Posted on 04 October 2010, 18:09

In his recently-released book Glimpses of Eternity, Dr. Raymond Moody, (below) who is known primarily for his pioneering work in near-death experiences, explores the area of deathbed visions and shared-death experiences. In one chapter, Moody discusses a strange mist that is sometimes reported over a deathbed.  “They describe it in various ways,” he writes. “Some say that it looks like smoke, while others say it is as subtle as steam.  Sometimes it seems to have a human shape.  Whatever the case, it usually drifts upward and always disappears fairly quickly.”

Moody and co-author Paul Perry quote a Georgia doctor who twice saw a mist coming up from deceased patients.  The doctor explained that as the patients died they lit up with a bright glow, their eyes shining with a silvery light.  The mist formed over the chest and hovered there, as the doctor observed closely and saw that the mist had depth and complex structure. He further said that it seemed to have layers with energetic motion in it.  During the second occurrence, the doctor felt an unseen presence standing beside him and seemingly waiting for the patient to die.

A hospice psychologist is quoted by Moody as saying that the misty clouds which form above the head or chest seem to have an electrical component to them. A nurse reported seeing a mist rising from many patients as they die, including her father, with whom she saw the mist rise from his chest “as if off a still river,” and then hovering for a few seconds before dissipating.

The bright glow witnessed by the Georgia doctor has also been reported by many other deathbed observers. Moody quotes one man as saying that the room became “uncomfortably bright,” so bright that he couldn’t shut it out even when he closed his eyes.  A hospice nurse reported seeing a “luminous presence floating near the bed, shaped somewhat like a person.”  In the same case, the head nurse saw the light in the room and light coming from the dying person’s eyes but did not observe the presence.

Moody tells of his own experience as he and other family members gathered at the bed of his dying mother.  Among some other strange things, they all saw an unusual light in the room.  “It was like looking at light in a swimming pool at night,” Moody explains.
 
There are countless reports of dying people having visions of light and seeing loved ones gathering, but skeptics discount them as hallucinations.  However, as Moody points out, it is one thing to claim that the dying person is hallucinating, quite another to claim that healthy people in the room are sharing in the hallucination with the dying person.  He discusses a number of other shared experiences at deathbeds and opines that they tell us more about the afterlife than the NDE and that they are “the key to proving the existence of an afterlife.” (It should be kept in mind that calling something an “hallucination” does not mean it is not “real.”  It is just not objectively real.)

Caregivers Often Witness 

Such misty vapors and “lights” around the deathbed have been reported by other researchers, including Dr. Bernard Laubscher, (below) a South African psychiatrist.  “I was told by different ‘Tant Sannies’ (caregivers) how while watching at the bedside of the dying one with one or two candles burning they had seen the formation of a faint vaporous body, an elongated whitish purplish-like cloud; parallel with the dying person and about two feet above the body,” Laubscher wrote in a 1975 book, Beyond Life’s Curtain.  “Gradually this cloudlike appearance became denser and took on the form, first vaguely and then more definitely, of the person in the bed.  This process continued until the phantom suspended above the body was an absolute replica of the person, especially the face.”

Laubscher further reported that these caregivers, some of whom were apparently clairvoyant, reported seeing a ribbon-like cord stretching from the back of the phantom’s head to the body below and that the phantom would begin to glow as it was fully formed. “They noticed that some were more luminous than others and there was a light all around the outline of the [phantom], which I could only compare to a neon tube,” Laubscher added, going on to say that as the phantom righted itself the connecting cord thinned out as if it was fraying away.  Sometimes these clairvoyant caregivers would report joyous faces of other deceased gathering around to welcome the person to the spirit world before the “silver cord” was severed and the visions ceased.

As Laubscher came to understand it, the vaporous material has the same makeup as ectoplasm, the mysterious substance given off by physical mediums before materializations.  It acts as sort of a “glue” in bonding the physical body with the spirit body, and the more materialistic a person the denser the ectoplasm and the more difficulty the person has in “giving up the ghost.”

