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In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife
A near-fatal health emergency leads to this powerful reflection on death—and what might follow—by the bestselling author of Tribe and The Perfect Storm.
For years as an award-winning war reporter, Sebastian Junger traveled to many front lines and frequently put his life at risk. And yet the closest he ever came to death was the summer of 2020 while spending a quiet afternoon at the New England home he shared with his wife and two young children. Crippled by abdominal pain, Junger was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Once there, he began slipping away. As blackness encroached, he was visited by his dead father, inviting Junger to join him. “It’s okay,” his father said. “There’s nothing to be scared of. I’ll take care of you.” That was the last thing Junger remembered until he came to the next day when he was told he had suffered a ruptured aneurysm that he should not have survived.
This experience spurred Junger—a confirmed atheist raised by his physicist father to respect the empirical—to undertake a scientific, philosophical, and deeply personal examination of mortality and what happens after we die. How do we begin to process the brutal fact that any of us might perish unexpectedly on what begins as an ordinary day? How do we grapple with phenomena that science may be unable to explain? And what happens to a person, emotionally and spiritually, when forced to reckon with such existential questions?
In My Time of Dying is part medical drama, part searing autobiography, and part rational inquiry into the ultimate unknowable mystery.
For years as an award-winning war reporter, Sebastian Junger traveled to many front lines and frequently put his life at risk. And yet the closest he ever came to death was the summer of 2020 while spending a quiet afternoon at the New England home he shared with his wife and two young children. Crippled by abdominal pain, Junger was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Once there, he began slipping away. As blackness encroached, he was visited by his dead father, inviting Junger to join him. “It’s okay,” his father said. “There’s nothing to be scared of. I’ll take care of you.” That was the last thing Junger remembered until he came to the next day when he was told he had suffered a ruptured aneurysm that he should not have survived.
This experience spurred Junger—a confirmed atheist raised by his physicist father to respect the empirical—to undertake a scientific, philosophical, and deeply personal examination of mortality and what happens after we die. How do we begin to process the brutal fact that any of us might perish unexpectedly on what begins as an ordinary day? How do we grapple with phenomena that science may be unable to explain? And what happens to a person, emotionally and spiritually, when forced to reckon with such existential questions?
In My Time of Dying is part medical drama, part searing autobiography, and part rational inquiry into the ultimate unknowable mystery.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2024
About the author
Sebastian Junger
41 books2,716 followersSebastian Junger is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of War, The Perfect Storm, Fire, and A Death in Belmont. Together with Tim Hetherington, he directed the Academy Award-nominated film Restrepo, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. He is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and has been awarded a National Magazine Award and an SAIS Novartis Prize for journalism. He lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 560 reviews
July 10, 2024
This book is a journey through a range of emotions, from fear and confusion to awe and hope. It is a mix of engagement and discovery that can be challenging at points, but ultimately it will lift you up. Junger's soothing, steady tone gives you a companion in thinking about the big existential and afterlife questions.
The (audiobook version) is structured in a way that effortlessly transitions from personal stories and reflections to broader philosophical insights. One moment you'll be caught in a dramatic story, the next considering your beliefs and experiences. It reminds you that thinking about the afterlife is not only a matter of philosophy but something deeply human.
In audio, "In My Time of Dying" will be a spellbinding listen for anybody who has even been curious about life and death mysteries. Junger, with his kind and deep explorations of the texts, not only takes you through some of these big questions, but also empowers you to consider them with an open heart. Well done to Sebastian Junger on writing an experience of the afterlife so engaging that the audiobook platform was a great choice.
The (audiobook version) is structured in a way that effortlessly transitions from personal stories and reflections to broader philosophical insights. One moment you'll be caught in a dramatic story, the next considering your beliefs and experiences. It reminds you that thinking about the afterlife is not only a matter of philosophy but something deeply human.
In audio, "In My Time of Dying" will be a spellbinding listen for anybody who has even been curious about life and death mysteries. Junger, with his kind and deep explorations of the texts, not only takes you through some of these big questions, but also empowers you to consider them with an open heart. Well done to Sebastian Junger on writing an experience of the afterlife so engaging that the audiobook platform was a great choice.
February 3, 2024
Everything alive has some kind of flux and ebb, and when that stops, life stops. When people say life is precious, they are saying that the rhythmic force that runs through all things — your wrist, your children’s wrists, God’s entire green earth — is precious. For my whole life, my pulse ran through me with such quiet power that I never had to think about it. And now they were having trouble finding it.
In 2020, at fifty-eight years old, best-selling author Sebastian Junger had a near-fatal health emergency (a ruptured aneurysm on a pancreatic artery; his odds of surviving, even with timely medical intervention, were around 10%), and while doctors at the Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis worked frantically to save his life, Junger had a profound near death experience that forced him to consider the possibility of an afterlife for the first time. In My Time of Dying is a perfectly balanced account of Junger’s experience: part memoir (including previous brushes with death, as a surfer and as an embedded war journalist in Afghanistan), part investigation into the nature of reality (from others’ accounts of NDEs to the latest revelations from quantum physics), and part personalised processing of his experience and consequent research, this is rich storytelling that nicely blends awe and reason. I must admit that this is exactly my kind of thing (it’s the 28th title on my “death and dying” shelf) but I think it is an objectively excellent read; highly recommended. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
Wilson was still working on my neck, and I was feeling myself getting pulled more and more sternly into the darkness. And just when it seemed unavoidable, I became aware of something else: My father. He’d been dead eight years, but there he was, not so much floating as simply existing above me and slightly to my left. Everything that had to do with life was on the right side of my body and everything that had to do with this scary new place was on my left. My father exuded reassurance and seemed to be inviting me to go with him. “It’s okay, there’s nothing to be scared of,” he seemed to be saying. “Don’t fight it. I’ll take care of you.”
