A real-life story · Boston, United States, 1968
Brad Barrows’ near-death experience
In 1968, Brad Barrows was 8 years old and a boarder at a school for blind children in Boston. One night, with very severe pneumonia, he stopped breathing. Brad had been blind from birth. He later said that he had left his body and that he had seen the city covered in snow from above the roof of the school.
Brad had never seen anything. Even so, he described the snow in great detail. The researchers who interviewed him single out how he described the cleared streets, the piles of snow on either side, and the half-melted slush. How could a boy who had never seen describe it? And what can be checked?
Step 1
Around 1960 · At birth · Brad’s account
Brad is born blind because his eyes didn’t form properly
Brad was born two weeks early, but that had nothing to do with his blindness. His eyes didn’t form properly. He says he has eyes, but that the tissue inside them is placed randomly. His eyes don’t even have a clear color. They look an opaque white.
This is how he explained it to the researchers who interviewed him:
“I’ve been blind since birth. I have never been able to see in my life.”
The rest of his body was normal. The doctors ran tests on his brain and his heart, and the results were fine.
Brad knew the world through hearing and touch. He had never had a single image, awake or in his dreams.
Step 2
February 1968 · At the school in Boston · Brad’s account
Brad, at 8, spends a week feeling weak and unable to breathe well
At 8, Brad studied and slept at a center for blind children in Boston. The center was called the Boston Center for Blind Children. He shared a room with another boy, who was also blind.
In February 1968 he had been very weak and tired for a week. He had trouble breathing. He thought it was a cold and didn’t ask anyone for help.
He wasn’t sleeping well because he was short of breath. Then his fever went up. It was very severe pneumonia.
One night, his fever was very high.
Step 3
One night in February 1968 · Unable to breathe · Brad’s account
Brad says that, in the middle of the night, he stopped breathing
In the middle of the night, Brad’s body became very stiff. He couldn’t get enough air and was gasping. He didn’t understand why it was so hard to breathe. This is how he remembers it:
“I really thought I was about to die. […] I remember that my breathing had virtually stopped. I couldn’t get any breath at all.”
He says that at that moment he began to rise slowly from the bed.
Step 4
That night · Not breathing · Brad’s account
Brad says he floated up to the ceiling and that his roommate went out for help
Brad was floating slowly through the room. When he reached the ceiling, he saw his body on the bed. It was completely still and stiff. He was so frightened that he didn’t notice any other details of his body.
In 1994, Brad told the researchers that he saw his roommate wake up, sit up in bed, and get up. His roommate was blind too, and he moved slowly. He was going out into the hallway to find help.
He says his roommate later confirmed to him that he had gotten up to go for help, because he had realized that Brad couldn’t breathe.
Years later, Brad told it differently. In an interview, pastor John Burke reminded him that he had seen his roommate get up. Brad corrected him:
“That was audio. That was not visual. That was before I died. […] I heard him getting up, but I didn’t see him.”
Only Brad tells what the roommate confirmed. The researchers couldn’t talk to the roommate. And today Brad himself says he heard him.
He says that he then went through the ceiling and kept rising.
Step 5
Between 6:30 and 7 a.m., by Brad’s estimate · Not breathing · Brad’s account
Brad says he saw the snow from above the roof of his school
Brad rose very fast, through the building’s three floors, until he was above the roof. There he saw clearly. He estimates that it was between 6:30 and 7 in the morning.
- The sky was cloudy and dark. The sun couldn’t be seen.
- The snow covered everything except the streets. There had been a big snowstorm the day before.
- The streets had been cleared. The snowplows had left piles of snow on either side. There was still half-melted slush.
- A trolley went by on the school’s street.
- The two playgrounds where the children at the school played could be seen from above. So could a hill that Brad used to run up.
This is how he told it to the researchers:
“I wondered, even then, how I could know them without touching them. I could actually point to them.”
Brad knew the playground, the hill, and the streets around his school. He also knew there had been a lot of snow the day before.
Then another part of the experience began.
Step 6
Exact time unknown · Brad’s account
Brad says he went into a dark tunnel with a humming sound
Brad says something pulled him upward, at an angle, toward a dark tunnel. He heard a noise like the hum of an electrical transformer. At first it bothered him and frightened him a little.
The tunnel grew narrower. In the narrowest part there was no light at all. This is how he describes it:
“There was no color whatsoever. It was as black as I can understand blackness to be.”
Then the tunnel widened and the noise faded away. He felt he was entering another world.
Step 7
Exact time unknown · Brad’s account
Brad says he walked across an immense field under a light that went through everything
When he came out of the tunnel, Brad found an immense field that seemed to go on for miles. There were huge palm trees and very tall grass. He was walking along a path.
There was light everywhere. The light went through the grass and the leaves of the trees, and there were no shadows. He couldn’t tell colors apart. Everything had the same very strong brightness.
He felt at home. He didn’t want to leave. He heard thousands of voices singing in a language he didn’t understand, or in many languages.