In their excellent 2008 book, The Art of Dying, Dr. Peter Fenwick, a renowned British neuropsychiatrist, and Elizabeth Fenwick also discuss the “smoke,” “grey mist,” or “white mist” which leaves the body at death.  “Sometimes it will hover above the body before rising to disappear through the ceiling, and it is often associated with love, light, compassion, purity, and occasionally with heavenly music,” they write, adding that not everyone who is in the room sees it.

The Fenwicks quote a woman named Penny Bilcliffe, who was present when her sister died:  “I saw a fast-moving ‘Will ‘o the Wisp’ appear to leave her body by the side of her mouth on the right.  The shock and the beauty of it made me gasp.  It appeared like a fluid or gaseous diamond, pristine, sparkly, and pure, akin to the view from above of an eddy in the clearest pool you can imagine…It moved rapidly upwards and was gone.”

In his 1970 book, Out of the Body Experiences, Dr. Robert Crookall quotes Dr. R. B. Hout, a physician, who was present at the death of his aunt.  “My attention was called…to something immediately above the physical body, suspended in the atmosphere about two feet above the bed.  At first I could distinguish nothing more than a vague outline of a hazy, fog-like substance.  There seemed to be only a mist held suspended, motionless.  But, as I looked, very gradually there grew into my sight a denser, more solid, condensation of this inexplicable vapor.  Then I was astonished to see definite outlines presenting themselves, and soon I saw this fog-like substance was a assuming a human form.”

Hout then saw that the form resembled the physical body of his aunt.  The form hung suspended horizontally a few feet above the body.  When the phantom form appeared complete, Hout saw his aunt’s features clearly.  “They were very similar to the physical face, except that a glow of peace and vigor was expressed instead of age and pain. The eyes were closed as though in tranquil sleep, and a luminosity seemed to radiate from the spirit body.”

Hout then observed a “silverlike substance” streaming from the head of the physical body to the head of the spirit body.  “The colour was a translucent luminous silver radiance.  The cord seemed alive with vibrant energy.  I could see the pulsations of light stream along the course of it, from the direction of the physical body to the spirit ‘double.’  With each pulsation the spirit body became more alive and denser, whereas the physical body became quieter and more nearly lifeless…”

When the pulsations of the cord stopped, Hout could see various strands of the cord snapping.  When the last connecting strand snapped, the spirit body rose to a vertical position, the eyes opened, and a smile broke from the face before it vanished from his sight.

Ectoplasm on the Battlefield

“I have seen ectoplasm on the battlefield,” a young soldier was quoted in the January 25, 1945 issue of Psychic Observer by reporter Ed Bodin. “I have watched it emanate from a badly wounded soldier and then disappear as that soldier breathed his last.  One hillbilly comrade from Kentucky called it ‘soul mist,’ revealing that many natives in his part of the country considered it quite a normal thing, although they seldom talked about it.”

Because his orthodox Christian family frowned on discussion of such occult matters, the young soldier asked not to be identified.  However, he went on to tell how, after being wounded by shrapnel, another soldier lay badly wounded about 10 feet from him.  “I looked at him with pity, forgetting my own pain.  Then in the deepening twilight I saw strange smoke begin to curl above him as though coming from his stomach as he lay on his back moaning.  The stump of his arm was in the thick mud congealing the blood to some extent and making death slower.

“Then I remembered what my friend had said about soul-mist, and I watched fascinated as the ectoplasm became denser and began to flow toward me.  For a moment I thought I saw in it the face of a kindly old lady.  Presently it reached me and for a second I was bewildered by the strange sensation that came over me.  I felt stronger.  With my left arm I raised myself and began to crawl to the dying soldier.  I reached for my canteen of water.  The mist was still around me, and with a sudden effort I was on my feet, and beside the soldier.”

The other soldier died and the young soldier telling the story rose and walked nearly a mile to the Red Cross representative.  He remained unconscious for three days and medical attendants later told him that they could not understand how he had lived, to say nothing of walking the near mile to safety.  “…to my dying day, I shall believe the ectoplasm from the body of that dying soldier had helped me in a mysterious way,” the young soldier added.  “It had given me sufficient strength to save my life.  That soul-mist of a sacrificed soldier was like the spiritual light of Jesus about whom it was said: ‘He could save others, but not Himself’.”

