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April 10, 2001 - Art Bell

02:47:47

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Dr. Carla Willis-Brandon - Death Bed Visions

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art bell ▲ ● ▼		From the high desert and the great American Southwest, I bid you all good evening and or good morning wherever you may be across this great land of ours from Guam, way out across the date line in the west eastward to the Caribbean and the U.S. Virgin Islands, south into South America, north all the way to the Pole.
		This is Coast to Coast, A.M., and I'm Art Bell.
		Good morning, everybody.
		Well, anybody out there know what Eco Challenge is?
		Did you happen to see it?
		I certainly recommended, you'll recall, that you watch it.
		Anyway, in a moment, we have an extreme team to speak with you, which made it all the way through the Echo Challenge.
		Tell you all about it in a moment.
		Actually, that's really a good way to come into this segment.
		It's good for all segments, I'm slowly deciding.
		Anybody out there know what Echo Challenge is?
		In 1992, Mark Burnett of Survivor fame created Echo Challenge way back in 92.
		Based the idea on the New Zealand-based multi-sport and European endurance races, popular during the early 80s, he lengthened the race, removed assistance grews, added a strong environmental message.
		Savan 2000 is the seventh Echo Challenge.
		Borneo, which is what we're going to talk about tonight, redefined Adventure as 76 four-person teams from 26 different countries set out on what I call non-stop torture.
		They call it non-stop expedition race, racing through the wild and exotic islands of the Borneo area.
		Teams travel day and night, no sleep, little sleep, grueling 320-mile race.
		They faced a host of physical challenges from paddling outrigger canoes to maneuvering mountain bikes along ancient headhunter trails.
		Oh, wonderful.
		Swimming down swollen jungle rivers, trekking through dense leech-infested jungles, climbing and rappelling down a 300-foot cliff, the longest rappel in Echo Challenge history, and navigating the unforgiving lowlands and deep bat-infested caves.
		Oh yeah, the cave.
		Teams must have at least one member of the opposite sex and must cross the finish line together.
		If a team loses a member to illness, injury, fatigue, or disagreement, they are disqualified.
		And we are honored tonight to have the majority of one of those teams with us.
		I hope.
		They are Playboy Extreme Team members, Dan L. Fultra.
		Now, I know this sounds wild.
		Why would they have, how could you possibly have on this kind of thing, Playboy Centerfolds?
		Dan L. Fultra was captain of Playboy Extreme Team.
		And let me, see, she was, there's so much to say about all of them in so little time.
		Miss April 1995.
		All of them are athletes.
		There's Kaylin Olson.
		And Kaylin was a Playboy Playmate in 1997.
		Miss August, I believe.
		Jennifer Lavoie.
		And she was really something.
		They really portrayed her in a very interesting way on television.
		Jennifer was Miss August's Playboy Playmate in 1993.
		I have never had such three on my lines before.
		I hope all of this works.
		Now, check my website, and you will see a picture of these gals.
		In fact, the whole team.
		And there are links to, I think Jennifer has a website.
		You'll be able to see Jennifer.
		Remember, a little bit of it is adult-oriented, but what we're going to talk about right now is what they did and why they did it.
		Gals, are you all there?
unidentified		Are you here?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That sounds like that might be three.
		All right.
		A lot of my audience will have seen it because I promoted it heavily so that when I got you on, they would understand you're not just girl flesh.
		You're a whole lot more.
		You're actually.
		The first question I want to ask is about Mark Burnett.
		Do you girls think that when he has off time, probably, which isn't very much, does he like pick the wings off flies for idle time?
unidentified		I don't think Mark Burnett has too much free time on his hands.
		He always seems to be on the go.
		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why don't you identify yourself when you say something?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Unfortunately, this is radio, so we almost have to do that.
unidentified		That's right.
unidentified		This is Jennifer McCoy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, Jennifer.
unidentified		And yeah, Mark's busy guy with Survivor and the Eco Challenge and Combat Missions, I think, is the newest show.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How could anybody design something so incredibly, what's the right word?
		Torturous.
		I don't even know if that does its service.
		How much torture was there involved in doing what you did?
unidentified		Girls.
		Are you sleeping?
		I'm awake.
		I have to say, I mean, yeah, you just have to kind of go to another place.
		I mean, yeah, the pain is there, but you know when you go, what you're up for.
		And basically, you just try and prepare yourself mentally for it, and you just get through it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but I saw professional athletes, grown men, crying.
		Everybody cried.
		Did all of you cry?
unidentified		I don't think Janelle cried.
		This is Kaylin.
		I don't think Danelle shed one tear.
		She's tough.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
unidentified		I didn't know.
unidentified		Well, I've got enough for her.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		There's so many things I want to ask about.
		I almost don't know where to begin.
		I guess, number one, what kept you all from quitting?
		You probably all have your own answers for that, I would imagine.
unidentified		Yeah, this is Jennifer.
		I think they even captured it during the show where I said I did not want to quit.
		I didn't want to be the one to go to sleep at night knowing that I caused our team to not be able to finish the eco challenge because I see these girls a lot and I didn't want to have to see their faces and be like, have them look at me like, thanks.
		We could have finished the Eco Challenge had it been for you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think that drove a lot of teams, huh?
unidentified		Yeah, sure.
		I mean, who wants to be the quitter?
		I certainly didn't want to be the quitter, and I'm sure my teammates didn't want to quit either.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You both have the same answer?
unidentified		Yeah, I didn't want to disappoint my team.
		I mean, if anything, I kept going because I wanted to show them that I could keep going, too.
		And we probably just, all of us, we had to, when we went into the race, we all felt the same.
		We've raced together.
		We know each other inside and out.
		So that helped a lot during the race when one of us was having a problem or we were down and we weren't feeling well.
		Instead of getting angry, we tried to be understanding.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is this Kaylin?
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, stay good and close to your phone, Kaylin, for me.
unidentified		Yeah, I can barely hear you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We've got to kind of yell at us, Kaylin.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's better.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And Danelle, how about you?
unidentified		I think we lost an L. Did we lose Danelle?
		We lost an L?
		We lost an L. Oh, no.
		I'll queue in on that.
		This is Jennifer.
		I would agree.
		I think people saw during the race that, you know, our team dynamics were awesome.
		You know, we've raced enough with each other that we know each other.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, hold on.
		We've got a little bit of something going on here, so let me try something.
		I think that I can correct this.
		Let me do this, and let me do this.
		Okay, I think I've got you two on now.
		I hope I do.
		Oh, I've got one of you on.
		I knew I was going to have trouble.
		Who is this?
unidentified		Kaylin.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Kaylin!
		All right, I think that.
		Well, that did it.
		Now we've lost them all.
		I knew this was going to happen because we had one on the cell phone, and I knew that we've been a loser.
		We had lost her once during the setup.
		And so what we're going to have to do is survive with just one of them, I think.
		Let's try and get them both back on the line one at a time.
		Yes, I know it's late where we're calling.
unidentified		Hello?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Jennifer.
unidentified		Hi, I'm here again.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hold on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to try and at least get Kaylin back.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, hold on.
		We'll try and get Kaylin back here.
		And we'll have to survive with these two girls, I guess.
		So, let me see.
		How do I get Kaylin?
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think this is going to work.
		No, this is not going to work.
		We may just have one girl, actually, until the break.
		In fact, that's what we'll do.
		We'll take Jennifer until the break.
		Jen, we'll take you until the break.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So, I watched you, Jennifer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I watched you cry.
unidentified		Yes, I was known as the crier.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In fact, I can remember, Jennifer, a scene in the caves, and I'm sure you'll never forget that.
unidentified		I will never forget that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you were going up a rope to get to the top of the cave, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you sort of, I guess, everything ran out.
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
		I just had no energy left.
		And you can see me mumbling, I'm so tired.
		And I couldn't get my Jumar out, and I was just having it, and it was so hot.
		Nobody can understand unless you're in there.
		It is like 105 degrees in there with 100% humidity, and it smells like, I mean, it's bat guano, so it smells like a sewer.
		And you can't drink from your water because your body is just full with this, the bat stuff just sticks to your skin.
		It was horrible.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, in other words, you had to, before you even started up the rope, you had to walk through the bat poop, right?
unidentified		Oh, yeah, you walked right through it, and I had actually fallen in it up to my thighs, and my face almost landed in what they call, I don't remember the name of it, but it's the deadliest spider.
		It will kill you.
		It's like worse than their most deadliest snake.
		I don't think anything like it before.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I think we've got, is that Kaylin?
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Kaylin, all right, welcome back.
unidentified		Hi, Kaylin.
		Welcome back.
		Welcome back.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		So, yeah, you have to walk through the back, Guano, before, you know, then you've got to go up the rattan ladders, which are so narrow.
		They're only about maybe six to eight inches wide.
		And, you know, I'm pretty small, so it was pretty easy for me, but it was still difficult.
		I'm thinking, how are these grown men getting up here?
		And then it was just hell from there on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Boy, you know, I don't even know how anybody finished the race, to be honest with you, anybody at all.
		I looked at it and said, I said a lot of things that I can't repeat here, but there's no way that I would ever do that.
		Why did you all even consider doing this in the first place?
		I just can't imagine it.
unidentified		This is Jenny again.
		For me, it was a great opportunity.
		I think it was a great opportunity for all of us.
		We've been doing adventure races for three years now.
		And, okay, so we went right from, you know, we jumped in headfirst.
		I mean, we went from doing four to five hour adventure races to doing the Eco Challenge.
		I think we had planned on doing at least a 24-hour hour race before doing the ECO, but it just didn't happen that way.
		And, I mean, this was our opportunity to do the, you know, the World Championship Eco Challenge.
		It was a great year for us, and we did it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You made it all the way through.
		It is absolutely amazing to me that you made it through, or as I said, that anybody at all did.
		What would you say was the worst moment, both of you, for you individually?
		The absolute worst moment.
unidentified		I think you saw my worst moment.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It was on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, they caught it then.
unidentified		Yeah, they definitely caught my worst moment.
		I mean, you definitely didn't see all of it, but that whole day for me was just, I was really sick.
		I had finally I I drank so much of the the brown, dirty pond scum water the day before, and it just did not sit with my stomach.
		I was extremely sick.
		And, you know, it's not fun when you really have to go to the bathroom and you have a harness on and you're just not feeling yourself.
		And I was just so sick.
		And then, you know, the whole climbing thing, it was just so much more than I had ever thought.
		And even the number one, even the winning team, Team Eco Internet, said, you know, we thought this was going to be a quick, you know, run through the cave and run back to the beach.
		I mean, everybody was shocked at how difficult that whole climbing part was.
		So that was my most difficult day.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Jaylen?
unidentified		Well, I guess, you know, when we hadn't slept for so long and it probably hit us all about this around the same time because we had been awake for so many days and you just, you're exhausted and you just don't want to, you know, you're short-tempered.
		And like Jenny said, we just, the trek turned into, I don't know how many hours it took us to get up that mountain.
		We had two peaks to climb and then, you know, the 300-foot rappel.
		And then we got poured on in a jungle.
		We didn't even think we were going to make it to PC because it was raining so hard.
		And all of a sudden, there were like rivers where there weren't rivers before.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		PC, we should explain to everybody as what?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Passport control?
unidentified		Passport control, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, these are the various checkpoints that you have to achieve along the way.
unidentified		Yes, you cannot skip one.
		There's 31 of them, and if you skip one, you get bounced.
		Yeah, they actually penalize you or they actually disqualify you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I saw people go through more torture than I've ever seen before for voluntary torture, that is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Voluntary torture.
unidentified		Sure, did you notice everybody's feet?
		I mean, that had to have been the worst part.
		And people were asking me, is that how your feet looked?
		And I'm like, yes.
		You know, we all had trench foot.
		You're basically, how to explain it to somebody is imagine yourself sitting in a bathtub for seven days and not getting out of the bathtub.
		That's how your body looks.
		I mean, that's how our feet look.
		We were constantly wet.
		As soon as they dry out, five minutes later, they're soaking wet again.
		So, and then, you know, you get the blisters.
		And, I mean, the feet were horrible.
		Yeah.
		And just knowing that you have three more days to go.
		There were four more days to go walking on those feet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, a whole bunch of people actually quit the race because of their feet.
		They literally couldn't keep going.
		And these were seasoned veterans of these races.
unidentified		Sure, John Howard, I mean, number one adventure racer, won three Eco Challenges.
		I mean, he quit.
		You know, he had to stop the Eco Challenge.
		I mean, we were just in shock.
		You know, the feet.
		Even the doctor said it's the worst scenario as far as FECO that he's ever seen.
		I mean, it was just gross.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then what about the leeches?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did you all contend with the leeches?
unidentified		Go ahead, Caitlin.
		Yeah, we had a problem with leeches.
		I mean, I've never had a leech before, and so getting my first one was quite an experience.
		I ice creamed.
		I tried.
		Yeah.
		And you can't avoid them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You did why you found it in the middle of the night or something?
unidentified		Yeah, I was actually, we were on our bikes, and there was one on my leg, and I just had one at the time, and it just scared me to death.
		I didn't know what to do.
		Get it off!
		Get it off!
		Yeah, and then, you know, a couple days later, we're in the jungle, and there are hundreds and thousands of them on every leaf, falling out of trees, and you just, pretty much, you just get used to seeing them crawling all over you.
		But I don't think you ever really get used to it.
		It's, yeah, it's probably the most fast thing I've ever seen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is this something that somebody talked you girls into, or did you actually sit down together and say, we could do this?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, how did this happen?
unidentified		Well, Danelle and Kaylin were actually scheduled to do it, I think, six weeks prior to the race, which is, I mean, people trained for this race for a year.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I know.
unidentified		They decided to do it six weeks prior, and they had another playmate that was supposed to do it.
		And at the last minute, she canceled out, and Danelle had asked me to do it.
		Oh, no.
		I had called to tell her because I wanted to do the Survivor show.
		And she's like, I can't believe you want to go and eat bugs, and you don't want to do the Eco Challenge with us.
		And I said, well, she said, listen, you know, we're going to go to New York.
		We're pulling a 24-hour training.
		Come to New York, train with us.
		If you like it, you know, then you can tell me if you want to commit to the race.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Everybody thinks Survivor is so bad.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Survivor is a walk in the park compared to Eco Challenge.
unidentified		It is.
		So I went to New York and I committed right then and there.
		I knew this is something that I wanted to do.
		And so I had a whopping three weeks to train for that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Had you seen tapes of any of the previous EcoChallenges before you made your decision?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I did.
unidentified		I actually watched it like two years ago.
		We were training with our trainer, Blaine Reeves, and he's done, I think, three or four eco-challenges.
		And we sat down, and I literally watched all of them.
		I mean, I couldn't get my eyes away from the TV.
		And I looked at him and I looked at Danelle and I said, don't ever ask me to do that race.
