End-of-Life Dreams
When my father died, he had a waking dream of this. Saw a river with all his dead family across the water. Smiling and waving. Coming to the banks. Waiting for him to cross. His last words were “Cover me in a blanket of sunshine.” He died two hours later.<p>What’s a little remarkable to me is that he had these visions in this detail despite being lifelong blind.<p>As I was reading the article, I kept wondering which came first. Humans having visions of loved ones? Or the religions and stories that posit a posthumous reunion? I was theorizing that the visions were shaped by the individuals’ religious beliefs.<p>The article offered one piece of evidence that my theory was wrong. The doctor claimed that almost no one saw Jesus or any other divine entity in their near death dreams. If this is universally true, then the religious beliefs about death & heaven are shaped in part by the dreams and not vice versa.