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Speaker 3: Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
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Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 3: I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years years, I've
Speaker 3: been on a journey to prove the existence of life
Speaker 3: after death. On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons we
Speaker 3: now know that our loved ones have survived physical death,
Speaker 3: and so will we. Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife.
Speaker 3: I love stories of near death experiences, and I have
Speaker 3: a sneaky suspicion.
Speaker 2: You do too.
Speaker 3: I want to read to you a few short stories
Speaker 3: that are real. This happened to a five year old
Speaker 3: blind girl, she says, I slowly breathed in the water
Speaker 3: and became unconscious. A beautiful lady dressed in bright white
Speaker 3: light pulled me out. The lady looked into my eyes
Speaker 3: and asked me what I wanted. I was unable to
Speaker 3: think of anything until it occurred to me to travel
Speaker 3: around the lake. As I did, I saw a detail
Speaker 3: that I would have never seen in my real life.
Speaker 3: I could go any where, even to the tops of
Speaker 3: the trees, simply by intending to go there. I was
Speaker 3: legally blind. For the first time. I was able to
Speaker 3: see leaves on trees, birds feathers, birds, eyes, details on
Speaker 3: the telephone poles, and what was in people's backyards. I
Speaker 3: was seeing for the very first time. Here's another story.
Speaker 3: During my surgery, I felt myself lift for my body
Speaker 3: and go above the operating table. The doctor told me
Speaker 3: later they had kept my heart open and stopped for
Speaker 3: a very long time, and they had a great amount
Speaker 3: of difficulty getting my heart started again. That must have
Speaker 3: been when I left my body, because I could see
Speaker 3: doctors nervously trying to get my heart going. It was
Speaker 3: so strange to be detached from my physical body. I
Speaker 3: was curious about what they were doing, but not really concerned. Then,
Speaker 3: as I drifted farther away, I saw my father at
Speaker 3: the head of the table. He looked up at me,
Speaker 3: which did give me a surprise because he had been
Speaker 3: dead for almost a year. Another story, I approached the boundary.
Speaker 3: No explanation was necessary for me to understand at the
Speaker 3: age of ten, that once I crossed the boundary, I
Speaker 3: could never come back. I was more than thrilled to cross.
Speaker 3: I intended to cross, but my ancestors over another boundary
Speaker 3: caught my attention. They were talking to me in telepathy,
Speaker 3: which really caught my attention. I was born profoundly deaf
Speaker 3: and now had all hearing that my family members did,
Speaker 3: all of which new sign language when I was alive.
Speaker 3: Now I could read or communicate with about twenty ancestors
Speaker 3: of mine and others through telepathic methods. It overwhelmed me.
Speaker 3: I could not believe how many people I could tell simultaneously.
Speaker 3: One more, I almost died. Back in June of twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: I was hit by a car while riding my motorcycle.
Speaker 3: I blacked out, was hospitalized for a month and a half,
Speaker 3: and my leg even got amputated. I don't know if
Speaker 3: the accident itself did this to me, or the pain
Speaker 3: and trauma did, or the place that I went to
Speaker 3: when I blacked out. But I swear I've gotten so
Speaker 3: much smarter and more in tune with everything. I am
Speaker 3: hyper detail oriented, I have crazy motivational drive, and I
Speaker 3: also feel like I can just understand things others can't.
Speaker 3: I see the world so differently now. I can sense
Speaker 3: people's energies and it helps me understand what people are
Speaker 3: going through. There definitely is a change to me after
Speaker 3: my near death experience. We love hearing about near death
Speaker 3: experiences and can be inspired by these stories and reunions,
Speaker 3: and they help us know that we go on after death.
Speaker 3: There is a term called after effects of a near
Speaker 3: death experience that people have, and often we can share
Speaker 3: these effects by hearing stories. After effects include such things
Speaker 3: like a reduced fear of death, increased belief in life
Speaker 3: after death, interest in the meaning of life, acceptance of others,
Speaker 3: and becoming more loving and empathic. The majority of people
Speaker 3: make their lives about helping others through life. Some after
Speaker 3: effects happen immediately, others may take years to fully manifest.
Speaker 3: Doctor Pim van Lommel did a large study and divided
Speaker 3: survivors of cardiac arrest into a group that had near
Speaker 3: death experiences and a group that did not. The after
Speaker 3: effects of both groups were assessed two in eight years
Speaker 3: after their cardiac arrests. The group of survivors with near
Speaker 3: death experiences were statistically much more likely to have a
Speaker 3: reduced fear of death, increased belief in the afterlife, interest
Speaker 3: in the meaning of life, acceptance of others, and were
Speaker 3: much more loving, where there didn't seem to be much
Speaker 3: change in the values of those who didn't. It is
Speaker 3: remarkable that near death experiences often occurred during only minutes
Speaker 3: or seconds of unconsciousness, yet commonly result in lifelong transformations
Speaker 3: of beliefs and values. Ninety nine percent of near death
Speaker 3: experiences said that their experience was real. But can a
Speaker 3: near death experience unlock any extraordinary abilities in a person? Today,
Speaker 3: on our show, I am so happy to share a
Speaker 3: special story of a physician who was struck by lightning
Speaker 3: only to receive a passion for music. I can't wait
Speaker 3: for you to hear it. Also, two of my personal
Speaker 3: favorite stories are of doctor Rajiev Parti and Anita Morjani.