I enjoyed all of the biographical information (Junger was writing The Perfect Storm when he had his surfing accident; his great aunt Ithi had an affair with her algebra tutor, Erwin Schrödinger; Junger’s wife insisted he go to the hospital for his stomach pain, reminding the author of “the renowned statistic that married men live longer than unmarried men”), and we learn enough about Junger’s family and upbringing to understand that an encounter with the afterlife would be a shock in this group of atheists and scientists. Junger goes on to share all sides of the debate: stories from those who encountered the afterlife during near death experiences; perfectly rational explanations from scientists regarding brain activity at the time of death; and stories from others, like Junger himself, who understand and believe in the science but who nonetheless had profound NDEs that seemed to promise a continuation of the consciousness after death. And when Junger gets to the latest in quantum physics — explaining how unlikely the existence of the universe, and our place within it as sentient beings, really is — it’s easy to be persuaded to believe in something more.
Some interesting bits:
• “It doesn’t surprise me that you saw the dead. Not because I have strong beliefs about it, but because I have zero disbelief.”
• My worst fear — other than dying — was that because I’d come so close to death, it would now accompany me everywhere like some ghastly pet. Or, more accurately, that I was now the pet, and my new master was standing mutely with the lead watching me run out the clock.
• Finding yourself alive after almost dying is not, as it turns out, the kind of party one might expect. You realize that you weren’t returned to life, you were just introduced to death.
• Scientists are so far from explaining consciousness that they can’t even agree on a definition, yet it is the crowning achievement of the physical world and seems to be the reason that anything exists in the form that it does. The circularity is audacious: a mix of minerals organized as a human brain summon the world into existence by collapsing its wave function, giving physical reality to the very minerals the brain is made of.
• Our universe was created by unknowable forces, has no implicit reason to exist, and seems to violate its own basic laws. In such a world, what couldn’t happen? My dead father appearing above me in a trauma bay is the least of it. When I tried to find the ICU nurse who had suggested I try thinking of my experience as something sacred rather than something scary, no one at the hospital knew who she was; no one even knew what I was talking about. It crossed my mind that she did not exist. My experience was sacred, I finally decided, because I couldn’t really know life until I knew death, and I couldn’t really know death until it came for me.
Really well written and interesting throughout, full stars from me.
June 22, 2024
Medical emergencies can sneak up on one. This is what happens to Junger, though he did have clues that he dismissed, which too many of us do. Life threatening internal bleeding, he only had a ten percent chance of survival.
Without going into detail, I’ll just say that I more in common with this scenario, than I would like. So, he details his experience in hospital, his recovery, and expresses the gratitude he feels in those who saved his life. He also shares the times previously that he came close to death, he was in Afghanistan, and those who didn’t make it. What he saw when he was dying and he also tells of others who have had near death experiences.
Interesting book and a deeper dive into what happens as we are dying.
Without going into detail, I’ll just say that I more in common with this scenario, than I would like. So, he details his experience in hospital, his recovery, and expresses the gratitude he feels in those who saved his life. He also shares the times previously that he came close to death, he was in Afghanistan, and those who didn’t make it. What he saw when he was dying and he also tells of others who have had near death experiences.
Interesting book and a deeper dive into what happens as we are dying.
March 25, 2024
A very odd duck of a book -- partly this, partly that, partly something else. Junger had a shockingly close rush with death. It wasn't the first such encounter in his life, but the first as a man with a family and a decades-long stake in living. He gives all the details of the close call: how close it was, what might have happened, how fortunate he was, his experience of the event (as best as he can piece together), how while he was being treated in the emergency department he "saw" his deceased father. Also details of other close calls he had (he had/has a propensity for high-risk adventures). And then more and more and more medical details, and digressions into what people have written and believed about Near Death Experiences and what happens (if anything) after we die.
It was an interesting read, thought-provoking at times (as who has not thought at least in passing of his/her own death and whether the afterlife has wifi? With my luck it'll probably be dial-up and I'll spend eternity listening to the screech of the connection and a mystical voice telling me I've got mail), and I may come back to add a few excerpts. But over all I found it less than I'd hoped from an author I hold in high esteem.
My thanks to Simon & Schuster and Edelweis+ for providing an advance digital copy in return for an honest review.
It was an interesting read, thought-provoking at times (as who has not thought at least in passing of his/her own death and whether the afterlife has wifi? With my luck it'll probably be dial-up and I'll spend eternity listening to the screech of the connection and a mystical voice telling me I've got mail), and I may come back to add a few excerpts. But over all I found it less than I'd hoped from an author I hold in high esteem.
My thanks to Simon & Schuster and Edelweis+ for providing an advance digital copy in return for an honest review.
July 28, 2024
I am an admirer of both Junger’s War and Tribe so the chances to listen to him narrate his latest book was taken. In My Time of Dying is his story about his near-death experience (NDE) after a pancreatic vein burst that caused major internal bleeding.
He gives a detailed medical account of the actions of the medical staff that took him from his NDE to his survival of an event that generally take the life of the individual. During this medical emergency, he tells of his NDE meeting with his dead father. After full recovery, Junger looks at the NDE from both his journalistic eye and then that from his atheist view point with a reflective writing and telling on the physical and spiritual nature of the individual as he sees it.
