He spent seven minutes in heaven.
A British stage actor who died before being miraculously revived is speaking out about his brief visit to the afterlife.
Shiv Grewal, 60, went into cardiac arrest on Feb. 9, 2013, after having lunch with wife Alison near their home in southeast London.
Alison quickly dialed an ambulance for help, but it was too late — the thespian’s ticker had already ground to a halt.
“I knew, somehow, that I was dead,” Grewal told PA Real Life of the seven-minute experience. “I felt things completely separate from my body. It was like I was in a void but could feel emotions and sensations.”
“I had no body as such. I suppose it was a bit like swimming through water, you feel weightless and disconnected from the physical world,” he continued. “At one point I was traveling over the moon and I could see meteorites and all of space.”
Grewal added that he felt like “there was a whole set of possibilities, various lives and reincarnations that were being offered to me.”
“I didn’t want them,” he declared. “I made it very clear that I wanted to return to my body, to my time, to my wife and to go on living.”
An ambulance later arrived on the scene and paramedics were able to restart Grewal’s heart.
He was subsequently rushed into surgery for an operation to put a stent into his main artery, which was fully clogged.
Doctors decided to put him in an induced coma for a month because of cerebral hypoxia – oxygen starvation in the brain – which has left him with epilepsy.
While Grewal hasn’t fully recovered from the traumatic event, he said that by encountering death, his perception of life has been transformed.
He has found art an extremely therapeutic way to explore the experience, and is now holding an exhibition of works documenting his unique experience.
“I remembered everything that happened when my heart stopped and have tried to translate it into art,” he explained of his exhibition, titled “Reboot,” which runs at The Sanctum Hotel in London until Sept. 24.
Describing himself as “scientifically-minded” and a “natural cynic,” Grewal said his experience cemented his belief in an afterlife.
“I’m less fearful of death because of it, but at the same time I’m also more fearful, because I’ve realized how precious everything I have in life is,” he said.
“I’m grateful just to be here. My drive for life has been boosted. I’ve always thought that kindness is essential for humans to evolve and become better, but after this experience, I now feel this very deep inside me – like a fundamental truth.”