		I would never do that.
		And that was like two or three years ago.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I sat there going, these people are crazy.
		You know, there's not a million-dollar prize at the end.
		In fact, you've got to pay to enter, right?
unidentified		Oh, sure.
		It's so expensive to go in.
		I mean, I think it costs us about $60,000 to enter the race.
		So if you don't have sponsors, it's very expensive.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So in other words, quality torture is really expensive.
unidentified		Yes, exactly.
		You're paying for the torture.
		But you know what?
		People don't understand.
		Adventure races, they do it for the love of the sport.
		They don't really do it for the money.
		And the winning teams, especially the top five, I mean, they're racing to try to become the number one racing team, adventure racing team in the world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In the world, right?
unidentified		And that's so much more than, you know, $55,000.
unidentified		So I think that's just so cool.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The only issue with money is you've got to have it to get in.
unidentified		Absolutely.
unidentified		Or you've got to have some sponsors.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then even if you win, you're barely covering your infant fee or something, right?
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, the winning team probably walked away with maybe $5,000, which is, you know, nothing.
		You know, plus you've got to talk, plus you've got to think of all the time that you're spending training, that you're not working.
		So, I mean, you're not making any money.
		But, you know, it's just for the love of the sport.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Love of the sport.
unidentified		Love of the torture.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But, I mean, that's just not kind of torture.
		That's the real thing.
		That's really torture.
		That's going beyond what a human being, the point where they can go, and then somehow mustering it up inside and continuing on.
		Girls, hold on for a moment.
		We're at the bottom of the hour.
		And then, of course, there's the issue of why would Playboy centerfolds choose to do this?
		Grizzled guys with, you know, big guns, yeah, maybe.
unidentified		But these girls, why?
		Pretty woman walking down the street.
		Pretty woman, the kind I like to meet.
		Pretty woman.
		I don't believe you.
		You know the truth.
		No one could look as good as you.
		Mercy.
		Pretty woman.
		Won't you pardon me, pretty woman?
		I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but
		be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman I couldn't help but be pretty woman Call, Art Bell, in the Kingdom of Nye, from west of the Rockies at 1-800-618-8255.
		East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
		First-time callers may rechart at 1-775-727-1222.
		And the wildcard line is open at 1-775-727-1295.
		To rechart on the toll-free international line, call your AT ⁇ T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
		This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell from the Kingdom of Nine.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		is, and we are talking with Echo Challenge team, or at least a part of the team, Playboy Extreme, which did an incredible thing.
		They finished the Echo Challenge, and just finishing the Echo Challenge, I would have For most of us, an impossibility.
		There may be one more opportunity, if you haven't seen it on the USA television network, to see it.
		In fact, I think right now they're doing a two-hour recap of the whole thing, and that will occur again later in the month, I think on the 16th.
		I'm not sure.
		At any rate, we'll get back to the girls in a moment.
		All right.
		Well, I've got a couple of Playboy gals here, actually.
		Kaylin Olson, Miss August, Playboy, Playmate in 97.
		Jennifer Lavoie, who was Miss August Playboy Playmate in 1993.
		Also, by the way, on our website, we've got links to the, well, we've got a photo of the Extreme Team, so you can see all of them up there.
		We've got Jennifer's website up there, slightly adult material, bear that in mind.
		And you can go read about Echo Challenge.
		All of that on my website if you go to tonight's guest info.
		You'll see it all right there.
		Gals, welcome back.
unidentified		Hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, good.
		You're both still there.
		Hallelujah.
		We lost Danelle Fulta, unfortunately, to cell phone hell.
		I just disconnected.
		All right.
		You know, when all the teams were gathering, I think I have a pretty good question.
		These were a lot of them.
		Some were amateurs, but most were world-class athletes.
		And even the amateurs were really build-up-ready amateurs and been working for a long time.
		They must have looked over at you get your boat ready and gone, cool, playmates, that's really nice, but in this race, give me a break.
		You know, there must have been a lot of that, right?
unidentified		Yeah.
		That started way before we were in our boat.
		Yeah, people knew we were coming before the race even, before we even got to Borneo.
		They were all over the website.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So they were laughing for long before they actually saw you.
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
		And it kind of made us mad, though.
		We were like, you know, hey, you know, we're here racing just like you are.
		And I think a lot of teams were, you know, chuckling and laughing.
		I mean, it was like right to our faces.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, they would probably say with you, but we both know it.
		We both know.
		We both know it was at you.
		We all know.
unidentified		You know what's funny, though?
		Those same people that were laughing, when we crossed the finish line, they were like, we're so proud of you.
		So I think they knew as of like maybe the second day that, hey, you know, wow, they heard about our bike incident and they were like, wow, these girls are really in this race to finish.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We'll get to the bike, but take me back to the boat.
		You know, I thought, honestly, when I was watching, that was the end of you all.
		When that boat got a hole in it, I thought, baby, that's it.
		They're out already, huh?
unidentified		Ha ha ha.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So did I. And how in heaven's name did you pass that boat?
unidentified		You know, when it happened so fast that, I mean, there was nothing, I mean, literally, there's nothing we could do.
		I mean, Danelle and I, this is Kaylin, We just weren't strong enough to keep the boat off of the rocks.
		And the first thing we did was to get it out of the water and get it up on land.
		And we just started looking at it, thinking, what are we going to do?
		What are we going to do?
		And neither one of us wanted to be out.
		And we were nervous for our teammates because they were, you know, trekking through the jungle.
		They had no idea what we were doing.
		We were all on our own.
		And we just had to put our heads together and we just had to think fast.
		And your survival instincts come out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How close was that to it's all over?
unidentified		Really close.
		I mean, I think probably the closest.
		Yeah.
		Yeah, because that was a very critical part of the race.
		I mean, your boat is everything.
		We had a long ways to go in that boat.
		And, yeah, so.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And did that patch hold up for the rest of the whole thing?
unidentified		It did.
		We did a great job.
		It did.
		Yeah, it was putty in wood.
		Yeah.
		It worked.
		And we did some other repairs once we got to the mainland and stuff.
		Yeah, we had to constantly repair that boat.
		The mountains were.
		It was exacting.
		It was not the most, you know, it was not the best boat.
		The Outragers had snapped in half.
		We had to tie them with string and branches and whatever we could find.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Mark Burnett was saying that after everybody managed to get up out of the bath poop and then climb, which was horrible, I know for you, but then once you've done that and you get up to the top and you climb a little further and you see how far you have to go, that I guess was Jen's probably worst moment.
		I was so mad.
		Yeah, angry, right.
		Burnett said he said that everybody would be angry when they got up there and saw what was ahead of them.
unidentified		Well, you know, when we were getting up there, I saw the flag and I started almost running, like, if you can call that running up that cliff.
		And we get there and you look over and you can see it on TV.
		You can see the highest peak.
		And it's like, oh, my God.
		You know, we have that far to go.
		And let me tell you something, the tears just fell because you're so discouraged.
		You think you're at the top and it looks like what looks to be days away.
		And I'll tell you, though, they captured it.
		When we got up there, we were just like, you know, thank God we made it here.
		And little do we know, the descent was just as hell.
		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They had cameras on you girls a lot, of course, I guess, because of who you are.
		But how did they manage to get the cameras around?
		I'm curious.
unidentified		Oh, my God.
		They were awesome.
		They were like athletes themselves.
		I was amazed.
		I kept saying that to them, especially going up that mountain that day.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Carrying a big, heavy camera.
		Oh, the camera was probably as much as our backpacks, and they were running up the mountain backwards.
		And it was so dangerous.
		But you know what?
		The cameras were on us a lot, but they missed a lot.
		Yeah, we really needed them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What was the good stuff they missed?
unidentified		Well, when we crashed our boat, when we dumped it over, they got it.
		You could see us floating in the water, but you didn't actually see the actual hitting of the tree and dumping over.
		When we got stuck in a flash flood, they weren't there.
		I mean, dangerous stuff.
		When the snake, when the pit viper almost jumped into our boat.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
unidentified		Just crazy, crazy stuff.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There was a 300-foot rappel.
		320 feet.
		320 feet.
unidentified		To be exact.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		To be exact.
unidentified		Yes, that was the longest rappel in the Eco Challenge history.
		That was my first rappel.
		Yeah, that was our first rappel to be.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The first time you ever did that?
unidentified		Actually, I rappelled once in Puerto Rico, and it was probably about 50 feet.
		And Kalin had never rappelled.
		So let me just say that I'm so glad that we did that in the pitch dark.
		Yeah, in the middle of the night, because we couldn't see.
		You can't really see how high you are.
		No way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, wait a minute.
		Wait a minute.
		You did that in the pitch dark?
unidentified		Yeah, in the middle of the night.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why would they let you do that in the middle of the night?
unidentified		That wasn't really considered a danger, like a dark zone.
		They don't throw dark zones.
		You know, they don't want to stop the race.
		Yeah, they're not going to, yeah, especially right there.
		I mean, believe me, there's nowhere to sleep up where we were.
		And they had light, you know, they had lights as much as you could.
		We had our headlamps on.
		But you know what?
		I'm glad it was dark because after seeing that on TV, I'm like, oh, my God, I cannot believe I did that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I can't believe you all did it either.
		Did you begin to gain respect as I assume that from time to time teams pass each other and interact more than you might know if you watch the TV program?
		Is that true?
unidentified		Oh, that's the most, that's the best part, Hunt Kaylin.
		The camaraderie, just the team spirit.
		You see everybody, you know, you see the same team.
		Actually, when I was watching the show, I would see like the guys from Boogie Aspen and a couple teams.
		I'm like, oh, my God, I love him.
		You know, he's so nice.
		And, hey, you know, we got them through the jungle section.
		Yeah, there are times where you spent hours with the same team, with another team.
		Janelle and I, when we were checking by ourselves, we joined up with another team and we went up the mountain together.
		And then a huge group of teams went down together.
		I think that's cool.
		Yeah, and there was a lot of team spirit.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is there anything that you girls can think of that you could have done differently that might have had you finish actually ranked?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		How about bringing a derailer?
		Yeah, I mean, as far as equipment goes, what can you do, you know?
		But yeah, you never know.
		I mean, you know, there are things that I watched the show like three times, and I've seen things that definitely, if we do the Eco Challenge, definitely quicker at the PCs.
		A couple of the PCs, we spent like two hours, and we wasted a lot of time.
		Mark's right.
		You know, people, rookies that spend two to three hours, you're talking at the end of the race, they've added on like two days.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
unidentified		So there's definitely, we need to be a little bit faster.
		I mean, it's easier to say now, but when you're there and you're totally exhausted and you're just broken down, I mean, sometimes you need that two hours.
		But that was an amazing thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm afraid of high places, and I looked at that chasm that you all had to slide across and then pull yourself Up the rope to get to the other side.
unidentified		That was the most terrifying for me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it would have been for me, too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did you pause before you, or did you just go?
unidentified		I sat there first.
		Okay, when you went, right?
		I think I went first.
		I sat there for a few minutes and was just thinking, and that's scary, the initial jump.
		But once I did it, you know, your smile comes across your face.
		It's actually kind of fun.
		Do you remember when you saw the French girl?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
unidentified		Yeah, that was me.
		I was like, I mean, that wasn't literally me, but that was me.
		I did the same thing.
		I was up too high, and I was down a street.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		She had to step down to the lower rock before she went.
unidentified		You know, I just kept thinking, I'm way too high.
		I'm going to smash my head on the rock.
		I mean, I was so paranoid.
		And then once you go, it's like, oh, that was no big deal.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What were the, there were major injuries.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I saw one fellow who did a header over his bike and I think had a branch of a tree that went through his chest up into his arm or some god-awful thing like that.
unidentified		He functioned his lung.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		And it had to be evacuated by a helicopter.
		Were they, there is really, there is substantial risk doing that race.
		I mean, there's no way around it.
		How many forms did you all have to sign?
unidentified		Lots of waivers.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I would imagine a lot.
unidentified		You know, I am amazed.
unidentified		I have to say this, but I'm amazed that somebody didn't die.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so much.
unidentified		I mean, the river swim alone.
		It's just like, oh my God, you could have easily gone under and smashed your head on a rock.
		It just amazes me.
		Or even the climbing part.
		I was so afraid.
		Kaylin had taken off.
		We had snapped at each other, and Kaelin took off, and we couldn't find her.
		And I'm like, I just kept thinking, she fell.
		I was so nervous that she had, because there were these open holes.
		And I mean, you're talking, you know, 5,000 feet down.
		And I'm thinking, oh, my God, you know, we're never going to find Kaiten.
		She definitely must have fallen.
		So it's freaky.
		There's a lot of, it's dangerous.
		It's definitely dangerous.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Who selected Owen West to be the only male part of your team?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How did that happen?
unidentified		We actually, we met his brother at one of our promotions.
		We were playing volleyball, and his brother had walked up to Sidel, our captain, and said, you guys should race with my brother Owen.
		He's done the Eco Challenge.
		He's finished his highest second.
		He's finished fifth.
		And when the opportunity came up, she remembered this guy.
		She talked to him, and sure enough, Mark Burnett, they knew exactly who he was, and they said, that is a great guy to race with.
		And she called him, or they called him and said, hey, Playboy wants you to race on their team.
		And he originally wasn't going to race at all.
		And his wife pretty much made the decision for him.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're going.
		Obviously, then Playboy sponsored you all into the race, right?
		No.
unidentified		No.
		No, they didn't want to race.
		No.
		They didn't really support us.
		I mean, they actually didn't even, yeah.
		What did you just say, Caitlin?
		They didn't want us to do the race?
		They didn't want us to do the race.
		Yeah, they thought it was too dangerous.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm with them.
		My most dangerous thing is I want to hang Glyde and my wife and my company.
		Nobody wants me to do it because it's too dangerous.
		So then how did they react when you did go and who did sponsor you?
unidentified		Oh, Playboy was great.
		I mean, we went to New York and had a little meeting with the president of marketing.
		And we went to this little room, and they had thrown a little going away party for us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So they didn't sit you down and say, have you lost your minds?
unidentified		Well, yeah, sure, of course they did.
		But when they did, there was no stopping it.
		It's not like we would have been like, oh, okay, we won't go.
		I mean, we were definitely determined to do this race.
		But Playboy was supportive.
		But we definitely, I mean, USA was a sponsor.
		We had Gary Fairy.
		We had our bikes and helmets, and we had a clothing with Adidas, you know, sunglasses.
		I mean, we pretty much got a lot of our stuff through the different companies.
		Okay.
		Which helped us a lot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		During the race, who do you think of the two sexes, which gave you the toughest time, either from before the race or just to when it began and then early on in the race?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you think the men or the women were laughing harder?
unidentified		The men.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The men?
unidentified		I think the women were kind of for us.
		I mean, I don't know.
