Deathbed Phenomena (Visions, Premonitions, etc.)

[gattino]

I hope this post doesn't appear too personal or morbid. I'm wondering if someone more steeped in the literature - or even personal experience - can clarify the issue of distinguishing between potential near death visions and pure confusion/delirium. Assuming such a distinction exists.


Without giving a full account in public my 84 year old mother has twice had prolonged stays in hospital due to UTI's, and is about to be released tomorrow. The accompanying delirious/confused conversational behaviour however has not disappeared with the infection..whether the delirium is lingering or has merely brought to the fore some kind of existing dementia is unclear, but in health terms she is not diagnosed with anything that suggests she is physically ill or approaching death at all.

What is of interest is that in the last week she has now twice insisted dead loved ones had been to see her in hospital. First my father (dead 10 years), today her own mother (dead 18 ). No reference to their being dead, or there being anyting odd about them being there is made.

In both cases they have shared the curious feature of sitting on the bedside chair without actually saying anything. Immediately, being aware of the subject of Death Bed Visions, they come to mind. But equally in both instances the idea is undermined by accompanying details when questioned..

The description of my father and the changing nature of the story when subsequently told suggests she may have confused a member of staff for him , in a delusional state. And the reference to her mother having been in the chair was bookended by references to one of my (living) brothers having been there instead.

This presents a number of possibilities that are hard for me to disentangle. 1) That she is having a well reported and "accepted" form of DBVs, as written up in the literature, though she is not known to be terminally ill. 2) That the dead loved ones are pure hallucination/delusion which are commonly experienced (are they?) by anyone with dementia/delirium. 3) Or that they are "real" DBVs but the details and recollection are muddled and altered by the confused mental state.

Of course I'm not asking anyone here to determine whether my mother is near death! (although she IS 84!) And neither answer is the wrong one in any case - if this does not fit the pattern of DBV it may be a relief, and if it does it may be a comfort. So my interest in classifying her encounters is hopefully genuinely dispassionate.

The question then is whether the incidents I've described, accompanied by no reference to their deathly status or even conversation, as well as being cloaked in general confusion, is in any sense typical of the phenomenon as generally reported, or whether it does not.

[PS none of the above presupposes the actual nature of DBVs - whether they are spiritual visitations or a product of the brain - merely that they are well established in the caring professions as a precursor to approaching death]

 

[Spookdaddy]

My dad, who turned 91 in December, has had two stays in hospital since last summer. He wasn't expected to survive the first but is as strong as an ox and confounded the doctors expectations. (Doesn't use a stick, doesn't need a hearing aid, on zero medication, all his own teeth and a full head of hair - frankly I'm begiinning to think he's taking the piss out of the rest of us.)

Anyway, on both occasions he became very confused, to the point of delirium. In many instances what seemed to be happening was that he could no longer differentiate between his (very intense) dreams and reality; awake and asleep had simply ceased to be different states. He was also confusing other people on the wards with people he knew, or had known, in real life. In some cases real events from his past (especially from the WW2 years - which I suppose were pretty intense) seemed to intermingle in his mind with his current reality.

The positive side to this is that he has totally recovered his mental faculties and is no more confused than a 91 year-old man has a right to be - so it's not necessarily a permanent state. The advice we were given at the time was to go along with his stories, or at least not try to correct him, in order to avoid upsetting him too much when he was so ill - but we have a right laugh about it now.

 

[gattino]

@spookdaddy... many thanks for that. It certainly rings a lot of bells. The dream/wake confusion is something I've also decided has definitely been going on with my mum, sometimes quite obviously. I've also realised for myself that my initial instinct to tell her she's confused and quickly change subject is the incorrect one, and its much simpler to simply ask questions about what she's saying without confirming or denying anything.

On a personal aside can I ask - as its the most relevant concern to me - whether your dad's experiences of confusion persisted beyond release from hospital. The issue with my mum is that they expected it would clear up when the infection presumed to cause it was killed off, but it clearly hasn't and she's being discharged as confuddled as she went in!

REturning the to the paranormal aspects...you didn't mention whether your dad declared any known to be dead loved ones had come a calling?

 

[OneWingedBird]

Depending on what else she said, I suppose we also have the possibility that she simply got the names wrong and meant someone else.

I'm thinking of my 86 year old neighbour who often gets names wrong, sometimes as a one off, sometimes repeatedly in the same 'sitting' and will not be able to realise no matter how many times he is prompted but will know later, or other times repeatedly and persistently eg he called me Julie for about a year apart from when he called me Susan, neither of which are my name.

