The Other Side of The Curtain
Travel with us back and forth to the other side of the curtain!
“There is always a hidden reason we usually do not see at first giving meaning to a trauma and providing a real chance to heal, to grow, and to transmit”
Dr. Nadia Bijaoui
About the Book
The author loved living in the South of France, studying French literature, poetry, and dancing until the political events of May 1968. One year later, at 18, she was pronounced dead after a motorcycle accident.
The Other Side of The Curtain is the space between life and death.
Instead of a motorcycle accident fatal statistic, The Other Side of The Curtain is an amazing non-fiction account of brain injury and coma survival in France.
A couple of years later, the author moved to the United States and tried to forget about her accident.
But there are things in life that one cannot forget.
Years later, in Los Angeles, Nadia began a secret search to understand beyond being “a miracle” why she survived the way she did. She found seven elements that made her survival a reality. She also realized that her accident was the consequence of her subconscious “Death Wish” provoked by the consequences of May 1968; and as explained by Freud.
Nadia transcended her pains into “Learning & Growing From PTSD”,
Part 2 of her book, and into creating Bio Health Education.
The Other Side of The Curtain is also a visit to dreamland.
The author narrates seven dreams including a premonition dream of her accident.
Nadia’s interview with Kinshasha Kambui creator of HealthNotes:
From the Hearts of a Natural Woman
SUPER MUSIC & INTERVIEW @ KFAI Radio Without Boundaries Minneapolis - St Paul
Kinshasha’s interview focuses on the space between life and death, on dreaming, and on the recovery process with its main architect, Anna Boukris, Nadia’s mother. The interview also narrates a message for universal peace; and the creation of Bio Health Education, a health system that Dr. Bijaoui designed while working on her own recovery, growth, and self-realization.
The book two formats
2023 EPUB: The Other Side of The Curtain ~Brain Power Activation Through Dreaming
2017 Original paper book: The Other Side of
The Curtain ~ Recovering from Deep Coma
Book Reviews
“A mystery from a real-life experience that may help you make sense of your
own life.”
- Denis Battochio, St. Tropez, France
“Nadia is a miracle! She survived a catastrophic motorcycle accident! While she
chronicles her fascinating experience of recovering from a coma, her
comments and health suggestions as a researcher and doctor complete the
picture of recovery... She says, "I never remembered anything about what
happened to me before and after the accident...The amnesia had removed the
imprint of those events from my brain...Everything I have written about the
accident, I did not know it. I lived it. I felt it in my body, my heart, and my soul.
But I never knew it." The accident occurred in 1969 within the background of
the student riots of May1968. For people who are interested in coma... anyone
who loves French literature or history ... and really anyone who loves a story
of overcoming adversity this is a must read!”
- Mary Selby, United States
“The Other Side of the Curtain is the poignant journey in three parts of Nadia
Bijaoui, a child of the Diaspora to become Dr. Nadia Judith Bijaoui,
psychoanalyst and specialist in recovery from PTSD. The first two parts of
the book constitute a memoir about growing up in post-war Tunisia and
Marseille in a close-knit Jewish family, where education and spiritual heritage
were paramount. Her descriptions of the sweets she devoured were enough
to make one gain pounds while reading them. A half-gallon of Neapolitan ice
cream and a tin of brownies were consumed (on her behalf)…it was the least
I could do.
Following the rigorous French educational model, the author studied hard for
the 1969 Baccalaureate Exam after the famous May1968. Her pleasures
consisting of long walks, dance classes, and those wicked sweets. No sooner
had she passed the exam and gotten her score, than a terrible accident
occurred. This accident nearly took her life and left her comatose for
months. How she survived is the mystery she has spent the remaining forty-
five years studying, seeking a therapy model that might help other victims of
PTSD and coma in their recovery.
The third part of the book consists of her breakdown of the seven elements
which she believes came together to save her. Rooted in Freudian perspective,
Dr. Bijaoui has created a model which incorporates the needs of the body, the
mind and the spirit. As clinical as the last section reads, she has left room for
the Divine. I’m not sure Dr. Freud would approve, but being a near-death
survivor myself, I do. I wish her the greatest success.”
- Elizabeth Kerr, author of The Spin
“From her childhood in Tunisia and France, to a devastating motorcycle
accident, to the dreams that led to her higher self, Bijaoui’s narrative tells an
emotional true tale of recovery, love, and faith. Her story is as inspiring as it
is jaw dropping.
Her unique model for her book leads the reader into various doorways of her
life at different time periods, which offers an intriguing glimpse inside the
thought process and dreams she experienced throughout the years. The
interconnectedness of her seemingly unrelated experiences is fascinating; her
attitude and outlook on the world are equally mesmerizing.
Bijaoui spent her early childhood in the then-French-controlled colony of Tunisia,
where her father was Chef de Gendarmerie (Head of the French Police) and
where she was exposed to the realities of a cruel world. Childhood memories,
both good and painful, blur into that tragic night in Marseille in 1969. A
motorcycle crash sent Bijaoui flying 36 meters, and she landed on the
pavement without a helmet and was pronounced dead. She writes about her
time in French hospitals, the vivid dream she had about her three-month coma,
the spiritual aspects of being in that transcendental state.
Bijaoui also details the time-spent decades later undergoing an emotional and
psychological healing that she did not allow herself to engage in immediately
after the accident. It is during this time period that she evaluates her dreams,
some of them profoundly prophetic, and looks back at her life with a clear
mind and open heart; she evaluated her dreams, some of them profoundly
prophetic. She sought the ultimate recovery, which took her into her own
psyche and to healers who extracted years of deep, buried pain that still
existed in her once-broken body.
The Other Side of The Curtain is a compelling memoir of a woman whose life
has been dotted with both joy and tragedy, but always with courage. Spirituality
mixes with shocking true tales and the history of the past in her memorable book.
Bijaoui grew up in the South of France. She moved to the United States to
escape the memories of her motorcycle crash. Currently she focuses on
topics such as dream analysis, acculturation stress and post-traumatic stress disorder”
- A. House, United States
Book Preview
Themes
Traumatic brain injury
Surviving death experience
Coma
Dreams
Psychology & psychoanalysis
Wellness & medicine
Resilience
Historical context – Violence of May 1968 in France
Cross-cultural settings – South of France and Los Angeles
Emotional energy
Metaphysics & spirituality