Junger is a fine writer, and in this case narrator of his writing. It never felt like a matter of me agreeing or disagreeing with him, confirming one's bias is a futile exercise at the best of times anyway, but his ability to explain his NDE and added to the quality of his layman research makes for a very thoughtful telling and listening experience. My general realist attitude to all things makes me think that NDE is actually what Junger described and researched; the brain shutting down and making death palatable to the individual. What’s beyond that? Not much in my opinion as no one has come back to tell the tale. What is beyond can never be known, Junger says as much, but his NDE has made him less sure of his future beyond death.
A very good read and recommended to those of us reaching the end of our days.
He gives a detailed medical account of the actions of the medical staff that took him from his NDE to his survival of an event that generally take the life of the individual. During this medical emergency, he tells of his NDE meeting with his dead father. After full recovery, Junger looks at the NDE from both his journalistic eye and then that from his atheist view point with a reflective writing and telling on the physical and spiritual nature of the individual as he sees it.
Junger is a fine writer, and in this case narrator of his writing. It never felt like a matter of me agreeing or disagreeing with him, confirming one's bias is a futile exercise at the best of times anyway, but his ability to explain his NDE and added to the quality of his layman research makes for a very thoughtful telling and listening experience. My general realist attitude to all things makes me think that NDE is actually what Junger described and researched; the brain shutting down and making death palatable to the individual. What’s beyond that? Not much in my opinion as no one has come back to tell the tale. What is beyond can never be known, Junger says as much, but his NDE has made him less sure of his future beyond death.
A very good read and recommended to those of us reaching the end of our days.
June 13, 2024
Oh that ending snuck up on me. I wish there’d been a more conclusive theory as put forth by the author but I guess his theory is the same as most people: we just don’t know. But this book offers scientific comfort where others offer spiritual relief and I appreciate both.
May 15, 2024
The author had a medical emergency in 2020 which brought him very close to death during which he had visions of his dead father. After recovering he dived into an investigation of what happens to a person when and after they die including those that have had NDE incidents. The book relates all of this - his own emergency, his past experiences where he could have died, stories about his family, war stories, overly detailed medical information, his research into death and dying, physics. scientific information way beyond me, etc. What started out as a very interesting book goes back and forth and all over so much you don't know when or where you are half the time. Worth the read but I wouldn't have gone out and bought it. Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the Advanced Uncorrected Proof of the book.
June 14, 2024
As I get older I find myself thinking about death a lot more and what’s waiting for us after, so I picked this up immediately when I saw it. I thought it would be some very deep insight into staring death in the face and a possible afterlife theories but instead I found this to be kind of a jumbled mess.
First half was about the authors near death scare and what was wrong with him with some huge medical lingo and jargon that went way over my head, and the second half was not really what I was hoping for, and had some different things that just left me wondering.
It’s a short read at 160 pages but I’m down the middle with this. 3 stars
First half was about the authors near death scare and what was wrong with him with some huge medical lingo and jargon that went way over my head, and the second half was not really what I was hoping for, and had some different things that just left me wondering.
It’s a short read at 160 pages but I’m down the middle with this. 3 stars
March 24, 2024
I expected this book to be about NDE’s after his own near death experience. But, 75% of this book were the actual details of his illness and near death. I felt like the author waited too long to bring up the examples of NDE’s and the valid questions that he brought up, sadly only in the last 25 pages of the book.
May 3, 2024
I really thought I was going to like this book. However, it wasn’t what I expected. Only a small portion talks about the author’s actual near death experience. The rest is the science of dying or war stories that I struggled to relate to the main text. If you like reading about medicine and the science of the human body, you’ll probably enjoy this book. It just wasn’t for me.
May 25, 2024
Some readers may recognize the title of this book from the classic Led Zeppelin song based on a Blind Willie Johnson blues classic. Others will note that the author Sebastian Junger is the writer of such unforgettable classics like THE PERFECT STORM. Neither of these facts will prepare you for the deeply emotional journey Junger is about to take you on with his latest memoir, IN MY TIME OF DYING.
There have been countless books dedicated to the subject of death or near death experiences. John Gunther’s classic DEATH BE NOT PROUD comes immediately to mind. However, you rarely get to experience the subject of one’s own mortality through the eyes of a famous author who previously had no faith and was raised to handle such things in an extremely scientific, forensic manner.
IN MY TIME OF DYING opens with one such experience where the near death depiction while surfing amongst monstrous waves is detailed in a manner only someone like Junger can manage. For Sebastian Junger, who had survived many life-threatening experiences throughout his career both personally and as a writer, nothing will prepare him for the unexpected blow that is dealt to him during the summer of 2020.
While enjoying some time with his wife and two children, Junger is overcome with severe abdominal pain while walking in the woods with his wife. He attempts to walk it out on his own but quickly requires the assistance of his wife as he loses control of his legs and his eyesight. She gets him home, phones for an ambulance and all are horrified at how active the EMT’s are with Junger. This sends the message to everyone, including Junger himself, that this is no minor medical issue.
Junger takes the time while recounting this ordeal to philosophize about the nature of life and death. He states that dying is the most ordinary thing you will ever do but also the most radical. The most unnerving and chilling thing I took away from Junger’s brilliant prose was when, during his near-death experience, he comes upon the fisherman of the ill fated Andrea Gail from THE PERFECT STORM. They are sitting in a circle on a beach when he approaches them and they announce to him: “We’ve been expecting you.”
He shares how he was raised, particularly by his brilliant engineer father, in a manner that included no religious belief of any sort and was far too rational. With that being passed on to Junger, it was not easy for him to admit to thoughts of an after-life until he was faced with his own mortality. The stomach issue was indeed major and several surgeries were required to save him after he lost nearly forty percent of his own blood. Having this happen during the Pandemic really brought the spectacular job the medical staff did in saving his life to light. It also has turned Junger into a regular blood donor.
