Deathbed doctor tells Steven Bartlett 90% of dying people see 'intense visions' that are 'always a ten'
A hospice doctor who has spent decades studying death and dying has said that almost all people have ‘intense visions’ before they die and they follow a common theme.
Doctor Christopher Kerr has carried out more than 1,500 patient interviews to get a deeper understanding of the psychological and spiritual experiences of those who are dying.
Kerr recently appeared on Steven Bartlett’s Diary of CEO podcast where he opened up about his research and the sort of ‘very intense dreams’ people say they have experienced as they get closer to death.
He shared: “The vast majority of people, nearly 90 percent of people, start to have very intense dreams or visions.
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“And the overriding theme is that they're seeing people who they've loved and who they've lost and very specifically, it's those that have loved them unconditionally, purely, and those that didn't aren't there.”
Dr Kerr went on to say that death is ‘progressive sleep’ that changes your sleep cycle and that people typically become more reflective and introspective.
He said that his research showed that what brought those who are dying comfort towards the end of their life was seeing the deceased.
“So if I'm passing away the thing that brings me the most comfort is seeing my deceased relatives,” he said.
This leads to people experiencing these ‘intense’ dreams that people frequently say feel very real.
“What’s fascinating is these events don’t resemble delirium,” he continued.
“When we ask them to scale it 0 to 10 on the degree of realism, it’s always a 10. So it feels like this actually happened.”
Dr Kerr, who is also a neurobiologist, said that with delirium people are often left feeling ‘frightened or distressed’ but that these end-of-life visions are ‘based on real events’ so people feel ‘comfort, not distress or fear’.
However, this isn’t the case for everyone.
Kerr noted that around 12 percent of his patients reported having ‘dreams that are distressing or uncomfortable’.
But he suggested that just because they feel uncomfortable it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a bad thing.
“And what we got wrong was that those are sometimes the most transformational,” he said.
“Those are the ones where they find healing.”
The doctor went on to hit back at what he claimed are some common misconceptions when it came to death.
Dr Kerr said that despite what you may have heard people very rarely bring up regret at the end of their life.
“They're not thinking about do they regret something,” he said. “No. Hell no.”
He also said that it was a myth to expect death to be painful, saying that it is ‘less painful than people think’.
You can check out the full episode of the podcast here.
Topics: Health
Claire Reid