#359 - A Former Atheist's Near Death Experience

From the time that they pronounced me dead was a good 45 minutes. They cut my clothes and then they paddled my heart because my heart had stopped. And I could see people screaming and crying. But I didn't realize that was actually my physical body because I was somewhere else.

The only thing that I could feel, if you could imagine absolute love and peace, there wasn't anything else to be felt. I was greeted by people I had known in the past.

I'm back home again, incredibly safe and felt at home. Welcome to Round Trip Death, everybody. And welcome, welcome all over the world, wherever you're listening from, and especially during this holiday season, we have a nice guest today, Ray Catania. Good morning. How are you?

Good morning, Eric. Thank you for having me on the show. I'm honored and grateful.

Well, you're welcome. And morning, afternoon, evening, wherever we are, I know it's afternoon for you. You're on the east coast of the U.S. correct?

Yes, I'm on the New York, New Jersey border. It's a first suburb outside of the city. And I also touch with upstate New York. So it's nice. You get the best of both worlds.

That's a beautiful area. You don't have much of that accent that, you know, you're not near Brooklyn or anything.

Wait for it, Wait for it. It'll come out. I've been trying to lose it years.

Well, before we jump into your near death experience, and I'll let our listeners know, as they already know, every experience is different and yours is different too. And I love that. And that's going to be a lot of fun. This happened to you back when you were a teenager, but tell us a little bit about you so we can get to know you a little bit first.

So today I am a life coach. I just got my master's degree in metaphysics, so I teach metaphysics as well. I love the fact that in metaphysics we bring science to spirituality. And because I come from such a skeptical background myself, the title of my first book is the Atheist and the Afterlife. I was the atheist, obviously. And so I'm a big, I was a big skeptic. And in order for me to overcome that, I needed to learn the science behind it. So I had a combination of formal education, but I also had the informal education where I had several mentors who are great to me. And so the combination of learning from all of those sources as well as I'm a voracious reader, I felt like it enabled me to coach people in a way that was a little different. Than most, and it seems to be working well for them. So I think that this is where my calling is and I left the business world a few years back and this is what I've decided to devote my life to. And it's been going very well ever since.

Scientists are all into the scientific, you know, theory, the way they prove things. Just very briefly, I, I don't want an hour jumping down this rabbit hole, but tell me how this works. How does science prove these things?

So when you can find a scientific theory that's behind pretty much any spiritual theory, but you have to look for it. And in order for it to be in the second book, I have to find that, have to fine tune it, and I also have to replicate it. So let's, I'll give you an example. Let's look at the Law of attraction. We, we were familiar with the movie and the book the Secret, and you can manifest and you can attain things. And yes, that is true. Right, but how does that really work? What's behind the curtain that makes that work? Well, as Tesla told us, energy, frequency and vibration are the three key elements to the universe. If you want to know the secrets, they lie there. Very true statement for this. The law of vibration supports the law of Attraction. When we think, thoughts are things, when we say things, words are things, we emit an energy, and that energy is on a specific frequency. And when you emit that energy, you try to send it out as many times as you can in order to attract the item you want to attract. Now, the item has to be on the same frequency. How do you align your frequency with an inanimate object? You think about it, you visualize it, you see it. You use all your five physical senses in your sixth sense, which is your consciousness, and you put it in there and you smell it and you taste it. You're not really smelling it and tasting it, but you are doing it in your conscious mind and you're emitting that frequency. You're now on the same vibration as whatever it is that you're looking to acquire. Well, like attracts like. We know that if I dial myself, if I do, I, if I pick up my cell phone, I dial your number, your phone rings because we are now on the same frequency. It's that simple. So the law of attraction works like a cell phone, it works like a satellite dish and a radio picking up a radio station. There's no difference. You connect and you receive the information. And you can apply scientific principle to just about anything that we examine in the spiritual world.

That is a great description. A very succinct description. I like that a lot.

Thank you.

All right, let's go back to. What were you, 14 years old?

20. 20.

Sorry, 20 years old. So you weren't a teenager. My apologies on that. Just.

