Do the long deceased really come back to take loved ones when they die

[Heatherjayne1972]

Or is it wishful thinking a dying brain hallucinating or something else
What do you think? Any experiences you're willing to share?

I would like to believe that they come to meet us at the end of life but no one knows.

My nana when she passed she seemed to be talking to my grandad and kept looking to one side of the room.

My husband last month had an operation and it went wrong and he says he was sure that his grandad was there waiting for him.

I'm a very cynical person on these type of issues. However just before my mum died she called out 'Mum'. Who knows what happens as someone's brain is finally shutting down. Also from the time of her death until after the funeral there was a wonderful smell of roses in the room she died in. Inexplicable.

I am not sure to be honest. (Slightly off topic but still woo) When my very good friend died, there were a few strange happenings that I can't really explain. The day after she died, I was sitting in my living room alone in the house and was surrounded by the scent of perfume. Strange, because I can't usually bear it around me. Then for the following year, I was travelling around for work and stayed in a few different short term places. In every one, I experienced electrical disturbances like flickering lights/lights turning on and off. Who knows? It was weird.

The day my grandad died we had a few 'woo' things happen. It was bickering it down with rain but mum and I were looking into the back garden, and it suddenly became filled with a very warm light and stopped raining. You could feel the warmth through the window. I could see the front window when I turned around (knocked-through terrace), which was still raining and dull. The light disappeared in the back garden after a couple of minutes and became full and hard rain again.

On the day of the funeral as our family were queuing to leave the house and get in the funeral car, the television turned itself on to show white noise and static. It turned itself off again a few moments later - this was the old style tv with only one remote, which was lying on the top of the set; as we were going out we had already switched the socket off at the wall. My main memories of grandad were of him parked in front of the football on the tv, so it felt very fitting he said goodbye like that.

I believe.

@JohnThomas69 I had an experience very, very similar to yours the day after my Ddad died

I have to say both my grand mother’s saw their husbands at the end of their beds before they passed. Neither of them were believers and there was no connection between them otherwise.

It’s a strange phenomenon and I tend to believe it’s an ailing brain more than what’s actually happening.

@Nowshesaturtle. I'd be interested to hear your story.
Really was a quite profound experience and one that took me with absolute surprise.
The overwhelming feeling of presence that engulfed the room and followed by the complete vacuum when it passed which was as astounding as the event itself.
Ive only ever told one person about the experience before today and they listened but It was really difficult to relay just how absolutely solid the whole thing was.
I honestly am an absolute cynic and have silently dismissed/tuned out on the odd occasion anyone has ever brought up such discussion. I REALLY just did not believe in anything at all like that. Spirits. Religion. Monsters in the loft. Never gave any of it much thought, but the humans soul, I just don't know what or where it goes now that I've been touched by my mother's.

www.amazon.co.uk/Proof-Heaven-Neurosurgeons-Journey-Afterlife/dp/0749958790?tag=mumsnetforum-21

If you read this book, it may help you make up your mind. I certainly believe in life after death.

OK @johnthomas69, here we go:

My Dad died very suddenly and the following morning I was in my bedroom waiting for my DH to return from walking the dog so we could go to my Mum's and help her with stuff.

In my head I said something very specifically to my Dad - can't remember what but something like 'Dad I hope you are feeling OK now and not in pain'.

The room seemed to fill with sunlight, I got a very calm, peaceful feeling and his voice inside my head clearly said 'This is how I feel'.

Everything outside the room seemed to go really quiet but inside the room was absolutely filled with his presence, as you described it with your Mum, and I just stood there experiencing this calm and love and sense of everything being absolutely OK.

After a few moments I heard my DH returning and called to him to come and experience my Dad's presence but as soon as I called the light started to retreat so I asked it to come back and it did so. I didn't call DH again and could hear him pottering around downstairs.

A minute or so later the phone rang downstairs. Dad's voice in my head clearly said 'That's xxxxxx (my best friend), go and talk to her now'. And the light just retreated from the room. Not in a great swoosh like you describe - more slowly but really powerfully and I just knew nothing I could say or do would bring it back. It was totally gone.

So I came downstairs - and it was my best friend on the phone. I'd called her the night before to tell her the news but she'd been out and I'd left a message with her husband.

I know this sounds unbelievable to many, and I toyed with just sending my story to @johnthomas69 as a PM but then I thought some others might be interested. It was a life-changing experience, powerful and completely real.

@noesheatutlrtle
Thanks for responding. I knew I couldn't be the only one to have had this happen to them.
Its a particularly depressing week because I lost my best friend to suicide a couple of days later the year before my mother died (esp since it's in the depths of winter which I don't particularly enjoy either)
My mum just said,' Don't worry #####, you're a good boy and everything's going to be fine' A rather predictable message and a bit cheesy but it was as clear as if someone had shouted it in my ear.
Having been the world's biggest sceptic prior, I can totally understand others doubts, which is why I never told anyone apart from my sister and it was such an overwhelming and personal event I never really felt the need to discuss because It didn't require validation.
Im happy for you tho. Same as I feel rather privileged myself to have been privy to the big secret😉. There's definitely a part of us that carries on.

