After

BOOK REVIEW
After by Bruce Greyson 2021

About the Author
Dr. Bruce Greyson is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He served on the medical school faculty at the Universities of Michigan, Connecticut, and Virginia. He was a co-founder and President of the International Association for Near-Death Studies, and Editor of the Journal of Near-Death Studies. A Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, he has received national awards for his medical research.

About the Book
The world’s leading expert on near-death experiences reveals his journey toward rethinking the nature of death, life, and the continuity of consciousness.

Cases of remarkable experiences on the threshold of death have been reported since ancient times, and are described today by 10% of people whose hearts stop. The medical world has generally ignored these “near-death experiences,” dismissing them as “tricks of the brain” or wishful thinking. But after his patients started describing events that he could not just sweep under the rug, Dr. Bruce Greyson began to investigate.

As a physician without a religious belief system, he approached near-death experiences from a scientific perspective. In After, he shares the transformative lessons he has learned over four decades of research. Our culture has tended to view dying as the end of our consciousness, the end of our existence―a dreaded prospect that for many people evokes fear and anxiety.

But Dr. Greyson shows how scientific revelations about the dying process can support an alternative theory. Dying could be the threshold between one form of consciousness and another, not an ending but a transition. This new perspective on the nature of death can transform the fear of dying that pervades our culture into a healthy view of it as one more milestone in the course of our lives. After challenges us to open our minds to these experiences and to what they can teach us, and in so doing, expand our understanding of consciousness and of what it means to be human.

Endorsements
“Engaging, appealing, and thoroughly informative…an absolute must-read.”
―Sam Parnia, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of Medicine and Director of Critical Care & Resuscitation Research, New York University Langone Medical Center, author of What Happens When We Die?

“This book will change the consciousness of many readers in a very positive way.”
―Pim van Lommel, M.D., author of Consciousness Beyond Life

“Dr. Greyson’s masterful intellect and laser-sharp focus on scientific rigor make his research recorded in this book virtually irreplaceable.”
―Michael B. Sabom, M.D., author of Recollections of Death

“Dr. Greyson takes us on a fabulous tour of near-death experiences in a completely new and engaging way…A must-read for anyone regardless of their religious, spiritual, or scientific background.”
―Andrew Newberg, M.D., professor of Emergency Medicine and Radiology, Thomas Jefferson University, author of The Mystical Mind

“Dr. Greyson is both a scientific and medical expert on NDEs and the nature of the mind, and a practicing healer, a psychiatrist who knows how to help people understand and learn from unusual experiences rather than dismissing them as ‘crazy.’”
―Charles Tart, Ph.D., professor emeritus of Psychology, University of California, Davis, author of States of Consciousness

Summary of Introduction (excerpt)
Fifty years ago, a woman who had just tried to kill herself challenged what I thought I knew about the mind and the brain, and about who we really are. Bob Greene recalls a patient in the emergency room who overdosed, and her roommate was waiting to speak with him. Greene: “I found her lying on a gurney, wearing a hospital gown, with a tube in her arm and heart monitor leads”.

Holly’s roommate, Susan, found Holly passed out on her bed. Susan says she called out and shook her, but couldn’t wake her up so she called the rescue squad to bring her to the ER. Susan was a tall girl with an athletic build, her brown hair pulled back tightly into a ponytail. Her eyes darted around the room, then she sat down on a couch, fidgeting with the ring on her index finger.

Susan was taking an antidepressant from the student health clinic, her roommate said. Susan hesitated, then added, “I think he might have been pushing her to do things. That’s just the feeling I got.” Susan said, too quickly, “I’m okay,” she said, but I have to get back to the dorm.

Discussion
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