No worries. It was just after the teenage years, I had a rough childhood. I guess you could say that it was one in a home that wasn't particularly the Brady Bunch type. It was a little rocky and I spent a lot of time by myself and trying to escape the things that I would that were transpiring in the home. Chaos became my comfort zone. And ultimately, as I got into my teenage years, I became self destructive. And then that went on into my 20s. I would put myself in situations to up the ante, if you will, that were more and more dangerous. I took jobs where I would work with dangerous people. I did things with dangerous people. And I took a lot of chances and I did a lot of things that I'm not proud of today. And this is why I've decided to dedicate my second half of my life to helping people. But not to get off the topic, when I was 20, I had a lot of near death experiences. Now I'm a little confused as to why we're calling it a near death, because that was the real death. When I actually died, the near deaths were the ones where the shootouts where I somehow got out of there by crawling around the bar and getting out the side door from a source from above that's telling me to go out the side door. I always had that spiritual guide, if you will, that stuck by me. Why? I have no idea. I certainly didn't deserve it.

Let's call those a brush with death. You know, like we have. Like we have on the freeway when somebody about runs us off and we call that a near death experience. That's not what this show's about.

Right, Gotcha.

Those are. Those are brushes with death. But yes, when people actually die and come back. And by the way, we had Dr. Raymond Moody on this show a little while ago. He's the one that termed the phrase near death experience. So if anybody wants to know where that came from, go back and. And listen to his episode. So also to give him credit, we're going to stick with that terminology.

Sure.

So let's talk about not brushes with death, but when you had an experience where lights were out.

So I'm 20 years old and I am still living at home with my parents at this time. And I was sleeping and what had happened was the stove. And the kitchen was directly beneath my bedroom where I was at that time. And the stove was leaking gas all night long. We don't know how long it was running for. In the morning, my mom woke up, turned the stove on to make breakfast. Poof.

The.

The stove goes up in flames. It goes out rather quickly because there's a safety valve on the gas. I. It wasn't the fire that harmed me. It wasn't the smoke. It was the gas fumes. They were rising into my room all night long. So I hear the fire trucks and I hear the commotion. I hear the police. And I'm trying to get up to see what's going on. And I find that I can't get myself out of bed. Paralyzed. Most of my body will not move. My legs were so heavy, I could not move them. My head, I couldn't get it off the pillow. And I know something is very, very wrong. I can't even yell for help. My right arm works, so I utilize that and I pull myself to the edge of the bed. But I don't get there. I pass out. And then some noises downstairs. It wakes me up again. And I know I got to get out of this bed. I pulled myself again. I passed out a second time. And now I'm like, if I don't get myself out of this bed, I'm gone. I know this for a fact. And I pull with everything I have and I tumble out of the bed. Now I fall face first. And as I'm falling, I don't feel the hit on the floor. I don't feel that pain that you're supposed to feel when you hit the floor. Because in this moment, I'm not in that body any longer. Now I'm above it. And I'm in the corner of the room and I'm looking down at my lifeless body. The colors of the room are more vibrant. They are more. It's. It's an entire different way of seeing the world. It felt like I could manipulate that world. And I'm not really sure what's happening in this moment, right? And there is this huge cone shaped, beautiful white light that is shining only on me in the corner of the room. This light comes with it. The most euphoric, beautiful feeling I've ever felt in my entire life. The more I go into the light, that euphoria begins to increase. And there is a being at the. I guess at the end of the light who's telling me it's okay, it's safe, Ray, come into the Light. It's okay. And so I want to go. And I begin to go. And then my father comes in the room and he sees me on the floor and he scoops me up and he's screaming and crying for the paramedics. Now, we didn't have a great relationship, he and I, to say the least. But in that moment when I saw him holding me and so distraught that something had happened to me, I asked the being if I can return because I can't leave him that way. And it was breaking my heart. I always wanted. That was probably one of the few times my dad hugged me ever. And I was dead. So I wanted that so badly. And when I came to, I was not there. I was in the living room. And I woke up and I was still in the state of euphoria. My whole body was just tingling and it felt like. No. I mean, I've done a lot of drugs in my life. I've never felt this feeling. You can't match it. You can't top it. It's just. There's no words to describe it. And the paramedics are doing their things and they're using their tools and equipment on me. And they're like, hurry up, get the truck. We got to get this guy out of here. We got to get him to hospital. I'm like, guys, guys, relax. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm better than fine. You should have seen what I just saw. Did you. Anybody see the light? Did anybody hear the voice? And these guys are looking at me like I'm Looney Tunes. And I'm thinking, well, I better shut up because they're going to send me to the wrong hospital. One that I can't check myself out of.

All right, before we go further, and I want to hear all the rest of the detail.

Yeah.

