off and on from the age of 7 until I was 18.

♪ ♪

I crossed a lot of hurdles here.

Started first grade,

learned how to drive a car,

fell in love for the first time.

I also crossed another hurdle here.

I experienced death.

My paternal grandmother, my brother.

We all go through this, of course.

Everybody grieves,

but some people have a certainty that helps them cope with grief.

They're certain they will see their loved ones again

in heaven.

For some of us it's not quite that simple.

In fact, it's the greatest question we ask ourselves.

What happens when we die?

♪ ♪

Now I'm embarking on an epic adventure

to discover what we believe lies beyond death and why.

Is there any scientific support for the soul?

I'll learn the true purpose of the afterlife

for ancient Egyptians.

Oh, my goodness, look at all this.

Why the story of one man's rebirth was so powerful

it swept the globe.

WOMAN: It is the resurrection of Jesus

that proves that he's the Messiah.

FREEMAN: How the Hindu faith erased the fear of death.

MAN: I accept that as an inevitable part of life.

FREEMAN: And I'll explore how science

is trying to capture the soul.

ROBOT: I hope to be fully human someday.

FREEMAN: To bring eternal life to this life.

♪ ♪

What is beyond death?

How can any of us know?

But some people think they do,

because they've been to the brink of death.

♪ ♪

Former research diver David Bennett

is one of those people.

Which one are you looking at?

DAVID BENNETT: This window here,

the one with Jesus in the lower corner there.

He's quieting the storm.

♪ ♪

Back in 1983, off the California coast

there was a storm, about 25 to 30-foot seas,

and so we started heading in.

♪ ♪

And all of a sudden, we fell off a 30-footer...

that fast... [snaps finger]

...and we just slid right off.

And I looked up and there was the next one,

and it came right down on top of us.

I was in the bow, it catapulted me into the sea,

and I was just tumbled and tossed like a rag doll.

♪ ♪

You can only hold your breath so long.

You reach a point of release where you just, you just let go

and you breathe in salt water.

And it's, it's quite a violent way to die.

♪ ♪

FREEMAN: No idea how deep?

BENNETT: I hadn't, I had totally lost my awareness

of my body and the ocean at this point.

♪ ♪

Then I noticed this light.

It was millions upon millions of fragments of light.

♪ ♪

In all different colors,

and they were all dancing and swirling,

but kind of like they were one mind, though,

and it was infinite.

FREEMAN: What did you think?

Did you think, or you've just experienced this feeling?

BENNETT: Well, I mean, I knew

I wasn't in Kansas anymore, you know.

I knew I had left my body,

and as I approached this mass of light,

it was a familiar home.

And, and it was a relationship that was so much deeper

than any relationship I'd ever had here.

And then I reached a certain point

where these millions of fragments of light spoke.

♪ ♪

And they said, 'This is not your time.'

'You must return, you have a purpose.'

I was watching my body and I was mesmerized,

because I knew I was gonna go back in that body.

♪ ♪

And as the next set of waves came,

they pounded my body up against all this wreckage

and pushed some of that salt water out of my lungs,

and that's when I found myself back in my body.

♪ ♪

FREEMAN: About how long were you in the water, under?

BENNETT: Yeah, the, the crew that were looking for me

said I was there from anywhere from 15 to 18 minutes

under this, under the water.

FREEMAN: 15 to 18 minutes.

BENNETT: Yeah.

FREEMAN: So you're 15 to 18 minutes without a breath of air.

BENNETT: Right.

FREEMAN: Okay.

So, David, all that you've told me is, is such a story.

BENNETT: Mm-hmm.

FREEMAN: Does it make you believe in an afterlife?

BENNETT: I do believe in an afterlife.

I believe that our being, our soul,

whatever you may want to call it, lives on,

and that we have opportunities to come back.

And I never thought of any of that beforehand.

I, I'm, you know, it just wasn't on my radar.

FREEMAN: Now here we sit in this cathedral.

You haven't mentioned God.

BENNETT: That light, that was God to me.

That was God.

FREEMAN: So the message is from God.

BENNETT: Yeah.

And I believe that you can find that spirituality

in all different beliefs.

I don't subscribe to just one belief anymore.

I try--I love-- my library at home

has all different beliefs represented.

FREEMAN: So does mine.

David's incredible story

reminds me of an experience I had many years ago.

♪ ♪

I have seen a light, not in a near-death experience,

I was just passing out.

And what I perceived was the tiniest beam of light

that to me was the final form of life.

It just occurred to me, holy cow, there it is.

There is the light that everybody talks about.

But it's a common theme among people

who say they have had a near-death experience

or an out-of-body experience.

What they see is a light.

Some people have seen Jesus in, in this light;

other people just see a bright light.

The hope for life beyond death

seems to be an almost universal instinct.

But I want to know how the afterlife

first became part of religion.

So, I'm going to Egypt...

♪ ♪

...to the place where the first great monuments to the afterlife

still stand.

♪ ♪

[camel bellows]

♪ ♪

SALIMA IKRAM: Here we are in Sakkara.

That's the step pyramid of King Djoser,

and it's one of the first pyramids.

It is the first pyramid ever to be built.

FREEMAN: That one is over there?

IKRAM: Yes. This entire site is a big cemetery.

So the ideas that people now have

about rebirth and resurrection

all started here in Sakkara

about 5,000 years ago, not earlier.

FREEMAN: So this is maybe the birth of afterlife thought.

IKRAM: Yeah, you could say that.

FREEMAN: Egyptologist Salima Ikram is taking me to see

the tomb of a pharaoh who ruled almost 4,400 years ago.

Inside it are humanity's oldest written descriptions

of the afterlife.

IKRAM: This is a causeway,

and we're going towards the temple of Unas.

This part is where they would be dragging the body of the king

once it had been mummified up here.

FREEMAN: I'm looking here at these stones.

I know I couldn't lift one.

And this looks like it was built in the '50s or '60s.