Terminally ill patients sometimes speak, or claim to have spoken, to people who have already died. Or they see, or have seen, places not presently accessible or visible to you. Yes, they may hear the voice of a deceased relative…sense their presence or appear to see an apparition…feel their touch and sometimes even smell their fragrance.

Is this a drug reaction? Is it a hallucination? A delusion? Does it stem from a desire to believe in an afterlife at a stressful time? Is it the product of a faulty memory?

Or is it the beginning of a detachment from this life…and a preparation for the transition…so it will not be frightening.

No matter what you believe the cause to be, do not contradict, explain away, belittle or argue about what the person claims to have seen or heard or smelled. Just because you cannot see or hear it or smell it does not mean it is not real to your loved one. Affirm their experience, for they are normal and common. And if they frighten your loved one, explain that they are normal occurrences.

It seems deathbed phenomena come in three forms:

1) The dying can receive visits from dead loved ones or they may have visions of lights and other worlds.

2) They may experience strange coincidences such as receiving a visit from a relative they did not know had died.

3) Their loved ones and family may experience inexplicable events such as clocks stopping or strange lights appearing around the patient. Others have seen a translucent shape leave the body at the time of death, or felt tingling sensations as if the person’s spirit had passed right through them.

Yes, even I have been a witness to this phenomena—when I was sitting with a dying man late at night, he seemed to become energized and sat up in bed and was intently talking with an aunt (who had passed away years before) sitting in a chair in the corner of his room…except I couldn’t see her. He said the light she brought was beautiful. He passed away the next day.

In another Blog I’ll share a story of a deathbed encounter a doctor experienced.

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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