Transcript
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Welcome back to Round Trip Death.
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Before we get started today, I want to talk about personal beliefs.
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I think there's always something new to learn from our guests.
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I also realize we all have different belief systems.
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This show is not about my beliefs or what a religious or philosophical expert would
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say is right or wrong.
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This is a judgment-free place where we listen to sincere people describing what happened
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to them.
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If something said doesn't fit your personal beliefs, it's okay.
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How you use this discussion is up to you.
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My only recommendation is to listen to that soft voice inside you.
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It'll help you know what to do with this information.
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Now let's hear from today's guest.
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We have with us today Tony Sicoria.
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We're very happy to have you, Tony.
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How are you?
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Great, sir.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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Did I pronounce that okay?
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Perfectly.
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All righty.
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Good.
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Hey, I had fun talking with you the other day in our pre-interviews that we do.
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I think your story is very unique and that's one of the fun things about this show is that
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no two NDE stories are the same.
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People kind of assume they are.
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They're not.
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They're all different.
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Yours is one fits into that different category and it's a whole lot of fun.
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Before we jump in, would you mind just telling us a little bit about yourself?
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All right.
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I grew up in upstate New York and I went to the Citadel, which was a military school in
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Charleston, South Carolina for college.
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This was during the war and I thought if I'm going to get drafted and go to war, I might
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as well go as somebody who knows what they're doing.
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Turns out the war ended a month before graduation, so I didn't get to go anyway.
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I assume we're talking the Vietnam War here.
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Yes.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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And then I went to graduate school because I had wanted to.
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I thought in my mind's eye that I was going to be one of these crazy mad scientists in
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the basement of some building doing crazy kinds of research.
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And I did do that and realized that that wasn't what I wanted.
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And so after I finished my doctorate, I went to medical school in Charleston, South Carolina,
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met the medical university there and then decided to go in towards pedics, did my training
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up in Virginia and met the university there.
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And then went into practice up in upstate New York again, a couple of miles from where
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my family grew up and that was in Oneonta, New York.
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And I was there.
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We lived there from the time we moved up there in 1988 until we left in 2019.
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So I've been a practicing orthopedic surgeon since 1988 in that area.
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And I had been going down kind of an academic road.
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I was doing a lot of research and I was thinking about going into academic research at Syracuse
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University.
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And things took a turn in my life and I never followed through with all of that.
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And that turn came about when I had what I would frequently refer to as a phone call
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from God.
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It got struck by lightning in 1994.
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Okay.
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Let's get a little bit of background on that now.
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So where were you?
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What were you doing?
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And what was your relationship with lightning before this?
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We were in August of 1994.
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Every August my wife and her family would have a big huge gathering.
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There were five people that had birthdays in August so they would celebrate it at one
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time and this was that month.
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We were going to have it at a place called Sleepy Hollow Lake, which is just south of
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Albany, New York.
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They had rented a pavilion and we went there that morning and I was in charge of running
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the barbecue.
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So I was outside and in the morning it was a beautiful day.
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I wasn't paying attention to anything because I was running the grill.
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And about halfway through the morning I decided that I was going to go call my mom who was
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not there.
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And as I had to walk around to the front of the building where there was a payphone attached
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to the building.
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And so I'm not paying attention to the fact that a big storm had blown up over the lake,
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which we were right next to.
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And I was completely oblivious to that.
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And as I dialed my mother, she didn't answer the phone so I was just getting ready to hang
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up the phone.
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And I got the phone to about here and I heard a loud crack.
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And at the same time this huge flash of light came out of the phone and hit me in the face.
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And it just sent me flying backwards like I'd been kicked by a horse.
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And as I was going backwards, a really strange thing happened because all of a sudden I had
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the sensation of moving forward.
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And I remember thinking, this is crazy.
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I know that I got hit and I know that I got thrown back and now I don't understand why
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I have this weird sensation of moving forward.
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And that was only for a fraction of a second.
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And at that point I was just standing there absolutely dumbfounded.
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I'm looking around and they see the phone dangling from the phone carriage and it's
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just banging against the wall.
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And I'm looking around and nothing's making any sense to me.
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And then all of a sudden I hear my mother-in-law screaming and she's at the top of the stairs
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and I'm at the bottom.
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And she starts running down the stairs right at me and I'm thinking, this is not good when
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your mother-in-law is screaming and running at you.
