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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Near-death experience.
Deathbed phenomena refers to a range of paranormal experiences that occur to people who are dying. There are many examples of deathbed phenomena in both non-fiction and fictional literature, which suggests that these occurrences have been noted by cultures around the world for centuries, although scientific study of them is relatively recent. In scientific literature such experiences have been referred to as death-related sensory experiences (DRSE).[1] Dying patients have reported to staff working in hospices they have experienced comforting visions.[2][3]The scientific community consider deathbed phenomena and visions to be hallucinations.[4][5]
Deathbed visions[edit]
Deathbed visions have been described since ancient times, however the first systematic study was not conducted until the 20th century.[6] They have also been referred to as veridical hallucinations, visions of the dying and predeath visions.[1] The psychical researcher William Barrett author of the book Death-Bed Visions (1926) collected anecdotes of people who had claimed to have experienced visions of deceased friends and relatives, the sound of music and other deathbed phenomena.[7] Barrett was a Christian spiritualist and believed the visions were evidence for spirit communication.[8]In a study conducted between 1959 and 1973 by the parapsychologists Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson they reported that 50% of the tens of thousands individuals they studied in the United States and India had experienced deathbed visions.[6] Osis and Haraldsson and other parapsychologists such as Raymond Moody have interpreted the reports as evidence for an afterlife.[9][10]
The neurologist Terence Hines has written the proponents of the afterlife interpretation grossly underestimate the variability among the reports. Hines also criticized their methodology of collecting the reports:
The way in which the reports are collected poses another serious problem for those who want to take them seriously as evidence of an afterlife. Osis and Haraldsson’s (1977) study was based on replies received from ten thousand questionnaires sent to doctors and nurses in the United States and India. Only 6.4 percent were returned. Since it was the doctors and nurses who were giving the reports, not the patients who had, presumably, actually had the experience, the reports were secondhand. This means they had passed through two highly fallible and constructive human memory systems (the doctor’s or nurse’s and the actual patient’s) before reaching Osis and Haraldsson. In other cases (i.e., Moody 1977) the reports were given by the patients themselves, months and years after the event. Such reports are hardly sufficient to argue for the reality of an afterlife.[5]The skeptical investigator Joe Nickell has written deathbed visions (DBVs) are based on anecdotal accounts that are unreliable. Nickell discovered contradictions and inconsistences in various DBVs reported by the paranormal author Carla Wills-Brandon.[11]
Scientific evaluation[edit]
There is a high degree of similarity between deathbed visions and drug-induced hallucinations. Hallucinations caused by drugs frequently contain images of otherworldly beings and deceased friends and relatives.[12] Scientists who have studied cases of deathbed phenomena have described the visual, auditory, and sensed presences of deceased relatives or angelic beings during the dying process as hallucinations. The hallucinations occur due to cerebral hypoxia. When the body is injured, or if the heart stops, even if only for a short period the brain is deprived of oxygen. A short period of cerebral hypoxia can result in the impairment of neuronal function.[13][14]See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ a b Ethier, A. (2005). Death-related sensory experiences. Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing 22: 104-111.
- ^ Brayne S, Farnham C, Fenwick P. (2006). Deathbed phenomena and their effect on a palliative care team: a pilot study. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine 23: 17-24.
- ^ Lawrence M, Repede E. (2013). The incidence of deathbed communications and their impact on the dying process. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care 30: 632-639.
- ^ Houran, J. & Lange, R. (1997). Hallucinations that comfort: contextual mediation of deathbed visions. Perceptual and Motor Skills 84: 1491-1504.
- ^ a b Hines, Terence (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 102. ISBN 978-1573929790
- ^ a b Blom, Jan. (2009). A Dictionary of Hallucinations. Springer. pp. 131-132. ISBN 978-1441912220
- ^ Barrett, William. (1926). Death-Bed Visions. Methuen & Company Limited. ISBN 978-0850305203
- ^ Oppenheim, Janet. (1985). The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914. Cambridge University Press. p. 365. ISBN 978-0521265058
- ^ Moody, Raymond. (1975). Life After Life. Mockingbird Books. ISBN 978-0553122206
- ^ Osis, K. and Haraldsson, E. (1977). At The Hour of Death. Avon. ISBN 978-0380018024
- ^ Nickell, Joe. (2002). “Visitations”: After-Death Contacts. Skeptical Inquirer. Volume 12. Retrieved November 6, 2013.
- ^ Siegel, R. (1980). The Psychology of Life after Death. American Psychologist 35: 911–31.
- ^ Brierley, J. and D. Graham. (1984). Hypoxia and Vascular Disorders of the Central Nervous System. In Greenfield’s Neuropathology edited by J. Adams, J. Corsellis, and L. Duchen. 4th edition. New York: Wiley. pp. 125–207.
- ^ French, C. (2009). Near-death experiences and the brain. In Craig Murray, ed. Psychological scientific perspectives on out-of-body and death-near experiences. New York: Nova Science Publishers, pp. 187-203. ISBN 978-1607417057
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