NDE Episode Summary

At eight years old, singer–writer Kara Marlene was thrown over her bike’s handlebars and was dead for roughly 45 minutes.

What followed was an immersive near-death experience (NDE) of overwhelming love, peace, and a wordless guide—“love itself” in a familiar, humanlike form.

In this intimate conversation, Kara recounts the crash, the boundary between light and vast “space,” a brief child-sized life review, and the moment she agreed—simply—to “follow love.” Returning changed, she navigated physical recovery, learning differences, empathic sensitivity, and a lifelong dialogue with the Divine.

Kara also shares how this love/fear polarity shaped her art, relationships, and her mission to help others recognize the “fingerprints of love” in everyday life.

Key Takeaways

• The NDE: Kara perceived blinding light, an endless, protective darkness “like space,” and a figure she understands as love taking on a form she could trust.
• Felt Reality: Absolute love left no room for fear; the inner voice asked, “Are you ready?”—not to go back or forward, but to follow.
• Return & Recovery: A severe head injury (right temporal lobe) changed academics (reading comprehension/math), shifting her to an audio learning style.
• After effects of Near Death Experience (NDE): Heightened empathy, deep nature connection, spontaneous inner guidance, and several premonitions about loved ones’ passings.
• Love vs. Fear: In Kara’s framing, fear is the earthly opposition that clarifies the breadth of love; living “from love” is possible here and now.
• Message of Hope: You are “meant for miracles”—love is seeking connection with you, moment by moment.

Video Version: https://youtu.be/rgZYpdAGLfo

RoundTripDeath.com

Donate to this podcast: https://www.roundtripdeath.com/support/

https://www.karamarlene.com/

Can an NDE actually last for 2 years? How about other spiritual experiences?

In this moving episode of Round Trip Death, host Eric Bennett welcomes Rebecca Kastl, a speech-language pathologist from Colorado, who shares her extraordinary two-year-long spiritually transformative experience (STE). Unlike typical near-death experiences (NDEs), Rebecca’s journey began not with physical death but with deep emotional trauma and an earnest desire for complete healing.

Her story begins with a traumatic event at age 13, which set her on a lifelong path toward spiritual wholeness. At 26, while journaling during graduate school, she spontaneously dedicated her life to God — an act that opened a profound, two-year encounter with divine light, angelic beings, psychic dreams, and a heightened sense of interconnectedness. This led to her NDE/STE experience of transformation.

Throughout the episode, Rebecca reflects on:

• The night a radiant light appeared in her room, filling her with love and peace while revealing hidden parts of herself.
• How she began to perceive ethereal light in everyone she met, symbolizing the divine essence in all beings.
• Her experiences with angels and spontaneous life review moments, where she felt how her words and actions affected others.
• The challenge of integrating these experiences and the deep depression that followed once the light faded.

Now, years later, Rebecca shares how this journey reshaped her worldview — inspiring her to work with children, act with compassion, and recognize the sacred light within all people.

In closing, Rebecca offers listeners a heartfelt message of hope: even amid suffering, every prayer is heard, and everyone is deeply loved and guided by a higher light.

Video Version: https://youtu.be/tyoiHRAkn0Y

RoundTripDeath.com

Donate to this podcast: https://www.roundtripdeath.com/support/

https://rebeccakastl.com/

Mystic and former monastic, Kimberly Braun joins Round Trip Death to share the near-death experience (NDE) she had at 19 after a suicide attempt—a passage not of tunnels and relatives, but of awakening “as and within the luminous void.”

Held in unconditional love and freedom, she was offered a choice and chose to return from that heavenly place.

Kimberly unpacks the paradox of being both an individual and the whole, the emotional and psychological healing that followed (including therapy), the surge of mystical phenomena in her 20s, service with the homeless, and the path that led her into monastic life. It all started with her NDE Experience.

She closes her NDE explanation with a grounded message of hope: love is the end toward which all things move—and we can begin to live from it now.

Video Version: https://youtu.be/1N7oh1KLcJ4

RoundTripDeath.com

Donate to this podcast: https://www.roundtripdeath.com/support/

https://www.kimberlybraun.com/