Next Post:  October 19

All down the years I have had quite a few deathbed experiences, one of which was my uncles death. Just a few minutes before he passed, I felt something pass through me three times, whatever they were they were shockingly cold, so much so I gasped out loud and the hair on my arms stood up as though exposed to static, and this on a hot July day. It came into my mind this was father, mother and brother coming to escort him to the afterlife. The priest at the bedside seemed shocked and bemused at my reaction and made no comment when I asked him did he feel that, meaning what I had just experienced.
A great and interesting blog, excellent.

I saw my first “mist” float up off the lawn of a graveyard on an otherwise relatively cloudless day. I was driving along a country road when I spotted it. It drifted up from the lawn of the graveyard and went very slowly spilling out over the road and I drove through it in my car. But it didn’t break up or blow around right then. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw it, still intact, float across the road and then suddenly dissipate. I didn’t know what to make of it but it was so clearly out of place and behaving as if it were intentionally moving itself.Later that day on my return home I noticed a fresh grave near the spot where I saw the cloud. That was about 3 months ago. Last week I saw another one near my back yard about an hour before sunrise.I was up trying to watch over a flock of chickens that had been getting harrassed by a skunk and I had been up all night quietly lying in wait to get a shot at the critter when a mist just suddenly materialized right in front of me about 8 feet up in the air. I immediately looked around for signs of fog or rain clouds but there wasn’t anything like that around anywhere.  It just suddenly appeared. It was about 8 feet in length and appeared to be lit from within. It appeared then suddenly drifted upward to about 25 feet in the air then it was gone. It just dissipated and was gone. It wasn’t more than 25 feet from me. Now I’m completely curious about it.

I was seventeen when my dad passed away due to brain cancer. Our entire family was present at his deathbed. I watched him exhale for the last time and right afterwards I noticed a white mist leaving his chest. It floated for a moment above his upper body before rising through the ceiling. I looked around the room, gasping at what I had just experienced, but I could tell that I was the only witness, and I got it confirmed later when asking the other family members. It was life changing.

Stefanie,

My condolences on the temporary loss of your father.  Thank you much for adding to the growing body of evidence on this subject.

My father passed away a few days ago. Minutes before he passed I felt a surge of extra people enter the room. I noticed that as he took hid “last breath” a smoke/mist streamed out of his trach and chest and spiralled up. The color in the room became a warm gold and I felt more love than the need to feel saddened. This is the second time I have been witnessed to this, however shrugged of the first. It’s nice to know there are others who have the same experience. My father’s enrgy has alloewed me to be strong a positive and aware that he is still with his family.    oxoxox Daddy

Marilyn, Robin, and Paul,

Thank you for sharing your experiences. They add to the growing body of evidence of “misty” deathbed scenes, which, in turn, suggest a transition to another realm of existence. It is too bad that mainstream science does not pay more attention to such reports.

I am so pleased that I found your blog.

I was with my husband and sister when my father had the Last Rites in the hospital.  I saw a grey mist floating around the ceiling of the room and no one else did. I always meant to go back to talk to the Chaplain but never had the chance.  My brother and his wife went to see a medium a short time ago and she mentioned that someone in the hospital with my father had seen the mist.

My brother was shocked that it was true and that I had witnessed this event.

It’s a pleasure to share this with you and your readers and look forward to any comments.

Marilyn McNally

My Mother passed away 1/4/2012 she had been ill four 4 years with cancer and Myself my father ,brother ,sister were in the room i was on one side of the bed and every one else was on the other side of moms bed it was about 10 minutes after Mom had passed away the curtains were open the sun was shining in and i was just sitting there still trying to let this all sink in and I seen a white cloud like smoke float away from my mother seem to be as if it came out the side of her head and this smoke,cloud floating toward the window i right away thought something was burning i yelled at everyone standing there and said something is on fire they all looked and know one else seen any thing so i just shut up and the more i thought about it i wounderd what is this is it here spirt going out the window?

