What happens after we die?
Jan. 31, 2023

#306 - Dr. Tony Cicoria is Hit By Lightning - Hear His Music From Heaven

#306 - Dr. Tony Cicoria is Hit By Lightning - Hear His Music From Heaven
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Dr. Tony Cicoria is an orthopedic surgeon living on the East Coast of the United States. At a family reunion he was hit by lightning and immediately his spirit left his body.

He experienced a beautiful 'River of Energy' that brought absolute peace and love. He could actually see the energy that everything is made of.

Later, he heard beautiful piano playing. After his NDE the music was stuck in his head and he eventually put it down on paper, learned how to play piano, and performed it in a live concert. You will hear some of this music!

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Transcript

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Welcome back to Round Trip Death.

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Before we get started today, I want to talk about personal beliefs.

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I think there's always something new to learn from our guests.

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I also realize we all have different belief systems.

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This show is not about my beliefs or what a religious or philosophical expert would

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say is right or wrong.

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This is a judgment-free place where we listen to sincere people describing what happened

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to them.

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If something said doesn't fit your personal beliefs, it's okay.

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How you use this discussion is up to you.

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My only recommendation is to listen to that soft voice inside you.

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It'll help you know what to do with this information.

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Now let's hear from today's guest.

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We have with us today Tony Sicoria.

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We're very happy to have you, Tony.

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How are you?

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Great, sir.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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Did I pronounce that okay?

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Perfectly.

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All righty.

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Good.

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Hey, I had fun talking with you the other day in our pre-interviews that we do.

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I think your story is very unique and that's one of the fun things about this show is that

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no two NDE stories are the same.

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People kind of assume they are.

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They're not.

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They're all different.

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Yours is one fits into that different category and it's a whole lot of fun.

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Before we jump in, would you mind just telling us a little bit about yourself?

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All right.

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I grew up in upstate New York and I went to the Citadel, which was a military school in

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Charleston, South Carolina for college.

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This was during the war and I thought if I'm going to get drafted and go to war, I might

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as well go as somebody who knows what they're doing.

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Turns out the war ended a month before graduation, so I didn't get to go anyway.

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I assume we're talking the Vietnam War here.

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Yes.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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And then I went to graduate school because I had wanted to.

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I thought in my mind's eye that I was going to be one of these crazy mad scientists in

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the basement of some building doing crazy kinds of research.

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And I did do that and realized that that wasn't what I wanted.

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And so after I finished my doctorate, I went to medical school in Charleston, South Carolina,

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met the medical university there and then decided to go in towards pedics, did my training

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up in Virginia and met the university there.

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And then went into practice up in upstate New York again, a couple of miles from where

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my family grew up and that was in Oneonta, New York.

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And I was there.

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We lived there from the time we moved up there in 1988 until we left in 2019.

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So I've been a practicing orthopedic surgeon since 1988 in that area.

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And I had been going down kind of an academic road.

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I was doing a lot of research and I was thinking about going into academic research at Syracuse

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University.

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And things took a turn in my life and I never followed through with all of that.

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And that turn came about when I had what I would frequently refer to as a phone call

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from God.

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It got struck by lightning in 1994.

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Okay.

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Let's get a little bit of background on that now.

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So where were you?

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What were you doing?

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And what was your relationship with lightning before this?

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We were in August of 1994.

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Every August my wife and her family would have a big huge gathering.

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There were five people that had birthdays in August so they would celebrate it at one

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time and this was that month.

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We were going to have it at a place called Sleepy Hollow Lake, which is just south of

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Albany, New York.

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They had rented a pavilion and we went there that morning and I was in charge of running

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the barbecue.

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So I was outside and in the morning it was a beautiful day.

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I wasn't paying attention to anything because I was running the grill.

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And about halfway through the morning I decided that I was going to go call my mom who was

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not there.

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And as I had to walk around to the front of the building where there was a payphone attached

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to the building.

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And so I'm not paying attention to the fact that a big storm had blown up over the lake,

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which we were right next to.

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And I was completely oblivious to that.

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And as I dialed my mother, she didn't answer the phone so I was just getting ready to hang

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up the phone.

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And I got the phone to about here and I heard a loud crack.

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And at the same time this huge flash of light came out of the phone and hit me in the face.

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And it just sent me flying backwards like I'd been kicked by a horse.

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And as I was going backwards, a really strange thing happened because all of a sudden I had

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the sensation of moving forward.

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And I remember thinking, this is crazy.

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I know that I got hit and I know that I got thrown back and now I don't understand why

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I have this weird sensation of moving forward.

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And that was only for a fraction of a second.

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And at that point I was just standing there absolutely dumbfounded.

