty sharp. Yes, that's true. In my life review, of course, the tunnel, the light at the end of the tunnel, immersed with a connection to total knowledge and God's unconditional love. Having said that, as part of my life review, I noted not only was myself at any bit or time of chronological age, but regarding any interrelationship with the 31 years that I've been with my wife Elaine, I experience being her. I don't mean like her or a Moviola, but I was her psychology. I was her physical body. I was as though I was not just in her body, but I was her. So things such as the verbal abuse, the physical pain, the psychology, the sociology, all that, I was that. Now, if you don't need much more of a lesson than total knowledge, what.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Does the human experience? How does it compare to whatever that other realm of knowing is like?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, goodness, I don't even know if it's comparable. First of all, the form of communication is superluminal telepathic communication. In other words, it requires no time, no chronology, no anything. You simply are whatever you are. Totally. You are 100 years in time simultaneously.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And you just kind of know that.

[Unknown Speaker]

In other words, you experience it firsthand. You are whatever it is you think you are. Every interrelationship with everything in the universe.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow, this is 1994. I'm looking at the woman's face behind him, like, what is he saying? Have other people that you have studied talked about the similarities of reliving other people's experiences? The reason why that made such an impression on me, I actually got goosebumps when he said he felt everything that he'd ever done. I thought, oh, that makes sense. That is complete karmic sense that the life review would be that you feel everything you've ever done. Yes, yes, yes.

[Jeremy Renner]

You really feel things from other people's perspective. And Tom talks about beating someone up when he was a teenager and feeling it from that person's point of view or doing something nasty to his grandmother and felt it from her perspective. But I've also heard from people that they experienced not only what they were doing to other people, but they experienced the other person's emotions, which made them more compassionate. For example, as a woman, that's what.

[Oprah Winfrey]

He was saying, that I felt my abuse to my wife, I felt how she felt, and therefore I come back trying not to be that kind of person. Yes.

[Jeremy Renner]

But they often feel that they didn't do, but other people did to them. For example, someone I knew was a woman who had an abusive childhood. And when she went back through her life review, she experienced her mother meeting her from the mother's perspective and realized her mother was trapped in this mode and she didn't know how else to relate to her daughter. And she came away feeling tremendous compassion for her mother for the first time in her life. And Tom and this woman, they all come back with this idea that we're all the same, that there's no barrier between me and you. And this leads them basically to the Golden Rule, which is part of every religion we have on this planet.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Renner]

That when you hurt someone else, you're hurting yourself as well.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. Because many people that you have studied have felt that connection to the oneness of all that we read about, that all religions teach about. But somehow when you go to the other side or go to the other realm, you become a part of that and you understand it differently. And that's why after is so profound. It's. It's not just about the life after death. It's about how you choose to live your life after death.

[Jeremy Renner]

That's right.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Jeremy Renner]

Right. They come back totally changed. For them, the Golden Rule is not a guideline we're supposed to follow. It's the law of the universe that they've experienced.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Renner]

There's no point.

[Oprah Winfrey]

We know that that's the ultimate rule.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bruce Greyson]

Thank you for your company today for this fascinating conversation. When we come back, we'll hear the harrowing details of Oscar nominated actor Jeremy Rennerd's near death experience. And for the first time, he sheds light on the it continues to have on him. Thank you for joining us on the Oprah podcast here. I'm so glad you are here and I'm speaking with one of the world's authorities on near death experiences, Dr. Bruce Grayson, who's author of the book after. And we're about to dive into some stories from people who've come so close to death and returned they were technically dead. How similar are these experiences? You're going to find out soon.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, so on New year's day of 2023, two time Oscar nominated actor Jeremy Renner was pronounced dead. Dead after a harrowing accident at his home in Lake Tahoe. Jeremy joins us from the set of his hit show Mayor of Kingstowne. Jeremy, I'm so glad to see that you made it. Cause I remember hearing that that day and feeling, ugh, I can't believe that that had happened to you. So you've been listening to us. Thanks for joining us. What happened on that snowy day in Lake Tahoe?

[Tom Sawyer]

That's a lot to ask. Good to be seen, good to be heard, that's for sure. I'm happy to be here with you. It's been a minute. Yeah, it was an incident really not even an accident at this point as it's been reduced to. But I could say the takeaway moment is really, it's really quite a glory moment for me and my family and in life. But the semantics of it was a snowcat incident and we had terrible weather and I was trying to clear the driveway with my nephew and he was going to get run over. I tried to jump back on the machine to prevent the machine from running him over. It's a giant tank, like with metal tracks, type of 15,000 pound machine. And I tried to jump on it to stop it and I failed and got ran over and crushed and broke 30 bones on my face, my skull, all throughout my entire body. And then my eyeball came out of my head and all these type of things. And then I had to struggle to breathe for a while and then stop breathing.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So what happened after that.

[Tom Sawyer]

Big can of worms that got open? Essentially I got tired in my mind because my lung, everything was collapsed, my ribs and all that sort of thing.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So the physical move and did you have a sense of awareness? Could you move and did you?

[Tom Sawyer]

I've never passed out at all. If I would have passed out, I'd been dead on the ice, okay. Because it took every effort, physical effort to squeeze out air, to suck air back in. And I was suffocating myself with my rib cage, my dislocated shoulder and arms and everything falling upon my pop lung and things like that. So I was really drowning. I was drowning in my own from my rib cage and my bones. So my nephew was able to like, lift some of the bones off my. Pressure off my lung as I was able to breathe. And I breathe as long as it's like doing a one arm push up just to exhale, then just inhale.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, exhale.

