Vision of deceased aunt: Kerr excerpt #17

Dr. Christopher Kerr writes of dying patients having dreams or visions of renewing friendships with deceased friends and relatives:

No words can adequately describe the relief on the face of a parent who watches their dying child go from fear of the unknown to acceptance. For Michelle, it was her daughter Ginny’s last dream that made her realize that, while the end was near, it would be a peaceful one. Indeed, it was following her pre-death dream about God that Ginny stopped calling out to Michele every five minutes and started sleeping soundly. It was also in its wake that Michele herself felt inexplicably calm and settled, so much so that she finally found the strength to inquire about funeral arrangements that would honor her daughter’s legacy.

Ginny told me about the shadows she’d sometimes see flitting around her when she woke up at night. They used to frighten her, but after one particular dream
experience, she started finding them comforting. The shift occurred during an MRI when Ginny fell asleep inside the pulsing machine and had a vision of her beloved Aunt Mimi, who had recently died. Like Jessica, Ginny did not have or need a complex vocabulary for dying, so she imagined a new reality based on the language and imagery she had at hand. In her dream, she saw her aunt in a castle “with a baby in the window, and you can see the sun through it.” Ginny described her castle as ‘a safe place’ for Aunt Mimi as well as for Grandma Rose, who had also died not long ago. Ginny could feel Mimi hugging her and whispering in her ear, ‘You’ve got to go back down there and fight.’ When she woke up after the MRI, she was almost euphoric and proclaimed to her mother: “I’m going to be okay, I’m not alone.”

Both Ginny and Jess were met with loved ones who provided them with what their actual world could not – the opportunity to be made whole again. They knew that they would be leaving the reality of the living but only insofar as the living fail to recognize the connectivity that imposes itself as real through ELDVs. In their alternative world, the one that encompasses both the living and the dead, the knowledge of impending death is seamlessly integrated within the certainty of love, and continued life.

Children may lack language for death or a full understanding of mortality, yet they innately have deep inner processes at life’s end that not only inform and guide them but enlighten and expand their sense of existence, both present and beyond. All this suggests that consciousness is not only inherent but vibrant regardless of age and years of physical existence prior to physical death. The cases illustrate that the consciousness of children is rich in sense, perception, resonance, memory and emotion; like that of adults, it can accommodate the departed and give them voice and countenance, sometimes in ways we don’t expect, all the while ensuring that the dying child is still living vibrantly even as her body fails. 

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.