A Dance With Death

FIFTY YEARS AGO—at the beginning of Dr Bruce Greyson’s distinguished career as a psychiatrist and academic—a student called Holly was brought into the emergency room, having taken an overdose. As she lay unconscious and on the brink of death, Greyson, who’d just spilt bolognaise sauce on his tie, talked to her roommate Susan in a room along the corridor. The following morning, Holly awoke for the first time and he introduced himself.

“I know who you are,”