I have only witnessed it once. An elderly woman I looked after in a nursing home many years ago. She was pretty immobile but not unwell, just naturally coming to the end of her life and didn't have dementia.
As she was dying I sat with her and she struggled to sit up, I helped her to do this and then she very clearly looked into a corner of the room and, with a huge smile on her face said ' 'Freddy' what on earth are you doing there, you cheeky little boy I haven't seen you for so long' All this was very, very clear and she shortly afterwards died, never speaking again after those words.
While describing this to the matron she looked up notes and found that someone in her family had mentioned she's had a little boy called Freddy who had died at age 3, the woman was by the time of her death, about 90. The woman herself had never mentioned Freddy and had been in the home for a few years her husband had died years earlier and they'd never had any other children ( many elderly people do not mention children who have died)

expatinscotland First of all, no one dies and then comes back. They may have been near death, but no one who dies comes back.

A few years ago my brother was critically ill in hospital. His kidneys had gone into catastrophic failure and we were all called in as he was not expected to survive. Fortunately, after a long night with the medical team working on him, they stabilised him and he went on to make a full recovery.

A few months later we were watching a programme about NDEs. My brother, who was the biggest sceptic ever, then told us about his experience that night. He said the medical team were frantically working to keep him alive, he was unconscious, then suddenly he was hovering over the bed watching them. He heard everything they were saying and was looking at his own face which was swelling and turning blue. He was willing himself to stay and then suddenly he was back in his body.

A few weeks later, when he was well on the way to recovery he was talking to his consultant and showed her his finger and toe nails, which all had a horizontal white line on them. She said that was how they knew he had died and come back, the lines were where the nails had stopped growing and then started again.

So yes, people do die and then come back.

I read the Anita Moorjani book recently, actually I read half of it up to the NDE bit and after, and while I have no idea how what happened to her did, the attitude she displayed afterward put me off reading the rest i.e. that all we have to do is believe in ourselves and we will be well. That cancer was because she had never thought of herself and once she loved herself her body could be heeled.

In terms of loved ones coming for us at the end, I believe that at the point we die we are generaly aware of and resigned to the idea of dying iyswim and as such imagine the people who have gone before us and that we will see them again. I think that in their minds it is real in the same way you can have a hallucination and it helps them to move on.

Many people are afraid of dying. I used to be. Then nearly two years ago I nearly died. Slipped into unconsciousness for three days, said goodbye to dp before it happened I woke up and remember nothing. My thought is that death is likely like that, nothing, but it won’t matter because we won’t really be experiencing it iyswim. I’m not afraid of dying any more, in fact there’s a better than average chance that I will die soon due to medical conditions. I’m more afraid of leaving people behind.

My mum asked whether I’d seen any of the deceased family when I was unconscious and I said no, and besides, if I was going to see anyone from the other side I would have hoped to have seen my beloved dog and my cats. .

PS: re my last comment, I’m not terminally ill but I do have a life limiting illness which is likely to kill me at some point. I don’t know whether or when and it pays not to dwell, but ykwim.

I'm with my DS on this. He says there's no afterlife because where could everyone fit?!

A few weeks later, when he was well on the way to recovery he was talking to his consultant and showed her his finger and toe nails, which all had a horizontal white line on them. She said that was how they knew he had died and come back, the lines were where the nails had stopped growing and then started again. I thought that nails kept growing after you died in fact I thought that was commonly known...

But that aside @expatinscotland is right, you don’t die and come back, in order to be dead the brain would be dead. Once the brain is dead it cannot be brought back. So while people may hover near the edge so to speak and may be technically dead i.e. no heartbeat and so on, they aren’t actually dead and then come back to life.

I thought that nails kept growing after you died in fact I thought that was commonly known...

Nails and hair don't keep growing after you die. The skin around them retracts, which gives the appearance of continued growth.

The consultant told him that the horizontal lines are a recognised way of confirming that someone died and came back, as for that moment the cells in the body have died.

But how can it be like all the years before you were born?? To me that doesn’t make sense.
We done remember being in utero or newborns etc just because we don’t have the capacity to remember everything from birth but we very much exist from the point of conception.
Before that we just dont exist at all no energy nothing so of course there’s nothing before conception
After death it’s not the same then as once we’ve been conceived and lived and that energy is there it has to go somewhere ? So after death is very different to before life ?

Unless you believe in reincarnation.... so the idea that you never actually die....

It’s all too confusing for me I think I need to go and google cake recipes or something to get it all out of my mind 😂 starts to make me think too much

Horizontal white lines on nails are signs of a number of diseases, including acute renal failure.

emedicine.medscape.com/article/1106423-overview

Once you are dead you are dead. I don't believe there is anything else beyond death, whatever a NDE is I think it's brain activity.

We'll all find out one day. But will have no one to tell...

I dont believe in an afterlife. So my basic answer would be no.

However, I remember when my grandmother was dying, my mother told me she (grandmother) spoke vaguely of seeing her deceased husband and long dead child waiting just outside the curtain around the bed. My mother rationalised it that some healthcare professionals were just outside the curtain and my grandmother 'chose' to see her loved ones instead.

I think that rationalisation is probably true. So all those people seeing loved ones are actually simply imagining them or confusing them with someone else. The brain playing tricks. Which is fine by me. It is lovely to think that, as death approaches, our last thoughts are for loved ones who have gone before. I am sure that is comfort enough for some people.

When my DSis was dying she saw our dad in the room and spoke to him. She reached out and smiled at him. She was very close to death. The palliative nurse asked us if she'd been close to my dad and explained that often when a person is near to passing, they receive a visit from a loved one from "the other side".

My dad was and still is alive and well. I believe my DSis was hallucinating as her mind and body were shutting down. At such times in life we experience heightened senses and that, I believe, explains the smell of roses or beams of sunlight that some PPs have experienced.

Sorry. I don't believe.