Speaker 3: Anita Morjani, author of the book dying to be me,
Speaker 3: which I highly recommend. Had cancer that had spread throughout
Speaker 3: her body and doctor said it was too late to
Speaker 3: save her. All of Anita's organs had shut down and
Speaker 3: she entered into a coma. She witnessed so much in
Speaker 3: her near death experience, including being encouraged to return to
Speaker 3: life by her deceased father and her best friend who
Speaker 3: told her that she needed to return and live her
Speaker 3: life fearlessly. When she came out of this coma, her
Speaker 3: tumors shrank by about seventy percent within four days, and
Speaker 3: within five weeks she was cancer free and was released
Speaker 3: from the hospital. Now, she did have to spend a
Speaker 3: few months in physiotherapy to regain her strength and to
Speaker 3: use oliver muscles and limbs again. But today, in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four, Anita Morjani remains cancer free and makes her
Speaker 3: life about helping other people and sharing the reality of
Speaker 3: the afterlife. Doctor Rajiv Partis was chief of anesthesiology at
Speaker 3: Hart Hospital in Bakersfield, California. He loved his wealth and
Speaker 3: the prestige that his job gave him. He lived in
Speaker 3: a mansion, had several luxury cars, and was able to
Speaker 3: purchase anything he wanted. In August of two thousand and eight,
Speaker 3: everything changed in his life when he was diagnosed with
Speaker 3: prostate cancer due to an infection. He was admitted into
Speaker 3: the hospital where he had his near death experience. Although
Speaker 3: deep from anesthesia, he was aware that his consciousness had
Speaker 3: somehow left his body. From a vantage point near the ceiling,
Speaker 3: he could see the surgeon cut him open and all
Speaker 3: of the operating room personnel cover their faces from the
Speaker 3: odor that his infected abdomen seeped throughout the room. He
Speaker 3: said his senses became so acute that he could hear,
Speaker 3: see and smell things inside and outside of the operating room.
Speaker 3: He even heard the anesthesiologist tell a dirty joke that
Speaker 3: made the doctor blush when he later repeated what he
Speaker 3: heard in the operating room. His spirit left the operating room, and,
Speaker 3: although still in the United States, he drifted into India,
Speaker 3: where he could hear his mother and sister talking about
Speaker 3: what they were preparing for dinner that night. Fear ended
Speaker 3: up finding its way into his experience. He had the
Speaker 3: feeling of being pulled into darkness filled with screams and
Speaker 3: sounds of fighting. Eventually, he saw a white light in
Speaker 3: the distance and instinctively began praying. The white light turned
Speaker 3: to a light of love, and he was shown his
Speaker 3: life that he was not practicing forgiveness or compassion to
Speaker 3: himself or others. He soon felt very sorry for the
Speaker 3: lack of kindness and his behavior, wishing he could have
Speaker 3: done certain things differently in his life. His book Dying
Speaker 3: to Wake Up tells the story of him being an anesthesiologist,
Speaker 3: making people fall asleep before surgery and now after the
Speaker 3: near death experience, waking them up as to who they
Speaker 3: are and what their life is for. There's much more
Speaker 3: to his story, of course, but he shares what he
Speaker 3: calls the near death Manifesto. One Consciousness can exist outside
Speaker 3: the body. Two there is life after death. Three Our
Speaker 3: experiences in life shape our current reality. Four We are
Speaker 3: all connected to each other because we are all made
Speaker 3: of the one and same energy that manifests as differentiated matter.
Speaker 3: Five Divine beings exist and help and guide us. Six
Speaker 3: there are different levels of consciousness, and seven there is
Speaker 3: one all pervading, supreme love and intelligence that is the
Speaker 3: source of the entire universe, and that love is the
Speaker 3: supreme source of creation. In their latest book, Proof of
Speaker 3: Life After Life, seven reasons to believe there is an
Speaker 3: after life. Doctor Raymond Moody and Paul Perry share this.
Speaker 3: There are many stories of near death experiences leading to
Speaker 3: the life changing acquisition of new talents, the changing of professions,
Speaker 3: or the overcoming of something like crippling anxiety. Why these
Speaker 3: spontaneous improvements take place is not known. Some have speculated
Speaker 3: that the brain changes due to neural plasticity, the reorganization
Speaker 3: of the brain's neuronal connections that sometimes takes place after
Speaker 3: a stroke or the brain trauma of an accident. Neural
Speaker 3: plasticity proves to us that the brain is capable of
Speaker 3: reorganizing or rerouting its neurons to compensate for traumatic damage.
Speaker 3: Yet for neural reorganization to be the cause of these
Speaker 3: spontaneous improvements is most likely impossible. After all, successfully rewiring
Speaker 3: the brain after neurological damage can take substantial rehab, and
Speaker 3: then effects of original damage most often still remain. There
Speaker 3: is clearly, to me and a growing number of researchers
Speaker 3: something more happening here. It's time for our break, and
Speaker 3: when we come back, we are going to hear the
Speaker 3: incredible story of Tony Sechoria and his after effects of
Speaker 3: being struck by lightning. We'll be right back. You're listening
Speaker 3: to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast
Speaker 3: to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 2: Keep it here on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
Speaker 2: AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Sander Champlain will be right back.