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And I was just kind of frozen like a deer in the headlights.
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As she got down right in front of me, it's like I wasn't even there.
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And she took off to her left.
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And so I just instinctively turned to follow her and I took a few steps and suddenly I
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was confronted with myself on the ground.
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And I remember thinking, oh shit, I'm dead.
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And it was a shock.
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I mean, no pun intended.
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That's amazing how much can run through your head so quickly.
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It was blazingly fast.
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And I remember thinking, I walked over to the body and I'm realizing that I'm sitting,
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I'm here and my brain is racing.
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My mind was racing, not my brain.
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And my mind is racing like crazy and I'm trying to make sense of this.
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And I see this lady who was standing behind me waiting to use the phone.
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She starts to get down to do CPR.
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Turns out she was a nurse who was just waiting there in the wings to use the phone.
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And this place is in the middle of nowhere.
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I can't imagine why she was there.
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And so she starts to get down and do CPR and I'm trying to call to them and I realize that
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they can't hear me, but I can hear and I see them.
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And I thought, well, there's no point in standing around here.
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So I decided to leave and I turned around and I was going to walk up the stairs and
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I was going to go back to where my family was and see what they were doing.
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And so I started walking up the stairs and I'm looking down at the stairs like I normally
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would just so I don't trip and fall on my face.
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And as I'm watching the stairs, I see that my legs are starting to dissolve.
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And I'm thinking, wow, this is really getting kind of crazy.
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And by the time I got to the top of the stairs, I had lost all form.
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And I looked at myself and there was just a ball of energy without real form.
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And then the stairs actually go up to the left and I didn't go up the stairs, I just
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passed through the wall.
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And when I came out the other side, I passed immediately over my wife who was sitting on
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a chair and she's painting children's faces.
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And I made a specific note to myself of where the kids were and who they were and what position
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everybody was in.
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And then I passed through that room on a diagonal.
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And when I got out of the building, then things really started to get interesting.
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It was almost like I had fallen into a river of pure positive energy.
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And it was crazy and it had this bluish white light.
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And the only thing that I could feel was if you can imagine absolute love and peace, there
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wasn't anything else to be felt.
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And at that point, I was really dumbfounded.
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Did you feel like that river of energy was taking you somewhere?
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I did.
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I did feel like it was taking me somewhere.
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As I was standing there in this river, there were a number of things that were going on.
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One, I was looking at this river and it was actually a river of energy.
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And it was so specific because I could actually see the lines of the energy.
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I could see the almost a sinusoidal wave form that was flowing in it.
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And what was interesting about it was that everything that I looked at was made up of
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this energy.
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And I made the conclusion to myself that this must be what God is.
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This is the energy of God.
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And at that point, I realized that there was a sensation of I was moving and I had both
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speed and direction.
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I was going someplace.
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I just had no idea where.
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But it was an incredible feeling.
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And as I was doing this, I had this...
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It was almost like a collage of high points and low points in my life that just kind of
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were there and were gone.
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And right about this point, I'm coming to the realization that this is the greatest
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thing that can ever happen to anyone.
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As I'm in this stream and I'm just kind of almost euphoric about it, and suddenly it
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was like somebody flipped a switch and I was back in my body and I was so angry.
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I didn't wanna go back.
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And I was begging anybody that would listen to let me not have to go back and go through
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this.
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And it went from being absolutely incredibly blissful to being in pain.
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And so I'm laying on the floor and I felt like somebody stuck a poker in my face and
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one of my foot where it came out.
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Okay.
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Before we move in that direction more of what happened after you came back, can we dig any
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deeper into what you saw and felt?
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For example, you said you saw energy.
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I don't know what energy looks like.
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Normally I wouldn't either.
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As I looked at this light, this bluish white light, it reminded me of as a child, they
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used to swim in these big creeks where the water was crystal clear.
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And if I was down low in the deep part and I looked up, I would see this light from the
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sun coming through the water and had this glistening whitish appearance to it.
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And it reminded me of that.
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The more I looked at it, more I could see that the energy that was streaming toward
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me had formed to it.
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And as I stared at it more, I could see that I saw these lines within the light.
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And when I looked at some of the background things, like I was seeing trees and the water
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of the lake, I saw that this energy that wherever it was coming from was actually what made
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up everything.
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So that everything was made of this energy.
