NEW YORK BOSTON |#Popular: Irish Celebrity Gossip Irish in US Politics Irish Festivals Irish Roots Irish Entertainment Offbeat Irish

Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > A glimpse at the afterlife? What dying patients see and feel ---New Irish study gives fascinating insights into the last moments

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

A glimpse at the afterlife? What dying patients see and feel ---New Irish study gives fascinating insights into the last moments

Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 07:05 PM

Larger Text

E-mail

56 Comments

RSS

56 comments

Next Previous Page 2 of 4 pages

McNamara31 | Mar 25, 2011, 08:08 PM EDT

I just returned from a wake for a wonderful spirited 96 year old who was in great shape and sharp as can be till the end. At the wake I overheard his son telling relatives his dad had been seeing and talking to ghosts for the last few days while in the hospital. The son mentioned he thought it was end of life hallucinations, however now I really wonder.....I would love to believe he was met with the kindness of angels to assist him on his journey home.

Report abuse

abeliever | Mar 25, 2011, 08:04 PM EDT

My Dad died at the age of 93.His brain was working perfectly but he had become very stiff and unable to move or turn in his bed once his caregiver had put him to bed.My Mom found him in the morning sitting up with his right hand up.He had died peacefully but appeared to be sleeping. My Mom said that she had visited him before she went to bed and that he was lying down. The mystery is how did he get into the sitting position and appeared to be greeting someone. There was no sense of fear in his expression. He was never a complainer but that night on his way to bed with his walker he said "Mammy I am going to die tonight" and he was a man of his word, May he rest in peace.

Report abuse

modemo44 | Mar 25, 2011, 06:51 PM EDT

I almost drown when I was 14. Everything went to black and then a white light, reminding me of Jesus, starting coming toward me. I have never felt so wonderful and peaceful in my life. When the lifeguard's voice awakened me, I was furious. It had been so wonderful that I was sad to leave it. BTW, I was saved because my aunt who wasn't in view of the pond where I was swimming had a premonition and raced to the pond. Had she not had the premonition I would have drowned. So I guess I am supposed to be here.

Report abuse

Deidra47 | Mar 25, 2011, 02:28 PM EDT

I know reserachers have tried to say that these things that are seen by those impending death are due to the break down in the systems in the body that happen with death. I disagree as I put a lot of stock into Dr. Moody's work with children who have life threatening illnesses that have experienced NDE's. These children essentially say the same things about what they did experience. These are children who have yet become tainted from life and religions. And lots of people aren't heavily sedated as they wait for death and when they are it is to help them cross over and in that statee, they are unlikely to be able to tell anybody anything. Deidra47 - R.N. retired

Report abuse

Liamkeyes | Mar 25, 2011, 11:05 AM EDT

It can be very difficult to accept all these experiences. Lots of people are heavily sedated when they are dying so that can have an effect on the individual's thinking and mindset. Of course there are lots of stories that can't be explained.

Report abuse

irishathens | Mar 25, 2011, 07:56 AM EDT

Since the age of 11 I have known there is something. My baby sister aged 2 was in a coma on machines in hospital (she had bronichal pnuemonia). She suddenly sat up opened her eyes, smiled at something I could not see at the bottom of her bed and raised her arms and died. Around about that time my sister saw a lady sitting on my bed and told my Mother. That evening we were all told that if in our dreams someone wanted us to go with them we were to refuse. Years later I questioned Mom and she said she knew about such things because when she was young she had seen lots of people around a dying Aunts bed when nobody else could. She then saw her aunt going with them.

Report abuse

Towngate | Mar 25, 2011, 07:49 AM EDT

"JACOB'S LADDER" - A wonderful film; deals with this subject brilliantly. But please don't watch it if you are in a 'flaky emotional state' Niall,a Chara! ~ Nice set of Comments on this piece. ~ Thanks.

Report abuse

curranart | Mar 25, 2011, 06:31 AM EDT

Nail I think its about time you updated this web site so that people can get emails from it,when people respond to other peoples remarks, a bit like LinkedIn.com.

Report abuse

haikued2 | Mar 25, 2011, 03:56 AM EDT

Why do people have to talk about them? This same phenom has been seen/recorded many times over the years. Believe what you might, but out of body experiences are fairly common...those who don't believe in them and don't want to believe in them say it is bunk or psychosis or whatever, but humans seem to have a spiritual side most often called a soul and in the multiverse theory there may be room for that "other" worldliness being experienced.

