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Part Two is now available here!

25 years ago on June 11th, I had a Near-Death Experience (or NDE). Only in the past year have I begun the journey of fully unpacking it and recognizing its full impact. I’ve never shared the full story… Until now.

If any part of this article sounds too unbelievable, outrageous, melodramatic, conceited, heretical, and/or woo-woo, then… ha ha! I’m just joking! Gotcha!

But to those with open hearts and open minds, everything you are about to read is true, to the best of my knowledge.

No one knows how long I was at the bottom of the pool. Just that when they pulled me out, I was blue, which my parents were told takes about 8-12 minutes of submersion. Only 7.4% of drowning victims survive after 6-10 minutes. Only 4.3% survive after 11 minutes.

I was just five years old. Drowning is the second leading cause of accidental death in children. Little is known about how many survivors of drowning suffer neurological or brain damage or to what degree, but it’s not uncommon, especially among those who drown in fresh or warm water like I did.

I survived with no damage.¹ I was out of the hospital in less than 18 hours. By all accounts, I was a miracle.

It was June 11th, 2001 and the first night of our stay at the now-nonexistent Regency Plaza Hotel. Our family of eight was on vacation in San Diego to visit SeaWorld, Coronado Island, and the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park. After dinner at a Chinese buffet (I remember being really excited about their soft-serve ice cream machine), all eight of us went swimming in the hotel pool.

As the fifth of six kids (and the fourth of five boys), I basically received most of the benefits of being the youngest without really being the youngest. I was the quiet, sweet one, the one my parents didn’t have to worry about. They put my 13-year-old sister, the oldest child, in charge of watching me while they chased my 2-year-old brother around the perimeter of the pool. He’d jump in at random spots and my dad would catch him. They were having a blast.

My sister told me to stay on the steps of the shallow end while she left to do something else. I don’t blame her, she was just a kid herself. Bored and alone, I saw my parents playing with my little brother on the other end of the pool and wanted to join them. I guess I could’ve gotten out of the water and walked over there, but I decided to use the skill I had acquired in swim lessons of crawling along the edge of the pool, clinging to the ledge of the wall.

There wasn’t much ledge to hold on to, and it was an ambitious length to crawl. I could feel that what I was doing was dangerous, but I had done it a million times at swim lessons, even in the deep end. I made it in between the 4 ½ and 5 ft markers when my fingers slipped and I fell in the water.

At some point, my parents realized I was missing, found me, and pulled my blue body out of the water. Somebody called 911. A married pair of US Marines who happened to be at the hotel saw the commotion and jumped in to give me CPR. I woke up to the sight of ambulance, helicopter, and news camera lights, vomiting copious amounts of chlorinated water and Chinese food.

I was put on the ambulance with my mom and taken to a children’s hospital ER. She still jokes that the real horror of that night was having to be on the news in her bathing suit soaked my vomit. I certainly wasn’t as phased as her; I told the paramedics my birthday was March 31st, and she cried, “He doesn’t even remember his birthday! It’s April 22nd!” That’s my third older brother’s birthday :/

I don’t remember much from the rest of the night. The next morning, I was tired and lethargic until I threw up again. After that, I ate some food, held it down, and they let my dad and siblings in. The Marine couple visited me too. Everyone brought me gifts and were so nice to me, like it was my birthday or something. Maybe I should drown more often!

Immediately upon recovering, I was told over and over again— by my parents, the nurses, the Marines, the hotel staff, and everyone we knew back home— that I was a miracle. That I was “saved for a reason” and God must have a special plan for me.

I enjoyed the attention. It felt good to be a miracle. It came with special privileges: later that summer, I got to fly (I was the first of my siblings to fly in a plane) with my parents back to San Diego and attend a medal ceremony for our new Marine friends. It’s the only time of my childhood I got to spend significant time with just me and my parents.

But it also had some drawbacks. Why was I, as a kindergartener, being told by adult professionals (the TAs in my class) how special I must be and that God saved me for a reason… and within earshot of classmates? That’s weird! Later on, I met a kid in my school, a year older than me, in the special needs class, who could hardly move on his own and was completely nonverbal. I learned it was because he had drowned in cold water, for less time than I did. Why did I get so lucky and he didn’t?

But the hardest thing was not being able to explain what happened to me when I drowned and what I saw.

Soon after we got home from our vacation (which my parents extended a day to make up for the lost time in the hospital lmao), my mom pulled me into her room and asked the big question: “When you drowned, did you see Grandpa Arvo?”