 

[gattino]

No, its definitely not name confusion, as she would adapt the name appropriately - ie "Gerry" when telling her sisters, but "your dad" when telling us. And of course referring to "My mum" isn't a name either. :/

If I'm honest I question whether I'm willing it to be paranormal..in spite of the obvious implications for her immediate future!...simply because it hints at being so similar to the kind of end of life experience I've recently been reading about, but I'm doing my best to be wholey objective and include all "yes, but no"s.

I suppose the inference in my specific question - whether it fits the "known" pattern - is that in books, or book chapters, dealng with death bed visions, they will inevitably use as examples the most dramatic and evidential of survival - ie those where conversations, doorways, bright lights, and talk of going somewhere soon, are reported. And so wondered if the greater body of the experiences gathered in statistical collections reflected the less dramatic, more suggestive "encounters" I've described my mother as having.

 

[Spookdaddy]

...On a personal aside can I ask - as its the most relevant concern to me - whether your dad's experiences of confusion persisted beyond release from hospital. The issue with my mum is that they expected it would clear up when the infection presumed to cause it was killed off, but it clearly hasn't and she's being discharged as confuddled as she went in!...

My dad's confusion was also linked to an infection (apparently urinary infections are especially likely to be accompanied by confusion) and it did last for a while after the infection cleared and he'd been allowed home.

What I would say to you is be realistic, but also don't just assume the worst - it's very easy to convince yourself in tougher moments that someone's age automatically means that if things are bad they won't get better. My dad came ot of hospital the last time (December) with no appetite, confusion, and incontinence problems - for about three weeks I was going round to get him out of bed, dressed, and downstairs (my mum's a lot younger than my dad but has arthritis related mobility issues and simply couldn't cope with those bits) and my brother would go round to shower him (I couldn't cope with that bit). He's now doing all I was doing for himself again - his brain's back to normal, his bladder's reset itself, he's eating like a horse and they are managing to get out an about and do stuff.

Obviously, this isn't going to be everbody's experience - all I'm saying is don't assume the worst, and try not to think someone iller than they are, if you see what I mean.

REturning the to the paranormal aspects...you didn't mention whether your dad declared any known to be dead loved ones had come a calling?

No, but he was absolutely convinced that one of the male nurses was a character from an incident he had experienced during the war - and became quite upset about it.

I suppose the strangest thing was that he began to take on many of the mannerisms and characteristics of my grandad - my mums father, that is, not his.

My mum's dad, Georgie, was another object lesson in elderly recovery - he became very ill at 92 but recovered fully and went back to live on his own, in his own house and without any assistance, until he had a fall at 98. For a year he then lived with my mum and dad, until he died a couple of months short of his 100th birthday. My dad and his father-in-law were always quite close and had huge respect for each other. They became closer still while he was living with them - my dad nursed and showered him, and Georgie, who never took anything or anyone for granted in his entire life, was unbelievably grateful. Anyway, back to the point: when we started noticing these little mannerisms and habits starting to appear in my dad's behaviour we became convinced, in that slightly offhand, jokey way that you do when something a bit peculiar seems to be happening, that George had climbed on board and was giving my dad a bit of support as a way of showing his gratitude.

 

[gattino]

I found online a sociologist, Dr Una MacConville , who has a website and specialises in the study of such death related experiences. I knew the interweb would have its uses one day. I sent my original question to her and she replied as follows, for anyone interested:


"You raise really interesting questions and ones that emerged during a recent study that my colleague Dr Regina McQuillan and I conducted amongst health care professionals on their observations and understanding of these experiences.



It can be difficult to determine differences between drug/fever induced hallucinations and visions, however in our study, health care professionals were able to identify a range of characteristics which distinguished these visions from drug/fever induced hallucinations—visions generally have greater clarity; bring emotional comfort; have meaningful associations; they can have a positive effect and generally happen close to death.



Having said that, it was also acknowledged that even when people experience hallucinations related to drugs or fevers, they may also experience, in some cases, visions of deceased relatives that are separate from the hallucinations.



I have had a number of people contacting me regarding people with dementia experiencing visions of deceased relatives. Again it’s difficult to unpick this when people have an underlying condition that impacts on cognitive ability but it could be the same situation as with drug/fever hallucinations and visions, i.e. two things happening at the same time.





While deathbed visions do frequently happen in the days before death, there is now increasing evidence that people can experience these types of visions in the months and weeks before death so they are not always associated with imminent death.



I wonder is your mother also experiencing visions, or the presence of, other close relatives who are still living? It may be significant that she is only experiencing visions of close relatives that are deceased, even if her recollection is at time muddled. What is her emotional response to the visions, are they bringing a degree of comfort to her?




There may be a number of things going on here with your mother and it might be helpful for you to keep a record, of the visions, the circumstances and how she talks about them."

 

[oldrover]

gattino, spookdaddy is right, urinary tract infections are very prone to causing confusion. As are certain antibiotics when they're given to certain people.