The medical staff at Cape Cod Hospital all get their just due from the eternally grateful Junger and their methods in saving his life read like a television medical drama. The best way he describes what the staff did for him was when he compared their efforts as the civilian equivalent of combat surgery. Much like an episode of M*A*S*H, these doctors pulled out all stops and utilized everything at their disposal to save this man’s life
The after-life portion of the book is special and is surprisingly introduced via a deathbed visitation Junger receives from his father. Junger cites many works that dealt with this subject, including an examination of Schrodinger’s Cat --- part of that famous experiment that concluded that there was a point where the cat existed in a state somewhere between or simultaneously alive and dead. By surviving, Junger became that much more existential. He speaks about how humans live by patterns, meaning if something lives something else must die. That thought brought him to tears with the mere power of this depth of understanding.
IN MY TIME OF DYING is so well put together and both uplifting and eye-opening. While I am sorry Junger, or anyone for that matter, would have to suffer like this I am glad that it happened to someone with the ability to share and examine the entire process from start to finish and give us all something to be thankful for about life and to deeply ponder.
Reviewed by Ray Palen for Book Reporter
There have been countless books dedicated to the subject of death or near death experiences. John Gunther’s classic DEATH BE NOT PROUD comes immediately to mind. However, you rarely get to experience the subject of one’s own mortality through the eyes of a famous author who previously had no faith and was raised to handle such things in an extremely scientific, forensic manner.
IN MY TIME OF DYING opens with one such experience where the near death depiction while surfing amongst monstrous waves is detailed in a manner only someone like Junger can manage. For Sebastian Junger, who had survived many life-threatening experiences throughout his career both personally and as a writer, nothing will prepare him for the unexpected blow that is dealt to him during the summer of 2020.
While enjoying some time with his wife and two children, Junger is overcome with severe abdominal pain while walking in the woods with his wife. He attempts to walk it out on his own but quickly requires the assistance of his wife as he loses control of his legs and his eyesight. She gets him home, phones for an ambulance and all are horrified at how active the EMT’s are with Junger. This sends the message to everyone, including Junger himself, that this is no minor medical issue.
Junger takes the time while recounting this ordeal to philosophize about the nature of life and death. He states that dying is the most ordinary thing you will ever do but also the most radical. The most unnerving and chilling thing I took away from Junger’s brilliant prose was when, during his near-death experience, he comes upon the fisherman of the ill fated Andrea Gail from THE PERFECT STORM. They are sitting in a circle on a beach when he approaches them and they announce to him: “We’ve been expecting you.”
He shares how he was raised, particularly by his brilliant engineer father, in a manner that included no religious belief of any sort and was far too rational. With that being passed on to Junger, it was not easy for him to admit to thoughts of an after-life until he was faced with his own mortality. The stomach issue was indeed major and several surgeries were required to save him after he lost nearly forty percent of his own blood. Having this happen during the Pandemic really brought the spectacular job the medical staff did in saving his life to light. It also has turned Junger into a regular blood donor.
The medical staff at Cape Cod Hospital all get their just due from the eternally grateful Junger and their methods in saving his life read like a television medical drama. The best way he describes what the staff did for him was when he compared their efforts as the civilian equivalent of combat surgery. Much like an episode of M*A*S*H, these doctors pulled out all stops and utilized everything at their disposal to save this man’s life
The after-life portion of the book is special and is surprisingly introduced via a deathbed visitation Junger receives from his father. Junger cites many works that dealt with this subject, including an examination of Schrodinger’s Cat --- part of that famous experiment that concluded that there was a point where the cat existed in a state somewhere between or simultaneously alive and dead. By surviving, Junger became that much more existential. He speaks about how humans live by patterns, meaning if something lives something else must die. That thought brought him to tears with the mere power of this depth of understanding.
IN MY TIME OF DYING is so well put together and both uplifting and eye-opening. While I am sorry Junger, or anyone for that matter, would have to suffer like this I am glad that it happened to someone with the ability to share and examine the entire process from start to finish and give us all something to be thankful for about life and to deeply ponder.
Reviewed by Ray Palen for Book Reporter
June 16, 2024
The author had a near death experience and wanted to tell his story. There wasn’t enough material for a book so he filled it with flash backs and medical stories and medical histories that did not enhance his story. I think that this book would’t have been published at all if the author wasn’t already an established best selling writer.
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June 20, 2024I have followed Sebastian Junger for years and am always up for anything new that he writes.
This one is not exactly what I'd expect from the man who wrote The Perfect Storm as this time it's he that is in danger of not surviving.
In addition to just liking Junger's style, this topic grabbed my interest right away. I come from of family of believers. Though most of these believers are now deceased, they always held true that family will be there at death, will come and help you to transfer to what ever is next. I saw this happen as my father knew death was imminent. Mother, too.
I really wondered how Junger would handle this, the visitation and advice from his dead physicist father. Junger, seemingly was not that close to his father, but he was there to guide him as his death was approaching. But he didn't die and when he knew he would live he had a lot to think about. His answers were very interesting and his conclusions seemed sound.
The scientific jargon was a bit too much for me but the death, dying and living was enough for me to give this book a high rating.
My sincere gratitude to Libro.fm for providing the Audio edition, narration by Junger. This made the telling superior, as who better to know the nuances, the emotions, the bewilderment he felt in those words he put on paper.
This one is not exactly what I'd expect from the man who wrote The Perfect Storm as this time it's he that is in danger of not surviving.
