This episode of Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown explores shared death experiences (SDEs) — phenomena in which healthy, conscious people (doctors, nurses, family members, even distant strangers) witness or co-experience aspects of another person’s dying process, including visions of light, mist, apparitions of deceased relatives, out-of-body sensations, and remote knowing of a death occurring miles away.
What a shared death experience is and how it differs from a near-death experience
SDEs mirror the content of near-death experiences (tunnel, light, life review, deceased relatives, overwhelming peace and love) but occur in bystanders who are not ill, injured, or near death themselves.
Dr. Raymond Moody coined “near-death experience” in Life After Life (1975) after interviewing over 100 clinically dead people who revived; in the 1980s he began collecting reports from healthy witnesses at bedsides and introduced the term “shared death experience” in Glimpses of Eternity.
Moody emphasizes that bystanders — medical staff, family, friends — report the same phenomena: seeing mist rise from the body, the room’s geometry appearing to warp, hearing music with no source, feeling an upward magnetic pull, or even co-living the dying person’s life review.
The hosts note that skeptics typically attribute NDEs to hypoxia, DMT release, or brain chemistry, but those explanations cannot account for healthy observers having identical experiences without physiological crisis.
The Jeff Olson / Dr. Jeff O’Driscoll case — a detailed, multi-witness SDE
Easter weekend 1997: Jeff Olson fell asleep at the wheel at 75 mph; the car rolled eight times, killing his wife and one son; Olson and his 7-year-old son survived. Olson was airlifted to a Utah hospital with a broken back and crushed leg.
While Olson was on the operating table, he later reported his consciousness floating above the accident scene in a bubble of light beside his wife, who told him he had to return for their surviving son.
Simultaneously, in the trauma bay, ER physician Dr. Jeff O’Driscoll and nurse Rachel independently saw a transparent but vibrant woman with curly blonde hair in flowing white clothing hovering above Olson on the table. She radiated peace, looked at O’Driscoll, and smiled; he felt she had known him forever.
O’Driscoll did not yet know Olson’s wife had died at the scene. Years later, Olson recovered, and he and O’Driscoll compared accounts and have presented together at conferences. O’Driscoll documented this and other SDEs in his book Not Yet.
The case is notable because two medical professionals witnessed the same apparition independently, without prior knowledge of the wife’s death, and their accounts matched the dying man’s own reported experience.
Dr. William Peters and the Shared Crossings Project — systematic research
Peters founded the Shared Crossings Project in 2013 and has documented over 800 SDE cases.
In 2021, Peters and his team published the first peer-reviewed study on SDEs in the American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, analyzing 164 SDEs from 107 people.
The study identified four participatory modes for the living person:
Accompanying the dying (out-of-body travel with the dying person)
Assisting the dying in the transition (guiding, comforting)
Remotely sensing a death (knowing or feeling the death from a distance)
Strikingly, 64% of the SDEs in the study were remote — the living person was not in the room, sometimes not even in the same country.
Remote SDEs — compelling cases that challenge spatial explanations
Annie Cap, a psychotherapist in London, suddenly choked and struggled for air for 25 minutes with a sense of dread about her hospitalized mother in Portland, Oregon. She called the hospital; her mother died during that call.
Mark, a Canadian living in the U.S., heard his dying father’s voice say, “I don’t know how to do this,” saw himself walking with his father up a staircase where his grandmother waited, and heard his father say, “I didn’t know it was this easy.” Minutes later, his brother called to confirm the father had just died.
These cases suggest the phenomenon is not limited to physical proximity or sensory cues in the death room.
Historical and cross-cultural precedents — not a modern or culture-bound phenomenon
The Society for Psychical Research in London documented “deathbed visions” and “deathbed coincidences” in the late 19th century.
Carl Skala, a German poet in WWI, held his best friend as he died from an artillery blast; Skala felt himself drawn up with his friend above the battlefield, saw a bright light, moved toward it with his friend, then returned to his body (recounted in Melvin Morse’s Parting Visions).
8th-century records describe light witnessed at a monk’s passing.
Aboriginal Australian traditions involve communal spiritual gatherings during a member’s death.
Ancient Greek and Roman “Oracles of the Dead” were subterranean chambers for communing with the deceased.