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And as we have learned from our theoretical physics partners, everything is made of energy.
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But I could see it.
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And it really hit home to me.
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And I thought, geez, this is something I could measure.
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It was that palpable.
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It was very clear to me that it was something very important, very strong.
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So that was sort of your scientific side of your brain saying, maybe I can measure this.
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Did the scientific side of your brain think of anything else?
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It was very clear to me a number of things.
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One that whoever we are, we always are.
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And I learned that when I looked at the body and I realized that I'm still having the same
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thought patterns that I normally would have.
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And so I realized that this shell that's on the ground is nothing more than a shell.
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The real me is my spiritual form that I was existing in at that point in time.
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And that was the real person, if you will.
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And so I made that realization.
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And then as I was out in the energy stream, then it became even more apparent to me that
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there's so much more to what we imagine reality to be than we have any idea.
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What do you mean by that?
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We look at, we see, I look across the room and I see a bookshelf.
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And so is what I see reality or is it something that my brain has learned to look at the vibrational
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frequency of an object and it interprets that vibration as something solid?
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And in reality, it's probably, there's no real substance.
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The reality that we see is a mirage.
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It's being interpreted by our brain.
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Yeah.
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Right?
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That energy.
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And you said that you lost form and became sort of a ball of energy.
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Did you see any other of these kind of beings?
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No.
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I was in retrospect, I was disappointed because at the time this happened, I didn't know anything
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about near-death experiences or anything like that that other people have had.
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And in reading a lot of these accounts, people meet relatives, they see other beings, they're
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told things.
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And I was disappointed that I didn't get any of that.
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I almost felt like I'd been shortchanged.
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You didn't get your money's worth out of that, indeed.
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It was like, okay.
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But you really felt something.
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Explain a little bit more about what you felt.
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In terms of when I was out there and experiencing...
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Yeah, you mentioned you felt energy and bliss.
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Yeah.
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I mean, if you can imagine, there's a thing in science called absolute zero.
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It's a temperature at which there's no molecular motion.
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And it's a pure singular state, if you can imagine that.
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And that's what I like in this love energy too.
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It was completely devoid of anything else.
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It was just a radiating energy of love and peace.
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And it was unlike anything I've ever experienced in my life.
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And it was truly earth-shaking.
243
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So again, I want to talk to the scientist for a second here.
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You've just mentioned energy and love in the same breath.
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What does that mean?
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00:18:18,360 --> 00:18:22,200
Does that make love more tangible?
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And what I experienced, I truly believe that love is an energy form.
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And that energy obviously re-eats from a source, but that energy is something that everyone
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can share.
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All right.
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Let's talk about being slammed back into your body.
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What happened there?
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00:18:48,500 --> 00:18:56,880
Well, there was not a pleasant experience because I went from being absolutely ecstatic
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with happiness and to absolutely in pain.
255
00:19:01,840 --> 00:19:03,120
It really hurt.
256
00:19:03,120 --> 00:19:10,080
And I remember lying there thinking, oh my God, this really hurts where I get hit and
257
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where it went out.
258
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But I was still unconscious.
259
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I still couldn't see, I couldn't talk.
260
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And it seemed like minutes went by before I was able to open my eyes as I knew that when
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I was back, the CPR had stopped and the lady was kneeling next to me.
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And I wanted to say something and I should have known that I wasn't thinking very clearly
263
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at that point.
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And I looked at her and I said, it's okay, I'm a doctor.
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And she just laughed and said, well, you weren't a minute ago.
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And I felt like a jackass.
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I really did.
268
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And it was like, oh my God, I'm just gonna shut up and not say anything else because
269
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what's coming out is really stupid.
270
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And at that point, they called the police, they called an ambulance.
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And by the time everybody showed up, I was sitting up and I was talking and I'm like,
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well, there's no point in going to the hospital because I know what it's like to go to an
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emergency room.
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I'm not gonna sit there for six hours waiting to be seen.
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And there wasn't any real emergency.
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I said, you get struck by lightning, you're either alive or dead, there's not much in
277
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between.
278
00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:36,440
So I wasn't thinking very clearly at that point and that's obvious.
279
00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:43,280
And I opted to just have my family take me home and see my family doctor who we called
280
00:20:43,280 --> 00:20:45,800
on the way and told him what happened.
281
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And he had me just go right over to his office.
282
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They checked me out and said, well, everything looks like it's okay.
