Near Death Experiences: What Happens When We Die? Find out in Mayim’s interview with Dr. Jeffrey Long!
On Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown, Dr. Jeffrey Long, renowned radiation oncologist and founder of the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF), shares his jaw-dropping insights into the science of NDEs, consciousness, and the afterlife. Drawing from over 5,000 verified near-death experiences, he presents the most compelling scientific and spiritual evidence that your consciousness may exist after life independent of the brain.
From documented out of body experiences under anesthesia to cases where blind individuals describe vivid visuals and the deaf report hearing, Dr. Long dismantles mainstream scientific objections with hard data, like low oxygen, seizures, or residual brain activity. He explores the profound themes of life after death, spirituality, and God and reveals how people across cultures describe encounters with heaven, hell, or divine beings through deeply personal spiritual and often Christian lenses.
This fascinating interview touches on the philosophical and religious implications of near-death states, including the idea of a pre-birth plan, and life reviews. Plus he explains the lasting aftereffects of NDEs, from extrasensory perception to sudden shifts in religion, values, or purpose. Dr. Long also unpacks how near-death experiences differ from dreams or psychedelic trips, and why they’re often described as “more real than life.”
Whether you approach this from the lens of Christianity, science, philosophy, or open-minded curiosity, this conversation offers something for skeptics and believers alike. It’s a soul-stirring podcast that will transform how you think about life, death, and the possibilities of what comes after.
—
CHAPTERS:
00:00 – Intro
17:44 – Are NDEs Real?
22:12 – Common Themes in NDEs Across Cultures
27:54 – What is Consciousness?
36:14 – Unbelievable Nature of Consciousness Leaving the Physical Body
43:18 – NDE Research & Mental Health
47:41 – NDEs vs. Psychedelic Experiences
53:15 – NDEs and the Brain: Hallucinations vs. Visions
56:50 – NDEs of Those with Vision or Hearing Impairments
1:06:00 – NDEs & Trauma
1:13:40 – Is the Answer “God is Love”?
1:25:00 – Exceptional NDE Stories
1:40:18 – After Death Communication in NDErs
1:47:10 – Brain Activity During an NDE
1:52:38 – Do NDEs Prove God’s Existence?
1:54:50 – What Does Jesus Look Like?
2:02:10 – Choosing Our Lives Before Birth
2:04:50 – Life Changes from Studying NDEs
—
Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content:
Listen on our website:
Listen on Spotify:
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
Check out our Merch:
Sign up for our Newsletter:
Follow us on Instagram:
Find Mayim Bialik:
Dr. Jeffrey Long’s book, Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences:
Dr. Jeffrey Long’s Near Death Experience website:
If interested in partnerships please contact mbb.sponsor@impacttheory.com
Theme Song Written, Produced, and Performed by Ed Robertson. Mixed by Kenny Luong.
#MayimBialik #BialikBreakdown #NDE #NearDeathExperience #Consciousness #Spirituality #ScienceandSpirituality #Supernatural #Afterlife #Heaven #Paranormal #outofbodyexperiences #Skeptic #Skepticism #God #ExtrasensoryPerception #Mystical #spiritualawakening #SpiritualHealing #PersonalGrowth #SelfGrowth #SelfImprovement #PersonalDevelopment #SelfDevelopment #Death #LifeAfterDeath #Religion #TranscendentalExperience
source
Ive lost both my parents. My wife has lost her dad. All 3 devastating. We recently lost one of our wonderful Jack Russells, he was ten years old. For both of us it’s far more devastating than losing our parents. We hope more than anything that we get to meet him again in another life. At some point our other Jack will go too so hopefully we will meet them again in another life.
No, I don't think I chose to be born into my toxic family.
What a fascinating interview. Thank you for putting this together.
There is a spirit which survives the physical death of the body. Jesus said that He gives those that believe in Him eternal life (John 10:28). Eternal Life is real, come to Jesus.
Any one of you can learn how to leave your body at will and be completely conscious of the whole experience without having to have an NDE. Look into astral projection if you're interested and take it seriously. It is absolutely real and will absolutely blow your mind and make you question everything you thought you knew about reality.
Edit: After listening a little longer, you mention DMT and the similarities with NDEs. When you try astral projection and it starts to work, it feels JUST LIKE a DMT experience (lead weight being pulled over you from the feet up, vibrating body). Just thought I would throw that out there 🙂
I was one of the first people who did trials with ketamine for pain management. This was in the early 2000s. I left my body and clearly saw/felt myself leave the hospital. I could see the back areas of the halls and see people areas I’ve never been. I “zoomed” to another place and spoke w someone. Or something?? It’s ultimately what led me to my spiritual awakening and the teachings of the Law of One.
