Ginny is only 15 years old when she is admitted to a hospice in Buffalo, New York with an incurable brain tumor.
While she feels death approaching, she receives an unexpected visitor. God himself descends from heaven and talks to her.
He is old and nice looking, and he promises her that she will soon live with her whole family in a beautiful castle.
The conversation reassures Ginny, and she comes to terms with her impending death.
She calls her mother and tells her about her vision.
She has her fingernails and toenails painted in a color that matches the dress she wants to wear in the coffin. And then she dies.
Ginny is far from the only one who experienced lifelike visions towards the end of her life.
Studies from different countries show that many dying patients had similar dreams in the days or weeks before their death. In a Japanese survey, 20 percent of the dying reported visions, and in a survey in Moldova, as much as 40 percent.
There are even indications that the number may be around 80 percent.
Many patients are reluctant to talk about their visions. They are afraid of being called crazy by family members and caregivers.
But experts lament the taboo. Research shows that visions do not only bring joy and hope to the one embarking on his final journey.
VIDEO: 15-year-old Ginny talks about meeting her deceased aunt in a dream
They also make it easier for family members to deal with the grief.
Dreams possibly due to oxygen deficiency
Dreams and visions on the deathbed become in science end-of-life dreams and visions called (ELDVs).
British scientist William Fletcher Barrett first described the phenomenon in 1926.
His wife was a midwife and had seen several women who, shortly before they died in childbirth, talked about reunion with deceased relatives.
The Latvian Karlis Osis and the Icelander Erlendur Haraldsson practice parapsychology, a controversial field of research that includes visions and paranormal experiences that are difficult to study with proven methods.
In the 1950s, they collected thousands of ELDV reports from health care providers in the US and India.
It soon became apparent that the visions were not a side effect of medication or a result of deliriousness.
An American study from 2014 shows that visions occur in patients who have a very clear consciousness and who are acutely aware of what is happening around them.
To this day we do not know why so many dying people experience positive dreams or visions.
Some researchers think that the visions are caused by oxygen deficiency in the brain or by stress.
American physician Christopher Kerr is a leading researcher in the field of dreams in dying people.
He works at the Center for Hospice & Palliative Care in Buffalo, New York, and has documented more than 1,500 ELDVs.
And Kerr’s conclusion is clear:
The mysterious, lifelike dreams and visions at the end of life usually have a calming and pleasant effect on the dying person, filling him or her with happiness and excitement.
Moreover, the positive death dreams also have an effect on relatives who hear them.
Dead aunt took fear away
Cancer patient Ginny spent her last days with her family and doctor Christopher Kerr at his Buffalo hospice.
For Ginny and her family, the real-life dreams became a tool to accept death and deal with the grief that followed.
Conversation with God was far from the only ELDV Ginny had over the course of her illness.
She had her first vision when her brain tumor was examined in an MRI scanner.
Ginny was fast asleep when her late aunt suddenly appeared at her bedside. He asked Ginny to accompany her to a beautiful castle full of warmth and light.
For the first time since her death sentence, the young girl felt safe—and above all, not alone.
In the months that followed, Ginny had many similar ELDVs.
Although the cancer only worsened, the visions calmed the dying girl, eventually dispelling the fear of death.
Ginny is far from the only one who found comfort in dreams before her death.
In 2019, Christopher Kerr published an investigation reporting ELDVs totaling 70 dying.
They were all patients at Kerr’s Hospice in Buffalo.
Half of them had at least one dream or vision during their stay.
Compared to the other half, who had not had ELDV, they coped significantly better with the challenges, stress and traumatic feeling surrounding dying.
Two years later, Kerr concluded in a new study that family members also find comfort in visions.
The doctor asked a total of 500 people who had cared for their dying parents, husbands or partners about dreams.
40 percent of them replied that their sick relative had told them about real-life ELDVs before he or she died.
The study showed that the stories of the deceased about the ELDVs had a predominantly positive influence on the way in which they dealt with the loss afterwards.
For example, the bereaved believed that their loved one had found comfort in the dreams and had passed away peacefully. This made it easier for them to accept their loss and get through the grieving process more easily than the relatives of the deceased who had not had visions and had not told them about it.
But real-life visions can also have a negative effect on the dying and bereaved, because while the vast majority describe ELDVs as positive and life-affirming, some of the dying find the visions frightening.
And when ELDVs were perceived as negative, the bereaved had considerably more difficulty coping with the loss.
Christopher Kerr isn’t alone in investigating mysterious deathbed visions.
Swedish doctor Stina Nyblom of the University of Gothenburg published a report in 2021 with health care providers’ reports of intense visions in terminally ill patients.
A total of 18 doctors and nurses from four hospices participated in the study, and 15 of them reported multiple patients had vivid dreams and visions until their death.
Patients were able to explain in detail how the events in the dreams went, what the people in the dreams said to them, and how they were dressed.
A nurse told of an old cranky man who suddenly sat up in bed, pointed to the foot of the bed and exclaimed, “Look, there’s my wife. She’s here!’
His wife had long since passed away, but the vision of the reunion gave him faith that they would meet again, and he was happy until he died a few days later.
Dreams give meaning to death
“We need to make death more humane. And to do that, we not only need to recognize the processes we can see with our own eyes, but we also need a greater understanding of the feelings and experiences of dying patients,” Kerr writes in his book. Death is just a dream: Hope and meaning at the end of life from 2020.
By taking the phenomenon of ELDV seriously and supporting patients when they talk about their visions, the experiences can be beneficial for both the dying and the bereaved.
For cancer patient Ginny, the real-life visions gave meaning to death—both for herself and her family.
Conversations with God and her late aunt allowed the 15-year-old girl to let go of her fears and begin her final journey calmly and peacefully.