Posted on 05/25/2015 9:30:31 AM PDT by NYer
Palliative and intensive care units at hospitals have a close relationship with death, giving rise to many experiences that defy any rational explanation. Patients who foresee the exact time when they will die; others who seem to decide for themselves the day and the hour, moving their death forward or delaying it; family members' prophetic dreams or presentiments on the part of third parties who, without even knowing that someone has been brought to the hospital or has suffered an accident, are certain that he has died.
Only healthcare professionals who work closely with terminally ill patients know first-hand the extent and variety of these strange experiences. Science has not been able to offer any kind of answer, and so these experiences are usually described as paranormal or supernatural. This label is "too vague for the significance of these experiences," explains the British nurse Penny Sartori, who has worked for nearly 20 years in ICU.
Such a career is sufficiently solid for her to have seen everything, recognize patterns and come up with a hypothesis regarding these phenomena. So much so, that she has a doctorate on these questions, whose principle conclusions were published in the book The Wisdom of Near-Death Experiences (Watkins Publishing).
"Visions" shared with family members
Throughout her career, Sartori has interviewed patients who have had near-death experiences (NDE), as well as family members who have had shared death experiences (SDE). The number of these experiences and the repetition of patterns make her discard the hypothesis of chance, or of it being impossible to find a logical reason for this widespread phenomenon.
Her main thesis is centered on the idea that "our brains are separate from our consciousness. In other words, the brain may be channeling what some people call the soul, rather than responsible for creating it." This idea would explain, she adds, why "the soul and enhanced consciousness can be experienced separately from the body," as in NDEs or in Buddhist meditation. The examples that Sartori uses in her book are numerous, but they all tend to coincide in that the patients who have these NDEs are always those who end up embracing death most peacefully and happily, as do family members who have a premonition of the death of their loved ones. Why? According to interviews with these family members, it is because they are convinced that death is only the end of their earthly life.
Independent of whether they are believers, agnostics, or atheists, all of them have a dream or a vision about how their family member leaves this world guided by someone — spouses who have already died, anonymous beings or angels — and with a clear sensation of "peace and love." At first, Sartori says, "it struck me as odd that some family members of the deceased didn't feel sad after foretelling the death of their love one, but when I interviewed them I realized that they were peaceful because they had experienced this sensation of life's transcendence."
Choosing the "most appropriate" moment to die
This is the case of the people who, knowing when they will die, ask to be alone for a few minutes, or die exactly when a family member, who stays at their side constantly, leaves them for just a moment to go to the bathroom. Other equally noteworthy cases are those of people who die just after seeing a family member who has been delayed in arriving to see them because he or she was out of the country, or when all of the paperwork for inheritances and life insurance is finished. "They appear to be waiting for a specific event to take place before they can permit themselves to die," the nurse says.
I think the brain is to the soul like a car is to a person, a vehicle so to speak, a way to interact with the world.
Ping to an excellent and important article.
A friend’s husband, who was dying from cancer, told his wife he was on the King’s Highway before he passed.
Cat predicts 50 deaths in RI nursing home
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7129952/Cat-predicts-50-deaths-in-RI-nursing-home.html
I often wonder about “uploading” our minds into a computer or robot, would our soul follow? Same with the transporter idea from “Star Trek” as well. I guess one plausible way to explain it and I could be wrong, but I think it COULD work this way. The soul is tied to the mind, some New Agers call it “The Silver Cord” if you will. Maybe where the mind goes, the soul follows until it is “time to go” via circumstances or “it is just our time to go.” I really am not sure on that one so I would not want to test this theory out, it is just an idea.
Having had the same experience, I agree with you. Prayers of peace for you and your departed beloved.
Excellent article. Thank you for posting.
“...brain may be channelng the soul...”
I attended the Mass in the Catholic cemetery (Our Lady of Angels in Colonie) this morning and the Bishop explained it like this: the timeless (and correct) Catholic teaching is that the soul forms the body rather than visa versa.
Of course, the Bishop articulated this better than I just put it. However, he basically stated that St. Thomas Aquinas articulated this belief in that way: the soul forms the body.
I looked it up, and he is referring to Aquinas’ explanation of hylomorphic unity and it is the opposite of what secularists believe; the brain/body forms the soul.
This perspective in light of the experiences of the caregivers in the article makes perfect sense, especially in consideration of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body that we believe in. The Bishop was explaining that the soldiers who died in battle are not actually dead and living just in memory, but in the sense of the future at the resurrection we will see them in their bodies. Scripture tells us that we are Temples of the Holy Spirit and it makes more sense when understood this way (that the soul forms the body).
The bishop articulated this in the best manner that I have ever heard it explained, and the phenomenon observed by the caregivers and family members in the article as the loved one is nearing death now makes perfect sense in light of the correct theology.