Speaker 3: We are happy to announce that our Coast to Coast
Speaker 3: AM official YouTube channel has now reached over three hundred
Speaker 3: thousand subscribers. You can listen to the first hour of
Speaker 3: recent and past shows for free, so head on over
Speaker 3: to the Coast to COASTAM dot com website and hit
Speaker 3: the YouTube icon at the top of the page. This
Speaker 3: is free show audio, so don't wait. Coast to COASTAM
Speaker 3: dot com is where you want to be. Hi, it's
Speaker 3: doctor Sky.
Speaker 5: Keep it right here on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Speaker 5: Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain
Speaker 3: and I'm really excited I get to share this next
Speaker 3: story with you. Doctor Tony Sechoria is a well known
Speaker 3: orthopedic surgeon, very busy man no particular interest in the afterlife.
Speaker 3: When he was struck by lightn in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 3: The bolt was enough to kill him, but it didn't.
Speaker 3: What it did do is leave him with a sudden
Speaker 3: craving for classical music, in particular the piano. Doctor Tony
Speaker 3: is regular, down to earth, and I know he'll enjoy
Speaker 3: his story just as much as I do.
Speaker 2: My wife normally would have a big party every August.
Speaker 2: In this particular August in nineteen ninety four was going
Speaker 2: to be at a place called Sleepy Hollow Lake in
Speaker 2: upstate New York, about twenty five people, lots of kids
Speaker 2: running around, and my wife had rented a pavilion, and
Speaker 2: I was elected the cook. And that's the way the
Speaker 2: days started. As I was out working the barbecue, I
Speaker 2: thought I hadn't checked on my mom because she was
Speaker 2: not there. I thought I'd better go call her. So
Speaker 2: I got somebody to cover the barbecue, and I walked
Speaker 2: around in front of the building and there was a
Speaker 2: pay phone attached to it, and I picked up the
Speaker 2: phone and I dial a number and let it ring
Speaker 2: four or five six times, and she never picked up.
Speaker 2: So I thought, oh, I'll try again later. And as
Speaker 2: I took the phone away from my face, I heard
Speaker 2: a huge crack, and I saw this big flash of
Speaker 2: light come out of the phone and hit me in
Speaker 2: the face, and knew exactly what it was, a lightning strike.
Speaker 2: What I hadn't realized because I was paying attention to
Speaker 2: the grill, was that a storm cloud had brewed up
Speaker 2: over the lake that we were next to, and I
Speaker 2: hadn't been paying attention. I see the big flash of
Speaker 2: lake come out of the phone, hits me in the
Speaker 2: face and throws me back like a rag doll. It
Speaker 2: really threw me backwards. And that's when things really got interesting,
Speaker 2: because as I was being thrown backwards, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: I had this very strange sensation of moving forwards. I
Speaker 2: remember standing there thinking, how is this possible. I know
Speaker 2: I got hit. I saw it and knew I'd been
Speaker 2: thrown back like a rag doll. And here I am standing,
Speaker 2: and I'm looking around and look at the phone, and
Speaker 2: the phone is just dangling. Nothing's making any sense. At
Speaker 2: that point, I hear my mother in law screaming, and
Speaker 2: I'm down at the bottom of the stairs and everybody
Speaker 2: else is up on the first floor. All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: she's running down the stairs right at me, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: it's not good when your mother in law's screaming and
Speaker 2: running at you. Is she got down in front of me.
Speaker 2: I could tell that she couldn't see me because she
Speaker 2: was looking off to her left. As she got to
Speaker 2: the bottom of the stairs, he was like, I wasn't
Speaker 2: even there, and she just took off to the left,
Speaker 2: and I thought, what the hell is going on? And
Speaker 2: so I started to follow her. And I took a
Speaker 2: few steps following her, and all of a sudden, I'm
Speaker 2: confronted with myself on the ground. I remember looking down
Speaker 2: and going, oh shit, I'm dead. It was a shock,
Speaker 2: I guess all of my life, I thought that when
Speaker 2: you died there would be some sort of notification, who
Speaker 2: knows what it was, but I didn't expect to have
Speaker 2: it not even be known. I thought there'd be some
Speaker 2: of bells or whistles that would go off, but there
Speaker 2: was absolutely nothing. So I'm standing there and I'm looking
Speaker 2: at myself on the ground as this is happening. My
Speaker 2: mind is racing like crazy, and I'm trying to make
Speaker 2: sense to this, and all of a sudden, I'm saying
Speaker 2: to myself, wait a minute, I'm thinking, just like a
Speaker 2: normally would. I'm obviously not in that body that's on
Speaker 2: the ground. I'm standing out here. I can hear everybody.
Speaker 2: I can see everybody, but nobody can see or hear me,
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to get their attention and nothing seemed
Speaker 2: to work. And then I saw this lady who actually
Speaker 2: was waiting to use the phone behind me. She started
Speaker 2: to get down and do CPR. Turns out she was
Speaker 2: a nurse from one of the local hospitals. And help
Speaker 2: fortuitous is that get struck by lightning to have somebody
Speaker 2: waiting to save it from going to the other side.