		I would have to say both.
		But a lot of the women were like, yeah, you know, being a woman, I hope they kicked butt.
		But then a lot of the guys were really nice, too, just because of the fact that we were in Playboy.
		I think it was kind of like, ooh.
		You know, we definitely don't look like the typical adventure racers.
		But I think it kind of, you know, when Team Playboy is passing you and you're three guys, three tough guys.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That'd be tough.
unidentified		Or you're going up the same mountain with, you know, three Navy SEALs and they're thinking, oh my gosh, the Playboy team caught up with us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You caught up with the SEALs?
unidentified		Yeah, we should have been.
		Oh, yeah.
		We hiked up that last mountain with them.
		That would be, you have to hear this funny little story.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That would be demoralizing.
unidentified		Exactly.
		We were actually almost at that last peak before the rappel, and there was two guys on the ground, and we started walking up, and we were getting excited because we knew that the top was nearing us.
		And the guy looked at his sick teammate, and he's like, get up, get up.
		That's the effing Playboy Bunnies.
		They're passing us.
		So it's kind of funny.
		And you know what?
		And our guy teammate said, don't worry, pal.
		You don't hear what you passed.
		So it does.
		It definitely demoralizes men.
		And I'm getting a lot of bad feedback.
		I'm like really surprised on USANetwork.com, they have a message board in the EcoChallenge section.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, message board people are really mean.
unidentified		Oh, my God.
unidentified		I'm so upset about it that these guys are saying that we really didn't finish and that they helped us and we basically were flown in helicopters and pulled with our boats.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You want to straighten any of that out?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, were you flown around in helicopters?
unidentified		Absolutely not.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did limousines take you from a passport control to passport control?
unidentified		Oh, absolutely.
		Yeah.
		You know, I'm just amazed at the comments And just the stupidity of people.
		But you know what?
		I think I've had about almost, probably almost 500 emails ever since the show aired, and people are so awesome.
		I mean, they're so proud of us.
		And you know what?
		It's all that matters is what we think.
		You know, we know that we finished the race, and we're proud of ourselves.
		And hey, man, we're going to do it again.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What was you are?
unidentified		Absolutely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That was going to be one of my last questions.
		Oops.
		No, that's fine.
		We're getting short on time anyway.
		Would you really do that again?
		I can't wait.
		It's New Zealand next, isn't it?
unidentified		We're not going to do New Zealand.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		Maybe 2002.
		No?
		Africa.
		Africa?
		Yeah.
		Woo-hoo.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, see, I didn't know that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Africa, huh?
unidentified		Yeah, actually, Mark Burnett said it on the, so I'm not giving anything away.
		He said it on the Home Shopping Network that it was going to be in Africa.
		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I bet it'll be in Kruger National Park.
		Really?
		I'm just guessing.
unidentified		I'm so excited.
		I mean, that would just be another awesome.
		We're not into the cold.
		I mean, I can deal with cold because I'm from New Hampshire, but Danelle, I definitely hate the cold weather in the Air Force.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but if they send you to Eastern Africa, that is really, really dangerous.
		I was there.
		The big five are there.
		I mean, you can be in the middle of sort of shrub brush, and you can have elephants all the way around you, and there's nowhere to run.
unidentified		Oh, my God.
unidentified		Well, they had elephants in California, too, on a bike trail.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
unidentified		It was pretty freaky.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What were your impressions of Mark Burnett?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He seems such a sweetheart on the regular survivor, you know, but even on Echo Challenge, he seems like a nice guy, but my God, the torture he directs.
unidentified		I think he's a great guy.
		You know, he gets a bad rap sometimes, but he's a great guy.
		He's a smart, you know.
		I mean, God, he's a great marketer, and he loves the sport.
		I mean, you know, that guy greeted every single team that crossed the finish line.
		I mean, no matter what time of day, what time of night you went through.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So even all the way through the race, girls, you always had sweet thoughts about Mark Burnett every mile you went, right?
unidentified		Well, yeah.
		I mean, he was funny.
		He was so, I mean, he wanted us more than anything to cross that finish line.
		And I heard from one of the top five teams that they had gotten to PC 17, and they were so excited because they were in the lead.
		And they're like, yeah, you know, Mark, you know, cool, we're winning.
		And he goes, yeah, but did you hear that the Playboy Extreme team, you know, made it to PC, you know, 13 or something like that?
		And they were like, who cares?
		You know, we're winning.
		So I just thought that was really funny.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That is funny.
		Be supportive.
		So never a moment did you have a bad word to say about Mark.
		Even at leech time, even at chasm time, even at that moment in the cave, never did you think one of them.
unidentified		No.
		You never really think to blame him for anything.
		But now that you're sleeping, now that you mentioned it.
		The mud hill, Denny, the mud hole that we had to pull our bikes up.
		Oh, yeah.
		Maybe I wasn't wearing a marker at that point.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I knew it.
		Well, listen, three at first are now two Playboy Playmates.
		I've never had them on the phone.
unidentified		Inside of the sand, the smell of the touch is something inside we need so much.
		The sight of the touch, or the scent of the sand, or the strength of an alcohol used deep in the grass.
		The wonder of flowers to be covered and then to burst up through tarmac and the sun again.
		Or to fly to the sun without burning a wing.
		July's met up and hear the grass sing How all these things in our memory is torn And the users to come To follow Right, right at the door Take me
		free, I'll set you straight Just for me Want to take a ride?
		Call Art Bell from west of the Rockies at 1-800-618-8255.
		East of the Rockies at 1-800-825-5033.
		First-time callers may reach Art at area code 775-727-1222.
		Or call the wildcard line at 775-727-1295.
		To talk with Art on the toll-free international line, call your AT ⁇ T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
		This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you have any idea what a deathbed vision is?
		Well, me either.
		Not exactly.
		I know what an NDE is, but a deathbed vision.
		Carl Wills-Brandon, Dr. Brandon, knows she is a doctor.
		And we'll get to her and what deathbed visions are all about in a moment.
		Just a couple of things to think about in the news that I just have to touch on.
		By the way, we just got what an extreme pleasure it was to interview members of the Playboy Extreme Echo Challenge team in the last hour.
		Absolutely amazing.
		I mean, just, I don't know whether you saw Echo Challenge.
		I recommend it to my audience that you see it, but nothing but respect for them.
		Playmates, yes.
		Beautiful Playmates, yes.
		In fact, yes.
		We've got photographs on my website.
		If you'll go to program tonight's guest info, you'll see the Playboy Extreme team, and you'll see Jennifer Lavoie's site up there as well.
		That's worth a visit, guys.
		Anyway, that they did that was beyond all belief for me.
		In a moment, deathbed visions.
		Right now, just a couple of items.
		One, from CNN, let me read a little bit of this.
		While giving a boost to Mars exploration, thank you very much, the proposed 2002 budget for NASA would scrap A mission to Pluto, tighten the reins on the International Space Station, and cut programs that monitor world climate changes.
		And I thought, boy, that's interesting.
		They're cutting the funds for solar and alternative energy development, slashing them.
		And now they're going to cut the program that monitors world climate change.
		Does anybody out there see a pattern?
unidentified		Hmm?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The U.S. is still trying to get its plane and people, people and plane, I guess, should be in that order back from China, and it's beginning to get pretty serious.
		We've had a powerful X-Class solar flare.
		As you know, we had that last night during the program, which triggered radio blackouts and a minor radiation storm, but it also hurled a coronal mass ejection toward Earth.
		So, today's CME joins another CME already en route to our planet.
		Now, that's pretty interesting.
		Forecasters estimate now a 25% chance, at least, of severe geomagnetic activity at middle latitudes.
		That would be me, when the CMEs arrive late Wednesday or Thursday.
		So, in other words, one coronal mass ejection is now joining another, and they're coming right at Mother Earth.
		Now, these are not as bad, thankfully, as the horrible one, the big one, the monster that missed us, but they have joined, like the perfect storm, into the perfect CME.
		And it should be here late Wednesday or Thursday.
		Skywatchers should be ready for the Aurora after sunset on Wednesday, tomorrow night.
		So anytime after sunset, keep your eyes peeled.
		And there's just one more item that I've got to get out to you, and that is, last night, toward the end of the program, oh my God, did we have some remarkable calls?
		And I'm going to follow up on it.
		I promise you, I'm getting zillions of email, and I'm looking for more.
		We had a call from a man who said that he remembered his memory.
		Well, first of all, we were talking about time.
		Let me set it up that way.
		We were talking about time and the nature of time and time travel and so forth and so on.
		And the possibility that time travelers could manipulate time.
		I think you've all seen that, that you could go back in time and change something, and then that would change everything that had ever been.
		Well, think about this, folks.
		Suppose somebody had changed something in the past.
		We would all of a sudden, boom, like that, we'd have new memories, and the old memories would be gone.
		Only maybe they wouldn't be entirely gone.
		And that's where it got really interesting.
		A fellow called up and basically said that, you know, he remembers from being in high school that he read a book, a history book, saying that Nelson Mandela had been killed, that he didn't get out, as we all know, and go on to freedom and running South Africa.
		That instead he was killed in a different timeline.
		And then I started getting emails like crazy.
		Here's someone else.
		Art talk about creepy.
		I also remember reading in the newspaper about Mandela's death in prison.
		Wonder what all this means.
unidentified		And on and on and on and on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So let's consider that for a second.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What if time is being manipulated, kind of like in the movie Frequency?
unidentified		Well, we wouldn't know it exactly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Or would we?
		We might know a little bit about it.
		We might be, our memories might be a little confused about some events.
		And so trust me, as I am following up on the shadow people with a guest on the subject Thursday, I will find a guest on the phenomena that we're talking about right now that I don't fully understand, but another one uncovered on this program that I guarantee you we're going to follow up on.
		I'll be right back.
		All right.
		I guess we're back sooner than we thought we were going to be, so we can do this a different way.
		This has been a night of some technical nightmare.
		I'll tell you right now.
		We'll do it a little differently.
		What we'll do is we'll do our commercial first, and then we'll do the rest of it.
		All right.
unidentified		A deathbed vision.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Here comes Carla Wills-Brandon, M.A., Ph.D., author of eight published books on spiritual development, The Departing Visions of the Dying, Self-Esteem, Sexual Trauma, Addiction, Alternative Health, and Recovery.
		That's a lot of writing.
		She's appeared on a number of TV programs like Politically Incorrect, Geraldo Rivera, Montelle Williams, Sally Jesse Raphael, The Howard Stern Show, and has lectured across the United States and the United Kingdom as Will Brandon continues to work.
		Howard Stern?
		Continues to work as a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice with her husband of 25 years, Michael Brandon, who's also a doctor.
		The Brandons have two children, and we'll name off all her books later.
		Howard Stern?
		How you doing?
unidentified		Oh, that brings back fond memories.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Does it?
		You were, let's see, now, which book should I imagine Howard was interested in.
		Is it love or is it sex?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		You know, he was interested in the Deathbed Visions book.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're kidding.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		No, and all he did was plummet me.
		Well, I tried to explain to him what a deathbed vision was.
		He just went on and on and on, and then he got very crude and rude.
		And I just really?
unidentified		Oh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I guess then Howard already had the answer to the question about love or sex, so he just didn't bother to.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I was prepared.
		I was prepared for his rudeness, and I just let it roll right off my back.
		Unexpected what he did ask.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you know, actually, though, off air, Howard's a good guy.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Is he really?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		That's nice to hear.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's good for you to know.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Sexual.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you don't suffer with all the wrong.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, I will tell you something.
		He figured out that he wasn't going to rattle me, and eventually he just said, well, you seem like a nice woman.
		Thank you so much.
		Really?
		Yes, at the end of the interview, yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm surprised he took that path at all.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe he's after my job.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		But he did.
		He went on and on about, oh, let's see.
		I was called a wacko.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
		A kook.
		A kook.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, but that's his shtick.
		So I, you know, like I said, I didn't get real rattled.
		And I did get some information.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Usually, it's usually not his shtick.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		His shtick usually is to try to get people like you to undress if possible.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		To what?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Undress.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, and well, two babies later.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Nobody wants to see it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So he didn't even ask, huh?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, he talked about He did talk about some things that I won't share.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, don't share that with me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Austier, I'll talk.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Author.
		I'm very interested.
		Oh, by the way, just before we go on, you had comments on the Playboy Extreme team, listening to them in the first hour.
		I guess you heard them, huh?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		If I had even attempted to do something like that, I would have had a deathbed vision.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I'm stunned because I went to the website and I looked at these girls and they're pretty and they're slight and they're and to hear them talk about what they did, I was absolutely stunned.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The telling of it doesn't do justice to what actually they went through.
		You have to see it, and you can see it.
		It'll air again.
		When it does, I recommend you see it.
		You'll be in greater disbelief.
		Trust me.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I'm totally amazed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, let's talk a little bit about deathbed visions.
		Is it an acronym for NDEs, or is a deathbed vision a separate item?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		It's a totally separate item.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Raymond Moody talks a lot about deathbed visions, and I saw that you're going to have Daniel on tomorrow night, and he'll talk about, I mean, near-death experience.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, Daniel's not on tomorrow night.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, he isn't?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, he's on, let's see, today's Wednesday.
		Tomorrow's no, today's Tuesday.
		Oh, and he's on.
		It's next week, Daniel's on.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, okay.
		Well, he'll talk about his near-death experience.
		And a near-death experience is where somebody comes to the point of death and they have an experience which involves going through a tunnel, meeting up with deceased relatives, seeing a bright light, but they don't cross that boundary.
		They come back to tell us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that an NDE only qualifies if the person lost all of their life signs, you know, no breathing, no heartbeat, whatever, technically really dead?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, yes, that's a near-death experience, but people can have experiences like that with meditation.
		There have been research studies and investigations regarding people having experiences where they were in a state of danger and they had such experiences.
		But the near-death experience does seem to be a real specific phenomenon.
		The deathbed vision is a totally different sort of character.
		That happens specifically with the passing of somebody.
		And it works sort of like this.
		I'll share an email that I got today.
unidentified		Sure.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		A woman emailed me today about her mother, and she said that her mother had passed of congestive heart failure.
		But she also shared that before her mother passed, she was just scared to death of death.
		And we live in a very death phobic society.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm scared to death.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We all are scared to death of death.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, that depends.
		But she really was scared of dying, and she knew that she was dying, and she was just having a real rough time.
		She was fearful of what would happen to her after she passed.
		And suddenly, she perked up, according to this woman, and she started talking to people in the room that nobody else could see.
		And she started calling them out by name, and they were relatives.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, really?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		They were deceased relatives.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're sure of that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, they check the names, they know.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		This is what's interesting about this phenomenon.
		As a mental health person who has done an awful lot of work with individuals who have had true blue hallucinations where they are seeing all sorts of things, and it's very chaotic, and it's never organized.