Best thing you can do, if you haven't already, is either speak to a senior/experienced nurse or doctor, see what they think. I think they'll likely be able to put your mind at rest.

I'm sorry for the position you find yourself in, but forget the paranormal it's got nothing to do with it, equally please don't start assuming the worst it really doesn't sound warranted from what you've said. UTI's are bastards sometimes and as spookdaddy says they're effects can linger. Also the effect of hospitalisation on someone of your mother's age can be very disorientating. What sort of ward is she in? is she in a single room? all these things can exacipate things no end.

Don't start looking at worst case scenarios, see how she is when the infection has gone and she's had time to recover in her own environment.

 

[gattino]

Hi, oldrover.. I do appreciate all of these factors, and your concern. Hard to believe - or even cold! - as it may seem, though, I genuinely wasn't searching for answers out of angst or a need for reassurance that she's not going to die...my interest in whether I was witnessing things I'd only recently been reading about, and discovered are fairly regular events, was genuinely dispassionate and fascinated.

How one can BE dispassionate surrounding issues of one's own mother's death in understandably hard to appreciate at first glance, but I'm simply well aware of her age, not to mention increasing number of hospitalisations for one reason or another, so its likely to happen one day, sooner rather than later. So when on this occassion she declares encounters with first her dead husband and then her dead mother, I've no great difficulty in leaving any future grief out of the equation and concentrate on wondering if I'm witnessing the phenomenon I've so recently taken an interest in.

And to formulate my lack of anxiety another way, it strikes me I've brought it down to two not unhappy outcomes 1) She'll get better 2) She won't, but getting worse/dying is being accompanied by evidence to believe it doesn't really matter.. we, and she, go on. In that sense working out whethr she's having visions or not having visions is positive either way.

BUT, as it happens, she's been back home for 24 hours or so and I'm happy to report that, so far, there are no spectacular signs of confusion now that she is, and certainly no hallucinations. Of course its far to soon to say that for sure, but my general impression is that the worst aspects of confusion are fading, and suspect the - as you say - hospital environment itself triggered those.

AS for visions of the dead..again, 24 hours is not enough time to say they've stopped but there is a perhaps amusing possible explanation for being visited by my suspiciously silent father. A few days ago, and the connection never occurred to me until the following night, a fairly elderly man in a dressing gown walked into her hospital room while we visitors were there, stood in the doorway, clearly in the wrong room and confused himself, and waited several seconds before turning and leavign without saying a word! In retrospect, how many times might he or other wanderers done the same with no witnesses present?! For all we know he may have even come into her room and sat silently watching th television without opening his mouth or looking at her..and a delusion is born in a confused mind. Just a guess, but not an unlikely one on this occassion!

 

[oldrover]

Glad to hear she's on the mend.

Just to say that while in this case I'm sure your mother's experiences were down to a urinary infection, I'm equally sure that, in other cases, such physical triggers don't dent the case for near death visions in general.

One last thing in my experience though these visions are quite rare in fact.

 

[gattino]

On the subject of the rarity or otherwise of the events I suppose it depends what you take as your starting point. My impression from my reading is that where people are in a position to converse in the lead up to their own death they indicate such visions at least as often as not.

My general sources on the subject have been section 3 of Chris Carter's book "Science and The Near Death Experience", which deals with the statistics and studies carried out, the first chapter of Steve Volk's "Fringeology" dealing with the extraordinary experiences of Elizabeth Kubler Ross, and any number of online postings about or by hospice nurses (and indeed when googling a large number of purely generic medical guides to the dying process) who seem to suggest its extraordinarily common frequency.

So how come so few of us have witnessed it, if its so common? Ignoring the obvious social taboo and embarrassment about suggesting the paranormal, and he assumption most of us might make that the poor dear in question is simply babbling and isn't it tragic, the answer seems to be simply that most people who don't die suddenly are not likely to be conscious in the time leading up to their death.

I have a statistic in mind from. I thought, Carter's book, but after a swift and desperate perusal I can't find it. so can't ATM say it with total conviction, but I'm pretty sure I read that only 10% of people are conscious immediately prior to death (from age/illness that is), and of those who are such experiences are reported in between half and two thirds of them. In the absence of locating and confirming that quote, though, don't quote me!

 

[gattino]

An additional thought or two on how common it may be... I've been pondering the very few deaths I've personally experienced in my life.. all of them prior to my knowledge of the phenomenon, and so paying attention to the detail has unfortunately not been a priority.

My Nan died around hte age my mum is now, after a series of strokes. I didn't witness her in her final days or weeks, and it was in residential care, not a hospital setting. But now I recall the account being given that she had the night of her death changed in mood, lit a cigarette, or ate, or something she hadn't been doing at any rate, and was found to have passed with a surprising smile. As I say my recollection at this point to precisely what was hopeful or mysterious abut her last moments is vague to say the least but the essence of it certainly was reported at the time.