Speaker 2: So she got down and she starts doing what she's
Speaker 2: supposed to do. And at this point, I'm thinking, nobody
Speaker 2: can see me, nobody can hear me. I'm feeling stupid,
Speaker 2: and I thought I'm going to go check on my
Speaker 2: family because they were upstairs. My wife and my three
Speaker 2: kids are up there, and I thought, I'm going to
Speaker 2: go up the stairs and see what's going on. So
Speaker 2: I walk over to the stairs and I start to
Speaker 2: go up, and I get to about the third stair
Speaker 2: and I'm looking down at the stairs because I was
Speaker 2: afraid I'm gonna fall face forward on the stairs. So
Speaker 2: I always watch what I'm doing. As I'm looking down,
Speaker 2: I noticed that my legs are starting to dissolve, and
Speaker 2: I thought, Wow, this is getting really intense, and I
Speaker 2: just kept going up the stairs. By the time I
Speaker 2: got to the top of the stairs, I had lost
Speaker 2: all form. I was just a ball of energy. The
Speaker 2: stairs go off to the left, and I said, what
Speaker 2: the hell, I'm not going to go upstairs. I just
Speaker 2: went through the wall, and when I got to the
Speaker 2: other side of the wall, I came out right over
Speaker 2: the top of where my wife was sitting, and she's
Speaker 2: painting children's faces, and I made a mental note of
Speaker 2: where the kids were, who was standing where, who the
Speaker 2: kids were in, what pattern they were standing in. I
Speaker 2: don't know why I did that, but I did. Later on,
Speaker 2: I verified that was exactly the way they were standing.
Speaker 2: When I got to the other side of the room
Speaker 2: that was going on a diagonal, I went through the
Speaker 2: roof and suddenly I'm outside. And that's when things really
Speaker 2: got crazy interesting, because it was like I had fallen
Speaker 2: into a river of pure positive energy. It wasn't anything
Speaker 2: in this river of energy except absolute love and absolute peace.
Speaker 2: It was his bluish white light and It had a
Speaker 2: sparkly appearance to it, and it made me think of
Speaker 2: when I was a kid and I'd be swimming in
Speaker 2: a crystal clear stream and I'd see the sun shining
Speaker 2: through the water as I was underneath the water. It
Speaker 2: reminded me of that. As I was looking at this
Speaker 2: light energy, I could tell what it felt like. And
Speaker 2: as I looked around, I started to see that whatever
Speaker 2: this energy was, it actually made up everything. I could
Speaker 2: look at the trees and see the energy flowing into
Speaker 2: the trees, and everything was made up of whatever this
Speaker 2: energy was. And I thought to myself, I'm thinking, this
Speaker 2: is the God. Energy is what everything is made of.
Speaker 2: It's so powerful I could measure this, So my science
Speaker 2: brain's kicking in and going, we could look at this.
Speaker 2: But the more I looked at it, I could actually
Speaker 2: see the energy pad and it had a sine wave pattern,
Speaker 2: and I could see it flowing and it went through everything.
Speaker 2: And at this point I could tell that I was
Speaker 2: moving someplace. I had no idea where I was going.
Speaker 2: I could feel speed in direction, so I was accelerating
Speaker 2: into something, but I had no idea what. At this point,
Speaker 2: I've become absolutely euphoric over the fact that this is
Speaker 2: the greatest thing that could ever happen to somebody. I
Speaker 2: had a short period where I saw high points and
Speaker 2: low points in my life, almost like a collage of
Speaker 2: pictures just showed me pictures in this and this and that,
Speaker 2: and there wasn't a lot of emotion around it. It
Speaker 2: was just these are things that happened in your life
Speaker 2: that were of some significance, and there was no explanation
Speaker 2: other than the fact that they just passed on. So
Speaker 2: I settled down and I'm floating in this river of
Speaker 2: pure positive energy, and I'm thinking, again, this is the
Speaker 2: greatest thing that could ever happen to somebody, And I
Speaker 2: was just excited about where it was going. And then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, it was like somebody flipped a switch.
Speaker 2: I was back in my body and I was pissed.
Speaker 2: I was like, no, don't make me go back. You
Speaker 2: can't do this to me. I quickly realized that it's
Speaker 2: not up to me. I'm laying there on the ground
Speaker 2: and in a place where it hit me in the
Speaker 2: face and came out my foot. It felt like somebody
Speaker 2: had taken hot pokers and stuck them in both of
Speaker 2: those places. But I'm still unconscious, and the lady who
Speaker 2: was next to me had stopped CPR. She just kneeling
Speaker 2: next to me. But I still can't open my eyes
Speaker 2: look at anybody. So it took several minutes before I
Speaker 2: had enough mental function to be able to open my
Speaker 2: eyes and say anything. And at that point I just
Speaker 2: embarrassed myself because the first thing I said to this
Speaker 2: lady who's kneeling next to me and saved my life,
Speaker 2: I said, it's it's okay, I'm a doctor, and she
Speaker 2: just kind of laughed and she said, hell, you weren't
Speaker 2: a minute ago. And I thought, okay, I'm just making
Speaker 2: a fool of myself, so I'm going to shut up,
Speaker 2: which I did, and of course the police and the
Speaker 2: ambulance came, and I said, no, I'm not going. When
Speaker 2: you get struck by lightning, either alive or dead, there's
Speaker 2: not much in between. At that point, I talked to
Speaker 2: my family and I said, take me home, let me
Speaker 2: see my cardiologists, to my neurologists, and let's let me
Speaker 2: just get out of this. So they took me home
Speaker 2: and I saw my doctors and everybody said the same thing.
