Johnson talks about a near-death experience in his 2004 book Mind Wide Open. He and his wife lived in "an apartment in a renovated old warehouse on the far west edge of downtown Manhattan," a home with "a massive eight-foot-high window looking out over the Hudson River" where they often enjoyed the view. On a June afternoon, they watched "an especially severe storm" approaching. Within minutes, the storm smashed the window, of which they were not directly in front during the crisis.