'I Knew I Was Coming Back': Former Atheist Clinically Dead for Six Minutes Claims God Is 'Like an Ocean'

A former atheist who says she was clinically dead for six minutes after a ruptured ectopic pregnancy in 2016 now describes God as 'like an ocean' and says the experience rewired her beliefs about consciousness, death and what comes next.

Dr Anna Stone, 38 at the time, says her heart stopped during severe internal bleeding and that she returned with a conviction that individual divisions, whether religious, political or cultural, ultimately mean very little.

Stone had identified as an atheist before the incident and said she viewed herself as energy and biological processes whose energy would eventually return to the Earth, while her individual consciousness would end.

She reports that the 2016 emergency began with repeated episodes of heavy bleeding and that doctors initially treated the problem as an ulcer before an ectopic pregnancy was identified. When it ruptured, she says she lost a huge amount of blood and her heart stopped while medics worked to save her.

Stone's Account of a Six-Minute Near-Death Experience

Stone says that during the roughly six minutes she was clinically dead, her perception of time no longer operated normally and she found herself outside her body, watching medical staff and hearing what she recalls as doctors calling her time of death.

She alleges she heard a doctor refer to her as a 'junkie' and later confronted him, asking how she could have heard anything if she was dead. According to her account, the doctor acknowledged making the remark and told her she should not have been able to hear it.

She says the experience did not stop there. Stone says she encountered versions of herself at ages two, six, 12 and 16, which she perceived as existing simultaneously in the same realm, and saw people from her past in a way that forced her to confront her own selfishness.

'I got to see from their perspective how selfish I was,' she said, adding that she had not considered the people she interacted with. Eventually, she says she encountered a version of herself from 2016 and heard a presence say 'nope', which she interpreted as meaning she would not remain in the afterlife.

The core of her new belief is strikingly simple. 'I came back with this understanding that God, or source, or whatever you want to call it, is like an ocean,' Stone told reporters. In her view, each person is an individual 'droplet' containing something divine and, after death, returning to a collective consciousness.

'We're all going to go to the same place at the end,' she claimed, arguing that the divisions people create are ultimately 'all fake.'

Alcohol, Warnings and a New Purpose

Stone says the aftermath was as strange as the event itself. She reports that when she tried to drink alcohol after leaving hospital, the liquid appeared to foam in her mouth and felt warm, forcing her to spit it out.

'I tried a different type of alcohol, same thing. That was the end of it. So I stopped,' she said. She also claims she began hearing an internal voice that warned her against certain actions, telling her things like 'don't drink that' or 'don't go that way.'

Following her near-death experience, Stone says she later earned a PhD in spiritual psychology and now teaches at a continuation school, working with young people who have experienced trauma.

She says she has spent the years since 2016 teaching, writing and studying the relationship between trauma, consciousness and what she describes as unusual sensitivity. 'I would hope that it means that we are not finite, that we are part of this collective organism of the universe that is, I believe, conscious,' she said.

Stone is careful to note she has no definitive answer about what happens after death, only a conviction that ordinary life is not the whole story.

'I have no idea where it's gonna go, but I think that it is far more,' she said. 'My hope is that this whole existence here is more than just bills and taxes and disappointments and rat racing. I really hope that there's something after that makes all of this worthwhile.'

Stone's account of her near-death experience and its interpretation could not be independently verified. Claims about consciousness continuing after death, an afterlife or the nature of God are presented as Stone's personal beliefs and experiences and should not be understood as established medical or scientific fact.