My Grandpa Arvo Van Alstyne, my mom’s dad, died of cancer when she was 18. An internationally respected legal scholar, educator, and family man, Arvo was and is a the towering figure in our family lore. Though I was born 11 years after his passing, I always felt a special connection to him. My mom would point out traits we shared, even little things like the way I hold a pencil or point with two fingers.

I could tell in my mom’s voice, even when she invited me into her room, that this was weighing heavily on her. It would have meant the world to know that I got to meet and interact with Grandpa Arvo. But according to her, I replied:

“He’s dead!”

That’s the version my mom always tells, but in my memory, it was more complicated than that. I remember feeling unable to articulate what I saw, and conflicted about whether I even should. So I guess I didn’t tell them anything. My mom really struggled with that, but she chalked it up to, “We need faith to be saved, and if Sam saw heaven, he wouldn’t need faith.”

It’s just that the heaven I saw— if you wanna call it that— didn’t really neatly align with the LDS doctrine my family and I believed in. It didn’t necessarily disprove Mormonism either, so in fact I integrated it into my Mormon beliefs very tightly— I had to obey the gospel, because I had seen the Other Side and wanted to live there again with my loved ones. But I kind of always knew that if I were to really dig into the NDE and what it meant, it probably would have raised a lot of questions and doubts in myself and possibly my parents. I certainly didn’t want to be the cause of anyone’s faith crisis at the time.²

As I got older, I’d tell people little details if they asked— I saw lights, I saw figures— and I wrote a couple papers about it in grade school. I even won an award for one in third grade, but I think they gave it to me because Marines were the heroes of the story. Post-9/11 and all.

But the NDE (though I didn’t really know that term yet) was too special to me to share details with whoever, whenever. I didn’t want to feel invalid or discredited. I can’t tell you how many freaking kids, upon learning I drowned, would respond with something like, “I almost drowned once too! I was under for like 30 seconds and came up coughing, so I know what you went through.” I didn’t really know how to tell them, “No, I don’t think you do know. I died.”

Eventually, my parents did lose their faith (thanks to my oldest brother’s bad influence, not mine lol), and I did too. At that point, I kind of dabbled in atheism and began to figure, “Miracle, schmiracle. I just got lucky.” The NDE was nothing more than some chemicals released in my brain due to lack of oxygen during my drowning, and it meant little more than a crazy dream. When we die, I thought, we drift off into nothingness, like falling asleep. (Which I still don’t think would be a bad outcome! Sure beats going to some religion’s hell.)

But I couldn’t really shake the NDE, even at my most unbelieving. It had filled me with the sense that I was saved for a reason. That I was special, and my ancestors were all pitching in to guide me along to accomplish something very important. Before I left Mormonism, I thought maybe my important mission was to be a high-level church leader. Sometimes I thought I should become a politician or activist. But most of all, for whatever reason, I thought I could be a really great screenwriter and director if I took a shot at it.⁴

It was about a year ago that I began seeing a new therapist to cope with the growing realization that my odds of becoming a working Hollywood filmmaker were about as good as winning the lottery and that I had no backup plan. Maybe I wasn’t as special as I thought.

At some point I was telling my therapist about my extreme case of Main Character Syndrome, which I 100% blamed on drowning (still do, tbh). She was much more interested in the drowning than the self-diagnosed narcissism. She encouraged me to research NDEs (the first time I had heard the acronym and realized it meant more than just almost dying) and see how closely I identified as having one. So I looked at this fact sheet from the International Association for Near-Death Studies (which sounded like a load of hogwash to me lol), and sure enough, my experience checked off most of the boxes:

I checked off a lot of the post-NDE boxes as well, but we’ll get to that next week.

All of a sudden, the NDE was instantly validated as more than just a chemical reaction in my brain. I couldn’t deny that my experience was real, and that it’s had lingering, tangible effects (again, come back next week!) I became the atheism leaving my body meme.³

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you check all the boxes on a website, but what did you actually see during your NDE?”

It’s complicated, man. It’s been 25 years, and I spent most of that time ignoring certain aspects, or the whole thing altogether. I honestly don’t remember most of what I saw, just how it felt.

But what I do remember… is falling into the water. Not being able to reach the surface. Calling for help and swallowing water. I remember feeling like Pinocchio when he’s walking on the bottom of the ocean.

At some point my body must have fallen to the floor of the pool, but I felt like I was upright the entire time. I was filled with peace and clarity of mind. I wondered if I was going to die, but I wasn’t scared. I knew I was going to be alright, whatever the outcome.

