You're listening to Alive Again, a production of Psychopia Pictures and iHeart Podcasts.

My name is Angeline Pass and I had a brain ineurism that taught me that it's okay to have a little life.

Welcome to Alive Again, a podcast that showcases miraculous accounts of human fragility and resilience from people whose lives were forever altered after having almost died.

These are first hand accounts of near death experiences and more broadly, brushes with death.

Our mission is simple, find, explore, and share these stories to remind us all of our shared human condition.

Please keep in mind these stories are true and maybe triggering for some listener, and discretion is advised.

In twenty seventeen, I had been pursuing a career in acting for a long time, and I had finally decided that that just wasn't really happening for me, and I had become disillusioned with trying to make money and trying to make a living while pursuing that craft.

One night, when.

I was feeling especially depressed about myself my current situation, I had a bottle of wine and I had a bunch of film negatives laying around I was looking through pictures and I was like, you know, if I can't be in film, then I'll cut it up and make it do what I wanted to do.

And so, you know, very I as an actress, you know whatever.

So I started you know, cutting up film negatives.

In those moments, as I was cutting shapes out of them and such, I realized just how beautiful film negatives exposed.

Film is on its own, and I started using it for collage work and using it as a medium for design, and then doing all of that, I ended up, you know, finding something new creatively that I really connected to, and that was doing you know, arts and then products crafts, and I started selling my creations and formed a company, and eventually a product line that really stuck with people was a line of holiday ornaments.

But I ended up by twenty seventeen, I was basically making Christmas ornaments all year round for wholesale clients to sell its shows, to sell online, and that was my living.

In my off time.

I was still working in film a little bit and also making art, but Christmas ornaments were my niche and so I had a studio outside of the home that I would go to and work all day and I was It was late September twenty seventeen September twenty seventh.

I was there making Christmas ornaments and I think I was putting together a wholesale order at the time.

I was at my table and I went to stand up to get some glitter or something, and I suddenly had this incredibly sharp pain in my head was throbbing but also like a searing pain at the same time, and it was it was such a sudden and violent pain that it actually I sat back down and knocked me back in my chair.

And I remember I was just sitting there and I was like, what is this?

Something's wrong?

Is this a migraine?

Is this what a migraine is like?

I had never had a migraine before.

It felt like the worst headache I've ever had.

So I'm sitting there and it just kept getting worse.

My vision started getting blurry, and then it started getting dark.

I can't remember how long it was, but it couldn't have been but a couple of minutes.

I decided I needed to call my fiance to talk to him and see if maybe he would come pick me up.

At the time, we shared a car because we only worked like three miles from each other.

I was in Midtown, he was in Midtown, and I had the car, but I knew he could get to me quickly.

So I left the studio because it was in the basement of this building.

This co working space.

I had my own little wing and I didn't have cell phone service in my studio itself.

So I left my studio into this little hallway to get toward the big back door by the dumpsters.

I get to the door and I call him and I was just like, Luke, something's wrong.

And I could barely see at that time, the pain was getting worse.

And I said, something's wrong, like I described what the pain was, and he was just like, I'll be right there.

I'm coming.

So anyway, it wasn't long before he was there.

I think he got an uber.

He kept me on the phone, but I can't really remember that conversation at all.

But by the time he got there, I had collapsed on the floor by the door.

I couldn't, you know, stand up.

My everything felt like it was getting dark.

I don't even remember the pain in my head at that point.

I just remember everything kind of getting dark.

But Luke, he got me up and everything, and I walked outside with him to the car and he drove me to the er and all I remember from there is I was sitting in the er like waiting area and I'm sitting there with my like my head in my hands because the light hurts.

And I remember hearing these dies who are there in the waiting room, and I guess they're having a conversation and everything, and they're just laughing and not at me or anything, but just they're like cutting up and laughing and uh.

And that's when I, uh, I knew.

I was like, oh my god, I'm I'm dying.

Like it was.

It was one of those things.

It was like completely.

Just knowing, like my body knew and and and then I was like, I'm going to die and these guys are laughing and in the waiting room, and that's when I started screaming.

So I just I just let it loose and in the waiting room and started screaming.

And it was it was quickly that they got me back then, you know.

