The other day I was captivated by an interview with Sebastian Junger, an author, discussing his latest book called “In my time of Dying: How I came face to face with the idea of an afterlife.”  

In his book, he describes a near-death experience that he had in the summer of 2020.  During that fatal moment, his deceased father appeared to him and told him not to be afraid that he was going to take care of him.  When he finally awoke, his doctor informed him that the day before, he suffered a ruptured aneurysm and by all accounts should not have survived.  Thankfully for him, his family and us the reader, he did recover and was able to share his experience in this latest book.

During the interview, I came to learn that Mr. Junger is a self-proclaimed atheist.  These are individuals who typically do not believe in God and that death is the end of a person’s existence, that there is no life after death.  However, for Junger, this experience began to put into question if there is life after death.

There are many accounts of people who have had near-death experiences and have lived to tell about it.  In almost every case, these near-death experiences have followed the same path, where these individuals have seen their relatives who have died and have come to greet them.  There are other accounts where folks have claimed to have had an out-of-body experience.  They can accurately recount exactly where and what their loved ones were doing at that fatal moment.

In my book, I too describe how early in life, I pondered if there was an afterlife.  Then when my daughter had a dream about my deceased father and described things that she could not have made up or heard, I was suddenly faced with the idea of an afterlife and what that could mean.

Out of curiosity I began to do a bit of research to find more accounts, not just about near-death experiences but are there other children who have also dreamt about a loved one who had passed.  In my research, I did find stories where parents have described their very young children talking about a grandparent that they never met or had died soon after their birth.  The statements the children made were very specific and not something a child would have heard that could be explained away.  Furthermore, in many of these accounts, parents have noted that as their children grew, they no longer had these dreams.  This is exactly what I experienced with my daughter as well.

If you have had a similar experience and would like to share, please do. I’d love to hear about it.