The next death of direct impact on me was my father...who died in hospital in a similar confused and hallucinatory state as my mum has been in. He was in constant sleep in the days before hand and I've no recollection at all of him saying anything potentially suggestive of ghostly visitors of any kind before that. This doesn't rule out of course him seeing or saying things to nursing staff, or in the complete absence of anyone. But I've no reason to suppose so either.

My father's sister is the 3rd and final person I've known personally to die of illness, She had a brain tumour and also became increasingly "confused" understandably, but I recall she too, in phone conversation to my mum, was able to recount "seeing" my late father standing in front of her, in a suit she'd never seen him in, and looking like he did in some particular photo. Again its vague from this distance but my impression is she was aware he was dead when telling this.

In addition to this in the world of Facebook I know 3 young men who have each lost their mothers to illness. One was too young at the time for me to think it would be useful to ask him, the second seems still raw so it would be impertinent to try, so the other day I messaged the 3rd and without giving my reasons enquired if anything of the kind had happened before his mum had passed away. He replied this morning:

"She was pretty out of it, hallucinogenic - probably due to drugs. She did however say that her mum had paid her a visit once. Why?"


So of 4 deaths through illness of which I have personal knowledge, I find 3 involve at least a strong suggestion that the dying experienced some form of DBV.

 

[gattino]

A fairly comprehensive overview from a non fortean source:

http://www.imt.ie/opinion/guests/2010/0 ... omena.html

 

[Brimir]

I'm thinking, from reading accounts, that Death Bed Visions are basically loved ones who have passed on and hallucinations are anyone from TV characters, to dead loved ones and also living loved ones.


Whether I'm right or not, is a different matter :lol:

 

[gattino]

Can I first wonder aloud at the sudden reappearance of my avatar.. its been absent for years and now, on my screen at least, has popped up again unbidden. I wonder where he's been.

This thread was started almost exactly a year ago. I can report my mother is still very much alive - which suggests at the very least she can't take a hint, even coming from the dead! - although with monotonous predictability she is once again in hospital. She was about to be released this morning when they confirmed she has anohter UTI so are keeping her in after all.

There have been a number of subsequent related incidents in the last year nearly all of which have been reported by me on different threads on here. But I'll try to briefly summarise.


In the months after the original posting she made references to her mother being upstairs...and one to her having been down in my mum's own room presumably, and wearing a particular dress. References to my father were rather stranger as she appeared, post hospital, to have concocted a whole new life for him...he had long hair (he was bald and silver haired around the sides), had let himself go somewhat and was living in a room in some woman's house. Other than he rarely got a direct mention, certainly not in terms of turning up. Sometime in the early half of the year, again during a bout of confusion, she screamed in terror at about 10pm one night..less than 5 minutes after I'd left the room...reporting a tall man all in black standing at the foot of the bed staring at her. She was mystified as to where he'd come from as he'd just moved from teh side of the room to the foot of the bed. She repeated teh story over several days, putting no supernatural spin on it herself. I started a thread on here on the subject of "Azrael" to report it.

Nothing much happened again until December. on the day of the extraordinary incident described in the thread "Sign of the Cross" in the It Happened To Me Forum she spoke of my dad having been in the door of her room. Again no reference to him being dead, nor indeed of the new version of him she'd concocted. Plus he said nothing, once more. A week or so later a new addition to the line up...once more a dead loved one. My father's mother, who died before I was born. This was doubly intriguing as for the first time this visitor apparently had a conversation with her...telling her about how she has her own little house to herself now and looks after...I can't be sure if she said "it" or "me". The third intriguing element was that she was also standing in the door of the bedroom but had to go because there were all these other people behind her....


All of these incidents had the common characteristic of being in teh past tense...she reported them as having happened, rather than the encounters being witnessed mid-vision, so to speak. 2 exceptions were occassions were carers left her room saying she'd said she could see a) her mother's face and b)a man sitting in the corner. On niehter of these occassions did she mention seeing such things to me either side of the carers being there. Finally on her last hospitalisation back in August I, for the first and only time, walked in during visiting hour to see her in full animated conversation with invisible people. The conversation ended with my arrival and when I asked who she'd been talking to.. "none of your business". Though 2 women apparently.


All fo this is incredibly suggestive but as I say its now gone on for over a year and she's not gone anywhere!