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I'm looking around and they see the phone dangling from the phone carriage and it's

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just banging against the wall.

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And I'm looking around and nothing's making any sense to me.

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And then all of a sudden I hear my mother-in-law screaming and she's at the top of the stairs

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and I'm at the bottom.

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And she starts running down the stairs right at me and I'm thinking, this is not good when

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your mother-in-law is screaming and running at you.

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And I was just kind of frozen like a deer in the headlights.

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As she got down right in front of me, it's like I wasn't even there.

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And she took off to her left.

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And so I just instinctively turned to follow her and I took a few steps and suddenly I

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was confronted with myself on the ground.

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And I remember thinking, oh shit, I'm dead.

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And it was a shock.

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I mean, no pun intended.

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That's amazing how much can run through your head so quickly.

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It was blazingly fast.

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And I remember thinking, I walked over to the body and I'm realizing that I'm sitting,

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I'm here and my brain is racing.

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My mind was racing, not my brain.

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And my mind is racing like crazy and I'm trying to make sense of this.

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And I see this lady who was standing behind me waiting to use the phone.

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She starts to get down to do CPR.

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Turns out she was a nurse who was just waiting there in the wings to use the phone.

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And this place is in the middle of nowhere.

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I can't imagine why she was there.

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And so she starts to get down and do CPR and I'm trying to call to them and I realize that

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they can't hear me, but I can hear and I see them.

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And I thought, well, there's no point in standing around here.

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So I decided to leave and I turned around and I was going to walk up the stairs and

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I was going to go back to where my family was and see what they were doing.

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And so I started walking up the stairs and I'm looking down at the stairs like I normally

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would just so I don't trip and fall on my face.

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And as I'm watching the stairs, I see that my legs are starting to dissolve.

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And I'm thinking, wow, this is really getting kind of crazy.

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And by the time I got to the top of the stairs, I had lost all form.

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And I looked at myself and there was just a ball of energy without real form.

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And then the stairs actually go up to the left and I didn't go up the stairs, I just

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passed through the wall.

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And when I came out the other side, I passed immediately over my wife who was sitting on

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a chair and she's painting children's faces.

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And I made a specific note to myself of where the kids were and who they were and what position

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everybody was in.

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And then I passed through that room on a diagonal.

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And when I got out of the building, then things really started to get interesting.

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It was almost like I had fallen into a river of pure positive energy.

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And it was crazy and it had this bluish white light.

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And the only thing that I could feel was if you can imagine absolute love and peace, there

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wasn't anything else to be felt.

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And at that point, I was really dumbfounded.

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Did you feel like that river of energy was taking you somewhere?

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I did.

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I did feel like it was taking me somewhere.

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As I was standing there in this river, there were a number of things that were going on.

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One, I was looking at this river and it was actually a river of energy.

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And it was so specific because I could actually see the lines of the energy.

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I could see the almost a sinusoidal wave form that was flowing in it.

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And what was interesting about it was that everything that I looked at was made up of

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this energy.

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And I made the conclusion to myself that this must be what God is.

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This is the energy of God.

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And at that point, I realized that there was a sensation of I was moving and I had both

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speed and direction.

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I was going someplace.

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I just had no idea where.

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But it was an incredible feeling.

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And as I was doing this, I had this...

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It was almost like a collage of high points and low points in my life that just kind of

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were there and were gone.

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And right about this point, I'm coming to the realization that this is the greatest

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thing that can ever happen to anyone.

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As I'm in this stream and I'm just kind of almost euphoric about it, and suddenly it

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was like somebody flipped a switch and I was back in my body and I was so angry.

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I didn't wanna go back.

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And I was begging anybody that would listen to let me not have to go back and go through

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this.

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And it went from being absolutely incredibly blissful to being in pain.

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And so I'm laying on the floor and I felt like somebody stuck a poker in my face and

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one of my foot where it came out.

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Okay.

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Before we move in that direction more of what happened after you came back, can we dig any

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deeper into what you saw and felt?

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For example, you said you saw energy.

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I don't know what energy looks like.

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Normally I wouldn't either.

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As I looked at this light, this bluish white light, it reminded me of as a child, they

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used to swim in these big creeks where the water was crystal clear.

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And if I was down low in the deep part and I looked up, I would see this light from the

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sun coming through the water and had this glistening whitish appearance to it.

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And it reminded me of that.

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The more I looked at it, more I could see that the energy that was streaming toward

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me had formed to it.

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And as I stared at it more, I could see that I saw these lines within the light.

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And when I looked at some of the background things, like I was seeing trees and the water

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of the lake, I saw that this energy that wherever it was coming from was actually what made

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up everything.

