ARE THE DYING VISITED BY THE DEAD?

Sitting on the bed next to my grandmother as she lay dying, I witnessed a curious thing. Earlier that day, hospice had put her on a morphine drip, and ever since I’d arrived, she had seemed unaware of her surroundings and was mumbling unintelligibly.

Then she abruptly stopped mumbling and looked up at the corner of the room. For more than a minute she was silent and her eyes were focused on a single point. Then, very clearly, she said, “No, not yet.” She died several hours later.

While there is much debate about what happens during the final minutes of life, reported end-of-life “visitation experiences” are extremely common. In my speaking, I’ve had the opportunity to address hundreds of hospice workers. Never once has any of them told me they don’t believe that the dying have visitations. If anyone would know, it would be them. So why isn’t this phenomenon addressed more openly?

When my father-in-law, a confessed atheist, was on his deathbed from a terminal heart ailment, his eyes suddenly widened. Because of the tube down his throat he was unable to speak but he was clearly lucid, following something across the room with his eyes. Keri was at his side. “Dad, do you see someone?”

He nodded in the affirmative.

“Is it Grandma?”

He shook his head.

“Do you know who it is?”

Again he shook his head.

Minutes after his passing, his nurse said to me, “I knew he was going to die soon. When they start getting visitations, it’s their time.” I asked if she’d seen this before. She nodded. “Frequently.”

Reported end-of-life experiences are predominantly categorized as three types: out-of-body experiences (OBEs), near-death experiences (NDEs), and end-of-life dreams and visions (ELDVs).

In a study of end-of-life phenomena, scientists at Canisius University interviewed sixty-six patients receiving end-of-life care in a hospice. The study found that most patients reported at least one vision per day—and that visions involving dead friends and relatives were the most common.

The researchers wrote, “As participants approached death, comforting dreams/visions of the deceased became more prevalent. The impact of pre-death experiences on dying individuals and their loved ones can be profoundly meaningful… and typically lessen the fear of dying, making transition from life to death easier for those experiencing them.”

Still, despite the myriad written accounts of pre-death encounters, there are still many who don’t believe. Afterlife deniers have offered a list of possible scientific explanations for end-of-life phenomena that include excess carbon dioxide creating a white light and tunnel, endorphins released under stress, lack of oxygen, hallucinations and a damaged temporoparietal junction, which may create the illusion of an out-of-body experience—a phenomenon that scientists claim to have been able to replicate without bringing the body close to death.

However, none of these explain how people brought back from death are able to explain things that happened in other rooms, such as conversations and unseen visitors. A prime example of this is the well-documented case of “Maria.” After being resuscitated from a heart attack, Maria told a social worker that during the time her heart had stopped she had left her body and gone outside the hospital. She described in detail an orange sneaker she’d seen on the ledge of a window on the third floor. The doubtful but curious social worker decided to explore Maria’s claim. Not only did she find the sneaker but she also realized that there was no other way for Maria to have seen the sneaker or its surroundings that she had described.

Many scientists believe that as medical advances allow us to bring more people back from death, we will see and validate more of these experiences. I believe that for those seeking truth about the existence of an afterlife, an honest inquiry into end-of-life phenomena is a good place to start.