 

[gattino]

Additional details include that a few months ago she would nightly refer to "them" coming in or being the hallway outside her room or the living room adjacent to it. Shes's subsequently returned to nightly talking about "them" outside in the street....are they still out there, or what time do they come etc. This is interesting as for almost 2 years prior to taking ill she would nightly obssess about entirely non existent "walkers" outside, which she complained about to everyone who'd listen....she'd not mentioned this for most of the last year. Also looking back to prior to her intial illness in november 2011 there had been a single instance several months earlier when she claimed a woman had been in her room first thing in the morning and was wondering who she was or where she'd gone to....as I see this was prior to the illness/hospitalisation that appears to have triggered whatever level of dementia she may have.

Add it all up and I find myself pondering whether, rather than DBVs per se what she's experiencing - but has no means of processing it - is indistinguishable from mediumship. Perhaps when her cognition diminshes with bouts of illness or increasing age she is actually, just generally, seeing dead people....

 

[gattino]

Well the first thing to say is that its not by any means constant. It coincides with her frequent UTIs...the primary symptom of which in elderly women is confusion. As oftern as not she's simply treated with antibiotics and it fluctuates between and during such intermittent bounts. Confusion in the general sense can include other things like identity confusion (eg asking me about the whereabouts of myself, as if I were someone else) and mood changes (sudden anger at the carers or nurses). Very occassional there have been ...well..not hallucinations strictly speaking but fanciful visual interpretations. But by far and away the commonest symptom of mental problems when ill is either rambling or repetitive conversation. Nothing lasts for long. The point of all this is that obviously the thing of interest on a board like this is are these reports of visits from dead loved ones.

So the answer to your question is that it simply doesn't come to the attention of medical staff or they just nod sympatheticaly and assume its her "normal" state, which it isn't. As for the carers (that is the women care workers who come out to wash her etc at home) they take an interest in it when it happens or I describe it in the same way any lay person would.

So does what I've just written here suggest its just part and parcel of confusion/delirium/dementia? Against that idea is the striking and singular fact that she does not hallucinate visits by known but still living people.....nor is it wish fulfilment or the brain "seeking comfort" in reminiscing about hte dead as she makes absolutely no reference to them being dead. I did finally test it, in the case of my dad's mother, who I never met, by asking what I'd feared to ask in the case of my dad or nan, ie "Didn't she die years ago?" to test her reaction. She scrunched up her face a little at the odd question and simply said no..When asked how old she would be (real answer: over 115!) she considered it and said "not old", as though picturing her as she appeared in her room for that little chat...

One thing I've not done is ever raise the subject of the living status of these 3 dead loved ones when she's NOT ostensibly confused - which might be interesting..

 

[gattino]

PS forgive the constant typos.. I do notice them, I just type so fast and write so much!

 

[gattino]

BTW garrick92 - and leaving aside my mum's experiences - your earlier account, as told to you by a friend, is as textbook as it gets in terms of DBVs. I've read several books and websites on the phenomenon now and its most striking feature is its sheer consistency.

The key elements are these:

1) Sudden awareness/clarity/lucidity...rising from comas, unconsciousness or sleep even just before death.

2) Lucidity in the general sense, unencumbered by medication. Distinct from hallucination in the fact they are able to acknowledge and address the real people in the room as well as whoever it is they're seeing,

2) Looking up at one corner of the room.

3) the broad blissful smile, pointing at someone and talking to them as if they know them/and or actually point out aloud to people by the bedside who it is they're seeing. Outstretched hands.

4) occasionally unknown persons, usually religious or "angels", rather than dead loved ones. And occasionally actual scenes/landscapes/beautiful light (as in NDEs)

********
I've seen triumphant sceptics on message boards declaring as if in knowledge that its the dying brain etc etc. giving comfort. The several obvious drawbacks to that are that people often see dead relatives who they were not aware had died; its impossible to imagine how an end of life comfort program could possibly have ever evolved in the brain when by definition you can't reproduce and pass on your genes after you're dead!; and finally that not all such visions are so wonderful.....

A friend of mine reports his uncle claimed the Angel of Death was in the room just before he died, insisting the family all close their eyes for fear fear of seeing how terrifying it was.... not much comfort in that!

 

[Mythopoeika]

Can I first wonder aloud at the sudden reappearance of my avatar.. its been absent for years and now, on my screen at least, has popped up again unbidden. I wonder where he's been.

Your avatar has come back because Stu Neville re-enabled the avatars that were stored on the FTMB. I guess yours was still in the system.

 

[gattino]

Unpleasant or hellish NDEs, from what I've read, are very very rare (there is a 3rd category which are nihilist and utterly depressing, in which the person is somehow made aware of eternal nothingness and that their very existence was an illusion...which seems rather self contradictory if you think about it. Who's making them aware, and who is the "they" that is aware if they don't really exist?!) and, certainly in the case of the hell like ones seem to almost exclusively come from american christian fundamentalist sources.

