Round Trip Death #216 - Kathy's Near Death Experience With Heaven and Hell

0:00 One of life's greatest questions is what happens to us after we die. Is death the end or a new beginning? Welcome to the Round Trip Death Podcast. In this show we listen to first hand accounts of people who have been clinically dead and return to talk about it. We'd like to welcome to the show today Kathy McDaniel and Kathy has had an amazing NDE that we're going to be talking about. She also is an author with a book out called Misfit in Hell to Heaven Expat.

0:46 Oh my goodness, that is a mouthful. Why don't you say it for me so it'll sound better. Misfit in Hell to Heaven Expat. Okay, very good. Now for everybody out there that's assuming this is going to be a regular story where somebody has a health problem and their heart stops and they go through this tunnel to the white light and everything's peachy and rosy. This might be a little bit different today. So you've been warned up front. Before we get to that, tell us just a little bit about you. A little bit about the, all right, my dad was in the Navy and we traveled a lot.

1:31 So I was always a new kid and we finally ended up in a beach town in California where we lived for 35 years and I loved it. Went to high school, had a business, I was a property manager, had a really good friend that called me up when we were both in our early 50s and said, I've got leukemia. I've got to go to Seattle. I need two caregivers to go through this research hospital. Would you help me? And I said, sure, you betcha. So I went to Seattle, found this a place and he came up and they told us it'd be two, three months, but it turned into almost nine months and it was a lot of trauma.

2:20 I mean, he was in and out of the hospital into the apartment and then he'd be doing really good and then wake up in the middle of the night and his nose is bleeding uncontrollably and we were not nurses. We were just 50 year old people and so the other lady and I were getting pretty run down and then she broke her foot and she's on crutches. So now I'm taking care of both of them and we had to scour the house every night and all this stuff. So he died and it just absolutely blew me away. I had no idea. I mean, no, it just wasn't meant to be, but he was gone and I got sick. I got a flu that was going around and it really, it hit me hard and by the time I got to a dock in the box, a friend drove me down there, I had no pulse and the last thing I remember was saying in a whisper when I thought I was shouting, I'm dying, I'm dying.

3:18 And then I woke up in the emergency room. They got me in an oxygen tent. My parents are up from California. My daughter is out from Colorado and I'm thinking, oh, something's amiss here. And they said, no, you are really sick. You've got something called ARDS, acute respiratory distress syndrome. It's called lung failure. It's usually what kills people in SARS or COVID or whatever. It's the last, last place you go before you get pushed off the cliff. So they said we got about a 38% chance of saving you. We're going to have to put you in a drug and do this coma. We're going to do things you don't want to know about. We're going to give you white amnesia and it will make it physically impossible for you to remember anything that happens to you.

4:04 Are you ready? Did they actually tell you that percent back then? Yeah. Ooh. I mean, that's why, because I was saying, you know, coma, oh, my insurance company, you know, all this stuff, you know, and we'll take her home. We'll take her, you know, no, she's not going anywhere. But is that depressing and makes you want to give up or does it make you go, oh, I can beat those odds? That's no problem. I didn't have time to think about it. They were getting ready to turn on the gas, man. And I thought, okay. And I remember last thing it was the ball was coming down for New Year's Eve, 1999, turning into 2000.

4:45 It was a momentous event for me. And my dad's at the window of my hospital room, give me a thumbs up and it all went black. So there I was. And all of a sudden I was conscious. I was awake. It was pitch black. And there was no sound. And I thought, what's going on? You know, it was like somebody put me in a closet for a joke. And I thought, well, I can't even move because I don't know if I'm sitting on something or if I'm laying down or what. I just have to wait it out. So of course later on, I figured I found out I was in the void. That's a very special place to be.

5:25 But then all of a sudden it got a reddish glow kind of happening there. And I thought, oh, well, the sun's coming up. This is good. You know, I can see where that devil I am. And as it got brighter, there was the fog rolled in and it was all reddish and it started getting a little uncomfortably warm. And I smelled something really bad. I thought, where am I? And then out of the fog came this voice that almost knocked me backwards that just said, do you know where you are? Was it all creepy like that? It was all creepy like that. And I thought, wow, I can only come up with one answer here.

6:06 I hope I'm wrong. I said, hell. And then the thought voice just went, whoa, like really mean, expletive. I got up and I ran to the left into the darkness. I didn't care if I ran into a door. If I fell on a hole, nothing. I had to get away from whatever that was. So that was the beginning of my adventure. I never felt dead. You know, I'm still me. I'm still me. It's just like your body's a car, you know, and you're driving around, you get out of the car, but it's you're still you. You're not your car. Well, you're not your body. So anyway, I found that the lights would come up and I would be in a situation.