[Tom Sawyer]

So I just got tired after, like, probably 30 minutes, and that's when I was gone. I had my neighbors there that came to help at my aid, and it was too icy for. It took forever for the ambulance to get there because the road conditions were awful. And anyway, passing forward, whether it be for 10 seconds or 10 minutes, it's all still quite the same. I've never knew anything about near death, by the way. I knew nothing about it. And everything you guys are talking about, and I still, even after experiencing it and explaining some of what I felt and witnessed or was a part of is exactly what you guys are telling me. What the stories you've heard. I mean, it's almost word for word what I said. I've written a book and I've said these exact same phrases and my jaws on the floor. I'm astounded to know that this is really a thing.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Oh, it's a real thing. I've been talking about it for 30 years. It's a real thing. And I know now. You've written a memoir called My Next Breath. Perfect title. Based upon what you've Described. On page 75, you describe a part of your experience. Like this. I could see my lifetime. I could see everything all at once. It could have been for 10 seconds. It could have been for five minutes. It could have been forever. Who knows how long in that death, there was no time, no time at all. Yet it was also all time and forever. What were you seeing, and more importantly, what were you feeling?

[Gabrielle]

It's.

[Tom Sawyer]

It's kind of none of those things. It's just that the word is is. You just are or is. It's all. Everything all at once, all encompassed. There is no time, place, or space. It just. It just is. It's the most exhilarating piece. It just is. And you're there. It's just these words are so like caveman like that, I'm saying, But that's just the way it is. It's not even like a conscious thought thing. It's not. You're removed of the burdens of your earthly measures of, like, gravity and tooth decay and all these type of things, right? You're relieved of those duties, of that on the spinning rock. You're out into this. You know, it's. It's. To me, it's A beautiful, beautiful, beautiful space. And really, really quite tragic that I had to come back into a busted body.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, we're glad you did, because we could.

[Tom Sawyer]

There's my eyeball, my twisted legs. I'm like, oh, why'd I come back? You know? Yeah. And I don't know. It's pretty. Pretty amazing to me. It's what I would define, you know, God to be. Or it's just the divinity of the collective of love and the humans.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Did you have any spiritual beliefs before? Did you have any?

[Tom Sawyer]

Yeah, well, my dad was a theologist, so I studied all religions growing up.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Tom Sawyer]

But I wasn't a part of any of those religions.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Tom Sawyer]

I became educated to them all and the studying of them all, even Eastern philosophies. And I think they're all very fascinating and interesting. It just. For me, personally, I. I wasn't going down any of those paths. For me, I held my own sort of spirituality, but I just don't want anything to divide me from anybody else.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Tom Sawyer]

Which I. Sometimes religions can do. So I'm more. I just kind of hold that kind of. Kind of that space onto my own. I certainly have a definition of God in all religions now. It's not some bearded man in the sky. It's not this. It's not this. To me, it is this collective divinity of love. Love is the only thing that you take with you when you die.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow. That's so.

[Tom Sawyer]

That is.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Jeremy.

[Tom Sawyer]

It cannot exist. It rides in the coattails of love like everything else does in life. Nothing else freaking matters outside what you love and love unequivocally and is in perpetuity does not change.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow. Love is the only thing you take with you when you die.

[Tom Sawyer]

The only thing.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So I read in an interview where you said that this incident muted all the white noise in your life. What does that mean?

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, it kind of comes from that. Because I know what I take with me and what I. What I hold and cherish and value. So I. What I gave credence to Prior. I do not at all give one iota, one care, one even insecurity or like. It's just something ridiculous like a bad review or some. This or just. It's the nonsense of what we give credence to here on this planet, man. It's just. Unless it's. Unless it's subservient to. To. To love and kindness and thoughtfulness and the collectiveness of who we are as humans and that. I think humanity is. Is closely related to what love is. I think humanity is Beautiful in love. I think the human part of humanity gets a little dodgy, right? We get into like capitalism and all these other things and, and wars and all these type, type of things. But I think the basic pure fuel for humanity is love. And I focus just on things that fuel that and just don't give credence to those that, that are, that deviate from it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, as you, as you've been listening to us, Jeremy, here with me is Dr. Grayson who's been studying near death experiences as a scientist for 45 years. So when you were saying in the beginning you didn't even know there was anything to this. He's been studying it for 45 years and has talked to hundreds and hundreds of, of people in the field.

[Tom Sawyer]

I mean all that he was saying prior to me even coming on was, was it blows my mind. It's that there's so many similarities. You could probably keep telling me more similarities that you found from talking to so many people. And I'll probably pick out eight of those 10 that are like, it's exactly what I would say almost word for word, like it's scripted. And I don't know if I have a question for you per se, except you could probably maybe read your book. You know, it's. To me it all, it really does though. It just feels maybe even more confirmations, Oprah and affirmation. Confirmation and affirmation out of information is the confirmations of what I learned post the incident.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I also wanted to ask you this. You were just saying that you realize what matters and what doesn't matter and that you know, bad reviews or whatever and you know, I just consider how, you know, devastating and demolishing to your physical body and eyeball is out and your ribs are out that you were able to put yourself back together and physically speak and physically move. How has this experience affected your acting?

[Tom Sawyer]

I don't know if it's in a positive way, to be honest. It was hard to even want to go back to fiction. I have to worry about my next freaking breath. I got to worry about my next step. I have to consider, you know, every joint in my body was crushed and like I, I don't want to live a life of, of pain, right? So I had to focus on a lot of life stuff. Real, real like life stuff like to go entertain and tell jokes or entertain in the fiction world was, it was, was kind of so far fetched for me. I didn't know if that was ever going to happen. Now that my body's, I know back and put back together like Humpty Dumpty. At some point. I feel blessed that I'm able to get back into it. I feel. I don't know if it makes me better, to be honest. I don't know if it makes me worse. It's. I don't know, like I enjoy my job, I love my job. But still in the back of my mind, I know it really has value to me.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow.