But after that, I just remember the pain.

The pain was horrible and uh.

And then they they put me under, they they gave me anesthesia, and then everything went black.

Everything's a bit fuzzy, especially like right when I woke up, but I was intubated.

I was in the uh, the narrow I see you at Emory, And of course I didn't know then, but they had.

They had taken me back.

Into surgery and performed surgery on my ruptured brain aneurysm.

I had a very large scar on the left side of my head, and I remember trying to touch it and being told Matt.

I also was very very upset that there was something in my throat and my else and I laughed because I ended up.

I was very agitated the first couple days.

I didn't know what was going on.

I didn't know who all these people were.

Luke was there, my parents were there, my brothers were there.

But I didn't fully understand the weight of what had happened, and I was just very frustrated.

I couldn't talk, of course, with the tube in my mouth, and if I tried to communicate with anybody, I couldn't write down what was what I was feeling or what I wanted to.

Say, And I remember that frustrated me more.

I had lost the ability to write.

That went on for at least a few days.

But I remember during my time in the hospital being that agitated, feisty gal.

One night, my night nurse came in to I think, to, you know, just check on me and everything, and apparently I looked at him and I just pulled my feeding tube out of my throat myself.

You know, I'm laughing.

It's terrible.

He was very angry, but I pulled it out and I fended him off while he was like, no, Angelaine, don't do that.

But I just pulled it out myself.

After that, they did not put the feeding tube back in.

I was in the hospital a total of between three and four weeks, so it was late October when when I was released.

During that time too, I had had what they can a brain vasospasm, so that is basically when you're I'm gonna mess this up, but like the veins in your head or whatnot constrict and so it caused like a mini stroke and they had to go in and I think they operated on me again.

But all in all, I don't have very many memories of the hospital, especially like in the beginning.

I do remember they kept checking on, like the speech pathologist kept coming in to see if how my vocalizations were going and I did.

Eventually I was able to speak.

I was still not able to write well, but found out that was because of all the drugs I was on, I think, and cognitively they were able to determine that I was doing pretty okay for someone who had gone through a ruptured brain aneurysm.

And then the surgery.

And the end of October, we thought that I was going to be taken from the neuro ICU into you know, gen pop at the hospital, but found out like right before that that move happened that no, they were releasing me from the hospital.

I was free to go home.

And that was that was.

Really really uh really scary actually for me, but I'm sure also for Luke.

So right when I got out of the hospital, I don't remember much except being weak and being angry about that, and then very quickly all of that turned into, oh my god, I have a holiday season coming up.

I have ornaments to sell.

Like you know, what's so crazy is that a week and a half after I got out of the hospital, I have not even getting to emotionally but physically, I have a shaved head.

I have a gash about four inches long on my scalp.

I am emaciated, and all I could think of was that I have a show to do to sell ornaments in a week and a half.

And you know what's crazy is that I did it.

I got out of the hospital around October twenty first, and the first weekend of November I went to Chomp and Stomp, which is this big show in Cabbage Town in Atlanta where people are, you know, eating chili and buying chotchkes and everything.

My shaved head and huge gash in my head and my in my scalp went and sold Christmas ornaments at that show and I did.

Pretty well too.

But beside the point I was right when I got out of the hospital, I was still thinking, like, everything's fine, Everything's fine.

They fixed it.

I'm fine.

I look like shit, but I'm fine.

I can still do this, and I have to do this because this is my company.

Like I worked really really hard to be able to have a creative life, and if I want to do this, then I have to get through this holiday season.

That's that's that's all the money.

That that I'm going to make for the year that that allows me to pursue art.

So I I did that I went through the holiday season as best as I.

Could, and and I would.

Have headaches, really bad headaches coming out of the hospital, and of course there's that that fear of like is it happening again?

Is it?

Is this another one?

When they went and you know, and and cut into my head and everything.

I think that there was a tendon or something that was from my jaw that had been severed too, So like my jaw was very very sore, and so if I ever talked much then my face would get just so sore.

And I was getting tired all the time.

But I was still like, no, no, no, I have to do this.

This is you know, this is what I wanted, so that that lasted through you know, Christmas.