In addition to just liking Junger's style, this topic grabbed my interest right away. I come from of family of believers. Though most of these believers are now deceased, they always held true that family will be there at death, will come and help you to transfer to what ever is next. I saw this happen as my father knew death was imminent. Mother, too.
I really wondered how Junger would handle this, the visitation and advice from his dead physicist father. Junger, seemingly was not that close to his father, but he was there to guide him as his death was approaching. But he didn't die and when he knew he would live he had a lot to think about. His answers were very interesting and his conclusions seemed sound.
The scientific jargon was a bit too much for me but the death, dying and living was enough for me to give this book a high rating.
My sincere gratitude to Libro.fm for providing the Audio edition, narration by Junger. This made the telling superior, as who better to know the nuances, the emotions, the bewilderment he felt in those words he put on paper.
October 1, 2024
The subject matter has always fascinated me. But, Mr. Junger's book did not meet his prior works.
I thought that far too many scientific phrases were unnecessary to make Mr. Junger's point. For that reason the book could not receive a five star rating.
I thought that far too many scientific phrases were unnecessary to make Mr. Junger's point. For that reason the book could not receive a five star rating.
May 24, 2024
The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything
I came to this book after watching Junger's charming and compelling interview on "The Daily Show" and promptly bought, and devoured, his book. Having read Junger's work before, I knew it would be great. I just didn't have any idea how great.
In this man's search for meaning, we start with a harrowing tale of survival that reads like a thriller with segues explaining how the author was saved with details so exacting that it would require a medical doctorate and years of surgical training to fully grasp.
But what readers are likely to be deeply moved by are Junger's near-death experiences--staggering in both number and variety--and the near-death encounters that brought him a vision of his father. Jumger analyzed why a skeptical atheist father and son would be reunited years after the father's death. Along the way, he shares the encounters of others and the scholarly research involving whether there's anything to near-death visions. He even asks his fathers' physicist colleagues, who, after some thought, place the odds of Junger's near-death encounter being anything more than the last gasp of a dying brain at Avogadro's number, a clever yet cutting way of saying "no chance in hell."
Junger concludes with a thicket of physics concepts to untangle--for author and reader alike--but he comes to a sort of universal constant of consciousness that would indeed explain life, the universe, and everything.
Read Douglas Adams if you're looking for the punchline, Viktor Frankl if you're searching for a psychological take, but read this if you'd like to appreciate the miracle of life or if, like me, you'd really like to think your parent is out there waiting for you beyond the veil.
I came to this book after watching Junger's charming and compelling interview on "The Daily Show" and promptly bought, and devoured, his book. Having read Junger's work before, I knew it would be great. I just didn't have any idea how great.
In this man's search for meaning, we start with a harrowing tale of survival that reads like a thriller with segues explaining how the author was saved with details so exacting that it would require a medical doctorate and years of surgical training to fully grasp.
But what readers are likely to be deeply moved by are Junger's near-death experiences--staggering in both number and variety--and the near-death encounters that brought him a vision of his father. Jumger analyzed why a skeptical atheist father and son would be reunited years after the father's death. Along the way, he shares the encounters of others and the scholarly research involving whether there's anything to near-death visions. He even asks his fathers' physicist colleagues, who, after some thought, place the odds of Junger's near-death encounter being anything more than the last gasp of a dying brain at Avogadro's number, a clever yet cutting way of saying "no chance in hell."
Junger concludes with a thicket of physics concepts to untangle--for author and reader alike--but he comes to a sort of universal constant of consciousness that would indeed explain life, the universe, and everything.
Read Douglas Adams if you're looking for the punchline, Viktor Frankl if you're searching for a psychological take, but read this if you'd like to appreciate the miracle of life or if, like me, you'd really like to think your parent is out there waiting for you beyond the veil.
June 21, 2024
Favorite Quote = “We assume that life is the most real thing we will ever experience. But it might turn out to be the least real, the least meaningful. The idea that you will appreciate life more after almost dying is a cheap bit of wisdom easily assumed by people who have never been near death. When you drill down into it, which you must, we are really talking of an appreciation of death rather than of life. Eventually you will be all alone with doctors shrugging because they have run out of things to do and the person you really are, thumping frantically in your chest; the successes and catastrophes, and affairs and hangovers, and genuine loves, and small betrayals, and flashes of courage and the river of fear running beneath it all of it, and of course the vast stretches of wasted time, that are part of even the most amazing life. You will know yourself best at that moment. You will be at your most real, your most honest, your most uncalculated.”
June 21, 2024
Made me tear up at least 7 times, and got chills even more. Quantum physics at the end will have me walking around with my thoughts for days.
August 16, 2024
Junger had a near-death experience (referred to as NDEs in the scientific community) in the summer of 2020. Oftentimes, people with those experiences resort to religion, or belief in some sort of higher power. Junger's book is unique in this aspect because that's not the path he takes.
The first half of the book relates the events of that day when Junger began hemorrhaging massive amounts of blood due to an aneurism in his upper abdomen. It's quite squeamish to read and those hypochondriacs out there might be best served to skip this part of the book. We also get a few additional close call experiences from Junger during his youth and war reporting days.
The jewel here, though, is in the second half of the book when Junger begins reflecting on what he saw and experienced on that day. Junger's background actually leads him to quantum physics, and it is in this field of study that Junger considers possible explanations for life reviews and visions during NDEs. I have read a couple of books on quantum physics earlier this year, and Junger's consideration in how it might explain these supernatural experiences is fascinating. This book is part philosophical, part scientific, and delivered with poetic prose. I found it to be a humbling reading experience and a book that I will likely revisit numerous times over the years. Excellent.