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So that everything was made of this energy.

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And as we have learned from our theoretical physics partners, everything is made of energy.

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But I could see it.

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And it really hit home to me.

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And I thought, geez, this is something I could measure.

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It was that palpable.

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It was very clear to me that it was something very important, very strong.

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So that was sort of your scientific side of your brain saying, maybe I can measure this.

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Did the scientific side of your brain think of anything else?

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It was very clear to me a number of things.

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One that whoever we are, we always are.

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And I learned that when I looked at the body and I realized that I'm still having the same

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thought patterns that I normally would have.

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And so I realized that this shell that's on the ground is nothing more than a shell.

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The real me is my spiritual form that I was existing in at that point in time.

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And that was the real person, if you will.

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And so I made that realization.

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And then as I was out in the energy stream, then it became even more apparent to me that

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there's so much more to what we imagine reality to be than we have any idea.

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What do you mean by that?

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We look at, we see, I look across the room and I see a bookshelf.

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And so is what I see reality or is it something that my brain has learned to look at the vibrational

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frequency of an object and it interprets that vibration as something solid?

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And in reality, it's probably, there's no real substance.

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The reality that we see is a mirage.

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It's being interpreted by our brain.

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Yeah.

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Right?

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That energy.

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And you said that you lost form and became sort of a ball of energy.

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Did you see any other of these kind of beings?

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No.

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I was in retrospect, I was disappointed because at the time this happened, I didn't know anything

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about near-death experiences or anything like that that other people have had.

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And in reading a lot of these accounts, people meet relatives, they see other beings, they're

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told things.

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And I was disappointed that I didn't get any of that.

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I almost felt like I'd been shortchanged.

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You didn't get your money's worth out of that, indeed.

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It was like, okay.

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But you really felt something.

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Explain a little bit more about what you felt.

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In terms of when I was out there and experiencing...

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Yeah, you mentioned you felt energy and bliss.

234
00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:22,200
Yeah.

235
00:17:22,200 --> 00:17:28,920
I mean, if you can imagine, there's a thing in science called absolute zero.

236
00:17:28,920 --> 00:17:34,520
It's a temperature at which there's no molecular motion.

237
00:17:34,520 --> 00:17:40,440
And it's a pure singular state, if you can imagine that.

238
00:17:40,440 --> 00:17:46,720
And that's what I like in this love energy too.

239
00:17:46,720 --> 00:17:50,440
It was completely devoid of anything else.

240
00:17:50,440 --> 00:17:56,000
It was just a radiating energy of love and peace.

241
00:17:56,000 --> 00:18:00,680
And it was unlike anything I've ever experienced in my life.

242
00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:07,160
And it was truly earth-shaking.

243
00:18:07,160 --> 00:18:12,280
So again, I want to talk to the scientist for a second here.

244
00:18:12,280 --> 00:18:17,280
You've just mentioned energy and love in the same breath.

245
00:18:17,280 --> 00:18:18,360
What does that mean?

246
00:18:18,360 --> 00:18:22,200
Does that make love more tangible?

247
00:18:22,200 --> 00:18:30,800
And what I experienced, I truly believe that love is an energy form.

248
00:18:30,800 --> 00:18:42,160
And that energy obviously re-eats from a source, but that energy is something that everyone

249
00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:43,160
can share.

250
00:18:43,160 --> 00:18:44,160
All right.

251
00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:47,500
Let's talk about being slammed back into your body.

252
00:18:47,500 --> 00:18:48,500
What happened there?

253
00:18:48,500 --> 00:18:56,880
Well, there was not a pleasant experience because I went from being absolutely ecstatic

254
00:18:56,880 --> 00:19:01,840
with happiness and to absolutely in pain.

255
00:19:01,840 --> 00:19:03,120
It really hurt.

256
00:19:03,120 --> 00:19:10,080
And I remember lying there thinking, oh my God, this really hurts where I get hit and

257
00:19:10,080 --> 00:19:12,480
where it went out.

258
00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:14,160
But I was still unconscious.

259
00:19:14,160 --> 00:19:19,200
I still couldn't see, I couldn't talk.

260
00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:26,160
And it seemed like minutes went by before I was able to open my eyes as I knew that when

261
00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:35,640
I was back, the CPR had stopped and the lady was kneeling next to me.

262
00:19:35,640 --> 00:19:43,520
And I wanted to say something and I should have known that I wasn't thinking very clearly

263
00:19:43,520 --> 00:19:45,200
at that point.

264
00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:48,800
And I looked at her and I said, it's okay, I'm a doctor.

265
00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:52,880
And she just laughed and said, well, you weren't a minute ago.