You can interpret that fact a few ways...the most obvious (or perhaps just the most reassuring) is that they're spinning a propaganda yarn, followed by the idea that they're interpreting or shaping the same basic visions to match their preconceptions. (and in the case of scary DBVs it can certainly be imagined that they're not seeing something objectively or purposefully scary but that they're just rather startled by a paranormal event and scared by the implication they're about to die when they don't want to)

Having said all that, in the eternal struggle to remain objective I have noticed an "accepter's" (I'll use that word instead of "believer") double standard in these things. When a sceptic offers a theory or claim as to what's going on, a single case which their theory cannot cover is enough to completely refute their idea as having any value. But we...including I...tend not to consider single cases that don't fit the theory of blissful survival to have the same power to undermine what we think is going on.

For example if a sceptic says that DBVs or NDE's are a lack of oxygen, we can point to cases where that simply doesn't apply and say the theory is therefore disproved. If they say people are just having comforting memories of people they've lost, we can point to instances of them seeing people they had every reason to believe were still alive but were in fact dead after all, and so once again refute the sceptics theory as without any value. BUT, it struck me today, any individual case where say a DBV does see a person who is in fact not dead we explain away as confusion...we don't consider it to undermine the general picture. A hellish NDE isn't a proper one and doesn't count etc. Our reasoning may be perfectly sound but its hard to remember to stay objective when you prefer one version of events to be true....

Interestingly, fascinatingly in fact, on one discussion thread I saw a report from a girl who claimed to have DBVs in spite of in fact not dying. She was visited on her sickbed by (exclusively) dead loved ones, was reassured by them, had the feeling of bliss and joy etc...but pulled through. That's intriguing and may give insight into my mum's experiences. It may indeed be that its not so much a case that the dead "come for us" at a set time, so much as the mind weakens with illness etc..as the brain approaches the process which comes with death, even though its just through temporary illness and actual death may not in fact be the outcome, that the mind/consciousness/spirit's attachment to the mundane physical world starts to separate, can then see the "other world", but is capable of returning to normal if the illness abates....

 

[escargot]

The 'hell' NDEs interest me far more than the 'heaven' ones. The people who have them don't seem to be murderers so they don't seem to deserve damnation.

 

[gattino]

A cursory google on the subject just now appears to reveal how rare such things are. According to one site "negative" NDE's account for as little as 1% of those recorded. And in fact " In the four prospective studies conducted between 1984 and 2001 1, 2, 3, 4 involving a total of 130 NDErs, none reported distressing experiences. "

It also claims by far and away the most common form of negative NDE is simply people having the same experience as everyone else bu being scared by it. Endless void type experiences are next most popular among them with hellish scenes the rarest of all.

While there's no apparent link between good and bad actions in life and having these experiences there is, apparently, evidence of a correlation with the mental state of the individual at the time of "death"

"The way one dies may be a factor in the type of NDE one has. Rommer found that dNDErs who had self-induced their deaths made up 55% of people in her research who reported a Type II Eternal Void experience, 18% who reported a Type III Hellish experience, and most of those who reported a Type IV Negative Judgment experience. Although it may be tempting to conclude that people who attempt suicide are being punished for trying to induce their own deaths, we must avoid this temptation, as the following paragraph will explain.

People who are in a distressed frame of mind at the time of their near-death episode and those who were raised to expect distress during death may be more prone to distressing NDEs. People who attempt suicide are almost always in a distressed frame of mind. Usually they are attempting suicide because they feel themselves to be in unendurable and unending emotional or physical pain. In addition, they are almost certainly aware of the widely held belief that suicide is cowardly and/or the wrong way to escape the pain of life. Although they hope for relief from their pain, they may also consciously or unconsciously fear punishment. In a heightened state of pain, as well as of fear and/or guilt, they are highly distressed and, consequently, may be somewhat more prone to having a dNDE."

A second website claims that many "negative" NDEs only start that way and then become positive.

The following webpage offers one person's explanation of the differences...


http://www.near-death.com/differences.html

The overall interpretation seems to be that its all about some kind of spiritual experience/lesson, every bit as much as a positive one.

 

[escargot]

Oh yes, it's fascinating! I've even seen people talking about it on TV. One woman, who I think had shot herself, saw horrible demons cutting holes in her body and inserting worms or something. Terrifying.

I was told several stories of what happens when we die as a child, and the NDE experience comes closest to my late Spiritualist Gran's version: you close your eyes and when you open them, there is a beautiful light and all the people who've loved you and died before you are there to welcome you into it...

 

[Cochise]

The 'hell' NDEs interest me far more than the 'heaven' ones. The people who have them don't seem to be murderers so they don't seem to deserve damnation.