[Tom Sawyer]

You know, I can quit this job at any day and be like. And never look back and be so happy and be around my family, be around those that I love and have great shared experience with them. And that's all.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I think that's a common reaction, isn't it, Dr. Grayson?

[Jeremy Renner]

It certainly is.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Everybody who goes through this, they come back and the priorities for living have shifted, Right? Right.

[Jeremy Renner]

So many things you've said, Jeremy, are so typical of near death experiences. Having no sense of time, feeling the love, feeling like you don't really need the body and all its restrictions. But let me ask you, with all this new understanding, has it changed your day to day interactions with people?

[Tom Sawyer]

You know, I've never been more connected. It's released any sort of social anxiety.

[Jeremy Renner]

I have.

[Tom Sawyer]

I have never felt like more confident. There's something that comes like a peace that is exhilarating. Peace, which is such an antithesis of words. But I feel so at peace. You know, I'm getting. I got a wink from the universe saying like, hey, you know, now you gotta see behind the curtain. So I got to come back and be and do exactly what I want to do. And nothing is in my way. There's no obstacle. I'll never. I've never afforded a bad day. I've been tested to my limits of pain. So pain is just. It's nothing. That's just a human construct. I mean, it's nothing. So I live my life so connected, so always with love driven. I. It's definitely changed in the sense of like, I don't pursue things that I would pursue before because I just don't find any value in it anymore, which I'm sure are many. Just sort of normal things. I think a lot of normal people just go about doing.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Tom Sawyer]

And there's nothing wrong with that for me. I'm just very, very, very. There's like two or three things that I'm going to be doing in my life and that's it. And I'm so happy. I'm happy to wake up. I'm happy to be walking on these two busted old legs, man. I'm happy to be breathing right now. Happy.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Tom Sawyer]

I'm just like. I just have nothing but joy in my life. I don't. I'm not afforded a bad day. Right. It's just pretty amazing. Pretty blessed.

[Oprah Winfrey]

What has been the reaction from your friends, your loved ones, colleagues, with this new, new look at life?

[Tom Sawyer]

There's. There's with. With that Oprah. There's. That's where a lot of it's. It's was. It was all a connected thing anyway. It wasn't just me. This didn't just happen to me. Right. I. My mind have gotten ran over. But I affected so many people in my life that I love dearly. So many people that in the ripple effect of that goes beyond.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Jeremy Renner]

Right.

[Tom Sawyer]

We're here still talking about it now on a podcast two years later. So I held responsibility to that and used that is fuel to heal my family and those that I've hurt and giving the. I gave them a lot of toxic, awful images and dreams. And like my poor nephew, he had to watch me holding my arm die in the ice, my eyeball out. Yeah, you can't unseat that. Right.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Tom Sawyer]

So in. In me never worrying about getting better. I just had to get better to help them. So whatever my physical milestones were, they were always fueled by number one, my daughter, and then the rest of my family too, because I love them so deeply, I couldn't bear the responsibility of giving them nightmares for the rest of their lives and it might die. So I'm going to take this one way road of recovery and God damn it, I'm going to recover. And God damn it, I'm going to get better every damn day for my family, for my daughter. And that's how I got better so fast. And then there's miracles involved at every turn here with every doctor, every my. You know, there's. It took a thousand people to keep me alive, okay. But to get better once I wasn't dying, it was my family and my love, my deep love, the safe landing spot of love that I have with my family all my life and not wanting to disappoint them. So fortunate that I had that one way road of recovery.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And I saw your opinion of all the medical people who saved you. That's a lot of people. That's a team. You had an army going to war for you.

[Tom Sawyer]

Oh, boy. Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I can't wait till your book comes out. I want to tell everyone that Jeremy's memoir, my Next Breath, and we see why it's called that is available on April 29th. And I know all of the people who love and support you, your viewers and fans throughout the world are looking forward to reading more about your story. Jeremy, thank you for taking time out for filming for mayor of Kingstone today to be with us. Thank you.

[Tom Sawyer]

Thank you so, so much for having me. I appreciate it. It's always lovely talking.

[Oprah Winfrey]

All right, Great, great. Well, I mean, I think for him to discover that this has been happening to many, many, many people. In two thirds of the cases you studied, people say that they met. They met people from the other side. I'm wondering because all these years, having interviewed certainly not as many people as you have, but interviewed a lot of people, it feels like the NDE is specifically designed for you. So some people experience what they've done to other people. Other people experience what people have done to them. I mean, it feels like there are commonalities, but. But there are also specifics.

[Jeremy Renner]

Right? Right. Is that true? People often say that it was designed specifically for them, like they had a role in creating it for them. And maybe that's just the way they perceived it when we all perceive the same experience in different ways.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's right.

[Jeremy Renner]

So maybe it's just that the way what they take back from the experience is what's relevant to them and everybody does for everybody.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's different.

[Jeremy Renner]

Right?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Right. Yes.

[Jeremy Renner]

If you and I took a plane to Paris, we'd come back with very different memories because we have different interests.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Even if we were on the same plane.

[Jeremy Renner]

Exactly.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Bruce Greyson]

Thanks for being here with us. After this message, we're going to hear from more people who were pronounced dead and then came back to life. You won't want to miss what they say about what happened in between. I think it's so fascinating how so many people have a similar experience. Don't you? Stay with us.

