She was having another bad episode with her heart, and said that she saw her mother in a pretty white dress and that her mother had one just like it for her [the patient]. She was very happy and smiling, told me to let her get up and go over there—her mother was ready to take her on a trip.
“The vision lasted for half an hour. It left the girl serene and peaceful until her death, four hours later. The unusual part of this case is that the girl never knew her mother, who had died when giving birth to her. She certainly did not have a chance to grow emotionally close to her mother, as most of us do. Yet, when that last hour came, her mother ‘was there.’”
“What were the patients’ reaction to the ostensible visitors from the ‘great beyond’? Did they want to go with them? We found that three out of four (72 percent) wished to accompany the apparition, while only one-fourth (28 percent) would not go if they could possibly help it.
Although the majority in both countries were ready to go, we found great individual and national differences with regard to the distribution of refusals. While only one American patient did not wish to go when called, one out of every three (34 percent) Indians who experienced the take-away hallucination refused to consent.
Although some mood changes are mild, they nevertheless bring the patients out of their gloom. A thirty-six-year-old man suffering from internal bleeding suddenly looked up, put his hands up, and smiled.
He saw his deceased mother and sister, was surprised but pleased to see them. I was surprised to learn that his sister and mother were dead. He was so natural with them that I thought they were alive at home. ‘Hello, it’s good to see you . . . ‘ he would say. Afterwards he was perfectly clear with full memory of his relatives’ visit. He became more relaxed and content after the hallucination.
An Indian woman in her eighties, however, who was dying from cancer of the throat, resisted her hallucination.
She saw people coming to take her away. She wanted to fight them—to stay, to live. She cried out: ‘People are coming and they want to take me. I don’t want to go. Please hold my hand.’ She did not let her daughter-in-law leave her by holding her hand tightly, not allowing her to get us.
“In Indian cases, the patient’s negative emotions usually were directly related to the nature of the apparition. The following is an account of a high-school-educated New Delhi salesman who seemed to be recovering from an operation. His consciousness was clear when he said to the physician:
‘My [dead] grandfather is just near my bed. He has come to take me with him. I don’t want to go! Please don’t leave me alone!’ Although the patient’s physical condition was serious, his consciousness was quite clear; he was able to respond to questions in a concise, coherent manner. However, the apparition left him scared, with unpleasant emotions. He died within an hour.
“A woman in her sixtieth year who was suffering from a very painful cancer that had spread throughout her entire body” reacted very differently when “she ‘saw’ her dead husband taking charge and preparing her for the transition.”
Her husband was giving her instructions—no one was to interrupt—it was so vivid to her. She was like in a semi-sleep, as if talking to herself, having a conversation, e.g., ‘wait for me.’ She told me to be quiet. Before she was depressed about conditions getting worse. After the hallucination, she was elated, seemed to have risen above pain, no more moaning.’
At the Hour of Death (Hastings House, 1997) written by Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson reports on a four-year study involving fifty thousand terminally ill patients observed just before death by one thousand doctors and nurses in the United States and India.
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