I somehow, I still I don't know how I did it, but but I did become that Christmas and come that the time when things were quiet, then I uh was just left to think about what happened.

And I was still resisting it, still not wanting to, you know, evaluate what was going on, and to also admit that there were things that were going on, like mentally too, of course, emotionally and mentally, like I I couldn't remember things very well and that was something that I had did not want to admit to until I really had time to sit and think about it.

But but I couldn't.

I was having conversations with people that I just couldn't remember.

I wouldn't meet people and not remember them afterwards, and I started becoming very aware of that.

Also, around the same time, Luke was offered a job in a different city when stayed over, and he came to me and he was like, you know, do you do you want to leave Atlanta?

And I jumped at it.

I at the time I thought that it sounded amazing.

So it's like, you know what, No, let me get away from all these people who knew me, and let me get away.

Let me go and hibernate for a while, and let's get out of here.

And so we you know, the aneurysm happened September twenty seventh.

I got out of the hospital late October, and in late January we were gone.

And now looking back, it was I know that it was running away, but at the time I was just like, let's let's start something new.

Everything that was happening, you know, mentally, with not being able to remember things, I started writing things down a lot, writing everything down, Like I would have a conversation with somebody and make a few notes, you know, Matt said this, Matt's going to hear you know April got married.

And in that way too, I found that I was you know, I would always refer back to my notes after having a conversation if I was going to see somebody again, be like, Okay, how can I be a good friend?

Ah?

Yes, I remember this, but but funny enough, though it did, it really really helped with with meeting new people and with my friendships.

Then that that I was finally that, over a long period of time, was able to forge.

In our new town.

I ended up becoming a much better listener than I think I ever had been before.

And and all that too, I started becoming a better friend to people and even started I mean, the Sun's a little weird to me even, but I feel like I could empathize better with folks, but also to be a better friend to people because I then started really actually remembering things and not having to write them down, even though I still was, but I was able to remember remember what was going on in people's lives and and follow up with them about it.

That's something that's something good that has come out of this A good a good trait I think that I've acquired.

As life in the New New City started unfolding, I realized that I there are certain things that I couldn't run away from, and one of those was that I didn't want to make things anymore, and that that was very very different.

But I had no no creative inspiration.

I didn't whenever I sat down at the page and and was.

Like, Okay, what design are we going to make today?

Nothing?

Absolutely nothing, blank.

But I wasn't upset about it either, in a very very weird way.

I should have like I feel like I judge it.

I judge it, and I like, oh, well, you should want to have like this is your legacy, Angeline, this is what you wanted to do.

You wanted to be a creative.

I wasn't very kind to myself a lot of times.

But so there was a long time too where I was just floundering a bit for what to do with myself.

I had, you know, started forging friendships and focused on being a better friend to people and being to being there more for folks in my life.

And eventually I heard about this an opening for contractors for this litigation services company.

So they were law adjacent.

They worked with mass tort law firms, so a lot like class action but you know, seeking justice for plaintiffs.

And it was you know, data and and stuff, and I was like, yeah, for some reason, it piqued my interest.

So I ended up getting that job, getting some contract work with this company, and I would you know, it was data entry, but also doing you know, some more analytical work, and doing that really really made me feel feel alive again and feel like I was contributing something, especially because the nature of the work was helping people.

I ended up working more full time for this company, and I quickly got promoted to a project coordinator and became a paralegal and was managing my own projects.

I ended up feeling very fulfilled doing this for a long time.

Eventually the creativity inklings started coming back.

I had missed them for a long time, but I finally started getting ideas again.

I thought that they were gone, but I started doing things just you know, as a hobby.

I would make you know, a little project here, you know, a little thing to brighten up the house there.

And so so I was doing that in Knoxville and and and you know, doing my work, I started doing more hobbies like hiking and stuff.

And eventually though we Luke and I.

By the way, I haven't mentioned I married this man.

Of course, you know, I can't fully if I've left that out.

I mean, this dude was there during hopefully the worst.

Time of our lives.

And yeah, we got married in twenty eighteen, tiny little ceremony, but uh but yeah, so we're still happy together.

But Knoxville turned out, you know, we had seven years there about and then recently this past year we decided to uh to move back to Georgia.

But we've moved to North Georgia now.