		With a deathbed vision, people who are passing who have these visions typically experience the same thing.
		They seem to have visions of friends or relatives who have already passed on, who are visiting them with the specific purpose of sharing with them that death is going to be okay.
		It's very, very consistent.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you can actually witness somebody lying there in bed, and I've heard before that people just before they die rally.
		That a lot of people rally.
		They suddenly get more animated just before they're going to pass.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		That's true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, and so that's what happened.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then you have the experience of sitting there and watching somebody actually talk to their dead relative.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, it's fascinating.
		It's absolutely fascinating.
		Now, a lot of people, when they pass, they're unconscious.
		So a person has to be conscious when they have this experience.
		But there have been accounts, and I've gotten lots of emails regarding this, where someone is in a coma or somebody is unconscious, and then they do have that rally at the end, and they will be talking about having visited with their mother who passed on or their deceased partner or a child or somebody.
		But yes, I can't tell you how many emails I've gotten.
		It's consistent.
		Account after account after account.
		And there aren't a lot of books out there on this topic.
		But interestingly, in the 60s, there was a huge body of research that was done by a couple of researchers.
		And what they did is they took a look at people who were passing in America and people who were passing in India.
		And they interviewed doctors and nurses.
		And what they asked them to do was to document any unusual activity that happened at the moment of these passings.
		And what these nurses and doctors reported to these researchers were these visions.
		Some of the people they were sitting with were having these visions.
		And so what I decided to do is I decided to update all of this and begin collecting some here and now experiences, and they're consistent.
		Now, not only do the people who are getting ready to pass seem to have these visions, but it's not uncommon for those who care for them or love them or are near them or dear to them to also have some experiences.
		When I was 16, my mother passed.
		She was 38.
		And at the exact moment of her passing, I woke up.
		And she was in the hospital.
		I was at home.
		I intuitively knew that she was passing.
		Now, a lot of people would roll their eyes and say, oh, Carla, that's just a coincidence.
		But at that exact same time, two family friends in separate residences also awoke at the exact moment of my mother's passing and knew that she was no longer with us.
		So there are three separate individuals awaking at the exact moment of my mother's passing.
		Now, for years, I didn't talk about it because when I did try to talk about it, I was horribly ridiculed.
		But working with bereavement and working with grief issues and working with trauma, I began to hear these same sorts of things.
		I was at home in my bed.
		All of a sudden, I had a dream that my father had come to me.
		He was waving goodbye to me.
		I awoke from this dream.
		Ten minutes later, I received a phone call from the hospital telling me he had passed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I had a less dramatic occurrence.
		I knew my dad was sick.
		He had cancer, and it was throughout him at this point.
		And I had already been told I had to come back and visit.
		I had airline reservations to go the next day, and they said he was quite animated and okay.
		The phone rang, and I told my wife, my dad's passed away.
		I knew it was my dad who had passed away.
		Now, that's close in, and it was already much on my mind because I was about to get on an airplane anyway, but I knew it when that phone rang.
		I knew it, and I actually felt it a little bit beforehand.
		I felt something.
		I know I felt something, and I was on edge, and I was like waiting for the call, and when it came, I said, that's it, and it was.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		That's a very, very common form of a deathbed vision, where there is this intuitive knowing that a loved one has passed.
		My husband and I were in Taos, New Mexico.
		We were doing some strange woo-woo thing up there.
		I can't, you know, fire walking or something.
		And I had a sense that something was really wrong with his uncle, and I just felt agitated and irritated and really uncomfortable.
		And the next morning we received a phone call that his uncle had passed.
		But that's an incredibly common type of experience for an awful lot of people.
		Not unusual at all.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, that's, that's, is that passed off as some kind of telepathy, do you think?
		Or is it something from the collective consciousness, you know, kind of like a, oh, I don't know, some kind of sharp message that suddenly passes for those that can receive it, those that are close.
		What is it?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't know.
		That's why I'm collecting this information, because I don't think that people have really taken the time to really look at this.
		There are so many individuals out there who have had these experiences who are afraid to come forward with them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I know about that, but they will on this program.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, good.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I can't wait.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Doctor, hold on.
		Stay right there.
		My guest is a very interesting woman indeed.
		She is Carla Wills-Brandon, Doctor.
		I'm Mark Bell.
		We're talking about deathbed visions, and there's a lot to talk about, believe me.
		So keep it parked right where you've got it.
		It's going to be quite a night.
		It already has been, actually.
unidentified		It already has been, actually.
		With your final child And I Who let it move All of my way Stand for the feet The only thing I'm okay Three years ago I'm okay I'm okay
		I'm a shoo, I'm a prayer to you, a drive in residency.
		And I'm a soul, a breath in, you're a fool that I'm a fool.
		I'm a shoo, I'm a dream, you're a dream.
		In the love of my life.
		Wanna take a ride?
		Well, call Art Bell from west of the Rockies at 1-800-618-8255.
		East of the Rockies at 1-800-825-5033.
		First-time callers may recharge at 1-775-727-1222.
		The wildcard line is open at 1-775-727-1295.
		And to recharge on the toll-free international line, call your AT ⁇ T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
		This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell on the Premier Radio Network.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Certainly is.
		My guest is Dr. Carla Wills-Branded.
		We're talking about deathbed visions.
		It's a really interesting subject, not the same as NDE's, very distinctly different.
		We'll get right back to her.
		By the way, I understand that we are having flare activity.
		That is to say, we're having a geomagnetic storm right now.
		So if you're having trouble receiving us at a distance, that's why the sun's doing it, folks.
		We'll be right back.
		All right, back now to our guest, Dr. Carla Wills Brandon.
		Dr. Brandon, welcome back.
unidentified		Hello.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Solar flares again, huh?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes.
		Boy, are we in the middle of some serious solar flare activity, really serious stuff.
		We may have Aurora Borealis again tomorrow night.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Way down here where I am.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I'm in Galveston.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You may have it down there.
		You did last time.
		I think it got down there last night.
		Yes.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Let's wait and see.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		These are just amazing times.
		Anyway, listen, aside, and this is an important question for me.
		Are you listening to the program?
		Do you listen every now and then?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you at all familiar with what we're calling the shadow people?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You are.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I have some theories about that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, it says here, aside from deceased relatives, what else is being seen in these visions?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And when I saw that question, I thought, huh, how about these so-called shadow people?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Interestingly, a lot of times individuals will share that they see either celestial beings bathed in white light or what they will see, and this is very interesting, and I'm not just getting this from one, two, three, ten, or twenty people, they will have visions of somebody dressed in black coming to visit them.
		A lot of times the person who is getting ready to pass will talk about this, and initially when they see these people or these visitors, they're startled, frightened at times, but a calmness seems to come over them.
		Sometimes people will report seeing what would be termed angels.
		Interesting, in a body of research that was done in the 1920s, this individual took accounts from children, and children reported seeing angels, but the children also reported that the angels did not have wings.
		So people are seeing something at the moment of a passing, and also people who are near to them also are seeing something.
		I want to share something with you now that might seem a little bit odd, but the main reason why I decided to go ahead and sit down and put together the book that I put together on this was because my three-year-old son had a deathbed vision.
		My father-in-law was passing.
		He was a hardcore atheist, hung on till the last breath.
		He finally did pass in my husband's arms.
		But about two weeks before he passed, my three-year-old started talking about seeing somebody named Domas.
		And we'd be driving in the car.
		And we live on an island, so I have to go to the mainland to shop a lot.
		And he would start talking about Domas and let Domas drive, and Domas just sort of became a part of the family.
		At first, I thought, well, the stress of the family and the stress of the passing of pop, that's what's going on with my son.
		Well, I was sitting with a rabbi friend of mine, and I said, you know, have you ever heard of the term Domas?
		And he took out his pen.
		He's a real historian, and he wrote it out.
		And first he wrote it out in Hebrew.
		And then he translated it into Aramaic.
		And he said, well, one interpretation of that word, now that's a very archaic word.
		I don't know where you're hearing that because it's not commonly used.
		He said, one interpretation of that is angel of death, and every hair on the back of my neck stood up.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Now, after my father-in-law passed, you know, we didn't hear anymore about Dhammas.
		But lots and lots of people have reported visitations from angels, from deceased relatives, from celestial beings, from I received one today, an interesting one today, where a woman said that her father was seeing somebody in an overcoat and a top hat.
		So for some reason, people who are getting ready to pass are being visited.
		And these visitors come with a specific purpose.
		And the purpose is to ease the passage of death.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Which makes the next question for me very important and for a lot of the audience, too.
		And that is that the critics say that, look, you're dying.
		Your brain as a reflex mechanism to protect itself begins releasing all kinds of things, I suppose, dopamine, other things that will ease the transition to death.
		It's part of the life cycle.
		And then our brain does that.
		And then if that's not enough, then there's the medication part of it.
		People, a lot of times, are, well, frankly, pretty doped up toward the end to prevent the pain.
		So let's address both of those.
		Why do you think those are not the most logical answer to this whole thing?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Because when the brain is shutting down, first of all, it doesn't shut down, you know, when it's shutting down, there isn't a consistent vision that people will have across time.
		It depends on the illness.
		It depends on a whole lot of things.
		These visions are not like hallucinations.
		They're totally different.
		And I can say that because I've seen people who are having hallucinations or who are suffering from a serious brain disorder or who are even passing as a consequence to something related to that.
		These are very specific, specific visions.
		Now, the medication issue Is another one that I always love talking about because a lot of the accounts that I have received have been from folks whose loved ones haven't been medicated.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, but listen, before we leave the first, I did something really stupid when I was young.
		And we all write on.
		Okay, now at a radio station, I did this thing to break a world's record, and I did a continuous broadcast for 116 hours and 15 minutes.
		Oh.
		That was from like Monday to Saturday afternoon.
		Never sleeping.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Was this for fun?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This was for stupidity.
		You know, the radio station did a thing on it.
		What did they care about me?
		Anyway, I did that.
		And during the course of that, around 70 hours, I think it was, I began to hallucinate.
		And I must tell you, Doctor, it was as real as everything that I'm sitting here doing right now.
		Everything I saw, everything I touched, it could have been as real as what I'm doing right now.
		It could have been a complete alternate reality.
		it was that real.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		But that's a when Of course it is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		As real as the one I'm in right now is what I'm telling you.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So then, if it's that real when you're hallucinating, how do we know deathbed visions are not hallucinations?
		After all, our brain remembers these people that have passed.
		Or do we occasionally see people that we don't remember, that our brain could not possibly be recalling from its own banks?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, here's another example.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		This is one of my favorite.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's how you'll get me.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		This is one of my favorite.
		Oh, I have lots, lots, lots.
		But a woman shared with me that her father was in a nursing home and he was getting ready to pass.
		Now, she had two siblings.
		One of the siblings accompanied her on a regular basis to visit the father.
		The other one was rarely around, so it wasn't unusual for him to not show up at his father's bedside.
		Well, as her father's passing neared, the one sibling who was rarely around was murdered.
		The other two remaining siblings decided not to share this information with their father because they had decided he was having such a rough time.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of course you wouldn't.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		No.
		Well, one afternoon or evening, she and the one surviving sibling were sitting with the father, and the father announced, isn't it wonderful that all three of my children are here?
		And then he said, wait a second, one isn't here.
		He's over there.
unidentified		Oh, my.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my, really?
unidentified		Yes.
unidentified		Yes.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Now, I've received several accounts of that nature where the one who is passing is not aware.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, how reliable do you consider that information to be?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Pretty reliable.
		Pretty reliable.
		And I'll tell you something.
		If this was the only account I had received of this nature, then I'd, if I'm a bit skeptical, I would question.
		But I've received a number of accounts of this nature.
		So something is going on.
		My premise is, okay, something is going on.
		Let's quit rolling the eyeballs and act like there isn't anything going on.
		Why not really begin taking a look at this, taking a look and seeing what it is?
		Because the dying brain theory doesn't explain all of these.
		It may explain some of them, but it doesn't explain all of them.
		Medication doesn't explain all of it because a lot of these individuals are not on medication.
		It doesn't matter, according to the research that was done in the 60s, a very, very agnostic, hardcore, I don't believe in any of this sort of stuff person can have a vision like this as death draws near.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, doctor, if I am to consider this, for the purpose of our conversation, a real phenomena and not some reaction of our brains, then I would think that medication would actually tend to suppress, if this is a real spiritual event that's occurring, a real one, then medication, I would think, would tend to suppress that, not promote it.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, I agree with you.
		On this island where I live is a very large medical school.
		And so there are lots of residents in white coats roaming around and physicians and chairs of department.
		And most of them, I've done battle with an awful lot of them.
		And so I've heard absolutely every explanation.
		But each of these explanations, they just don't cut it.
		They just don't cover everything.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is there enough missing and is there enough evidence of the kind that you quoted a moment ago so that you are personally convinced now that medications and the brain itself is not exercising some sort of protective function?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I'm totally convinced.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You are.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I am totally convinced.
		I've just received way too many emails and witnessed way too many of these experiences to not be convinced that something's going on.
		Hospice has known about this for a long, long time.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I would think they would.
		Anybody working in a hospice would be around dying people and the last moments a lot.
		And so then do you talk to hospice workers?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, sure.
		They're delightful.
		I had a woman who was in the office last week, and she was sharing with me that she was with a man who was getting ready to pass, and the family was there, and she said to the family, oh, his friends are back.
		They're visiting him again.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		And the family looked at her and they said, what friends?
		Oh, his visitors from the other side are here.
		He talks to them.
		He's been talking to them for the last couple of days.
		She said the family literally went screaming out of the room because they didn't know what to Make of this?
		And an awful lot of people have shared with me that they've tried to talk to physicians about this, and they've gotten, well, it's because he's passing, she's passing, don't pay any attention to it.
		But hospice has known for a long, long time that this is a very, very common phenomenon.
		It's just that we in our culture don't like to talk about death.
		100 years ago when somebody was passing, they typically passed in their own home.
		And they passed in their own bed with their favorite Afghan, with their favorite dog at the foot of the bed, with the family around the bed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm not sure that's still not the better way today.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I think it's a much better way.
		And there were disputes, and the will was discussed, and goodbyes were said.
		And if somebody had a deathbed vision, it was seen as a normal part of this life cycle.
		It wasn't seen as something unusual.
		Do you know that Abraham Lincoln had a deathbed vision?
		No.
		Right before he was assassinated, he had a dream.
		And it's a very interesting dream.
		In this dream, he was walking around the White House, and there was a lot of crying and a lot of weeping.
		And he went up to somebody and he said, why is everybody so upset?
		And the person in the dream looked at him and said, don't you know somebody has assassinated the president?
		So historically, there are lots of accounts of deathbed visions.
		Billy Graham's grandmother, I think it was, as her death drew near, she had a vision of her deceased husband.
