Part Two: Atheist Dies on the Operating Table, Meets Her Spirit Guide, and Sent Back With 12 Messages to Share on Love, Connections & Why We Are Never Alone | Nancy Rynes
Episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown · November 4, 2026 · 1 h 14 min
In part two, near-death experiencer Nancy Rynes tells Mayim Bialik and Jonathan Cohen about her spirit guide, soul contract, life review, recovery, alternate timelines and remote viewing.
Summary
In the second part of their conversation, Mayim Bialik and Jonathan Cohen spoke with Nancy Rynes, a former atheist and scientist who had a near-death experience during spinal surgery after being hit by an SUV while cycling. Rynes described meeting a faceless female guide who told her she had to return to "earth school," and being shown a pre-birth agreement in which she chose to be an atheist, to be born into her family to help her father change, and to have a spiritually transformative experience if she ignored three earlier opportunities.
Rynes explained that information arrived as a telepathic, emotional and pictorial download from a wider "spiritual team," and outlined lessons from her book, including that God is all-inclusive love, that people are never alone, and that the physical and spirit realms differ only in energy level. Bialik compared this to the plural "let us make man" passage in Genesis and offered a frequency-tuner analogy for perception. Rynes recounted a life review at a dark pond in which she felt the effects of her actions on others, including a kind remark to a grocery clerk and a hurtful comment to her younger sister, whom she later called to apologize.
Rynes described waking from anesthesia screaming for her guide, roughly 18 months of grief and longing to return, unexpectedly rapid bone healing, and lasting effects of a traumatic brain injury, including the loss of mathematical ability and an aversion to music. She said she returned to a world in which two people she remembered dying were alive, which led her to believe in multiple timelines and that time is an illusion. She also described a probable childhood NDE after a fall from scaffolding at age four, a lifelong ability to remote view, and locating a rock art panel in western Colorado. The hosts closed with banter about choosing an afterlife guide.
Chapters
- 0:45
Meeting the guide
Rynes describes a faceless, long-haired guide who told her she had to return to earth, prompting a tantrum.
- 5:15
The soul contract
Rynes recounts being shown a pre-birth agreement to be an atheist, to help her father, and to undergo a transformative experience.
- 14:24
How the lessons were transmitted
Rynes explains the telepathic, pictorial download from a spiritual team, and Bialik links it to the plural God in Genesis.
- 22:18
God is love and we are never alone
Rynes discusses lessons on all-inclusive love, building community, spirit teachers, and the thin energetic boundary between realms.
- 27:29
Frequency tuning
Bialik offers a scientific-style analogy of perception as a frequency tuner that can be developed through practice.
- 29:46
The life review
Rynes describes a pond of screens showing events from all perspectives, including a kindness to a clerk and a hurtful remark to her sister.
- 43:46
Return and grief
Rynes recounts being sent back, waking screaming for her guide, and 18 months of grief and longing to return.
- 49:49
Physical recovery and brain injury
Rynes describes unusually fast bone healing and lasting cognitive effects including loss of math ability and dislike of music.
- 55:29
Alternate timelines
Rynes describes discovering that two people she remembered dying were alive, leading her to believe in multiple realities.
- 1:02:12
Childhood NDE and remote viewing
Rynes recounts a fall at age four, a lifelong remote viewing ability, and finding hidden rock art in western Colorado.
- 1:11:42
Books and art
Bialik highlights Rynes's books and her painting, which Rynes says began as a way to heal her brain.
- 1:14:29
Hosts' debrief
Bialik and Cohen reflect on life reviews and joke about choosing Michael Jordan or Jerry Garcia as afterlife guides.
Key points
What was said, by whom, with the exact words. Timestamps jump to the moment.
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes says that being an atheist was something she agreed before birth to experience.
“So being an atheist was an agreement that I had. I wanted to experience being an atheist”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes says she chose her family in order to help her father change.
“I chose that particular family is I wanted to help him transition out of the kind of person he was”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes says the first lesson of her NDE was that God is love that includes everyone.
“God is love, all encompassing and all inclusive, not just for some people, but for everybody”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes argues that people must actively seek out or build community rather than wait for it.
“Now it's up to you to seek that community out and keep seeking it or creating it until you get what you want”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes says the physical and spirit realms are separated only by energy level.
“because there is really no true separation between here and there except like an energy level. That's it”
Linked moment · 28:26Skip to 28:26 using a listen link in the info box.
Mayim BialikBialik proposes understanding extraordinary perception as a frequency tuner some people can access.