I think the Shroud of Turin shows pretty clearly what Jesus looks like
I love your show!. Thank you for exploring! I was born with "gifts" for which I did not ask. Because of my "experiences" I have always had difficulty understanding people who do not know that there SO much more in the BEYOND. I have experienced much in my 71 years. Trying to "explain" what I know is impossible because I can't control my gifts, per say. I have never been able to demonstrate anything when asked to try. My gifts have manifested what I needed many times throughout my lifetime. God, Infinite Spirit, The Holy Source, The Creative Christ, whatever you call The Enlivening Universal Power, has never left me or forsaken me. God has never made me rich, but I have had what I needed. Things showed up in many strange ways at the perfect time. Love and blessungs to you!
At lease her degree help her on getting cast in the Big Bang Theory
My mom died around 2pm and at night 10pm , 8 hours later my 2 sister seen mom walking out of room she died at, walking towards the kitchen in the dark and she disappeared, mind you my mom was bed bound could not walk at all? But like I said my sisters seen her walking in the dark. There was some appliances small lights refrigerator and stove in the kitchen. This is why they saw her walking? 🤫
Where did my dog go? I'm devastated. Where is he now?
1) You call this a near-death experience. Therefore it is near death, 'NOT Death'. Therefore again you could not know what death is because you have not died.
2) Place a random sign above every operating table in a hospital with a sentence printed on it, such as, "Can you read this, 1-2-3". Then if the patient claims they could see themselves above the operating table ask them what was printed on the sign above the table.
3) An NDE is no different than an alcoholic drunk having a blackout, but only in reverse. The alcoholic does a lot of stupid stuff, then passes out, when the alcoholic wakes up, they can't remember one of the stupid things he or she did.
The NDE is the brain shutting down such as during anesthesia creating hallucinations, dreams, or whatever and then this stuff is put into the memory portion of the brain right before the brain shuts down the consciousness of the individual so they don't feel pain during the surgery.
When they wake up in the recovery room they have these memories, the same way the alcoholic doesn't have the memory. The human brain was not designed to be physically put unconscious, therefore it's obvious it's going to come up with weird stuff as it's being put unconscious.
4) Your consciousness is a part of your brain, it is wired to your brain. Without your brains neurological wiring, such as being totally disconnected from your consciousness, you would have no consciousness. You would not float above your bed and see yourself being operated on. Or a shoe laying on the ledge outside the hospital.
5) This whole Hysteria about an afterlife, and NDE is because from the beginning of time humans have had to have a reason for being here, and because it's very complex and they can't figure it out it turns into a philosophical, or religious thing. If I can't figure it out, then God must have done it.
That's why there are so many different religions and so many, many God's.
6) Believe in yourself and love yourself more than anything first.
Follow the Science not your wishes, fantasies and dreams!
My fantasy is I wish I had a dollar for every time Jeffrey plugged his website during this podcast. 😉
Back the mid 1980s one of my colleagues had a heart attack and ended up in hospital. We went to visit him and he told us that when he underwent an operation he said he'd seen himself from above. Later he told his surgeon that he'd seen himself from above, and his head appeared to be separate from his body. The surgeon told him that what he, in fact, saw was both him and his colleagues bending over him, and that's why he thought his head was separated. My colleague presumed that the surgeon had heard of this before, and that's why he answered so easily.
Unfortunately, 2 weeks after his first heart attack, as he stepped out of his son's car at his home (his son had just picked him up from his hospital stay) he had a fatal heart attack. I'm hoping he didn't have any fear of death after his out of body experience
I totally enjoyed this episode! I have been extremely interested in NDEs for 30 years. I first was drawn to Dr Long's work and have lived the last 30 years molded by these experiences shared by NDE survivors. It would be my life's dream to be able to research these NDE patients that have spiritual gifts afterwards or quite frankly any of them. Much love to you all and thank you for all your hard work ❤❤❤
This episode I watched you change your long silver ? Carnelian ring to different fingers… was it on purpose?
We are spriitbeings having a human experience. CONSCIOUSNESS doesn't end when the body dies. It continues after the body dies. ❤❤❤❤
I believe that it is our spirit what you say is consciousness. Our spirit is in our body our body dies but our spirit does not. I truly believe NDE. Their spirit is not ready to be in heaven or (in other relm) so their spirit needs a host so why not go back into the same body. GOD is real!