Speaker 2: Are you lucky to be here, I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: but I was tormented by what did it mean? When
Speaker 2: I started to think about it, And everything in life
Speaker 2: is a series of probabilities. I started thinking about, what's
Speaker 2: the probability of those bultiple lightning several million volts worth
Speaker 2: striking a building losing enough of its current by the
Speaker 2: time it gets to you that it doesn't turn you
Speaker 2: into a French fry, It just stops your heart. And
Speaker 2: what's the probability of having a nurse standing behind you
Speaker 2: so that just in case you got a little too much,
Speaker 2: somebody was going to be there to jump start your
Speaker 2: heart again. When I started looking at all this stuff,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, there's nothing random about this. As Einstein used
Speaker 2: to say, God does not throw dice, and that's true.
Speaker 2: I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.
Speaker 2: But I was given no reasons. I had no idea,
Speaker 2: and I was haunted by the fact that this thing
Speaker 2: happened and I had no idea why and what it
Speaker 2: meant or what I was supposed to take from it.
Speaker 2: And then shortly after that, it was about two weeks
Speaker 2: after the event, After the lightning, it took me about
Speaker 2: a week to get the circuits running again properly. That
Speaker 2: first week, I could look right at you and say,
Speaker 2: I know who you are. I'll be damn if I
Speaker 2: can find your name. It's locked in a box some
Speaker 2: place up there and I can't get to it. And
Speaker 2: there were a lot of things like that. I knew
Speaker 2: that I knew something, but I couldn't get to where
Speaker 2: that finle was. After a week that disappeared, it seemed
Speaker 2: like everything was back to normal. But about another week
Speaker 2: or two after that, I started having this really incredible
Speaker 2: desire to hear classical piano music.
Speaker 3: This is a good time to take our break because
Speaker 3: he has a lot more to say about what happens.
Speaker 3: This is the after effect of a near death experience
Speaker 3: of orthopedic surgeon Tony Sekoria. So we'll be right back.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 3: and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 3: There's more Shades of the Afterlife coming right up.
Speaker 2: The best afterlife information you can get. Well, You're all
Speaker 2: Shades of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain. Hi. This is
Speaker 2: your followgist. Kevin Randall and you're listening to the iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champagne
Speaker 3: and you're listening to the near death experience of doctor
Speaker 3: Tony Sechoria. We last left him recovering from being struck
Speaker 3: by a bolt of lightning. Let's see where the story continues.
Speaker 2: Another week or two after that, I started having this
Speaker 2: really incredible desire to hear classical piano music, which was
Speaker 2: a really strange thing for me because I was a
Speaker 2: kid of the sixties. There was rock and roll and
Speaker 2: there wasn't much of anything else. But all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: I can't do anything without thinking about this absolute desire
Speaker 2: to hear this. It was so strong that I drove
Speaker 2: an hour to Albany, which was the nearest big city
Speaker 2: that would have classical piano music on CDs. I went
Speaker 2: into this music store and as I walked in it, it
Speaker 2: seemed like there was a CD that you jumped off
Speaker 2: the shelf into my hands, and it was Vladimir Ashkenazi
Speaker 2: playing his favorite chowpin. At this point, I didn't know
Speaker 2: what to do with all of it. I was so
Speaker 2: taken by this music, and I started listening to the
Speaker 2: CD and I listened to it NonStop and made everybody
Speaker 2: else listen to it. I'm sure they were sick of
Speaker 2: hearing it. I just couldn't stop. It was just a
Speaker 2: compulsion that had made no sense to me. But within
Speaker 2: a very short period of time of listening to this music,
Speaker 2: I realized that it's not going to be enough to
Speaker 2: listen to this music. I need to know how to
Speaker 2: play it, which was a big problem since I didn't
Speaker 2: have a piano and I didn't know how to play.
Speaker 2: The very next day, one of where babysitters came to
Speaker 2: the house and said, I'm going to be moving and
Speaker 2: I have this old, upright piano. I need the store
Speaker 2: for a year. Could I store it at your house?
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, okay, this is really getting weird now.
Speaker 2: So all of a sudden, I have a piano. She
Speaker 2: loads the piano in the house, and I'm thinking, now
Speaker 2: I need to learn how to play. So I went
Speaker 2: and bought a couple of books and how to try
Speaker 2: to teach yourself to play, And at the same time,
Speaker 2: I ordered all the sheet music from the CD, which
Speaker 2: is magical. Thinking I don't know what the hell I
Speaker 2: was thinking. Their people have been playing this stuff for
Speaker 2: ten years and still wouldn't attempt to do that, but
Speaker 2: didn't seem to matter. I was determined to learn how
Speaker 2: to do this, and so I started to try to
Speaker 2: teach myself. And within a few more weeks of that,
Speaker 2: I go into bed as normal, But all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: I have this dream. And in this dream it was
Speaker 2: like an out of body experience. I'm walking out onto
Speaker 2: the stage and I'm walking toward myself. I'm way out
Speaker 2: on the front edge of the stage. I'm giving a
Speaker 2: concert at this concert hall. I'm listening to this music
Speaker 2: that I'm playing, and as I'm walking up behind myself,
Speaker 2: the thought comes to me that this is not somebody
Speaker 2: else's music, this is mine, and I thought, okay, so
Speaker 2: I start listening intently to it. I walked up behind
Speaker 2: myself and I'm listening to what I'm playing, and I'm
Speaker 2: watching everything, and I'm looking at the concert hall and
Speaker 2: the ending had this loud, crashing ending. It woke me up,
Speaker 2: so I got up and I sat on the edge
Speaker 2: of the bed and I looked around and it was
Speaker 2: three point fifteen in the morning. I walked out to
Speaker 2: the piano, and I thought, let me see if I
Speaker 2: can plunk some of this app out that I just heard.
