Episode 122: “Death is But a Dream”

depending on the subject matter and your needs. Hi, I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been on a journey to prove the existence of life after death. On each episode will discuss the reasons we now know that our loved ones have survived physical death, and so we welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. If by sound a little sleepy, I'm going to tell you why I woke up this morning at five am from the most bizarre dream. Now, what happened in the dream isn't important.

It stems back from my catering days and working. But the dream was so real that I woke up and I thought, thank goodness, it was just a dream. If you're anything like me, we have a tendency to check email, social media, and my brain was awake, so I decided

to do a little research. I was thinking about dreams, which led me to thinking about stories I've heard about people who have dreams before they pass away, which led me about five ten am to a YouTube video with palliative care physician Christopher Kerr, who wrote the book Death Is But a Dream. In a little while, I'll play for you a clip of the interview because it offered something to me that I had never really thought of before. He mentions a term called post traumatic growth. I've never

heard that before. And some of these dreams before death people having an inventory of life, feeling like they are intensely living, seeing, most often deceased loved ones that are there to help them across the veil, and their fear of death goes away. Even though I have been investigating the afterlife for twenty five years and I fully know the reality of it, there is something in my humanity that's not ready to go, nor do I want to die, and it's natural, I think, to have fear of the

dying process. It was early, like I said, five am, but I feel so comforted in what I have discovered. It's a new layer to things that I have discussed before. But realizing that before death, we do a lot of sleeping, we do a lot of natural life inventory. We dream about people and our past, and most often find it very hard to separate what's a dream and what's the reality. Elizabeth Coobler Ross, you may be familiar with that name.

A lot of people think that she created the five stages of grief, and you might have heard these Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. If you've ever grieved, you know there's more than five stages, and they don't happen in any particular order. Those five stages are from Elizabeth Coogler Ross, but they were written and developed as the five stages of dying. So let's go through them again. Denial, No, not me, it can't be true. Then there's anger, that feeling of

why me. There's bargaining, which one attempts to postpone their death, thinking if I'm good and I do this and this, can I live longer? And then there is a state of depression, especially when people are reacting to an illness, and then perhaps unfinished business. But then there's the state

of acceptance, the final rest before the long journey. And with listening to Dr Christopher Kerr, I realized that this acceptance can be because of the work that is done, this life inventory and the dreams and getting to a place of accepting one's life as it was with an air of excitement because loved ones are there to greet us.

So in this episode, I want to share with you some of those words I heard in the YouTube video from Dr Christopher Kerr, and I was inspired to download his book on Kindle Death Is But a Dream and share with you some of these magnificent stories that talk about this life inventory, this growth that we have looking back on our lives, and how for most people, given some time that you know you're dying, how the fear of death goes away. Let me tell you first about

Christopher Kerr, and this is from his book. Christopher ker m d, pH d is the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Executive Officer for Hospice and Palliative Care Buffalo, New York. Alongside direct patient care. Doctor Kerr's focus is in the areas of leadership and patient advocacy. He has overseen the integration and expansion of palliative care into hospitals and developed a large home based program for both adults and children, and has published on innovative program models that are designed

to better align patient and family services. Doctor Kerr's background in research has evolved from bench science towards the human experience of illness as witness from the bedside. Specifically, patients dreams visions at the end of their life. Although medically ignored, these near universal experiences often provide comfort and meaning, as well as insight into life led and the death anticipated.

To date, the research team at Hospice and Palliative Care Buffalo has published multiple studies on this topic and documented over fifteen hundred end of life events, many of which are videotaped. Doctor Kerr's work was published in a recent book called Death Is But a Dream, Finding hope and meaning at Life's end. Christopher Kerr is a hospice doctor. All of his patients die, yet he has cared for thousands of patients who, in the face of death, speak

of love and grace. Beyond the physical realities of dying are unseen processes that are remarkably life affirming. These include dreams that are unlike any other dream described as more real than real. These end of life experiences resurrect past relation ships, meaningful events, and themes of love and forgiveness. They restore life's meaning and mark the transition from distress

to comfort and acceptance. Drawing on interviews with over four d patients and more than a decade of quantified data, Dr Kurrent reveals that pre death dreams and visions are extraordinary occurrences that humanize the dying process. He shares how his patients stories point to death as not solely about the end of life, but as the final chapter of