Is that Blossom.. lol
I have been fascinated in NDE’s for decades and never tire of learning! Thank you
I lost my wife 9 months ago. My mother today. I’m so tired of death and illness and wondering about how all of this fits together or makes any sense. I just want to be with my wife again.
Darius J. Wright has been doing controlled out of body experiences (same as an NDE, but without the “near-death”) and he’s been researching and teaching others to do the same for many years. He’s even successfully doing group workshops and targeting exercises to collect evidence that it is indeed real.
I think about death every day since my grandfather died. It scares me the possibiity of ceasing to exist as conscious beings. This episode gave me some confort. Thank you!
Is the sensation that God is love only perceived because it is so prevalent in modern religions? Would NDErs not have the sensation that God is love if they were participants in a society where gods were violent or demanded human sacrifice?
At 1:03 Mayim talks about the woman who was given specific and extremely detailed instructions on how to help someone involved in an accident which she could have ever known that. This made me want to write about these two living experiences I had. There was no way I could have ever known the events that occurred on my own. I was 9 sitting at the back of a pickup truck on the way to my aunt and uncles wedding reception after the church service. I had my right arm dangling over the back edge. It was just a normal day. There was big bus behind us filled with children my aunty had invited, and they were happily enjoying themselves just like my cousins and I who were sitting at the back of that pickup truck. The bus driver started playing a game with us in which he would accelerate and pretend like he was going to crash into us. We were kids, so we just found it funny. We knew he wasn't going to hit us, it was just a game. He did it 2 times, and immediately before the third and final time, I heard the voice of God tell me very loud and clearly in the most assertive, stern, deep and manly commanding voice, 𝗠𝗢𝗩𝗘 𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗔𝗥𝗠 𝗥𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 𝗡𝗢𝗪, that bus is about to crash into you. I moved my arm and the bus immediately crashed into us. My arm would have been totally crashed. We were in a small town with a small hospital, there's not much they would have been able to do to save my arm. I was stunned and started experiencing life in super slow motion. The driver came off the bus, my mum who was driving and my aunt who was next to her also came out and had words with him. I don't even know what they said to each other, I was just seeing things happening, but it was like I wasn't even there. Most of all, I was inside my mind asking myself how on earth I knew this was going to happen before it happened. I looked around at my cousins & they all looked surprised. I was the only one who wasn't surprised. I knew then that they didn't know the crash was coming. I wondered if anyone else heard God too, but I didn't ask. I just kept it to myself. I must add that I had never in my life heard that God had a voice or that he even speaks to people, I was born & raised Christian and always went to church, yet I had never known God could speak. I only learnt that God speaks when I was 18, however, that day, I knew with 100% certainty that was God. I cannot even explain the depths of knowing I had. I also knew that God saved my arm that afternoon.
A year before that when I was 8, I was standing on the street corner with my friend as we did everyday before we parted ways to go our separate ways to our homes. I would go right and she went left. It was a hot afternoon with a lovely blue sky, we were chatting like any other day, nothing out of the ordinary. Suddenly, across the road, this tall man appeared and he caught my attention. I heard the voice of God for the first time and he told me with much urgency that the man across the road is about to run across the road, steal my school bag and run away through the alleyway. As soon as the last letter was uttered, everything happened exactly as it was described to me in full detail. Not a single thing was out of place. I was stunned and in shock wondering how I knew this was going to happen in advance. As he ran off and as I stared at him run off with his very long legs, this security guard who NEVER rode past us at that time came riding past. I had sudden compulsion to stop him, quickly explained what the man had just done and where he went and the security guard told us to wait right there, he would be back soon. He rode off so fast through that alleyway and quickly disappeared into the distance until we couldn't see him anymore. The wait felt like forever and a half, but obviously we waited with the sun beating down on us. After an eternity, a police car parked up in front of us, two officers came out, one came straight to us whilst the driver went to the boot (trunk) and brought my bag to me. He asked me to check if everything was still there, and it sure was, nothing was missing. This was before mobile phones, so he told us that the security guard had flagged them down & explained what happened, so together they followed the thief and got my bag back. We waited a little while longer and the security guard came back. He was thrilled I got my property back, and my friend and I were even more thrilled and grateful to him for helping two little girls and being our real life hero. He was so humble about it, wished us well and informed us the police were going to drive us both home. He got back on his bike and off he went. The police helped us into the car and dropped us home, me first then my friend. That was one of the best days of my young life. Whenever we saw that guard again, we very enthusiastically waved at him as we greeted him. He never stopped, he just smiled, waved and rode past us.
