Near-Death Visits

While unconscious, some people perceive the presence of close friends or relatives who have died (Lawrence, 1997). These apparitions are generally understood by the patients to be there to comfort them or take them to the afterlife. Patients' reactions to these experiences vary between comfort and fear. Often patients feel it is not their time and tell the visions to go away. Although difficult to comprehend, to the patient these are very real experiences. The moments do not resemble the dream state at all but seem to occur in complete consciousness anchored in the hospital setting.

Here’s Gretchen’s story.

I was on the stretcher in the hospital. My son, Bill, (who had died a few years before), was walking beside the stretcher holding my hand. He told me not to worry, that everything was going to be all right. He was with me, and I kept saying, ‘What are you going to do about Christmas and the children,” He said, “When you are feeling a little stronger we will talk about. You tell me what else you want done and I will do it.’ Just regular conversation…. Bill always said he would be there when I needed him. Evidently that was one of the times he thought I needed him (Lawrence, 1997)”.

Trudy’s story

“I was in this hospital bed. I don’t think I ever saw my mother. I felt like she was calling me…..I said, ‘Ma, please don’t take me now. Let me enjoy my grandchildren. You enjoyed your grandchildren. My mother lived to be 98 years old…..She always felt like she needed me. I felt scared. I thought she was going to take me (Lawrence, 1997).”

This experience is not unlike phenomena called death-bed visions, first reported in the late 19th century (Barrett, 1925. Often terminally ill patients have reported seeing friends and relatives who had preceded them in death. The dying patient believes that these people are still exist but living in another realm, and they are there to take them with them. For the terminally ill patient this is often a great comfort and greatly reduces the anxiety associated with dying (Hession et al., 2022; Grant et al., 2022; Nyblom et al., 2021; Lawrence & Repede, 2013).

Near-death visions are different from death-bed visions in that the subject is not dying and often reports telling the family members to "go away" which they do. As is the case with deathbed communications, patients should not be assumed to have a mental illness. They need to be assessed properly.