[Unknown Speaker]

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[Dr. Bruce Greyson]

I thank you for being here with me on the Oprah podcast. Dr. Grayson and I are discussing the remarkable insights in his book, A Doctor explores what near death experiences reveal about life and beyond.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So orthopedic spinal surgeon and two time New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Mary Neal joins us from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Dr. Neal, you also had a near death experience, I understand, 30 years ago on a kayaking trip. What happened? Welcome.

[Dr. Mary Neal]

Yes. Well, first of all, thank you for having me on and thank you for having this topic because it's really important. Like Jeremy said, none of us are aware of these experiences until someone opens our eyes. But my own experience began when I was whitewater kayaking in South America with my husband and friends of ours who are own a raft and kayak company. And circumstances were such that I went over a waterfall or a drop that was maybe 10 or 15ft high. And when I hit the bottom, my boat became pinned or stuck in the rocks and the underwater features. And the boat and I were then completely submerged under 8 to 10ft of water. The weight of the water and the force of the current was such that there was no way to pull the spray skirt out. So I was under there for almost 30 minutes.

[Jeremy Renner]

Whoa.

[Dr. Mary Neal]

And while I was there, I lost consciousness. It's a funny thing. I mean, I was never conscious and then unconscious. I felt like I was conscious and then more conscious, you know, alive and then more alive.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow.

[Dr. Mary Neal]

And like you've already heard, you know, there was a shift in time and dimension so that I could be underwater and still feel the weight of the water. I could feel the plastic of my boat. But at the same time, I began to have this inexplicable experience at a certain point, asked that God's will be done. And I was immediately overcome by a very physical sensation of being held and comforted and reassured that everything would be fine regardless of whether I lived or died. And, you know, I had four little kids and I was told, you know, they'd be fine. And I was being held kind of like a baby and reassured and taken through a life review that was nothing that I personally could have imagined. It had nothing to do with judgment and everything to do with understanding and love. I had.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Did you have a life review? Did you have a life review?

[Dr. Mary Neal]

I had a life review that took me through every one of the most painful, wounding, horrible experiences of my life. And I had an absolute understanding of everyone involved, me, the other people, not just the emotions. But as Jeremy said, I was the other people involved, and I was me and I had a complete understanding of what brought each of us to that situation.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, every time I've heard this, it feels like the truth to me. Because, you know, I was raised very, very strict religiously and the word you just said here was resonated with me with such judgment that when you die, there's gonna be the judgment. And I remember the first time I heard someone talk about this on the show. I thought, oh, the judgment is actually the way you've lived and the feelings that you've created with other people. Everything you've ever done comes back to you. That's the judgment.

[Dr. Mary Neal]

Yeah. I mean, the fact is, every single person who has had a profound spiritual experience would say the same thing, and that is that God is love. And the fact is, where God is present, where God's love is present, there is no room for destructive emotions of guilt and remorse and shame and awe, anger, bitterness, all of those things. What I discovered is that where God is present, there is always some version of love, be it compassion or empathy.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Or understanding, grace, kindness, kindness, all of that. So you received a warning. You received a warning during your near death experience. What was it?

[Dr. Mary Neal]

Well, I did, I had this incredible experience of leaving my body, going to heaven, God's world spiritual realm. I was told that it was my time, I had to go back to earth, I had more work to do, and I was given a list of things that I still had to do. And one of the things on this list was I had to do with the coming and unexpected death of my oldest son. And he at the time was nine and healthy. And I of course, asked why, obviously. And when I asked that, I was taken back to my life review where I'd been shown again and again and again that beauty really does come of all things. Then I was taken back to my.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Body, and 10 years later, your son actually passed away. So this is what I was wondering. Since you've been given that warning that your son is gonna die, how do you live in this world of density for 10 years knowing that your son is gonna die early? And that's part of one of your assignments. How do you live? Not in fear every day, or is it because you had that loving near death experience? You know that whenever he passes, it's gonna be okay.

[Dr. Mary Neal]

There is no way any person could shoulder that burden without having an absolute knowledge, understanding and trust that God is real and present, that we are really just spiritual beings living in this three dimensional body that there really is life after death, continuation of our consciousness again, however you want to describe it. Because knowing that without any shred of doubt gave me a confidence that if indeed his death came to pass, great beauty would come of it. He would have been joyfully welcomed home as I had been, and that he wasn't lost to me. The fact is, I know he'll be there waiting for me when my time is done. But until then, you know, I'm here on earth with more left to do, you know, and we're here. It's this great adventure, this great opportunity to learn and grow and reflect God's love to others.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And how did you now in human form again, not in that loving, all connected space, come back knowing that your son is going to die and nobody else around you knows that. So now you have to move to the world and, and you weren't told when it was going to die. So you don't know if he's going to die next week or next month. And then years pass and he doesn't die. So you're thinking maybe that I didn't even hear that. Maybe that wasn't even real.

[Dr. Mary Neal]

I woke up every day wondering if that would be the day.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Got it. That's, that's, that's what I'm saying.

[Dr. Mary Neal]

Again, it's not your question. How do you get through that day? Well, you get through that day with this absolute trust that God is real and present in my life, in my son's life, in my family, in the world. If that is part of the plan for his life and our lives, then great beauty would come of it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Can you explain to us how he died 10 years later? People listening will?

[Dr. Mary Neal]

Yeah, he was doing a dry land ski training and was hit by a car. So he was killed instantly.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And so when you got that message that your son is gone, you thought, okay, there it is.