Speaker 2: I had no idea I had to write music. I
Speaker 2: didn't have to read music. I sat there and I
Speaker 2: could plunk out a few notes of what I heard,
Speaker 2: but I didn't even know how to write down what
Speaker 2: they were. So I said the hell with this. I
Speaker 2: went to bed. I woke up always it by thirty
Speaker 2: six o'clock because that was my time to get up
Speaker 2: and get ready for work. From that moment on, whenever
Speaker 2: I went near that piano, the music from the dream
Speaker 2: would start to play in my head. So whenever I
Speaker 2: sat down at the piano, it was like a tape recording.
Speaker 2: It would just start. If I didn't pay attention to it,
Speaker 2: it would become intrusive. It would actually start playing when
Speaker 2: I was trying to work or when I was trying
Speaker 2: to do something else. So I learned very quickly that
Speaker 2: it was kind of like a two year old. He
Speaker 2: really had to pay attention to it or there was
Speaker 2: going to be some repercussions from it. So this process
Speaker 2: went on, and I continued trying to teach myself, and
Speaker 2: one day I'm banging away at the piano and my
Speaker 2: daughter's best friend, Jackie, was over at the house and
Speaker 2: her mom was coming by to pick her up, and
Speaker 2: she came in the house. She heard me on the piano,
Speaker 2: and she came in and said, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: And I said, I'm trying to learn this piece of music.
Speaker 2: It was called a fantasy. I PROMPTU a piece of
Speaker 2: chowpin and I said, I don't understand why the hands
Speaker 2: don't line up in this piece of music. Why would
Speaker 2: somebody write a piece of music where the hands don't
Speaker 2: line up? And she said, they're not supposed to. It's
Speaker 2: called a poly rhythm. I had never heard of that
Speaker 2: word before. Why would anyone do that? She said, I'm
Speaker 2: not even going to try to explain this to you.
Speaker 2: You need to get a teacher. So at that point
Speaker 2: she gave me the name of Sandy McCain, who was
Speaker 2: the chairman of music at Haartwick College. In oneon to
Speaker 2: New York, where we lived. I called up Sandy and
Speaker 2: told her this whole story and asked her if she'd
Speaker 2: take on an old guy to try to teach him
Speaker 2: some piano. She did, and we started working two hours
Speaker 2: a week. The only time we had in common was
Speaker 2: five o'clock, so five o'clock was our piano time, five
Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning. And I'm sure that her family
Speaker 2: was not real happy with me, but that was the
Speaker 2: best we could do to meet the two schedules. So
Speaker 2: this went on for quite some time. As I'm learning
Speaker 2: to play, I'm also working on the music from this dream.
Speaker 2: As I learned how to do things, i would write
Speaker 2: down a measure or two and I'd stuff it in
Speaker 2: a drawer someplace, thinking someday I'll get back to all
Speaker 2: of this. I kept working on learning how to play,
Speaker 2: and I started going to a music camp, piano camp
Speaker 2: for adults in Bennington, Vermont, which was called a Sonata,
Speaker 2: and it's a group of people. They would meet four
Speaker 2: or five six times a year, different people at different times,
Speaker 2: and it's all people that are absolutely obsessed with piano
Speaker 2: and this is their week of indulging themselves. So I
Speaker 2: started going to that in two thousand and two. In
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, when I went, the owner's sister,
Speaker 2: Erica vanderlin Feider, was the number one salesperson for Steinway
Speaker 2: in New York City and she had just left Steinway
Speaker 2: and went to Bosendorf for her, and she was there
Speaker 2: at the piano camp and she brought five pianos in
Speaker 2: for people to play on, which was an absolute treat.
Speaker 2: We got talking about all of this stuff and the
Speaker 2: music and the music from the dream and the things
Speaker 2: that I was working on. Afterwards, she said to me,
Speaker 2: there's only one person that can tell his story, and
Speaker 2: that's Oliver Sacks. At the time, I didn't know who
Speaker 2: Oliver Sacks was other than the fact that he wrote
Speaker 2: the book Awakenings when he figured out how to treat
Speaker 2: Parkinson's disease. He is a famous neurologist, and I didn't
Speaker 2: think anything more of it. I went about my normal business.
Speaker 2: In June, I get a phone call from Oliver Sacks.
Speaker 2: I'm like, this can't be real. Oliver says, I've heard
Speaker 2: about this lightning story and I'd like to have you
Speaker 2: come down in New York City to interview you. Like
Speaker 2: you to be one of my patients. I have a
Speaker 2: collection of people like you who have had unusual things happen.
Speaker 2: And I said, sure, that would be great. So in
Speaker 2: August of that year, two thousand and six, I went
Speaker 2: down to see Oliver Sacks, and I got to spend
Speaker 2: the whole day with him, which is an absolute treasure.