Ah, but of course it wouldn't be who you think would deserve damnation, would it? The bible said 'thou shalt not kill' - so maybe treading on an ant is enough? Thank goodness being a Protestant I can ask forgiveness for all my cock-ups - even the ones I haven't realised I've committed.

No but seriously - I am very interested in near death experiences and hallucinations and the like in the days leading up to death - there are a couple of interesting things like seeing small children running about that don't fit any of the popular expectations about the afterlife.

 

[Urvogel]

I agree that a lot of the time these NDE and visions are just hallucinations. My great great aunt is in her 90s and whenever she gets a UTI she gets extremely confused. Often it’s the first sign she’s unwell, so we alert the doctors she’s about to have another infection.

Although saying that...once we had an extremely close call when the nurse found her unresponsive. The doctor was summoned and found that her blood pressure had dramatically dropped and death was imminent. Could be anything from 2 minute to 2 hours. My mother and grandparents were called and they rushed in to her. When they arrived the medical staff left them be in my aunt’s room to have some privacy in her final moments. Everyone’s sitting there, quiet, then suddenly my aunt sat bolt upright in bed and cried “HE WON’T LET ME IN!!”

Unsurprisingly everyone promptly soiled themselves! The doctor was frantically called and a nurse, hearing the commotion, came in.

Nurse: Are you alright?!
Aunt: Ooo, I’d love a cup of tea dear.

When the doctor arrived my aunt was sitting up enjoying a cup of tea and chatting with everyone! He took her blood pressure and found it was completely normal. He was astonished, saying he’s never heard of someone coming back from such a low blood pressure. Literally she was minutes from death.

My aunt is Christian, so it’s easily enough to say it’s just a hallucination based on her beliefs, but still, I think it’s nice to consider that she went to Heaven’s door and they sent her back to Earth again.

Thing that gets me is her sitting bolt upright. She’s incredibly frail and can barely move by herself. She struggles to lift her arms, so sitting up so quickly should have been impossible for her!

 

[gellatly68]

A thought suddenly struck me, Gattino - does your mother suffer from macular degeneration? If she does, she may be subject to Charles Bonnet Syndrome, which would explain in part some of her visions/hallucinations.

 

[gattino]

Coincidentally - or perhaps that should be inevitably - enough I'd read about Charles Bonet syndrome just the other day and the thought crossed my mind as she'd had, as I alluded to earlier, a couple of instances of bizarre visual interpretations (which I'll elaborate on in a minute) and, now the idea was in my head about macular degeneration, it was also true that I've noticed a couple of times that when one visitor is one side of her hospital bed and a second on the other side, she appeared to never direct her gaze at whoever was on the left, almost as if she had no peripheral vision there......

HOWEVER the simple answer to your question is no..she's never been diagnosed with that condition and shows no other sign of it. Her "visions" as I've said are always past tense, are encounters with specific persons (always dead in the case of the known) rather than bizarre or random hallucinations, or indeed any hallucinations which are witnessed,. Nor are any of these things constant, consistent or increasing. She was fine today. Above all such confusions are ALWAYS when there is a UTI present, wich is the clear and simple explanation.


As for the "visual misnterpretations" I made brief mention of I will explain what I meant here. They've only happened in hospital as a rule. They don't - as would be the case with Charles Bonet I believe - involve spontaneous random images appearing from nowhere, but rather the confused mind's misreading of perfectly ordinary objects. Most simply a few times she's believed screws in the ceiling or scratches in the plasterwork of her room were a couple of flies. The more interesting and elaborate incidents have both been this week when an encroaching - and now confirmed - UTI was present. She pointed at black coats hung on coathangers directly in front of her and pointed out that black woman, look how black she is. Now this is confusion, not halluciination because if she had genuinely thought it was a person she would not be saying those words so loudly so close to her! The second - anther past tense one - was claiming that the taps on the sink had turned into Jesus and it had scared her. Surely full blown hallucination? Not really.. a close look at the rather oddly shaped, bulky tap unit showed it does indeed resemble a distorted silver crucifix, with christ's head bowed and arms outstretched. ....

These incidents are few, minor and new I hasten to add and have little part in the stuff mentioned in my initial posts.

 

[gattino]

A couple of little updates today. This is minor and not directly related to DBVs but is part of the larger subject of my no doubt morbid seeming fixation with spotting signs and portents of my mum's passing....even though they've never once come true!

As I've mentioned she's back in hospital and though she was meant to come home the other day, she was kept in when a UTI was confirmed, accompanied by growing confusion/agitation...and they're not yet sure she's on the right antibiotic to treat it. Such open ended hospitalisation and uncertainty inevitably leaves me prone to wondering and anticipating negatives....

