In this episode Dani Foffa talks to spiritual journalist, researcher, and author AJ Parr, who shares the extraordinary story of the night he stopped breathing in his sleep and entered a timeless realm of void, light, and oneness. Upon returning, he received profound revelations about God, the creation story, and the hidden secret behind spirituality. This experience led him to spend the next three decades exploring the common roots of the world’s major religions — and, more recently, their striking parallels with near-death experiences (NDEs). AJ is an IANDS group facilitator, a senior consciousness researcher with the Institute for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ISCC), and the author of more than 20 spiritual books, including two focused on NDEs — his most recent featuring a foreword by Dr. Raymond Moody. He has interviewed over 150 near-death experiencers and afterlife researchers on his AJ Parr Spiritual Journalist YouTube channel. He is also the founder of the Near-Death Experience & Spiritual Awakening Facebook group, with more than 145,000 members worldwide, and the CEO of Grapevine Books, a publishing company dedicated to helping independent authors write and publish their spiritual books on Amazon. In this episode, AJ shares some of the comparative research he has conducted and explores surprising similarities between ancient religions and NDEs, so be sure to watch until the end! If you enjoy this episode and want to support our community, leave a like, subscribe, share and hit the bell notification button to be notified of future episodes.. AJ’s podcast -    / @ajparrnde  AJ’s publishing house - grapevinebooks.netAJ’s book “Stairway to Heaven” - www.amazon.com/Stairway-Heaven-Near-Death-Experiences-Journalistic-ebook/dp/B0BS6CG61LAJ’s book “The girl who visited Heaven” - www.amazon.com/Visited-Heaven-Childrens-Near-Death-Experiences-ebook/dp/B0CTHSR6XVAJ’s Facebook Page -   / ajparrspiritualjournalist  AJ’s Facebook Group -   / 1hdky6atyk  AJ's Email - ajparrbooks@gmail.com Dani’s Instagram - www.instagram.com/dfoffaDani’s Facebook - www.facebook.com/dani.foffa ✨ Join IANDS: https://iands.org✨ IANDS online events, groups and more: https://isgo.iands.org✨ The 2025 IANDS Conference is Aug 27 - Aug 31 in Chicago, IL https://conference.iands.org What is an NDE? A near-death experience (NDE) is typically a profound, life changing, intensely emotional experience that usually occurs during a clinical crisis and has common characteristics and aftereffects. It is not a dream, hallucination, or mental illness (Greyson, 1983). There are no predictive variables to identify who will have an NDE. They happen to people of all ages, religions, socio-economic groups, cultures, educational backgrounds, and belief systems. They occur under a variety of circumstances such as accidents, near-drownings, illnesses, combat, surgical procedures, and childbirth. Following an NDE, experiencers (NDErs) often display some common aftereffects. Research has established a set of common NDE characteristics and long-term aftereffects. Theories used to explain near-death experiences in purely physical terms have been proven inadequate by NDE researchers and others.