6:53 Always a shock. It was later on, Eric. In fact, it was like two or three months ago that I talked to somebody who's had a couple of end years that had distressing ones on there. And they all three said they had segments. And I find that very interesting. But then later on, I figured out why. What do you mean by segments? It was like a movie set. The first one was the lights came up and I'm in like New York City that's just been bombed. And there's fires and the windows are blown out. There's glass everywhere. There's big chunks of concrete with rebar sticking out of them and screaming and people moaning and just all of a sudden, you know, you just walk into that and fight or flight.

7:39 I went looking for a place to hide so I could get my bearings. You know, what happened? A little later, I kind of saw from the distance some other person. Mark huddled over behind a rock and I just yelled out. I thought, well, I'm giving away my my position here. This is probably a dangerous thing to do if they're soldiers or anything. But I thought, I've got to get some help. So I just yelled out, hey, I'm over here. You know, maybe we could get together, you know, look for water or food. And and I waited for a reply and came this for lower and voice that said, we are all alone here.

8:20 I thought here, what? And then I heard this like scuttling sound of metal on rock and I tucked back into my hiding place and the shadow went by and it was a appeared to be a huge spider of some sort. And I thought, aliens, is that what happened here? You know, I was just totally for shadow art. It was a lot of other things that happened there. But basically, I tried to run and make a run for it because there were these other creatures coming in and I fell on my back. And when I did, I I never really hit the ground. It was just black. And then Eric, another scene came up.

9:01 This was very disconcerting, to say the least. What's the difference between what you were going through and just a really bad nightmare? Well, this is 23 years ago, and I can't tell you what I dreamt last night. The doctor told me I would be unable to remember anything, basically. That's because it happened in my soul, not in my brain. Yeah. That's what happened. And people that come back, they can always tell you every minute they were there. And my adventure, when I got back and I was, you know, laying unable to move or talk, I kind of played it through my mind and I figured it felt like I was there about two years. Wow. With all the stuff that happened in the length of time.

9:42 But there's no watches, you know, there's no clocks, and there is no time on the other side, which is also disturbing. And you don't, as somebody else said, well, didn't you look down? Didn't you see you were a ghost or whatever? And it's like, how often a day do you look, check to see if you've got feet? You know, no, I just, there were no mirrors. People were talking to me. I assumed and I felt like I was alive. So I had to keep going. And the first demon I ran into was, it was a shock. This thing was so big. And I just kind of stopped and I looked up because he was seven feet tall or something.

10:23 And demons, the only word you could have fixed to it, you know, kind of like a really mean big foot, big guy with a club saying he's a man of authority. And I just stopped. I thought, oh my, now what? You know, and he says, you want to get out of here? Perfect English. I said, yes, I do. And he said, well, I can make that happen for you. I just got a job for you. If you get it done, I'll let you, I'll find a way out for you. And I thought, okay, job. Okay. Well, I'm game. I don't have any better offers. So again, the lights came up behind him.

11:04 And as far as I could see was this blackberry patch. Tall blackberry canes all intertwined together with the big thorns on them and stuff. And I just looked and he says, you cut those down for me and I'll get you out of here. Well, now in my own life, I bought property that had these canes on it. It takes a lot of work to get these things out of here. I mean, to tell you, but something that size. I thought, well, I got nothing better to do. And, you know, so he handed me these like scissors that they use kids use to cut paper. And then he started to chuckle, you know, funny. And I thought, what a jerk.

11:44 He's playing with me. It's like a cat nose thing. I thought, well, this is the only offer I've had. So I'm, I'm scooching down, trying not to get all scratched up, which I was getting. And I started gnawing on one of these canes and it was tough. It was, it was hard. And finally, I don't know how long it took. And finally I cut it loose and I went to put it behind me so I could work on the next one. And when I turned back around, it had grown back. So now the demon is really laughing. Who thinks this is hysterical? And I, you know, you just, you can't give up. That's what he said. He says, go ahead and despair. You're never getting out here. And I said, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm a fighter.

12:25 I'm not going to leave. And so he says, well, get at it. So I start cutting again and it went black. And then the lights came up. And this happened lots of times. And in between there was this road and somebody asked me the other day, was it a yellow brick road? And I said, no, it was not. It was dirt and rocks and a landscape that was illuminated again by this reddish glow in the distance, which, you know, wasn't the sun. There was no stars. But it was enough light to where I could get on the road and, you know, walk around the rocks and the pits and all that stuff. And at least I could kind of turn and do a 360 and see if something was following me or creeping up on me.

