Welcome to Round Trip Death. On this show we have discussions with real people who have had near-death experiences.
This is a safe, non-judgmental, non-denominational space where we all have something we can learn from others.
While every NDE is different, one of the commonalities is that experiencers come back changed,
and their lives going forward reflect that change. The question is, what will you and I learn from listening to their stories?
We have a special guest with us today, Dr. Yvonne Kaysen, MD, from Toronto, but being smart and being a snowbird right now, out in sunny Southern California.
Good morning and welcome.
Good morning. Thanks for having me, Eric.
You know, I think our listeners would love to hear a little bit about you, maybe what kind of doctor you are.
We'll talk about your near-death experiences in a minute, but give us a little background on you.
Sure. I'm currently retired, but I'm a retired family physician and MD psychotherapist.
So that means I did psychotherapy, which is like primary care psychiatry, as the bulk of my practice.
And I had a very unusual specialty. I was on faculty at the University of Toronto in Toronto.
And since 1990, my specialty was counseling and researching people who've had near-death experiences and other types of spiritually transformative experiences.
And I got into that because, as we're going to talk about very shortly, when I was in medical school and then when I was a resident, I started having powerful spiritual experiences, including a near-death experience in a medevac plane crash.
So as a medical doctor, I wanted to know what is going on. I knew I wasn't crazy. I knew these experiences were very real and very powerful.
But there was no way within modern medicine to even have a word for these experiences, other than calling them something pathological, like a hallucination or a delusion.
Yeah, the word pathological doesn't sound good.
No. And so for many years, my quest to research these phenomena was in secret, in private. I lived like a double life. I was in the closet.
I was an in-the-closet spiritual seeker while I had a traditional Western medical practice. And I taught at the University, had a very successful career.
But then in 1990, I had a very strong experience. I talk about all of this in my new book, Soul Lessons from the Light.
Go ahead. Plug the new book, Soul Lessons from the Light.
Yep. So hopefully people will be interested to read my story. That's my personal spiritual awakening journey, these powerful spiritual experiences that have driven me to specialize in supporting
experiences and also now later on in my life, launching Spiritual Awakenings International, which is an online, not-for-profit charitable organization where we have events every month with speakers talking about diverse spiritual experiences.
And also we have experiences sharing circles every month where people who've had NDEs or other spiritually transformative experiences can come and share in an environment that's confidential and that they feel supported and they feel understood.
And all of this has been, spirit has been propelling me through my own spiritual experiences to specialize my medical career in this unique way.
I'm guessing this wasn't a specialty that someone could just go seek. Did you, was it hard for you to get the faculty there to say, you know, yes, okay, you can do something crazy like that?
I was the first. I was the first in Canada and I might also, you know, I don't know what was happening in the US, but in terms of MDs, there was no other MD medical doctor in Canada specializing in this area and it was very outside the box when spirit propelled me to publicly specialize my practice in this back in 1990.
So I did have to face hurdles within the medical profession to try and specialize my practice in this way.
But, you know, I think when something is right, invisible fingers sometimes intervene and help out so that the pieces come together so that things can move forward.
So my near death experience in the medevac plane crash in 1979, which we're going to talk about soon, happened when I was a resident at the University of Toronto, I was finishing my residency.
And so because of that, you know, all the the faculties and the department head and everybody knew, oh my goodness, one of our residents has been in a plane crash they all thought I was dead for a period of time until they learned later about my rescue.
It was very well known that I'd been in the plane crash, but not everybody knew that I'd had a near death experience in a plane crash and in fact back then there weren't the word near death experience was not widely known.
They knew that I'd been in a plane crash. And so when I approached my department chairman. I said that I wanted to specialize my practice on counseling and researching this area with patients that he sort of you know stroked his chin.
He says, Oh, this is all from that plane crash that happened when you were a resident. That's what sort of got you pointed in this direction. I said, Yes, yes, yes, it is. You know, I mean, there was more than that, but that was a big part of it.
And so he said, Hmm, well, as long as you're doing research, that's fine with me. And so when I opened up the clinic specializing this area I called it the spiritual emergence research and referral clinic, you know, the research prominently there.