humanity's transcendence. Beautifully written with astonishing real life characters and stories, this book, at its heart is a celebration of our power to reclaim the dying process as a meaningful one. Death is but a dream is an important contribution to our own understanding of medicines and humanity's great history. I'm always fascinated with these deathbed vision stories, but I never quite realized the transformation that can come to a life

at the end of life. We hear of life reviews, don't we after we pass away and someone is called to the light, and very often near death experiencers describe reviewing their life in great detail, often from the perspective of the people they impacted, not in a place of judging, but in a place of understanding your behaviors and your actions. I always think it's good as we live our life to follow our moral compass, have integrity, be a person of our word, make amends when need be, because we are,

after all, just human. We make mistake weeks. But if we live life knowing that someday we will have this life review, why not clean things up before we pass? In listening to doctor Kerr's video this morning and also doing some reading from his book with the suggestion that many people review their life on their deathbed, that may mean that they don't have a life review once they transition. Who knows. But think of the power when we can live our life right now, being fully in the moment,

being responsible for the life as we've had it. And if we can do that to not only not have this life review when we pass, but also to have that life review before we pass, looking back on our life as one of appreciation and growth, as opposed to oh I should have done this differently or done that differently. Would it make more room for the loved ones to arrive and the happier memories and the greater dreams. So

I want to investigate this in this episode. When we come back from the break, I'm going to play that clip from what I heard from Dr Kerr. I think you're really going to enjoy that, and then we're going to share some experiences that people had before they passed. If you're interested in this, I want to recommend to you just a few places you can find out more. First of all, Dr Christopher ker dot com, so it's d R Christopher k e r r dot com if

you are friendly. On YouTube, you can see a lot of the videos of the recordings of him actually speaking to patients about their dreams. And on YouTube, just do a search for hospice and Palliative Care Buffalo. There's tons of interviews of Dr Christopher Kerr you can look up and read about. Also see his TED talk And I've read that PBS has filmed a show about him and his work. I haven't been able to find it, so

maybe that is coming soon. Also on this show, I have talked about deathbed visions before, so if it's been a while, scroll back through some of the earlier episodes, so let's take our break and then we'll be back with the words of Dr Kerr about how the end of life transforms our life. Pretty great stuff. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast a M Paranormal podcast network. Keep it here on the I Heart Radio and Coast to

Coast AM Paranormal podcast Network. Sandra Champlain will be right back. I'm George Nor. Thank you for listening to the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast a UM paranormal podcast network. You're listening to the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast a M Paranormal podcast network with the best shows that explore the paranormal, supernatural, and the unexplained. You can enjoy all shows on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Welcome back to

Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sander Schamplain. What I'd like to do now is play that YouTube clip that I watched so early this morning. It is Dr Christopher Kerr talking about the dreams, the healing, and the acceptance that can happen at the end of one's life. Dying is a singularly unique vantage point that inherently changes your perspective um and your perceptions when you look beyond the veil of the obvious, which is again this physical stability of

and symptology. And started asking people what they were experienced, as you find out there's another thing happening. And what I learned from my nonposician colleagues was that it was very common for people at the end of their life to have very intense dream vision experiences. UM dying is essentially progressive sleep, so you're in and out of sleep states.

UM kind of got a foot in two worlds, and people who even don't normally dream, we're reporting these very good experience instance, and what impressed me was how profoundly comforting they were, and they gave such meaning and kind of what happened was I was trying to teach this to medcal residents and students, and the response I got was, well, there's no real evidence for us, and they kind of put it in a bucket of confusion and whatever, and

it would really frustrating me because it clearly had me into the patient of their loved ones. So originally I did the research just to give it validity. So with this a university modern research project, we had to rule out confusion, um make sure people were cognitively intact aware all those things that had to signed consents, and we started interviewing them and uh, knowing that scene is believing,

we also started filming them. You know, shoot ahead twenty years and you know, we published on seven eight papers on it, a book, PBS documentary, and we're part of a Netflix document series. And what's fascinating is there was very little response in the medical world, but the non

medical world has gone around and around the world. This wasn't true a hundred years ago, but the more medicines being able to do the scientific revolution essentially from antibiotics to imaging to interventions, has self amused the physician to really become death defying and death denying. The oath in medicine is to cure where possible, but to comfort always, and I think we've clung to the one and not the other. And it's how we educate and how we train.