And so I went from a big city to it ran away to a smaller city and now we live in the country about seven acres and I have started I've started making ornaments again.

I'm doing my first show in seven years, like next weekend.

So I've opened the business back up again.

Not in a way that uh that I that I need to to make things.

To to to have a life like or to to find meaning in my life by making things creatively, like now, my meaning comes more from hanging out with Luke and my family and friends.

And just focusing on having a delightful little life.

Rather than you know, needing to be somebody.

And I know other people they experience when they have a near death experience, they might see a light or or say that, you know, they see something.

I didn't at all.

I everything it was.

It was just nothing.

And I'm not even trying to be dramatic by saying that, Like I think about it a lot, and I don't know if that's I don't know, if you know then nothing is a bad thing or not, like you know, there, I know that there are times when we when we might wish to just be able to be calm and experience nothingness, But I don't know if that's also too.

I don't know if that's the end all be all.

I don't know if that was just you know, that they had given me drugs to and so that was the amazing nothing that I felt.

But but yet I saw no light.

I didn't see anything.

And that's something that I don't think you could ever, you know, prepare yourself for or or understand unless you live that and then come out on the other side of it.

So when I think of the.

Future, I am just very focused on filling my cup, so to speak, like filling it with beautiful and creative things.

As that's you know, as silly as that might sound.

Now, I go out and I see the art.

I go and I experience plays without without judging the actors on stage or you know.

I watch shows just for the joy of it.

I relish in so much more that, so much more beauty that is in the world that people put out and celebrate.

Folks for daring to put things out there.

I think we're so hard on people and so hard on people for just trying, just trying, and really I think that's all that we can do.

And sometimes it lands and sometimes it doesn't.

Yeah, I just I want to keep seeing beautiful things.

I want to eat and drink you know, art, and and travel and seeing new places, even if it's you know, an hour away.

It doesn't have to be Italy or you know, Europe.

It can be the mountains, it can be your backyard even and I want to I want to be close to my family and and close to my friends.

I think that that's the legacy.

Too that I want, is to to be good to people.

Welcome back.

This is a live again joining me for a conversation about today's story or my other alive again story.

Producers Lauren Vogelbaum, Nicholas Dakowski, and Brent Die and I'm your host, Dan Bush.

I think that should be the last line of the road.

The round table is just Nick saying, just a long pause.

We should just do a show.

We should do a show about an actor that survived being an actor.

Do they none of them get out.

Like me with drinking.

It's like, if I don't quit this, it will murder.

It could literally be like, so you're working at home depot now, yep, yep, and you're happy with that?

Yeah, yeah, much happier.

So happy Angeline.

Angeline was an actress.

She talked about she survived.

Of course she didn't talk about this that in the story, but.

She talks about giving up on acting.

Yeah, yeah, but a little bit.

I had no idea that she had gone through that.

I was familiar with the craft booth.

Yeah, but yeah, it's wild and I think her work is still hanging up at Midtown Cinema.

Oh yeah, tell us about how you came across this story, Nick, and what drew you to it.

I have known Angeline for an incredibly long time.

As a matter of fact, the first time I met Angeline, she was on stage doing a show.

It was just a series of short plays, and I met her for the first time there and we've we've been for i mean sixteen seventeen years probably at this point.

What is time?

You can leave that one in.

Yeah, I watched this sort of Angeline stepped away from acting and started making this incredible art using film negatives, I mean really beautiful, intricate stuff, and really watched her, like, I mean, really blow up.

I mean, you know, she's like anybody who has been a theater or film actor.

You know, she lived the struggle for a period of time, and like a lot of theater and film actors, she finally reached a point where she was like, this is bullshit.

I'm not gonna do this anymore.

And she started doing this other thing that was incredible and just different than everybody else was doing.

And you know, as a business it really blew up.

She was doing incredibly well, and I remember when you know this happened to her, this brain aneurysm, it was just kind of like it was I know that it must have been devastating, not only to like not be able to utilize your body in the same way that you're used to, but to not do the thing that you have been doing.

To have that desire sort of suddenly removed from you, I had to have been really, really jarring.

I mean I, you know, I write, and if I couldn't write, I would be devastating.

