I know this happened with my mother-in-law, and she absolutely refused to talk about it:

Why is it important for you to believe that there is life after death?

It was not important for me, at all, to believe. I’m a journalist. I don’t go around thinking, “I really hope there’s life after death.” Indeed, at the beginning I was the opposite—I didn’t want to believe. Yes, death was a source of terror. For me, the worst thing that could happen was nothingness. I would have far preferred to hear that Satan was waiting for me than to learn that there was nothing. But I was absolutely positive that there was nothing after death—that the curtain descends, and that’s it. Act III. It’s over. The stage is black.

And when I first ventured into this strange area of research, I was pretty sure, just as you said, that it was all the result of oxygen deprivation and that these were hallucinations. It was only after I discovered that it can’t be the result of oxygen deprivation, and these were not hallucinations, that I realized I had to change my views. That’s a very difficult thing to do, particularly when you’re past adolescence. But every bit of evidence, every single person I interviewed, forced me to change my views. It was something I did quite unwillingly and with a good deal of skepticism.

What I tried to do, as a journalist, was simply record what these people say happened. All I know is what I’ve reported, which is, when you die, that is not the end. Stuff goes on. That, to me, is weird. But it’s true.

Did engaging with this research make you want to die?

No! Nothing makes me want to die! But it did make me less fearful of dying. It was a long process, though. After the first 20 or 30 interviews, I was still terrified of death. All these people were telling me stuff that I never believed could happen. But gradually I came to accept that what they said was true. So I’m a little less terrified of death now.

You say that having an NDE often invests people with special powers. Tell us about the British air traffic controller.

[Laughs] The British air traffic controller makes me laugh. He told a person I interviewed, a British neuropsychiatrist named Dr. Fenwick, that he had a death experience. Oddly enough, as a result of this death experience, he became terrific at picking and choosing stocks. [Laughs]

The psychiatrist goes, “Uh-huh.” The guy says, “Yeah, you really should invest in British Telecom.”

Dr. Fenwick says, “Uh, yeah. Right.” And of course the stock soars right after that!

Usually these powers involve perceptual abilities, though, [such as] the ability to know what other people are thinking, the ability know what’s going to happen next. So they’re usually less materialistic than this gentleman’s powers. [Laughs] But, hey, whatever floats your boat.

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