Fatal vision

New research on deathbed visions has been published by a Buffalo, NY, college. 

In interviews with 66 dying patients, the investigators found that near-death dreams and visions don’t resemble typical dreams and are distinctive from the hallucinations or confusion associated with medications, dementia or illness.

Nearly 90 percent of the patients in the studies reported having at least one near-death dream or vision, and 99 percent of those believed the dreams or visions to be real. About 50 percent of the experiences occurred while the person slept, 16 percent while they were awake, and the rest while both asleep and awake. ... Religious content was minimal, but there was a common existential thread. ...

Previous studies suggest that as many as 60 percent of conscious dying patients experience end-of-life dreams and visions, but the actual number likely is higher because the phenomenon is considered underreported by patients and family members for fear of embarrassment.

Although the study is touted as the "first rigorous examination" of deathbed visions, I don't think this is accurate. Osis and Haraldsson's classic study At the Hour of Death preceded it by decades.

Despite some talk of the importance of opening up to spirituality in hospice care, the study seems to take it for granted that these visions are "dreams" whose only function is to comfort the patient as he or she expires. 

“It’s a built-in mechanism for soothing a dying patient,” said Dr. Christopher Kerr, chief medical officer at Hospice Buffalo.

Be that as it may, the fact that the phenomenon is getting more attention can only be a good thing.

Comments

[david r]

I've often heard it said that the life span used to be lower. Especially say, around 100 years ago. But this is contradicted by one of the major Upanishads, which states that people can live for 100 years.

[Michael Prescott]

Average life span was shorter in the past. There have always been a few people who enjoyed long lifetimes, but proportionately there are more of them now.

[Sleepers]

Wouldn't child mortality rates play a major role in life expectancy statistics? It seems like life spans would appear lower if many young people are dying. In other words, if you can make it to age 5, did your life expectancy get bumped up to modern day levels?

[Lynn]

@Laurence I do think we can influence matter, and therefore attract actions towards us perhaps. There are certainly crosses in the world and Geralds, Gerry's.

Or perhaps the experience was preordained to influence you toward more spiritual thinking. I think we each have a somewhat guided path, but that's just what I have come to feel.

I know for me when I first heard voices in the beginning- they told me to get the washing in as it was going to rain, watch the candle as it was going to drip down the drawers it was placed on, and if I went out the door the wind would slam it shut and I would be locked out. And I wondered why they seemed to tell me things all day, till it dawned on me that they were demonstrating that they were around all the time.

So that was my journey I guess, to learn to listen and realise I could hear.

[Amos Oliver Doyle]

Gee Lynn, I must have voices talking to me all the time too but I always thought that they were just my own intelligent experienced subconscious mind, perhaps, that was doing the talking. I have that kind of chatter going on constantly in my head. I don't know Lynn but with all due respect the examples you gave seem more like common sense than communication from the spirit world.-AOD :^}

[Lynn]

"Amos" I'll explain a bit. I was living in a house in Bangkok with 12 mature mango trees that formed a canopy over the house and garden so little grass grew. The sun was out as I could see it through the trees on what was a 40 degree day. When it rained it would be dark and wind usually comes as well in Asia. So I said to my husband jokingly how the voice said "It's going to rain and you will need to bring the washing right up by the door as the wind will slant the rain. It was a hot day and I went out thinking " I doubt it ". Then spots appeared so I put the washing just under the canopy, suddenly wind gushed and went under the canopy so I took the frame right up by the door.

The candle was a slow burning one, and within one hour was all down the drawers- they put a pic in my head before it happened.

The door had never slammed shut since or before, not that it couldn't. I rung my mum and forgot what they said. Picked up the washing, went out and it slammed shut. :).

[Lynn]

I just want to add too, there were many other examples Amos, e.g telling me my daughter was not on the school bus. So I rung her to find she was still at school trying out for their production which she had failed to tell me.

It's hard to reproduce experiences on a page. Particularly my ebook!

Like you I doubted it all, till everything I was told was validated. Now they don't vocalise as much, and I suspect it's because I now understand. Lyn x.

[Amos Oliver Doyle]

Thanks for the additional information Lynn, - AOD

[Julie Baxter]

Lynn's right, Amos. I hear that voice too, it's like a good friend and protector whispering over my shoulder - very different from self-talk. But I must confess that it's become much more clear to me as I've got older. Perhaps I'm more easy to influence now; less cock sure?

Anyway, the first time I heard about such a thing was from my mother. She told me about a day, before I was born, when she was making dinner for the family, which at that time comprised my father, my sister, Lynn, and, of course, my mother.

It was to be a salad and, having prepared everything she went to the window to see if she could see my father on the lane outside, returning home from work.

Suddenly, she felt a distinct poke in the shoulder and, startled, turned around to see my sister, who was sitting in her high chair at the table, playing with the empty salmon tin that my mother had left within Lynn's reach. In those days tin openers were strictly manual and left a jagged edge both on the rim and at the edge of the lid. Apparently, Lynn had pushed her fist into that tin and had she turned it would more than likely have cut her wrist deeply.

The effect of the experience was so powerful that my mother said she would never forget the feeling of that poke on the shoulder - and I don't believe she ever did.

It wasn't a voice, it was a much more immediate and dramatic communication. Perhaps, like me, my mother wasn't such a good listener when young and needed a physical nudge to hear that most important warning.

[David Chilstrom]

For the sake of the blog archive, the TedX presentation I see dead people: Dreams and Visions of the Dying by Dr. Kerr is now available. I highly recommend it.

[Art]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbnBe-vXGQM&feature=youtu.be

Thanks David! That was so great. It put a smile on my face. I love reading and hearing about end of life experiences, death bed visions, and nearing death awareness. I find it endlessly comforting and uplifting. Thank you so much.