I identified with her story on so many levels, but one of them was specifically that I had something similar happen to me.

It wasn't a brain aneurism, and I didn't almost die, but I had such a big crash in my life with when I was working on one particular film and I had a newborn in the home and I was doing I was pulling in thirty hour sessions without sleep at the age of forty five, and by the time I got done with that stint of in my life, I was this close to a divorce, completely falling apart, like whatever markers indicate that your liver is in trouble.

Because I was drinking like a fish, using adderall to keep going and then using alcohol to pass out.

And it was a stretch of me doing this and I realized, like, what the fuck am I doing this for?

Why am I killing myself to make a movie that's this not even going to be that good, Like we didn't have enough resources or assets to really pull it off, and.

It caused this complete collapse.

Of my ego, Like I had to go, well, why am I in the what ego driven narrative?

Do am I following here?

That is making me risk my family and my health to pull this off?

And it was a huge reckoning.

And this was also leading up to COVID, so there were other things that were happening that forced me into this, into a very similar kind of situation of going what is important?

What is fucking important?

Creating stuff is important, but only to the degree that you're giving back or fueling some sort of conversation in the community, or all the wonderful things that art can do.

But if you're doing it just so you can have a career, if you're doing it just so that you can you know, and if it's killing you, then what you know?

My narrative had to be let go.

And all of a.

Sudden, I found myself in the present moment, not in a I'm not like a zen Buddhist, but I was like, oh, literally, the sun is shining on me, there's a baby next to me, that's awesome.

My friends, I miss them desperately.

My wife I miss her desperately.

And so I couldn't completely relate to if not the aneurism part, then the ego death part for Angeline.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, in the smallest way I can connect to that because in like twenty seventeen, you have a similar thing.

Oh, I had a mini stroke.

I had a tea that like, for this is why it's nothing like angelan'ce.

It's so much smaller.

But it was like a little taste of it where I suddenly had full facial blindness and full of phasia, could not read, could not like, could not speak, and it lasted like a couple of hours, and literally one of the first thoughts in my head was I am never going to finish the project working on right now.

And it was the next you know, I went to the hospital.

They did all the tests.

They were like, there's no real damage, really minor.

You are probably at much higher risk for a stroke in the next six months.

So if this happens again, come directly to the hospital.

But this was many, many years ago.

I'm no longer that much at risk but great.

I the next day, I woke up and I was like, you know what, maybe I should take a little easier on this project, right, And then I think completed my journey on that one was having a kid during the pandemic, having Zelda.

It's like I realized after a certain point, it's like most of the work that I do now is just to you know, so I can afford my life and a happy life for my kid.

And and I spend the bulk of my free time not really thinking about the work as much and more or drinking or fucking going out and burning my candle at both ends.

I come home and I want to just kind of hang out with my kid.

And that's the whole point of doing all that.

Like, what's the point of doing anything in this world if it's not to be with people you love and enjoy the time you have.

Does it take us getting broken from our endeavors and the ego of like pushing ourselves to the point where you know, we collapse before we can go or you know, until it's taken away from us.

We can't literally, like you said, if you couldn't write anymore, how do you adapt?

How do you adjust?

What is left, What have you lost?

What have you?

What are?

Because I you know, you know, there was a certain point in my life where I kind of like look back and I was like I was kind of reduced to my functions.

And I mean, and I don't want to veer into this too much.

I mean, but that's the capitalist system.

We just kind of like, we just kind of live in a world where we're like, we think of ourselves as consumers of workers.

As an artist, your only sort of function, as recognized by our society, in at least in America, as an artist, your function is to sell shit?

Right, Yeah?

That is it.

Can you produce some content?

Can this go viral?

That's my one of my.

Least favorite words.

Content.

Content.

It reduces everything.

You know, you're hired to sell shit.

You're hired to make shit look pretty and too and to put it on the market.

And I think it's healthy to have ambition when you're younger.

I was so inspired by the bands.

I was into the filmmakers I loved because I wanted to communicate the way they did.

I wanted to disturb something in somebody's heart the way they did, you know, and if you could be a John Lennon or a Joe Strummer.

Not very many people get to do that.

But so you set your sights on that, or you set your sites on developing your social scene.