		And when he was alive, he had lost part of his leg in a war.
		But in the vision, his leg, he was whole and complete.
		And that was the comment that she made.
		She said, oh, my goodness, there's my bin.
		And he's whole and complete.
		So, you know, these visions have been with us for a while.
		It's just that nobody's talking about them because I really do think that we're afraid to talk openly about them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's see if this is in the same category.
		This may sound stupid to you, certainly, compared to what you're talking about, but we have cats.
		My wife and I have three cats.
		One of them, named Abby, we got on the night we got married in the chapel we got married in Las Vegas.
		We found this cat.
		That was 10 years ago.
		Brought it home.
		Did fine for 10 years.
		I never in my life had a dream about a cat.
		I have never dreamt about a cat.
		I woke up one morning and I was crying.
		You know, your cats were like your kids, right?
		I woke up and I said, Han, I dreamed that Shadow, I said Shadow, was dead, died.
		And two days later, Abby's liver failed, and we took him into emergency.
		He was in there for three weeks.
		He had a cat NDE.
		I mean, they were having to breathe for him down there and everything.
		And he eventually regained healthy.
		He's healthy again amazingly.
		His liver turned back on.
		His liver had turned off completely.
		And he was thin and yellow and dying.
		And I had never had a dream about a cat, but here I have a dream about one of our cats dying two days before it just about happens.
		And, you know, so what is that?
		Is that my mind?
		Am I looking ahead at some event?
		Is my cat warning me of something about to happen?
		Is there just some cosmic general message that sent out like the spam email or something, you know, cat in trouble?
		My God, what was it?
		What happened?
		It's somehow intertwined with all this.
		I don't know how.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		It is because I also received an account from a woman who shared with me that her dog was at the vet and she was at home and she was reading the newspaper and the dog was going in for a routine checkup and she looked up at the clock for some unknown reason and then looked back down and was reading the paper and she felt a brush up against her leg and she reached down.
		She thought that her pup was down there and she was going to pet him.
		And then she realized, oh, he's not here.
		He's at the vet.
		And about an hour later, she received a phone call and she was informed that her pup had passed.
		And her pup had passed at the exact time that she had looked at the clock on the wall.
		So, you know, I'm not real sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm not real sure.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		We're touching the unknown here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We sure are, because would this be the dying person sending out some kind of message?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Would it be the living person with such a close connection simply plucking a message from the ether, a general kind of message that, you know, someone you love is close or has died or you're right, we're into the unknown.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's a connection here.
		Something is going on.
		So often I'll receive email from people who will share with me that they were sitting next to the bed of a loved one who was passing.
		And all of a sudden, they had a sense that there was a presence in the room.
		One woman shared that she had just this really strong sense that her father was, her deceased father was in the room.
		And I think her mother was passing.
		And she turned and looked in the doorway, and she saw her father standing there.
		And he looked whole and healthy, and he had been gone for two decades.
		So yes, somehow we're connected.
		Somehow, those who have been here before us may be reaching out to us.
		I don't know.
		But something is going on.
		And my purpose is to sort of be a catalyst to get people to start talking about this.
		Also, do you know how sad it is to receive emails from people who say things such as, dear Carla, my wife passed 50 years ago.
		At the moment of her passing after being very ill, for three months, she sat up in bed and called out to her own mother with her arms outstretched, with a smile on her face for the first time in months.
		It was absolutely beautiful.
		It brought me such comfort.
		It helped her transition.
		And I haven't shared this with anybody in 50 years.
		I get emails like that all of the time.
		So do I. It's heartbreaking.
		Oh, I'm sure you do too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's why.
		The only, hold on, we're at the top of the air.
		The only really heartbreaking thing about all of this is if it's not true.
		If it's true...
unidentified		music
		music
		Want to take a ride?
		Call Art Bell from west of the Rockies at 1-800-618-8255.
		East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
		First-time callers may reach ART at 1-775-727-1222.
		The wildcard line is open at 1-775-727-1295.
		And to call ART on the toll-free international line, call your AT ⁇ T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
		This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell from the Kingdom of Nye.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is so weird doing a show under these conditions.
		We are having major to severe geomagnetic storm conditions right now.
		And a lot of you are probably getting fading and disruptions of your radio signals and all kinds of things are going on as a combined, the perfect CME, I've decided to call it, is headed toward us from two recent biggies that erupted on the sun.
		These are strange times.
		Listen, I forgot to welcome WDAK in Columbus, Georgia.
		Welcome to the network.
		They're 540 on the dial in Columbus, Georgia, and we're sure glad to have you along.
		Should have welcomed you in the first hour.
		But I got all wrapped up with the playmates.
		I'm sure even you all can understand.
		Hope you can anyway.
		These really are strange conditions, folks.
		Strange things going on on the radio and off the radio and all around us.
		It's the nature of the time we live in, I guess.
		My guest will be back in a moment.
		We're discussing deathbed visions with Dr. Carla Wills Brandon.
		Stay right there.
		All right, I'm getting unverified reports right now that there have been tornadoes in the St. Louis area.
		I repeat unverified reports that houses have been lost and there is a wide, a very wide area across the central portion of the United States right now bracing for or having bad, very bad weather.
		So my advice to you is if you're in one of these areas, stay close to the NOAA channel, the NOAA weather channel.
		Stay close to your radio so you know what's going on.
		And if you need to duck and or get to the basement or get to a safe place, the radio right now is your best friend.
		And you can be sure your local station will cut in, no doubt, if something bad is coming your way.
		So a lot of very severe, awful weather going on in parts of the Midwest right now, according to the reports I'm getting.
		We'll try and get more details.
		Right now, back to Dr. Carla Wills-Brandon.
		Quite a night, huh?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Quite a night, yes.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		The sun is burping and we've got, you know, huge...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you do?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		But it's not going to be here for a little bit.
		So we're safe for a while.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		For a while.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What are they saying?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Some really strong storms.
		It looks like it's right down the middle of the state.
		So everybody just hold your hats on.
		Yeah, that time of year.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I guess so.
		All right.
		There's something called the DBV stare, deathbed vision stare.
		I can only guess that means that when somebody's having these visions, they get sort of a far-off look in their eye, a kind of a blank stare from our point of view, I suppose.
		But I'm just guessing.
		What is it?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, the deathbed stare is something that I have witnessed time and time again with people who are passing.
		And what tends to happen, it usually happens with people who are unable to communicate.
		For some reason, verbal ability is lost.
		And what tends to happen is they seem to be tracking something.
		I mean, they're really, really looking at something.
		For people who experience the deathbed stare who are communicative, what they will oftentimes do is they will be looking at something, and a family member or medical person will say something to them, and they will turn and they will talk.
		A lot of the accounts that I have received have been accounts where the person who is getting ready to pass is very lucid, very here with it, not on a lot of medication.
		But then they sort of gently return to looking at whatever it is they're looking at.
		Sometimes they'll even say, don't you see them standing in the corner?
		Or, look at them, they're all around my bed.
		You can't see them.
		But there's just this intense gaze towards a part of the room.
		Just a real directed sort of look.
		I got an account today where a woman was sharing that I guess her dad was talking to somebody in the hospital and that he would talk to, he would gaze at the corner of the room and nod his head several times as if in conversation and appear to be answering some questions.
		And then he would turn to her and carry on a little conversation with her and then suddenly turn back to the corner of the room and continue the conversation with whomever Was in the room with him.
		So, this is another consistency that I've picked up in looking at these.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sounds just like Mr. Black, huh?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		There's also one other type of deathbed vision that I want to talk about because I suspect people in your audience may have experienced this.
		Sometimes the person sitting at the deathbed, at the bedside of the person who is getting ready to pass, when the passing occurs, they will actually see something leave the body.
		That's not uncommon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I can meet you here story for story.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		You can meet me?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, good.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I can.
		I had a call from a young lady who said that her mother passed.
		I believe it was her mother.
		And just prior to passing, she was, of course, on the side of the bed and she reached down and she was hugging her mother.
		And at that moment, her mother died.
		And she was actually above her, hugging her, because her mother, of course, was lying down.
		And at the moment of death, she felt something move through her.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Very common.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
unidentified		Yes.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I've had lots of, lots of accounts of that.
		Of a sense that something is leaving or a sense that, oh, I felt him move through me.
		I felt her move through me.
		I felt him pass.
		Yes.
		And some people also report that after passing, they will sense the loved one's presence still there somewhere in the room.
		That's not uncommon at all.
		And some people have visual experience, lots and lots of accounts.
		My husband, who is a, you know, a Texas kind of guy, no nonsense, didn't believe in any of this sort of stuff.
		Before he had his own experience at his father's side, right before his father passed, he saw something leave his father's body.
		My cousin also saw something leave her mother's body.
		And I've also...
unidentified		Yes.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		My husband saw something pastel and filmy and swirling color leave his father's body.
		My cousin shared that she saw something like a vapor, blue-gray vapor.
		I have found accounts of this, historical accounts of this, several of them, descriptions of seeing something leaving the body that's sort of bluish-grayish in color.
		Hospice workers have reported this.
		I received a couple of accounts from nurses.
		So sometimes people will actually see something leave the body.
		Other times there will be a sense that something's leaving the body.
		I have a very curious friend in Russia.
		He's a physicist, and he's trying to measure this.
		We'll see what happens in the future.
		But yes, this has been reported.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, let's see how you do with this one.
		If you're a regular listener to the show, maybe you know what I'm about to talk about.
		If not, it will come as quite a surprise to you.
		But back in the 1800s, in a very respected medical journal, a doctor conducted a study on weighing patients at death.
		And when I say weighing patients, I mean scientifically, carefully weighing them at the actual instant of death.
		Have you ever heard of that?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I have, and I've actually got that in my book.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you've got it in your book?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wonderful.
unidentified		Okay, good.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Then you know all about it.
		He measured up to three quarters of an ounce of difference in weight at the instant of death, which could not be accounted for by any gases, fluids, any other sort of anything.
		They were on a table where everything was retained, and inevitably they lost a half to three quarters of an ounce of weight.
		And it just boggles the mind to begin thinking of the soul or the substance, the life substance, whatever it is, as having physical mass or weight.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Okay, now I'm going to find this because...
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		How did I deal with that?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, with that information.
		I mean, how do you reconcile that information with what we think we know about our spiritual side?
		Our spiritual side shouldn't have weight to it.
		Right?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I don't think we know.
		There was a recent repeat of that research, by the way.
		I have that somewhere.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What, what, what, what?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you sure?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, it was my understanding that that research, because of political correctness, really couldn't be done these days.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so I had no idea there was a repeat.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my gosh.
		Now I'm going to be crazy trying to find it.
		This person I was talking to you about in Russia is actually doing the same thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, in Russia, you might be able to do it.
		That's right.
		In Russia, you could probably do it.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes, he has been working.
		I think he wrote a book called Light After Life.
		It's a very hard read.
		It's not easy to get through, but this is what he has been investigating.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you have the actual details of the follow-up experiment?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes, and it's in here somewhere.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, we're going to be coming to a break at the bottom of the hour, so maybe it is, after all, your book.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Give me time to thumb through my book.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So eventually you'll find it maybe in a break when you're relaxed.
		I don't care.
		But before the show is over, I definitely want to hear that.
		I had no idea there'd been a follow-up.
		But if there's been one in Russia, I really, really, really want the details.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, no, outside of Russia, okay, there was another one besides this one that's being done in Russia right now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You mean there's one occurring now?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes, right now.
		There is research being done in Russia by this acquaintance of mine.
		He's very excited about it.
		But also, there was another study that was done, a repeat of this first study.
		And that's I have the first one and the second one, not in great detail, but I do have a question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you recall offhand whether the second one confirmed the first one or the second one confirmed the first one?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It did?
unidentified		Yes.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Interesting, huh?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my God.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Again, I ask you: how do you reconcile or have you even thought about it?
		How did you address it in your book?
		How do you address this weight issue?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		My premise is that, look at all of this.
unidentified		Look at all of this.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		We need to be looking at this.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Instead of having all of this sitting in somebody's dusty file, some researcher's dusty file, this information needs to be presented to the public so that we can discuss it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why hasn't it been on?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, these are serious medical studies, and if there are no backups to the first serious one, at least one other confirming it, confirming the first one, that ought to be on with Dan Rather and Tom Brokoff.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		People, they do not want to look at this.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		We live in a very deaf world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why the hell not?
		How short a time are we on Earth?
		What more important question is there than the meaning of why we're here and whether there's anything that follows this very short time on Earth?
		What greater question is there than that?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		But do you know how hard it is to get research funding?
unidentified		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why is it hard?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		It's incredibly hard.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I have a friend, actually he's a psychiatrist and he works with IANS.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What about the churches?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They ought to be berserk to paint something like this.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Do you know how hard?
		I have an appendix in the back of my book, and it was for the clergy, for mental health workers, and for the medical community.
		It was almost impossible for me to get any of these people to sit down and write out the proper way to address and deal with somebody who comes to them sharing a deathbed vision.
		None of them wanted to do it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The churches have more money than you and I would ever know what to do with, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, they just have half the money in the world, probably.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I've had lots of death phobic clergy in my office.
unidentified		Yeah, but I know, but what does the clergy want to prove?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They want people have faith in the afterlife, in the fact there's a God, you ought to behave yourself if you want to get there.
		In other words, they, more than anything, want you to have faith in God.
		And what greater way to have faith in a Creator than to know we continue after physical death?
		So why don't they take some of their money and put it into it?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		But so many of these people who are having these visions are not religious, or those that are religious, they're not seeing what they have been told they should be seeing.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I suspect a lot of it is politics.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, believe me, you just answered the question.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, sad, isn't it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Very sad.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's really sad.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So because some of these people might be agnostic or worse, they don't care to document their visions of anything that documents after death because, well, because it doesn't confirm what our church doctrine says.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
		I talked to a minister's wife, and she said, you know, I think it's really, really sad that so many people in our religious denomination don't feel safe talking about this.
		That came from the lips of the wife of a Baptist minister.
		And also, rabbi friends of mine have shared how this sort of thing is not, quote, politically correct to discuss.
		So within the clergy itself, this isn't a comfortable topic.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's it.
		I'm not sending off for my brother Bell certificate.
		You know, that astounds me.
		But I guess it shouldn't.
		It really shouldn't.
		After all, we've been killing in his name for a long time now, and we still do it.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I guess I'm just so used to hearing this sort of thing that it just doesn't even phase me anymore.
		I can't tell you how many clergy people over the years I have had come to my office and sit down.
		They have unresolved grief issues of their own.
		They have difficulty believing.
		As one minister said to me, how can I continue preaching what I'm not even sure of for myself?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		My God, how do you deal with that?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's quite a process.
		There's usually a reason behind that, and there's unfinished business and issues with the whole concept of religion and God and a whole lot of other things.
		Lots of unresolved stuff.
