Jeremy Renner and the Science of Extraordinary Near-Death Experiences

A little over two years ago, the actor Jeremy Renner was run over by a seven-ton snowplow. In a new memoir, he wrote that as he lay near death, he experienced something extraordinary.

He could see his entire life at once, and felt an “exhilarating peace” and a connection to the world. He also saw family and friends arrayed before him, telling him not to let go.

“What I felt was energy, a constantly connected, beautiful and fantastic energy,” Mr. Renner wrote. “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.”

What Mr. Renner described is “classic for near-death experiences,” the term researchers use for such events, said Dr. Jeffrey Long, the founder of the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation.

For more information see Maggie Astor “Jeremy Renner and the Science of Extraordinary Near-Death Experiences,” The New York Times, May 2, 2025. 

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