[Dr. Mary Neal]

Yeah. And I'm not going to say that, you know, I said, oh, hey, that's great. No, I was as devastated as a mother could be. But I will honestly tell you that even in the midst of my sorrow, I experienced great joy. And that joy is because of knowing, trusting, spiritual truth.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. I always say when you lose a loved one, tell me if you agree with this or not. But since I started hearing these near death experiences and also know that I have a whole posse, I have a team on the other side, I feel them all the time looking out for me, that that's one of the reasons why I've had a life that I've had because of all that's come before me. And where are all those people with me right now? And I'm just wondering if you still feel him. You still feel connected to that. Do you feel that sense of awareness?

[Dr. Mary Neal]

Yeah, I sure do. I mean, my concept of it is we don't live here and they live here. We live and exist within the spiritual realm. There is no time in the spiritual world. There's no dimension. I don't have the words, but it exists within each other. And everything exists simultaneously, although independently. So, yes, I believe we live within the spiritual world. Even though our three dimensional brains can't see it. We don't always acknowledge it. Yeah, but the fact is there is spiritual crossover.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, you can. The brain doesn't acknowledge it, but I can tell you I can. I experience it through stillness. I can sit amongst the trees and literally become one with them. I mean, I can. You know, I know that sounds crazy, but I can. So I think that there is a way to do it, but I also feel that the density of the body keeps you from doing it. It's why I always do say, though, when people have loved ones that pass Dr. Grayson, it's like, now you have an angel you can call by name. Now you have somebody who's crossed over to the other side. Thank you so much, Dr. Neal. Dr. Neal's books are To Heaven and Back and Seven Lessons from Heaven. We could listen to you all day because we love this conversation. We love this conversation.

[Dr. Mary Neal]

It's my favorite conversation.

[Oprah Winfrey]

It's my favorite conversation, too. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Oprah.

[Jeremy Renner]

I've known Mary for a number of years, and what you don't see in this interview is that she's a down to earth, no nonsense orthopedic surgeon who is very much making her career in this world by treating us, our physical bodies, and yet she's been aware for decades of this other world that we're part of as well. That's more important than the physical.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. I think that's so cool. So obviously, when since you had the experience with Holly, who's in the ICU and completely out of it, that you were telling us earlier in this conversation, and the next day you come in and she remembers a conversation that you had down the hall with a friend of hers and knows that there was a stain on your tie, you start to think differently about all of this. So what do you make of all of this?

[Jeremy Renner]

Well, that first episode with Holly was just a fluke. And I thought well, you know, she's a psychiatric patient. Who knows what's really going on? Yeah, there's gotta be an explanation. So I started collecting other cases of people who had come close to death or been pronounced dead and had these fantastic stories to tell. And I was trying to find some consistency. Are they related to oxygen deprivation? Are they related to drugs? Are they related to heart arrhythmias? You know, what's going on with those people? Over the last 50 years, we've talked to thousands and thousands of people, done some physiological measurements on people when they were close to death, and we found that none of these simplistic hypotheses turns out to be true. It's not oxygen deprivation. It's not drugs. It's not endorphins being produced by the brain. It's not erratic electrical activity in the brain or the heart. These things just don't explain what's going on.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Why is there such resistance to it? Is it because the very nature of scientists and the medical field is to question what you don't know.

[Jeremy Renner]

What we're taught in college and medical school is that the mind is what the brain does, and all our thoughts and feelings must come from the brain. And people who are trained in this way tend to accept that and not look at the data that contradict that. And I think the doctors and scientists.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So they're taught the mind is what the brain does, right? Yeah.

[Jeremy Renner]

But we see experiences, like near death experiences and lots of others as well. They say they're separate, disprove that. And yet many scientists are reluctant to acknowledge this evidence that doesn't go along with what they were taught. I wish they were more skeptical about what they were taught and be more open to the evidence.

[Dr. Bruce Greyson]

Okay, thanks for joining us for this episode. When we return, Dr. Grayson reveals what it would take for scientists to believe these accounts of near death experiences. I welcome you back to The Oprah Podcast. Dr. Bruce Grayson is here shedding light on the greatest mystery of all time. What happens after we die? What you hear may surprise you or maybe inspire you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Harmony joins us. Harmony is in Los Angeles. A Grammy winning songwriter and producer who also had a near death experience at the age of just. You were 13.

[Gabrielle]

13 years old.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes, 13 years old. Tell us. Hi. Welcome, Harmony.

[Gabrielle]

How you doing?

[Oprah Winfrey]

I am doing so good. We want to know what happened. What happened to you?

[Gabrielle]

Well, I come from a very, very, very religious background. I was born in London by Nigerian parents and my parents were very strict and raised us in the church. I was. Yeah, I was a Musician in the church for years. So I had a true understanding of having a relationship with God and having a spiritual side from a very young age. But this particular week was interesting because a few days prior to the accident, my mother had an inkling to pray because she had a dream that the middle child was gonna was in a car accident. Fast forward. Last day of school, we go on a school bus. Well, red bus in London.

[Tom Sawyer]

Yeah.

[Gabrielle]

And we're on our way back and it's the last day of school. And the interesting thing took place as I was crossing the road to get to the other side. It was a dangerous road and the car that was coming behind it didn't see the bus. So swerved right past the bus to avoid the bus. And I'm in the middle of the road.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Oh my goodness.

[Gabrielle]

From what I was told, I flew over the car and my face hit the windscreen and basically ripped my whole face open. So this whole. I have a scar right now which is this small. But when it was like my whole lid was open and supposedly I got up and fell right back down. What I experienced was what felt like slumber. Like I felt like I fell asleep. And then I woke up in this dream. In this dream, it seemed like I could see my reality and it was me floating over everything that was taking place. The accident didn't actually see me in the accident, but I could see the crowd, the bus, the car. My sister that was crossing the bridge ran running back down.

[Harmony]

That's my brother. That's my brother.