283
00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:55,680
So I thought...
284
00:20:55,680 --> 00:21:00,960
And then at that point, I was really kind of dumbfounded because I'm like, this is too
285
00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:05,840
crazy to have just been a spurious event.
286
00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:13,520
I know in my mind, the science brain is going, there's no way that you could figure out the
287
00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:21,200
probability of an event like this where the lightning hit the building and lost enough
288
00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:23,200
of its current.
289
00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:29,960
By the time it got to you, it just stopped your heart rather than frying you.
290
00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:38,160
And then on top of that, that part of my brain is also going, and to make sure that you didn't
291
00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:43,880
get completely knocked out of the ballpark, they had a nurse standing there waiting to
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resuscitate you.
293
00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:50,640
And so I'm sitting there thinking, how do you figure out the probability of two events
294
00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:57,120
like that happening to prevent me from not returning?
295
00:21:57,120 --> 00:22:03,440
And at that point, I realized, okay, this is not a random event.
296
00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:05,160
Somebody orchestrated this, and for what?
297
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:07,920
I have no idea.
298
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:16,700
But it was pretty clear to me that this was an event that had some importance to it.
299
00:22:16,700 --> 00:22:19,760
But I didn't have any idea what it was at that point.
300
00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:22,680
Well, you've had 20 plus years to think about it now.
301
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:26,080
Do you have some of those answers?
302
00:22:26,080 --> 00:22:28,800
I have some.
303
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:36,520
And a lot of it came from, shortly after the lightning, within a couple of weeks, I started
304
00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:43,040
having this insatiable desire to hear classical piano music, which was a big departure for
305
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:48,640
me because I grew up as a kid of the 60s, and there was rock and roll, and there wasn't
306
00:22:48,640 --> 00:22:51,040
much of anything else.
307
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:58,200
My mother had made me take piano lessons when I was seven years old for a year, and at the
308
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:03,000
end of that year, I promptly quit and said, I don't want to do this anymore.
309
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I want to play baseball and go fishing and do all kinds of other stuff.
310
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So that was, and then never went back to that.
311
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:14,800
So I never really learned a lot either.
312
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:22,160
So for me to suddenly want to be involved in classical piano was a big departure.
313
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:29,000
But it was such a powerful feeling that I actually went to a music store.
314
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:35,640
I had to go to Albany, which was an hour away, to find a place that even sold classical piano
315
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:38,040
music.
316
00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:43,440
And I went into the store and when I walked in the door, it's like this CD of Vladimir
317
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:45,800
Ashkenazi playing his favorite Chopin.
318
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:50,680
It seemed like it jumped off the shelf and ran into my hands.
319
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:56,800
I bought the CD and I started listening to it, and I listened to it nonstop.
320
00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:02,440
I was so taken with it that I couldn't stop listening, and I made everybody else listen,
321
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:04,360
even at work.
322
00:24:04,360 --> 00:24:10,360
And very quickly I realized that it was not going to be enough for me to just listen to
323
00:24:10,360 --> 00:24:11,360
this music.
324
00:24:11,360 --> 00:24:13,520
I needed to learn how to play.
325
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:18,520
But that was a problem too, since I didn't have a piano and I didn't know how to play.
326
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:25,060
But it seemed like it was the next day our babysitter called and said, I'm moving out
327
00:24:25,060 --> 00:24:27,760
of state and they have this old upright piano.
328
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:31,760
I was wondering if I could store it at your house for a year.
329
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:34,540
And I thought, well, it's fortuitous.
330
00:24:34,540 --> 00:24:38,920
So suddenly I had this feeling that I have to learn how to play a piano and suddenly
331
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,760
a piano appears.
332
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:46,520
And I bought some books on trying to teach myself how to do this.
333
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:48,200
And that's where I started.
334
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:52,560
And about three weeks into that, I have a dream.
335
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:57,680
And in this dream, the dream was like an out of body experience.
336
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:06,160
And I remembered I'm walking out onto a performance stage and I see myself out on the front of
337
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:12,040
the stage and I'm performing in a concert hall.
338
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:16,560
And I remember thinking, this is really kind of crazy.
339
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:21,680
And as I'm walking up and I'm looking at myself for listening to the music, and by the time
340
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:28,120
I walked up behind myself, I realized that this is not somebody else's music.
341
00:25:28,120 --> 00:25:29,800
This is mine.
