A former NASA scientist says that three near-death experiences brought her into contact with something she still struggles to fully explain, leaving her convinced that death is not something to fear.
Ingrid Honkala, a marine scientist who has worked with both NASA and the Colombian Navy, claims she “flatlined” three times in her life, each episode leaving her with vivid impressions of what she describes as life beyond death.
Now 55, the Colombia-born scientist has detailed her experiences in her book Dying to See the Light, where she recounts nearly drowning as a toddler, surviving a motorcycle crash at 25, and later facing a life-threatening complication during surgery decades afterward.
Honkala says the most formative experience happened when she was just 2 years old. While at home in Colombia, she fell into an icy water tank while a household worker listened to the radio in another room, unaware she was drowning nearby.
But, according to Honkala, “something extraordinary happened” as she approached death.
After the freezing water pushed her into a struggle for air, she says the panic suddenly faded into what she describes as a “deep calm.”
“The panic disappeared and was replaced by an overwhelming sense of peace and stillness,” she told the New York Post. “It felt as if my awareness separated from my body.”
“My next memories were not of the physical world,” she added, saying she entered an “expanded state of awareness” in which she could see her “small body floating lifeless in the water.”
“There was no sense of time, no fear, and no thoughts,” she said. “Instead, there was a deep knowing that everything was interconnected.”
“I felt completely unified with life itself, as if the boundaries that normally define who we are had dissolved. It felt like being immersed in a vast intelligence filled with love, clarity, and peace.”
Honkala also claims she became aware of events happening beyond the water tank where she was unconscious, including sensing her mother several streets away on her way to work.
“I remember recognizing her and thinking, ‘that’s my mom,’” she said.
She describes this connection as non-verbal.
“At that moment, there seemed to be a form of communication between us, not through spoken words, but through awareness.”
Honkala believes this experience prompted her mother to suddenly turn around and return home in time to save her.
She later says she shared the memory with her mother years afterward, and claims the details matched her mother’s recollection of that day.
For Honkala, this became more than a childhood incident. She says it left her with a lasting belief that consciousness may exist beyond the physical body—a view that deepened after two further close calls with death later in life.
She reports encountering the same peaceful state again decades later in different situations: after a motorcycle accident at 25, and during surgery at 52 when her blood pressure reportedly dropped dangerously low.
Despite the traumatic circumstances, she says the same sense of calm awareness returned each time.
“From that moment forward, I no longer feared death,” she said.
“The experience showed me that what we call the afterlife did not feel like a distant place,” she added. “It felt like entering a deeper layer of reality beyond our physical senses.”
Honkala says these experiences ultimately influenced her career direction, motivating her to pursue science to better understand reality through research and observation.
For years, she kept her experiences private while focusing on her scientific work, but later came to view science and spirituality as potentially complementary rather than conflicting.
“I came to see that science and spirituality may not necessarily be in conflict,” she explained. “They may simply be exploring the same mystery from different perspectives.”
She also says the experiences changed her understanding of human existence.
“Instead of seeing ourselves as isolated individuals struggling to survive, I began to understand that we may be expressions of consciousness experiencing life through a physical form,” she said.
“From that perspective, death does not feel like an end,” she added. “It feels more like a transition in the continuum of consciousness.”