And so that's how I got the stamp of approval from the university now getting the stamp of approval from the medical licensing bodies. That was a whole other story. And so I had to deal with that a little bit later. But again, by divine coincidence, the grace of God, I had traveled to a conference in California in 1992 and I met Dr.
Robert Turner, who was one of three American doctors and psychologists Robert Turner Francis Lou and David Lukoff, who had just submitted a proposal to the American Psychiatric Association for a new diagnostic category that would encompass and include spiritual experiences
as an okay topic at least existed as an okay topic for doctors and psychologists to talk to their patients about, and it had just been approved. I mean, this knowledge wasn't even public information yet.
So when I, so I learned this by meeting Robert Turner at this conference Kundalini conference. And so when I got challenged by the medical governing bodies, I was able to inform them because they didn't know yet that this had just been approved by the American Psychiatric
Association. So now this is a stamp that this is a valid area for doctors to be focusing on with their patients and I said, and I'm the very first doctor in Canada to specialize this area this new area so I'm providing a service that no other physician in Canada
is providing. And you know what, that did the trick. That's awesome. So not only did you specialize in this but did I hear you right that until this time, doctors were really not supposed to even talk about it with patients, not about spiritual issues
it wasn't listed as one of the things that we were supposed to talk about like maybe the clergy would or the social worker, but not doctors and, but that has now changed. And then, synchronistically, during the 90s.
On the media like on television on radio because this was internet wasn't big yet in the 90s. There were two Americans who had near death experiences who became extremely popular and so they were on all the talk shows etc.
One of them was Betty Edie and the other one was Danny and Brinkley, who had had powerful near death experiences. And so that raised in like the public started talking about near death experiences, and then the media in Canada they were thinking gee you know
there's somebody around in Canada who's had a near death experience. And so when I came when you know I became known to the media, all of a sudden I was gobbled up and I was on TV and radio and magazines and everything in the 90s, that there's a doctor in Toronto
who's had a near death experience and not only that, she's counseling people who've had near death and other spiritual experiences. So, it was mainstream media that also helped to validate and raise awareness of this whole area.
And so I was there quite a few years ago, based on how many people that I talked to that have had near death experiences there still is very much of a need for counselors that know how to help these people because it is not an easy thing to process.
And it's a wonderful experience. They come back and it's difficult to process so I'm glad you're doing it I hope some other doctors and and counselors are getting into this too. Now you already threw out the fact that you were in a plane crash, and I probably
should have teased that early on. And I don't want to make this show a competition about who died in the craziest way or something, because that's that's not what we're about is is trying to make a big spectacular thing out of that but to discuss near death experiences.
But here's the big but for some reason in the last few days, there have been some spectacular. I've talked to someone a couple of days ago that was run over by a train, someone that was hit by a van going 40 miles an hour.
And we're going to hear about your plane crash. I can't. I know it sounds terrible but I can't wait to hear about your plane crash. But why don't we start at a younger age because you had some experiences as a child you mind if we go there first.
Yeah, we can. Yeah, I now realize I just want to clarify one point about earlier on is, I am retired now and I'm no longer counseling patients who've had spiritual experiences instead what I'm doing is I'm passing on what I've learned to the next
generation. So that's part of what I'm doing with my books, a couple years ago I released touched by the light which is really the handbook of spiritually transformative experiences, and it is a guide for healthcare providers, if they want to counsel people
who have had spiritual experiences and it's also a guide for the experience for themselves to help them find labels for their experiences and the integration process which is really the hard work that comes after the spiritual awakening.
And then my recent book, so lessons from the light. That is for everybody, you know, it's the stories like you want to hear my story so this is my stories of the powerful spiritual experiences that that changed my life.
Great, and we'll put links to all of these in our show notes as well so people can find them. Thank you.
Great. So yes, I now realize something that I did not know for most of my life I did not realize that I had had two near death experiences as a child. I mean I always remembered these experiences, but my first one for example it happened when I was
five years old, before kindergarten. And you know when you're that age you don't have any yardstick or barometer of what is considered quotes paranormal versus normal, whatever that means.