The first half of the book relates the events of that day when Junger began hemorrhaging massive amounts of blood due to an aneurism in his upper abdomen. It's quite squeamish to read and those hypochondriacs out there might be best served to skip this part of the book. We also get a few additional close call experiences from Junger during his youth and war reporting days.
The jewel here, though, is in the second half of the book when Junger begins reflecting on what he saw and experienced on that day. Junger's background actually leads him to quantum physics, and it is in this field of study that Junger considers possible explanations for life reviews and visions during NDEs. I have read a couple of books on quantum physics earlier this year, and Junger's consideration in how it might explain these supernatural experiences is fascinating. This book is part philosophical, part scientific, and delivered with poetic prose. I found it to be a humbling reading experience and a book that I will likely revisit numerous times over the years. Excellent.
September 24, 2024
Eliza would have been into this one for so many reasons. It would have engaged her brilliant mind, fired her up even more for the whole MD thing, and made her curious about things like biocentrism, delayed-choice quantum erasure, and Paul Dirac’s breakthrough on antimatter. In short order she would have been able to explain it all to me. Or at least she would have tried.
May 26, 2024
"On some level I knew something was seriously wrong, but my brain wasn't working well enough to understand that I was dying. I didn't have any grand thoughts about mortality or life; I didn't even think about my family. I had all the introspection of a gut-shot coyote."
August 31, 2024
Kinda not what I was expecting here; based on the hype and Junger's interviews, I thought this would be the story of a life-long atheist experiencing a life-altering, near-death visitation that (as the title says) brings him "face-to-face with the idea of an afterlife."
And it IS that, sort of, in that Junger DID nearly die due to a ruptured pancreatic aneurysm, and he DID think that he saw his father in the ER, and he ultimately DID write what amounts to a long essay (the second half of this short book) on possible explanations — both scientific and otherwise — on what happens to us when we die. But that whole "visited by his dad" episode is literally described in just two brief paragraphs:
This is a slim book that (at least for me) still somehow seemed a bit too long. I can understand how traumatic an experience this must have been for the usually-indestructible Junger, and I assume (or at least hope) this maybe helped him resolve some issues and deal with his eventual mortality. But as a work of non-fiction, I didn't feel that it measured up to earlier works like Storm and War.
So yeah...a brief but fairly deep book that was probably just too theoretical/philosophical/metaphysical for a dummy like me. It was interesting in a synchronistic sorta way to read this right on the heels of Carl Sagan's Contact, which also deals with a post-mortem visit from a departed father and the subtle struggle between science and religion, but which — while being fiction — I found far more moving.
And it IS that, sort of, in that Junger DID nearly die due to a ruptured pancreatic aneurysm, and he DID think that he saw his father in the ER, and he ultimately DID write what amounts to a long essay (the second half of this short book) on possible explanations — both scientific and otherwise — on what happens to us when we die. But that whole "visited by his dad" episode is literally described in just two brief paragraphs:
Dr. Wilson was still working on my neck, and I was feeling myself getting pulled more and more sternly into the darkness. And just when it seemed unavoidable, I became aware of something else: My father. He'd been dead eight years, but there he was, not so much floating as simply existing above me and slightly to my left. Everything that had to do with life was on the sight side of my body and everything that had to do with this scary new place was on my left. My father exuded reassurance and seemed to be inviting me to go with him. "It's okay, there's nothing to be scared of," he seemed to be saying. "Don't fight it. I'll take care of you."…and that's it. Junger miraculously survives and slowly recovers, and then in typical Junger style (just reread The Perfect Storm), he goes on to learn everything he possibly can about this latest topic of interest, including quantum mechanics, entanglement, psychotropic drugs, the overall implausibility of (to quote Douglas Adams) "life, the universe and everything", etc.; while also providing WAY too much detail on emergency rooms, internal bleeding, catheters…
I was enormously confused by his presence. My father had died at age eighty-nine, and I loved him, but he had no business being here. Because I didn't know I was dying, his invitation to join him seemed grotesque. He was dead, I was alive, and I wanted nothing to do with him — in fact, I wanted nothing to do with the entire left side of the room.
This is a slim book that (at least for me) still somehow seemed a bit too long. I can understand how traumatic an experience this must have been for the usually-indestructible Junger, and I assume (or at least hope) this maybe helped him resolve some issues and deal with his eventual mortality. But as a work of non-fiction, I didn't feel that it measured up to earlier works like Storm and War.
So yeah...a brief but fairly deep book that was probably just too theoretical/philosophical/metaphysical for a dummy like me. It was interesting in a synchronistic sorta way to read this right on the heels of Carl Sagan's Contact, which also deals with a post-mortem visit from a departed father and the subtle struggle between science and religion, but which — while being fiction — I found far more moving.
July 1, 2024
This book chewed me up and spit my back out. A fascinating exploration of near death experiences and afterlife encounters. The way that Junger interwove personal experience with medical, psychological, and physics perspectives/facts was brilliant and fun to read. This book had me wanting to learn more about death and dying, to embrace living, and had me questioning my own existence throughout. Loved it even if it scared me a little.
August 30, 2024
Disappointing
I chose this book because the author stated in an interview that he was an atheist. And he was going to discuss what he saw and felt in a near death experience.
Instead he just talks about what a daredevil he is and how many times he almost killed himself. And talks about God.
Just your typical near death book
I chose this book because the author stated in an interview that he was an atheist. And he was going to discuss what he saw and felt in a near death experience.
Instead he just talks about what a daredevil he is and how many times he almost killed himself. And talks about God.
Just your typical near death book
October 1, 2024
A friend and author recommended this book and, I'm so glad he did. Like he said, 'This one will stay with me'.
