Flatlined: The Day Death Taught Me to Live

Ryan DeJonghe
Nov 12, 2025
3 min read

One man's journey from near-death to tapping into the mysterious Infinite Mind—and how you can too, without flatlining.

The Day I Died (And Lived to Tell About It)

Here’s a plot twist I didn’t see coming: February 19, 2011 became my unofficial “second birthday.” That was the day my heart decided it needed a break—a literal one. Blue-lipped, lifeless me, slumped across my four-year-old son while my family watched everything unravel. One moment, we were goofing off over dinner. The next, I was slipping into darkness faster than you can say “cardiac arrest.”

Cliché? Maybe. But movies don’t prepare you for the panic of paramedics, the sound of a spouse screaming, or the existential audit that comes when you wake up and realize you technically shouldn’t be here. I had become a member of the 6-Percent Club—the very folks who statistically don’t get a sequel.

Rethinking My Life: Cardiac Arrest and Existential Whiplash

In my “before” life, I was a checklist champion. Family? Check. Job? Check. Health? Check—ironically, until it wasn’t. I had become so adept at “doing life right” that I missed out on actually living it. Turns out, a closet full of running shoes won’t outrun a faulty heart.

People love narratives about heroes being “reborn.” But let’s be honest, my first thought was less “embracing the light” and more, “Is this really happening?” Spoiler: It was. Near-death experiences (NDEs) are a real phenomenon—one that left me with a suitcase full of questions and a strangely persistent sense of belonging. Not to a place, but to… everything.

Petty grievances? Meaningless. Keeping up appearances? Who cares. Suddenly I was obsessed with the “why” behind my survival. The journey from existential “why me?” to “what now?” involved therapy, arguments with my cardiologist, and more late-night Google rabbit holes than I’d like to admit.

The Infinite Mind: Frequency Hopping Without the Tinfoil Hat

What does it mean to truly exist beyond your body? Not just feel, but know you’re part of… something? The best I have is the “Infinite Mind”—and no, it’s not something I bought at a yoga retreat.

Imagine your brain as a radio. Most of the time, we think the music is the radio itself. But the music—a symphony of frequencies—is broadcast everywhere. Your skull just picks up on one wavelength at a time. My cardiac episode? Someone yanked the plug. For a moment, I wasn’t just picking up the Top 40—I was the broadcast.

Quantum physicists are beginning to wonder if consciousness might be a fundamental aspect of the universe, like gravity or electromagnetism. (Turns out I’m not alone after all!) The Division of Perceptual Studies at UVA has collected thousands of accounts just as peculiar as mine.

So what’s the punchline? The Infinite Mind is the broadcast, accessible to anyone willing to tune in—no need to flatline first.

What This Series Really Promises (No Cosmic Woo Required)

I don’t have a map—just a flashlight, a handful of stories, and a willingness to pull back the curtain. Here’s what you can expect as we trek onward together:

Actual Tools, Zero Fluff: Techniques you can use (think meditation, journaling, curiosity-driven mindfulness) that don’t require climbing a mountain or moving to an ashram. Mindfulness meditation has real, measurable benefits.
Fear, Death, and Being Human: Let’s talk about what scares us—from deathbeds to missed opportunities—and how facing fear changes everything. Studies on mortality awareness are surprising, and oddly liberating.
Consciousness—The Last Science Frontier: How neuroscience, physics, and ancient wisdom overlap (sometimes accidentally), with current research showing we’re all still guessing.
Rewrite Your Script: Stories on forgiveness, starting over, and what happens when you stop living someone else’s story and start authoring your own.

There will be embarrassing confessions. Probably some dark humor. And always, a nudge to ask better questions—even if the answers are messy.

An Invitation (and a Soft Challenge)

Listen, my first-hand experience with death isn’t a prerequisite for wisdom—if it were, I’d need a punch card for all my mistakes. What matters is the courage to explore, to be curious, and to see our own lives as stories worth living wide awake.

You’re officially invited. Read. Skim. Scoff. Reflect. Ask yourself—if you knew for certain that you were tied into something infinite, what would you stop fearing?

Let’s muddle through, together.