13:09 And I felt fairly safe on that road. So it was off and on between some of these other scenarios that I would find myself back on the road. How many of these scenarios were there? I'd have to stop and add them up. But it seemed like a lot, right? Oh, it was a lot. And the book, just writing that blasted book, it took me a long time. I'm telling you, boxes and boxes of Kleenex to get through that thing because I had to relive it. I mean, every, you know, all the emotion. I've gotten kind of a little removed from it now after telling it so many times. Thank God, I still keep Kleenex next to me because I'll usually break down once or twice.

13:50 But yeah, it was a pretty unpleasant situation. It was hell. So I saw two living people there. But I've never heard anybody else who's seen somebody that's alive. And it turned out when I got back, it was obvious I had to give them warnings about their lives and what they were doing. And the first person I told did not take it well. I mean, how do you feel if somebody comes up to you and say, say, I saw you in hell, you're really screwing up here. You have to change something. Well, you know, they're going to back off. Were these strangers or people that you knew? No, these are family members that I was very close to.

14:32 It was a little touchy. So now after about a couple of months, I haven't heard from her in 20 years. All right, that didn't go well. The second one was a younger person. I saw her on the road. She was a darling girl. She'd recently been married and was learning how to cook. And she was just doing a great job or husband liked to entertain. And anyway, he was using her for his advancement, but you know, she was too sweet. Anyway, I'm walking along the road. I've been going, I've been there a long time. I just feel like I have. I feel like I'm hungry and I'm thirsty and I'm tired and I'm depressed and all those things because I still felt I was alive.

15:22 And I started smelling something really good for a change. And as I got down the road, it was still dim, you know, and I got to this spot where there's a man sitting on the left in a chair watching this woman on the right do all this cooking and preparing. There were big tables just heaped with yummy stuff. And I recognized her, but she didn't recognize me. And I said her name, you know, and I said, she, can you just. Get me a small plate. Just I just grab a couple of those little things in a glass of water. I don't want to, I know you're busy. And she just looked at me and said, well, this is for the important people.

16:04 Oh, thanks. Slap. You know, I backed up and I said, Oh, I'm terribly sorry. And all my feelings were hurt. I was so disappointed. And she just turned her back on me and kept futzing around with her feast. And so I just reluctantly went back on my way. Yeah. Can I just ask you a question about that? Why food? I mean, you mentioned earlier, you mentioned earlier that we're not our bodies. No. So your soul was there and is our soul need food? No, absolutely not. But I didn't know I was dead. And I thought for, you know, all this time I'm walking, I'm doing all this stuff.

16:48 I'm tired. Maybe I need a meal. I had no idea. I don't even know if she'd given me something if I could have eaten it. It was just the, you know, it was part of the whole process of believing that I was still alive. Can't explain it. It doesn't make sense on the other side. It's kind of like being in the matrix. Things just don't quite make sense. Well, it's not because we're looking at them with the eyes that we have here. Well. At least when you got back, you were trying to interpret it that way. I would assume. No, I manifested all of that. Okay. We'll get to that.

17:28 Okay. I got, had a horrible time with a bunch of zombies. I was for one of the better word gang raped. Now, how do you know you've had that experience? They pushed me and shoved me and kicked me and abused me. When I got back, that was one of the questions I kept asking. How did I sense that or whatever? But Robert, let's see, what's his name? Roland Milero, I can't ever say his last name, had a book that he wrote and his, he was in it. This priest was being questioned by a Nazi who said, I'm not going to do, I know your your help and the Polish people get out and I'm not going to do anything to you today, but I am going to come back.

18:13 And when I do, I'm going to rip out your tongue. I'm going to cut off your fingers one by one and, you know, we'll have a good time. So I'll see you soon. Now when somebody says that your body automatically responds to the feelings that are going to happen. It's like when you're in grade school and the bully comes up and he's always punching people in the nose, but he, when he punches you and you go, oh, and he's short. Just an inch, he never touches you. You still have that fear, that reaction that, that you saw this going to happen to you. So it's, that's the best I can psychologically tell you.

18:54 You think you're real, you think it's happening. And so there's, there's a sense of it happening. After that particular one, we're kind of coming to towards the end, even though these things were taking, in my opinion, a lot of time. Another demon lady came over and when the others backed off, she says, you're one of us now. Come with a group. Get up, get up, get your clothes on, get up. So I was very disheartened. At least there were other, what looked like people, these women. And I was going to get out of this situation. So we, we, she gathered us up and we started one by one, traipsing behind her, having no idea where we were going, just so disillusioned, so broken, just the fight was just draining out of me.

