Posted on 05 December 2012, 15:12

“Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.” William James, (1842-1910)

Departing Visions tell us death is nothing to fear. As the hour of earthly departure draws near talk about other worldly visitations from deceased relatives or friends is not unusual. Encounters with angels or religious figures take place and heavenly visions of a colorful afterlife are shared.  Along with this those at the bedside of the dying report seeing a “vapor,” “cloud,” “smoke,” “light,” or “mist” leaving the body.  Even dreams can foretell an upcoming death. The famous American author Mark Twain (below) dreamt in detail about his brother’s passing before the event occurred. These are all examples of the Departing Vision.

Such wondrous experiences bring peace of mind to the physically dying and comfort to those left behind. After such glimpses into the afterlife, anxiety or fear about death vanishes. With this, a better life can be lived.

The phenomenon isn’t new. Accounts of this nature have been with us for thousands of years. At one time physical death was part of the everyday backdrop of life. As recently as a hundred years ago we passed at home in our own beds, surrounded by family and friends. Even children were present at the deathbed. If the dying began talking about seeing deceased loved ones, friends, angels or visions of heaven, this wasn’t seen as strange. Instead such conversation was embraced.

Sadly, today the physical conclusion of a life is often seen as the end of consciousness. With this, the Departing Vision has been shoved into a closet of secrecy. Experiencers are dismissed and investigators are ridiculed. Forgotten are the decades of credible scientific research devoted to the phenomenon. Though extreme doubt has been created in the mind of the public, not everyone is buying this.

When my mother Carol passed away in a hospital I had a Departing Vision. Shortly after my 16th birthday, I awoke at five in the morning and knew her spirit was no longer bound to a cancer ridden body. Minutes later a phone call confirmed this.

My cousin Virginia and an aunt also felt her leave.

Your Aunt Helen and I were both awakened on the morning of Carol’s death. In a dream, I saw a figure in white… standing by Carol’s hospital bed and heard the words, “everything is going to be alright.”

Later someone called and confirmed your mother’s death.  [2]

Two of my mother’s friends were also stirred from sleep that morning. Richard told me both he and another family acquaintance felt her soul leave just as dawn broke. Five of us, living in separate locations, received one last hug from my mother as she left this life to join her parents and brother on the other side.

Departing Visions soften loss for those left behind and ease passage for the physically dying. Below is another account which makes this perfectly clear.

Natalie Kalmus was very ill. Her family decided not to tell her about her cousin Ruth’s passing. What Natalie’s sister Elenor heard at her bedside, gave her a shock.

I sat on her bed and took her hand. It was on fire. Then Elenor seem to rise up in bed, almost to a sitting position.

“Natalie,” she said, “There are so many of them. There’s Fred and Ruth - what’s she doing here?

An electric shock went through me. She had said Ruth! Ruth was her cousin, who had died suddenly a week before. But I knew that Elenor had not been told of the sudden death….

…. Her voice was surprisingly clear. “It’s so confusing. There are so many of them!” Suddenly her arms stretched out happily. “I am going up with them,” she murmured. [3]

How did the physically dying Natalie know her cousin Ruth had passed on? No one shared this with her.  A similar encounter from Robin Abrams validates the above Departing Vision.

I witnessed firsthand my father’s (Albert Abrams) “peek” into the afterlife. Due to a devastating stroke, he was confined to a bed in a nursing home . . . . One year after his stroke, to the date, my brother… was murdered…. We decided, as a family, to withhold the news of my brother’s murder from my father for as long as possible. There is absolutely no way he could have known my brother had died.

In less than a week after my brother’s death, my father said (very fluently, which was surprising because the stroke had affected his speech), “I used to have three children, now I only have two.” We asked him, “Why did you say that, Dad?” And he looked at us as if we were nuts….

… Along with this, my father made several references to receiving messages from my mother. She had been deceased for fifteen years. It is important for you to know that my father’s mind, when awake, had never been sharper. I truly believe, with absolutely no doubt, that for a time, he had a foot in both worlds. [4]

Mr. Abrams told Robin he knew her brother was no longer living. No one had provided him with any information about this brutal murder. 

Robin’s account parallels the previous vision. In both instances the ill person is initially unaware that a beloved family member has passed. Those at the bedside take great steps to protect bedridden loved ones from news about these losses. Finally, notice the surprised reaction the physically dying express upon being visited by the person who has, unknowingly to them, recently moved on.

After such an encounter experiencers can feel confused and are not sure where to go next. Providing a guide for understanding Departing Visions lets experiencers know they are not alone. A stepping off place, with resources for them to continue the journey is what is needed.  Physical death is not the end. Because of this, a new paradigm for consciousness is needed. Departing Vision experiences provide the grass roots for this shift in societal awareness.