266
00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:54,880
And I felt like a jackass.

267
00:19:54,880 --> 00:19:55,880
I really did.

268
00:19:55,880 --> 00:19:59,560
And it was like, oh my God, I'm just gonna shut up and not say anything else because

269
00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:02,400
what's coming out is really stupid.

270
00:20:02,400 --> 00:20:07,040
And at that point, they called the police, they called an ambulance.

271
00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:14,280
And by the time everybody showed up, I was sitting up and I was talking and I'm like,

272
00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:18,640
well, there's no point in going to the hospital because I know what it's like to go to an

273
00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:19,640
emergency room.

274
00:20:19,640 --> 00:20:24,120
I'm not gonna sit there for six hours waiting to be seen.

275
00:20:24,120 --> 00:20:25,800
And there wasn't any real emergency.

276
00:20:25,800 --> 00:20:30,240
I said, you get struck by lightning, you're either alive or dead, there's not much in

277
00:20:30,240 --> 00:20:31,520
between.

278
00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:36,440
So I wasn't thinking very clearly at that point and that's obvious.

279
00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:43,280
And I opted to just have my family take me home and see my family doctor who we called

280
00:20:43,280 --> 00:20:45,800
on the way and told him what happened.

281
00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:49,520
And he had me just go right over to his office.

282
00:20:49,520 --> 00:20:54,680
They checked me out and said, well, everything looks like it's okay.

283
00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:55,680
So I thought...

284
00:20:55,680 --> 00:21:00,960
And then at that point, I was really kind of dumbfounded because I'm like, this is too

285
00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:05,840
crazy to have just been a spurious event.

286
00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:13,520
I know in my mind, the science brain is going, there's no way that you could figure out the

287
00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:21,200
probability of an event like this where the lightning hit the building and lost enough

288
00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:23,200
of its current.

289
00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:29,960
By the time it got to you, it just stopped your heart rather than frying you.

290
00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:38,160
And then on top of that, that part of my brain is also going, and to make sure that you didn't

291
00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:43,880
get completely knocked out of the ballpark, they had a nurse standing there waiting to

292
00:21:43,880 --> 00:21:45,480
resuscitate you.

293
00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:50,640
And so I'm sitting there thinking, how do you figure out the probability of two events

294
00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:57,120
like that happening to prevent me from not returning?

295
00:21:57,120 --> 00:22:03,440
And at that point, I realized, okay, this is not a random event.

296
00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:05,160
Somebody orchestrated this, and for what?

297
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:07,920
I have no idea.

298
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:16,700
But it was pretty clear to me that this was an event that had some importance to it.

299
00:22:16,700 --> 00:22:19,760
But I didn't have any idea what it was at that point.

300
00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:22,680
Well, you've had 20 plus years to think about it now.

301
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:26,080
Do you have some of those answers?

302
00:22:26,080 --> 00:22:28,800
I have some.

303
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:36,520
And a lot of it came from, shortly after the lightning, within a couple of weeks, I started

304
00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:43,040
having this insatiable desire to hear classical piano music, which was a big departure for

305
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:48,640
me because I grew up as a kid of the 60s, and there was rock and roll, and there wasn't

306
00:22:48,640 --> 00:22:51,040
much of anything else.

307
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:58,200
My mother had made me take piano lessons when I was seven years old for a year, and at the

308
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:03,000
end of that year, I promptly quit and said, I don't want to do this anymore.

309
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:07,640
I want to play baseball and go fishing and do all kinds of other stuff.

310
00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:11,480
So that was, and then never went back to that.

311
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:14,800
So I never really learned a lot either.

312
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:22,160
So for me to suddenly want to be involved in classical piano was a big departure.

313
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:29,000
But it was such a powerful feeling that I actually went to a music store.

314
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:35,640
I had to go to Albany, which was an hour away, to find a place that even sold classical piano

315
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:38,040
music.

316
00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:43,440
And I went into the store and when I walked in the door, it's like this CD of Vladimir

317
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:45,800
Ashkenazi playing his favorite Chopin.

318
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:50,680
It seemed like it jumped off the shelf and ran into my hands.

319
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:56,800
I bought the CD and I started listening to it, and I listened to it nonstop.

320
00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:02,440
I was so taken with it that I couldn't stop listening, and I made everybody else listen,

321
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:04,360
even at work.

322
00:24:04,360 --> 00:24:10,360
And very quickly I realized that it was not going to be enough for me to just listen to

323
00:24:10,360 --> 00:24:11,360
this music.

324
00:24:11,360 --> 00:24:13,520
I needed to learn how to play.