And then you add to it that we become spot welders. So you get sick and you can see a buffet of six doctors, so everyone's there. It's very organ system based, but even our economics of healthcare organ system base. So you do things two parts and lose sight of the whole. So it's not uncommon for us to have patients who by multiple by every measure constitutionally are dying. I'll give you an example, person with cancer hasn't eaten in three weeks.

They're dying. They do the imaging, and the imaging might show disease progression, but it's really the burden of the disease over the time and frailty to come into play. So though it's not uncommon to see physicians prognosticating off of a scan that doesn't consider looking at an organ, but doesn't consider the body that the organs in for the patient's wishes. So we lost our ability to look

at the totality, not only the person. What's happening happened to them in the fullest sense, but what what considerations. Some people are just tired. That's a lot of energy to be uh to fight illness, and you're eight. You can't get up anymore. You know, it's easier not to do than to do. So if we treat numbers and treat pictures and treat parts, you can miss the forest

for the trees. So we've done this with now hundred patients and families, and in our first study we did interviews of them daily, surveys of them daily until death, so this is several weeks and months before that and not the last moments when people are clearly often confused um or deauctionated. And what they will tell you is, yeah, I don't normally dream um. This was different. We asked them to scale the realism of it is usually ten

out of ten they're virtual, like they've been lived. They come out with a sense that they were it happened, and of course they're thematically. The content is at random, you know, overwhelmingly it's about people who they've loved and lost. So we looked at this as people. What changes occurred as people who got closer to death, and what happened is they stopped dreaming of everyday events and started experiencing people who were most important to them and time didn't

seem to matter. So they could have lost a parent eight decades ago, but they were tangible to them very little. As said, they don't need a lot of interpretation. They're not looking for metaphor. They're just given an understanding, and the predominant themes are themes of love. The people who condition their love are often removed, so it could be

one parent present, not another um. Whatever injury you had, um that could be lost, a child that comes back to We've had a many veterans who had survivor's guilt that gets addressed. We've all been harmed and when we were the other for having lived, and we seem to get put back together through these experiences, and so the life you lead gets kind of validated. Adversely, the fear

of death seems to lessen. And when we asked them to measure comfort from these experiences, whether they're company and discompany, the actual comfort level goes up, so as that as I approached death, So there's an increase in frequency, intensity and the comfort given. About six people have a non comfort experience. But it's really interesting is those are often the most transformational or meaningful. I'll give you an example.

We had a guy who was in his forties who has spent most of his life in and out of in prison, more in prison than out. He had drug addictions and he had had a neck cancer, and he was dreaming and we caught this on film by accident. Really we're just interviewing from another topic and he's Joe came was very jovial. He's one of these guys who couldn't afford to live with wi grat or look backwards. And then he starts crying because he's having these horrible dreams.

He's being stabbed by all the people he's hurt out the sight of his cancer and he breaks down. But then when he comes out of it, he asked to see a daughter that he wanted to express his love towards and apologize, and after that he slept. So these

dreams don't deny life. Um. We had a mother who's worthless, questioned as because two of her kids were in prison for tread related offenses, and in her end of life, she's back in her home in Puerto Rico and her parents come to her and tell her what a good mother and what a good person she was. So again they're not denying that bad things and painful things transpire, but they addressed them and suthed them in a way

that's very interested. Um. I talked about the most powerful one in my ted talk to where a guy he had been involved in the invasion of Normandy, and his whole life had been he had been suffered with PTSD. He never got help, and he kept it all to himself. His wife knew because he'd scream in the night, and so he came into our unit at the end of his life because he was having such her off experiences where he's seen body parts and bloody water and screams,

and he couldn't rest. He can't die really unless you can sleep. It's pretty hard to do because you're to passive sleep. So he couldn't sleep. And then one day, going to see him, he's he slept and I said, it's a dream about he was in our study. He goes, well, I had a great dream, he said, where I relived the best day of my life, which was the day he got his discharged papers. And he said, and I

had a really good dream, he said. I was on a beach, presumably Normandy, and a soldier who he didn't know came up to him and said, now we're going to come and get you. So that sense of that he abandoned people had kind of gone full circle. And he slept peacefully after that, and he died peacefully. This whole notion, first of all, that their year passive to the process where there's nothing to be learned from a

negative experience. This isn't true. So we took dying and there's actually an inventory to measure, something called post traumatic growth. So the idea, for example, you go into war and we all the negatives are obvious, but is there positive elements to it? And that's what we found in dying. So people who are who are dying, who are having these experiences, when compared to people who weren't, we're adapting, we're learning, we're gaining insight, and it was measurable right

up until the very end. So yeah, there's this other side to it. Basically, because you're dying doesn't mean you've stopped living, and you do intense living in that latter period. It kind of makes sense, and you go, you knew you were dying. Your worries and focus and concerns are on affairs and other people and your own mortality. But if you actually get close to it, you're looking back on the life you've left and you're extracting from it.