Before you move on, I. I want to pick this apart just a little bit, if you don't mind.

Go for it. Yeah.

No, and I know this was. This was very brief. This was probably just a few, I'll call it moments, because we don't know if it's seconds, minute or, you know, whatever. And that's okay. It doesn't change. How do I put this? Having a short NDE can be just as life changing as having a two hour or two day nde. And I believe that's what happened to you. That certainly is what I'm seeing on your face right now. Please explain this euphoria more. Is there any. Are there any other words you can use to explain what it felt like.

I can tell you. I can give it to you this way. When I came back to my body, not originally, but when I was in the hospital, eventually I'm sitting in the bed. The, the pain of everything that you have. Like let's say you broke a finger when you were a kid and you never got it fixed. And it always bothers you a little bit, maybe when it rains, little arthritis sets in there. All those little things that are wrong with us. When you're back in your body and you're no longer just an energetic being, it hurts like, like, you know what? It's so painful when you come back into your body. You feel every little aches, all the aches and pains that are in your body all at once. And I, I was like, oh my God, I made the wrong choice. I want to go back to the light. I want a mulligan. Give me a do over. Come on guys. You know, I, I just, I wanted to die. I wanted to go back. That was. What, what did I come back here for the hug?

You didn't have that opportunity though, did you? No, no, no. Take backs on that one. No. Tell me about, tell me about the light and the being. Did you see a being or just feel that there was a being there?

No. You.

You.

I felt the being and the power of the be. Everybody says, can you explain the voice? And, and it's a. And I say it's a blue voice. No one understands that. I don't even understand it. I associate the voice with the color blue. And I don. Am I hearing blue? The same senses and the way we use them here are not the same the way we would use them there. You can hear color, you can see a sound. It's. It's a different environment that allows you to do different things than you can do here. Which is why when we're. We can tap into that sixth sense and learn those abilities and get a taste of that while we're here. Because we are those energetic beings. They are a part of us. They are our conscious mind and they run through our entire body. We can tap into that. So what you experience when you first cross over is the euphoric state. Like I said, there's just no other feeling. You're an energetic being. There's no pain. There is no emotional state that is remotely negative. There's no bad feelings. There's no, no sadness. But I mean, I wasn't there that very long like you pointed out. So could there be sadness? Yeah, maybe. But in that moment All I wanted to do was go forth to the being at the end of the light and. And see what was there. And it was, you know, that relationship that I never had with my dad that I wanted so badly that I had. I wanted to come back and that we never had that relationship. So, like I said, if I could do it all over again, there's no way I would come out of the light. It was such euphoria. I don't have another word. I wish I did.

A lot of people use the word love. Did you feel love? Yeah. Yeah.

You feel at all positive? If the light hugs you, it's. Yes. That's a great way to explain it. The light is just like everything, and you. You become one with that light. As you go further and further in, I can only imagine what's on the other side. Others have gone all the way across. Now. I looked for somebody else who had an NDE after I did, because I wanted to. We didn't have computers and the Internet back then, so I was trying to find someone or a group or anything that I could compare notes with, and I couldn't find anybody. And in fact, when I would talk about it, people would think I'm absolutely crazy. And I come from a Christian home. And these things are not really talked about, certainly. Unless you're saying, well, you know, I definitely saw God and whatnot, and I did not see God. It's not. It's frowned upon. And my mother went through a long time of denial. I mean, let's face it, you know, her son died on her watch. So this. This devastated her, and I get that. So she went through years of denial saying it never happened. And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to let this rest, and I'm going to figure out, because I prefer atheism, where I don't have to figure things out, that's easier for me. So I figured this is what I did. I chalked it up in my head. The white light was the sun coming through the window. The hallucinations I had were because I was breathing in gas. And that explains. That's a rational explanation for what happened, and that's what I'm going to carry around with me.

There you go.

I can't figure this out.

You sound like you're not an atheist anymore, though. You keep talking past tense.

No, no, I was there.