I turned around, and the pool seemingly stretched on for forever. It was filled with light. Then I saw what seemed like legs walking toward me. Many, many legs, like a lot of people coming to get me. As they got closer, I don’t remember any faces; just light emanating from them. I felt this warm, unconditional love. I believe they were ancestors of mine, including my Grandpa Arvo, and perhaps others who had a vested interest in my wellbeing, but I don’t remember any of them introducing themselves or anything. They didn’t have a tangible, physical form. There was a feeling like they had always been part of me. As if I am my ancestors, and my ancestors are me, and our souls/consciousness are entwined.

See how it was difficult to explain to my mom?

There was a sensation like zooming through a tunnel, and I was taken to a place where time felt meaningless. I don’t remember physical characteristics, because I don’t think it was a physical place. I do remember colors— creamy orange and pink, like I was inside of a sunset. Here I’m pretty sure I got to see a playthrough of my life and future events. Do I remember what events I saw? Not really :/ But I believe this is where my frequent deja vu and (admittedly mild) premonitions come from. More on that in Part 2.

I didn’t meet a Judeo-Christian God or Jesus. Some people do during their NDEs, which is fascinating. Others meet Allah or Buddha. NDEs seem to communicate in ways the experiencer will understand. So I’m not sure why I didn’t meet Jesus. Instead I believe I interacted with a divine female presence. The Goddess? Heavenly Mother? Mother Earth? I’m not sure. Some spiritual representation of the Feminine Divine, at the least. I don’t know what, if anything, she told me, but I know I experienced her all-encompassing love. I came back feeling a deep connection and appreciation for my mom and the female nursing staff in the hospital.

Aaaaaaaaand that’s about all I remember. Since diving into NDEs and their meaning, and practicing EMDR with my therapist, more details have come back to me. I have curiosity about using hypnotherapy or psychedelics to unlock more, but I don’t know… what if they don’t unlock anything? What if they unlock parts I don’t want to know? What if I’m told to go back to church? The horror!

I kid. I’m allowed to kid about my NDE. The rest of you, I’m not so sure lol.

As a child, I didn’t understand what I experienced, just that it was sacred and profound. It sucked when people would make jokes that I couldn’t swim (I learned how within a few more years), or when they (my brothers) told me they wished I had really died when I drowned (okay, that is kind of funny). Even now, I hesitate to share all these details for fear that I’m cheapening it or casting pearls before swine (not you, of course… you are my favorite reader), but something compels me to tell my story. 1 in 20 people have had an NDE, so if someone reading this has had one and we can help each other feel seen, then I think it’s worth it.

When I first started digging into my NDE last year and accepting what happened as real, it kind of made me a little depressed. Not because I didn’t want there to be an afterlife, but because the afterlife I experienced was so good, so loving, and so peaceful… the exact opposite of life in the material world sometimes. Why did I have to come back? I can’t recall even being given a choice. I can’t recall being told I had a purpose or mission to fulfill before they sent me back. Everyone else told me that afterwards.

I can recall how good it felt to be dead, as wild as that sounds, and how amazing it felt to not have a body. Recalling that can make being alive feel like a rip-off. Earth is where dreams die, where money matters more than people and ideas, where you’re stuck in a prison of a body that can get sick, broken, and old. Even though I had no suicidal intent or ideation, I sure didn’t feel like being alive was all it was cracked up to be.

And then I felt guilty. Really guilty. Why would I rather be dead when I have the world’s most amazing wife and daughter? That’s not fair to them.

But then, you know, it eventually all kind of clicked into place. No duh— my wife and daughter are my purpose. My amazing wife and I got to create the most incredible little girl in the world, and now we get to raise her together. I can’t say for sure that she’s going to go on to be some great artist, leader, or innovator who changes the world— knowing the disappointment of not living up to those kind of expectations, I certainly won’t push her to be— but she could. Or she could just go on to have her own modest circle of friends and community members that she makes a positive impact on, as is my greatest ambition these days. Whatever the case, I’m so proud of her and humbled to get to be her dad. Ditto for my wife and being her husband.

You see, the ultimate truth I feel I learned when I died is that we are on this earth to love and be loved.

To be continued, as I discuss the physical, psychological, and spiritual effects and ramifications of my NDE in Part Two, which you can read here!