It was just stuff that happened to me so this was stuff that happened to me and similarly my near death experience at age 11, I just understood as stuff that happened to me and figured other people were having these experiences to.
And it was really only about four to five years ago that when I spirit inside of me was prompting me to look at these experiences and so as a researcher I got out my, you know, criteria for assessing how many of the near death experience criteria
that the community identified did each of these experiences have. And then when I did that I thought, Oh my goodness, they both have enough criteria to qualify as a near death experience. And like, Oh, no wonder I'm the way that I asked.
I have five near death experiences and multiple spiritually transformative experiences of many kinds, because I started having these experiences as a child so it's like the doorway and my consciousness was starting to open to spiritual experiences from a very young age.
And so, what I now realize was my first near death experience as far as I now realize happened when I was five years old, and I was traveling with my parents in Europe and we were going.
We're a train station we were going to visit somebody traveling there by train which is people travel by train a lot in Switzerland.
And you know as a youngster as a five year old I was looking around very interesting what's going on the train station this was all new for me in Toronto, Canada we didn't travel by train.
And I saw a station hand jump off the platform that I was on he jumped down onto the tracks he ran across and then he climbed up on the next platform.
And as a little kid I thought, Oh, that looks like fun I want to do that too. So I immediately leaned out and started jumping on the railway tracks. And then what happened was when my body was like at a 45 degree angle or something, it was my time
and I stood still it was like my life was a movie and somebody press the pause button and it froze, except my thoughts my consciousness didn't freeze, and I suddenly found my point of perception, 20 or 25 feet above my body.
And I'm looking down, and I can see my little body there you know, starting to jump off the platform. But what I could also see when I was 20 25 feet above my body was what was happening up ahead of me, which was that a train was rapidly pulling into
the station, and I was about to be hit by a train I had, I was jumping in front of a rapidly oncoming train. And you know it's interesting because when I realized that, while I was, I now know it's out of body but back then I didn't know that, while I was
jumping into the train, I was thinking about my body. Very oddly, I was not at all afraid. I was totally peaceful. I was totally calm. And when I observed that I was about to be hit by a train I remember extremely calmly thinking, oh, I see.
I'm about to be hit by a train but there was like no fear, no panic, nothing just, just a calm observation. And then, all of a sudden, it was like somebody released the pause button and the movie of my life started moving forward again and then man from behind on
the platform pulled my little body back onto the platform, and then the train whisked in in front of me and I could feel the wind against my face as the train with him. And my parents of course scolded me vigorously and, and, and I was sort of, you know, shook by the whole
experience but I didn't talk about it to my parents afterwards because I didn't want to bring on another school thing. But how I understood it as a five year old was I thought I could fly.
I thought that was what had happened that day that I had flown that's how I understood the out of body experience. And I think afterwards I was also having more out of body experiences in my dreams because I also have memories after that of seeing myself like
flying down the street to the schoolyard that was down the street etc. But you know as a child, I thought I could fly and I was so convinced I could fly that when I started kindergarten that fall and I remember this clearly too.
When I made a new little friend I said guess what I can fly. No, you can't nobody can fly and I said yes I can I'll prove it to you. So, you know I went and I climbed up on the fence in the front of my house I spread out my little arms you know like wings and I jumped
off planning to fly down the street as I in my mind I had clear memory of flying down the street to show my friend that I could fly. And of course I just tumbled to the ground, and my friend laughed and walked away.
But I remember what my reaction was as a five year old.
I was really confused. Like I couldn't figure it out. Why do I have such a clear memory of flying. And now I'm not able to do it, I couldn't figure that out. So I now realize looking back that that actually was my first near death experience.
And 11 years old. So 11 years old, I had another near death experience, I now realize and once again at the time. I didn't know it was when I had just turned 11 and this was long before puberty so I was really just a kid.
