Dr. Eben Alexander: A Neurosurgeon's Journey Beyond the Brain

Medical Details

On November 10, 2008, he woke with severe headaches and back pain, and within two or three hours was having grand mal seizures and was deep in coma. In the emergency room he was diagnosed with gram-negative bacterial meningoencephalitis, with medically documented damage to his neocortex. He was on a ventilator for seven days. At a family conference doctors said his chance of survival had dropped from 10 percent to 2 percent, with no realistic prospect of recovery, and recommended stopping antibiotics. A 2018 case report in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease described his recovery.

The Experience

For the first 54 years of his life, Dr. Eben Alexander held a conventional scientific view, and as a neurosurgeon he wondered how awareness could survive the death of the brain. In November 2008, a severe bacterial meningitis plunged him into a deep coma. He explains that, unusually, he had no memory of his earthly life during the experience: no language, no religious ideas, only an empty slate.

He describes beginning in what he calls the earthworm's-eye view, a primitive, murky realm where he felt surrounded by something like roots or blood vessels. Then a slowly spinning pure white light, with fine silver and golden tendrils and a beautiful melody, came toward him and lifted him through a portal into a vivid, ultra-real place he calls the Gateway Valley.

There he was a speck of awareness riding on a butterfly wing among millions of butterflies, above a lush meadow and forest with no sign of death or decay. Thousands of beings danced joyfully below. Beside him on the wing was a beautiful young woman with sparkling blue eyes. She never spoke, but her message came to him telepathically: "You are deeply loved and cherished forever. You have nothing to fear." He felt it was a spiritual home. A soft breeze moved through everything, which he came to call the breath of God.

Above, orbs of angelic choirs sang hymns that thundered through him and opened a passage higher still. He describes rising into what he calls the Core: an infinite inky blackness overflowing with a healing divine force of love, compassion, mercy, acceptance and forgiveness. He came to call this presence Om, feeling that any name was too small. There he says he was given visions about life reviews and about souls growing toward oneness over many lifetimes.

Each time he entered the Core, he was told he was not there to stay. By remembering the melody he could return to the valley and his companion, until one day it no longer worked. Back in the murky realm, he trusted he would be cared for, and saw thousands of beings with bowed heads, some holding candles, sending a comforting, welcoming energy. He later understood this as the power of prayer.

At the end, six faces appeared. The last was a ten-year-old boy, his son Bond, who had run into the ICU after hearing the doctors' grim news and pulled open his father's eyelids, pleading, "Daddy, you're going to be okay." Though Eben could not recognize him, the emotional plea reached him, and he knew he had a responsibility to another soul. He came back.

How It Changed Their Life

His language returned over hours and days, childhood memories over weeks, and his scientific knowledge over about two months. He has spent the years since exploring consciousness with scientists and experiencers, and says he let go of materialism and now believes love, kindness, compassion and mercy are the deepest rules of existence. He is the author of Proof of Heaven, Map of Heaven and Living in a Mindful Universe.