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And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Norrieback with doctor Christopher Kerr. His website is linked up at Coast to coastam dot com. Chris, of the people who are at the dying stage, what generally is taking them down? What affliction do they have? Is it cancer?
Yeah? It was pretty representative across the board. Cancer is certainly a number, but a lot of heart and lung disease as well, and more and more we're seeing people live longer with multiple comer abidities. But yes, cancer is highly represented.
Have you ever seen a patient pull out of it completely where everybody thought that including them, that they were going to die and they still kept going.
Yeah, I've seen a few in my life. I think that oftentimes there was a misdiagnosis, but there are certainly kind of unexplainable changes in the trajectory of certain people's illness.
Yeah, Explain how they find love and insight with this pre death situation that comes to them in dreams and visions? How does that come as what it's it?
I think a couple of things are important. One is there. They describe these experiences as virtual or lived. They're they're not merely memories. So so it has this lived feeling to it. And with that because of the themes they're they're they're reconnecting with people they loved, a parent, a child that they they they feel a sense of being restored, of feeling lost love that kind of returns to them, of being put back together, and and that's that's really the meaning of it.
Is there anything religious about this at all? With them?
You know, this is something we wrestled with, but others have reported the same thing. We don't see a lot of reference to the symbols of religion, but certainly with the tenets of the faith. So if the tenants of faith, our love, and forgiveness, those are those are the overarching themes.
The family members, the people who of course are related to the person who's dying, how do they react with all of this.
So we've done two studies involving about seven hundred and fifty breed family members, and the best way to say it is that what's good for the patient is also good for their loved one. I how people leave us matters whether we see death as something just as a physical lessening or suffering, or whether we see something else
that's not as empty and as limiting. I think that you know, if you have two partners and someone's dying in the bed and they lost a child decades earlier, in the person in the beds referencing that child, that very much changes how death is viewed. Rather than something that's empty, it's it's it's it's full of something with meaning.
And that's what our surveys showed. In fact, we looked at an instrument that measures how people grieve in healthy versus unhealthy ways, and people who witness these experiences absolutely remembered differently, moved on differently, were able to recall differently. So it's it's a very healthy thing.
Chris, have you videotaped many of the patients?
Yeah, we have. It was as mentioned, it was meant for doctors, and we knew everyone would have this preconceived bias about what a dying patient looked like, right, that they would be feeble minded, confused, So we were very deliberative in filming patients. And it's kind of funny because it was meant for physicians and lectures and it ended up as part of a Netflix documentaries and a PBS documentary.
Do most of the people who are at the dying stage think that there's life after death?
It's a great question, and we were really careful not to delve into the interpretation of this. So we were just wanted to take their words and experiences and transcribe it, because you could go to a number of directions, right you go towards religion, after life, paranormal, et cetera. I think what's most important is they didn't get a sense of finality. They don't talk in those terms. They don't talk in terms of fear. I guess the best way
to say it is there's something within the dying. It's actually life affirming, So it doesn't deny the dyings occurring, but rather instead it affirms the life that was led.
Knowing what you know what generally would be more acceptable to be knowing you're dying and you'd have a few weeks to prepare, you know, through these insights, or to somebody who just dies suddenly and they're gone. Oh.
I prefer would prefer the former for a few reasons. I think it's a completely different injury to leave people abruptly. Yeah, I think that there's important living to do. In the dying process. I think we see some of the best of our human nature. I see, we see people who may not have hope for cure, but their hope transitions to other people. There's gestures of love, there's selflessness, selflessness. So I think that it's meant to be that way, and that's so profound. Living goes and we see this
in caregiving. You know, people are going along with their lives and all of a sudden they stop and the adult child is now caring for their parents who needs them. So we see, we see incredible acts of kindness, of compassion, and you know what our caregivers will say is it's kind of the best hardest thing they ever did. So I think depriving people of all of that, of of of of saying what needs to be said, of sharing the very special moments together, of remembrance, I think that's
really important. So yeah, no, I think, I think. I think it's much harder to die suddenly it leaves a different wound.
What have you learned by this process that you didn't know prior to.
I think I you know, I trained in a very traditional medical model, and I saw dying as almost medical failure, as a problem to solve, and I looked at it in terms of organ function rather than what it really is, a very human event and a closing of a life. I certainly didn't start with a bias towards trying to understand or appreciate the spiritual aspects of living and dying. And I think, you know, you can't come out of this without being very moved by all that. I think
there's a better story. I think that I'm just so impressed with how people do this and what they're capable of. So I learned a lot.
Do any of those that are ready to die talk about being visited by other we had relatives or family members to kind of comfort them.