The things that come to surface are actually overwhelmingly positive, a firm life. Rather than deny it, they don't deny death. That's what's really interesting, nobody. They don't come out of these experiences so you're you're not dying. You're you're dying, but you're doing so with a better sense of meaning. We didn't measure fear per se. What comes out in abundance is they're not fighting the dying of the light stuff. They're actually trying to get towards, not away from so um.

There's a great lady in the video who had lost her daughter and her husband, and you know, days before death, she's just sitting around the kitchen table. Nobody's talking, but she feels them and it gave her a sense of warmth that was beyond description, and you know that's what she wanted to return to. They just are left with a sense of knowing, a sense of love, of being put back together, of reacquainted with their loved one, what

have you. They've gone through a period of accepting their mortality, the finality of their life. If I was hearing this on the outside, you think we must be the most depressed people in the world. Were the best depressing, it's actually the opposite. You'd find the place oddly uplifted, full of humor. There's undeniable sadness, particularly in unfinished lives. You know, a young parent leaving choice, and we care for three

kids a day. But you know, we're also enormously privileged to witness participate in the care of patients along with their loved ones. And what we see on the caregiving side is the best of our nature. We see people finding courage to care for their loved one in ways they couldn't imagine. It's heroic. We think of caregiving in terms of burden, but we actually see is remarkable. It's not easy, and what we here and see it's the

best hardest thing they've ever done. I can totally relate to the best and hardest thing I've ever done when my thought their past. So let's go to the break and we'll be back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast, a m paranormal podcast network. Don't go anywhere. There's more Shades of the Afterlife coming right up. Hey, it's the Wizard of Weird Joshua Pee Warren. Don't forget to check

out my show Strange Things. Each week as I bring you the world of the truly amazing and bizarre right here on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast, a m paranormal podcast network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra shall Plane. I found the Buffalo Spree magazine had an article about Christopher Kerr's life written by Sally Cunningham, and I just want to read a little bit about it. She's talking to him about his book,

but there's some really good nuggets of information here. So talking about Dr Kerr, he was born in Canada, but came to Buffalo, New York as a cardiologist, first moonlighting for Hospice Buffalo to pay some bills. He recalls himself an inexperienced but confident young resident approaching the charge nurse to recommend fluids and meds for a forty year old end stage AIDS patient to buy him some more time. The charge nurse, Nancy knew better. She said, too late,

he's dying. He's been dreaming about his dead mother. Chuckling inwardly. The young doctor thought that sounded crazy and replied, I don't remember that class from medical school. Nancy put him in his place, son, you must have missed a lot of classes. The writer says that story illustrates a broad gap in the ways we approach dying in the United States, both medically and socially, as described in Doctor at All

Gwandhi's bestseller Being Mortal. The medical profession has excelled at managing diseases, repairing body parts, and extending life, but doctors often withdraw when there's nothing more we can do. The tendency is to duck or disdain choices that supports spiritual needs and the quality of lives that are ending. Doctor Kerr phrases it, in many ways, we have lost our way in dealing with dying. It is easier now to

live longer than to die well. After learning from Nurse Nancy and other dedicated people, he committed his life's work to palliative care. There are three common things that dominate dreams, Curse said about his research. First, traveling, preparing to go somewhere. One third of his interviewees reported travel as a recurring theme, whether or not the person had traveled much in life. Destinations were usually undefined. The patients took trains, planes, taxis, buses,

and cars. Others started walking, even attempting to leave their beds. Many reported that deceased loved ones arrived to pack up suitcases, saying things like we'll come back for you soon. Next is seeing departed loved ones. As death neared, Reporters found that dreams of the deceased began to win over dreams of the living. Some dreams recalled people who had been

nearly forgotten. Long repressed memories re emerged. Stillborn babies came back to their mother's arms, relatives visited who had died decades ago, and long lost pets cuddled in their hospital beds. Children especially found solace in joyful reunion with deceased pets. Widowed men and women were often reunited, as in the story of Joan and Alfred. Just after their fifty seventh anniversary. Alfred died, and soon Joan was seeing him in her room and calling out, Alfred, come get me. She went