		And yeah, it's opening up a can of worms.
		But I've been dealing with this for quite a long time, so I'm used to it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But science and religion have been at odds since day one.
		I mean, they've really always been at odds.
		But if one can end up supporting the other, why both sides wouldn't be fighting to see if it could be true?
		The scientists because they are in search of the truth, supposedly, and the clergy because it's the ultimate question for them.
		So why wouldn't both sides be really grabbing at each other, trying to settle on a middle ground and decide there, my God, there is scientific proof to support this?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Have you ever considered that science for scientists is their religion?
		And people who are very, very attached to the tenants of their religion are very attached because there's a security in that.
		And risking and going outside of those tenants can sometimes be very frightening because then you have to deal with the unknown.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but for me, scientists, good ones, sitting up there in front of, I don't know, a congressional committee and on Dan Rather at night saying, look, at the moment of death, three quarters of an ounce is lost.
		Science cannot tell us why.
		We have no idea why, but it does indicate, give credence to The thought that there is something that leaves the body at the instant of death.
		That's really important.
		Hold on, we're at the bottom of the hour, Doctor, and we'll be right back.
		I'm Art Bell.
		is Coast to Coast AM.
unidentified		Coast to Coast AM.
		In the night, don't control through the wall.
		Something breaking, wearing white, as you're walking down the street.
		Thank you.
		Only know if the core is right to find it and I'm on the road.
		I used to be your heartbeat for not one.
		But the time to stay the more my work gets done because I'm still free.
		This will tell me a freedom From the inside I want more freedom.
		Wanna take a ride?
		Call Art Bell from west of the Rockies at 1-800-618-8255.
		East of the Rockies at 1-800-825-5033.
		First-time callers may reach ART at area code 775-727-1222.
		Or call the wildcard line at 775-727-1295.
		To talk with ART on the Toll-Free International Line, call your AT ⁇ T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
		This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good morning from the high deserts.
		We'll get back to my guest in a moment.
		I'm getting reports that NOAA has issued tornado warnings or watches for parts of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.
		And if you look at the Weather Channel weather map right now, you'll see the hail line and the tornado warning line crosses about a third of the nation.
		Now, this is springtime, and it's time that these kinds of things happen.
		But I can't remember a time when I've seen it across as large an area as this.
		And listen to me.
		You watch out.
		As the day wears on today and we get solar heating, it's going to obviously get much worse in those areas and areas just to the east as the system moves east, if that's what it's doing.
		I think it is.
		So you keep your head down today.
		You all hear?
		Well, all right, let me do the book plug here because my guests never do, or a lot of the good ones forget.
		So if you want to get a copy of One Last Hug Before I Go, The Mystery and Meaning of Deathbed Visions, and I bet you do, there's two ways to do it.
		One, you can go to my website under tonight's guest information.
		Easy to get to, and you'll have a link to Amazon.com where you can usually get a deal.
		God, I hope they stay in business.
		They discount so well.
		That's one way.
		And the other way is HCI Publishing and their number, an 800 number.
		Doctor, is it good 24 hours a day?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I think it's only good.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		They're on the East Coast, and I think it's something like 9 to 5.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		9 to 5.
		All right, it's 800-851-9100.
		That's 800-851-9100.
		Is it paperback or hardback?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		It's in paperback.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Paperback.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How much?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, it runs like between Amazon.com.
		Good deal there.
		I think it's like $10 and something.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Uh-huh.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		A little bit more with the publisher.
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		All right.
		So either way, some people don't have computers.
		Seems like the advantaged people today have computers and they get the discounts and everybody else has to call a toll-free number and pay more.
		Anyway, it's probably not that much more.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		No, it's really, it actually isn't.
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's 1-800-851-9100.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How has your book been greeted?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that has been so interesting.
		I have received some of the most wonderful emails from people who have shared that this has been such a validation for them, that they are so grateful for the book.
		They have just been wonderful.
		They have shared their experiences.
		And then I have been the topic of discussion on the message boards of skeptics.
		It's just really, it's a 180-degree turnaround where, and what's so interesting about the skeptics is that I'm not stating that I'm proving anything.
		What I'm saying is, look at all of this.
		Let's take a look at this.
		This is fascinating.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A lot of the people on these message boards have no life.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		No, I agree.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I've really decided that.
		I mean, legitimate skepticism is one thing, but they go way, way beyond that.
		The people who are on boards, the good ones, they know exactly what I'm talking about.
		So don't let it even phase you.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't even read it anymore because what I noticed was that they were putting personalities before principles.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, no, it's better you don't read it.
		And it's just what they do.
		When I wrote a book called The Coming Global Superstorm, and it was interesting because it was on Amazon before it was actually available, and people would put up reviews, and they could not have possibly read the book yet, and yet they were raking it, you know, which was interesting to me because they could not have had a copy of the book.
		It would have been impossible.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Isn't that something?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you know, it's the nature of people.
		Listen, the church collectively wants us to believe in hell as well as heaven.
		And I'm wondering if there's anything at all in deathbed visions that would tend to validate hell.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I have had absolutely none of that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		None of that.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		None.
		It's a consistent message.
		I mean, in some of the visions, now I will validate that some people, when they're getting ready to pass, what they will do is they will have, they'll slip into unconsciousness or they'll have a dream and they'll have visions of what it's like on the other side.
		And usual descriptions are beautiful, wonderful.
		I can't wait to go.
		I'm so happy.
		I'm no longer scared.
		I just, I haven't picked up on any of the notions of hell.
		Not at all.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But, I mean, even the worst serial killer you can imagine in his last dying seconds, then you think is going to say, whoa, mom, dad, cousin Bruce, you know, and so forth and so on.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I don't think it works that way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, but with no evidence of anything negative on the other side.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I haven't picked up anything.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Then why doesn't it work that way?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, I just, I really do believe, this is a very personal belief.
		I believe that humankind has a long way to go spiritually.
		I really, really do.
		And I do believe that there are probably many people who, when they transition and take that trip to the other side, that they're greeted by loved ones.
		But I don't get a sense that all of a sudden they hit nirvana and everything is peachy keen and wonderful.
		From what I'm getting, there are still lessons to be learned and that everybody is in a different place.
		I really just don't think it's that black and white.
		And the churches and the religious institutions would like for us to think that.
		And I'm just not picking that up.
		I actually did get an email this week from a woman whose father had a vision.
		A priest and a nun came to visit him, as a matter of fact.
		But of course, nobody else in the hospital saw this priest and nun.
		And this man was not a religious man.
		He was not one of these guys who went to church on a regular basis at all.
		And he had a conversation with these two.
		And what they shared with him was that he wasn't going to be going straight to the heaven that had been discussed in church.
		That it sounded like there was still going to be some more growing to do on the other side.
		And I found that very, very interesting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is that another way?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You do not have a non-stop flight.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I don't think so.
		And I've had lots of debates with different people who look at this sort of thing.
		And they're a lot of fun.
		And some of these folks do believe, oh, yes, you just hit that nirvana mode and you're just home-free and you blend with the great consciousness and life is peachy keen.
unidentified		And I'm like, nah, I don't think so.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Has there been any experimentation with aura photography at the moment of death?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes, right here in my hot little hand.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Right after life, yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Tell me about it.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		It's by Dr. Constantine Kortovat.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, we all know what an aura is.
		It's something that they can photograph using Chrillian photography, and everybody who's living has it.
		It's something that radiates from your body, and it can be photographed.
		And so what happens at death?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, what this guy has found, and he's a real character, let me tell you.
		This is my Russian friend.
		He has found that what he does is he measures the aura at death.
		And he has found that the type of death will affect the aura after death.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You mean then there is an aura after death?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes, there's still an aura.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		As there is if you pick a flower and it has an aura, of course, after you ripped it out of the ground.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes.
		And his premise is that the type of death dramatically affects how the life energy leaves the body.
		And it's really interesting stuff.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did he give any details of, in other words, a violent death versus a fairly calm death, that sort of thing?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I'd have to dig around in here.
		I think that his premise is that with a violent death, the energy dissipates a lot quicker as opposed to a slow, lingering death where the life force appears to eke out over time.
		It's very interesting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That really is interesting.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		He has all sorts of graphs and drawings and things, and it's very, very interesting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All of this research, and none of it makes it into the mainstream press.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to have you on the air late at night to find these things out.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
		As a matter of fact, this book was originally printed in Russian, and I had to track him down because I had read a little blurp on it, and I was just fascinated by it because it was validating an awful lot of stuff that I was finding.
		And I had to track him down and then wait for the book to come out in English and then track the book down.
		It was quite a process just to get a hold of this book, but now I think the book is more mainstream.
		But yeah, this sort of stuff is not out there.
		It's not.
		And as I was saying earlier, I have another friend who is very involved with the International Association of Near-Death Studies.
		And he wanted to do a big research project with hospice on deathbed visions.
		And I've been saying to him over the last several years, what's happening?
		What's going on?
		He can't get the funding.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Can't get the funding.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		He can't get the funding to do the research.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That just boggles my mind.
		It boggles my mind.
		Again, I say, what greater question can there be and we can't get the funding?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We can research the mating habits of butterflies in Borneo, but we can't get the funding to find out whether we're going to have a life after death.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		And I think that the only way it's going to change is when more and more of those individuals who do have a scientific background do get brave and come forward and share their experiences.
		I have a physician friend who's very well known in my neck of the woods.
		And she was finally one of the people who was willing, her and her partner, they were willing to give me some input on my book with regard to how medical professionals should address somebody who reports to them a deathbed vision.
		And she pulled me aside and she said, I've never really shared this with anybody, but my grandmother was passing.
		And the entire family, we were all around her bedside, and we were all talking and catching up and gossiping.
		And my grandmother was laying there and she was being very, very quiet, just sort of listening.
		And then suddenly I noticed that she was gazing into the corner of the room and she just kept gazing.
		And after a while, she sat up in bed and she said, why on earth is he here?
		And everybody in the room got very, very quiet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, sure.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		And my friend said, who are you talking about?
		And she said, your grandfather is here.
		I didn't expect him to be here.
		I thought my son would come and get me.
		And my friend said that everybody in the room just bust out laughing.
		But my point is, because my friend, who is a physician, had such an experience, she's much more aware now when she works with her patients, and she's much more willing to listen.
		And in talking with me and in talking with a few other people who have a medical background or a more scientific background, she's been coming out a little bit more.
		And I've found this with people like this, of this nature.
		Another friend of mine, just a tough, go-get-em, a lawyer, big-time Houston attorney.
		He sends me an email.
		I never would have expected this from him in a million years.
		And he says, I have something to share with you.
		I haven't told anybody.
		He says, my father just passed.
		Have you ever seen or heard of anything like this?
		At the moment of his passing, after being sick for so long, he sat up in bed with a big smile on his face, with his arms outreached, and that's how he passed.
		So I really do believe that it's just going to take more people coming forward with their experiences and not being so fearful of being ridiculed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		because the ridicule...
		And if you're in a hospital room with a dying relative and they begin talking to others who are apparently not there, I guess if you're a relative, you're going to think they're raving, they're having delusions, they're having hallucinations, they're whatever.
		And then if you talk to the doctor about it, that most doctors are going to just confirm that for you and say, yes, it's part of the process.
		They're having hallucinations, right?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		And you know what's interesting is that the families who have had the easiest time with a relative transitioning have been those family members who have had a real supportive medical person share with them, this is not that unusual.
		I've heard of this before.
		And so what I try to pass on to the medical community is, look, even if you don't believe in this, now is not the time to debate this with a family member.
		Send them or refer them to somebody who has some information about deathbed vision, somebody who can talk to them knowledgeably about this.
		If this is something very uncomfortable for you, leave it alone.
		It's so interesting.
		When my father-in-law was passing, we had this physician who, my father-in-law, he was ready to go.
		I mean, he was a surgeon himself.
		He had seen the Holocaust.
		He'd gone back and rescued relatives from the camps.
		He'd come to this country and built a successful business for himself and raised a family and worked until he was 83.
		And, you know, when his time came, he was ready.
		But the people who were working with him, the medical people that were working with him, didn't treat him with a whole lot of respect.
		First of all, when they talked about his condition, they didn't talk to him.
		They talked about him.
		We also had talked about no resuscitation.
		And on the verge of passing, this one very death phobic, very cute, nice physician, but just terrified of death himself, gave an order for a blood transfusion.
		And actually, our family was very, we know how to do death pretty well.
		I mean, we're real okay with it.
		And we finally had to just escort him out of the room.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		But in a lot of situations, family members will, they won't do such things.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		They'll take direction and they'll think that, well, here's a person who's in a position of power and authority, so we're going to do what he says.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I just got a, I've got these messages by computer I get called Fast Blast during the show.
		And I just had one from somebody who said there was no such, no resuscitation order given for the passing of their grandmother.
		And their grandmother was brought back three times.
		And the third time she was brought back, she was angry.
		What the hell did you bring me back for?
		You know, I didn't want to come back.
		I don't want to be back here.
		The process was underway.
		It was fine.
		Damn it.
		Let me go.
		I mean, she was angry.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		That's not uncommon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		No, that's not uncommon at all.
		And I've received several emails verbatim where somebody is passing.
		They've had a deathbed vision.
		They're very ready to go.
		And all of a sudden, they're being resuscitated.
		And they're very upset and they're very angry about it.
		And the medical community does not listen.
		The medical community sees itself as failing When somebody dies.
		And so for them, keeping someone alive at all costs, they see that as being in the best interest of the people they are serving.
		In reality, I see that as serving them, not so much the people they are trying to assist.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I was going to say it's not necessarily probably over half the time, it's not necessarily in the best interest of the patient, is it?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		To have heroic measures used and to bring somebody back for a little more barely living, just huffing and puffing and not having any kind of quality of life at all.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		No, and actually family members can.
		A lot of times, family members who are really, really, really fearful of losing a loved one, if that sort of situation is going on, the person will hang on.
		Another author had reported this wonderful account, and this account, it goes something like this.
		There was, I think it was Melvin Morse or one of the near-death researchers.
		He shared, this researcher shared an experience where there was a young child who was passing, and the family was sitting around and praying and praying and praying for this child not to pass.
		And what happened was the family minister had a dream.
		And in the dream, the child came to him and said, will you please tell my family to quit praying for me?
		It's time for me to go.
		I really do need to go.
		And the next day, the minister went back to the family and said, I had this incredible dream.
		Let me share it with you.
		And the family listened intently.
		They had one more prayer.
		And then they gave permission to this child to leave, and the child left.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And the child left?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes, the child left.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's an incredible story.
		All right.
		If it's all right with you when we come back, we're going to open up the phone lines.
		Will that be all right?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		That's absolutely wonderful.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It'd be very interesting to see what's out there after all of this.
		All right.
		Stay right where you are.