Judeo-Christian liturgy centers on resurrection and the interface between death and rebirth; Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka argues authentic religious adherence includes access to the next world.
Egyptian mummification, Día de los Muertos, and traditions of naming children after ancestors all reflect a cultural expectation of ongoing connection with the dead.
Other documented SDEs from medical professionals and death doulas
Penny Sartori, an ER nurse of 21 years, touched a dying ventilated patient’s bed; the room disappeared, she felt the patient’s pain, and heard him say, “Leave me alone. I want to go. Let me die in peace.” She and colleagues also observed sudden temperature drops and light emanating from dying bodies.
Death doula Martha Jo Atkins (over 1,000 transitions witnessed) described a case where a death-center room’s doors blew open, a ferocious cold wind passed through, and multiple people simultaneously saw an apparition of the dying woman’s deceased husband in the corner; the daughter identified him, and the sense was he had come to usher his wife across.
Atkins also emphasizes observable patterns and rhythms in the dying process — subtle cues that map the transition timing, normally invisible to the untrained eye.
After-death communications (ADCs) — a related phenomenon
Neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart, a self-described non-believer who would have previously pathologized such experiences, had a vivid ADC six weeks after her husband’s death: at 4 a.m., fully awake, she saw his life-size form push through darkness, become clear, then dissolve from the top down. She verified she was not asleep or dreaming.
Swart notes that 60% of older widowed people report auditory hallucinations, but she distinguishes her experience as externally present, not internally generated.
ADCs are typically comforting, conveying reassurance or acceptance, and often transform the recipient’s worldview and professional practice.
Aftereffects — profound and consistent transformation
Peters’ study found 87% of SDE experiencers became absolutely convinced of an afterlife (not merely hopeful).
The experience contextualizes grief, removes fear of death, and often imparts a sense of purpose or message — similar to NDErs who return with new abilities (precognition, heightened intuition, changed perception of animals/nature).
The hosts compare this to psilocybin-assisted therapy for terminal patients: SDEs may offer a natural, spontaneous “extra credit class” in Earth school that breaks open one’s understanding of what is possible.
Explanatory frameworks considered — none fully account for the data
Shared psychosis / folie à deux: High-stress, traumatic situations might cause unconscious mirroring or collective dissociation. Joe Nickell (Skeptical Inquiry) suggests the trauma of witnessing death transforms psychologically. The hosts note this doesn’t explain remote SDEs or veridical details (e.g., seeing a specific deceased relative later confirmed).
Frequency / tuning hypothesis: Some individuals (like Dr. O’Driscoll, Martha Jo Atkins) may be “tuned” to perceive these events — analogous to AP students accessing advanced material others cannot. Mayim suggests intense emotional signals (trauma, dying) are “loud” in the universe and resonate with sensitive receivers.
Confirmation bias / memory editing: Experiencers might retroactively shape memories to match cultural scripts. Hard to verify or falsify, but multi-witness cases (O’Driscoll/Rachel, Atkins’ death-center group) and remote cases with timestamped verification (Annie Cap, Mark) complicate this.
Materialist neuroscience: Dr. Bruce Greyson (UVA Division of Perceptual Studies, 50 years researching NDEs) notes all reports are filtered through the brain, but the data contradict simple explanations (hypoxia, drugs, erratic heart rates). The mechanism remains unknown; absence of explanation ≠ explanation of absence.
Philosophical and practical implications — what SDEs suggest about reality and purpose
If SDEs are real, consciousness is not strictly bound to the body or to spacetime proximity; the “veil” between living and dead is permeable, and love/connection may be the conduit.
The consistent message across NDEs and SDEs: “You don’t have to be afraid. Death is not the end.” This reframes life as a learning environment (“Earth school”) where such experiences are curriculum, not anomaly.
The hosts suggest paying attention to subtle intuitive hits (e.g., Mayim’s text message coincidence) as possible signals from this larger reality.
Cultural traditions that honor the dead (naming, altars, ancestor reverence) may be practical technologies for maintaining the connection that SDEs reveal as natural.
The episode ends with a Bob Dylan lyric: “When you’re standing on the crossroads that you cannot comprehend, just remember that death is not the end.”