September 13, 2024
This book was very different! I really liked how NOTHING was certain. He asks "is Mystery something the universe needs? Like Gravity?" And yes, I think it does!!
I started reading it so Death would stop being so scary, and I definitely think it gave my brain a lot to chew on.
Junger gives you a LOT of information, from many different beliefs! There's stuff where Science had the answer, and times where it didn't. There's time where he mentioned God, and times he said "outside Religion".
Overall, I gobbled it up, it felt like brainstorming! I can understand that isn't for everyone, but I liked it!
I started reading it so Death would stop being so scary, and I definitely think it gave my brain a lot to chew on.
Junger gives you a LOT of information, from many different beliefs! There's stuff where Science had the answer, and times where it didn't. There's time where he mentioned God, and times he said "outside Religion".
Overall, I gobbled it up, it felt like brainstorming! I can understand that isn't for everyone, but I liked it!
April 20, 2024
“Everyone has a relationship with death whether they want to or not; refusing to think about death is its own kind of relationship.” Sebastian Junger has a way of making nature a central character to each story he has crafted — in a very triumvirate man.vs.nature.vs.self battle — and In My Time of Dying is no exception.
Junger’s latest book affords an intimate look into an esteemed writer’s thought and research processes of making sense of an unfathomable experience. In My Time of Dying is like taking a peek into a journalist’s personal journal in which he explores faith, fact, feeling of Near Death Experiences with empirical and mystical data.
Junger grapples with what it means to almost die — and how to live life following such an experience. Junger writes: “But I didn't die, and it made me wonder what this new part of my life was supposed to be called. The extra years that had been returned to me were too terrifying to be beautiful and too precious to be ordinary.”
I’m a huge fan of Junger’s works and appreciate this intimate undertaking by the author. Thank you to Goodreads and Simon & Schuster for the advanced copy reading opportunity.
Junger’s latest book affords an intimate look into an esteemed writer’s thought and research processes of making sense of an unfathomable experience. In My Time of Dying is like taking a peek into a journalist’s personal journal in which he explores faith, fact, feeling of Near Death Experiences with empirical and mystical data.
Junger grapples with what it means to almost die — and how to live life following such an experience. Junger writes: “But I didn't die, and it made me wonder what this new part of my life was supposed to be called. The extra years that had been returned to me were too terrifying to be beautiful and too precious to be ordinary.”
I’m a huge fan of Junger’s works and appreciate this intimate undertaking by the author. Thank you to Goodreads and Simon & Schuster for the advanced copy reading opportunity.
May 25, 2024
What a strange book! It read like Junger had a story to tell ( an interesting one) but it wasn’t enough for a book. It was then fleshed out with all kinds of science facts, history facts and extraneous info. I wanted to really like it and parts of it I did. This book isn’t sure what it is… neither am I.
August 8, 2024
In Junger's memoir, he writes about his terrifying near death experience when at age 58, in the year 2020, he experiences crushing abdominal pain. Junger relates that he had previously experienced bouts with this pain, that it would come and go, but that he did not listen to his body. On this particular summer afternoon, surrounded by his wife and two small daughters, the pain presents as life threatening, and Junger is rushed to the hospital.
Junger takes the opportunity to reflect on his life and how he's had many jobs that had brought him injuries due to certain risks, such as war combat correspondent, tree climber, surfer. He talks about how he was raised by a father who was a physicist, and that his upbringing had no religious beliefs.
Junger writes that when he was lying on a stretcher in an unconscious state, after being brought into emergency, he felt himself being pulled into a deep darkness, that his dead father appeared to him and told him he'd take care of him and he didn't have to fight it.
"My father was an odd choice for a deathbed visitation, and I'm pretty sure he'd agree."..."And this was the man who appeared above me as I lay dying. He was not so much a vision as a mass of energy configured in a deeply familiar way as my father."
It is this visitation by his dead father that starts to haunt Junger, as he fully recovers from his ruptured pancreatic artery. He starts to research near death experience (NDE) scientific research, human consciousness, visitations from the dead and other spirits, and asks philosophical questions about life and death.
About his father Junger says, " he appeared when I needed him most. It was quite possibly his greatest act of love toward me. He was a distracted and distant father....and yet there he was."
I'd like to conclude with a comment that a nurse made to Junger after his surgery, when she asked him how he was doing? Junger says, " I'm okay," but I can't believe I almost died last night. It's terrifying." "Instead of thinking of it as something scary, she said, " try thinking of it as something sacred."
Life is a mystery, and I began to realize this when I was 7 years old and a young boy from our neighborhood ran up to me and told me that we were all going to die!! Scary to say the least! For me, right now, I'm going to replace scary, with the word sacred, a small change that lends itself some comfort to this beating heart.
Although I was lost with the quantum physics, there were other points that struck a nerve, such as universal consciousness and connection. On that note I want to send a thank you to the nurse that used the word sacred. And for Junger who used it in his philosophical memoir.
Junger takes the opportunity to reflect on his life and how he's had many jobs that had brought him injuries due to certain risks, such as war combat correspondent, tree climber, surfer. He talks about how he was raised by a father who was a physicist, and that his upbringing had no religious beliefs.
Junger writes that when he was lying on a stretcher in an unconscious state, after being brought into emergency, he felt himself being pulled into a deep darkness, that his dead father appeared to him and told him he'd take care of him and he didn't have to fight it.
"My father was an odd choice for a deathbed visitation, and I'm pretty sure he'd agree."..."And this was the man who appeared above me as I lay dying. He was not so much a vision as a mass of energy configured in a deeply familiar way as my father."
