Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms

Visions Trips and Crowded Rooms



How This Book Is Set Up

The following chapters will bring about new insights and ideas on what the end of life looks like and the miraculous encounters that are put before us. This book follows my exploration into the deathbed phenomenon. Just like when I started researching, it begins by taking a look at the definition of the term deathbed vision and what it means. Since I have experience in the medical field, I was curious to see if this subject was acknowledged or touched on in other areas and professions. As I searched, I was pleasantly surprised to discover quite a bit of discourse in the legal world concerning the veracity of a dying person’s final words. I’ve also examined the role that deathbed visions play in the arts. All of my findings are included here.

Of course, the majority of this book is made up of the personal stories told by numerous health-care professionals, and I’ve divided them into several chapters. (Throughout many of these chapters, you’ll find my thoughts and commentary in italics in order to set them apart from the stories.) All of these witnesses have generously shared their personal experiences. I’ve done my best to retain their voices on these pages, and I’m excited to present their amazing accounts here.

Please note that in “Visions of the Dying: Part I,” I wanted to know if doctors and nurses had stories about deathbed visions from their patients and if they were willing to share them. They did, and they were! Encouraged by those powerful accounts, I checked in with many mental-health professionals (such as social workers, psychologists, and counselors) to see if they might want to discuss their experiences with the dying. The results were incredible, and their accounts are in the chapter titled “Visions of the Dying: Part II.” The accounts here comprise only a sampling of what these individuals see on a daily basis, and for each story included in these pages, there are countless more just like it.

I also think that any book dealing with such extraordinary events must take a look at spiritual and religious visions as shared by members of the clergy as well as families. I’ve included many of their inspiring, heartwarming stories herein. Finally, in the last chapters of the book, I explore the other aspects of deathbed visions that I’ve described: the trips that the dying prepare for, and the crowded rooms that many see in their last moments on Earth.

My hope - my “great purpose” for this book - is to begin a conversation, a continuing dialogue for health-care professionals to discuss more than who died, but how they died; and for families and friends to take a deeper look at their loved ones’ final days with open minds and hearts.

Everyone should be able to talk openly about what they see and feel at the end of life without fear of what others may think.

Taken from Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms: Who and What Your See Before You Die, by David Kessler. Reprinted with permission. Hay House, May 2010.