From the Independent Producer Project of KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Bob Carlson, and this is Unfictional. Unfictional is a program of true stories, personal documentaries, and on this episode, Thought I was Dead.

Three stories not about close calls or amazing survival experiences, these are stories

where death is a state of mind.

Consider the case of writer Esme Wang, who became aware that nothing in her life was real.

One day it was, and the next day it just wasn't and she no longer felt alive.

This is one of two stories on this episode that deal with the concept of suicide

so if that is something that would be upsetting to you, please skip this one.

From KCRW.com, it's unfictional. If you looked out the window and you saw that the sky was blue and everyone around you would say something like it is orange and it has purple polka dots.

It wouldn't change the way you saw this guy.

It would still be blue to you. You might think, maybe I'm seeing it incorrectly,

but you would still see it the way you were seeing it.

Kotard delusion is a kind of an nihilistic delusion,

denying one's own existence?

People talk about near-death experiences,

you know, like I was in a car accident and I was in a coma and I almost died but then I came back and then I changed my life.

To me, instead of being a near-death experience, it really feels like it was a death death experience.

It's the delusion that people think they are dead.

It's extremely rare.

I had gone to England for a retreat and on the flight back I was speaking to the gentleman next to me.

All of a sudden I started sweating really profusely and I said to him I don't feel right and he said well maybe you should go to the washroom So I remember standing up and then the next thing I remember is

opening in my eyes and being in the aisle. I had apparently fainted and they had me on oxygen for the remaining four

hours of the flight. I ended up having to be wheeled through customs and I was convinced that I had

...