342
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:36,400
So I listened to the music and the ending had a loud crashing ending and it woke me
343
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:41,280
up and I look at the clock, it's about 3.15 in the morning.
344
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:45,800
And I walked out to the piano and I tried to plunk out some of the things I heard, but
345
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:46,800
I said, this is stupid.
346
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:51,020
I don't know how to read and I don't know how to write, so I'm going back to bed.
347
00:25:51,020 --> 00:25:52,560
And I did.
348
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:58,560
But from that moment on, whenever I sat down at that piano, the music from the dream would
349
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:01,160
start playing in my head.
350
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:09,800
And if I didn't pay attention to it and didn't work on it every day, it would start to play
351
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:12,720
in my head when I didn't want to.
352
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:17,800
And it was a very insistent, almost like a small child, like pay attention to me.
353
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:19,720
I'm like, okay.
354
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:26,280
So I learned very quickly that every day I needed to do some work on that music and I
355
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:30,400
started doing that as I was trying to learn.
356
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:38,200
And I was trying to teach myself initially and I remember one day my daughter was playing
357
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:43,080
with one of her best friends and her best friend's mom came by the house to pick her
358
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:49,860
up and she heard me banging on the piano and I was trying to learn what's called a
359
00:26:49,860 --> 00:26:51,360
fantasy impromptu.
360
00:26:51,360 --> 00:26:55,600
It's a piece by Frederic Chopin.
361
00:26:55,600 --> 00:27:00,040
It's an advanced piece and way above my head.
362
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:04,800
But it was one of the things on the CT so I would determine I was going to learn how
363
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:06,800
to play it.
364
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:11,320
And she heard me and then she walked in and she said, what in the world are you doing?
365
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:14,720
And I said, I said, I'm trying to learn this piece of music.
366
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:19,520
I said, but I don't understand because the hands don't line up.
367
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:23,040
And she looked at me and she said, they're not supposed to.
368
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:25,680
It's what's called a polyrhythm.
369
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:31,800
And I thought, and I said to her, what's a polyrhythm?
370
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:35,400
And she said, I'm not even going to try to explain this to you.
371
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:37,600
You need to get a teacher.
372
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:43,880
And so at that point she gave me the name of a couple of people and the one lady was
373
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:49,280
Sandy McCain who was the chairman of the Department of Music at Hartwood College and I called
374
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:54,880
her and I said, look, I'm an old dog trying to learn some new tricks and told her the
375
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:58,640
story in which she'd take me on as a student.
376
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:09,280
And she had me come and audition, if you will, to be a student.
377
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:14,640
And she said, I'll take you on, she said, but there's only one thing I'm going to insist
378
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:15,640
on.
379
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:16,640
And I said, what's that?
380
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:24,040
You don't play anything else of this magnitude until I tell you that you can because you
381
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:29,640
are learning so many bad things trying to do it yourself.
382
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:31,840
And I said, okay.
383
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:33,040
And that's the way we went.
384
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:44,800
She started me at the very beginning and we started working two hours every week and that
385
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:57,560
continued from that time, it was 1998 by that point and it continued up until when I left
386
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:00,320
New York in 2019.
387
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:03,080
So you've gotten pretty good at the piano.
388
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:06,000
I've gotten reasonably, done reasonably well.
389
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:11,040
I mean, I'm certainly no horror which says for sure.
390
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:14,280
Tell us more about this piece of music that was stuck in your head.
391
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:16,720
Did you get it down on paper?
392
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:22,360
For many years, it was just constantly being played in my head.
393
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:28,680
And I would try to play bits and pieces of it.
394
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:34,240
And as time went on, I would write down little snippets of it and I would stuff it in a drawer
395
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,720
thinking someday I'll come back to this.
396
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:44,640
In 2002, I started going to a music camp for adults, piano camp for adults called the Sonata
397
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:48,440
which is in Bennington, Vermont.
398
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:56,600
And it's essentially a big group of people that are in love with the piano and they just
399
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:58,680
play that exclusively.
400
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:03,360
And it's a week of complete indulgence of the piano.
401
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:09,320
They have lessons, they have pieces that they work on and they have a performance at the
402
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:11,320
end of the week.
403
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:15,600
And I had started doing that in 2002.
404
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:22,720
And then in 2006, so I would go in once a year in May.
