http://www.wowowow.com/life/5-common-death-bed-experiences-david-kessler-474005

Common Deathbed Experiences, by David Kessler
A renowned expert – and former Elisabeth Jubilee-Ross co-author – offers a new book on death and grief and shares visions reported by loved ones before their final breaths.

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Throughout my years working with the dying, I have noticed commonly shared experiences that remain beyond our ability to explain and fully understand. In the tapestry of life and death, we may begin to see connections to the past that we missed in life. While death may look like a loss to the living, the last hours of a dying person may be filled not with emptiness, but rather with fullness. Here are some of the most common visions and experiences that the dying have:

1. Our Mother Comes for Us. It shouldn’t be too surprising that the person who is actually present as we cross the threshold of life and take our first breath once again appears at the threshold as we take our last breath. The one who cared for us in life seems to also care just as much in death. If you find the concept of your loved one’s deceased mother greeting the dying to be impossible or ridiculous, consider this. As a parent, you protect your child from household dangers. You hold their hands when they cross the street on their first day of school, you take care of them when they have the flu and you see them through as many landmark moments as you can. Now fast forward 90 or 100 years into the future after you yourself have passed away. If there is an afterlife and you receive a message that your son or daughter, now old and afraid, will be dying soon, and you are allowed to go and meet them, wouldn’t you?

Roberta’s mother seemed to have made such a choice. Roberta lay at death’s door going in and out of consciousness while her daughter Audrey sat attentively by her bed. Suddenly Roberta whispered,

"My mother is here. Audrey, your grandmother is here. She is so beautiful." Audrey looked at the foot of her mother’s bed, looked up and around the room. "Mom, where is she? I don’t see her," Audrey frantically asked. The dying woman turned abruptly to her daughter as if withdrawing from the vision of her own dead mother and said sternly, "Of course you can’t see her; she’s here for me, not you!" Her daughter understood perfectly.

2. Trips. The phenomenon of preparing oneself for a journey is not new or unusual. As much as death may be thought of as a transition or journey by a loved one, in their last hours, the dying do not associate this trip with death. I haven’t heard anyone say, "I have to pack my bags or get ready for my trip into death." In their minds, the trip remains associated with life.

Even though death is the trip of a lifetime, they just don’t make that association.

Many people don’t realize that this sense of a journey is part of the history of hospice itself. During the Middle Ages, a hospice was a way station where travelers could find safe haven, a small oasis of support for those on the road.

Travelers were afforded the opportunity to rest and reenergize themselves before they resumed their long, wearying journeys to sacred destinations.

Some travelers, literally at death’s door, were welcomed, given bedding, food and compassionate companionship. While many modern-day hospices may not know this history, the archetype remains embedded in the subconscious of the dying. Whatever the origins may be, dying may be the rest we need before our final journey.

What do you think about this article??

Alan

I am perplexed as to why there has been little reponse to the information offered by this thread!!

After all it is about dying and the afterlife

Alan

Alan McDougall wrote on Jul 11^th, 2010 at 1:48am:

I am perplexed as to why there has been little reponse to the information offered by this thread!! After all it is about dying and the afterlife Alan

Alan, I'm going to break this to you gently, okay?

People would rather talk about aliens.....than comment on this thread.

There, I've said it. Now, life can go on.....

(little joke there, just a little one...)

Well our life is a journey. Every moment, every thought and every experience is part of the journey. You pack baggage, you lose baggage. You find companions, you lose companions. So the thought that your last few days/weeks are a journey is not strange to me at all.

The hospices also say: "Dying time is living time". So death - until it is there and final - is a part of LIFE still. And I believe some of you will say that the afterlife and the pre-life and this life are all one in any case (I cant comment since I havent experienced this yet). So the distinction between "the trip of a lifetime" and other life-trips would not make much sense - we will all have taken the trip before and will again. Maybe the dying feel this?

So, this part of the article sounds very right to me, even like "this goes without saying" :).