Let me first go back in time 15 or 16 months when she first took ill and was at death's door with sepsis. This was the start of her confusion and her "visitors". The very first allusion to it all was when very ill, wide eyed in hospital and telling every visitor "I'm dying!" AS it turned out of course she wasn't and didn't. At the same time, in that state, she first talked of seeing my dad's face forming in front of her....and at one point threw up her hands and said "I'm not ready!" When asked not ready for what it - as it always does - dissolved into either nonsense or something trivial.
At the same time as this I was seeing signs and omens everywhere...portentous dreams about her suddenly not being in her bed and the light going out...references to death everywhere...a funeral cortege passing through our street as I returned from hospital...and a single large crow on our chimney pot cawing away, which I immediately looked up and found to be a supposed portent of death in the household....

And nothing happened! So much for signs and portents!

So what's new? I set off for afternoon visiting just before, and as I took a few steps down the street heard a familiar sound...the cawing of a crow. There are plenty of houses in my street but I slowly turned, anticipating what I indeed found...it was perched on our chimney pot crowing away. To rub it in when standing at the bus stop, a 5 or 10 minute walk away from here, it (assuming its the same one) came and landed nearby. (And to complete the shudder it swooped past me the second I stepped off the bus on the trip home)

I get to the hospital and head for her room only to be intercepted by a nurse who recognises me and wants to just take me into a side room for a moment....oh shit...we've all been here before....she's going to tell me.....er, that they were just busy changing her mattress. FFS!

I'm in with her and she is not dramatically confused, but more so, and agitated, than she's been while in hospital. She keeps wanting to gather her belongings onto her lap on the bed instead of leaving them on the table....angrily telling me to go, then asking where I'm going, that kind of thing. Several times she seems to think she too is meant to be going somewhere (read nothing into that, its not an unusual one) so I have to keep repeating she's in hospital and explaining about the water infection etc. Then she says it. A single angry snap: "I'm not dying!"

:-0

No one said you were!

You may think there's nothing odd about this, just an impatient and upset woman denouncing the idea she has to stay in hospital or be fussed over. But I need to explain that in these last 16 months, after that initial brush with the grim reaper, she has NEVER once made even the slightest allusion to the concept of death in relation to herself. She's shown no indication it ever crosses her mind, not even in relation to her age...which she seems equally to have little concept of. So for her to say these words really pulled me up with a jolt. What put the idea in her head that it was even an issue?

There are several ways ot interpreting it - beyond the banal (but what fun is the banal?) - Firstly that some part of her is indeed dwelling on it as a fearful possibility; Secondly that its some kind of full circle/mirror image of the events that started all this...she said she was when she wasn't and now saying she isn't perhaps indicates..... Or thirdly that it was a psychic/telepathic response to my endless morbid speculations and omen spotting!

Pardon that all this is trivial, I just thought given her age and its inevitability at some point, this thread can be the ideal place to log anything suggestive of forewarning in the days, weeks, months ahead.

 

[gattino]

One of the most intriguing and..to me..convincing paranormal phenomenon is the Death Bed Vision...largely involving the dying patient reporting visitations by deceased loved ones, sometimes ones they couldn't even have known were dead, but seemingly never reports of the living, thus largely ruling out mere hallucination or confused memory retrieval (else why so selective?).

When my own mum was at death's door she repeatedly spoke of both my dad and her mum having been in her hospital room usually silently sitting there etc, but never imagined anyone still alive doing so...which made me assume the inevitable, but it never actually happened. 5 years later she's still here and the dead aren't. Which cast some doubt on the neat and literal interpretation for DBVs. But I rationalized it away by speculating that perhaps the dead "draw near" when we're dying but just as automatically pull away again if the physical danger passes.

But tonight, on the reality TV series Long Lost Family, where adoptees and their birth relatives are reunited, there was an extraordinary story which throws yet another intriguing spanner in the works.

A 74 year old man called Ray had never met his birth mother since being given up as a baby. They found his still living 72 year old brother. The mother had died in 1975. The brother casually reports to the TV presenters that he knew his older sibling existed as his mum spoke of him on her death bed. She said a couple of days before passing that Ray had been in to see her and sat at the end of the bed. He asked who Ray was and she told him it was his older brother who'd been given up. She died 2 days later.

Now this fits all the criteria of a deathbed vision...except Ray was clearly not dead! Nor had he physically actually been in to visit her.. he didn't know anything about her. And she presumably hadn't envisioned a baby coming into the room to sit on the bed but a young adult as he would then have been (?)

It seems to me then that either this is a huge fly in the ointment for the DBV narrative..one can and does perceive visits from the living, suggesting they are mere hallucinations after all. OR, can we imagine that Ray, perhaps asleep in his bed, did indeed leave his body and go and visit his dying mother as a ghost might, returning to waking life with nothing but a quickly fading dream, now long forgotten?