Yeah, that's the majority of the reports. We get far and away, So we ask people on a menu list, you know, pick what it is you're seeing and far and away. And that was actually the most predictive variable of impending death. So not only do the frequencies of these pre death dreams and visions increases people get close to death, but most importantly, they focus on specifically on people who they've loved and lost, and when we ask them to measure comfort, as in terms of what they
were seeing. Seeing the deceased gave them the greatest comfort, and they're just some fascinating features. And this comes out in our videos. You know, very little is said between the dreamer and the person in the dream, but everything seems to be understood or implied, you know. So we see ninety five year old men who've lost their mother
when they were five. You know, it's it's it's her presence that they feel, Smell the perfume, the cooking in the kitchen, so all this remembrance is again this idea being put back together. So seeing the deseases overwhelmingly comfortable, comforting, highly predictive of impending death.
What can you conclude by that, the fact that they see their loved ones who are passed on.
I think it's a great question. I think where I end up is this. I think I'm impressed that time and distance seem to kind of vanish, and that those who we've loved, who have been so formative to us are never really gone. They're still accessible, they're still proximate to us, and and and the depth of that feeling doesn't vanish. It does when we're well, And it's a distant memory, but not towards the end. It seems to come back to people in a very profound way.
Does the age chris of the person who's dying have anything to do with how they react?
Very much. There's absolutely a difference between people whose lives are kind of unfinished. So somebody who has young children when others are dependent on you, I think that that's a different burden as to oppose to somebody who's their ninth decade, who's tired, who many of the people who they've loved have died, whose quality of life is diminished. There's a different level of ease and grace. So yeah, very different.
Do you see a difference between people with various ailments dementia versus cancer or anything like that.
It's really interesting people who are kind of neuro different, such as dementia, they'll often do this in very interesting ways. You know. We have a fascinating video of a daughter whose mother was very advanced to mention a dementia unit actually, and towards the end of her life her husband had predeceased her, and towards the end of her life, every time she closed her eyes, she would relive the love that she shared with her husband in a way that
he was experienced. So the daughter would go see her demented mother and she'd just be full of life and love and laughter. And she had a foot more in that world with her deceased husband. And towards the end, we lived near Niagara Falls, the wedding capital, and so towards the end, the woman, the mother with dementia, is caught trying to leave the building. This is days before death, because she was trying to get to her husband because it was her wedding day. So again the most meaningful
parts of living had come to her. And what's fascinating is where you would expect escalating kind of psychological distress from, you know, worsening physical conditions, she's dying. Instead, she's feeling reclaimed love. And of course the effect is had on the daughter was immense, because what this tends to do is connect us to one another, daughter to mother, to deceased father, so that lives, whether they're living or dead, are remain interwoven because they kind of returned to them.
What did you learn about this that you did not know before?
Oh? I again, I thought as a physician, I thought of dying in terms of in physical dimensions, without really any appreciation that the patient. The view from the bed was different. I was looking at a body, and yes I was concerned whether there was pain or nausea, But I didn't have an appreciation that the person who's dying had a view and a perspective and an experience and an inner experience that really I would have no appreciation of. And what was fascinating I think what got me truly
interested in this. I was almost off put by it at the beginning. I don't I'm not naturally bent towards this stuff. But what was so undeniable was that it was clearly so therapeutic for people, and so who was I to discount it or get stuck on where does it come from? You know, where's the source of this? I think what ultimately matters is not that I understand it, but that it matters to our patients.
How many die without pain?
Christopher, Oh, vast majority of our patients die without pain. Pain is probably the if you were told, for example, you had a terminal illness. I think one of the intuitively, instinctly, one of our mind immediately goes to fear, for fear of suffering. But nature takes care of a lot of us, so there's not many pains that we don't get the upper hand on, and a lot of the pains take
care of themselves. You know, people who have pain getting around are now bed bound, etc. I think what we see more of is confusional states delirium than we do physical pain that we can't manage.
If you were to do your studies over, is there anything you would alter or would you keep the same?
Yeah? No, I would, and I think we're doing that now. I think we would ask better questions, deeper questions, so you know, what do these experience? How do these experience inform you? What does this change, for example, about what you think about dying or what goes beyond death. So you tried to get a better understanding of how the
patient makes sense of this. We did a really interesting study where we looked at there's a scale of measurement for post traumatic growth, So the idea that you can be in a negative experience like war but still have there's positive experience and growth in it, for example, friendships that from the camaraderie being in war, And we looked at that with dying patients who are having these experience,
and it was fascinating. They did show growth, So even though they're diminishing and fading from us, they're growing and adapting, gaining insights largely from these experiences. So I think that's fascinating. So I think the meaningfulness having the patient to find that for us becomes very important. And that's across the board. So what does this mean, for example, for your religious convictions, your thoughts on continued consciousness, those sort of things.
Were you shocked by any of the results.
Yeah, almost all of them. I was. I continue to be blown away by how the people can recall with such vividness earlier experiences that might otherwise be lost.
I get it.
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