What Really Happens After Death - Doctors & Nurses Are Afraid To Tell You

Episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown · October 16, 2026 · 49 min

Mayim Bialik and Jonathan Cohen explore shared death experiences and after-death communication, drawing on clips from Raymond Moody, Bruce Greyson, Martha Jo Atkins and Tara Swart.

Summary

Mayim Bialik and Jonathan Cohen devoted the episode to shared death experiences (SDEs), in which healthy people report perceiving phenomena connected to someone else's death, such as mist, light, music, apparitions or leaving their own bodies. They opened with the 1997 case of Jeff Olson, whose dead wife was reportedly seen hovering over him in a trauma room by ER physician Jeff O'Driscoll and a nurse named Rachel, and traced the concept to Raymond Moody, who described his own experience at his mother's death in an archival clip.

Bialik summarized research by William Peters and the Shared Crossings Project, including a 2021 peer-reviewed study in which 64% of reported SDEs were remote and 87% of experiencers became convinced of an afterlife. The hosts recounted remote cases, historical accounts such as that of World War I soldier Karl Skala, nurse Penny Sartori's experience, and a story from death doula Martha Jo Atkins about a group seeing an apparition. They surveyed cultural traditions around death, from ancient Greek oracles of the dead to Día de los Muertos and the film Coco.

Neuroscientist Tara Swart described seeing her deceased husband six weeks after his death, and Bruce Greyson said common physiological explanations for near-death experiences were contradicted by data. Bialik raised alternative explanations including shared psychosis, trauma responses and confirmation bias, and shared a family story of her mother sensing her grandmother's stroke. The hosts concluded that, while anecdotal, the volume of accounts suggested something they felt could not be ignored, and that such experiences tend to carry a message that death need not be feared.

Chapters

  1. 0:00

    The Jeff O'Driscoll trauma room case

    The hosts introduce shared death experiences through an ER doctor's report of seeing a hovering woman above a crash victim.

  2. 2:40

    Raymond Moody and the origins of the concept

    The hosts trace NDE and SDE research to Raymond Moody, who describes bystander experiences and his own at his mother's death.

  3. 6:53

    Bialik's experiences at deathbeds

    Bialik recalls being present at the deaths of her grandparents and her father's transition, noting a sense of something shifting but no mist or music.

  4. 9:54

    The Jeff Olson case in detail

    Bialik recounts Olson's 1997 crash, his out-of-body experience with his wife, and what O'Driscoll and Rachel saw in the trauma bay.

  5. 17:04

    Skepticism and Martha Jo Atkins

    Bialik addresses skeptical objections and introduces a clip of death doula Martha Jo Atkins describing group experiences at the bedside.

  6. 20:00

    William Peters and the research on shared crossings

    Bialik describes historical accounts and Peters' Shared Crossings Project study finding most SDEs were remote.

  7. 23:37

    Remote cases and Penny Sartori

    The hosts relate remote SDEs, nurse Penny Sartori's experience, and the transformative after-effects reported by experiencers.

  8. 27:13

    A shared apparition in a death center

    Cohen recounts an off-camera story from Martha Jo Atkins about a group seeing a deceased husband come for his wife.

  9. 29:38

    Death across cultures and history

    The hosts survey traditions from oracles of the dead to Egyptian tombs, Día de los Muertos and Coco, with a clip from Bruce Greyson.

  10. 35:29

    Tara Swart's after-death communication

    Neuroscientist Tara Swart describes seeing her deceased husband, and the hosts discuss why such communications are usually positive.

  11. 40:38

    Shared psychosis and other explanations

    Bialik considers shared psychosis, trauma and confirmation bias as possible explanations for SDEs.

  12. 43:37

    A family premonition

    Bialik tells how her pregnant mother sensed her grandmother's stroke, and the hosts discuss intense signals and tuning.

  13. 45:41

    The message of death experiences

    The hosts conclude that NDEs and SDEs share a message that death need not be feared and that the accounts warrant attention.

Key points

What was said, by whom, with the exact words. Timestamps jump to the moment.

  • Mayim Bialik

    Bialik recounts that at her grandmother's death she sensed a change in the room though she saw no mist or heard no music.

    “something shifted i knew that and i couldn't even describe it then i just knew that something changed in the room”

    Listen from 7:31 · Shared death experience

  • Mayim Bialik

    Bialik argues shared death experiences cannot be studied in controlled ways and constitute a category with its own standard of evidence.

    “This is a category of information that has its own evidence system. It has its own proof system”

    Listen from 10:03 · Shared death experience

  • Jonathan Cohen

    Cohen hypothesizes that Olson's wife was so distraught about their child that she broke through the veil to intervene.

    “the wife was so distraught that she couldn't keep the afterlife a secret. She had to break the veil”

    Listen from 12:31 · Jeff Olson case

  • Martha Jo Atkins

    Atkins reports that multiple people at a bedside often share the same experience.

    “are many occasions where several people at the bedside have the same experience”

    Listen from 19:12 · Shared death experience

  • Mayim Bialik

    Bialik reports that William Peters' Shared Crossings Project has documented over 800 shared death experience cases since 2013.

    “Dr. Peters founded the Shared Crossings Project in 2013 and has now documented more than 800 cases of shared death experiences”

    Listen from 20:00 · Shared Crossings Project

  • Mayim Bialik

    Bialik reports that in Peters' study, most shared death experiences occurred remotely from the dying person.