[Gabrielle]

And I'm floating and I'm experiencing this scene, right? And it feels like a dream. Then whilst there's this aura and this feeling of something great that just comes around. It's not a light. It's not. It's bigger than that. It's so big and it's so consuming. It feels loud, but it feels so quiet at the same time. It's so great and grand, but at the same time it's very peaceful and simple. I didn't feel afraid at all.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, you didn't feel afraid at all. But didn't you hear them say, you're dead? Didn't you hear them say, he's dead? Go ahead.

[Gabrielle]

So they pronounced me dead. I heard that when I woke up. They pronounced me dead. My sister, they run to my mom and said, your son has been pronounced dead. They're wrapping him up right now, about to put him in.

[Oprah Winfrey]

How, how, how did this change you as a 13 year old?

[Gabrielle]

Just blew my mind because that's what I heard. It was like, it's not yet time. And it wasn't. It's. It's such a big voice, but it was such a tender voice. It was so loud, but it was a whisper. It's like it's. It just took over. And I was sure I knew who it was. I knew exactly who it was. And then I woke up.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Who was it?

[Gabrielle]

And when I woke up, who was it? Harmony?

[Harmony]

Who was it?

[Gabrielle]

God. God for me.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay.

[Gabrielle]

It was like the everlasting, whoever created this earth spoke to me and said, it's not yet time. So I wake up from what I thought was a dream with the sheet over me, and I'm like. And it's like, he's alive. He's alive. And I'm like, yo, what is everybody doing in my bedroom? Like, why are y'all in my bedroom? So I'm thinking I'm in my bedroom, and I'm still in the middle of.

[Oprah Winfrey]

The street because they covered you with the sheep. You're gone.

[Gabrielle]

Basically ready. Like, they were ready to kind of be like, he's done. He's finished. He's cooked. He's dead. You know? And like I said, they told my mother I was dead at the scene. My sister had been. Had basically been told, he's dead. Like, he's not waking up.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And you heard the voice of God as you know it to be 10%.

[Gabrielle]

You felt the same when I was.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Nine years old, yeah. You heard the voice say, it's not your time. And then that's when you. You felt that you came back into your body.

[Gabrielle]

That's when I came back. And ever since then, that same voice has guided me in so many ways.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Gabrielle]

And it's like I said, it's a voice, because it's really faint and it's peaceful, but it's really big and loud at the same time.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's.

[Tom Sawyer]

Yeah.

[Gabrielle]

I've never. I've never. I can always tell. It's like, okay, there it is. Because it comes in such a way that it's unexplainable, but it's very different from the mind. It's very different from, you know, all the other voices that can be distracting and come and, you know, idea in your mind. It's.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I know you. I know. Harmony, you have a question for Dr. Grayson.

[Gabrielle]

What is it now that you've heard so many stories that have similar experiences? Doc, is it safe to say that there is life after this? Life?

[Jeremy Renner]

As a scientist, I can't say we've proven that, but as a person who's hear all these stories? I find it hard to deny that there seem to be so many cases where people are pronounced dead and yet seem to be thinking clearly and in fact more vividly than ever before. And if that can happen without the brain being active, that opens the possibility that it keeps going forever or as long as we can measure.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So what would prove it to the scientists? Because I don't know what you need other than thousands of people who've experienced it.

[Jeremy Renner]

Well, for many scientists, they have to experience it themselves and they may do that eventually.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Renner]

But I wanted to ask you a question, Harmony. I know we've heard from so many adult near death experiences how hard it was to go back to a, quote, normal life after this. What was it like for a 13 year old to go back to school and to do the usual activities of a teenager?

[Gabrielle]

There was a different understanding of what my life was going to be considered, how my life was going to go. I knew from that moment on my life was going to move differently. And tracing everything up to this day, the people I've met, the experiences, the places and the platforms that I've been on, I've understood that significant. That day made a significant difference in my life. And there was a confidence I had to start walking in. And there was an understanding deep down, no matter what was around me, no matter who was around me, no matter how things played around me, I had to trust that voice every time. And anytime I lost weight, I would always go back to that it's not yet time. Which also made me understand I got a time period to do some things here. Do you know what I mean? And I have some significant things to do while I have the time. Because in this lifetime runs out now, in the life after this time probably continues. But there are things that I believe he kept me for using the words it's not yet time is just, it just allows me to know, like I have a time period to get some things done.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And I think the beautiful thing, one of the other beautiful things that you've said here and I have tried to be guided by that voice my whole life. Also never had an ND or near, near death experience. But I remember being on the back porch, my grandmother was washing clothes and I was like 4 or 5 years old and she said, you better watch me now, Oprah Gayle, because one day you're going to have to learn how to do this for yourself. And I distinctly heard the voice say, no you won't. Your life will be different. No, you won't. Your life will be different. And I remember that feeling. And that voice is different than the voice that's just in my head that goes on. And I have tried to be obedient to that voice. So when you said Harmony, oh, there it is. Oh, there it is. Anytime I'm in a crisis and I'm thinking, and what should I do? What I should do? I go and get myself still so I can hear that voice and go, oh, there it is. And be guided by that thing. And that you never go wrong. Yeah, you never go wrong.

[Gabrielle]

And I believe we're all connected to that thing. And I believe we all have the ability to hear that thing, research that thing, feel that thing, and be guided by that. By that thing, by that thing. Could be all kind of things to different people. Everybody has a different understanding of what that thing is. It's God to me. It's something else to somebody else. And I respect it all. Yeah, they all have something similar, which.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Is God is the all encompassing word. Yes. Yeah. And I. And oftentimes when I pray at my table and there are different people from different backgrounds, I say by all the names we call God in the universe, so that it is inclusive of whatever you. That is to you. And it is. It is all one thing. It is all one being, one existence. But whatever you choose to call it. Well, thank you. Keep being led by the voice. Harmony.

