Researching Near-Death Experiences with Bruce Greyson (4K Reboot)

Summary

Psychiatrist Bruce Greyson, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and creator of the most widely used near-death experience scale, looks back on nearly 50 years of studying what people experience at the edge of death. He describes cases where patients accurately reported events while unconscious, met deceased people no one yet knew had died, and came back permanently changed, and he explains why proposed explanations such as oxygen loss, drugs, and mental illness have not held up against the data. He also reveals a surprising historical link: Albert Einstein may have been inspired by his geology professor's account of time slowing down during a near-fatal fall.

Key takeaways

• 1Raymond Moody's 'Life After Life' (1975) was first published by tiny Mockingbird Books, then reissued by Bantam and sold three million copies in its first year; Moody was inspired partly by psychiatrist George Ritchie's NDE and ancient Greek accounts.
• 2Geologist Albert Heim fell about 60 feet in the Alps, experienced time slowing and leaving his body, and published 30 similar climber cases in the 1892 Swiss Alpine Club yearbook; Einstein took two of Heim's courses, praised his 'magical lectures', and published relativity about 15 years later.
• 3Greyson says Michigan's department chair told him to stop NDE research or leave, so he moved to the University of Connecticut; an orthopedic surgery chair attacked his JAMA article with Ian Stevenson as 'religious stuff'.
• 4In a 'Peak in Darien' case, a pneumonia patient met his nurse Anita during an NDE; she asked him to tell her parents she was sorry she wrecked the red MGB, and no one at the hospital yet knew she had died in that car on her 21st birthday.
• 5Greyson and two other physicians independently reviewed Eben Alexander's 600+ page medical record and concluded his coma began before any drugs were given; studies also show NDErs had better brain oxygenation, not worse.
• 6Patients who had an NDE after a suicide attempt were less suicidal afterward; four studies found college students became more altruistic after taking a course on NDEs, which Kenneth Ring called a 'benign virus'.

Glossary terms

Source

Transcript excerpt

geology professor at the Zurich Polytechnic Institute. And earlier in his life, he had been climbing in the Alps and he slipped and he fell. And he actually fell 60 feet down to the bottom of the mountain. And as he fell, he repeatedly crashed against the rocks, getting bloodier and bloodier. And he wrote in his write-up about this that he had previously watched people fall, and it was terrifying to see them fall. But when he himself was falling, it was a blissful experience. And he said he left his body and he watched his body repeatedly crashing against the rocks and he felt nothing. And time slowed down for him and his thoughts speeded up so that he had time to think about how he needed to twist around as he was falling so he'd land in the stowdrift rather than in a pile of rocks. And he had time to think about whether he should take his glasses off so they wouldn't get broken. He thought about the classes he had to teach. He thought about his loved ones who would be leaving behind if he died. All this in a matter of like three or four seconds that it took him to fall. Keep watching to learn more. You can now download all nine copies of the New Thinking Allowed magazine for free or order beautiful printed copies. Go to newthinkingallowed.org. New Thinking Allowed is presented by the California Institute for Human Science, a fully accredited university offering distant learning graduate degrees that focus on mind, body, and spirit. The topics that we cover here. We are particularly excited to announce new degrees emphasizing parapsychology and the paranormal. Visit their website at cihs.edu. ...

Excerpt from New Thinking Allowed, Aug 11, 2026. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.