As to being greeted by your mother - if the relationship was good, it seems very natural. On the other hand, it does not appear in a lot of near-death accounts, does it?

Alan:

If you can explain to me what this article has to do with aliens, I will read it.

recoverer wrote on Jul 11^th, 2010 at 1:52pm:

Alan: If you can explain to me what this article has to do with aliens, I will read it.

It has nothing to do with aliens!!

Alan

Okay Alan, but if you tell me you're an alien I'll read it. ;D




Alan McDougall wrote on Jul 11^th, 2010 at 2:07pm:

recoverer wrote on Jul 11th, 2010 at 1:52pm: Alan: If you can explain to me what this article has to do with aliens, I will read it. It has nothing to do with aliens!! Alan

Alan-

I think you should put any posts regarding the afterlife in the Off Topic section of the board.

Didn't you get the word that Bruce is changing the name of the board to Alien-Invasion Knowledge?

R

Rondele,

"Didn't you get the word that Bruce is changing the name of the board to Alien-Invasion Knowledge?"

Yeah, I've read the newsletter. Did you read the statement for the change? To show that a diversity of perspectives can be found here, even the underdog ones. Jeez, what a bunch of afterlife mambo jumbo! Maybe a flood of e-mails will change this non-conformist travesty. Or maybe a peaceful f27 rally. Bring posters & molotov cocktails (filled with luv)!

Greetings Alan.

   I didn't see this post until today. I haven't been on this sight for several days. I've read many reports about parents or other loved ones greeting someone after they cross over.

   My wife had an experience about a decade ago, although she's still with me, thankfully. She got feeling very ill one day and after a trip to the emergency room, they set her up right away for an emergency operation on her appendix. It turned out that the surgeon happened to be a boyfriend of hers from high school (who also a year before then gave me a hemorrhoid operation, in a way saving my life from agony).

   Anyway, back to the story. After the successful operation and while recovering from the anesthesia, she told me that her mother was talking to her by the hospital bed. She said she definitely didn't hallucinate and I believe her. The good thing is, it convinced her that we live on in the afterlife, and now she believes as strongly as I do that we live on.

Ralph

Ralph, what a trippy new picture you are using! 

Hi --

In response #3 chrwe said "As to being greeted
by your mother - if the relationship was good, it
seems very natural. On the other hand, it does
not appear in a lot of near-death accounts, does it?"

Near-death experiences don't show the typical steps (?  :-?) one takes after death. So we wouldn't expect them to be similiar. NDEs seem more like a special interjection. That's why, I assume, we can't match up Bruce's and other afterlife explorers' experiences with NDEs --they're two separate types of experience. True, both are 'brain-dead,' but the rest of consciousness/soul either moves on into full passage into the afterlife or is interrupted for the NDE.

Bets

chrwe wrote on Jul 11^th, 2010 at 11:53am:

The hospices also say: "Dying time is living time". So death - until it is there and final - is a part of LIFE still. And I believe some of you will say that the afterlife and the pre-life and this life are all one in any case (I cant comment since I havent experienced this yet). So the distinction between "the trip of a lifetime" and other life-trips would not make much sense - we will all have taken the trip before and will again. Maybe the dying feel this?

But you can comment because you have experienced it, chrwe...and more times than you can count...you just have not seen it yet. As for greeting my mother upon passing...well, she was my daughter in a previous life and I greeted her...my wife now was my mother in a previous life and she greeted me...if my situation is anything near normal we incarnate with a group of soulmates who have agreed to play various roles in our lives...in fact it is possible that the acrimony between a parent and child incarnate was intended to ensure some response or another to effect a specific lesson.

I think I might have mentioned it before but at the risk of repeating myself, I was born in 1888, died in 1905, born again in 1909 and died in 1919, born again in 1923 and died in 1943, born again in 1960 and still here...I am no glutton for punishment and take life (and death) by the smooth handle, so if there was or is anything bad about living and dying...repeatedly, I can assure you that I would have found other alternatives...