Back and forth: near-death and the other side

In Surviving Death Leslie Kean writes: “In the days before death some patients say they move in and out of an alternative reality, which they describe as an area full of love, light, and compassion. This alternative reality appears just as real to patients as being in the hospice. In our retrospective survey new realities were reported by 55 percent of the Dutch and 30 to 32 percent of the English caregivers, but in the prospective study they were found by 48 percent of caregivers in each group. In one Swiss study over 50 percent of the caregivers experienced this. Here are three reports:

 

“Sometimes people seem to oscillate between the two worlds for a bit, sometimes for hours. They seem at some points to be in this world and at others they’re not. I think for many people death is not just going through a doorway. You’ve sort of got a foot on the step and you stick your head in and you have a look . . . I’ve had people open their eyes and say, Oh, I’m still here then.

"In the last two to three days before she died, she was conscious of a dark roof over her head and a bright light. She moved into a waiting place where beings were talking to her, her grandfather among them. They were there to help her. Everything would be okay; it was not a dream. She moved in and out of this area. (Patient’s mother)

“Suddenly she looked up at the window and seemed to stare intently up at it. This lasted only minutes but it seemed ages. She suddenly turned to me and said, Please, Pauline, don’t ever be afraid of dying. I have seen the most beautiful light and I was going toward it. I wanted to go into that light. It was so peaceful. I really had to fight to come back.  Next day when it was time for me to go home, I said, Bye, Mum. See you tomorrow. She looked straight at me and said, I am not worried about tomorrow and you mustn’t be. Promise me. Sadly, she died the next morning . . . I knew she’d seen something that day which gave her comfort and peace when she only had hours to live. (Patient’s daughter)”

Leslie Kean, Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife (Three Rivers Press, 2017).