Dr. Lenard Harris lost control of his car. He saw the embankment he was speeding toward and realized he was going to die.

The collision and darkness came very fast, and there was no pain. From there, things proceeded about like he had expected they would. He had the sensation of perfect calmness, a level of peace being alive could never provide. Of course, he knew this was merely due to the intense level of endorphins his dying brain was distributing. He felt himself rise from his body, and then he saw the growing light surrounded by darkness that people so often mistook for a tunnel, but that was really just an overload of information being sent to the visual cortex, which was usually one of the last parts of the brain to die.

In the fake tunnel was a surprise. He started to see important events from his life. He saw himself playing catch with his father, saw himself getting accepted to MIT and then Harvard Medical. He saw his marriage and the birth of his child. He saw himself presenting his neurological research to explain the phenomena of near death experiences (NDEs).

He knew why he was seeing these important events. It had to do with the revitalization of the brain. When a brain went from dead to alive, it went from uncharged to electrified. It was only natural that the most significant memories would be fired up first.

The immediate implication of this, of course, was that he was coming back to life. He, a researcher of NDE, was having a NDE.

At the end of the tunnel he saw his long deceased father. His father held out a hand, and Lenard took it. They both stood in the bright light of his hallucination. His father spoke.

"I hope you noted that you saw your past on your way out of life, not on your way back. This proves the brain-revitalization theory wrong."

His father had also been a neurologist and a very good thinker. Lenard knew this wasn't his actual father, but his mind's representation of the most important figure from his life. Still, Lenard was very willing to engage the representation.

"That's not necessarily true," Lenard replied. "It's probably just that my sense of direction is compromised, due to the lack of oxygen to my sensorimotor cortex."

"No," his father calmly argued. "You don't understand this experience as much as you think you do. You think it's all due to the brain dying, but it's not. It's not what the religious people say either."

"Then what is an NDE?" Lenard asked.

His father gripped his hand tighter, as if making sure he stayed. He then said, "Well, consider the experiences of astronauts who undergo gravitational training."

Lenard knew this research well. He said, "They're placed in a centrifuge and spun at high speeds. They pass out, and when they come to, they report perceptual phenomena similar to NDEs. But the best scientific explanation for the similarities is that both the astronauts and the people who have NDEs have compromised brains."

His father smiled warmly and said, "You're wrong. Both experiences are due to the soul experiencing what it is programmed to experience when it leaves the body. In one case, it is set free by death; in the other, it's whipped from the body, though only temporarily."

Lenard scoffed. "You're saying there is a soul and that it's programmed?"

"No," his father replied. "I'm using these terms to help you understand. There is not an actual brain or an actual soul. There are only programmed experiences. The NDE-people experience what has been planned for them. What the astronauts experience is like when you play a video game and find faults in the programming that allow you to do things the original designers of the game didn't intend."

Lenard thought for a few seconds and then said, "So the increased-gravitational experiences are like a route to the holes in the human programming. In short, they are a way to see the beginning of the next level."

"Exactly," his father replied.

Though he was calm, Lenard could still feel his intellectual curiosity. He was about to ask another question when a faceless figure appeared behind his father.

The figure said, "You have told him too much. He can't go back now."

His father didn't even look at the figure. He replied, "I don't think you get to decide that."

He let go of Lenard's hand, and Lenard was floating away.

"Wait," Lenard protested. "There's so much more I want to know. How many levels are there? What's the ultimate source of the levels?"

His father's voice filled the tunnel. "I don't know all those answers yet, and I don't want to ruin the entire puzzle for you."

That was the last thing he heard before everything went black.

"Dr. Harris," a voice said. "If you can hear me, I need you to move your right foot."

It took a great deal of focus, but he did what was asked. Someone in the room gasped. He heard a familiar doctor's voice. It was one of his colleagues.

"I can't believe it. I didn't think he would come back. I wonder what he'll be able to do. I hope he can still do his research."

If Lenard would have been able to smile, he would have. He didn't know if he would be able to do his research again, but he knew if he could, his research would be modified.