405
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:33,560
And in 2006, when I went, the owner's sister who was Erica, Erica Vanderlyn Feidner, Erica
406
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:40,120
was the number one salesperson at Steinway in New York City.
407
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:45,120
And she had just left Steinway and went to Bozendorf for pianos.
408
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:51,160
And she brought five pianos in for people to play during the piano camp.
409
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:57,000
And she and I had gotten talking about this whole thing with the music and the lightning.
410
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:00,720
And she said, you know, there's only one person that can tell the story and that's Oliver
411
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:02,380
Saxe.
412
00:31:02,380 --> 00:31:06,520
And I said, at the time I didn't know who Oliver was other than that he'd written the
413
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,320
book Awakenings.
414
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:13,240
And he was a famous person.
415
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:21,140
But Oliver was one of the preeminent neurologists in the world, as well as a prolific author.
416
00:31:21,140 --> 00:31:26,720
And he was the person that had discovered the treatment for Parkinson's.
417
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:27,960
And that was in May.
418
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:34,880
And then a couple of months later, I get a phone call from Oliver and he invites me down
419
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:36,320
to his house in New York City.
420
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:40,720
He says, I'd like you to come down so I can interview you and I want you to be a patient
421
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:43,480
of mine for a study group I have.
422
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:45,960
And I thought, sure, why not?
423
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:54,480
So in August of 2006, I went down to Oliver's house and got to spend a whole day with him,
424
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:58,960
which was incredible for me.
425
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:03,440
And one of the things that came out of that is as we're standing in the doorway saying
426
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:08,040
good night, he looked at me and he had this way of his piercing look.
427
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:10,880
It's almost like he looked right through you.
428
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:14,840
He looked at me and he says, you know, the music from the dream went through an awful
429
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:16,760
lot of trouble to get here.
430
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:19,040
The least you can do is write it.
431
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:24,360
And at that point, I was so taken with what he said that as soon as I got home, the first
432
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:31,080
thing I did was I bought a program called Sibelius, which is writing music for dummies.
433
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:41,520
And it allows you to play something into a recording piano and it turns it into music
434
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:43,480
in notational form.
435
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:46,520
So it was very useful for me.
436
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:53,160
And I spent the next seven months taking all the music that I had heard and converting
437
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:58,600
it into hard copy, if you will.
438
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:06,200
And so at the end of that seven months, I finished it and I took it to my piano camp
439
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:10,640
and I played it for everybody and said, you know, this is the music from the dream that
440
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:16,000
I'd been hearing nonstop ever since it happened.
441
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:17,520
It was well received.
442
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:24,240
And while I was there at the camp, I got a call from Oliver and he said, you know, I
443
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:30,080
was wondering if you would consider letting me use me in the book that I'm getting ready
444
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:31,960
to publish.
445
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:33,520
And I said, sure.
446
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:34,920
I didn't have anything to hide.
447
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:40,880
And he said, good, because you're chapter one and it's coming out in the New Yorker magazine
448
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:43,080
in July of this year.
449
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,240
I'm like, okay, we're a little ahead of ourselves here.
450
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:47,240
Yeah.
451
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:48,480
And what's the name of that book?
452
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:54,280
The book is called Musicophilia that Oliver Sachs wrote.
453
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:55,920
Musicophilia.
454
00:33:55,920 --> 00:34:01,440
It's actually Musicophilia, Tales of Music and the Brain is the full title.
455
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:04,680
And so, you know, I said, sure.
456
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:11,480
And then he said, oh, well, it's going to be coming out very shortly.
457
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:16,440
And sure enough, it came out in July of 2007.
458
00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:20,120
And all of a sudden, you know, there was a lot of interest.
459
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:23,640
The phone started ringing off the hook.
460
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:30,680
And one of the calls, the first calls I got was from a friend of mine at the State University
461
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:38,400
of New York, Carl Clay, and Carlton was the head of the music department at the State
462
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:39,400
University there.
463
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:43,440
And he said, you know, I was wondering if, you know, I've seen this article in the New
464
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:47,640
Yorker and I was wondering if you would teach a class.
465
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:50,840
And I thought, well, that would be interesting.
466
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:52,160
And so I agreed to that.
467
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:57,560
And a week later, he calls and he says, you know, awful lot of interest in this.
468
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:01,240
He said, would you consider playing for the class?
