As people approach the last days of their life, I am surprised by how many people have what are called Deathbed Visions (DBVs). I remember visiting a man who was dying in a hospital bed in his living room. He was still quite mentally alert and bright and yet he told me about how he was seeing his deceased mother and grandparents. These visions brought him much comfort and totally removed his fears of dying. A couple of days later he died. How do we make sense of such mysterious experiences? As a Christian, the Bible shares little about deathbed visions. The closest example I could find is the story of early church leader Stephen who, before or during his stoning death, saw “the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7: 55) and upon his death said “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7: 59). At a more general level, the author of Hebrews writes how we, as followers of Christ, are surrounded by a “cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1). In this Biblical context, this cloud of witnesses refers to the major people of faith highlighted in the Old Testament, but within our context, this term could also include our key ancestors of faith, like our parents or grandparents, who are no longer with us but we still treasure and love, and look to for inspiration and support. However, the general phenomenon of visions is one that appears often in the Bible, and their source is often attributed to God. In fact, both the Old and New Testaments talk about a time when God “will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young people shall see visions, and your old people shall dream dreams” (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17). As a result, I have come to see deathbed visions as important ways that God or the Creator of All helps people prepare for their dying. To help me understand these DBVs better, I have looked to two main researchers, David Kessler and Dr. Marilyn Mendoza. David Kessler, a well-known expert on grief and modern-day thanatologist, wrote the book, Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms, a book based on his study of DBVs. Dr. Marilyn Mendoza is clinical instructor in the psychiatry department at Tulane University Medical Center and a private practice psychologist specializing in bereavement. She is also the author of We Do Not Die Alone. In this blog, I plan to summarize some of their key learnings. In his book, Kessler notes that “those outside the hospice and end-of-life medical establishments have long minimized and discounted the experience of dying; and they often attribute deathbed visions to pain medication, fever, or lack of oxygen to the brain” (p. 2). And yet Kessler notes, that within the US Court of Law, deathbed confessions are assumed to be true, especially in deciding a murder case (p. 13). An interesting contrast to how the experiences of the dying are often held by others. While the narratives around dying people being visited by deceased relatives has been around a long time, it first appeared in scientific literature in 1924 in an article written by physics professor, William Barrett (p. 5). The story that appeared involved a mother who bled to death after Barrett’s wife, an obstetrician, delivered her healthy baby. Just before she died, his mother had a DBV where she saw and talked to her deceased father about whether to stay with her baby or go to her father in the Afterlife. Along with her deceased father, she also saw her aunt Vida, which puzzled her for she believed her aunt was still alive. At first, Barrett was skeptical about this DBV but when he learned that this mother’s Aunt Vida had died three weeks earlier, unknown to the mother, he realized that this vision could not be a hallucination (p. 6-7). There was no explanation for this mother’s puzzlement except that the DBV was real. In studying these DBVs, Kessler has noted that there are three kinds of deathbed experiences: visions of deceased people and religious figures, the dying person’s need to pack for a trip, and the dying person’s sense of being in a crowed rooms. Kessler focuses three chapters in his book on the visions that involve dying people seeing family members who are no longer alive or religious characters. In reading these stories, he shares many DBVs that feel very real, either due to the detail people experienced, or due to circumstances in the visions that could only be experienced if the visions were true. Some of these visions are shared by doctors and nurses who cared for dying persons. Others are from professional licensed counsellors who have walked with dying people as they prepare for their death. While most of these DBVs involve deceased loved ones appearing to those who are dying, many of these vision include angels, the angel of death, and other religious beings like Christ or Mary. Dying persons find much comfort from having these visions and their fears of dying often evaporate. Marilyn Mendoza has found similar calming affects when people have DBVs. Here is one such example: Mendoza has found from her own study of these experiences that 57 percent of the visions were of deceased relatives. The second most frequently appearing figures in DBVs are angels or