325
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:18,520
But that was a problem too, since I didn't have a piano and I didn't know how to play.

326
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:25,060
But it seemed like it was the next day our babysitter called and said, I'm moving out

327
00:24:25,060 --> 00:24:27,760
of state and they have this old upright piano.

328
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:31,760
I was wondering if I could store it at your house for a year.

329
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:34,540
And I thought, well, it's fortuitous.

330
00:24:34,540 --> 00:24:38,920
So suddenly I had this feeling that I have to learn how to play a piano and suddenly

331
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,760
a piano appears.

332
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:46,520
And I bought some books on trying to teach myself how to do this.

333
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:48,200
And that's where I started.

334
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:52,560
And about three weeks into that, I have a dream.

335
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:57,680
And in this dream, the dream was like an out of body experience.

336
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:06,160
And I remembered I'm walking out onto a performance stage and I see myself out on the front of

337
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:12,040
the stage and I'm performing in a concert hall.

338
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:16,560
And I remember thinking, this is really kind of crazy.

339
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:21,680
And as I'm walking up and I'm looking at myself for listening to the music, and by the time

340
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:28,120
I walked up behind myself, I realized that this is not somebody else's music.

341
00:25:28,120 --> 00:25:29,800
This is mine.

342
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:36,400
So I listened to the music and the ending had a loud crashing ending and it woke me

343
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:41,280
up and I look at the clock, it's about 3.15 in the morning.

344
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:45,800
And I walked out to the piano and I tried to plunk out some of the things I heard, but

345
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:46,800
I said, this is stupid.

346
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:51,020
I don't know how to read and I don't know how to write, so I'm going back to bed.

347
00:25:51,020 --> 00:25:52,560
And I did.

348
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:58,560
But from that moment on, whenever I sat down at that piano, the music from the dream would

349
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:01,160
start playing in my head.

350
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:09,800
And if I didn't pay attention to it and didn't work on it every day, it would start to play

351
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:12,720
in my head when I didn't want to.

352
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:17,800
And it was a very insistent, almost like a small child, like pay attention to me.

353
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:19,720
I'm like, okay.

354
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:26,280
So I learned very quickly that every day I needed to do some work on that music and I

355
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:30,400
started doing that as I was trying to learn.

356
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:38,200
And I was trying to teach myself initially and I remember one day my daughter was playing

357
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:43,080
with one of her best friends and her best friend's mom came by the house to pick her

358
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:49,860
up and she heard me banging on the piano and I was trying to learn what's called a

359
00:26:49,860 --> 00:26:51,360
fantasy impromptu.

360
00:26:51,360 --> 00:26:55,600
It's a piece by Frederic Chopin.

361
00:26:55,600 --> 00:27:00,040
It's an advanced piece and way above my head.

362
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:04,800
But it was one of the things on the CT so I would determine I was going to learn how

363
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:06,800
to play it.

364
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:11,320
And she heard me and then she walked in and she said, what in the world are you doing?

365
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:14,720
And I said, I said, I'm trying to learn this piece of music.

366
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:19,520
I said, but I don't understand because the hands don't line up.

367
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:23,040
And she looked at me and she said, they're not supposed to.

368
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:25,680
It's what's called a polyrhythm.

369
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:31,800
And I thought, and I said to her, what's a polyrhythm?

370
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:35,400
And she said, I'm not even going to try to explain this to you.

371
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:37,600
You need to get a teacher.

372
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:43,880
And so at that point she gave me the name of a couple of people and the one lady was

373
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:49,280
Sandy McCain who was the chairman of the Department of Music at Hartwood College and I called

374
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:54,880
her and I said, look, I'm an old dog trying to learn some new tricks and told her the

375
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:58,640
story in which she'd take me on as a student.

376
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:09,280
And she had me come and audition, if you will, to be a student.

377
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:14,640
And she said, I'll take you on, she said, but there's only one thing I'm going to insist

378
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:15,640
on.

379
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:16,640
And I said, what's that?

380
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:24,040
You don't play anything else of this magnitude until I tell you that you can because you

381
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:29,640
are learning so many bad things trying to do it yourself.

382
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:31,840
And I said, okay.

383
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:33,040
And that's the way we went.

384
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:44,800
She started me at the very beginning and we started working two hours every week and that

385
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:57,560
continued from that time, it was 1998 by that point and it continued up until when I left

386
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:00,320
New York in 2019.

387
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:03,080
So you've gotten pretty good at the piano.

388
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:06,000
I've gotten reasonably, done reasonably well.

389
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:11,040
I mean, I'm certainly no horror which says for sure.

390
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:14,280
Tell us more about this piece of music that was stuck in your head.