We were driving in my family station wagon my dad was driving my mom and him were in the front bench seats myself my two brothers my sister we were all in the back row bench seat, and the station wagon was loaded with luggage there were tons of suitcases in the
back compartment. And this is long before the days of seat belts so we were just sort of sitting there loosely on the bench seat, something happened suddenly there was a lurch in the car, and I remember saying to my dad, what's that, and my dad saying something like oh
I'm going to get a flat tire anyway what ended up happening was, we think it was a flat tire the car was going at high speed on the freeway and there were very deep ditches on the side of the, the expressway and the car veered into the, into the side and then
flipped a couple times going down into this deep ditch on the other side, and somewhere in the course of that happening. I was thrown into the back part of the station wagon where the luggage was I sustained a head injury, and I was unconscious.
I did not regain consciousness for three days, so I don't have worldly memories, until three days later. However, what I do remember and I've always remembered is I've remembered.
My physical body was unconscious, and I was stuck in the back of the car there somewhere, but I remember floating above the accident scene and looking down, and my father had been pulled out by some passerbys and was at the side of the road waiting for
an ambulance, and my father was very seriously injured and bleeding with blood all over his face. And he was looking and my mother had been found my younger sister had been found my two brothers had been found but he noticed that I had not been found.
And even though he was gravely ill my father kept saying my daughter, my daughter, my daughter, and I was floating above it I was witnessing my injured father, going my daughter, my daughter, my daughter.
And he has corroborated this to me afterwards of course that this yes this is exactly what happened what I observed. And I've always wondered if maybe it was that bond of love, because he was calling for me that made my soul hover above my father's body.
Anyway, so that's one memory I have while I'm unconscious and then my memory while unconscious shifts. And I have very clear memory of when my body was brought to the emergency department of the local hospital.
And again this time I'm again floating 20 or 25 feet above my body, and I'm looking down it's as if the ceiling had become transparent or something and I could look through the ceiling, and I could see my little body laying there on, you know what I now know is an
examining room table but as a kid you don't know any of these things, and I could see two men huddled over my body and I guess they were doctors. And I would also see this big round circular disk shaped lamp.
And I was looking at it from the top down perspective. Now I know you know as a medical doctor that yeah this is what the lamps look like in emergency departments and surgeries but I know that when I was an 11 year old kid, and I was looking at it from a top
down perspective what it would look like from the top. And I watched that for a period of time. And then my, it's like my consciousness jumped in time, because the next memory that I have of those three days that I have some conscious is when I woke up.
And I clearly remember waking up in my body and looking around me trying to figure out where I was seeing that I was in a bed in a children's ward in the hospital there were other children in my room asleep it was at night.
And the railing was pulled up I had whatever on my arms I just pulled that out because I had to pee desperately. And I carefully climbed over the railing and I started looking for a washroom. I didn't realize they put me in a diaper while I was unconscious
because of course at 11 you know you don't use a diaper anymore. And I was looking for somewhere to go pee. And nurse comes running down the hall, blah blah blah blah blah. And you know, I was back.
Interestingly enough, there was a very powerful after effect after this experience which I now know was in your death experience but again back then I had no idea this didn't happen to everybody when they were unconscious for all I knew that's just normal when you're unconscious.
Did you tell anybody about this one, not until recently because again it never occurred to me that it wasn't something that happened to everybody. And I have to tell you about the after effect though because the after effect was very very powerful, which was for almost
a year afterwards and again, up until five years ago I didn't even realize this was an after effect I didn't put the pieces together but now I know it was an after effect, is I could see ghosts.
For a year after this I could see ghosts, I would see these wispy creatures in my in my bed room at night, and I was terrified. And I thought our house was haunted and I did tell my parents that I was seeing ghosts but you know they sort of wrote it off as you know
the rest of the accident or my imagination but I remember I insisted, I wouldn't sleep in my own bedroom I wanted them to move my bed into the bedroom with my younger brother and sister so I'd have other people in the room with me at night I was supposed to sleep alone,
but I refuse. And so they let me sleep with my younger brother and sister but that lasted for about a year. And I now know that's a very common after effect mediumistic abilities after near death experience, but then it went away after about a year
so that was my 11 year old near death experience. I want to pick apart just a little bit of this for a second. I do hear from a lot of people saying that yes they have after their NDE they have spiritual, I don't know gifts let's call them, that they didn't have before, whether it's seeing a ghost or, you know, filling impressions of what people are thinking or all kinds of other things.