I had planned open heart surgery in January 2012 because of a needed valve repair and four coronary artery bypasses. What happen afterwards was not at all planned and altered my life forever.
After surgery, I was sent to ICU from the operating room and two days later, as they were turning me over in bed to do an x-ray, I started having trouble breathing. I had thrown a pulmonary emboli, a clot, into my lungs. They put an oxygen mask on me to help me breathe but I continued to have labored breathing. My wife, bless her heart, was there at my bedside while this was happening. At one point, she said I pulled the oxygen mask off my face and cried out loud, "I think I'm going to die." That's when I stopped breathing and my heart stopped beating. I was in full cardiac arrest in the bed on the ICU ward. They ushered my wife and all the other patient visitors out of the ICU to the chapel. My wife has been a nurse practitioner for her whole career and she knew my chances of surviving, even in the hospital, were risky.
Amazingly, the chief cardiac surgeon was on the floor at the time and rushed to my side, as did at least 12 other medical personnel to assist the surgeon. He cut my chest back open, cut the wire staples holding my breast bone together and proceeded to perform the miracle that saved my life. He took my heart into his hands and started hand massaging it until after about 10 minutes, it started beating again. They cleaned me up as best as possible but left my chest open in case my heart stopped again. Next day they took me back to the OR and put me back on the heart machine to make sure everything was okay. Two days later, they wired my sternum back together, but they could not stitch my chest wound back together because they had opened me up on the ward, which is not sterile. They were worried about infection. So for two and a half months, I had an open chest wound. It slowly healed shut with the help of a foam vacuum machine. I remained in the hospital for five weeks instead of the normal five days that most heart surgery patients spend. I had two blood transfusions.
Fortunately, I do not remember anything first hand of what I have just told you, including arriving at the hospital for the initial surgery, the cardiac arrest, and nothing of the first two weeks after surgery. I was unconscious most of the time after the arrest because I was heavily medicated. But all that I have told you was relayed to me in detail after the fact by my wife, the surgeons and other medical personnel who were there and involved in the miraculous events when I had expired and was brought back to life. Several told me later that the experience had a profound affect on themselves personally. I ran into the surgeon who massaged my heart back to life a couple of months after the surgery. He told me that he had performed that manual hear massage several times in his career but I was the first patient who had survived the ordeal. He said it was a true miracle.
I never thought I would have problems when I went in for the open heart surgery. I assumed it would go smoothly. How wrong was I. I cried a lot in the months after surgery, thinking about what had happened and how it has changed my life forever. I have fully recovered now, but God was not ready for me to go back then. I must say that I never remember seeing the white light people talk about but I did have a vivid dream for several months after this episode, about God reaching over into the dark abyss and grabbing me by my hair and yanking me back up to life to live a another day. It was not my time to go. It is somewhat haunting to know you died but are still here to live again.
I thank the Lord and count my blessings everyday for the way things turned out. But for the grace of God, the help of the medical team and the prayers of those around me, I would not be here to tell the story of "my miracle."
I’ll never forget the hospice nurse, while in Mom’s room, telling us our mother was “actively dying”. She pointed out several physical characteristics that indicated that to the nurse.
Mom was gone less than two hours later. All of her children were there, hands on, when she passed peacefully.
Yes, watch for the hands turning blue. That’s how we knew it was imminent. Took about 20 hours, though. Waited until children arrived from out of town. Husband fell asleep for a few moments in the chair beside the bed in the wee hours of the night ,he woke up, and she was gone.
I agree, it is an excellent and important article.
I agree with you. I lost my husband in January. His passing was peaceful, and I’m at peace, but the hours and days and weeks and months following have not been easy.
I read the book last fall. Definitely worth reading.
My uncle Jack died a few years before his father.
When his fathers time came and the family were gathered around his bed “Pop” suddenly sat up in his bed, looked at a high corner of the room, smiled broadly and exclaimed” JACK”! Freaked the fam big time.
When the family leaves the room?
My theory? That is when the nurse increases the morphine drip.
She was in our living room in a hospital bed. I would get up all hours of the night to check on her, to see if she was still breathing. But she just kept on going.
She was unconscious and her breathing was so shallow that she would go without a breath for 45-50 secs...and then take a little one.
She was at peace but she was just very stubborn and strong willed--even at 94. The hospice nurse would come in on Monday mornings and say, I can't believe she's still here. No food or water for weeks (I would give her a little water on a small sponge but she eventually even refuse that).
The hospice nurse humorously called her the "woman who refused to die."
A family friend at the bedside said "when God is ready, she'll go." The hospice nurse responded, "believe me, God's ready...I can almost hear Him tapping his toes. She's just determined to hang on."
The hospice nurse said she'd never seen anything like it and she's seen hundreds of patient's die.
“Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”
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