391
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:16,720
Did you get it down on paper?

392
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:22,360
For many years, it was just constantly being played in my head.

393
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:28,680
And I would try to play bits and pieces of it.

394
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:34,240
And as time went on, I would write down little snippets of it and I would stuff it in a drawer

395
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,720
thinking someday I'll come back to this.

396
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:44,640
In 2002, I started going to a music camp for adults, piano camp for adults called the Sonata

397
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:48,440
which is in Bennington, Vermont.

398
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:56,600
And it's essentially a big group of people that are in love with the piano and they just

399
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:58,680
play that exclusively.

400
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:03,360
And it's a week of complete indulgence of the piano.

401
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:09,320
They have lessons, they have pieces that they work on and they have a performance at the

402
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:11,320
end of the week.

403
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:15,600
And I had started doing that in 2002.

404
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:22,720
And then in 2006, so I would go in once a year in May.

405
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:33,560
And in 2006, when I went, the owner's sister who was Erica, Erica Vanderlyn Feidner, Erica

406
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:40,120
was the number one salesperson at Steinway in New York City.

407
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:45,120
And she had just left Steinway and went to Bozendorf for pianos.

408
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:51,160
And she brought five pianos in for people to play during the piano camp.

409
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:57,000
And she and I had gotten talking about this whole thing with the music and the lightning.

410
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:00,720
And she said, you know, there's only one person that can tell the story and that's Oliver

411
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:02,380
Saxe.

412
00:31:02,380 --> 00:31:06,520
And I said, at the time I didn't know who Oliver was other than that he'd written the

413
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,320
book Awakenings.

414
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:13,240
And he was a famous person.

415
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:21,140
But Oliver was one of the preeminent neurologists in the world, as well as a prolific author.

416
00:31:21,140 --> 00:31:26,720
And he was the person that had discovered the treatment for Parkinson's.

417
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:27,960
And that was in May.

418
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:34,880
And then a couple of months later, I get a phone call from Oliver and he invites me down

419
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:36,320
to his house in New York City.

420
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:40,720
He says, I'd like you to come down so I can interview you and I want you to be a patient

421
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:43,480
of mine for a study group I have.

422
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:45,960
And I thought, sure, why not?

423
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:54,480
So in August of 2006, I went down to Oliver's house and got to spend a whole day with him,

424
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:58,960
which was incredible for me.

425
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:03,440
And one of the things that came out of that is as we're standing in the doorway saying

426
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:08,040
good night, he looked at me and he had this way of his piercing look.

427
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:10,880
It's almost like he looked right through you.

428
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:14,840
He looked at me and he says, you know, the music from the dream went through an awful

429
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:16,760
lot of trouble to get here.

430
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:19,040
The least you can do is write it.

431
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:24,360
And at that point, I was so taken with what he said that as soon as I got home, the first

432
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:31,080
thing I did was I bought a program called Sibelius, which is writing music for dummies.

433
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:41,520
And it allows you to play something into a recording piano and it turns it into music

434
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:43,480
in notational form.

435
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:46,520
So it was very useful for me.

436
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:53,160
And I spent the next seven months taking all the music that I had heard and converting

437
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:58,600
it into hard copy, if you will.

438
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:06,200
And so at the end of that seven months, I finished it and I took it to my piano camp

439
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:10,640
and I played it for everybody and said, you know, this is the music from the dream that

440
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:16,000
I'd been hearing nonstop ever since it happened.

441
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:17,520
It was well received.

442
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:24,240
And while I was there at the camp, I got a call from Oliver and he said, you know, I

443
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:30,080
was wondering if you would consider letting me use me in the book that I'm getting ready

444
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:31,960
to publish.

445
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:33,520
And I said, sure.

446
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:34,920
I didn't have anything to hide.

447
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:40,880
And he said, good, because you're chapter one and it's coming out in the New Yorker magazine

448
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:43,080
in July of this year.

449
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,240
I'm like, okay, we're a little ahead of ourselves here.

450
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:47,240
Yeah.

451
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:48,480
And what's the name of that book?

452
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:54,280
The book is called Musicophilia that Oliver Sachs wrote.

453
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:55,920
Musicophilia.

454
00:33:55,920 --> 00:34:01,440
It's actually Musicophilia, Tales of Music and the Brain is the full title.

455
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:04,680
And so, you know, I said, sure.

456
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:11,480
And then he said, oh, well, it's going to be coming out very shortly.

457
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:16,440
And sure enough, it came out in July of 2007.

458
00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:20,120
And all of a sudden, you know, there was a lot of interest.

459
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:23,640
The phone started ringing off the hook.