469
00:35:01,240 --> 00:35:03,720
And I said, sure.
470
00:35:03,720 --> 00:35:08,520
And then a couple of weeks after that, he calls back again and he says, he said, you
471
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:13,280
know, it's really grown more than I've ever expected it.
472
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:20,420
And he said, would you consider doing a concert at the Performing Arts Center?
473
00:35:20,420 --> 00:35:22,920
And I said, I've never done that before.
474
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:25,360
I don't have the faintest idea.
475
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:27,520
And I wouldn't even know where to start.
476
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:30,640
And he says, it'll be fine.
477
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:32,960
He lied.
478
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:34,680
So I'm thinking back on your dream now.
479
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:38,680
Is that what's, what we're having a full circle here?
480
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:40,480
Yeah, absolutely.
481
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:47,840
And so I, you know, after several phone calls of calling me back and back, I agreed to do
482
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:48,840
it.
483
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:54,360
And then it seemed like it was another two weeks later, he calls back and he says, I
484
00:35:54,360 --> 00:36:00,360
just want to let you know that in addition to the concert, there's going to be three
485
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:03,080
television crews there.
486
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,400
And I said, I said, you got to be kidding me.
487
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:14,480
He said, no, the BBC One, Granada Media and German television are all going to be there.
488
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:15,480
And I was panicked.
489
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:21,300
And I called my piano teacher and told her what was going on.
490
00:36:21,300 --> 00:36:24,600
And I said, is there any way you can get me through this?
491
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:29,800
And she said, but it's going to take a lot of work.
492
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:38,240
And so at that point, we spent the next two months, we would work three or four hours
493
00:36:38,240 --> 00:36:39,880
a day.
494
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:45,880
She would take me up there, make me walk out on the stage, make me walk off the stage,
495
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:47,280
make me go through the music.
496
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:53,920
And she would go up in the top of the auditorium and she'd go, I can't hear you.
497
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:57,920
So it was a huge learning experience.
498
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:02,200
And I thought, I don't know how I'll ever get through this.
499
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:07,800
But I remember going to the green room the morning of it.
500
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:15,320
And I remember saying to God and whoever else would listen, I said, you put me in this mess.
501
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:19,520
I said, don't leave me out there and embarrass us both.
502
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:21,800
And obviously I didn't make it as a demand.
503
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:24,920
I said, please don't do that.
504
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:32,160
And I managed to get through it without screwing it up.
505
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:38,600
And at that point, it took on a life of its own.
506
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:46,440
The music then became, there was a lot of people that wanted to hear it and it was recorded.
507
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:56,640
And I would play all over the place at different performance places.
508
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:57,800
Okay.
509
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:26,440
I think at this point, let's put some of this piece of music in now.
510
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:33,080
Okay, so your life was changed in a big way as far as musically.
511
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:36,720
Did your experience change your life in other ways too?
512
00:38:36,720 --> 00:38:40,160
Yeah, it sure did.
513
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:43,680
And a lot of things.
514
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:52,080
After the lightning and the music became the powerful presence in my life, I was absolutely
515
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:54,160
obsessed.
516
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:57,200
I got up at 4.30 every morning.
517
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:01,080
I played piano until 6.30 when I had to go to work.
518
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:02,600
I would work my 12 hours.
519
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:11,720
I would come home and I would have dinner if there was still anything left.
520
00:39:11,720 --> 00:39:16,200
And I would get the kids ready for bed.
521
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:21,240
And that was part of my staying connected to them.
522
00:39:21,240 --> 00:39:28,080
And then I was back at the piano from then until usually 12, 1 o'clock in the morning.
523
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:34,400
And I would be working on the piano till I couldn't even see straight.
524
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:39,920
And then I would go to bed and get up at 4.35 o'clock and store it all over again.
525
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:42,800
It didn't do anything for my marriage, I can tell you that.
526
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:48,360
So we wound up getting divorced as a result of all of that.
527
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:51,080
And I certainly couldn't expect that.
528
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:57,400
You can't expect somebody to be completely abandoned for a piano and like it.
529
00:39:57,400 --> 00:39:59,940
So we wound up getting divorced.
530
00:39:59,940 --> 00:40:08,680
But our focus had always been trying to create the most stable environment for the kids.
531
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:14,840
After we got divorced, my ex-wife was living in the garage over the house.
