In the 2023 scientific paper here ("A Review of Clinical Signs and Symptoms of Imminent End-of-Life in Individuals With Advanced Illness"), we read this about End-of-Life Dreams and Visions (ELDVs):
"It is estimated that nearly 50-70% of
dying people experience ELDVs (Dam, 2016;
Mazzarino-Willett, 2010). While ELDVs often occur
when death is imminent within days or hours before
death, it is often non-specific and may also occur about
weeks or months before death (Depner et al., 2020; Kerr
et al., 2014; Levy et al., 2020; Nyblom et al., 2022;
Santos et al., 2017)."
The paper "The Importance of the Exceptional in Tackling Riddles of Consciousness and Unusual Episodes of Lucidity" by Michael Nahm reports the cases below:
"Some time ago, we cited a report about a woman who was completely
paralyzed after having suffered serious strokes, but who sat up in her bed, and, apparently
perceiving a near-death vision, stretched out her arms, smiled, called the name of her
deceased husband, laid back, and died (Nahm et al., 2012). Just lately, I was informed
about a very similar case: Here, a man had supposedly become entirely paralyzed due to
strokes. Even his facial expression was immobile. Yet, after he had stayed in this vegetative state for one month, he suddenly sat up in his bed, looked at his wife and two sons for
a few seconds in turn with an alert expression, smiled, laid back, and died. In another recently published case, a non-responsive patient whose brain stem had been destroyed
by cancer suddenly opened her eyes so widely that the white was showing completely
around her irises, tracked something moving in the room, looked at her two sisters who
stayed at her bed, and died (SCRI, 2022)."
On page 87 of the memoir Memorials of a Southern Planter, we have this account:
"James died on the 9th and Thomas on the 15tb of July...James died first, and Sophia, dreading the effect on Thomas, allowed no one to tell him that his playfellow was gone. In dying Thomas called out, 'Oh, I see Jimmy! Oh, gold all around! So beautiful!' "
On page 145 of the book Contact with the Other World by James H. Hyslop, we have this account of a deathbed vision:
"It seems their child was dying and a very short time before death told his mother that the teacher (public school teacher) was in the room. The child’s mind, so far as they could tell, was clear. The strange part is that a very short time before, perhaps an hour or so, the teacher had suddenly died. Her death was unlooked for and the child knew nothing of it, and so far as I can learn none of those with the child knew of teacher’s death."
On page 33 of a volume of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, we have an account of a woman who saw a vaporous form seem to emerge from her father-in-law's body when he died (following the link may require a Google login):
"He smiled , but said nothing, gave a sort of a sigh and puffed his breath out through his lips . The breath seemed to form a cloud , as breath does often in cold weather , and floated upward and away from him . She followed the cloud , which was of no definite shape , for a few seconds with her eyes , and then turned to look down again at Mr . Baldwin and noted a sort of settled look that had come over his face and body . She had seen few people pass out , but felt that he had done so , and she called to Mr. Baldwin, Jr ., her husband , to come in , for she thought their father had died , which proved to be the case."
In the year 2000 book One Last Hug Before I Go by Carla Wills-Brandon, we read on pages 12-13 the following account:
"The paramedics had arrived, but Dad and I knew they were too late. I sat there with my mother as she died and watched this gray wisp of vapor leave her body. As it disappeared, I knew Mother was gone."
Similarly on page 215 we hear an account by a nurse who claims to have seen "a white cloud sort of hanging over the woman's bed," a woman who was dying of a terminal illness.
On page 142 of the book we read an account of a woman who in 1995 got a call from her aunt, who described a dream. In the dream the aunt's sister (who died three months earlier) and another deceased sister asked the aunt to join them. The aunt said she did not want to. Three days after reporting this dream, the aunt died. On the next page we read a similar account, involving a man who died seven days after having a dream in which his deceased mother and sister ask him to come with them.
Similarly, on page 163 of the book, we read of an aunt who had a dream of a family gathering that included a son who had died in Vietnam. In the dream somebody asked the son why he was there, and the son said that he was there to take somebody back with him. Very soon later, the aunt's brother died.
Similarly on page 108 of Sir William Barrett's Deathbed Visions we read this account:
"He says that at about 3.30 p.m. he and his wife were standing one on each side of the bed and bending over their dying son, when just as his breathing ceased they both saw 'something rise as it were from his face like a delicate veil or mist, and slowly pass away.' He adds, 'We were deeply impressed and remarked, ‘How wonderful! Surely that must be the departure of his spirit.' "
One researcher photographed his dying wife, and got some mysterious blobs in his photos that he thought might have been caused by the departure of his wife's soul. You can see some of the photos here.
Below we have accounts from a 2007 newspaper account on deathbed visions, one describing some very interesting paranormal phenomena:
The full account can be read here.
The news account here describes a deathbed vision experienced by the famous television and movie star Jack Benny. A moving story of a dying boy's deathbed vision is told here.
The 2024 paper "Nurses' encounters with patients having end-of-life dreams and visions in an acute care setting – A cross-sectional survey study" reports this: "Fifty-seven nurses participated from a workforce of 169 (34% response rate),
of whom 35 (61%) reported they had encountered end-of-life dreams and visions." We read this:
"A meta-analysis of studies of estimates of patient reports indicated
that 77% (95% confidence intervals [CI] 69%–84%) of people dying
an ‘expected death’ may report an ELDV (Hession et al., 2022).
Across the world, studies provide consistent findings about ELDV."
The survey gives us these interesting results for the 55 of 57 participants who answered "Yes" to one or more of the survey questions (I will round down the percentages). The percentages seem to refer to anything that the respondents either witnessed themselves or things the respondents observed other people reporting.
- "Visions of dead relatives or religious figures ‘collecting’ or ‘taking away’ the dying person": 45%.
- "Visions of dead relatives sitting on or near the patient's bed providing emotional warmth and comfort": 56%.
- "Patients reporting a sense of going back and forth from a different reality during the dying process": 32%
- "Coincidences, usually reported by friends and family of the person who is dying who say that the dying person has visited them at
the time of death": 40%.
- "Dying dreams or visions through which the patient seems to be comforted and prepared for death": 38%
- "A comatose patient suddenly becomes alert enough to coherently say goodbye to loved ones at the bedside": 46%.
