Look Back: An interview with Eben Alexander on Near-Death Experiences and Consciousness

Dr. Eben Alexander spent over 25 years as an academic neurosurgeon, including 15 years at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, the Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.  Over those years he personally dealt with hundreds of patients suffering from severe alterations in their level of consciousness. Many of those patients were rendered comatose by trauma, brain tumors, ruptured aneurysms, infections, or stroke. He thought he had a very good idea of how the brain generates consciousness, mind and spirit. In the predawn hours of November 10, 2008, he was driven into coma by a rare and mysterious bacterial meningo-encephalitis of unknown cause. He spent a week in coma on a ventilator, his prospects for survival diminishing rapidly. On the seventh day, to the surprise of everyone, he started to awaken. Memories of his life had been completely deleted inside of the coma, yet he awoke with memories of a fantastic odyssey deep into another realm – more real than this earthly one! His older son advised him to write down everything he could remember about his journey, before he read anything about near-death experiences, physics or cosmology. Six weeks later, he completed his initial recording of his remarkable journey, totaling over 20,000 words in length. Then he started reading, and was astonished by the commonalities between his journey and so many others reported throughout all cultures, continents and millennia. His journey brought key insights to the mind-body discussion and to our human understanding of the fundamental nature of reality. His experience clearly revealed that we are conscious in spite of our brain – that, in fact, consciousness is at the root of all existence. Dr. Alexander joins Sinead Whelehan and I as we discuss his near-death encounter which is the most famous case in the world. We also got to ask questions about the fundamental nature consciousness which is a key component of the story. His books include Living in a Mindful Universe: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Heart of Consciousness, co-authored with Karen Newell, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife (2012), debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list and remained in the top ten for over a year, and his book, The Map of Heaven: How Science, Religion and Ordinary People are Proving the Afterlife (2014) Dr. Alexander's website is http://ebenalexander.com/ Other Links https://linktr.ee/whitehouseufo