19:50 As we cleared these trees, it turned into an immense area that was full of snow and the snow was coming down and none of us had very much clothing on. So we walked behind each other and, and the only way I could measure how much time it took is that the snow was just, just lightly falling and the wind was blowing. But by the time we got where we were going, it was chest high and we were following each other behind one another one by one. And so freezing, just freezing. And we got to this cabin and she shuffled us in there and we kind of huddled together for warmth and there was no insulation, the snow and the wind was blowing through and, and she says, okay, now we get ready for customers.

20:37 And that did not sound good, you know. And so we all kind of sat on the floor, you couldn't even talk to each other, just, just dejected. And I said to her, you had been here a long time. And this seems like a particularly heavy, heavy, sad time. Am I missing something? And she says, oh no, it's Christmas on earth today. That's the worst day in hell. And hell was the first time it hit me. I just couldn't believe it. And I thought, well, this is really ticking me off. This whole thing, I don't know how I got here and I don't know how I'm getting out.

21:20 And I may not get out, but I'm not ready to give up. So I thought, okay, which here we go. I'm going to sing a Christmas carol, I said to myself. And so I started and I loved away in a manger and I started singing away in a manger, no crib for his bed, and she swung around, she was on the other side of the room, she held, shut up. And then one and two of the other ladies started singing with me. And then there were several. And when I got to the part that said, the little Lord, she shrieked and jumped at me and I closed my eyes and boom, I was somewhere else. And this time it was a bright light and I was full of joy and bliss and love.

22:08 And I felt like every molecule of my being was just saturated, swimming in this love. And everything that had happened was gone in my mind. I couldn't remember anything. All I could experience was this great joy. And as I kind of tried to catch my breath and look around, I saw my friend that had died the month before. And he looked great. I mean, he'd had leukemia and his hair had fallen out and he was all purple and swollen. And he looked wonderful and he looked about 35 and I'm questioning what I'm seeing. And his hair was brown instead of gray and he was actually wearing a sweater I had given him and he's laughing.

22:53 And the thing that came to my mind was, oh no, he doesn't know he's dead. And he started really belly laughing. And I thought, how did he hear me? I didn't say that. Oh my gosh, if he is really dead, then I am really dead and I'm in heaven. I'm telling you, it made my day. I was so excited. That's quite a transition. I have so many questions along the way here. Number one, and I know a lot of these are just, you're going to have to just guess or use what maybe you've thought about since.

23:33 Why is Christmas the worst day in hell? Got me. I don't know. I think because I was raised, I'm a cradle Catholic from the day one, always went to Catholic schools, always. And I was taught so much about Jesus is coming as a savior of the world and everything was going to change in me. It was just ingrained in everything I believed. So for me, that I guess just seemed like the most wonderful thing that could dispel evil and darkness. Okay. So just to rephrase, what did it take to get you from hell to heaven?

24:16 What was the one main thing? I almost said the name of Jesus. Okay. That's all like, yeah, that's got to be it. Is that I, it was the little Lord and that's when the thing changed. I never got to say it. I've had people in the Bible belt said, well, I've had said it right up front. You wouldn't have stayed there for two years. Well, no, yeah. This whole thing, like everything in our lives, we plan. I planned this. It took me 20 years to realize that. It took me 10 years to find somebody that would listen to my story at an IAINs meeting through all kinds of synchronicities that were just too, they were planned.

25:03 I got to an IAINs meeting. I mean, my family wouldn't listen to me. You know, it's the drugs. You know, I don't want to hear about you being in hell. That sucks. But to get to an IAINs meeting and again, like you let in, they had all these, you know, go to a meeting and somebody speaks and, you know, they were in the tunnel. They saw the light. They got angels, you know, they got bunny rabbits and they got flowers and I'm sitting there going, I don't think I fit in here. You know, and finally somebody asked me, did you have a near-death experience? And I says, ah, yes, I did. Well, you'll have to come speak to the meeting. I said, no, I won't. I says, I don't belong here.

25:43 And then Greg, this guy that runs the place up there and says, you're going to tell me what happened. And he had to peel it out of me and it took two boxes of Kleenex to talk to him because I had never told it to a soul. And so after 10 years, I carry in that guilt and horror around all by myself as a wonder, I was still sane. And so he listened and he got to the end of it, we were on the phone when this happened. And he says, well, we have this little scoring mechanism here, you know, that I have to check off and then just validate the fact that you had a legitimate, you know, NDE blah, blah, blah, I'm sitting there piled Kleenex all over me and he says, you hit them all.