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What happened when? After I came back, I was always able to read energy to a degree. Okay, I was, I was in isolation. So imagine meditating for hours and hours and hours. I would stay a frightened kid in a room, staring at a wall, waiting for everything to end. And then I could, you know, come out of the room or just fall asleep. So I'm meditating for hours and hours and I can start to see energy. After I cross over and I come back, these beings come with me. And it was only about two years later that I get my first apartment and I'm like, this is going to be great. You know, we're going to parties all the time and girls over and this is going to be phenomenal. None of that ever happened because I would go into my house and my apartment was filled with energy of the deceased. And I was like, my house is haunted. And again, I don't believe in this stuff, right? So I'm literally, they, they're turning the lights on and off. I turn the TV on, the TV goes off. I pick up the phone, there's nobody there. I remember talking to my friend one time on the phone and I said, you know, I think my house is haunted. And I said it in jest. We were Kidding. I was kidding. Anyway, not. I don't know if I was. The phone goes click. I called him back. I said, why'd you hang up on me? This is a landline. It's not. We didn't have cell phones yet. I call him back, I said, why'd you hang up on me? He goes, I didn't hang up on you. You hung up on me. Click. There it goes again.

Yeah, that didn't used to happen on landlines, right? That was super rare, right?

So, I mean, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Now I'm calling the maintenance guy, and they think I'm nuts because they're like, listen, kid, there is nothing wrong with this place, okay? Don't call us anymore. And I was like, okay. All right. So I move out in 10 months out of that place because I'm convinced it's the place. So I go into my new place, and guess what? Same thing. It's not the place, it's Ray. And I have to start coming to terms with this because they're not going to leave me alone. I could not sleep. I started using tremendous amounts of drugs and alcohol to sleep, tremendous amounts, because I needed to turn that off, and I couldn't turn it off. And it took many, many, many years. And eventually it was when I got married around 30, I had two children of my own, and there was no more of that. Ray, living life on the edge, didn't care if he died because now I had two kids that were dependent on me. So I drove myself, checked myself right into rehab, gave him the keys, said, don't let me out until I'm clean. I have not had a drink, and I'm going on my second decade. I went back to college. I got my degree. I got a real job in New York. I worked my way up the ladder. I did very well. I went back, came back to New Jersey, did the same thing in a New Jersey company, did very well again, keeping these beings almost like we had a deal. They were there. But I'm not going to talk to you because I don't believe in you. So don't waste your time trying to drive me nuts. However, I get divorced in probably two or three years. That marriage goes, you know, falls to pieces, and many, many years later, I decide to date. Takes me a long time before I decide to date. And I go on one of those Internet sites and I see the woman, and I said, wow, you know, that's her. That's. That's my wife. So I joined that particular site. And I send one email to that woman. And I said, hi, I'm Ray. You're going to be my wife. And of course she's going to think I'm nuts, but she thought it was funny. And she. She answered me back. Currently, we're married. We live in this house. We have four children. So we're dating. And what happens as we're dating is I start seeing one of these energy beings. I'm seeing as, like, a person. And he. He is almost front and center. And he says the same sentence to me over and over and over. He says, I effed up. I made a mistake. You can help her. I cannot. That is the message that he keeps giving me repeatedly. I don't know who the man is. I don't know why he's talking to me. That's the clearest I've ever seen an energy being turning himself into a. Almost a human form. I'm not seeing with my eyes. I'm not here with my ears. This is all in here. Third eye, sixth sense. He can. He will not stop giving me this message. It's like a video loop that replays over and over. It started on a Friday. It was every hour. Then it was every half hour. Then it was every 15 minutes. Now I'm at the point where I think I'm insane. I remember the moment I was in a store. I was in CVS and I was paying for my stuff. And I don't know what I did. Maybe I paused. Whatever I did, the lady says, sir, are you okay? And I said, absolutely not. And I walked out to my car and I sat there. I just started dating this woman, okay? And I'm like. I'm thinking, I got to get my affairs in order. I got to make sure my will is written. I got to make sure I don't have a dnr. I'm not. I'm going back to the light. That's it. I'm not coming back here. And I think I'm losing my mind. This woman happens to be a doctor of psychology and neuropsychology by trade. So I'm thinking I'm going to lose her anyway. Maybe she can get me the help that I need. But there's another part of me that wants to try to shove this into a box and make it not real somehow so I can keep dating her because I love her. By Sunday evening, I can't function. I can't drive. I can't do anything. This man is just constant. So I. I take it to her. And I said, listen, you know, there's something I got to tell you. I, I.

You're gonna think I'm crazy.

You're gonna think I'm crazy, and then.

I'll tell you more if you want, right?

