On New Year’s Day, 2023, actor Jeremy Renner was involved in a horrific accident on his family property in which he was crushed by a 6.5 ton snowplough, breaking 38 bones. As he lay waiting for emergency services to reach him, Renner reached a point where he lost consciousness and went to the very threshold of death.
Last week Renner released a book he wrote about the incident, and its aftermath, titled My Next Breath – and in the book he reveals that as he teetered on the edge of death, he underwent what is now well-known as a near-death experience, or NDE:
“When I died, what I felt was energy, a constantly connected, beautiful and fantastic energy. There was no time, place, or space, and nothing to see, except a kind of electric, two-way vision made from strands of that inconceivable energy, like the whipping lines of cars’ taillights photographed by a time-lapse camera. I was in space: no sound, no wind, nothing save this extraordinary electricity by which I am connected to everybody and anything, anyone and everything. I am in every given moment, in one instant, magnified to a number ungovernable by math.
What came to me on that ice was an exhilarating peace, the most profound adrenaline rush, yet an entirely tranquil one at the same time: electric serenity. I can still feel that space, silent, still, empty, but filled with every instant and all the forevers and, for the first time ever, my existence has nothing to do with time. It was an entirely beautiful place, filled with a knowable magic. It pulses; it floats; it is beyond language, beyond thought, beyond reason, a place of pure feeling.
I could see my lifetime. I could see everything all at once. It could have been for ten seconds; could have been for five minutes. Could have been forever. Who knows how long? In that death there was no time, no time at all, yet it was also all time and forever.
All life was grand; all life just got better in death. Everything and everyone I love or ever loved in my life was with me. Remember when you were a kid at Disneyland or it was Christmas morning, and you feel that jangly, super-excitement in your blood? It was that feeling to a degree immeasurable. I saw light strands, too, strands that connected me visually to everything, always, forever. I believe all energy is always connected; there’s no time continuum there. This death confirmed this for me: I was nowhere, in a nonlinear energy land filled with beauty and wonder.
I knew then, as I know now to this day and will always know: Death is not something to be afraid of.
Renner also made an appearance during a recent episode of The Oprah Podcast in which he talked about his NDE (video embedded below for convenience). Oprah Winfrey has explored the topic of near-death experiences a number of times throughout her decades-long interviewing career, so it’s a topic that she is quite well-read about (little known fact: one of her researchers once contacted me about a possible appearance on her show, regarding my book Stop Worrying! There Probably is an Afterlife – but I think I was too inexperienced at being an interviewee for them).
The Oprah Podcast episode was titled “Is There Life After Death”, and featured perhaps the world’s foremost expert on NDEs, Dr Bruce Greyson, along with guest ‘experiencers’ telling their stories: orthopaedic surgeon Mary Neal, music producer Harmony ‘H-Money’ Samuels, country singer Gabrielle Mooney, and of course Jeremy Renner.
For his part, Renner seemed blown away to find out that what he experienced has been reported by many others as well. “I never knew anything about near-death by the way – I knew nothing about it,” Renner revealed. “[But] it’s exactly what you guys are telling me, the stories you’ve heard…it’s almost word for word, I’ve said these exact same phrases. My jaw’s on the floor, I’m astounded to know that this is really a thing.”
When Renner was asked by Oprah to explain the experience, he – like many other people who have had NDEs – found it difficult to put it into mundane, human terms:
The word is ‘is’. You just ‘are’ or ‘is’. It’s all, everything, all at once, all-encompassed, there is no time, place or space, it just ‘is’. It’s the most exhilarating peace, it just ‘is’. And you’re there. These words are caveman-like that I’m saying, but that’s just the way it is. It’s not even a conscious thought thing – you’re removed of the burdens of your Earthly…duties.
To me it’s a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful space. And really quite tragic that I had to come back into a busted body… it’s what I would define God to be, or the divinity of the collective of love. Love is the only thing you take with you when you die.
“I got a wink from the universe”, Renner told Oprah and Dr Greyson, “saying, ‘you got to see behind the curtain’.”
Renner says that the event has made him see life in a completely different way, and he no longer pays attention to all the ‘white noise’ that takes up most of our lives – to the extent that he feels he could easily give up acting and just spend time with his family instead (feelings that are, again, very common among near-death experiencers).
It would have been great to see more direct conversation between Renner and Dr Greyson, but the show is still full of great conversation and interesting insights. At one point, music producer Harmony asks Greyson, based on all the evidence he has seen in his five decades investigating the phenomenon, “Doc, is it safe to say that there is life after this life?”
“As a scientist, I can’t say we’ve proven that,” Greyson responded. “But as a person who’s heard all these stories, I find it hard to deny.”