460
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:30,680
And one of the calls, the first calls I got was from a friend of mine at the State University

461
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:38,400
of New York, Carl Clay, and Carlton was the head of the music department at the State

462
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:39,400
University there.

463
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:43,440
And he said, you know, I was wondering if, you know, I've seen this article in the New

464
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:47,640
Yorker and I was wondering if you would teach a class.

465
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:50,840
And I thought, well, that would be interesting.

466
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:52,160
And so I agreed to that.

467
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:57,560
And a week later, he calls and he says, you know, awful lot of interest in this.

468
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:01,240
He said, would you consider playing for the class?

469
00:35:01,240 --> 00:35:03,720
And I said, sure.

470
00:35:03,720 --> 00:35:08,520
And then a couple of weeks after that, he calls back again and he says, he said, you

471
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:13,280
know, it's really grown more than I've ever expected it.

472
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:20,420
And he said, would you consider doing a concert at the Performing Arts Center?

473
00:35:20,420 --> 00:35:22,920
And I said, I've never done that before.

474
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:25,360
I don't have the faintest idea.

475
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:27,520
And I wouldn't even know where to start.

476
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:30,640
And he says, it'll be fine.

477
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:32,960
He lied.

478
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:34,680
So I'm thinking back on your dream now.

479
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:38,680
Is that what's, what we're having a full circle here?

480
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:40,480
Yeah, absolutely.

481
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:47,840
And so I, you know, after several phone calls of calling me back and back, I agreed to do

482
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:48,840
it.

483
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:54,360
And then it seemed like it was another two weeks later, he calls back and he says, I

484
00:35:54,360 --> 00:36:00,360
just want to let you know that in addition to the concert, there's going to be three

485
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:03,080
television crews there.

486
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,400
And I said, I said, you got to be kidding me.

487
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:14,480
He said, no, the BBC One, Granada Media and German television are all going to be there.

488
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:15,480
And I was panicked.

489
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:21,300
And I called my piano teacher and told her what was going on.

490
00:36:21,300 --> 00:36:24,600
And I said, is there any way you can get me through this?

491
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:29,800
And she said, but it's going to take a lot of work.

492
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:38,240
And so at that point, we spent the next two months, we would work three or four hours

493
00:36:38,240 --> 00:36:39,880
a day.

494
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:45,880
She would take me up there, make me walk out on the stage, make me walk off the stage,

495
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:47,280
make me go through the music.

496
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:53,920
And she would go up in the top of the auditorium and she'd go, I can't hear you.

497
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:57,920
So it was a huge learning experience.

498
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:02,200
And I thought, I don't know how I'll ever get through this.

499
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:07,800
But I remember going to the green room the morning of it.

500
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:15,320
And I remember saying to God and whoever else would listen, I said, you put me in this mess.

501
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:19,520
I said, don't leave me out there and embarrass us both.

502
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:21,800
And obviously I didn't make it as a demand.

503
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:24,920
I said, please don't do that.

504
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:32,160
And I managed to get through it without screwing it up.

505
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:38,600
And at that point, it took on a life of its own.

506
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:46,440
The music then became, there was a lot of people that wanted to hear it and it was recorded.

507
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:56,640
And I would play all over the place at different performance places.

508
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:57,800
Okay.

509
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:26,440
I think at this point, let's put some of this piece of music in now.

510
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:33,080
Okay, so your life was changed in a big way as far as musically.

511
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:36,720
Did your experience change your life in other ways too?

512
00:38:36,720 --> 00:38:40,160
Yeah, it sure did.

513
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:43,680
And a lot of things.

514
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:52,080
After the lightning and the music became the powerful presence in my life, I was absolutely

515
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:54,160
obsessed.

516
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:57,200
I got up at 4.30 every morning.

517
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:01,080
I played piano until 6.30 when I had to go to work.

518
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:02,600
I would work my 12 hours.

519
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:11,720
I would come home and I would have dinner if there was still anything left.

520
00:39:11,720 --> 00:39:16,200
And I would get the kids ready for bed.

521
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:21,240
And that was part of my staying connected to them.

522
00:39:21,240 --> 00:39:28,080
And then I was back at the piano from then until usually 12, 1 o'clock in the morning.

523
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:34,400
And I would be working on the piano till I couldn't even see straight.

524
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:39,920
And then I would go to bed and get up at 4.35 o'clock and store it all over again.

525
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:42,800
It didn't do anything for my marriage, I can tell you that.

526
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:48,360
So we wound up getting divorced as a result of all of that.

527
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:51,080
And I certainly couldn't expect that.

528
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:57,400
You can't expect somebody to be completely abandoned for a piano and like it.