And, and so, but, so the reaction I thought I was gonna get is she's gonna run for the hills. She's gonna give me a phone number. She's gonna say, call these people and never call me again. And I got a completely different reaction. She said, oh, that sounds like my dad. Is he coming through? He always comes through. I've seen other mediums. You're probably a medium. I said, what the hell is a medium? What are you talking about? And, and she goes on to explain. She's very rational, calm and rational about this whole thing. And I'm like, do you understand there's. There's a guy here? And, and, and she goes, yes, I understand. You're probably a psychic medium. You don't know it. And I was like, I don't know what that is, but it doesn't sound good. So I'm not crazy. You tell me I'm not crazy. Am I crazy?

And she's a scientific person, too.

She's a scientific person.

I guess you're both crazy. I'm kidding.

We have to be. We have to be. You can't make this stuff up. I said, but I saw the photo of your father. This guy does not look like your dad, okay? And she says, I tell her what he looks like. He's got a full beard, mustache, thick black hair, he's a husky guy. And she's like, the picture you saw was 20 years old. He was much lighter and he was clean shaven. He goes, let me show you. And she goes through her phone and she shows me a photo of the guy. And I said, you know him? She said, that's my dad, silly. That's great. You can talk to him now. I can talk to him.

Wow. So did that help you deal with all this? Did he quit nagging you with this message every 30 minutes?

Second I gave her the message, he was gone. That's what I was supposed to do.

Okay, I need to ask you another question kind of in relation to this, because you mentioned how some of this started with your phone clicking dead and stuff. I've had, I've had a few other people on this show that sometime after their NDEs, usually within the first couple of years, they have some interesting energy, things happen. Like one person was telling me recently, she went in to buy a New cell phone, and it was an Android, and no offense to androids, but she's picking it up and it literally, the thing completely dies. Like, the guy in the store can't make it work, so he gives her another one and she starts talking on it and it completely dies. Not just that call dropped, but the phone is dead and gone. And they do that three or four times before they finally give up and. And try a different kind of phone again. I don't think the brand is the problem. And I've had a couple of other people tell me things like that, like dispensing their own gas at the gas station and, you know, something about the energy, but they haven't felt this negative being presence. Like you explained.

He wasn't negative, he was just persistent.

Okay.

This message actually turned out to be a lifesaver for another person in the family. And we didn't know that at the time. We didn't know what the message was. We had to piece it together. It took a long time and we got more messages and we had to figure it out because it was. It came in drips and drabs. It's not like I can have a conversation. It's like little piece, little piece, little piece. And we eventually put it together and we were like, oh, my God. You know, we have to, like, we're trying to. We have to save somebody's life here. This is serious. And we did. And the whole story is in the book. Imagine the. The first message I ever get is one of life or death, to make all things, to just pile it on. So I went from crazy to saving somebody's life in like four weeks. And she says, let me take you to a medium so you guys can sit down, a real medium, and you can talk about what you're seeing, and she can tell you how she sees things, and, you know, maybe you can get a grip on it and whatever. And I said, yeah, that sounds great. Let's do that. So I do that and I meet with her, and I remember she makes two appointments. One my wife makes, one for herself and one for me. She goes, you want to go in first? Then I said, oh, yeah, I'm going in first because I'm petrified. And if I. If I go second, I'm not going. So I went in and I sat down and I said, hi, I'm Ray. And she goes, oh, you're that Ray. And I said, I beg your pardon. She goes, have a seat, Ray. Why are you here? I said, because I'm crazy. She Said, what do you mean you're crazy? I said, I see people. She goes, I do, too. And she's like, you know, she's making me laugh. And I'm like, no, no, you don't understand. And then I go on to explain how it happens, and every. She goes, stop talking. That's exactly the way it happens. That's exactly the way it happens. And then I told her two other types of premonitions that I had, and she goes, stop talking. That's the way it happens. She goes, this is very rare, especially for a man. Most men cannot do this. And I said, yeah, I know. I'm lucky if I can walk and chew gum at the same time. My wife can do 46 things I could do, too. And she's like, just relax. I said, okay, so I'm not crazy. You are not crazy. Now, is it better to be crazy, or is it better? Now what do I do do with this thing that I now have? And I don't mean the man. I mean the fact that I can talk to people. Because now the messages start flowing, and I keep giving them to my wife, and she keeps knowing who they're for. And I'm like, I'm still fighting this. I'm like, this is not real. I said, okay, okay. I said, I got a message. This is what it is. I told her what it was. She knows who it's for. I said, by the way, the last thing the man said to me before he left, he says, remember the silly shoes? And I said, if your friend knows what that means, I'll be a believer. Because that made no sense to me. The rest of the message was very serious. And then it goes into silly shoes. So she has dinner with the woman, and she comes back, and she can't wait to tell me. She goes, everything you said was on point. And she needed to hear those things because she needed closure on certain things that she didn't understand. And I was like, that's great, but what about the silly shoes? The Silly shoes was the first date they ever had. He wore the most ridiculous shoes she's ever seen in her life. And it was a running joke throughout their entire marriage. And I was like, oh, crap, I.