And now to talk about a pair of very silly movies…

Last week, I went fire & brimstone on generative AI, and I meant every word of it. The very next day, the greatest living filmmaker and champion of cinema, Martin Scorsese announced a partnership with AI company Black Forest Labs, which he apparently used to create the storyboards for his upcoming film, What Happens At Night, a psychological thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence.

This is obviously a devastating blow to gen-AI-free purists like me, but it’s not the first time Scorsese has lacked clarity and soundness of mind regarding technology. Remember when he said he was gonna start shooting all his films in 3-D? (He actually should have, I love 3-D; sorry for comparing it to AI 😭) Scorsese’s old, and I’m sure he doesn’t fully grasp the ethical, environmental, and aesthetic costs of using AI. Does anyone over the age of 35?

The Wayans Brothers sure don’t, I can tell you that much! Their new film, Scary Movie (2026), a legacyquel (or a rebootquel, as the film’s characters call it, teeing up for the wonderful punchline of “re-booty-call”) to the popular spoof franchise, is rife with AI-generated visuals on a scale heretofore unprecedented for a theatrical feature film (at least the kind I usually watch), but I suppose it’s fitting for a movie so of our bleak moment.

What should have been called Scary Movie 6 or, I dunno, Scary Movie: The New One (it wasn’t taken yet), reunites the great Anna Faris and Regina Hall with the not-as-great Marlon and Shawn Wayans for another parody of recent horror hits, this time including Scream (2022), Scream 6, Halloween (2018), Get Out, Sinners, The Substance, Weapons, and more. The plot’s not important, the whole thing is just a joke-delivery system.

I’m not above admitting I laughed throughout. That’s the thing about the Scary Movie franchise (which I had only seen the first 3 out of the previous 5): they have a very high joke density, so for every 5-or-so of the unfunniest groaners you’ve ever heard, they typically land one funny gag. But God… those 5 groaners… they’re terrible. And usually some level of racist, homophobic, or misogynistic. Still though, the constant digs at wokeism and identity politics are never as offensive or annoying as the blatant AI use.

The deployment of AI starts innocently enough. I first clocked it in a background gag about theme park rides falling apart, Final Destination-style. Okay, so they’re using it for jokes they couldn’t otherwise afford, I thought. Maaaayyybe that’s not so bad. But then they started using it in less “necessary” ways, like onscreen graphics during a character’s livestream. You telling me Paramount couldn’t spring for a literal graphic artist? Pathetic.

Where the AI-use (and the movie) really goes off the rails is during a fully-AI-animated parody of KPop Demon Hunters and its hit song “Golden.” I don’t know that I’ve ever covered my mouth in horror at a movie before, but I did during this scene. I couldn’t believe something so garish, so plagiaristic, so goddamn cheap could make it to the big screen. But I guess I’m the fool who bought a ticket.

Yet the AI-use is just a piece of the mosaic that makes Scary Movie (2026) a horrifying but startlingly accurate time capsule of the year of our lord 2026. The Wayans and their surprisingly white director, Michael Tiddes, have essentially preserved the 2020s in amber, complete with jokes about Covid, BLM, January 6th, cryptocurrency, the Epstein files, and much, much more. As a remarkably thorough period piece, I wouldn’t be surprised if Scary Movie (2026) is studied by historians and anthropologists for generations to come. Hopefully by then the AI stuff only further marks it as a product of our wretched times.

I almost found the currency currentness(?) refreshing. Not many movies these days are willing to reckon with current events and modern technology. Some filmmakers don’t even want to acknowledge cell phones exist. But the more Scary Movie (2026) went on, the more debased, depraved, and undignified it became… again, perfectly reflecting the 2020s!

I left Scary Movie feeling dumber and less ensouled, just as I warned would happen after gen-AI exposure last week, perfectly primed for the second film of my double feature, Masters of the Universe (2026).

Sidenote: Look, I don’t like writing out “(2026)” after these titles any more than you like reading it, but that’s what you’re supposed to do when you have to differentiate new installments that have the same damn titles as previous movies in the franchise.

Anyway, I found Masters of the Universe (2026) to be an unintentionally interesting pairing with Scary Movie (2026). Where Scary Movie (2026) is deeply entrenched in 2026 and its horrible, awful culture, Masters of the Universe (2026) feels like the dying gasp of the 2010’s era blockbuster and of 1980’s nostalgia.