26:28 Okay. And then he got an extra one. You got extra points. He says, you have got to come to a meeting and tell us a story. And I said, not on your life. And he says, no, I'm not going to give up. And I says, well, this was, this is around Christmas time. I was getting into divorce, you know, my life was not real happy at that time. I says, I'll call you. He says, I'll call you in three months if you don't call me. And he had to call me back. But you know, I finally got the guts to go up there through another synchronicity. When you come back, the voice is really loud in your head. This voice that a lot of us think is our guardian angel or a higher self or, or whatever.

27:10 Sometimes you're, you know, should I shouldn't I? And the voice says, no, it's not a good idea. Or one time I was almost hit by a runaway truck and the voice just out of nowhere. I was stopped in a stoplight and said, turn to the right. And so I did. And a truck went, I mean, a double decker took what's sailing by me. He'd lost his brakes right into the intersection. Look out two cars. So I learned to listen to the voice. But when I got back, this thing argued with me, you know, you're going to go back to another I am's meeting. I'm not going to go back. I don't belong there. You're going to go back. You have to meet somebody. I'm not going. The traffic sucks.

27:51 Get your car keys. I mean, I'm driving all the way up there and I'm arguing with the voice. And he says, you know, I got to meet somebody. So I get in here. And of course it's Evan Alexander. I never heard this, this man speak. He's the neuroscientist surgeon, whatever, who had a brain bleed, you know, a flat line, EKG flat line. And he had like, you know, a 10 year experience up there or something. So I didn't know who he was. So I, there's, I got there early. There was 10 seats ahead of me, 10 rows behind me, 10 seats down this aisle. I sat on the end. I thought, if somebody I'm supposed to meet, they're going to have to work for it because his voice is long. So I sat there and I waited and out of the corner of my eye, I saw this woman walk by my, my aisle on 10 seats down and I kept my eyes down.

28:38 I didn't want to make any eye contact. And she stopped and she kind of cocked her head like she was listening to something. And then she backed up. She didn't turn around and stopped and then went down my aisle and sat right next to me. And I thought, oh, this is weird. And so I, she says, hi, you knew? And I says, yes. Didn't talk to her. So we listened to the first part of Evan's speech and oh man, my mind was blown. I thought, oh, wow, this sounds like science and blah, blah, blah. And she turned to me. She says, what do you think? And I says, I think it's great. And I says, oh, you know, I was supposed to meet you today. She says, yeah, I know. I said, what do you mean you know?

29:19 And she says, well, I walked by and my voice said, go sit next to that lady. She's really nice. So I did. Who's this voice that you're talking about? What do you, what do you think it is? I think it's my higher self. You know, people have their thoughts, your guardian angel, but more likely your higher self. I mean, we're a soul, but we're also part of our soul is encapsulated in this lovely body, but there's still enough to where we're still connected. We're still a soul. So that's, that's the voice. Ask almost anybody that's had an NDE and they'll tell you about the voice. Okay. Finish this part. We're going to get back to the NDE, the happy part of it.

30:00 Okay. So anyway, she turned out to be a person that did not want to tell her story because she had kind of a bad way she died. And so she says, I'll tell you what, I'll sit in the front row and when you give your story, you just look at me. Don't look at anybody else. And then when I tell my story, I'll do the same. I thought, well, I think I can do that. So she did. She sat in the front row, the room was packed. I guess that it got out that somebody had had a dark one and it was a doozy. And so I, I kind of stumbled around, but then I'm a storyteller. So I got into it. You could have heard a pin drop in the room. They were all Google-eyed looking at me. And at the very end, when we got out with the Christmas Carol, there was applause. I mean, they were, they were with me the whole way.

30:42 They were so excited. Now they got the clue. They ever, I said, so if you ever find yourself in hell, sing a Christmas Carol, not Rudolph the red nose reindeer. All right. So that's how I ended it. Back in heaven when I was there and I was excited to see my friend and I realized I was in heaven and he was in heaven. I caught out of the corner of my eye and I looked over to see this big architects table with a huge book on it and it was open about halfway. And I thought to myself, he was showing me something in that book. What was it? Oh, never mind. Later I figured out he probably was showing me my life and only half of it was gone.

31:23 53. And anyway, when he came up to me, he wouldn't let me touch him. He just said, now, Mary Kay, you've got too much left to do. I said, oh, oh, and my self, they're kicking me. Oh, this is the bum's rush. I said, no. And I crossed my arms and I stared at him and I was somewhere else. I believe God was kind enough to give me a timeout for a little while because I was really upset and mad. And so I was walking along this beautiful stream, kind of a heavenly scene, flowers in the meadow. And I was going down, down, down this stream and I met three different women that spoke some sort of Norwegian language or something and they were giving me things for a trousseau, like a quilt and a little knighty.