Speaker 2: This was a man who could think circles around anybody
Speaker 2: I knew, including myself. We spent the entire day together,
Speaker 2: which I will never forget. And at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, we're standing in the doorway and saying goodbye,
Speaker 2: and he looked at me, and he had this piercing
Speaker 2: way of looking at people. He looked at me and
Speaker 2: he says, the music from the dream went from an
Speaker 2: awful lot of trouble to get here. The least you
Speaker 2: can do is write it. I was so taken with
Speaker 2: what he said. I went right home, and it was
Speaker 2: about three hours to get back home, so I had
Speaker 2: plenty of time to think about it. But when I
Speaker 2: got home the next day, I went right out and
Speaker 2: bought a music writing program called Sibelius, which is the
Speaker 2: equivalent of music writing for dummies. If you have an
Speaker 2: electric piano, you can hook this thing up so that
Speaker 2: you can play something and the music actually appears on
Speaker 2: the screen. So that was the way I started, because
Speaker 2: by that point I had gotten to where I could
Speaker 2: play some parts of the music from the dream, but
Speaker 2: I had no idea how to write it. I spent
Speaker 2: the next seven months, every minute that I wasn't working,
Speaker 2: writing down this music. My goal was to get it
Speaker 2: written for my next May piano camp. That was my goal.
Speaker 2: So when piano camp came around in May, I had
Speaker 2: finished the music and played it for my piano friends.
Speaker 2: At this piano camp. Everybody liked it, and I thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is pretty cool. While I was there, I got
Speaker 2: a call from Oliver and he says, I wanted to
Speaker 2: ask your permission to use your story in my book,
Speaker 2: so I don't have anything to hide. Sure, go ahead,
Speaker 2: he said, good, because you're chapter one and it's coming
Speaker 2: out July twenty third. Sure enough, my story was published
Speaker 2: in the New Yorker magazine. At that point, all hell
Speaker 2: broke loose because I hadn't been telling a lot of
Speaker 2: people about this story, and because I didn't want people
Speaker 2: to think I was crazy. Suddenly it's got taken out
Speaker 2: of the closet and thrown out for everybody to look at.
Speaker 2: About the week after it came out, I got a
Speaker 2: call from a guy named Carlton Clay. Carlton was the
Speaker 2: head of the music department at State University of New
Speaker 2: York in Oneonta. He said, would you consider playing the
Speaker 2: music for the class? And I thought, I'll do that.
Speaker 2: It seemed like it was another month or so after that.
Speaker 2: Carlton calls again and he says, you won't believe it.
Speaker 2: I'm just getting hammered with people calling here and everybody
Speaker 2: wants more and more. He said, would you consider doing
Speaker 2: a concert at the Performing Arts Center? And I said no,
Speaker 2: I don't have the faintest idea how to do something
Speaker 2: like that. I said, I'm not musically trained. I'm not prepared.
Speaker 2: I have no idea where to start. And somehow he
Speaker 2: conned me into doing it. I said, okay, I'll do it.
Speaker 2: So the next phone call I make is I call Sandy,
Speaker 2: my music teacher, and I said, can you get me
Speaker 2: ready for it? And she said it's going to be
Speaker 2: a lot of work. She said, you got to be
Speaker 2: prepared to put four hours a day into getting ready
Speaker 2: for this. And I'm like, okay, we start on this process.
Speaker 2: We would go up and to the Performing Arts Center
Speaker 2: and she would make me walk out on stage and
Speaker 2: make me walk off. She would make me talk to
Speaker 2: the crowd and then make me play the music. And
Speaker 2: I can still hear. She'd be up in our top
Speaker 2: row of the seats and I'd be playing away and
Speaker 2: she'd go.
Speaker 3: I can't hear you.
Speaker 2: This is going to be no fun. But we worked along.
Speaker 2: And then a few weeks before the concert, Carlton calls
Speaker 2: me again and he says things are changing again, and
Speaker 2: I said, what are you doing? He says, a BBC
Speaker 2: one wants to come, and so does German Television and
Speaker 2: so does Granata Media.
Speaker 3: I love this guy. We need to take a break
Speaker 3: and then we'll be back. Plus I have a surprise
Speaker 3: at the end. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife
Speaker 3: on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM heir Normal
Speaker 3: Podcast Network.
Speaker 2: Stay there, Sandra will be right back.
Speaker 5: Hey, it's the Wizard of Weird Joshua P. Warren. Don't
Speaker 5: forget to check out my show Strange Things each week
Speaker 5: as I bring you the world of the truly, amazing
Speaker 5: and bizarre right here on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Speaker 5: Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 2: This is Afterlife Expert Daniel Braakley, and you're listening to
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paronormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlaine.
Speaker 3: Orthopedic surgeon. Tony Sechoria gets hit by a bolt of lightning,
Speaker 3: has a near death experience, and now an uncontrollable urge
Speaker 3: to learn and play piano. Next, he manages to write
Speaker 3: down the music from a dream, and next they want
Speaker 3: him to play in a concert. Here's what happens.