Based on the Mattel toy-line and various cartoons, Nicholas Galitzine plays Prince Adam, aka He-Man, who is sent to Earth as a boy after his magical homeworld of Eternia is attacked by the evil Skeletor (a mercifully unseen but actually quite good Jared Leto). Now grown up and working in HR, Adam seeks his long-lost Sword of Power so he can transport back to Eternia, reunite with his friend and love interest, Teela (Camila Mendes); her father, Duncan aka Man-At-Arms (Idris Elba), a royal general; and his talking green tiger, Cringer aka Battle Cat; to defeat Skeletor and take back Eternia.

The big challenge this movie has is making audiences who have no previous relationship to He-Man or Masters of the Universe (like me!) care about a 40+ year-old fantasy/sci-fi brand that was created by coke addicts to sell toys, while at the same time satisfying all the diehard fans who grew up with it. Director Travis Knight (son of Nike founder Phil Knight, so I’m sure he had all the toys growing up) and six credited screenwriters attempt to solve this problem by taking inspiration from two much more successful blockbusters.

First, Barbie.Yes, just as Greta Gerwig’s Barbie tackled feminism and the patriarchy, this He-Man’s greatest foe is actually toxic masculinity. It’s not a bad take, and lord knows much needed right now. Galitzine almost has the earnest charm to pull it off, but for all the talk of resolving conflict with healthy discussion and empathy, there sure is a lot of violent action in this thing.

Second, beyond the gender politics, the movie tries desperately to steal the humor, aesthetics, and even a lot of the plot of Thor: Ragnarok. Unfortunately, dicey CGI (at least it’s not AI, but sheesh, this thing cost $200 million??), and jarring tonal shifts put Masters of the Universe closer to Thor: Love and Thunder territory.

I guess nobody at MGM/Amazon knew that the MCU and the Marvel-fication of summer blockbusters has fallen out of favor. We’re all sick of mid and post-credits scenes that set up characters that should have already been in the movie we just saw. Everyone’s tired of quips that deflate the world and stakes we’re supposed to care about. Worse, this movie only has like one joke: “Wait… your name is… ______???” repeated over and over again. Look, I can only take so many jokes at the expense of its own goofiness before it feels like everyone is ashamed of the material. And if that’s the case, why are we bothering?

If they really wanted to grow the Masters of the Universe fandom, you’d think they’d try harder to appeal to kids, but it’s riddled with swear words and double entendres, including a runner on fisting. That just leaves the middle-aged men who grew up on He-Man as the target audience. At the end of the movie, when I stood up from my seat in the front and turned around, I saw an army of them filling the theater. I wondered if any of them were happy with what they just saw.

I’m sure it’s been nice for Gen X men. Hollywood has been catering to their nostalgia for decades, churning out an endless cycle of Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Terminator, Transformers, Indiana Jones, Karate Kid, and of course, superhero content. Lately, it’s almost all been flopping. Masters of the Universe (2026) certainly continues the downward trend for 80s nostalgia.

Scary Movie (2026)’s success is a sign that millennials are hungry for something that caters to their nostalgia. Or that Gen Z and Alpha are hungry for movies that feel of the moment. Or that people want comedies again? Whatever the case, it’s working, even if the movie blows. I’d normally be thrilled to see a comedy making so much money, but I worry it’s the kickoff point for audiences accepting AI visuals in Hollywood productions in a big way.

Meanwhile, Obsession and Backrooms are totally upending the box office. Original films from young directors! Made with no generative AI! Can you imagine?!

It’s clear that young people crave freshness. Personally, I am all for it. Folks don’t just want the same, old reheated ‘80s leftovers anymore. They prefer originals, but ‘00s leftovers will do.

Preferably AI-free, though, for the love of god.

I got to see Ringo Starr perform last week! I’ve been a Beatles fan since I was 12 but had never seen one perform live. He was just as cool and funny as you’d hope. Inshallah I get to see Paul McCartney soon.

I also got to attend Salt Lake City’s Pride Parade, or as my 2-year-old calls it, the Rainbow Parade. I think it’s very important right now to indoctrinate kids with the gay agenda. That is, to teach kids that they are allowed to be themselves, love whoever they want to love, and push back against bigotry and conformity. In better times, I would roll my eyes at all the corporate sponsors of the parade, but things have gotten so bleak in Trump 2.0, that I’m glad the parade still has corporate sponsors.

Lastly, I want to share the brilliant speech Ali Louis Bourzgui gave at the Tony Awards last night, upon winning Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his performance in The Lost Boys:

(chanting) Disclosure Day! Disclosure Day! Disclosure Day!

And Part 2 of my NDE story…