32:18 And I was loading up on this stuff, walking down this stream, these slippery rocks. And I finally got to the bottom and the lady said, you know, and she handed me something that was a note and she said, give it to him. And I thought, can this get any weirder? But then that's when the lights came up. Right lights. Oh, no. Not again. Bad news. That's because you're in the ICU. So I'm a little discombobulated. I'm now somewhere I haven't been before. I'm thinking what is it? What fresh hell is this? And these people are all jumping up and down.

33:00 They're so excited. And somebody says, mom's back. And I thought, no, I'm back. And I couldn't talk and I couldn't move. And I was too hot and I thought, you know, what the hell is going on? And my daughter came and sat next to me and says, mom, you've been really sick. We didn't think you were going to make it, but you're back and you're going to take a little work to get back to your normal self. But we're right here with you. And I thought, it's a good thing I can't talk. My mother's saying, oh, we had a prayer circle, darling, going around the world to bring you back. And I thought, if I could get my hands around your throat, I would teach you that, you know, what you have done, you have no idea what your people have done.

33:47 Because you didn't want to come back. No. And how on the devil am I supposed to do all this work? When I can't breathe, I can't talk, I can't move. It was not a good situation. I didn't see the positive in that. No. Yeah. Tell me about the note that you were supposed to give to somebody. Yeah, it was a note. And I was supposed to tell him we were supposed to live together. Tell him after lived again. That was everything in English. And who's that? It was a guy I was dating when all this was happening. Who was Norwegian? Anyway, we had talked about, you know, we had been dating six months and we figured at the end of six months, we would either get engaged or break up.

34:32 Well, he decided he still wasn't over his ex-wife, so he wanted to break up. That's the last I knew. Then I went into coma. He did come pick me up because I called him and I was hysterical that I was dying and he took me to the hospital at the dock in the box. He saved my life. If he hadn't come that night, I was up on the third floor coughing up blood. There was no way I could, no elevator, no way I could get down those stairs and get to the dock in the box. So he, I called him and begged him and he says, oh, all right. You know, so anyway, later on, 10 years later, I saved his life. So again, one of those things you plan and that was our deal. You saved my life. I'll save yours. So the note said I had to give him this piece of paper.

35:16 So when I woke up, I felt like my hand was still holding the piece of paper. It was still that, that real. So he came in and I was shocked and because I thought we had broken up and somebody said, you know, he's been here every single day of the, that you've been in the coma. He's been working, you know, out of town. He drives an hour in to see you at night and sit by your bed and then drives an hour home. He's done this, you know, for what it was, 18, 19 days in a row. And when I finally, it was quite a while before I could talk, I said, I was told by these ladies that we should live together. And he says, oh, I, I can't just, you know, I'm Luther and we don't just live with people.

35:58 We'll have to get married. And I was like, oh, I don't want to get married. I said, look at me, you know, I can't move. And he, you know, he says, no, and he, he brought flowers and balloons the next day and proposed in front of two nurses. And you know, they were crying. Oh, he got through the ward and everything. It was, so that's what happened there. Wow. That's a neat story. Where were you? Were you in heaven? I mean, you talk about how were you in heaven? Were you in some other great place? No, I had to be heaven. There's nothing like it. Nothing like it. And then I got, I got kicked out because I had too much left to do. So finally I could, I could, they put a device in my throat and I could talk. And then I had to take another week to have the insurance people come in and reluctantly given, give me a month in a physical rehab facility so they could at least get me out of the hospital.

36:49 I had to learn so much stuff. And because I had been on a nasal tube, I was down to 86 pounds. So I had no muscle mass left. That means no muscle memory. I had to learn how to walk, talk, crawl, go up steps, swallow, button. I didn't remember anything. So that was a tough month. Let me tell you. And then this man took me to his house and took care of me. And while he worked and slowly I got my, my physical strength back, fighting with the insurance company over a pile of bills. You can imagine how much that cost. So I kept being haunted.

37:31 I was scared to death to sleep because I was afraid these demons were going to come back and I'd slip away. It was terrifying. And finally I thought, I just need to write this out. I need to write it out. I'm a writer and I'd write it out and I'd stick it in the drawer and I thought, well, if I can just write it out enough, it'll go away. It'll, it'll, it'll be a story. It'll be a dream. But it didn't. It did not go away. So 10 years later, I asked Lord, I'm at Ions and then 10 years more, two decades to write the book. It took a long time. And like I said, it was really hard, really awfully hard. And after all this, you know, talking to so many other people, particularly people that have had the near death that are distressing like Nancy Evans Bush.