to join him within two months. In a similar story, eighty nine year old Beverly danced again in dreams of her ballroom dancing husband, every detail clear, even the colors of her dresses. The dream Researchers reported that most of the patient's dreams produced emotional healing or resolution, even when relationships had been destructive. Or hateful feeling forgiveness towards oppressors or seeking forgiveness from victims is typical to be seen

in the future public television special. One Unforgettable patient named Dwayne had lived on the street, hurt many people, and been incarcerated. Toward the end. He wept, saying he'd been a sick and terrible person and acknowledged that the bad things all caught up with me. But something remarkable happened. He became a good father, giving peace and comfort to his daughter who had suffered greatly. After bad lives are good ones, people seemed to find near death dreams as

great equalizers. Next is remembering trauma, war abuse, horror dreams towards the end of life maybe nightmares, especially for those who suffered trauma in war or in a terrible personal circumstance. John, a World War Two veteran who had survived Omaha Beach, had never spoken of the trauma until his last weeks, when he vividly relived the horrors in a true state of terror. Over many nights, he saw and spoke of floating limbs in the water, a bloody beach strewn with bodies,

and nothing but death. Dead soldiers all around me undesirable As that experience sounds something that would normally cause one to take mind numbing drugs, it actually resulted in a great transformation. John finally had dreams of reward, which was his friends coming to take him safely. He found peace.

In kurs book Death Is But a Dream, page fifty nine, the author summarizes John's story exemplifies the process through which even the most difficult dreams can provide substantial psychological or spiritual benefits to the dying patient. Why are these dreams not just brain cells malfunctioning the equivalent of drug induced to loosen nations or clues to bodily breakdown. The hospice and palliative care team has answered this question consistently. First,

these dreams are reported as absolutely real. Even when interviewers ask the dreamers to report the level of reality on a scale of one to ten, the tens were the norm. They had no doubt. Second, the experience of the hospice patient's dreams is qualitatively different from hallucinations. In delirium, people are often agitated and terrorized, so different from the clear

dreams reported here. And then here are some questions the interviewer gave doctor Kerr after reading Death Is But a Dream and seeing the Ted talk and video, I visited doctor Kerr on his farm where he relaxes with his dogs and horses. She asked him where does religion come from? How many patients are concerned about heaven and Hell or God? He said, really not the case. Hospice has a wonderful chaplain and nondenominational, non judgmental approach to all spiritual beliefs.

But beyond institutional religion, remember that all religions are first spiritual, and the basic tenets of religion are love and forgiveness. So even cross culturally we may be saying the same thing. At the end of life. Most people's concerns go back to everyday life, family, love, pets. Death is a full circle inclosing the whole human experience. We die as we lived.

Next question, why do you think the medical community often, perhaps typically, disengages in the end of life spiritual processes? He answers, medical training doesn't include these topics mostly, and the systems we've set up, the huge body of medicine that doctors must absorb the time available. It all contributes to a brushing aside an avoidance of the spiritual aspect of dying. Next question, what do you want to tell family members and partners about hearing of their loved ones

dreams and concerns. He answers, listen, be present, don't invalidate, don't correct, don't say they're hallucinating, except that spiritual and emotional changes are at least as important as physical decline, and don't interpret. The time for therapy is past and may feel awkward to talk or hear about death, but just be there for them. What do you think about people dying at home versus in an institution or hospital? The answer, some people require a medical facility. Isolation is

the worst suffering for dying people. That can happen at home too, so there may be times that an institution is more supportive. It's an individual situation, so family should talk about it. Next question, what about telling a dying person and he says the truth about the time left and pending death. People want to know and have the right to know. Families often want to spare the dying

person the truth as if it's comforting. Usually the patient knows anyways, But we see the worst deaths in people who didn't know it was coming, even rage a feeling of abandonment and betrayal. I have observed children, especially coming to terms matter of factly about their mortality and then moving on to enjoy the time that they have left. Tell people the truth. Death is but a dream. Is a book and topic for the living. It is neither depressing nor sad to read or view the stories and

interviews with hospice patients. Humans often live as if death is out there, somewhere far away, and many in our culture treat the subject as taboo. But these patients and their dreams suggest otherwise. None of us will avoid the death of loved ones, and we are all going to