Report abuse

semperfidelis | Mar 24, 2011, 09:43 PM EDT

Interesting article, Niall

Report abuse

jacersagain | Mar 24, 2011, 08:55 PM EDT

(...more) We two, before our children arrived, had spent a week’s driving holiday together in beautiful Scotland and, on returning, were aboard a ferry ship as it tried to berth in Nth Ireland’s Larne Port, during a raging sea storm. The sea swells were so bad that the ferry was forced to sail up and down outside the port for about 2 hrs in sight of the berthing dock until it was safe to do dock. Although it was stormy, it was clear and sunny and my late wife and I spent some time enjoying the sun’s warmth at the ship’s rails, mildly amused at the situation. It was just after 2pm as we looked down at the berthing dock, when she suddenly turned to me and said in total surprise “There’s Daddy!” I saw a shocked look on her face because her father was working hundreds of miles away in Ireland’s Cork City. That he should be in Larne to meet us was something of a surprise: no such arrangement had been made between us at all. I looked but could not see her father and said so. She said “But he’s there! Look! He’s waving to us!” and she waved back with a stunned but delighted smile on her face, yet I couldn’t see her dad. We docked eventually, debarked, she still amazedly hopeful and expectant to see her Dad – but no Daddy in sight. We drove on to Dublin - my wife still not convinced but quietly stunned at not seeing her father at Larne - to my own sister’s house as arranged previously. About 8pm, my sister’s house phone rang (no mobile phones back then). It was my wife’s sister, looking for her (the sister knew we were due off the ferry at my own sister’s home as arranged) with news that their Daddy had died suddenly at his work desk, just after 2pm that very day.

Report abuse

jacersagain | Mar 24, 2011, 08:48 PM EDT

(...more) He told me that he saw a wide dark tunnel with a very bright light at the narrow end of it and our deceased Mammy standing clearly colourful in the narrow bright light, smiling (as me bro said) "the same lovely smile, y'know the one, all delighted and welcome arms that she’d give us as we came all came home from school?". In his own words he went on to say (Dublin accent) “Then I was floating just below the ceiling in the (IC) room... Lookin’ down acha’, I could see ya sitting beside de bed, leaning over an’ shoutin’ inta me ear, me with tubes in me nose and lots of tubes with needles stuck in the arms... An' I heard ya shouting an’ I looked back to the tunnel, waved to Mammy... bur' I don’t remember anymore after that. But I can still see Mammy at the end of the tunnel”, he said. That’s my brother’s story. >>> To this day, I don’t know which he would have preferred... he had two more bad accidents afterwards: being struck by lightning while up a ladder and falling off, breaking his hip... and another one, on a London Bus that made him and others fall when it jolted to a sudden stop, which broke the leg with the broken hip. He walks with a bad limp these days, but laughs and jokes as he always did as a young man and we will meet again (barring anymore ‘accidents’!) soon. >> Now my wife’s story... is weirdly different (more...)

Report abuse

jacersagain | Mar 24, 2011, 08:39 PM EDT

CitizenWhy’s post is a great lovely one to read. Thanks for the sharing, because like others, I can associate with it in a way. >>> I’ve had two remarkable experiences, one NDE and one (kinda) DBE - not of my own, though some might wish! I’ll share both in these posts – this one from my brother’s perspective. Some years ago, at the age of 24, living in London, he was knocked down by a car there, seriously injured and placed in Intensive Care (ICare). The rest of us family members in Ireland, notified of impending death, rushed by ferry and car to his bedside (before the days of cheap air flights). My father and my sisters (our mother was RIP) were so distraught at the sight of him dying that they left after a while but I stayed in the ICare room with him. I prayed silently for him, crying a bit. Now and again, I broke from my prayers and spoke normally to him, though he was sedated. Then a sudden moment of frustration hit me and I, for no reason that I can explain, alone in the room with him, shouted loudly at him saying “(his name) No! You’re too young to go!” My shout brought nurses outside the IC room running in. They ushered me out quickly and frantically went to work on him. He recovered. A year later, my brother told me of his NDE – (more...)

Report abuse

McNamara31 | Mar 24, 2011, 08:28 PM EDT

CitizenWhy ...Simply wonderful

Report abuse

ellenfromcork | Mar 24, 2011, 08:13 PM EDT

The reality is, we really don't know what's going to happen when we die. I hope it's something wonderful.

Report abuse

Next Previous Page 2 of 4 pages