Consciousness awakened in dying patient: Kerr excerpt #8

Dr. Christopher Kerr writes of dying patients having dreams of renewing friendships with deceased friends and relatives: Ryan, a fifty-one-year-old Protestant with metastatic colorectal cancer, initially worried “am I losing my mind? I haven’t seen some of these people in years.” But when his dreams and visions ceased in correlation with clinical improvement, he sighed: “I am back... I miss the other stuff.”

Ryan had never married, and never moved out of the neighborhood in which he had been raised. By any measure, he had experienced limited success in his career but found tremendous joy in life’s simple pleasures and dependable affections. He had a loyal group of friends, most of whom he knew from childhood. He loved the 1970’s, the music and culture that had shaped his youth, and he had shown no inclination to move beyond that decade. His point of reference had remained safely anchored in a past of rock and roll--a virtual time capsule.

Now dying, he dreamed of deceased friends with whom he was going to concerts; he revisited the weekly garage sales through which they had casually roamed, mostly looking for old record albums; they went fishing in the local river. At other times, he “traveled with relatives”, although he never knew where they were going. In these moments, he felt alive, unburdened by the limitations of his illness. The physical complications that came with dying had been an affront to Ryan because they had compromised his socially active lifestyle. It took re-experiencing freedom in his end-of-life dreams for him to reach acceptance. Now, despite his physical decline, he again felt the warmth of familiarity and cheerful living that had defined his social life, one rich with friends, music, and small adventures.

This was Ryan’s consciousness awakened, his awareness and perceptions heightened through the connectivity he was re-experiencing. Now his acuity was sharpened and centered on what had defined his existence in health, his relationships. This was no memory or nostalgia for times gone by, but rather a satisfying, lived experience he could not wait to rejoin, again and again. 

Christopher Kerr, “Experiences of the Dying: Evidence of Survival of Human Consciousness,” an essay written for the 2021 Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies in response to the question: “What is the best evidence for survival of consciousness after bodily death?” Dr. Kerr, MD, PhD, is the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Executive Officer for Hospice & Palliative Care Buffalo. The full text with notes is available at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php.