A neuroscientist who described herself as ‘a loser’ has revealed how an out-of-body experience while she was clinically dead changed her life forever.
Anna Stone was a 38-year-old with two children in 2016 when she died for six minutes during a sudden medical episode.
That’s when Stone said she left her body and actually watched as doctors gave up on her in the emergency room.
Before re-entering her body, the young mother said she also visited her daughters – including her oldest who was in school over 200 miles away from her hospital bed.
During this near-death experience, Stone added that she believes she discovered a higher version of herself in another realm and came to the realization that God and the afterlife were real.
After coming back to life, Stone said the experience propelled her to completely change who she was as a person – finishing school, getting a PhD, and even starting a podcast.
‘That’s what my life has been, all about serving, service to others, and service to myself and being a better mother,’ Stone said.
As for her out-of-body experience, the mother now believes that God is ‘definitely not a person, and time is definitely not linear. Everything is happening now.’
Dr. Anna Stone was 38 years old in 2016 when she died for six minutes during as medical emergency and had an out-of-body experience
Before this life-changing moment, Dr. Stone said she had ‘strange experiences’ as a child which scared her towards a scientific career, a ‘hardcore black-and-white’ view of life before her near-death experience (NDE).
She had never entertained the idea of a spiritual side to life, and Dr. Stone said she came from a very bad childhood background, where her therapist said, ‘I can’t believe you are still alive.’
At the time of her brief ‘death’ in 2016, she described herself as ‘pretty much a loser.’
She carried her trauma around like a ‘badge of honor’ and was drinking heavily and doing drugs.
‘I was married to somebody that I barely knew, and it was a nightmare, and I just wasn’t doing well,’ Stone said.
‘I couldn’t keep a career on track. It was all just falling apart and I was really bitter and angry and very selfish, self centered, all about me and my problems.’
Stone was diagnosed with multiple conditions including bipolar disorder, and given different medications – none of which helped her.
But one day she had her monthly menstrual cycle ‘and it just didn’t stop.’
‘I kind of made a joke and I said, ‘I think I’m bleeding to death,’ And that’s the last thing I remember saying before I woke up in an ambulance,’ Stone recalled.
‘The next thing I’m in a hospital bed. I had this feeling come over me that I can only describe, is that I knew I was dying.’
She added that the feeling during this episode was like taking every hallucinogenic drug all at once.
‘It felt like I was going to explode. It’s too much. I couldn’t handle it. Then suddenly I popped out of my body,’ Stone explained.
Stone described looking down to see her own body in the hospital bed and started to hear her heartbeat fade on the machine.
She watched as medical staff tried to revive her, before giving up on resuscitating her – allegedly due to her drug-related past.
Stone noted that, for a moment, she didn’t care as she left her body – until she thought about her children.
Dr. Anna Stone said she was able to visit both of her children while having a near-death experience in 2016
The instant she thought about her eldest child, Ashley, Stone said she was transported to her classroom, 210 miles away at Fresno City College.
The mother watched her daughter taking an exam and she added she could see what she was wearing that day.
Stone then realized that her death would have made Ashley an orphan, since her husband died of cancer in 2006.
She then thought about her second child, who was two years-old at the time, and was instantly transported back to the hospital waiting room where the little girl was playing with Lego blocks.
Stone said that she then returned to the hospital room as a technician was doing chest compressions.
That’s when she heard the the doctor say, ‘Let’s call it.’
The technician replied, ‘What, already? She is only 38,’ leading the doctor to say, ‘She’s a former junkie, just call it.’
‘I remember thinking, ‘Was that necessary?’ Stone said.
Before returning to her body, Stone said she travelled to a white realm, where it was incredibly bright, and that’s where her final realization took place.
She could see with 360-degree vision, and it dawned on her that she no longer had a body – becoming an immense form that filled space itself.
‘I could have wrapped my arms around the entire planet if I wanted to,’ Stone explained.
Stone then saw another person approaching – a different version of herself that was prettier and less wrinkled – and she knew instantaneously that she was ‘going back.’
The mother said she saw a tunnel and re-entered her body through her belly button, which she noted ‘hurt like absolute hell.’
This entire episode took place in the span of six minutes – and she remembered every detail of it.
In fact, after being revived, she asked the doctor, ‘Did you call me a junkie?’ The doctor confirmed that he did indeed make that comment.
Next, Stone spoke to her older daughter and found out that she had been taking an exam and was wearing the exact same clothes her mother saw in her NDE.
Stone remembered listening to a conversation with medical staff where they allegedly gave up on saving her due to her past substance abuse
The experience changed her life. Stone felt that she had been on a ‘trail to absolute destruction’ before the event, but she suddenly ‘found her purpose.’
She went back to school, finished her undergrad, Masters, then her PhD, and has since launched her own podcast.
‘I’ve been helping other people with trauma backgrounds, I can help other people. I had previously been an alcoholic, I would get home and drink 12 beers: now I can’t touch alcohol at all.’
Stone added that she no longer suffers from anxiety and doesn’t have to take medication anymore.
After her experience, she believes that what truly matters is being a good person and realizing that there is more to life than the black-and-white nature of her career in the sciences – including an afterlife.
