We, of course, had to ask Bruce Greyson, M.D., the world’s leading expert on near-death experiences and author of After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond, on the mindbodygreen podcast. Along with his cutting-edge findings (which you can read all about here), he breaks down whether or not seeing the light is, in fact, a real thing. “When you talk to near-death experiencers, and you ask them, ‘What happened to you?’ the first thing they say is, ‘Well, there aren’t words to express it. I can’t really describe it for you.’ The questions that come up with near-death experience probably can’t be answered with our limited language and our limited logic.” In other words: The light is a feeling that can’t really be explained. However, Greyson also says that some people do see a physical beam of light on the other side: “People talk about being thrust down a tunnel at breakneck speed toward a brilliant light,” he recounts. While this may sound initially terrifying, for many of them, he says, once they were able to let go of their desire to control what was happening, it became rather blissful. Greyson continues, “So what is it? I have no idea. Again, I fall back on the difficulty of putting it into words.” But perhaps we can say that the light is generally associated with positivity and warmth, whether you see an actual beam or not. Maybe that’s why Greyson says people who experience NDEs typically come back less afraid of death: “People consistently from all over the world say that the near-death experience leads you to a place that is not something to be feared,” he notes.