Have to believe now. I said I would. So now I have to.

I can't get out.

How does this. How does the mediumship. And I'm going to call these spiritual gifts a term that I prefer. How does this relate to the whole atheism discussion, exactly?

I'm. I went from atheism in my Teens to here I am a medium. I crossed over. So I told you somebody was keeping me out of trouble at. Out of the other near deaths that we don't call a near death brush with deaths. Right. Why was it. Because I was going to do this and I was going to bring this information to people. I don't know. I just don't know. I'm not special. I definitely am not. And up until that point, I didn't even deserve to have those things. I don't. I cannot answer to this day, but I know that what I have to do today, mediumship became too overpowering for me. So I don't do it professionally. I. I eventually go to school for this. And I had a great mentor between the first one and the second one. They saved my life because they taught me how to turn it on and turn it off because it's very intrusive and it affects me emotionally. And I just had my own spiritual breakthrough where I got rid of a lot of negative emotions and a lot of negative feelings. And I'm happy for the first time in my life now, the first 48 years of my life, we're not happy. I want to live the next half of my life without carrying, you know, feeling these emotions from the other side of people who are always feeling guilt and always feeling regret and always trying to fix whatever they, you know, did here or didn't do here. That's too much. I just found happiness. I need to enjoy my happiness. Maybe I'll go back someday, but as of today, I prefer to teach people how to have their own spiritual awakening. And that's what my entire second book is about.

Okay. And by the way, we'll put links to those books in the show notes here of the show. So anyone that wants to reach out and look at those can. Let's. Speaking of going back, let's go back to when you were 20.

Sure.

I took us down a sidetrack here. Let's get back on track. All right, so if I remember right, what was happening was you woke up downstairs, you've got paramedics over you, and. And you're talking crazy because you're talking about the light. And did other people see the light? Keep going. What happened after that?

And I know, and I'm more worried about the fact that I'm soaking wet from the waist down, right? Because I. When you die, the first thing you do is you pee yourself. And I'm. I'm humiliated by this. And. And these guys are, like, trying to express to me how Serious of a matter this is, and you need to go to the hospital.

Yeah. And they're used to seeing people like that, so that to them, that's no big deal.

Yeah. But they want, they just want me to go, you know, I gotta get ambulance and go.

So did you refuse to go?

Yeah, I told him I felt great, but I did go. I, I did go good. But I was, I was saying, you guys, I wish I could. I feel phenomenal. I don't know what just happened, but I feel great. I feel complete euphoria because the pain doesn't set in. It's a couple hours later. Then you, it's like a bomb goes off inside your body, and it's horrendous. But that was later at the hospital. And actually my mother, who finally did come to terms with this at the age of 83 or 82, which is, she's 83 now, so she was 82. When she finally admitted that this really happened to me, she said, not only did you have to be resuscitated one time, but there was probably three more in the ambulance as you were going to the hospital. And I was like, wow. I, I, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. So it was, you know, everybody's taking this very seriously except me, who's like, I just came back from the greatest thing I've ever done in my entire life.

Right.

I don't care if I go back. I'm good with that. You know, this is great. I want to feel more of this. I think that that changed my feelings with death so much and in such a way that I realize every day could be the last. And I'm okay with that. I'm really okay with that. And I never let any of my children walk out of the house without telling them I love them or my wife, because I never know when that last day is going to be. But I'm okay because I know where I'm going and I know it's going to be fine. And when other family members experience death, I know they're fine, too. So I'm not crying at the funeral. I'm like, we'll see you again. It's just goodbye for now.

That's amazing you can get that much from such a short glimpse.

Yeah.

You know, your glimpse into eternity was just this little, little, little thing. No offense, but it's pro. So profound that it can happen that quickly. That's awesome. And it's much more about the feeling than what you saw. Right. Is the euphoria as you describe it.

Yeah.