		My guess.
unidentified		I see trees of green.
		Red.
		I see them blue for you.
		And I think to myself, what a wonderful blue, the sky white, the brightest, the dark night.
		And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.
		To rechart bells in the Kingdom of Nye.
		From west of the Rockies, dial 1-800-618-8255.
		East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
		First-time callers may rechart at 1-775-727-1222.
		Or use the wildcard line at 1-775-727-1295.
		To rechart on the toll-free international line, call your AT ⁇ T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
		I feel I want to know.
		Fearless move.
		And I love you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's absolutely my favorite line.
		Good morning, everybody.
		My guest is Dr. Carla Wills Brandon.
		And we're talking not about NDEs, though there's a relationship.
		We're talking about deathbed visions.
		And we're going to the phones in a moment.
		Stay right there.
		And yes, I'm getting a lot of messages on the Fast Blast.
		Yes, I mentioned it.
		So it did happen today.
		TV Guide came to see me.
		And we spent, oh boy, I'll tell you, we spent about four hours with TV Guide.
		And they took about six rolls of film, and they wrote a story.
		And I have no idea when the story is going to run in TV Guide.
		I assume they'll let me know.
		And when they do, I will let you know.
		If I had to guess, I bet not till summer.
		Because the sweeps, the TV sweeps are going on right now.
		And so why would they put a radio guy on TV Guide while the sweeps are going on?
		Probably not, huh?
		So my guess is I will be in TV Guide, which I thought would be kind of cool.
		I hardly ever do interviews, as you know.
		And the webcam photo I took up there, I took just after I finished the interview late afternoon with TV Guide.
		So I'm leaving that webcam photo up there.
		That's how I will look in TV Guide, I guess.
		I mean, we took photos everywhere.
		It was incredible.
		Those photographs.
		You know, you would think you could take one photograph and all publications could use it, but no, they all have to have their own.
		And they all want no less than six rolls of film.
		It's incredible.
		And so's my guest right now, Dr. Carla Wills-Brandon.
		And we're about to go to the phone.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I'm trying to keep a straight face.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You are?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Six rolls of film.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
		And listen, some of them do more.
		Time magazine came out, and they took more than that.
		They all, there's a certain ego involved.
		We would never use a photograph taken by some other publication, no matter how great.
		New York Times doesn't matter.
		L.A. Time doesn't matter.
		They don't want it.
		They want their own.
		That's all right.
		That's the way it is, I guess.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Now, I did find what we were looking for, by the way, real quick.
unidentified		Please.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Okay, the first study was made in 1907 by Harvard psychologist Dr. William McDougall.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		And he's the first.
		Now, recently, a doctor in England and another in West Germany have made the same observations.
		So I can backtrack.
		If somebody is really, really interested, I can backtrack and get the specifics on that.
		But yes, There are people who independently are taking a look at this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's astounding that there would be now three real, a controlled test done of a loss of weight at the instant of death, and that would not be mainstream big news.
		And yet we report on the smallest, insignificant, but salacious things that go on in any given day.
		That's amazing to me.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think so, too.
		And then don't forget my friend in Russia.
		I mean, he's doing a whole separate deal there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Just two quickies here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		One is, how would suicide fit into this discussion, or are you unable to fit it into the discussion?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		At this point, I really haven't encountered any deathbed visions with individuals who have completed suicide.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Now, there are accounts of individuals who have had near-death experiences as a result of attempting suicide, and those are very, very interesting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Then there's one last thing, then we'll go to phones.
		And it's simple and not so simple.
		You're a listener to the program.
		If you've been a listener a long, long time, you remember Matthew Alpert.
		Does that name ring a bell?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		No, not right now.
		Info.
		Info.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, here it comes.
		He wrote a book called The God Part of the Brain.
		Now, the premise of his book is simple.
		It's that man's greatest fear is death.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Even if you go travel into the Amazon to a tribe that has never been touched by humankind in any way until now, you'll find that they worship something.
		They worship the sun, the stars, the earth, some god, some idol, a cave, whatever.
		They worship something.
		Matthew's contention is that our brains, in trying to cope with the prospect of death, mandate and that there's actually a part of the brain that mandates worship and belief in the afterlife.
		Because not to have that is a protective mechanism of the brain, because not to have that, we'd go berserk.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		That's awfully complicated.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I've always thought that that premise was incredibly complicated.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Because in a lot of cultures, when a person turns 40, they begin contemplating their death and making preparations for their death and looking into spiritual matters.
		And it's seen as a part of their growth process.
		In certain primitive cultures, when a person is at the moment of death, that's when they are seen as being their most psychic.
		They have one foot in the afterlife and one foot on this side.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I agree.
		All right, listen, I promise phones, here they come.
		First time caller line, you're on the air with Dr. Carla Wilfrand and hi.
unidentified		Hi, Art.
unidentified		I just, I agree with the doctor, and I am a medical doctor.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You are a medical doctor.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's so wonderful.
unidentified		I am.
		But the reason I agree with the doctor, I'm originally from South Africa.
		I now live in Canada, but I have seen things that are unexplainable.
		Well, like there's no way you could explain them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Like what, doctor?
unidentified		Well, for example, the group of people I mainly dealt with was geriatrics.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		And therefore, you had a lot of death.
		And like the doctor said, these people at the time of their passing would be ecstatic.
		I mean, I have never seen so many people so happy in my lifetime.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You've seen that yourself.
unidentified		Yes.
unidentified		And so it made me do a little digging of my own, so to speak.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Not really research per se, but I was just wondering.
		So I observed, through observing people, not really speaking to them or anything, but I observed them.
		And like the doctor said, they would be talking to my sight, an empty room.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you did not attribute this to delirium?
unidentified		No.
		I'm a doctor of psychiatry.
		No.
		There was no way.
		And so it could have been delirium.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so then, doctor, what conclusions did it cause you to come to yourself?
unidentified		In my own mind?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Now, these are my personal thoughts I'm giving you.
		That's fine.
		And they are very simple.
		What makes us think that when we expire, that's where it ends, this hole in the ground, so to speak, for lack of better terminology.
		There has to be something.
		I mean, we have spirit, and that has to go someplace in our passing.
		And so therefore, I agree that these visions people have of relatives and that exist.
		Oh, definitely, because, I mean, I know from my own personal experience, my mother passed away.
		It will be 20 years this past July.
		And my mother made me a promise before she passed away.
		And she said, that promise was a very simple one.
		I would always be looked after.
		Now, I took it to be financially, of course.
		But what she meant was, anytime I've been in trouble, she's been there.
		I've seen her.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		I appreciate your calling.
		I wouldn't change a word of that.
		Is that normal too?
		In other words, do people who have passed actually appear to care for their loved ones who are still there?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		My husband, as I told you earlier, the Strap in Texas, the day after his father passed, he came downstairs and he saw his father sitting on the couch, whole and healthy.
		And previous to that, he had been very ill.
		And then he saw him one second time at his residence.
		That's called an after-death communication.
		And those two are incredibly common.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wildcard line, you're on the air with Dr. Brandon.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hello, Art Bell.
		Is this Art Bell?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it is.
unidentified		I know I had to say that.
		I'm sorry.
		I just want to relate to you an experience, a few experiences I had.
		Number one, I live in San Mateo, California, and one night I looked out my window and I saw a shooting star heading straight north and short and bright.
		I saw it for certain.
		And I shared with my mother, whose house I was at, that I saw it.
		She didn't make anything of it.
		But when I awoke the next morning, I found out that my friend of 10 or so years had just passed away.
		And it turns out that he passed away at the time, just about the time that I saw that star.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's pretty loose anecdotal evidence, unless you thought your friend passed away when you saw that star, unless you made the relationship at that point.
unidentified		I didn't at the time.
unidentified		I simply thought, wow.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's pretty loose anecdotal evidence, then.
		I appreciate the call, though.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Dr. Wils Brandon.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Hi.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		This is Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, you're on the air.
unidentified		Okay.
		I had, I guess, an after-death communication.
		Oh.
		I live in Seabrook, Texas, and I was in San Antonio at the time with my mother, who was in the hospital, and she was really ill, and I couldn't leave.
		And my stepsister died a couple of days before, so we obviously couldn't go to the funeral.
		And I was real upset about that, because I was very close to her.
		And I was staying at the hospital round the clock with my mother, and I had a little cot at the end of her bed.
		And I was laying on the cot, and this was like 11 o'clock at night.
		And all of a sudden, the door opened to the room, and the light flooded in.
		And my sister walked in, and I sat up on the side of the cot, and I said, what are you doing here?
		And she said, I just came to tell you everything's all right, baby.
		And I said, but you died.
		And she said, everything's just fine.
		Don't worry.
		And my mother raised up at that time and said, who are you talking to?
		And I said, Jean, she's staying right here.
		And then I looked and she wasn't there.
		And I was awake.
		You know, I was wide awake.
		I wasn't dreaming.
		Nothing like that.
		And it just, it was so startling.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Doctor?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		That's a very common after-death communication where suddenly a loved one is visited by a deceased relative and they see them and they're whole and they're solid and they communicate and they talk.
unidentified		No, it wasn't like a ghost or anything.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		And it's not like a ghost.
		No, they're solid.
		And usually the message is, I'm okay, it's going to be okay.
		Sometimes in an after-death communication, a deceased relative will come to share, I'm here to take your mother or I'm here to take your father.
		But oftentimes it's just to let the surviving loved ones know, hey, it's okay, I'm all right.
unidentified		Well, my mother's still living and she's 87 now.
		And she never believed that.
		She said, oh, you brought that up in your mind.
		You were sleeping.
		Something.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		And your sister was just as solid as all get out.
unidentified		Yes.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		And she came to you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And not like a ghost, but solid, huh?
unidentified		No, just a real person, her, standing there.
		And she didn't look like she did when I left.
		She looked healthier, better, you know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there's another thing that is repetitively reported, right, Doctor?
unidentified		Yes.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Typically in these after-death communications and also in deathbed visions, if the deceased before passing had just been very, very ill, like my father-in-law, when they visit, they look healthy.
		A lot of times they are younger.
		They look energetic, happy, full of life, positive.
		It's typically a very positive experience.
unidentified		It was.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		All right.
		Well, listen, thank you very much for relating that.
		I wish I knew what it was really like on the other side.
		I wish I knew a lot of things.
		I wish I knew why relatives seem to, this almost moves into what some are going to call the ghost area, but some seem to leave this earthly plane right away, while a million ghost stories, Doctor, that I could share with you that I've heard over the years, and I bet you've heard on this program too, would indicate that not everybody leaves quite on schedule.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, on this island, 100 years ago, we suffered the greatest natural disaster.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		A hurricane killed 9,000 people.
unidentified		Yes.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		And so apparitions are incredibly common around here.
		I mean, anybody who lives in an old house has a story to tell about a lingering apparition.
		Now, some theories suggest that that's like an imprint, almost like a hologram, that that's not really a spirit, but it's an imprint, sort of like a photograph.
		Whereas in other situations, there are groups of individuals around here who actually go to these homes and they take photographs, and these photographs are just incredible.
		And I've actually done some of these photographing deals myself.
		Some of these apparitions, spirits, ghosts, lingering souls seem to communicate and know what's going on in the here and now.
		So there are a variety of different levels of spirit in the world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's exactly where I was going to go.
		I have run into two kinds of ghost stories.
		One is the sort of ghost story that you hear where somebody is doing something again and again and again.
		Maybe hanging themselves or some violent death seems to bring this on a lot.
		They're doing some repetitive action.
		A woman in a white dress is seen walking down a lonely road late at night again and again and again and again.
		In some repetitive tape loop of hell, it must be.
		You would imagine that.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, definitely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then there's a second kind of ghost that seems to be contemporary, even has contemporary information or information that the subject that it passed to had no prior knowledge of and could not have had prior knowledge of.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And that seems to indicate that there's a conscious spirit here now.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I totally agree.
		And a lot of people get very confused with regard to after-death communication because an after-death communication can take place 20 years after a passing.
		And the person doesn't necessarily have to be experiencing a near-death experience, nor do they have to be experiencing a deathbed vision, but they receive a visitation.
		And the visitation may be, you know, just as solid as all get out, walking through the door.
		A woman that I did work with for many years, she lost her husband in a very, very tragic death.
		And she was sitting listening to jazz music, and they had had a very, very hard marriage.
		And as a matter of fact, right before his death, they were just beginning to piece things back together again.
		And in he walks.
		This is 10 years later.
		And he sits down, and she said she was just stunned.
		And when she came in, of course, her first words to me were, please do not refer me for medication.
		But I really need to share this with you, and please don't tell anybody.
		And she said he was as solid as anything and shared with her that he was very proud of her for the way in which she was raising the children and that he was really, really sorry for any pain that he had inflicted upon her.
		And she described his clothes to the detail, down to the detail.
		And she said he looked younger and he looked healthy and he looked happy and that his main concern seemed to be for her.
		And so an after-death communication can take place anytime.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I sure would like to have that for my dad.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		There are ways to do it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Dr. Will Brandon.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Hello?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Oh, okay.
unidentified		Hi.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi, where are you?
unidentified		I'm in Oregon.
		Okay.
		I wanted to comment on actually seeing things after death.
		I've done nursing for quite a few years, and I've done some hospice work.
		And I'm also very much into the spiritual, metaphysical, etc.
		I do a lot of alternative type medicine as well.
		I myself, excuse me, have actually seen upon someone's passing like a vapor that was described a little earlier.
		You've seen it?
		Yes, I have.
		A couple of times.
		Like a wisp of smoke.
		And I actually do see auras as well.
		And I did notice a change in the aura around the person.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'll tell you what, young lady, hold on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We're at a break, all right?
unidentified		Sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We'll be right back, and I'm going to hold you over.
		I've never seen anything like that.
		And I'm sitting here debating about whether I would want to.
		Yes, I think I would, actually.
unidentified		Listen to me in the middle of a dry fell.
		The gentle rising of the cross outside.
		I'm dancing, baby on her shoulder.
		Just on a second light, my life is in the sky It's the best time I can't believe it I know that you have just as much as my eyes.
		I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles Oh yeah If you think that I don't know about the little tricks you play I'll never see you when you live with me Put me in the night away You know what?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe you don't have to see for miles and miles and miles and miles.
unidentified		Really?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All you have to be able to do is see across about two-tenths of one centimeter to another dimension.
unidentified		How about that?
		Call Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nye from west of the Rockies at 1-800-618-8255.
		East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
		First-time callers may rechart at 1-775-727-1222.
		And the wildcard line is open at 1-775-727-1295.
		To rechart on the toll-free international line, call your AT ⁇ T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
		This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell from the Kingdom of Nye.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's what I call a no-bull presentation, Dr. Carl Wills Brandon.
		And we're talking about deathbed visions, the straight stuff with a lot of science to back it up, and we'll be right back.