And I think that's healthy to a certain age, a certain point, and then, like Angeline, when it's not happening, you have to have the presence of mind to step away.

She had an ego death twice.

The first time was once she gave it her acting career and that opened this door to her ornament business, and her work was amazing.

I've seen it.

But then you look at these you look at.

How that drives you.

When you're younger, it helps you find your spouse, find your friend group, get some notoriety whatever.

Now that I'm getting older, I'm like, what does it matter if I would have made a hit film or took my daughter in a for a walk in the park, Like either one of those would have been fantastic, and I get to be with my family.

Yeah, And just decoupling the concept of your creativity and your artistry from the concept of needing to make money.

I mean, you know, like, it's great if you can make a career out of something that you're really good at and what you're really good at happens to be writing or talking pretty into microphones or whatever it is that it is.

But right, like you know, her saying that she was getting back into it because she wanted to.

Right, it's so freeing to me.

I was like, Oh, there's hope at the end of this tunnel.

Right, she didn't have the creative spark forever and then it started to come back, but not because she wanted she would she say, she said, I'm focusing on having.

A delightful little life rather than needing to be somebody, which is absive art in itself.

Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm I'm not a subscriber to like, don't worry be happy because I have clinical depression and anxiety.

I've always been a little offended by that phrase.

But you know, like you know that there are always going to be some days where everything is not okay, and that's fine.

But part of the work is, you know, finding beauty and things whenever you can, and opening yourself up to the experience of just being here because you don't know how much here you've got left.

I had that and after this the situation that I went through, and then and then when the pandemic hit, I had this this profound realization that was, like, you know, the idea of like think globally, act locally, and it occurred to me to act extremely locally, like, let me start with the cells in my body and my gut microbioume, then let me work outward from there to make sure my kids are are you know, can walk like and like literally I started to really hyper focus on everything that was happening right in my immediate sphere and then slowly building out from that into the neighborhood.

But instead of like, I'm going to go and you know, make a film and take it to can.

Like that, just let that go and it was very little I'm going to eat a tomato.

Most of the films, most of the films that I have made, have ended up in the can.

This one thing that Angeline said at the end of this that I think really pulled it all around is, you know, the ambition she had for acting, the ambition she had for business when she was younger, and how that just kind of vanished.

But now she said that she likes to experience the beauty that other people are making.

And when she says she likes to celebrate people for daring to put things out there.

Rather than rather than being a judgmental Yeah.

I used to Somebody asked me why I married my wife, and I was like, well, she wasn't an actress.

I don't need or a film critic.

I don't need a film critic in my bed.

I've got enough of those around, assholes surrounding me.

No, but like, she's going to critique my body technique.

But to get to a point where you can actually I understand that.

To get you can watch a movie and be like, Okay, I'm not going to judge this because I'm not going to hold it to these stupid film school standards.

I'm just gonna watch the fucking movie.

She knows what Joyett, what luck it takes to be in a position to even do it and then have the guts to do it, and how hard it is.

When she said, I don't judge it.

You know, you try something and then sometimes it lands, and sometimes it does.

I used to be a music critic.

I would take my idols to task because they didn't meet this high standard I had for them in my mind.

Now I'm like, did you asked Paul McCartney, A few tough questions.

I asked Paul McCartney how the guy who wrote Hey Jude and Helter Skelter could write The Dog Gone Girl is Mine?

And he said, I'm multi talented.

Did There's one other thing I wanted to get Yell's take on or I don't know if this is even we might cut this or not, but it is the first near death experience story that we've recorded where somebody said it wasn't it wasn't a light, it wasn't an out of body experience.

There was no meeting of ancestors and people who had passed before me, and there's no life review.

She said it was just nothing, and I haven't heard anybody say that yet on our show of the forty or so you recordings we've done.

Maybe the DMT in her brain didn't activate.

Maybe maybe it was just the brain chemistry because of the aneurysm it could have been, or maybe there's nothing.

All right, that's the next episode, moving on.

That's a good win to end it on, so everybody can the people who listen to the podcasts are going to bed.

What or maybe there's when tonight?

Maybe I mean she kind of said it on that sounds peaceful.

I'm not to say it's like, I'm like, wait, you mean I can be alone.

