There are people who need to die to believe there is life after death. In Professor Eben Alexander's case, he also had to come back to life to be convinced.
Professor Alexander is not just another born-again believer. He is a top-tier neurosurgeon, a Harvard graduate who devoted his career to understanding the human brain. For years, he explained to patients, colleagues, and students that near-death experiences were nothing more than neural breakdowns under stress—a kind of “short circuit.” Then, in November 2008, his own system crashed. And he discovered something entirely different.
Alexander contracted a rare and deadly form of meningitis. Within four hours, he slipped into a deep coma, and his brain simply shut down. EEG readings showed that his neocortex—the outermost and most advanced part of the brain's cortex, responsible for consciousness, emotions, thinking, and language—ceased functioning entirely. This is the region where all the brain's higher functions occur, and it is considered essential to the experience of self. When such an area is offline, scientifically, nothing should remain: No thought, no memory, no dream. Only darkness.
But what he experienced, he says, was everything.
In his book Proof of Heaven, he describes a wondrous journey through celestial realms. A valley of glowing, unfading flowers, waterfalls cascading into crystal lakes, golden light hovering above crowds of dancing beings, angelic choirs singing in thunderous voices—and all of it alongside a feminine figure who floated toward him on a butterfly wing, conveying a quiet and clear message: You are loved. You belong. There is nothing to fear.
That figure, he would discover months later, was in fact his biological sister whom he had never met, and who had died years earlier. Only months afterward, when his biological family sent him a letter with a picture of a sister he had never known, did he realize she was the same figure he had seen in his vision. For him, it was tangible confirmation that his experience had been real.
Later, he recounts, he was carried into another realm (“the Core,” as he calls it), a space without up or down, filled with unconditional love. There he encountered a presence he describes as “the Creator,” not a physical figure but an immense, calming force that conveyed the message: You are part of the One. You always have been. You always will be.
But this experience, as powerful as it was, was not meant to last. He says he was told that it was not yet his time to stay. Then, as if rewinding, he traveled back through the spiritual realms he had passed—until he returned to his body.
He suddenly woke up in the hospital, after seven days in a coma, after the medical team had already lost hope. His recovery was rapid and clinically inexplicable, and the doctors could only look at him in astonishment.
Despite the visual and sensory richness, Alexander insists this was not a hallucination. He didn’t just see—he felt. Peace. Compassion. A deep sense of belonging. Nurse Julie McFadden, who specializes in end-of-life care, shared his story online and said: “It sounds almost like a trip, but he claims it didn’t feel that way. It felt real. Good. True.”
The doctors didn’t believe it when he suddenly woke up. But for him, it was only the beginning. “My experience,” he wrote, “represents the tip of the iceberg of a scientific awakening, one that challenges assumptions about the connection between brain and consciousness. The world will never be the same.”
Since then, he lectures, writes, and tries to explain that even if we don’t have the tools to measure the soul—it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. As far as he's concerned, death is not the end. It's the beginning of another stage. Deeper. More personal. Closer than ever.