Now through your practice how common have you found that is that nearly everybody or is it just a few?
Well, the answer is it's variable and part of the variability in both in my personal experience and in my research and counseling many many experiences over the years, partly it's the depth of the near death experience and the type of near death experience because there's more than one type of near death experience and they can have different kinds of depth.
For example, my two childhood near death experiences I categorize near death experiences into three categories and the first category is the out of body type of near death experience.
And so my two childhood experiences, they were the out of body type of near death experience that really that was the bulk of the experience was being out of body being in that place where you're feeling calm, but there's no mystical component to it then there is what in the field we call deeper near
death experiences and I call those the mystical near death experiences where in addition to the out of body usually then we have a profound mystical experience and that may involve going into the light, it may involve a life review, it may involve seeing saints from their spiritual tradition, it may involve seeing
departed loved ones, it may involve having spiritual lessons on the other side but profound mystical experiences, this is a much deeper type of near death experience.
And these white light or mystical near death experiences have much more likely to have after effects that's number one that was your question, but also they have a much greater transformative impact on the person I mean sometimes people's change lives are changed you know night
and day after a mystical type of near death experience, but this is also true I have to say of mystical experiences of all kinds, because being near death is only one of the situations where people have mystical experiences.
Sometimes they happen spontaneously, sometimes they happen in response to intense prayer, sometimes they can happen when falling in love, they can happen when looking at a beautiful scene in nature.
And so these are the situations where people may have mystical experiences and they can be like near mystical near death experiences profoundly transforming and also with many spiritual after effects, but your question was about the near death experience.
And so there's a category of near death experience that I categorize which is the distressing near death experience. And so the after effects for the distressing near death experience are different.
That's a whole other discussion but today we were talking about minor death experiences and their after effects.
Ed, would you mind telling us just briefly about the third type which are the distressing near death experiences, distressing near death experiences. Yeah, I've interviewed a couple of people that have had those and actually I'm doing one more this afternoon so tell me the background on those.
So the third type of near death experiences, I categorize them is the distressing type of near death experience. And in my research, I've actually found there are also three different subcategories within distressing near death experiences.
And I talked about that quite all of this in my other book touched by the light that came out two years ago. If people want to read more about it. But, you know, one type of distressing near death experience is people who are fighting the pull to the light.
And this is, you know, they're close to death their bodies out of body and they see the light and they're being pulled towards the light but they don't want to go there. And so they're, they're trying to get back into their body and they're desperately desperately
desperately trying to fight that pull that's pulling them towards the light so when I've counseled people like this I've said to them. Well, was there anything negative or stressing or fearful.
They're trying to get back into their body and then they go well no, no, but I didn't want to be there I wanted to be back in my body and so the distressing part was that they were fighting the pull to the, the, the out of body and, and that's like
to me like trying to fight against an undertow, like it is, it's a really desperate fight to get back in your body. One of the examples I gave in my book is someone who was in a concentration camp during World War Two, a Holocaust survivor and, you know,
had seen her parents died and when she went out of body one night she knew she was dying and she's no no no I can't die too you know and desperately trying to get into her body so so that's one type of the distressing near death experience.
What do you call the type where someone has a hell type of experience.
That's the next category good question. I call that the low astral distressing near death experience. So that goes under category three of distressing or it's a whole different category.
Category two of distressing category to okay category so number one is fighting the pull out of body category two. I call it the low astral experience, according to many spiritual traditions that when our spirit leaves our body there are many different astral planes
out there just like if you think of it like the ocean there are many different levels in the ocean that have different density and the lightest levels are up near the top close to the light and the darkest levels are down down down down deep, all sorts of
the dark creatures down there in the dark levels that this is also true of the astral planes, and so that some people may go out of body and may go horizontal to an astral plane that's sort of like ours which is filled with good and bad and yucky, you know all mixed together.
Others may go up to astral heaven in the light that's where we want to go we want to go into the high astral planes into astral heaven, but sometimes people may actually go lower and they may encounter dark entities or tormenting entities.