“If we think of the ability to perceive and experience as a frequency tuner, some people have the capability to tune into frequencies that other people do not”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes says her life review showed that a simple thank-you to a grocery clerk improved how the clerk treated her children.
“she was gracious and patient with her kids because one person in a checkout line said thank you”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes says that after surgery she immediately apologized to her sister for a hurtful remark she had felt in her life review.
“one of the very first things I did when I got my senses back after the surgery is I called her up and I apologized”
- Mayim Bialik
Bialik argues that religions developed as attempts to name and access experiences like those described in NDEs.
“Religion was designed around what you experienced. and they're trying to put a name on it, and they're trying to find a way”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes says she experienced intense grief and dark days for about 18 months after returning.
“It got bad. Some of those days were really dark for about 18 months”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes says her doctor could not explain why her bones healed in about a month instead of 16 weeks.
“well, I don't know how this is happening, but we can take all your casts and braces off right now”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes says she permanently lost her ability to do mathematics and programming after the brain injury.
“The other thing that was impacted that actually never came back was my ability to do math, mathematics and computer programming”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes says she no longer enjoys music, which she attributes to left temporal lobe damage.
“I used to love music and I think it goes along with that left temporal lobe. So I honestly don't like music anymore”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes says she remembered attending the funeral of an acquaintance's husband who was alive after her NDE.
“in the reality that I left when I had my NDE, I had just gone to his funeral. He had died”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes concludes that reality resembles shamanism and quantum physics more than material reality.
“how our reality is more like both shamanism and quantum physics than we really understand”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes believes her childhood fall from scaffolding at age four likely produced an earlier NDE.
“it's very likely that that was an NDE. I just don't remember a lot of the details”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes recounts locating a hidden rock art panel in western Colorado after a spontaneous remote viewing.
“And I found this incredible panel of rock art. And I said, see, it's right there, exactly where I said it was going to be”
- Nancy Rynes
Rynes asserts that linear time is an illusion and all times are accessible at once.
“This time that we experience going past, it's an illusion. All times, all things, there's no time on the other side”
People
In the conversation
- Mayim BialikActress, neuroscientist and host of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown
- Jonathan CohenExecutive producer and co-host of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, writer and energy worker
- Nancy RynesFormer geologist and archaeological artist, artist, speaker, and author of Awakenings from the Light
Discussed
- Thomas CampbellPhysicist and consciousness researcher, former guest of the show
- Suzanne GiesemannMedium and author whom Rynes said she knows and has discussed spirit friends with
- P. M. H. AtwaterNear-death experience researcher with whom Rynes discussed her childhood NDE
- Jill Bolte TaylorNeuroscientist cited for the idea that an emotion runs its course in about 90 seconds
- Jerry GarciaGrateful Dead musician discussed by the hosts as a hypothetical afterlife guide
Topics
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From the publisher
What if time isn’t real, multiple timelines exist simultaneously, and your consciousness can leave your body? In this episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, Nancy Rynes (scientist, geologist, archaeologist, artist, inspirational speaker, and author of Awakenings from the Light: 12 Life Lessons from a Near Death Experience) reveals the unbelievable story of her near death experience (NDE) and the profound revelations that changed everything she believed about life, death, consciousness, and what happens after we die. After being hit by a car while riding her bike, Nancy describes watching the accident from outside her body, experiencing a split in consciousness between her ordinary “ego” awareness and what she calls her higher self, and encountering a mysterious woman who helped her at the scene, yet has never been identified to this day. During surgery, Nancy says she awakened somewhere completely unlike the physical world: a beautiful, ethereal hillside filled with tendrils of pulsating energy. But it wasn't a physical place at all. Nancy came to understand it as a kind of “construct.” As an atheist, her first question upon realizing she may have died was why wasn’t she in hell? Then came her encounter with a spirit guide, who told Nancy she had to return to “earth school”, something she desperately did not want to do. Nancy remembers an agreement she believes she made before birth: a “soul contract” that included being born into her particular family and undergoing specific personal transformations in order to fulfill her soul’s purpose. She also shares the 12 life lessons she says emerged from her NDE, including her profound belief that “God is love” and completely all-encompassing and all-inclusive, and that we are never truly alone. She explains why she believes energy levels may be the only thing separating our reality from the other realm, and recounts a powerful life review in which she experienced how her actions had positively or negatively affected other p…
Summary, chapters and key points were generated from the episode transcript on November 8, 2026. Quotes are checked word for word against the transcript.