38:21 She's written three books. She's great. Her premise is, as we planned all this, I planned my trip to hell. Then, and she considers the distressing people to be brave souls because they go into the dark places. They bring back the information that we all need. And in this case, I've learned from other people. I didn't get a life review myself. I wasn't there long enough, but that, that we plan this, we get a life review, we get angels and guide stand with us and you get to see how you did about learning those lessons that you signed up for. And sure, you know, I did pretty good there, you know, or didn't do so good there.

39:02 And then they supposedly slip it around and you get to feel how everybody felt when they interacted with you. What was your, what was your kindnesses? What were your kindnesses? What were your times where maybe a little witchy with somebody, you get to understand how your life went and there's no judgment. There is no judgment. God is all love, all forgiving. He has never condemned anybody. There really is no hell. So what the hell happened? Okay. I was taught from day one that I, as a Catholic, there was heaven, purgatory and hell.

39:43 Nobody goes straight to heaven. Maybe Mother Teresa, but the rest of us have to go to purgatory, which is hell, except to get out and get your sins burned off. So you'll be pure and go up to God. I bought it and when I died, I expected it and I manifested it. And I took all these horrible things that happened in my life, rapes and other terrible things that happened to me in my life. And I brought them all to hell and I puffed them up real big, added a couple of demons and made my own. So my message is skip the trip. You don't have to go to hell. Unless you inadvertently choose to. So that's why I'm here.

40:25 That's interesting. I thought one of the things that stuck out to me when you were talking about this hell experience is that you were alone. And by the way, yours is not the only dark story that we've heard here. In fact, just a couple episodes ago, I think it was number 214 of our podcast. If people want to look at it, Aaron's experience, he had some really scary stuff too. I heard, I read it. I listened to it. Yeah, Aaron. He's awesome. I know. Poor Aaron. I'd like to talk to him. But it's interesting to hear that in hell or the hell that you created, you were alone. And I am always hearing from people when they're in some kind of a heaven that there's other people there, whether it's a guide or God or friends or something that there are other people there.

41:17 And that's something that we don't, doesn't get talked about much, but it's one of the opposites of the two places. It's true. I've never really looked at it that way. Yes, we are all souls and we're all connected in heaven, but in a makeup, made up place, you know, you're not connected. It's too strong to say it's imagination because it's real. Because what we're living in now is not real. It just seems real. It feels pretty real. It feels real, but it's not. This is all an illusion. You know, I mean, it was, we've created it and we're all here. I find myself, it's hard to wrap my mind around this too, but to talk to so many people, smarter than me or whatever, that I'll agree that this is just a, I mean, when we die, we can be reincarnated.

42:11 If we want to, we can go to different universes. We can be aliens. We can, there's a, a, the bacteria. There's so much that this little tiny human brain is just incapable of understanding. We have to, a lot of it's the only thing on faith. I know, I know as a Catholic, I had faith that God existed. I had faith that there was heaven, but now I know I don't have to have faith around that anymore. I know that I will go to heaven and I know that my friends are going to be there. And from other people, I know the pets are going to be there. It's just a very joyful place. So go back to, if you can picture in your mind and step back to when you were in that heavenly place, look around, take a breath.

42:58 What do you see? What did you smell? What did you hear? What put us there? What's it like? The love is the biggest thing and the rest is just, it's, it's like nothing on earth. In other words, there's times when I can almost, I can, I can taste that sometimes when I go to communion, I still sneak in and go to communion every now and then. And Jesus is in my heart and I, and I, it is filled with that love and it feels like someone's punched you in the chest and you can't breathe and like your heart is going to explode. That's a little tiny piece of heaven.

43:39 So when you don't have a body and to experience that is indescribable. I remember that, that my friend was standing in front of like what appeared to be maybe an arched doorway. And I thought, that's why I asked him, why are we standing here? Why don't we go on the other side? That was because I wasn't allowed to stay. I do believe he was showing me in the book that what I had agreed to and that I hadn't finished, you know, and that people are sometimes told that they have a choice. I wasn't, I was told I had too much left to do period and I was tossed back and I understand that now.

44:22 And I've been here 23 years and I feel like I've done really very little and I've had two psychics see me in my 80s and 90s still kicking ass and taking names is how they put it. So I feel like I'm resigned to the fact I'll probably be here another 20 years. My mom is 95, my dad died at 97. And I'll just keep doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And when I get the last person off my list, I get to go home and I'm looking forward to it and leave me. Yeah, I'll bet. So you met when you were there, you met your friend. Any idea what he was doing besides just saying hi to you?

