PHorum: Perspectives in Healthcare with Visiting Nurse & Hospice Care

People who are close to death often report dreams or visions of deceased loved ones at their death beds, usually “invisible” to others in the room. End of life dreams & visions tend to consist of seeing deceased relatives and pets. Often times these visions have themes of travel or preparing to travel somewhere with a loved one.

Such experiences have been reported across history and across cultures. End of life experiences are intrinsic to the process of dying. Dismissed by the medical community as hallucinations, nobody had ever asked patients directly or attempted to quantify their experiences … Until now.

Dr. Christopher Kerr, Chief Medical Officer at Buffalo, New York’s Center for Hospice and Palliative Care has conducted research of terminally ill patients, nearly all of whom reported having dreams or visions. This was the first time this phenomenon was being discussed openly in the medical community.