[Gabrielle]

Thank you so much, God. The honor and the blessing of being in this room. I appreciate it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. So, I mean, I think what Harmony was able to share, I don't know if a lot of kids have had that experience.

[Jeremy Renner]

I haven't dealt with a lot of children, but those that I have talked to often have difficulty taking life seriously at that point. It's one thing when you're 30, 40 years old and you realize there's nothing more important, but when you're a kid trying to figure out who you are anyway, to have this thrown at you makes it much harder to figure out what is my life all about? What am I gonna do with it?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, but I thought what he said about the voices, so that's amazing. We have Gabriel Gabrielle joining us from Natural Dam, Arkansas. She's a country singer who had a near death experience two years ago just before discovering that you had a brain tumor. Welcome. Take us back to that night your mom found you in the room bedroom throwing up. Yes.

[Harmony]

Thank you so much for having me, y'all.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, it was.

[Harmony]

It was pretty bizarre to Be honest. I was driving home from Nashville. I was seven and a half hours away. And that night I got a really bad migraine. And usually if I'm feeling sick, I'll just stop at a hotel and just stay the night and then go the rest of the way that night. I just believe that there's something supernatural that kept me moving. And so I stopped and graduated Excedrin. When I get back to my parents house, I. I went to bed, I was like, I'm just tired, I'm exhausted. And we believe that there is something that just woke my mom up. We believe in, you know, Jesus, but Jesus woke her up and she felt like she do laundry, which is right next to my childhood bedroom. So she hears me throwing up in the bathroom and she comes in to check on me. I'm telling her I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. And as I'm telling her this, I start having seizures.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow.

[Harmony]

And so she's like, you are not. So we had this horrible storm that was happening that night. So our ambulance weren't running. And we live in the boonies and so they called the private ambulance company. They met my family, my sister, my now husband, everyone. We loaded up, they loaded me up into this ambulance. And we're only able to make it to Port City Smith, which is about 45 minutes away. It's not the place you'd want to get your, you know, brain surgery at because there wasn't specialists there. But if it wasn't storming that night, they would have taken me all the way to Little Rock, which is two and a half hours. And since they didn't, I actually ended up in that hospital 45 minutes away, flatlined and needed to be intubated. So that was just the beginning of the miracle. If it wasn't for that storm and me going to the first hospital and those amazing doctors there saving me and intubating me and bringing me back, then I would not have made it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

There's multiple, multiple miracles that you have. I mean, first of all, Jesus waking your mama up and she wants to do laundry in the middle of the night. Let's just start with that one. Exactly. I mean, listen, I believe in all of that. I know exactly what you're talking about. When they like, gosh, I just feel like doing laundry and don't know why. And there you are throwing up in the bathroom. So tell us about the near death experience. What did you see? What did you feel? Did you see Jesus?

[Harmony]

So as I'm, you know, it I. I'm listening to these stories and it's so wild that everyone seems to kind of be on the same page of the no time and this complete peace and rest. And for me, I. I apparently flatlined for 30 seconds to a minute and there was no time. I just almost felt this hand. I felt like it was the hand of Jesus. And just being like, no, not yet, not yet. And so I had this knowing, just knowing of it wasn't my time and it wasn't this voice or anything like that. It was like everything that I was saying in my heart was being heard. And everything that, whatever it was saying talking to me, whether it be an angel or Jesus, was letting me know they were saying it telepathically. It's so wild how that happened because people are always, what'd you see? What'd you see? I'm like, I just knew. I just.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So what she's describing is what so many people describe too. Because what I've heard too, and you write about and after, is that words fail you. Words are a creation of this realm and, you know, language which is necessary for us to communicate, but that you don't need that on the other side, in the other realm. Correct.

[Jeremy Renner]

That's right. That's right. Everyone uses whatever language they can think of, but they always say, it's not the Jesus. I was taught about this. It's much bigger than that. They said, I can't give you words for it, but it's there.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And after your nd your near death experience, I heard, Gabrielle, that everything just felt trivial after that. Tell us about that feeling.

[Harmony]

Oh, my gosh. So I woke up a week and a half later and I had a big gauze patch on my head and I had Bell's palsy severe on my. The right side of my face. And my brother, he's a duo and he was there and I didn't expect him to be there. And if you've heard of the duo Dan and Shay.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Harmony]

And so my brother Shay just scurried on down there. My sister Erica was in there in the room. I remember waking up and my brother being at the end of my bed and I. I had no idea what had happened. I was like, oh, what. What are you doing here? And everything that I did after that, you know, I was supposed to release an album, I was supposed to go on Tour all in 2023. I was supposed to do all these things that people expected of me and that, you know, needed from me. And it took me so long to even be Able to think about trivial things of the world like money or fame or. Or get my music out there. It was just. I had this spiritual experience that just made me want to love on people and love on my family. And it made me realize that there's nothing in this world that matters. You can't take it with you when you go. You can get a Grammy, you can get money, you can have beautiful homes, but you're not taking it with you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Harmony]

And so the legacy you leave behind is the most important thing and the love that you leave behind with your family.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I loved earlier when Jeremy was on Jeremy Renner and he was saying, love is the only thing you take with you. Love is the only thing you take with you. Do you. Do you have a question for Dr. Grayson?

[Harmony]

I actually do. So after I had my experience, it was so hard for me to acclimate. Do you find that that is common from people that have had near death experiences to be able to kind of go back to their hustle?