Cool. So were you out of the hospital the next day, physically, what happened next?

Yeah, that. That's it.

Okay. Like, no big deal.

Sent me on my way. And that then you feel like the worst feeling in the world because you're back in your body. No one's hugging me anymore. It's just, you know, it's back to the same old life that I didn't enjoy before. So, you know, I go on and like I say, I start to up the ante because Now I'm a 20 year old who doesn't fear death. And that's probably the worst thing a 20 year old can ever feel, Right?

Yeah. Because teenagers don't believe they can die.

Right?

So at 20, I don't care if I do. You just take that to the next level.

So, you know, who kept me around for another 10 years, you know, thanks. No, I can't. I don't know who it is, but I do know I can. I know that guide and. And, you know, he or she. There's no he or she at that level. That they're. They're just energy that you can't see any human form. And that's why I say it's blue. It's a blue voice. And they told me to write the book. They told me, you know, it was okay to walk away from my job, which was a huge leap for me, just to, you know, take a leap of faith and stop working at the top of my game, to write a book, you know, that I. I never thought anybody would even read. Now I'm so honored and grateful that it wins awards and I never. I'm not a writer. And I even say that in a book. I'm. I'm not a writer. So I apologize for any errors that may be in here, grammatical or otherwise. And sorry for all the four letter words because I'm from Jersey.

It's okay. We have a bleep thing that we use in this podcast from time to time.

I don't think I said any, did I?

I don't. No, you've done good.

Okay, good.

But people have heard of my son Will. He does the editing and he's good with that little bleeper. It's okay if they sneak out. All right, all right. Well, this is. This has been a lot of fun. Tell me, tell me what people can take away from this. What can they learn from this that can improve their life?

Well, there's so much. But to change your relationship with death is one of the greatest gifts that you can really have. Because we put so much emphasis on trying to get things done and own things and do things that are just silly, in my opinion. Now today, I don't care what I drive, I don't care, you know, if I eat at a fancy restaurant, who cares? You know, certain things are just meaningless at this point in my life. What's meaningful is my wife walking in the door and I hug her and, and my children coming home for dinner because I got two in college and I got two little ones. And you know, the. Those are the things that are meaningful. Now. It's not about materialism, it's not about anything other than love. And we're all one being. This is another thing I learned. We're all from one source. We are all one. So when you hurt somebody, you're hurting yourself. When you talk about somebody, you're talking about yourself. We're all one. Believe me, you're going to see the other side. We're all one. And you're going to regret anybody you hurt, anybody you harmed, anything you forgot to do. So do it now. Get out and do it. And don't be afraid. Just do it. I think I heard that slogan somewhere before.

Yeah, that could be famous. Yeah, right, Just copied that one. If somebody that's listening today has recently lost a loved one and that is difficult, I don't care how much you believe that's a difficult thing because you're going to miss that person. What words do you have for them that might ease some of that burden?

Well, there's a couple of things. First is do not worry about them. They're just fine. In fact, they're in a great place. The second thing is you can communicate with your loved ones. You don't need to be a medium to do this because you have that bond with that person that is required in order to have communication. So you may not have full on sight or hearing, maybe you will, maybe you won't. But you may have other types of synchronicities that happen all around you and you're not noticing them, but they are coming from the other side. I can tell you a story. I recently lost an aunt who was like a second mother to me and our cousins. We were all getting together and we were talking and her daughters were telling me a story about dimes. There was something, I don't really remember the story, but it was about. There were dimes in the story and it was relevant to her and also to her children. So when I started to think of her, I started finding dimes like the one I'm going to show you right now on this camera I found this morning. Now, I find dimes in the strangest places. I wake up, they're under my pillow or they're on the nightstand. We don't even use cash in this house. We use cards for everything. You couldn't find a dollar around here if you wanted to. And here are all the. I have a stack of dimes now, and if I'm having a tough day or I have to do something that's challenging, I'll find one of these. And I know that she's right there. So you have your own dime. I don't know what it is, but you do. You have it. Look for it and find it. And you can communicate. And don't worry that you can't because you can.

And hopefully those are hundred dollar bills for some people. On a scale of 1 to 10, what's your fear level of death?

None. None.

Very good. Ray Catania, thanks a lot for being with us today. Thank you.

Thank you so much. This was great. I'm so honored.

Thank you for listening. And remember to check out the what really Happens after we Die master class@roundtripdeath.com or the link in our show notes. Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next. Sa.