		All right, back we go to my guest, Dr. Carla Wills-Brandon.
		Doctor, welcome back.
		And so many people want to speak with you, but there's a young lady who've been waiting on the line.
		Go ahead.
		It was particularly fascinating that you had actually seen this.
unidentified		Well, are you talking about the actual emanation of like the smoke vapor from the person or the aura?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Both.
		But particularly the first.
		I mean, if you normally see auras, then it would be interesting to know at the moment of death what change you saw and compare that to what the doctor knows.
unidentified		Yes.
		As far as what I've seen, as I said, I've done hospice work for a few years, and I actually was there at time of death or casting for two people.
		The first person, I was really, the person was resting very quietly.
		They Had been pretty much non-responsive for quite some time.
		And this was very, very early in the morning.
		It was about 2 o'clock.
		And I was just sitting there watching them breathing.
		And all of a sudden, I noticed that, you know, it was kind of an observation or a feeling as I was looking that I didn't see the next breath.
		You know, the chest wasn't rising.
		And as I was looking at the person, I did notice that there was a little very thin, wispy kind of bluish gray kind of, looked like smoke almost.
		It was kind of curling up from the top of the head, which would be up by the crown of the head.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		That's it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's it, huh?
unidentified		That's it.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes, that's been reported time and time again.
		Throughout history, current day.
		Yes, very common.
unidentified		There was quite a bit of blue in there.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		And typically the colors are white, bluish-gray.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Or sometimes a pastel.
unidentified		Yeah, it was kind of tinged around the edges with white.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		At that moment, when you were sitting there and you saw that, what did you think you were seeing?
unidentified		I actually thought that I was seeing the actual energy, because I believe very much in energy, that everything is energy, that I was seeing the energy or spirit leave the body.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I have nothing to add to that.
		I appreciate the call.
		Thank you very much, and take care.
		On my international line, you're on the air with Dr. Wils Brandon.
		Hello.
		Where are you, please?
		Hello there.
		I think I pressed.
		Oh, I didn't press the right button.
		Let me try it now.
		Now on the international line, I think you're on the air.
		Hello.
		Hello.
unidentified		Can you hear me?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I hear you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you, sir?
unidentified		I'm actually in Osan Air Base.
		That's in South Korea.
		That's about five miles from a Korean city called Pyeong-tech.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Welcome to the program.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Glad to have you.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
		Oh, glad to be here.
		I've listened to you for years and years and really enjoyed your show.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		I still enjoy it.
		Actually, I have two things that actually happened.
		One with a near-death experience, or not near-death, I'm sorry, but with a death experience.
		I took care of my mom here several years ago when I lost her to cancer.
		But not the night she died, but the next night, I'd say about two or three o'clock in the morning.
		And I was in asleep, and I felt like, you know, when you're a little kid and you get the kiss on the forehead, when your mommy and daddy's like kissing you goodnight, it's like one of those and like the feel, you know, like everything's okay.
		Now, my daughter, she's grown up too.
		She told me the next day, she called me, she goes, grandma was here.
		And I go, what do you mean grandma was here?
		She was about 2 o'clock in the morning.
		I felt someone kiss my forehead and I just felt this sense of well-being and everything's okay.
		Kind of weird, huh?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		That's very common.
		When we have direct contact with deceased loved ones on the other side, and there is a sense of a physical touch, there's always this overwhelming report of a sense of well-being.
		It's a wonderful feeling.
unidentified		Yes, yes.
		Now, I have kind of a comical Bowman's borders on a comical ghost story.
		Because you've got to remember, I'm over here, and so the natives, of course, speak Korean.
		A lot of them, they don't speak English.
		So my daughter, then, she was a lot younger then, she was over here visiting me in Korea, so we stayed in this hotel.
		Can I say the name of the hotel?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, sure, I'd up here.
unidentified		Okay, it's a Korea Hotel.
		All right.
		Okay.
		Anyways, they have a treat here, a Korean treat called Yakimandu, which is basically a fried meat dumpling.
		It was like Friday night, and I told her, and we were on the sixth floor.
		And I told her, I says, okay, I'll be right back.
		I'm going to go down and get some Yakimandu, and I'll be back in a minute.
		So I went down the hallway, got to the elevator, and hear my daughter screaming.
		I run back into the room, and you've got to picture this.
		Like, overseas, they got these fans in the room.
		You pull the cord, and the fan, like, rotates and blows and stuff like that.
		And they had a TV with the old potentiometer type, not the push-button, but you had to physically move it, and you feel the click, then the volume control.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There's a lot of them.
		Remember those, sir.
		No problem.
unidentified		Right, yeah.
		So anyways, the lights are going on and off, on and off.
		The TV set, I could physically see the knob go up, all the way up, top volume, down, click, off, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		And the lights were going out, all three of them going out simultaneously.
		My daughter's screaming.
		She's just freaking.
		I got mad.
		I'm screaming.
		I go, darn it.
		You know, a little harder than that.
		But, you know, darn it, leave my daughter alone, right?
		Everything stopped immediately.
		Just boom, stopped immediately.
		So here's the funny part.
		I go down to the death, you know, death servicer, you know, like there.
		I say, I want to talk about room.
		I can't remember the room number, let's say it was 602.
		So I want to talk about room 602.
		And the Odyssey goes, oh, no ghost in 602.
		And so I go, I want another room now.
		True story.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I appreciate it, especially all the way from Korea.
unidentified		Okay, thank you.
unidentified		Thank you, man.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Take care.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		We had a man who was 105 years old who lived next door.
		And for a while, after he passed, every night at 2 or 3 in the morning, the alarm would go off, even when the thing was disconnected.
		And both of my husband and I are convinced that it was him being a trickster.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		I guess I've got to follow up on this, and I guess I will follow up on it.
		I said to you earlier, I sure wish I could do that, and I wish I could have a visit from my father, who I wasn't there.
		I was going to be there.
		I was also to get on the plane, but as I told you earlier, he passed away.
		How you said there's a way to do it.
		There's a way to do it.
		Elucidate, please.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, the best way to do it is to begin with inviting them to visit you in your dreams.
		And what you do is you're facilitating an after-death communication.
		Now, after-death communication dreams are much more vivid than a typical dream.
		I had one with my grandmother, and she came to me with a specific piece of information.
		And it was very, the colors were very vibrant, and it remains with me to this day.
		But the way you induce that is you get a picture of your father and you have it by your nightstand.
		And every night before you go to bed, look at the picture, then close your eyes, visualize them in your mind's eye, and share with him that you would really, really like for him to come and visit you in your dreams.
		You need to do that for about two weeks.
		And if nothing happens still, if still you're not having any results, try some letter writing.
		Also, you can do some visualization during the daytime.
		If you feel like you need to make some apologies or you have some unfinished business.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Definitely.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		And just continue the process.
		I'm a firm believer that they hear us.
		And eventually, on down the line, chances are you'll make contact.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wish for it to be so.
		In other words.
		All right.
		First time call our line.
		You're on the air with Dr. Wolf Brandon.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hello.
		This has been weighing rather heavily on my mind because it just happened on Sunday.
		I was in Navarre, which is just outside of Gulf Breeze, Florida, and I was at the beach.
		And I went out swimming, and I was trying to teach my nephew how to boogie board.
		Well, sure enough, my boogie board broke, and then I had noticed a man.
		He was probably one of the older men out there.
		And I was staying out there a little bit longer.
		And I had an uncontrollable thirst.
		I couldn't control it, and I had to go back to shore.
		Well, sure enough, as soon as I had hit the shore, my nephew, or my niece had come in to tell me my nephew had passed out.
		The timing of the event was the man actually ended up drowning.
		He died.
		And it was at the exact moment that it had occurred.
		The reason why it's been weighing so heavy on my mind is because my niece had called me over and telling me that my nephew had passed out.
		And I was the only one to contend to my nephew.
		So as I went to see my nephew, it was rather a nice day.
		It's Florida.
		But he had complained of not only blacking out, but then he was shivering, couldn't move.
		We finally got him to the water, calmed him down.
		I had this overwhelming compulsion to get off the island altogether.
		The reason why that is so important is because I'm a big guy, I'm about 6'2, 300 pounds, a fairly good swimmer.
		And my wife was sitting there on the beach, and they actually pulled him ashore about 10 feet away from her.
		She was right there, right in the general area that we were swimming.
		And it's as if it seemed to me that by my nephew passing out at the very moment that that gentleman died, kind of pulled me out of the water.
		Because I know my personal characteristic would have been the fact that I would have gone out to the water and tried my best to save him.
		I found out the next day that the actual reason that he drowned was he was trying to save someone else.
		And it's been overwhelming in my mind when something is so blatantly obvious that had pulled me out of that water and perhaps saved me from drowning myself trying to save that person.
		But the biggest part of this, and I guess this is a deathbed intervention perhaps, is the fact that the coincidence of my nephew passing out at the exact moment, he has never passed out in his entire life before.
		The Saturday, we had taken a six-mile walk for the March of Dimes, and he was full of energy, not a problem.
		And then just out of nowhere, we'd only been at the beach for 30 minutes, couldn't have suffered from heat exhaustion.
		It was a very beautiful day.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
unidentified		And it was very unnerving to actually see something that was so blatantly obvious.
unidentified		Had he had a history of passing out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
unidentified		And so that's been kind of weighing on my mind the implication of that entire event and perhaps the relationship between him passing out and the person dying at that very moment.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Doctor?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		See the strong intuitive sense that is being discussed here?
		It's like an immediate intuitive sense, intuitively knowing what is happening.
		And that's very, very common for some people when in the presence of death, that the coincidences that are taking place make absolute crystal clear sense.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You don't think that our minds just find it, do you?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I think in some situations, yes, that's true.
		But the adamant sense of intuitively, this is just so obvious, it also sounds like this gentleman has an awful lot of grieving to do.
		I mean, witnessing a tragedy such as this is going to create for him possibly unfinished business with regard to passings that he's experienced in the past.
		And I don't know if this is the case for this gentleman, but oftentimes in situations when we're confronted with death and there are other coincidences happening around us, it seems as if everything makes sense at that moment.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Dr. Wolf Brandon.
		Good morning.
unidentified		All right, good morning.
		And Doctor, I think you're a great guest.
		I could listen to this for hours.
		And I think the timing of you being on here is very prescient.
		As Art talked about, we live in interesting times and in quickening times.
		And I think the timing of you being on here is just great.
		I think you're doing a great service.
		My question is this.
		You mentioned that, and I find this very difficult to believe how the religious community could be hesitant or opposed to what you're saying when, at least from the Christian side of it, fundamentalist or Catholic, however, the whole Bible points exactly to everlasting life and it speaks directly about death and what it is.
		In fact, if these religious types would just look at the book, the first, I wonder if it's a fear of death.
		Here's my point.
		That these people are denying something about death.
		Because the first lie that supposedly the human race fell into was when Satan said, you surely won't die.
		And it seems like ever since then we've had this aversion.
		Obviously, it seems moral, an aversion to death.
		I'm just wondering if these people still have that in them where they can't seem to face what you're saying.
		Because you mentioned that it won't be Peachy Cane and there are levels.
		Yet when you just read the scriptures themselves, especially in 2 Corinthians 5, it speaks directly to that issue, saying that everyone will be judged.
		I'm not talking about whipped or beaten, but everyone will be judged by their works.
		So there are levels in there.
		And so could you tell me when that nun and priest spoke to that man or came to that man and they told him that there's going to be certain levels or certain lessons to be learned?
		Could you describe it a little bit more and how long those lessons might take?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		That wasn't shared with me, but there are all sorts of philosophies and traditions regarding spirituality that discuss this in depth.
		And these philosophies have been around for eons and eons.
		And also, I do also want to share that within the Christian tradition, within the early Christian tradition, there are lots of examples of deathbed visions and near-death experiences.
		Also, in the Jewish religion, some of the most famous rabbis of earlier times shared deathbed visions.
		So these have been with us for quite some time.
		In most religions, you can easily find these things.
		But I think that today, religion has become, it's so political, it's very political, and it's become a business, sadly.
		And an awful lot of people who are in the business of religion, in my opinion, they need to take care of some of their own unfinished business and heal themselves before they attempt to spread the message.
		That's just a very...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What about entire societies that are non-Christian or non-Jewish and don't particularly believe in life after death necessarily?
		What about studies?
		Do you get anything like that?
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I haven't found any of those yet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But what I will say...
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		I think it must be incredibly confusing for the religious community to hear about near-death experiences, after-death communications, out-of-body experiences, and deathbed visions from hardcore non-believers.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Back to my international line.
		You're on the air.
		Where are you, please?
unidentified		Hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		I am calling from Ontario, Canada.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, actually, you're not supposed to be on the international line.
unidentified		Yeah, I know.
unidentified		As I was listening to your gentleman there who speaks the ad, he spoke the number so fast it's the only one I could write down.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm just amazed you made it through.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Anyway, go ahead.
unidentified		Okay, great.
		First-time caller, and I think this is along the lines which people are talking about.
		When I was about five years old, I was sleeping in my room upstairs, and I just awoke throughout the night, one time during the night, and at the end of my bed was standing my mother.
		My mother's alive to this day.
		She's still alive.
		She's healthy and everything.
		And there she was standing.
		And when I saw her, I immediately kind of got scared.
		Like, I'm only five years old at the time, but I knew that there was something wrong.
		I knew it was my mom, but I knew there was something wrong.
		And I could remember her being ghost-like, basically sort of a white outline, but like all her features were there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		And her eyes were black.
		I know that.
		And she was pointing.
		And I looked to where she was pointing, and I had a little pile of stuffed animals.
		So I figured she was angry because I didn't put them away.
		And I remember pulling the sheet over my head and pulling it down over my eyes and looking again, and she was still pointing.
		And at this point, she locked edge at me, and she just basically loomed towards me.
		And this scared the hell out of me.
		And I threw the blankets aside, and I ran through her down to the hallway.
		And actually, it's funny, I still tell this story.
		My heart rate accelerates as I tell it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, go ahead.
		Go ahead.
		We don't have a lot of time, so hurry.
unidentified		And I got to the end of the stairwell, and there she was.
		She turned around, and she started floating down the hallway towards me.
		So I ran down the stairs, jumped into her bedroom, and when I jumped into her bed, I hit her in the back like I knew she was still in bed.
		And the thing I'm getting at is, what was that?
		What was I having, a ghost-like vision of somebody who was still alive?
		And I woke up in my mother's bed the next day, and I knew she was there because I hit her in the back.
		Could you kick me on the line so I could hear the answer, too?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you'll hear the answer, sir, on your radio, believe me.
		And I don't know what answer there is to that.
		We've had a discussion about living ghosts before, Doctor.
		I'm sure you've heard it on the program.
dr carla willis-brandon ▲ ● ▼		Definitely, yes.

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