[Jeremy Renner]

Yes, it's very common. People differ how hard it is because some of them have a spiritual life to begin with and others don't. And we've done some studies recently looking at who people turn to for help and what types of help help and which ones don't. And what seems to be most helpful is talking to other people who have had near death experiences and who have been through this before and come up with their own ways of dealing with this. Also, if you can find a group of other experiencers who have gone through this, they may be the most helpful thing for you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And I hear you have an album coming out this summer, right? And did you write a song about this experience?

[Harmony]

I'm actually writing several. It's funny because we had started this song called Coming Back to youo and it's not just about my husband. I love him so much. He's perfect. In fact, while I was in the hospital, I had Bell's palsy and one eyeball was open and I knew I was going to marry him. When my sister told me that he just went over and just closed that little eyeball for me. So I have so many songs, I have so many songs written about him. But we have one they're writing called Coming Back to you. And it's about my family and my husband just being able to share their life experience experiences with them because that's the thing that you'd miss out on is their lives. You know, people think that it's just your life you're missing out on.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Good luck to you on that album. Great success. Gabrielle, thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I mean, thank you. Let me just say, you got a good man. If he came over there and closed that little eyeball, he is the best. I gotta say, that's one of the best love moments I've heard. I think that's.

[Harmony]

I mean, that has looked kind of.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Crazy, you know, I just think that's so endearing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

[Harmony]

Thank you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So Dr. Grayson, Dr. Neal, Harmony and Gabrielle, they all describe hearing a voice or the message. Yes, it's not your time. Whether it's physically hearing it, as Harmony did, or as in the case of Gabrielle, she said she didn't hear that, but she felt that it's not your time. Is that common for most NDEs, because as you're coming back into the body, you come back.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, it's common, but it's not universal by any means. Some people say that they were given a choice. Do you want to stay here or do you want to go back and finish something? And they make a decision to come back and finish something they have left undone. Whether it's helping a deceased or dying person pass over, or raising a child, or writing a book about it. But they have some reason they chose to come back in others to say they are set back against my will.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, you know, all of this reminds me. I had read Song of Myself, I think in high school or college. And then the very first time I saw Walt Whitman's Song of Myself and the very first time I had an interview with somebody with an nde, their experience reminded me of what he says in Song of Myself. He says, all goes onward and outward. Nothing collapses. And to die is different from what anyone supposed and luckier. Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die. And I know it. I pass death with the dying and birth with the new washed babe and am not contained between my hat and my boots. So when I went back and reread that, I thought Walt Whitman must have had an indie. Yes.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. Well, a near death event is only the most common way in our culture to have this type of experience. But it's a common spiritual experience that's been happening for people for centuries, all around the globe in different reasons, for different reasons. Some get it through meditation or through prayer, or just spontaneously. And the near death experience is one precipitant for that experience.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So the Title of your book after, as I started out talking about at the beginning of our conversation, has multiple meanings for you. What are they?

[Jeremy Renner]

Well, the most obvious one was what happens after we die. And I speculated about that. You asked before, what would it take for scientists to show that this is true. Scientists don't deal with proof, they deal with the weight of the evidence. So they can say the evidence points to the fact that we survive, but they can never say it's proven. Scientists don't do that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Jeremy Renner]

And the scientist for me says, I can't say for sure. Yes, but I believe it does. I believe the evidence points. I can't think of another explanation for these experiences. So one.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's one of the meanings what happens after.

[Jeremy Renner]

The other is what happens to people after they've had a near death experience and come back to this world.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Jeremy Renner]

And how do they live their lives after the near death experience?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, that's what Gabrielle was saying.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yes. And for most near death experiences to say, that's the most important lesson of the nde. How do you live your life knowing this? And the final reason for the book being called after is to make you think about what am I going to do differently after I've read this book? What do I do now with this knowledge? And there have been some studies now of how knowing about NDEs affects people's lives. They've done studies with looking at college students who've taken a course in ndes and looked at them before and after. And some of the same after effects you see with near death experiences becoming more spiritual, more compassionate, less materialistic. We see those with people who are just exposed to NDEs, and you often see this in family and friends of near death experiencers, that they also become more spiritual, less driven to achieve in this world.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, I tell you, this is from the very first time I started hearing about them and just had the aha. That makes sense to me. That's how religion meets spirituality. And also becoming aware of the army of people that have come before me, it helped me to not fear death, to not fear death. Because I believe, as Whitman says, that whatever is there on the other side is going to be the big surprise that being born in this realm was. And so do you fear death?

[Jeremy Renner]

Oh, definitely. That's the most common thing people say after a near death experience, no matter what the NDU is like, whether it was blissful or not blissful. They say, I'm not afraid of dying anymore. And that's what makes the near death experience different from other people. Who have come close to death. Most people who almost die come back valuing life more. They want to be more alive, more vibrant than they were before. But they're also more afraid of dying, unless they've had a near death experience. And then they're not afraid of dying either. They say, in fact, if you're not afraid of dying, then you're less afraid of living to the fullest. Oh.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And that brings me to the question I like to ask everybody all the time here on this podcast is how do you define a well lived life?

[Jeremy Renner]

I think you heard it from Jeremy and from Tom Sawyer as well, that you live your life knowing that what's important is how you treat other people and that living the golden rule, not just giving lip service to it, but actually living it in your day to day life, makes life much more meaningful, much more purposeful.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. Well, thank you, Dr. Bruce Greyson. Thank you Jeremy Renner, Dr. Mary Neal. Thank you, Harmony, Harmony and Gabrielle for sharing your experiences with us. Dr. Grayson's book is After a Doctor Explores what Near death experiences reveal about life and beyond. And it's available wherever you buy your books, wherever books are sold. Fascinating read. Go well, everybody. You can subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.