Deathbed phenomena describe unusual or strange experiences reported by people who are near the end of their lives. These experiences appear in both real-life stories and books, showing that many cultures have noticed them for a long time. However, scientific research on these events is more recent. In scientific studies, these experiences are called death-related sensory experiences (DRSE). Patients who are dying have told hospice workers that they have seen peaceful or comforting sights.
Modern scientists believe these experiences and visions are hallucinations.
Deathbed visions
Deathbed visions have been described since ancient times, but the first organized research was not done until the 20th century. These visions are also called veridical hallucinations, visions of the dying, and predeath visions. William Barrett, a doctor and author of Death-Bed Visions (1926), collected stories from people who said they saw deceased friends or relatives, heard music, or experienced other deathbed events. Barrett was a Christian spiritualist and believed the visions showed proof of communication with spirits.
Between 1959 and 1973, parapsychologists Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson studied thousands of people in the United States and India. They found that about 50% of those studied had seen deathbed visions. Osis, Haraldsson, and other parapsychologists, such as Raymond Moody, believed these reports supported the idea of an afterlife.
Neurologist Terence Hines wrote that people who support the afterlife idea often ignore how different the reports are. Hines also criticized how the reports were collected:
The way reports are gathered creates a major problem for those who want to use them as proof of an afterlife. Osis and Haraldsson’s (1977) study relied on responses from 10,000 questionnaires sent to doctors and nurses in the United States and India. Only 6.4% were returned. Since doctors and nurses, not the patients themselves, shared the reports, the information was secondhand. This means the reports passed through two unreliable memory systems—the doctor’s or nurse’s and the patient’s—before reaching Osis and Haraldsson. In other cases, like Raymond Moody’s (1977) study, patients shared their stories months or years after the event. These delayed accounts are not strong enough to prove an afterlife.
Skeptical researcher Joe Nickell wrote that deathbed visions (DBVs) depend on stories that are not reliable. Nickell found contradictions and errors in DBVs reported by paranormal author Carla Wills-Brandon.
Studies in hospice and palliative care fields have examined how deathbed phenomena affect dying patients, their families, and care staff. In 2009, 111 staff members at an Irish hospice program were asked if they had heard about deathbed visions. Most said they had been told by patients or families about such experiences. Staff reported that these visions often comforted patients and their loved ones. Another study found that deathbed visions are often linked to peaceful deaths but are often not reported by patients or families because of fear of being judged or not believed by medical staff.
Because of this descriptive data, a growing movement in palliative care now focuses on showing "compassionate understanding and respect" from end-of-life care providers when dealing with deathbed visions.
Scientific evaluation
According to Ronald K. Siegel, a well-known American psychopharmacologist and researcher, deathbed visions and drug-induced hallucinations share many similarities. Hallucinations caused by drugs often include sights of otherworldly beings or the images of deceased friends and family. Some scientists who study deathbed experiences have described the sights, sounds, and feelings of the presence of deceased relatives or angelic figures during the dying process as hallucinations. These hallucinations are thought to happen because of several reasons, such as cerebral hypoxia (when the brain lacks oxygen), confusion, delirium, failures in body systems (like the kidneys, liver, or lungs), and mental responses to stress.
When the body is injured or the heart stops, even briefly, the brain is cut off from oxygen. A short period without oxygen can harm brain cells. It is believed that this damage to brain cells may be the cause of deathbed visions.