It is this visitation by his dead father that starts to haunt Junger, as he fully recovers from his ruptured pancreatic artery. He starts to research near death experience (NDE) scientific research, human consciousness, visitations from the dead and other spirits, and asks philosophical questions about life and death.
About his father Junger says, " he appeared when I needed him most. It was quite possibly his greatest act of love toward me. He was a distracted and distant father....and yet there he was."
I'd like to conclude with a comment that a nurse made to Junger after his surgery, when she asked him how he was doing? Junger says, " I'm okay," but I can't believe I almost died last night. It's terrifying." "Instead of thinking of it as something scary, she said, " try thinking of it as something sacred."
Life is a mystery, and I began to realize this when I was 7 years old and a young boy from our neighborhood ran up to me and told me that we were all going to die!! Scary to say the least! For me, right now, I'm going to replace scary, with the word sacred, a small change that lends itself some comfort to this beating heart.
Although I was lost with the quantum physics, there were other points that struck a nerve, such as universal consciousness and connection. On that note I want to send a thank you to the nurse that used the word sacred. And for Junger who used it in his philosophical memoir.
June 12, 2024
Full disclosure, I won a copy of this book from a Goodreads giveaway in April or May. The copy I won says on the cover, "Advance Proof, Uncorrected - Not for Resale or Quotation, Publication Date 05/21/24."
I have read War and watched Restrepo by Sebastian Junger and find his writing to be very good. I had not idea the topic or content of this book, other than dying (from the word in the title) and thought it was going to be Junger reflecting about death from his war report, and I was wrong and thrown a serious curve ball when I read the back of the book and then dove in.
While I won't spoil the story line for those who have not read it, Junger has his own near-death experience and tells about it along with his reflections about his experience and how he had to come to or came to grips with this.
I had no idea Junger's father was a Physicist and at MIT of all places.
Junger bares his soul and his inner thinkings about the afterlife and delves pretty deeply into quantum mechanics and physics as well as the metaphysical and seems as if he is on a journey to understand if there is an afterlife or not and whether he should or now does believe in the afterlife after his own experience yet he never does come out and tell the reader one way or the other.
The experience certainly seems to have changed him and also seems to have brought him closer to his father. My own father died a few times from a heart attack, and at a very young age, and later told me he saw himself from above his hospital bed and was aware that the doctors who saved him were working on him and this or something similar to this is described by Junger and many others via stories Junger tells from his research throughout the latter half of this book.
Junger then goes on to make sense of the electrical activity of the brain upon dying and numerous stories of others just like or similar to his. He then dives into the science citing Avogadro's number and Planck's constant to explain to the reader things that are happening and to help understand the science vs the non-science part of the experiences.
As I scientist who knows both Avogadro's number and Planck's constant and having heard first hand the story of my father's near-death experience I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I hope you will too.
I highly recommend this book.
I have read War and watched Restrepo by Sebastian Junger and find his writing to be very good. I had not idea the topic or content of this book, other than dying (from the word in the title) and thought it was going to be Junger reflecting about death from his war report, and I was wrong and thrown a serious curve ball when I read the back of the book and then dove in.
While I won't spoil the story line for those who have not read it, Junger has his own near-death experience and tells about it along with his reflections about his experience and how he had to come to or came to grips with this.
I had no idea Junger's father was a Physicist and at MIT of all places.
Junger bares his soul and his inner thinkings about the afterlife and delves pretty deeply into quantum mechanics and physics as well as the metaphysical and seems as if he is on a journey to understand if there is an afterlife or not and whether he should or now does believe in the afterlife after his own experience yet he never does come out and tell the reader one way or the other.
The experience certainly seems to have changed him and also seems to have brought him closer to his father. My own father died a few times from a heart attack, and at a very young age, and later told me he saw himself from above his hospital bed and was aware that the doctors who saved him were working on him and this or something similar to this is described by Junger and many others via stories Junger tells from his research throughout the latter half of this book.
Junger then goes on to make sense of the electrical activity of the brain upon dying and numerous stories of others just like or similar to his. He then dives into the science citing Avogadro's number and Planck's constant to explain to the reader things that are happening and to help understand the science vs the non-science part of the experiences.
As I scientist who knows both Avogadro's number and Planck's constant and having heard first hand the story of my father's near-death experience I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I hope you will too.
I highly recommend this book.
September 9, 2024
I’m endlessly fascinated by near death experiences and when I caught a podcast interview with Sebastian Junger detailing his, I immediately went to find his book. His writing and narration are captivating and make this a quick, but very thoughtful read (or listen, in my case). I’m reading another book that goes into chaos theory, and I thought of it a few times while listening to Junger’s story—he was a journalist that had been in numerous dangerous situations and had lost a good friend in the field, yet it wasn’t until he was in his quaint rural hometown that he experienced a brush with death. I was on the edge of my seat as he described the precariousness of his aneurysm, and how miraculously it was that he arrived at the hospital (I think it was an hour drive) right when he did, that he had a top interventional radiologist that was able to problem solve and save him, along with the well qualified ER staff and surgeons. His type of aneurysm is super rare and oftentimes found too late. I really loved when he tried to make sense of his dead father’s visitation and the black pit that opened up (Junger proclaims he is an antheist several times and was raised by a physicist father and new age mother). One of his father’s physicist friends he consulted with even came up with a mathematical probability of receiving such a visitation, in which it was more likely than the probability of the existence of our universe. So cool! Really enjoyed when he explored different theories of reality and pondered the fear that maybe we’re not supposed to understand it completely (it reminded me of a Donald Hoffman interview and I think Junger even quoted him a few times) as a matter of survival.
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