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Journalist and former BBC correspondent Alan Pearce set out to learn what happens during a medically induced coma, and found survivors describing parallel lives, past lives and near-death experiences. Then, in the middle of his research, the sudden death of his daughter made the question personal.
About This Episode
Alan is the co-author, with his wife, former private investigator Beverley Pearce, of Coma and Near-Death Experience: The Beautiful, Disturbing, and Dangerous World of the Unconscious. He explains why coma survivors say their experiences are more real than this life, why he believes they are not dreams, and what families should know. This episode includes accounts of distressing coma experiences alongside beautiful ones.
How a Pandemic Question Became a Book
Watching Covid patients being placed into comas, Alan wondered what the experience was actually like
The official explanation was that a coma is the deepest, most restorative form of sleep, leaving no memories at all
He joined a Coma Survivors group on Facebook and found people describing vivid, detailed experiences
Survivors called them coma dreams and nightmares, then explained why they were neither
The accounts fell into three groups: horrors beyond anything Hollywood could invent, classic near-death experiences, and entire alternate lives
Many survivors had never told even their closest family, afraid they had lost their minds
Living Another Life in a Coma
During a two-week coma for pneumonia, Nick says he lived 20 years in the American Midwest of the 1960s and 70s
He held jobs, took vacations, and had a partner and a baby, then collapsed and woke in a hospital beside a wife he didn’t recognize
To Nick, this life now feels less real than the one he left behind
A man who had been a happily married architect in his coma life couldn’t describe what he lost without crying
In 20 years, Nick says he never once saw his own reflection
Another survivor, who lived many lives in the past, remembered how good he looked in a Georgian wig
Dying Again and Again
A British survivor named James listed past deaths, from a Spitfire pilot shot down over the Thames to a drowning fisherman
James was also caught in a loop, watching his wife die in childbirth over and over
When patients wake fighting and pulling out tubes, Alan says, doctors often sedate them again, possibly sending them back
An Italian woman said it felt sweet to be back in this world, until she was put under again
Alan says about 80% of survivors are left with PTSD, and many fear sleep because their dreams pull them back
One woman, Kathy, woke up unable to recognize what humans were
Why These Aren’t Dreams
Doctors often call these experiences false memories or hallucinations, but Alan says hallucinations require consciousness
He explains that coma medication stops normal sleep cycles, including REM sleep, so there should be no dreaming
Dr. Wes Ely found that coma patients connected to an EEG went close to a flat line
Alan compares comas to dark retreats, where people in total darkness report similar alternate lives and horrors
He also points to DMT, which he says rises sharply in rats near death
One survivor says she spent 100,000 years moving between the lowest and highest levels of existence
Beautiful Coma Experiences
After a botched operation, a Christian woman says she was visited daily by a being she describes as the Archangel Gabriel, with Rasta hair
She says she drifted on a raft of autumn leaves before meeting relatives who told her it wasn’t her time
She came back with no fear of death
Zahra watched her own leg amputation from the ceiling and later described the surgical tools to the nurses
Nikki, in a coma for sepsis, says she gave birth in a train carriage in India to a baby with remarkable ice blue eyes
She had never heard the conversation about her pregnancy, which was terminated during her coma
Years later, in a brown-eyed family, she gave birth to a son whose blue eyes the midwife said “burned into your soul.”
What Families Should Know
Many coma patients can hear what is said around them, so Alan urges families and staff never to speak unkindly over them
A TV left on can bleed into the experience, turning the Discovery Channel into a safari or the History Channel into wars
Alan says he found no modern medical papers that support prolonged deep sedation
Even a few hours under general anesthesia can cause cognitive harm in older patients, while coma patients are sedated for weeks or months
He hopes younger doctors will follow the newer research, but fears change won’t come in his lifetime
Losing Rebecca
Having covered about half a dozen wars, Alan had always assumed dead meant dead
His daughter Rebecca, a police detective, died suddenly in the middle of his research
He says he knew at once that she wasn’t gone, because energy can’t be destroyed
Two weeks later, he says, he was caught in a beam of gray light above wet cobblestones and knew he had come home
He argued to stay, saying he had a book to finish, and found himself back in his bedroom
He still isn’t sure if it was a near-death experience, a shared death experience or a dream, but says it felt completely real
Negative NDEs and What Comes Next
Alan suspects many people have dark near-death experiences but don’t share them
Coma accounts, he says, mix horror and beauty in roughly equal measure
Every alternate life survivors described was set in the past or present, never the future, which points him toward past lives
Nick came back able to fix cars and heating systems, though before his coma he couldn’t change a light bulb
Alan believes we return for more lives to learn lessons, and says he now has no fear of death
About Alan Pearce
Alan Pearce is a journalist, broadcaster and former BBC correspondent with a background in foreign affairs and the darker side of technology. He is the co-author, with Beverley Pearce, of Coma and Near-Death Experience: The Beautiful, Disturbing, and Dangerous World of the Unconscious.
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