pass through that stage ourselves. Let us embrace the end of life experience in all of its richness, unforgettably, a ninety year old patient named Patricia in the videos and books says, dying is the most interesting thing I've ever done. She had a rich and varied life, but her pre death experience was equally as exciting. She lamented that now nobody wants to talk about it. Fortunately Dr Christopher Kerr

and his team did and we can all benefit. Wow, those are some good words from the dying for the living. I have to be honest with you. When I first started this episode, I thought I was going to tell you lots of stories of deathbed visions. But after reading what I have to you and hearing the audio clip from Dr Christopher Kerr, I realize that what was said in this episode is so important. I've been on this journey over twenty five years, like I've said, and I've

never heard about these dreams. I heard them as though loved ones come to visit, but not the transformation that can happen at the end of our life and the joy that can come and the closure two things. And like this last lady said, it's the most exciting time of her life. You may ask what happens to people that die suddenly, that didn't have time to prepare for death. I know that they get greeted with loving arms and

they are taken care of. Truly they are. I've got a little piece of good news for you coming up in the next segment, So let's take our break. We'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Don't go anywhere. There's more Shades of the Afterlife coming right up. Thanks for listening. Keep it here on the I Heart Radio on Coast to Coast,

a M paranormal podcast network. You're listening to the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast, a M paranormal podcast network. Heard on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite shows. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sander Champlain and we are talking about the wonderful Dr Christopher ker his book Death Is But a Dream. And I told you I have some good news. Yes I do well. First I mentioned that you can go to YouTube. You can find his ted talk.

You can also search on YouTube Buffalo Palliative Care and see many videos. You can look up Christopher Kerr on YouTube, see lots of interviews. You can pick up a copy of his book, Death Is But a Dream. But here's the good news. I found out that there was a eighty minute PBS television special that was being created on the work of Christopher Kerr. And from this morning when I started recording this episode until now, I have finally

found where we can watch it. Go to Death Is But a Dream dot com Death Is But a Dream dot com. You can purchase for currently a copy of the video and watch it yourself, filled with stories and meeting some of the patients and hearing their testimonials. So I'm very excited about that. On this last segment together, yes, I will be telling you some stories and reading from the book. But I want to give you another hint.

Any time you are on YouTube and you watch something about deathbed visions or any other afterlife topic like near death experiences, look in the comments. There are tons of people who tell their stories of what happened when their loved one past and the people that were there to greet them. I know there's not too much time that we have left here together on this show today, so what I read to you is just a sample from

Death Is But a Dream by Christopher Kerr. Frank's advanced age and frailty disguised the remarkable agility of his mind. He had been admitted with severe congestive heart failure, but at he was still completely aware of his surroundings and loved a good conversation. He had collected encyclopedic bits of baseball lore the way others do treasured objects, and he could talk the game like no one else. He could recount of the sports development from the very beginning of

the professional leagues. He reminisced about players, teams, seasons, and incidents in the game's history. He remembered the first televised major baseball game in nineteen thirty nine, and could name the baseball legends as well as the not so famous. He boasted the accuracy of the stats he had developed for seasons that players had not yet played. His passion for the sport had clearly sustained him since childhood, and

he still derived intense satisfaction from it. Yet, despite his recall and engagement, when Frank closed his eyes to rest, his room became crowded with dead relatives that only he could see. This was a reoccurring phenomena, and one I knew better than to mistake for the manifestation of a broken mind. I remember the day I was summoned to Frank's bedside because he was demanding medication to help him rest. That morning, he had greeted his nurse Pam with a

roaring where is my damned doctor? Frank was so agitated that before I entered his room, Pam cautioned me that he was particularly cranky that day. Frank had been a steel worker and was most comfortable bending things to his will, me included. I went in to ask how he was doing, and he shot up in bed, exclaiming, I can't sleep. Look, Doc, it's been great to see my uncle Harry, but I wish he'd shut up. Turns out Uncle Harry has been

dead for forty six years. During the final stages of dying, the pull to sleep is typically strong, deep, and soothing. The sporadic wakefulness that at times interrupts it looks increasingly like slumber. Sometimes this trend takes an unexpected turn. The slow drift comes to a halt as the sleep awake state is flooded with intense and lifelike dreams and visions. The exhausted patient is not always ready for this turn and may react to it in a surprising way. Frank