45:06 Well, he and I, like I said, we were engaged for seven years. We, we were, he helped raise my teenagers. God love him. Help send him to college. I mean, this was a significant soulmate. All right. And one of the things he was very serious. He was a, he was a businessman and very serious. He was a Scorpio, if that means anything to you. And I'm a Gemini, which are, you know, total airheads. So I, we were always playing tricks on each other, you know, and he would always say to me, McDaniel, I'll get you for this, you know, in a joking way. And I was always one up on him. And I think when they said we need somebody to send her back there, you know, people were saying, not me, not me. And he says, Oh, I'll do it.

45:46 I'll do it. I own get her good. That'd be a fun assignment. I wasn't there long in a garden. You were in hell longer. Yeah. You said it felt like two years. Yeah, I did. Much of that, would you say felt like hell compared to heaven? Oh, I was in heaven. It felt like maybe 15 minutes, you know, before they threw me out, but I had to experience that. I, I chose to do that and it had to make it relatable. I had to make it an interesting story. Why did you have me on? It's a interesting story. So it was all planned and you and I, you know, we're soulmates at some point and said, well, you know, we probably won't spend much time in this incarnation together, but I'll tell you what we'll get.

46:36 We'll get in touch for at least an hour and a half, two hours. We'll touch base. So I believe we plan this, this little interaction and we can cross it off our list and it's delightful. I just love it. I feel comfortable with you. I feel like I've known you before and I have. So that brings up what are your thoughts on where we were before we came here to this life in heaven. And then, uh, you know, I've had a past life regression. I got all interested in all that stuff because, uh, you know, people talk about it. Um, I could remember, uh, three and, and it's fun, you know, scary. And you kind of go, yeah, right.

47:16 I was dreaming this, but she's got you kind of hypnotized and all that stuff. Um, I know I've probably been a lot of places. I hope I don't have to come back here again. Uh, somebody told me one time that, that, uh, there's a special badge award, something for people who have the guts to go to earth, that that's really the toughest gig you can do is go to earth. And, uh, when you're back up in heaven, I don't know if you've got a badge or something, but people say, oh man, you went to earth. I don't believe it. What are you telling me about it? You know, what was it like? So I kind of believe that, um, when my dad passed away from COVID a year and a half ago, he was a pilot in the Navy World War two.

47:59 And he was the only one that will listen. Gee, he helped me write my book. He wrote the first chapter because he was an atheist and he got shot down over the Philippines and he told God, if you can get me out of this mess, he was in a burning plane. He couldn't get out. Uh, I'll become a Catholic and rest my family. Well, well, the Marines came and got him and saved him. So he always listened. So the last couple of years, we would talk about heaven. What are you going to do in heaven, dad? When you go and he's like, fly. And I said, okay, cool. So, um, he left me a message through my medium, um, publisher after he died. And, uh, I had wondered who came to get him because somebody always comes to get you.

48:39 And usually they're up in the corners and the ceiling hospice people will tell you that. And I told him, look up in the corners, dad, somebody's going to come for you. And he's, are you sure I don't want to go over myself? I'm sure positive, at least one, but usually two. So when he was dying at home, thank God, my sister and mom and brother law also had COVID. So they led him out of the hospital to come home and die. That was a blessing. So he was on his last few breaths and he was getting a little antsy, but they said, you know, they were holding his hands and talking to him. And all of a sudden he stopped and he looked up at the ceiling and he got this great big grin on his face and his face lit up and he closed his eyes and left.

49:20 So, um, then my family was saying, Oh, I bet they, he saw him and they saw him. But anyway, when I, my, my medium, uh, when we were talking about a contract, she says, your dad's here and went through this long thing, but he says it was his mom and sister that came to get him. He wanted you to know that is so sweet. That's great. And I think that's a great way to end our discussion today. Pitch the book one last time. Go for it. And miss fit in hell to have an X pad. Also, the words I was taught to bring back and share is for to have a good life, be loving and kind, merciful, forgiving, encouraging, grateful, non-judgmental and useful.

50:03 That's all you got to do. Amen. And if you ever find yourself in hell, do what? Sing a Christmas carol and not read off the red nose reindeer. Love it. Thanks a lot. Okay. Thanks Eric. If you've had a round trip death experience and would like to share it with us, we would love to hear from you. Send an email to me, Eric at roundtripdeath.com. And lastly, if you've found this program uplifting, if it's given you just a little more hope in the future, share it with a friend, rate us five stars and be sure to visit roundtripdeath.com.

50:46 Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.