1 - Ruehl, F.  Two Celebrated Authors’ Precognitive Dreams!  TheBLOG, TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. 07/24/2012.  TheHuffingtonPost.com

2 - Wills-Brandon, C. Heavenly Hugs: Comfort, Support, and Hope from the Afterlife. New Page: Pompton Plains, NJ 2012. 13.

3 - Wills-Brandon, C. A Glimpse of Heaven: The Remarkable World of Spiritually Transformative Experiences.  White Crow: Guildford Surrey, UK 2012. 44-45.

4 – Wills-Brandon, C. One Last Hug Before I Go: The Mystery and Meaning of Deathbed Visions. HCI: Deerfield Beach, FL, 2000. 171-172.

Carla Wills-Brandon, MA, PA, LMFT, is the author of thirteen books, including a Publishers Weekly bestseller. She has also been investigating the phenomenon known as the deathbed or departing vision for close to thirty years. Physically dying individuals, family, friends and the healthcare workers attending them report encountering the departing vision. A few scientifically based researchers have also studied this phenomenon, but sadly the experience is rarely discussed openly in public circles. Three of her titles address departing or deathbed visions.

Not only is Carla a departing vision experiencer herself, but as a successful Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist she regularly uses the phenomena to assist those clients of hers who have suffered loss or trauma. Based on her continued work she believes the departing vision strongly suggests consciousness continues after physical death. In this article she gives us a brief glimpse into her investigations. Here most recent book, Heavenly Hugs: Comfort, Support, and Hope from the Afterlife, is her third title to discuss Departing Visions.

A Glimpse of Heaven: The Remarkable World of Spiritually Transformative Experiences by Carla Wills Brandon, Ph.D is now published by White Crow Books and is available from Amazon and other book stores.

http://whitecrowbooks.com/books/page/a_glimpse_of_heaven/

Dear Carla,
I couldn’t stop reading your blog. I would like to thank you for opening up this subject and sharing it, making it something very real.

I am the author of “By Morning’s Light” which is the true story of my 26 year old son’s death and my communications with him during the following year; the more openness we can bring to this the better. Taking the fear out of death! What a wonderful world this would we.
I’m still reading and loving your blog. I’ll be looking for your books.
Ginny

Hi Carla,

I have yet to finish reading this blog post of yours, but wanted to comment, based on learning that your mom passed away from cancer. My dad passed away about 10 months ago from cancer-I recall him sitting with me and my mom at the kitchen table last Dec. 31 (he would pass away about 2 months later).  The diagnosis of cancer and subsequent death, 5 months after diagnosis, still seems surreal: I think about my dad daily and wonder whether consciousness survives death.

So you know, I would characterize myself as open minded skeptic; one who has done a few readings with mediums since my father passed. For me to believe in the possibility of an afterlife, I need to see “evidence.” I wonder whether many of those who believe in the afterlife do so only because of their religious beliefs and wishful thinking. It hurts so much to lose a loved one so it seems natural that many people would believe in the afterlife, if only because it eases the pain, somewhat.

That said, I want to note that a reading with a medium was somewhat suggestive of their communicating with my dad (while most things they said were general in nature and could apply to many people -two statements were however extremely meaningful- they did not get anything wrong (they made around 11 statements), so their simply guessing at everything would have been quite improbable, statistically speaking). I am hoping to do another reading with this medium (she is a Spiritualist)to see if she can provide me with more specific “evidence” of being able to communicate with my dad.

Of all the lines of “evidence” for survival of consciousnesses, I find the death bed visions to be most suggestive of their being the possibility of life after death. I say this because, unless I am mistaken, those having visions prior to death all seem to see common themes and they do not seem to see/vision nonsensical images (such as pink elephants, unicorns, etc.- one would expect those hallucinating prior to death to see all sorts of things which one could easily explain away as not being “real”).

To try and determine whether those dying having visions which were nonsensical in nature, such as giant clowns, unicorns, etc., I surveyed about 30 hospice nurses and doctors via twitter-of those that replied (i believe about 10 replied) all stated that from their experiences those that saw visions saw light, god, deceased family members, etc., but none saw visions of things like pink unicorns or other such “nonsense.” While this tiny survey was far from scientific in nature, not one nurse or doctor responded to say that they had witnessed those dying having visions of things that we would categorize as being “nonsensical” like images one would see if one were hallucinating as a result of ingesting LSD, or other such drugs.

I would be curious to know, from your studies/experiences, whether you have come across cases in which the dying saw visions of “nonsensical” things? For death bed visions to be truly suggestive of consciousness survival, I would expect that there would be no, or few, cases where those dying in hospital/hospice/home settings had visions that one could easily characterize as being hallucinations, of the kind I gave examples of above.

Thanks for your thoughts,
Lee