Anita Moorjani’s memoir of her near-death experience in February 2006 during late-stage Hodgkin’s lymphoma — organs failing, hospice-bound — followed by what she describes as a complete remission within weeks of returning. The book interleaves the NDE narrative with her interpretation of what the experience taught about identity, fear and unconditional self-acceptance.
Moorjani’s story reached Wayne Dyer, who asked Hay House to commission it; the resulting book hit the New York Times bestseller list two weeks after its March 2012 release and has since circulated in over forty languages. The eighteen chapters and a prologue move through her Hong Kong childhood, the cancer diagnosis, the coma and NDE, the rapid remission, and the framework she developed afterwards. A 10th-anniversary edition appeared in 2022 with a new introduction.
Contents
The Day I "Died"
Growing Up Different
Many Religions, Many Paths
Matchmaking Missteps
My True Love
Diagnosis of Fear
Seeking Salvation
Leaving the World Behind
Something Infinite and Altogether Fantastic
Realizing the Miracle
Proof of Healing
"Lady, Whichever Way I Look At It, You Should Be Dead!"
Seeing Life with New Eyes
Finding My Path
Healing Is Only the Beginning
Why I Got Sick … and Healed
Infinite Selves and Universal Energy
Allowing and Being Yourself
Questions and Answers
Reception
A New York Times bestseller and one of the most-circulated NDE accounts of the 2010s, particularly within Hay House’s catalogue and Wayne Dyer’s promotional ecosystem. Skeptics including Steven Novella have flagged the standard issues — single-case medical claims, no published case file, the difficulty of distinguishing "spontaneous remission with disputed staging" from "miraculous reversal". Moorjani’s audience treats those critiques as missing the point; the book’s claim is experiential rather than medical.
Frequently asked
What is Dying to Be Me about?
Anita Moorjani’s memoir of her near-death experience in February 2006, during late-stage Hodgkin’s lymphoma — organs failing, hospice-bound — followed by what she describes as a complete remission within weeks. The book interleaves the NDE account with her later framework of identity, fear and unconditional self-acceptance.
How did the book come to be published?
Moorjani’s story reached Wayne Dyer, who asked his publishers at Hay House to find her and commission a book. Hay House released it in March 2012; it hit the New York Times bestseller list within two weeks and has since circulated in over forty languages.
How do skeptics respond to the medical claims?
Skeptics including Steven Novella have raised the standard issues with single-case medical claims — no published case file, the difficulty of distinguishing spontaneous remission with disputed staging from a miraculous reversal. Moorjani’s audience treats the critique as missing the point; the book’s claim is experiential rather than medical.