This is the 1st time I have spoke of my experience which took place around 14 years ago when my great grandmother died. I was very close to her and also lived with her although my family where all very close by. My gran died 4 days after my 18th birthday and we had a traditional catholic Irish wake from home for 3 days. On the last night of the wake just hours before the funeral something happened that changed me. Tradionally all the family stay together on the last night and support each other as we prepare to bury our loved one.
Things didn’t pan out that way and slowly but surely family members had to leave, 2 became unwell and a new born baby also seen my sister and parents leave. So it was just me an aunt and an uncle. As the night went on at around 4am I noticed from the corner of my eye a mist above the coffin but before I braved to turn I notice my aunt crying at what she also could see. The 3rd person in the room was sleeping and oblivious to what was occurring.
The mist is very hard to describe but almost like a nebula in colour. The difference with our experience was the feelings we experienced and the length of time in which this event elapsed. My aunt at the time was about 30, and in her young years she lived with our grandmother before me so we were and still our very close to her.
As the mist floated about 2 feet above the coffin I felt what I can describe as a light surge in my feet slowly rising through out my body removing any sorrow or bad feelings I had. The strange things is that during this my aunt was describing exactly the same sensation. This experience felt like 5mins, but in truth it lasted until daybreak,  which was about 3 to 4 hours. The sense of joy the next morning was phenomenal and the sadness had all but disappeared and we were strong that day.
In loving memory of my grandmother

Roselena Kennedy
10.11.97

Tracy,

Most of the “misty” reports have to do with the moment of physical death. I have heard of experiences similar to yours, but, of course, there is no way to know for certain what the mist you experienced was.  One can only speculate and guess that it might have been your deceased partner.  I don’t know what the alternative explanations might be.  Sorry I can’t give you a better answer than that.

my partner has just passed away following a massive heartattack aged 54,roughly a week after his passing i stayed at his house strange things happened that night but in the morning there was a mist in the kitchen all around i did feel a bit uneasy i went back out waited trying to make out what i had just saw, when i returned the mist had moved to the bottom of the stairs by the front door, does this mean that he was just visiting.

Last summer a women died not far from my house on the beach, i was watching the site were she was laying, there were people around the body in one moment i saw a smoky and lightning “something” above the people and the body, it was a few meters above (3,4 meters).I could not understand what it was till now.

My brother’s father-in-law had a long career working in the timber industry, here in Oregon.  He told me that once a young man was crushed between two logs in an accident in the woods.  They could do nothing for him because of the seriousness of his injuries.  As he passed on, they observed a “mist” rising above his body.  Wouldn’t it be a wonderful comfort if that happened EVERY time someone passed away?  Then there would be a certainty that they lived on.

This was an interesting blog. Thank you Michael. It reminded me of the autobiography of the famous medium Eileen Garrett. As a child she was both psychic and a rebel. On one occasion she took revenge on her aunt by drowning some ducklings on the pond, and she described what she called “a gray smoke-like substance, rising in spiral form” from each body. So in the name of science she killed crows and rabbits to see if they did the same. But she was soon appalled by her own cruelty and became protective of animals ever after. 

Julie, Dave, Wendy,

Thank you for your comments. 

As for Julie’s comment it should be kept in mind that ectoplasm has been reported in all forms.  While the “veil-like” or “cheesecloth” form is often seen in photographs taken in infrared or phosphorescent light, ectoplasm also has been reported in gaseous, liquid, or fibrous forms.  It can assume different colors from soft white to gray and black.  It can move slowly but disappear in a flash.  It can be stiff or pliable. It can be invisible, seen only by clairvoyants, or seen by all present.

Michael yours is really one of the best if not the best blog in this subject area. 

Always a pleasure to read because the presentation is always as outstanding as the content.  Yes I too liked the connection between the mist and the ectoplasm - I wondered before if there was a connection.  Although of course ectoplasm would be ‘objective’ - everybody would be able to see it in the room.  Always a wonderful read and always food for thought, julie in London

Fascinating evidence of the afterlife. I assume the information in this book is what Dr. Moody referred to earlier this summer when he said this fall he would be revealing what he called the best proof of life after death.

Michael once again you have drawn my attention to some wonderful evidence of the afterlife. I love the link between the mist and ectoplasm.