    “In this study, 64% of the shared death experiences that Dr. Peters collected were remote”

    Listen from 22:57 · Shared Crossings Project

  • Mayim Bialik

    Bialik reports that a large majority of shared death experiencers in Peters' research became convinced of an afterlife.

    “87% of people who had a shared death experience, meaning who were part of this experience, became convinced of an afterlife”

    Listen from 26:22 · Shared Crossings Project

  • Bruce Greyson

    Greyson says his research found that simple physiological explanations for near-death experiences were contradicted by the data.

    “lack of oxygen to the brain, erratic heart rates, drugs given to patients and so forth, they all turned out to be not proven by the data”

    Listen from 32:45 · Near-death experience

  • Tara Swart

    Swart insists that her vision of her deceased husband was neither sleep nor a dream.

    “I know I wasn't asleep, I wasn't dreaming. What I saw was present”

    Listen from 37:43 · After-death communication

  • Mayim Bialik

    Bialik observes that after-death communications are almost always positive, suggesting either wishful influence or a genuinely pleasant afterlife.

    “it seems that with after-death communication, it's almost always positive, which makes me feel like, statistically speaking, there's two options”

    Listen from 39:08 · After-death communication

  • Mayim Bialik

    Bialik raises shared psychosis as a possible explanation, in which people in intense situations unconsciously mirror each other's experiences.

    “shared psychosis is an actual thing where people who are in high stress situations are intense situations can somehow unconsciously mirror the other's experience”

    Listen from 40:50 · Shared psychosis

  • Jonathan Cohen

    Cohen says empathic or psychological explanations do not fully account for the supernatural elements of shared death experiences.

    “And it's not supernatural per se, although I don't think that fully explains many of the supernatural elements”

    Listen from 42:37 · Shared psychosis

  • Linked moment · 44:42Skip to 44:42 using a listen link in the info box.

    Mayim Bialik

    Bialik recounts that her mother sensed her grandmother's stroke from a distance, which she regards as unexplainable by coincidence.

    “There's no explanation why the coincidences in the universe would make my mother's face go numb”

    Listen from 44:42 · Shared death experience

  • Mayim Bialik

    Bialik suggests shared death experiencers may be especially attuned people receiving special information.

    “Maybe people who are shared death experiencers are the AP students of the supernatural world”

    Listen from 49:08 · Shared death experience

  • Jonathan Cohen

    Cohen argues the anecdotal evidence, though not proof, is accumulating in numbers that show something real is occurring.

    “it hasn't proved the theory, but it is showing something is going on that we can't ignore”

    Listen from 51:17 · Shared death experience

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
  • Raymond MoodyAmerican psychiatrist and author who coined the term near-death experience (archival clip)
  • Tara SwartNeuroscientist and medical doctor who described after-death contact with her husband
  • Bruce GreysonPsychiatrist and near-death experience researcher at the University of Virginia Division of Perceptual Studies (archival clip)
  • Martha Jo AtkinsDeath doula who has witnessed over a thousand deaths (archival clip)

Discussed

  • Jeff O'DriscollEmergency physician and author of Not Yet who reported a shared death experience in 1997
  • Jeff OlsonCar crash survivor whose deceased wife was reportedly seen in the trauma room
  • William PetersFounder of the Shared Crossings Project in Santa Barbara
  • Penny SartoriFormer ER nurse and near-death experience researcher
  • Karl SkalaGerman poet and World War I soldier who reported a shared death experience
  • Melvin MorsePediatrician and author of Parting Visions
  • Joe NickellAuthor and skeptical investigator whose writing on the Perron case was cited throughout the episode
  • Diana Walsh PasulkaReligious studies scholar and author of American Cosmic
  • Annie KappLondon psychotherapist who reported a remote shared death experience
  • Bob DylanAmerican singer-songwriter who invited Strings to play with him on tour

Topics

More from Mayim Bialik's Breakdown

From the publisher

What if you could experience someone else’s death…without being the one who was dying? For centuries, people across cultures have reported something far stranger than a traditional near death experience: shared death experiences (SDEs). Healthy, conscious people (including doctors, nurses, family members, and even people thousands of miles away) have described witnessing or experiencing phenomena seemingly connected to someone in the process of dying. But how is that possible? Some witnesses report seeing hovering apparitions, mysterious lights, mist, sounds, or even figures seemingly guiding the dying person into another realm. In some cases, multiple people in the same room claim to witness the same phenomenon. Are these experiences hallucinations? A psychological response to grief? Something science hasn't yet explained? Or could they point to something much deeper about consciousness, death, and what happens when we die? And then there are the experiences that happen after death. People who report after-death communication experiences sometimes say they have perceived a deceased loved one as being healthy, peaceful, and fully present in what feels like a new environment. Others report receiving a specific message, sign, or unmistakable sense that their loved one is still somehow connected to them. For those who experience them, these encounters can be profoundly comforting, sometimes helping people process grief, accept the death of someone they love, and completely rethink their understanding of the afterlife and what happens to consciousness after death. But are these simply experiences created by the grieving mind—or could they represent something more? We'll also revisit near-death experiencers and NDE researchers previously featured on the podcast to hear their perspectives on shared death experiences and what these accounts might tell us about consciousness, death, and the possibility of an existence beyond this life. In this episode of Mayim Bialik's Bre…

Summary, chapters and key points were generated from the episode transcript on October 25, 2026. Quotes are checked word for word against the transcript.

Categories: Spirituality·Science