529
00:39:57,400 --> 00:39:59,940
So we wound up getting divorced.

530
00:39:59,940 --> 00:40:08,680
But our focus had always been trying to create the most stable environment for the kids.

531
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:14,840
After we got divorced, my ex-wife was living in the garage over the house.

532
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:21,040
So we had a standing garage next to the house and we had made an apartment for her over

533
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:26,080
there so she could stay connected to the kids.

534
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:30,680
And this went on for many years.

535
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:35,280
After about eight years, we got remarried again.

536
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:43,800
Because a lot of people said we never really got divorced in trick or less.

537
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:55,240
And by that time, I had learned some moderation with the piano and the music and could function

538
00:40:55,240 --> 00:41:04,040
almost like a normal adult without being constantly obsessing about it.

539
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:08,860
So that was one of the big trade-offs.

540
00:41:08,860 --> 00:41:16,600
And then the other thing was when I was working in my practice, I was really headed down this

541
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:20,440
academic road, if you will.

542
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:27,120
I was doing research, I was publishing, I was the chairman of a big spine meeting that

543
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:29,480
met yearly.

544
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:34,800
And all of that stuff was going great up until the lightning.

545
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:39,720
And after the lightning, I realized that that was absolutely meaningless.

546
00:41:39,720 --> 00:41:43,560
And so I abandoned that whole aspect of things.

547
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:57,160
And people became much more of a focus in terms of my practice than at any other time.

548
00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:01,760
It really became a much more personal endeavor.

549
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:06,040
Yeah, that's really interesting.

550
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:11,800
Most people that have had a profound experience like this undergo some kinds of major changes

551
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:13,800
in their life.

552
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:22,360
A lot of people that have had near-death experiences end up experiencing divorce afterwards.

553
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:26,100
You've had quite a few years post this experience now.

554
00:42:26,100 --> 00:42:29,240
Can you tell us anything about that?

555
00:42:29,240 --> 00:42:35,720
Not just what happened to you, but what you've learned about other people in that way.

556
00:42:35,720 --> 00:42:43,560
I have learned that there's so much more that we don't understand.

557
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:49,880
Having had the experience of being out of my body and seeing that there is something

558
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:55,240
more than what meets the eye.

559
00:42:55,240 --> 00:42:59,840
And I know that our spirit lives on forever.

560
00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:03,440
Our spirit is eternal.

561
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:12,280
I was brought up Catholic, but I have not been able to reconcile the religious aspects

562
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:18,880
of what I was taught with what I experienced in real time.

563
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:28,640
And so I have become much more spiritual, but less religious, if that makes sense.

564
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:36,520
And I absolutely am certain of what happens.

565
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:40,040
I know that we continue on.

566
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:49,240
And I've read literally hundreds of books of people who have had near-death experiences

567
00:43:49,240 --> 00:43:57,760
and tried to compare notes and have read lots of books about where do we come from, where

568
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:03,600
are we going from our soul natures.

569
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:06,920
There's a lot that's ongoing.

570
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:12,240
I'm actually in the process of trying to write a book about that.

571
00:44:12,240 --> 00:44:22,880
And taking what I experienced in my near-death experience and what I have been reading about

572
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:29,520
the origin of our souls and where we come from, where are we going, how does it all

573
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:31,520
fit together?

574
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:39,840
So that's kind of the book that I'm going to write is following those lines.

575
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:43,760
So hopefully that'll come to fruition in next year.

576
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:45,120
That's great.

577
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:51,720
Before we sign off here, I love to leave people with some kind of a message of hope in a world

578
00:44:51,720 --> 00:44:55,280
that sometimes is a little tough right now.

579
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:57,280
Any last thoughts for everybody?

580
00:44:57,280 --> 00:44:58,760
Absolutely.

581
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:07,840
Know that you are loved and that love is eternal and that you are eternal.

582
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:11,960
When you die, you continue on.

583
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:19,720
And what happens after that, I'm not entirely sure of other than the fact that we live on.

584
00:45:19,720 --> 00:45:22,400
Tony, thank you so much for being here today.

585
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:23,400
Oh, absolutely.

586
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:24,400
My pleasure.

587
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:25,400
Thank you for having me here.

588
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:31,720
Thanks for listening.

589
00:45:31,720 --> 00:45:34,980
We hope you will share this message with family and friends.

590
00:45:34,980 --> 00:45:39,560
To be notified when the next episode goes live, follow this show on your podcasting

591
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:44,840
app or click over to roundtripdeath.com and sign up for our email newsletter.

592
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:52,360
As always, if you've had a near-death experience and want to share it, shoot an email to ericatroundtripdeath.com.

593
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:57,320
Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.