Yesterday I began rereading Dr. Melvin Morse’s book, “Closer to the Light,” about the near death experience in children. Dr. Morse researched the phenomenon in Seattle around 1990 and came up with a number of interesting cases. Two different children told him that in the next world they could “double jump.”
One of the chapters deals with “pre-death visions,” the visions the dying have before they enter the near-death state. Dr. Morse gives several accounts of dying people seeing dead relatives who come to comfort them or escort them to the next world. One dying boy told him that he had visited a crystal castle where he met several of his fellow patients who had died before him. The dying have reported seeing angels, God, and other people who enter their bedrooms to talk to them.
I know of only one person who has had pre-death visions, and that was my own father. In the weeks before he died, my father told my brother and sister-in-law (with whom he lived) that he kept seeing “people, out of the corners of my eyes.” Once, when they were watching television together, my father asked my sister-in-law: “Do you see them? Do you see those people standing by the fireplace?” Another time he told her, “I’m seeing those people out of the corners of my eyes again.”
My brother and sister-in-law took my father to the doctor for an EEG (a brain scan). Nothing unusual was found.
My father died within weeks after these visions. I have always wondered if they were delusions or actual visitors from the next world, waiting to escort him over the threshhold. I’m probably a credulous fool, but I tend to believe it was the latter.
5 responses so far ↓
olywood // October 12, 2007 at 4:54 pm |
Look into the research of ian stevenson, highly regarded dr. who spent decades researching nde’s and past lives. Compelling stuff.
bro // October 12, 2007 at 7:17 pm |
There are all kinds of spirits. Some good , some bad. The trick is telling them apart.
Shannon // January 24, 2008 at 7:21 pm |
Yes, Grandpa did comment about people standing next to the fireplace, on the hearth, in the weeks prior to his death.
He asked, “Can’t you see them?” to others and was frustrated when they could not.
Shannon // January 24, 2008 at 7:22 pm |
Of course, I meant he saw people in that they were angels, or perhaps relatives, his ancestors, who had died and were waiting for him to cross over, too.
Joe Bible // February 8, 2009 at 9:13 pm |
Interesting debate….spirit world or neuron’s firing just the right way.