Speaker 2: A few weeks before the concert, Carlton calls me again
Speaker 2: and he says things are changing again, and I said,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? He says, BBC one wants to come,
Speaker 2: and Sodas German Television, and so does Granada Media. So
Speaker 2: there's three huge sets that want to come and film
Speaker 2: this thing. I was like, oh my god, I've come
Speaker 2: too far. Now what am I going to do? I said, okay,
Speaker 2: loone comes the concert day, which actually turned out to
Speaker 2: be my birthday. Anyway, there's three television crews. I remember
Speaker 2: going to the green room right beforehand, and I remember
Speaker 2: sitting here and I'm talking to God and the angels
Speaker 2: anybody that wants to listen. I said, you guys put
Speaker 2: me through a lot to get me here. I said,
Speaker 2: don't embarrass us both and leave me out there without
Speaker 2: a lot of help. Thankfully, I managed to get through
Speaker 2: it the music from the dream and a couple of
Speaker 2: other pieces that I had written along the way, and
Speaker 2: ever since then, it's taken on a life of its own.
Speaker 2: I've played that music all over the country. It's interesting
Speaker 2: the reactions that I get to it. People will come
Speaker 2: up afterwards and tell me about they see visions or
Speaker 2: they feel certain things. And I've even had some people
Speaker 2: ask if they could come and lay on the floor
Speaker 2: underneath the piano so they can feel the vibrations of it,
Speaker 2: because there's something in the frequencies of the music that
Speaker 2: stimulates certain brain activity or certain behaviors. I think there's
Speaker 2: more to the music than I have any concept of.
Speaker 2: It's so far over my head. I do believe that
Speaker 2: there are healing frequencies, and there are frequencies that stimulate
Speaker 2: brain activity in people, and it's just based on the
Speaker 2: things that people say. I have been searching for an
Speaker 2: understanding of how all this fits together ever since it happened,
Speaker 2: and I've literally read hundreds of books trying to understand.
Speaker 2: I think what it really comes down to is we
Speaker 2: have no real concept of how the brain works, and
Speaker 2: how it's connected to other things in other places, and
Speaker 2: the frequencies that exist in the ether, the quantum field
Speaker 2: as some people call it, and how all of it interacts.
Speaker 2: So is some of the aspects of this music about
Speaker 2: helping people to reprogram some part of the brain that
Speaker 2: they don't have access to or could help in their evolution.
Speaker 2: I don't know, or like myself, you hear music and
Speaker 2: the music's coming from some place. Where is it coming from?
Speaker 2: And how does it make its way into my brain?
Speaker 2: And again, there's a lot of people that are starting
Speaker 2: to believe that this memory exists in the quantum field,
Speaker 2: and nobody really understands what that is exactly, and how
Speaker 2: we communicate with it is a whole other black box.
Speaker 2: The other thing that did come out of it is
Speaker 2: that I can feel people's energy, their aoram as other
Speaker 2: people would call it. It feels like static electricity out
Speaker 2: of not having a better word to describe it. If
Speaker 2: somebody has something wrong with their shoulder, for example, if
Speaker 2: I happen to bring my hand near their shoulder, I'll
Speaker 2: feel this distortion of that electrical energy, and so if
Speaker 2: I move down the arm, it'll disappear. But as I
Speaker 2: get closer to where the problem is, I can actually
Speaker 2: bring somebody to tears with it. There are some things
Speaker 2: that I don't have it a real understanding of, but
Speaker 2: I just noticed that they exist, and I use them
Speaker 2: as tools to help. If I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 2: what somebody's problem is, I can use that as a
Speaker 2: way to narrow the focus of what I'm looking at.
Speaker 2: I've had flashes of knowing things that I have no
Speaker 2: way of knowing, a feeling somebody's going to call and
Speaker 2: the phone rings, or I walk over and I pick
Speaker 2: up the phone and thereonic. There's no way to quantitate
Speaker 2: any of that, And there are enough people that have
Speaker 2: things like that happen anyway that you don't know whether
Speaker 2: it's meaningful or not. But these are things that I
Speaker 2: didn't really notice before. So I'm absolutely certain that there
Speaker 2: is no such thing as death. We change forms, but
Speaker 2: our spirit lives on forever. Whoever we are, we always are,
Speaker 2: and that I'm absolutely certain of. I think that the
Speaker 2: only real message that I have is there is life
Speaker 2: after death. I think it's really important to have an
Speaker 2: approach to life that is other than self being more
Speaker 2: concerned about others than about the self. I think it's
Speaker 2: a big part of how our spirits are supposed to work.
Speaker 3: Thank you, doctor Tony Secoria. Now did I hear you?
Speaker 2: Think?
Speaker 3: I wish I could hear that piece of music you
Speaker 3: can here is Lightning Sonata with doctor Secoria at the piano.
Speaker 3: Pay attention to your emotions and see how it moves
Speaker 3: your soul.
Speaker 6: Incling and stay.
Speaker 7: In and fifty.
Speaker 4: Th Coca in the.
Speaker 6: Name Cola Coca the look a look at.
Speaker 3: My friend. Anything is possible if you believe. Please remember
Speaker 3: to come visit me at We Don't Die dot com.
Speaker 3: I'm Sandra Champlain. Thank you for listening to Shades of
Speaker 3: the Afterlife on the iHeart Radio and Coast to Coast
Speaker 3: AM hair or podcast network.
Speaker 1: And if you like this episode of Shades of the Afterlife,
Speaker 1: wait until you hear the next one. Thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal
Speaker 1: podcast Network.