Perceptual phenomena associated with spontaneous experiences of after-death communication: Analysis of visual, tactile, auditory and olfactory sensations

When persons experience the death of a friend or loved one, it is very often devastating. Even if they are expecting their loved one's passing, they frequently go through a grieving process that involves finding ways to integrate this event into their core beliefs about the meaningfulness of the world.1 One key phenomenon that research shows can play a part in processing this physical loss is the experience of sensing the presence of the deceased person, either at the moment of their death or some time afterward.1, 2, 3 These experiences of after-death communications (ADCs4) termed as such to reflect the manner in which experiencers typically make sense of them, have been found to be relatively common. Research studies on the general population estimate that 30–35% of persons report experiencing an ADC3,5 and this most often occurs within a year of the passing of their loved one.3 Other surveys of persons, in particular mourners, report that between 50% and 60% had one or several ADCs.6, 7, 8, 9

Research into the nature of ADCs has been ongoing since the late 1800s4,8,10, 11, 12, 13 (see Streit-Horn3 for a review). These studies have shown that ADCs occur across different age groups, gender, education level, cultural background and level of religious orientation, thus giving evidence that ADCs happen consistently across all groups within society.3,14 Research also suggests that ADCs tend to occur unexpectedly and are typically perceived as positive and comforting to the individual perceiver.2,15,16

Despite their positive nature, many persons who have experienced ADCs express a reluctance to share them with friends, family or bereavement counselors, due to a fear that they will be ridiculed, considered mentally ill or that it will have a negative impact on their professional career.17,18 This has led ADC researchers to recommend increasing the awareness of healthcare workers, counselors and the general public regarding the nature of ADCs in order to foster understanding and acceptance. Many researchers, including Judy and Bill Guggenheim,4 pioneers in the study of ADCs in the U.S. and Canada, have noted that a large number of the individuals they interviewed expressed hope that readers of the research would benefit from learning more specifically of the nature of their ADCs. They hoped that this would prevent others from the suffering and confusion they went through when family, friends or healthcare workers did not accept the reality or the meaningfulness of their experience.3

As early as 1886, Gurney and colleagues recorded over 100 cases of people's encounters with the deceased, referring to them as “hallucinations of the sane.”10 This research, published over 130 years ago, very carefully described and analyzed the ADCs, noting that within a given sensory modality, such as vision, an ADC could have varying degrees of what they called internalization vs. externalization, ranging from a purely internal representation as is seen by the “mind's eye,” to an actual percept that seems to take place in the physical world and is mediated by the senses, for example in obscuring other objects in the vicinity or casting shadows.10,11

Since this original detailed study was reported in the late 1800s, phenomenological research quantifying the nature of the sensory experience has not been as prevalent, and most articles on sensory aspects of ADCs have treated the phenomenon more generally, simply noting the incidence of different forms of sensory experience within the population sampled.9,18,19 Rees,18 for example, notes that of the total population interviewed (n = 293), 39% experienced simply a feeling of the presence, 14% saw, 13.3% heard, and 2.7% were touched by the deceased.

Within the scientific community there is no consensus about the origin of ADCs, or the sensory-perceptual phenomenology that is associated with them. At least three hypotheses could contribute to an explanation of this phenomenon. A first hypothesis, based on a materialist or reductionist point of view, suggests that ADCs are just thoughts (mental constructs) — reflecting either normal imaginal processes, or aberrant thoughts, such as aberrant hallucinations caused by grief or mental unbalance — and that any attributions of ADC sensory phenomenology as sensory stimuli encountered in the external physical world represent failures of reality monitoring. Though this is a prevalent interpretation of ADCs among scientists, research suggests that percipients of ADCs strongly disagree with this view.8,12,27,28

A challenge to this hypothesis comes from research showing that during some ADCs, percipients receive novel information to which they have had no previous access.4,8,10,12 In fact, one way of investigating the nature of ADCs is with reference to information that is communicated and the level of veracity of this information. Regarding the first hypothesis, the view would be that no new information can be communicated in an ADC, as this is an internally generated thought/hallucination.

A second hypothesis is based on the view that consciousness is fundamental (i.e., it can survive death of the body) and that nonlocal communication (communication between individuals who are not spatially or temporally connected) is possible.20,21 This view suggests that some portion of ADCs are actual instances of communication between the deceased and the percipient that are telepathically received. In this hypothesis, sensory phenomena are part of the communication itself; however, they are not realized externally in the form of a distal object that can be detected through normal sensory means, but telepathically, by creating a perception or externally produced thought in the mind of the perceiver.8

Finally, a third hypothesis is that the ADC experience is not only cognitive in nature, but results from the creation of a subtle or energetic form that materializes for a short period of time. In this case, sensory phenomena associated with ADCs are viewed as accurate perceptions of distal stimuli that are apprehended through the senses or through a form of extrasensory perception at a distance (e.g., in perceiving subsequently verified events in the dying person's home). Though the second and third hypotheses described above are less accepted, they are better able to explain the phenomenon of verified receipt of previously unknown information by the percipient.4,10

Since there are only a limited number of research studies that have explored the sensory phenomenology of ADCs, the primary aim of this study is to examine in more detail the nature of the sensations described by the ADC percipient. It is hoped that a clearer understanding of the sensory phenomenology of ADCs will shed light on the extent to which ADC perceptions appear to support one or more of the three hypotheses: that they are the result of day-to-day thoughts about the deceased; that they are subjective phenomena that reflect the extrasensory perception of remote events; or that they constitute objective phenomena, perceived more solidly, as if within the physical world.

We hope that this more detailed and extensive documentation of the characteristics of sensory information perceived as part of an ADC will add to the already existing data supporting the normalcy and the meaningfulness of these events and thereby increase the acceptance of ADCs within our culture.

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