I wish you would stop posting thumbnails with Mayim having a ridiculous look on her face. It’s as though she’s laughing at the subject matter which is insulting and makes me not want to watch. If she doesn’t believe in anything the guest brings to the table, why bother to have them on the show?
but he is our Mashiach Mayim, and He came for the Lost Sheep of Yisra'el first. Torah prophesied of the New Covenant numerous times.
I do not understand why she has guests since she does most of the talking. Constant pontificating.
Energy never dies.
My take on this is that we are surrounded by a massive information field that is one massive universal consciousness. Our individual consciousness is a tiny droplet of this. Our brain is like a TV or cell phone, receiving just our individual consciousness from the field. Our DNA may be the code that tunes our individual consciousness to our particular body. Our brain is a receiver and filter. We perceive only the information that we need to survive as too much information would be overwhelming. If the brain is damaged or altered by drugs, this alters our experience of our consciousness. The brain is the receiver, not the source.
My beautiful fiancée passed away recently. Since, I have experienced things beyond coincidental. Spending most of my life as basically agnostic, I now believe she is somewhere beyond communicating with me.
This is not proof though.
In fact, its barely even evidence.
Ive had an out of body experience, not near death though, i was 10 years old, in bed & i wasnt feeling very well, i was laying on my back when i began feeling a sensation starting in my feet which then rapidly became like a ripple or wave feeling which then began rolling up my legs and entire body to the top of my head, then instantly it rolled out of my head and i then was looking down at myself laying in my bed – upside down to myself, as in – not seeing myself the same way up. This only lasted approx 5 seconds, as long as it took me to realise i was above myself looking down, and i think becoming then scared of what could be happening is what then suddenly threw me back into my body, and as soon as i was i jumped out of bed and ran to my parents bed to get in with them, i didnt tell them what had just happened because i didnt understand why it happened, so just told them i wasnt feeling well, that was nearly 50 years ago and the memory of it is as strong now as it was when it was occuring. Since then i also used to have the sensation of laying in bed slightly to the left of my actual body, the only way i can describe what i mean is if you draw a picture using two pens at once, and so one copy of the drawing slightly overlaps the other, but its difficult to explain how that feels, as that is virtually impossible to do, body, because it feels exactly the same to you as normal, except you are aware that you are slightly 'beside yourself' ( i wonder if the saying of 'being beside yourself with grief' or such like, has any bearing on this sensation?). I havent had these experiences for a few years now though, which is a shame, because they always intrigued me and i would consider many ideas of what could be causing that sensation to happen, which only ever happened when laying down in bed. Very strange, but 100% true.
Hello Mayim. I have been listening to Dr. Long for many years. While watching your podcast tonight, a question came to me. Have you ever heard of someone who's had an NDE ask why these are happening? There must be a reason God is letting people return and report what they experienced. It makes me wonder why God doesn't just yell CUT and then explain to everyone what we're getting wrong down here. LOL. I am curious, though, why people are allowed to share their experiences.
The brain is still active for a limited time after death so nde can occur
Just accept it.. GOD IS REAL
Psychic Matt Fraser on youtube is interesting. He talks about these experiences also.
Huge fan, I’d love to listen to this but I pay for premium so I do not have to watch adverts there is more adverts in this than what YouTube put on videos who do not pay for premium
The part of the brain that experiences delusions is the temporal lobe..temporal lobe epilepsy.
This was a very powerful episode.
Whst a wonderful interview.
I am still a skeptic, but my mind is beginning to open.
More commercials on here than cable tv.
Soo happy you recently "popped up" on my algorithm. You are always fascinating AND I love the subject matter you chose. We all need to get away from all the HORRIBLE Trump "news". + Decades ago I was visited by a Being of Light before I knew such a thing existed. Therefore – I did get to have a tiny experience of what we encounter "on the other side". There was only LOVE! No judgement and no "You ate meat on Friday & that's a "sin" crap". (Used to be Catholic…) There is no need for "forgiveness" by The One/God because we are simply fallible beings trying to do the best we can. Of course – I have absolutely no fear of death knowing that I'll be enveloped once again by that love, peace and joy!!