Hollywood star Gary Busey is opening up about the 1988 motorcycle crash that briefly killed him before he was revived during brain surgery.

The 75 year-old Academy Award nominee told The Guardian that he vividly recalls going into a “spiritual realm” after the crash, an experience that changed his life forever.

“I had an accident on a Harley-Davidson. I went off the bike without a helmet, hit my head into a curb, split my skull, passed away after brain surgery and went to the other side — the spiritual realm where I got information,” he said. “And I came back, and these messages, these definitions, came to me first class. I’ll think of a word and write the word down without thinking.”

Busey went on to explain that in his mind, the word “faith” means “Fantastic, Adventurous in Trusting Him” and “hope” means “Heavenly Offerings Prevail Eternally.”

As for what things were like on the other side, Busey said he was “surrounded by angels” and there were “balls of light floating all around me.”

“I felt trust, love, protection and happiness like you cannot feel on Earth. It’s the feeling the angels live in,” he said. “Three angels came up to me… I was a quarter of an inch wide and one foot long. That is your soul, and your soul is housed in the column of your spine.”

Busey also said he heard an “androgynous” voice speaking to him.

“Every time he spoke, I felt so loved, like a little baby in the arms of his brother, so when you hear the truth over there you do it. And the word truth stands for Taking Real Understanding To Heart. That is the truth of your essence and your soul,” Busey recounted. “The truth told me I wasn’t finished over here on Earth. When you feel the truth, BOOM! You go for it. The truth is the strongest ordnance you have in your body, your mind, your soul and your being.”

Though the accident nearly cost him his life permanently, Busey said he is still grateful that it happened all these years later because “it was part of my journey, my growing up, my understanding.”