At first, Brad found it strange to be able to see. Soon it seemed natural. Years later, he explained it like this:
“It was so natural it was almost as if I should have always been able to see like that.”
He kept rising toward the music.
Step 8
Exact time unknown · Brad’s account
Brad says a man stopped him inside a stone building and sent him back
Brad came to a huge stone building. The stones glittered like gems. At first he was afraid they would burn him, but he went in. Inside, the building was like a very large tube, and the floor was smooth, shining stone.
He was moving toward the music. He felt he was about to meet God. Suddenly, a large, firm arm stopped him. The arm belonged to a man he didn’t know. He didn’t feel afraid. He felt a great deal of love.
The man didn’t say a word. He says the man put into his mind the thought that he had to go back to Earth, because he wasn’t ready to stay yet.
The man gently pushed him. He went back at full speed through the tube, across the field, and through the tunnel. He woke up in bed, gasping for breath, with a thermometer still in place.
He says a nurse later told him that his heart and his breathing had stopped for at least four minutes. She also told him that he had been resuscitated. Brad remembers being told when he woke up that it was about 7:30 in the morning. But he isn’t sure.
He told two researchers about it twenty-six years later.
Step 9
1994 and 1995 · Twenty-six years later · Told by Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper
Twenty-six years later, Brad tells his story to two researchers
In the mid-1990s, the psychologist Kenneth Ring and his assistant Sharon Cooper were looking for blind people who had had an NDE. Brad was living in Connecticut at the time and was 33. Ring and Cooper interviewed him on July 9, 1994, and again on July 23, 1995.
He told them that in his dreams all his senses work except sight. His dreams have no images. His experience did have images.
In the second interview, Brad said something more about the snow:
“Whether it was seen visually through the eyes, I could not say. […] It was something like a tactual sense, like I could literally feel with the fingers of my mind.”
Ring and Cooper looked for someone who could confirm what he saw. So many years had passed that they couldn’t. They wrote that it was impossible to provide independent evidence, “for example, from testimony from his roommate.”
Ring and Cooper point out something else. Brad’s experience took place in 1968, before the first famous book on NDEs came out in 1975. He couldn’t have learned about NDEs from that book.
So what can be checked today of what he described?
How many blind people say they saw?
Brad is not a one-off. Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper found 31 blind people who described an NDE or said they had left their body. Fourteen had been blind from birth, like Brad.
Picture 100 of those people:
Each dot stands for one person in 100. The 80 filled-in dots are the people who said they saw something. That was 25 of the 31. 9 of the 14 people blind from birth said they saw something. That is about 64 in 100.
The others weren’t sure or saw nothing. One man blind from birth told them: “I don’t know what you mean by ‘seeing.’”
| Who | People | Said they saw something |
|---|---|---|
| Had an NDE | 21 | 15 |
| Only left their body | 10 | 9 |
| Blind from birth | 14 | 9 |
What these figures don’t tell you
- They came forward themselves. Ring and Cooper found them through notices in newsletters for blind people. No one knows how many other blind people have had an NDE and never said so.
- They are few. With 31 people, no reliable calculations can be made. The authors draw their conclusions from reading the accounts, not from statistics.
- “Seeing” wasn’t always seeing. When asked more, several people said it was something like touch, or a mix of all the senses.
- Almost nothing could be confirmed. Many cases had happened years earlier, and the witnesses could no longer be found or had died.
So these figures show what blind people describe, not what they saw. Brad’s case stands out for the detail with which he describes the snow. The full Ring and Cooper study, step by step.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Brad Barrows?
Brad Barrows is an American man who has been blind from birth. In 1968, at 8, he had very severe pneumonia at a school for blind children in Boston. He said he left his body and saw the snow from above the roof.
Did Brad Barrows really see the snow during his NDE?
There’s no way to know. Brad knew his school and knew it had snowed the day before. Also, no one could confirm what he saw. Nor is there anything to show that he didn’t see it. What can be checked.
Do people who are blind from birth see in their dreams?
No. Studies say that people who are blind from birth don’t see images when they dream. Brad said that in his dreams all his senses work except sight. The Ring and Cooper study.
Where this story comes from
Books
- Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper, Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind (1999). We cite the first edition; the link goes to the second, from 2008, where page numbers may differBuy the book
Studies
- Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper (1997), “Near-death and out-of-body experiences in the blind: a study of apparent eyeless vision,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 16(2):101–147View in the journal (paywalled)
Interviews
- John Burke, “Blind 8-Year-Old Describes Heaven the Same as Sighted People,” Imagine Heaven podcast, episode 29, May 19, 2026Listen to the audio
Learn more
- The Ring and Cooper study: 31 blind people who describe a near-death experienceRead
- Vicki Umipeg’s near-death experience, the study’s other case of a person blind from birthRead
- Nancy’s near-death experience: the two men in the hallway, the case with a witness from the same studyRead
Our archive
- Our reading of the full paper and of the Mindsight chapters on Brad Barrows, as of October 15, 2026
- Our transcript of the interview with John Burke, checked against Mindsight, as of October 18, 2026
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