certainly did. Three days before his passing, he was slipping in and out of consciousness when he suddenly cried out in wonder, I am in nineteen twenty seven? I am a boy? How did they do that? His dreams and visions were so true to life that he was compelled to inquire about the behind the scenes workings of the magic trick that was creating this illusion of time travel. He did not doubt that what he had seen had taken place. Instead, he assumed that trickery must have been

involved to make this possible. His body was shutting down, but his mind had not yet lost its foothold. In consciousness, he knew where and who he was, but continued to identify what he was experiencing as an alternate reality. In truth, he had a foot in two worlds, only one of which we shared. Over time, Frank's inner world experiences returned him to what he treasured most in life, his wife's love. The more he dreamt of her, the more he felt

her presence, and the more peaceful he became. He finally requested that we discontinued treatment. His decision to decline care was medically appropriate, As is so often the case, patients recognize medical futility before their physician does, and in a sense, release the doctor from an obligation that can no longer be honored. Frank wanted to join Ruthie in heaven. We helped him reach comfort for this much awaited reunion, and he died with the integrity He had lived and created.

When ninety one year old Anne was admitted to our impatient facility with congestive heart failure, she was having such clear visions of her long deceased sister that, upon waking one day, she looked around and asked where is Emily. Emily had been dead sixteen years, but to Anne, her

presence and appearances were as real as her doctor's. Anne was subsequently admitted to our impatient unit and acute respiratory distress, where she woke up, stared up at the ceiling, and acted as if she was seeing things that were not there. At one point, she sat up in bed and stretched her arms out to the ceiling as if to embrace someone. She asked her family, am I going to die now?

When her condition improved, she awoke, looking around and asked again for her dead sister, explaining that Emily had been there all along, sitting next to her on her bed. Anne also we ported having frequent dreams of a more youthful Emily going about doing the usual things around the house. She described her sister's appearance in detail, the strong jutting chin, the dark blonde hair pulled up in a high, loose bun, the sagging pea green cotton jersey dress whose sleeves were

rolled carelessly at the elbows. Sometimes Emily put her hand over her mouth and laughed before moving on to the next task at hand. Few words were uttered, but the dreams were heartwarming and invigorating, and Anne often envisioned herself as much younger and going for walks with her sister. She had been one of five siblings, but she was closest to Emily, who had raised her. I am not

going alone, Emily will be with me, she insisted. Most of our patients pre death dreams and visions staged meaningful reunions with the ceased loved ones. Doris, however, seemed to be experiencing freedom from those bonds. She had dreams of flying through the air above crowds and buildings, unimpeded and free from fear. This was one of the most exhilarating feelings she had ever experienced. It made her feel so empowered that had conjured up images of superhero like power.

I am flying. I can just push my feet and take off, so I said to everyone around me. All you have to do is have faith the size of a mustard seed, and you can go too, but I was the only person in the world who could fly around on top of mountains anywhere, looking down at all these people in those buildings. Doris dreamt of being waitless among undifferentiated crowds, and she found this state so joyful

she didn't want to wake up from that one. The dream concluded with her witnessing a winged angel flying through a church's stained glass window, to the amazement of the crowd of onlookers. The story with Doris continues quite a while. She was a woman who had a very tough childhood, never experienced love, and it's quite sad the life that she led, never having freedom. You'll be happy to know that not only did she experience freedom of flying, but

the love that she never felt while on earth. She had the dreams and had a beautiful, beautiful experience of love before she passed. So many great stories. I'm excited to keep reading the book myself Death Is But a Dream and also go to Death Is But a Dream dot com and watch that film. I hope you've enjoyed this episode as much as I have. As always, come visit me on one of our Sunday gatherings or something else we do online. Go to We Don't Die dot com.

If you are experiencing grief, go to the store page, scroll down, find that We Don't Die, a skeptics Discovery of Life after Death audio book, and be my guest and use coupon code of free. The information about the afterlife is great, but I think we all need to know how to navigate through grief. And speaking of navigation, I couldn't be happier to learn about the dying process. It's something to be excited for. Hard to believe I'm saying that, but I truly am Death is but a dream.

Our loved ones will be there greeting us. Sounds like we can have some extraordinary vision of what's to come and who will be with us. We've got a life to live here first, but we won't be afraid. I'm Sander Samplain. Thank you for listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast d a M paranormal podcast network. And if you like this episode of Shades of the Afterlife, wait until you

hear the next one. Thank you for listening to the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast d a a M paranormal podcast network