532
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:21,040
So we had a standing garage next to the house and we had made an apartment for her over
533
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:26,080
there so she could stay connected to the kids.
534
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:30,680
And this went on for many years.
535
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:35,280
After about eight years, we got remarried again.
536
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:43,800
Because a lot of people said we never really got divorced in trick or less.
537
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:55,240
And by that time, I had learned some moderation with the piano and the music and could function
538
00:40:55,240 --> 00:41:04,040
almost like a normal adult without being constantly obsessing about it.
539
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:08,860
So that was one of the big trade-offs.
540
00:41:08,860 --> 00:41:16,600
And then the other thing was when I was working in my practice, I was really headed down this
541
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:20,440
academic road, if you will.
542
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:27,120
I was doing research, I was publishing, I was the chairman of a big spine meeting that
543
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:29,480
met yearly.
544
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:34,800
And all of that stuff was going great up until the lightning.
545
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:39,720
And after the lightning, I realized that that was absolutely meaningless.
546
00:41:39,720 --> 00:41:43,560
And so I abandoned that whole aspect of things.
547
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:57,160
And people became much more of a focus in terms of my practice than at any other time.
548
00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:01,760
It really became a much more personal endeavor.
549
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:06,040
Yeah, that's really interesting.
550
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:11,800
Most people that have had a profound experience like this undergo some kinds of major changes
551
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:13,800
in their life.
552
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:22,360
A lot of people that have had near-death experiences end up experiencing divorce afterwards.
553
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:26,100
You've had quite a few years post this experience now.
554
00:42:26,100 --> 00:42:29,240
Can you tell us anything about that?
555
00:42:29,240 --> 00:42:35,720
Not just what happened to you, but what you've learned about other people in that way.
556
00:42:35,720 --> 00:42:43,560
I have learned that there's so much more that we don't understand.
557
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:49,880
Having had the experience of being out of my body and seeing that there is something
558
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:55,240
more than what meets the eye.
559
00:42:55,240 --> 00:42:59,840
And I know that our spirit lives on forever.
560
00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:03,440
Our spirit is eternal.
561
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:12,280
I was brought up Catholic, but I have not been able to reconcile the religious aspects
562
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:18,880
of what I was taught with what I experienced in real time.
563
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:28,640
And so I have become much more spiritual, but less religious, if that makes sense.
564
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:36,520
And I absolutely am certain of what happens.
565
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:40,040
I know that we continue on.
566
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:49,240
And I've read literally hundreds of books of people who have had near-death experiences
567
00:43:49,240 --> 00:43:57,760
and tried to compare notes and have read lots of books about where do we come from, where
568
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:03,600
are we going from our soul natures.
569
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:06,920
There's a lot that's ongoing.
570
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:12,240
I'm actually in the process of trying to write a book about that.
571
00:44:12,240 --> 00:44:22,880
And taking what I experienced in my near-death experience and what I have been reading about
572
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:29,520
the origin of our souls and where we come from, where are we going, how does it all
573
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:31,520
fit together?
574
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:39,840
So that's kind of the book that I'm going to write is following those lines.
575
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:43,760
So hopefully that'll come to fruition in next year.
576
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:45,120
That's great.
577
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:51,720
Before we sign off here, I love to leave people with some kind of a message of hope in a world
578
00:44:51,720 --> 00:44:55,280
that sometimes is a little tough right now.
579
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:57,280
Any last thoughts for everybody?
580
00:44:57,280 --> 00:44:58,760
Absolutely.
581
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:07,840
Know that you are loved and that love is eternal and that you are eternal.
582
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:11,960
When you die, you continue on.
583
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:19,720
And what happens after that, I'm not entirely sure of other than the fact that we live on.
584
00:45:19,720 --> 00:45:22,400
Tony, thank you so much for being here today.
585
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:23,400
Oh, absolutely.
586
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:24,400
My pleasure.
587
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:25,400
Thank you for having me here.
588
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:31,720
Thanks for listening.
589
00:45:31,720 --> 00:45:34,980
We hope you will share this message with family and friends.
590
00:45:34,980 --> 00:45:39,560
To be notified when the next episode goes live, follow this show on your podcasting
591
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:44,840
app or click over to roundtripdeath.com and sign up for our email newsletter.
592
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:52,360
As always, if you've had a near-death experience and want to share it, shoot an email to ericatroundtripdeath.com.
593
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:57,320
Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.