religious icons, even with people who are not religious as this next story illustrates. (//www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/understanding-grief/201610/deathbed-visions-part-i) The fact that this non-religious man had a Christian DBV only reflects, I believe, how his mind has been shaped by the Western Christian culture he grew up in. I went looking for scientific studies of DBVs in other cultures and found an extensive 2016 study that occurred within Japan. This "nationwide questionnaire survey was conducted involving 3964 family members of cancer patients who died at hospitals, palliative care units, and home" in Japan. In reviewing over 2000 responses, the researchers found 21% of these responses reported DBVs, and of these visions, God or Buddha appeared in 9.7% of them (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27660082/). A second common deathbed experience is that of preparing for a trip. Kessler shares the story of Mark who was dying at home. When he became bedbound, his family would share memories and tell him what a wonderful father and husband he had been. As time went on, he slept more and more. Hours before he died, he opened his eyes and asked his wife, “Is everything ready?” Not knowing what to say, she responded, “Mark, we are all here.” “Are my bags packed?” “What bags, dear?” “The bags for my trip—it’s almost time” (p. 116). Kessler notes that this common deathbed experience can take many forms. For some, it is about “packing their bags”; for others, it is getting their tickets, while still for others, it is about “preparing themselves to go” (p. 117). For us who are witnessing, “these trips may seem to be all about leaving, but for the dying, they may be more about arriving” (p. 118). The final deathbed experience that Kessler notes is that many dying people find themselves in a crowded room. Here is one example from many that Kessler shares. While talking to an 80 year old man who was palliative, the man described this experience: . To help the man understand why there were so many people in his DBV, Kessler got the man to name all the people who had died during his lifetime: his wife, parents, in-laws, work colleague, a student who had died 20 years before in an accident, grandparents, etc. These were the ones he was aware of but what of all the students you taught during your 40 years of teaching and left a positive impression with? (p. 132-134) So far, all DBVs we have discussed have been positives one. What about negative ones? As Mendoza discovered in researching for her book, “We Do Not Die Alone” on DBVs, not all such visions are positive. Here is one such example she found. (http://www.eternea.org/PDF/AngolaPrisonStudy-MarilynAMendoza.pdf). Such distressing DBVs are rarely documented either because they are uncommon or because family members are reluctant to share experiences of their dying loved ones. “It is estimated that approximately 2% have distressing experiences”(http://www.eternea.org/PDF/AngolaPrison Study-MarilynAMendoza.pdf). To get a better sense of these distressing DBVs, Mendoza did a study of DBVs within the Angola Prison, one of 17 prisons that has a hospice program. “Angola is a maximum security prison that has been called the bloodiest prison in America. It houses 5000+ men whose crimes range from murder, rape, armed robbery to drug offenses. The majority of men who come to Angola die there. Prisoners, like many of us, not only have a fear of dying alone but have an even greater fear of dying in prison." She interviewed 29 hospice inmate volunteers, that is, “inmates <who> go through a rigorous screening and training process before they begin working with the dying.” From this study, she discovered that distressing DBVs among inmates was as rare as it is among the freed general population. The study revealed “that the dying saw mothers, grandmothers, sons, fathers and other family members. The dying spoke of people waiting for them and calling them to come home. They told the caretakers about waiting for a bus and walking through a gate. One even spoke of seeing family coming to get him in a Cadillac. The dying also spoke of angels, beautiful gardens, gates and the Light” (http://www.eternea.org/PDF/AngolaPrisonStudy-MarilynAMendoza.pdf). (Picture from Angola's Hospice in Louisania State Penitentiary, USA)
Knowing that DBVs are common, I find this knowledge helpful in my role as a spiritual care provider with those who are dying. Here are some questions for you to ponder that I have used to help dying person's ponder what they might see if they have a deathbed vision: 1. What is your response to deathbed visions? What is the basis of your skepticism or faith? What has caused you to question or embrace the sacred mysteries of life? How does the experiences of DBVs affect your fears around dying? 2. If you were to have a deathbed vision, what deceased loved ones do you hope to see? If you saw them, what would you say to them? 3. Who are the people that you have made a positive impact in their life? Who are the people who have already died, that you may see in a DVB or in the afterlife? Gord Alton MDiv RP CASC Supervisor-Educator
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