In the 1960s, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) technique was adopted across the country, and around the same time, physicians and emergency personnel were hearing a great increase in stories from those who were brought back from the brink of death. Sometimes they had witnessed their own resuscitation, despite having little or no brain or heart activity,…

Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, had been living a “predictably normal” life by his accounts when one day he woke up with his brain on fire, writhing in pain as his meningitis devoured—quite literally—his brain. He was rushed to the hospital, where he fell into a week-long coma. His disease had a 53 percent mortality rate…