And Pastor Howard Storm you've probably heard his story is a perfect example of that. And when he started to pray by singing Jesus loves me which was the only song you could think of close to prayer that that was enough to raise his consciousness to the light
and he experienced a beam of light being of light coming out and pulling him out of the darkness so that's the good news about the low astral near death experience if you think to turn to the light during the experience I've had other people share this as well, that
it's a good whip and it can become a positive mystical near death experience. The third category. I call it the distressing distortions I have a better term in the book but it doesn't really to mind right now.
Some of these people it's like a hallucination on LSD or something you know it's like mixtures of images and the bizarre story like like a really bizarre nightmare that makes no sense at all that is confusing that is distressing images flashing.
And I wonder about this category, if it's actually a near death experience at all I wonder if it might be a fact of drugs on the brain, you know that that that often it's, you know, during surgery or they've been on really strong medications if that's causing
this sort of because it's, it's not clear it's it's not a mystical experience it's also not a hellish experience it's just nightmare and distortion.
So more like a dream that just doesn't make sense it sounds like.
Worse than that you know like LSD trip with a bad dream you know like just distortions, regardless of what type those are the three types that I've observed and there may be more, but you know I don't.
I'm just saying in my clinical experience I've observed people telling me about these types of distressing NTS, but the point that I want to make is no matter the type of distressing NTS.
They can with support, and with, I think, spiritual intent. One can learn and grow it can be an impetus for learning growth and healing.
So it's not just the positive near death experiences that can propel one to spiritual growth, but also these distressing ones can be very powerful stimuli to spiritual and personal growth afterwards, if you choose to use them that way.
So, in addition to having your own near death experiences. You're an expert on this topic you have studied this for years from in a medical and clinical standpoint.
Yeah, so I'm going to ask you some questions that I don't ask other people. And one is, are there some emotions that are missing.
When we go to the other side for example you mentioned that on the train tracks you didn't feel fear anymore. Are there other negative emotions like fear hatred jealousy, things like that that are gone.
It depends what type of a near death experience we have. So again as I mentioned to you that there are the three types the outer body type the mystical type and the distressing type.
So if you have a distressing type, any of human emotion can be felt their fear anger.
All of that can be felt there. However, if you have a mystical type, where you go into the light that the feeling of love and unconditional love is so powerful that it's like it dissolves the other feelings.
And if they start to creep up. It's like the, the, the love helps to dissolve them.
In my most recent near death experience in 2003 for example, when I was first welcomed into the light and felt that incredible love welcoming joy.
This little ego part of me that was still there like it was in a backpack or something sort of raised its little head over my shoulder, and was worried about something that was worried so worried was there, because the thought this little part of me went,
Uh oh, here comes the life review. That's, you know, I've learned that many people when they, when they're clinically dead will get a life review where they'll see the good bad and the ugly of their lives and I thought, you know, nobody's perfect I've made
a difference in my life too. But what happened was to beings of light to great saints welcome me to the light. And it's like they read my mind and just glanced over at me and with a glance it was like they blew that worry off like it was a fleck of dust on my
shoulder. And then, you know, with the thought don't worry about it and I understood with that transmission that the love of the higher power is so great and so unconditional that the divine gets it that we all make mistakes, but understands that it's
all part of our learning process just sort of like when a child is learning to walk it's going to stumble it's going to fall it's going to skin its knees it's going to bump its head, but a loving parent understands that that's all part of the learning process
and comforts the child rather than punishes the child. And that's the type of the love the divine has for us and with that, my worry was just like, gone.
Life reviews end up not being negative anyway even people that haven't lived great lives.
Usually do not feel guilt, shame, things like that they feel love fixing all of that instead.
Understood and feel compelled to maybe make amends afterwards or and to live their life differently moving forward being more loving more kind more compassionate more forgiving.
We have a lot lot more to discuss with Dr. Kason. So we've split this episode into two parts with part two going live in another two or three days, you won't want to miss it as we're going to hear about her medevac plane crash, and much much more.
To be notified when that episode goes live. Follow the show on your podcasting app, or click over to roundtripdeath.com and sign up for our email newsletter.
Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.