We've been arguing for the meteor all more.

Yeah, like bring it.

Have you guys formulated any definite decisions about whether you think that there's afterlife or not or nothing this or No?

I haven't.

I don't even have tattoos.

I'm you're talking about.

Man, It took me twenty minutes to decide whether I wanted creamer this morning.

No, I haven't made any decisions.

Why do you think I'm here?

Yeah?

No, I mean I think.

I think I'm pretty much an atheist and I pretty strongly believe that there is going to be nothing, But I'm also incredibly open to the concept of any.

I mean, there's so many weird things in the universe that we can't explain with science, and we've tried yet and yet hey, good one.

You know what's funny, though, is the interview I just did with the homeless guy Matthew Fortune had the exact same experience Angeline did, where he just experienced this nothingness and it haunted him.

And this is a guy who is a Christian.

He talks about his faith and he was like when I died, it was like the lights went out and that was it.

And I always thought, well that, like you said, I was like, well that sounds kind of soothing.

You're just not exists.

How would you know?

And it terrified?

Did she did?

I don't mean interrupt.

Did Angeline have a memory of the Nothing?

Like does she remember being in the Nothing?

Or was she like I just don't have any memory at all.

I don't remember.

I didn't really listen to.

We don't have to put that in the show.

But I just was like, oh I don't.

I just listened last night, and I don't have a strong memory of exactly what she said right there.

Yeah, I'm like scrubbing.

My audio files in my brain.

You can like watching as I do.

It's it's really interesting that you that you like clicked on that too, Dan, because like that's not even something that I It's like it didn't even like register in my brain.

I was like, oh, yes, nothing, I know that nothing.

Yeah, it's uh, it's like it didn't even register.

It was like my brain just like took that information.

Was like, okay, I just like it because it challenges the sort of typical narratives about near death experiences that are floating and you know, in collective consciousness right now, like I don't you don't hear too many of these, So I was really curious about it.

And certainly in the show, I mean, right, you.

Know, yeah, that's what I'm trying to figure out, like was Angeline just did she just have a memory like blackout?

Or or was she in the nothing?

Which is also counter because it means that you're you're in you're maybe there is consciousness about the nothing, so it's not nothing, it's just the whole thing.

Is maybe she was sentenced to purgatory.

Oh, I mean, purgatory sounds pretty quiet.

It's just a lot of mirrors.

Nick, you you.

Guys are not like not you're selling the concept of nothing to me.

Really well, I don't know if that's your intentions.

Just a fun house, that's all.

It is, an endless funhouse.

There's nothing fun about this house.

No, it's all.

This is not a fun house.

This house is hanted a carnival ride.

They won't stop that one I can get yet.

It's like yeah, all right, all right, so we're ending on nothing.

But yeah, yeah, it's like very Shakespeare.

Get a good reaver behind the Moro and.

Next time in Alive Again, we'll meet Resa Bailey, who was a theology student working through a crisis of faith when the lower half of her body was crushed in a rock slide at the base of the Grand Canyon.

After her harrowing rescue through rapids and a turbulent airlift, she came to a new understanding.

I lost very close to fifty percent of my blood volume and I was bleeding to death.

That God cause my injury.

Was that a part of God's plan?

And I just came to realize that I don't believe that.

I believe that things just happen, and it's our faith it gets us through.

Our story.

Producers are Dan Bush, Kate Sweeney, Brent die Nicholas Dakoski, and Lauren Vogelbaum.

Music by Ben Lovett, additional music by Alexander Rodriguez.

Our executive producers are Matthew Frederick and Trevor Young.

Special thanks to Alexander Williams for additional production support.

Our studio engineers are Rima El Kali and Nomes Griffin.

Today's episode was edited by Mike w Anderson, mixing by Ben Lovett and Alexander Rodriguez.

I'm your host, Dan Bush.

Special thanks to Angeline Pass for sharing her story.

Click the link in our show notes to find out more about Angeline and her work.

Alive Again is a production of iHeart Radio and Psychopia Pictures.

If you have a transformative near death experience to share, we'd love to hear your story.

Please email us at a Live Again Project at gmail dot com.

That's a l i v e A g A I N p R O j E c T at gmail dot com.