Speaker 1: Welcome to the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast
Speaker 1: day M paranormal podcast network. Now get ready for another
Speaker 1: episode of Shades of the Afterlife of Sandra Champlain. The
Speaker 1: thoughts and opinions expressed by the host our thoughts and
Speaker 1: opinions only, and do not necessarily reflect those of I
Speaker 1: Heart Media, I Heart Radio, Coast to Coast a out,
Speaker 1: employees of premier networks or their sponsors and associates. You
Speaker 1: are encouraged to do the proper amount of research yourself,
Speaker 1: depending on the subject matter and your needs. Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been on
Speaker 1: a journey to prove the existence of life after death.
Speaker 1: On each episode will discuss the reasons we now know
Speaker 1: that our loved ones have survived physical death, and so
Speaker 1: we welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. If by sound
Speaker 1: a little sleepy, I'm going to tell you why I
Speaker 1: woke up this morning at five am from the most
Speaker 1: bizarre dream. Now, what happened in the dream isn't important.
Speaker 1: It stems back from my catering days and working. But
Speaker 1: the dream was so real that I woke up and
Speaker 1: I thought, thank goodness, it was just a dream. If
Speaker 1: you're anything like me, we have a tendency to check email,
Speaker 1: social media, and my brain was awake, so I decided
Speaker 1: to do a little research. I was thinking about dreams,
Speaker 1: which led me to thinking about stories I've heard about
Speaker 1: people who have dreams before they pass away, which led
Speaker 1: me about five ten am to a YouTube video with
Speaker 1: palliative care physician Christopher Kerr, who wrote the book Death
Speaker 1: Is But a Dream. In a little while, I'll play
Speaker 1: for you a clip of the interview because it offered
Speaker 1: something to me that I had never really thought of before.
Speaker 1: He mentions a term called post traumatic growth. I've never
Speaker 1: heard that before. And some of these dreams before death
Speaker 1: people having an inventory of life, feeling like they are
Speaker 1: intensely living, seeing, most often deceased loved ones that are
Speaker 1: there to help them across the veil, and their fear
Speaker 1: of death goes away. Even though I have been investigating
Speaker 1: the afterlife for twenty five years and I fully know
Speaker 1: the reality of it, there is something in my humanity
Speaker 1: that's not ready to go, nor do I want to die,
Speaker 1: and it's natural, I think, to have fear of the
Speaker 1: dying process. It was early, like I said, five am,
Speaker 1: but I feel so comforted in what I have discovered.
Speaker 1: It's a new layer to things that I have discussed before.
Speaker 1: But realizing that before death, we do a lot of sleeping,
Speaker 1: we do a lot of natural life inventory. We dream
Speaker 1: about people and our past, and most often find it
Speaker 1: very hard to separate what's a dream and what's the reality.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Coobler Ross, you may be familiar with that name.
Speaker 1: A lot of people think that she created the five
Speaker 1: stages of grief, and you might have heard these Denial, anger, bargaining, depression,
Speaker 1: and acceptance. If you've ever grieved, you know there's more
Speaker 1: than five stages, and they don't happen in any particular order.
Speaker 1: Those five stages are from Elizabeth Coogler Ross, but they
Speaker 1: were written and developed as the five stages of dying.
Speaker 1: So let's go through them again. Denial, No, not me,
Speaker 1: it can't be true. Then there's anger, that feeling of
Speaker 1: why me. There's bargaining, which one attempts to postpone their death,
Speaker 1: thinking if I'm good and I do this and this,
Speaker 1: can I live longer? And then there is a state
Speaker 1: of depression, especially when people are reacting to an illness,
Speaker 1: and then perhaps unfinished business. But then there's the state
Speaker 1: of acceptance, the final rest before the long journey. And
Speaker 1: with listening to Dr Christopher Kerr, I realized that this
Speaker 1: acceptance can be because of the work that is done,
Speaker 1: this life inventory and the dreams and getting to a
Speaker 1: place of accepting one's life as it was with an
Speaker 1: air of excitement because loved ones are there to greet us.
Speaker 1: So in this episode, I want to share with you
Speaker 1: some of those words I heard in the YouTube video
Speaker 1: from Dr Christopher Kerr, and I was inspired to download
Speaker 1: his book on Kindle Death Is But a Dream and
Speaker 1: share with you some of these magnificent stories that talk
Speaker 1: about this life inventory, this growth that we have looking
Speaker 1: back on our lives, and how for most people, given
Speaker 1: some time that you know you're dying, how the fear
Speaker 1: of death goes away. Let me tell you first about
Speaker 1: Christopher Kerr, and this is from his book. Christopher ker
Speaker 1: m d, pH d is the Chief Medical Officer and
Speaker 1: Chief Executive Officer for Hospice and Palliative Care Buffalo, New York.
Speaker 1: Alongside direct patient care. Doctor Kerr's focus is in the
Speaker 1: areas of leadership and patient advocacy. He has overseen the
Speaker 1: integration and expansion of palliative care into hospitals and developed
Speaker 1: a large home based program for both adults and children,
Speaker 1: and has published on innovative program models that are designed
Speaker 1: to better align patient and family services. Doctor Kerr's background
Speaker 1: in research has evolved from bench science towards the human
Speaker 1: experience of illness as witness from the bedside. Specifically, patients
Speaker 1: dreams visions at the end of their life. Although medically ignored,
Speaker 1: these near universal experiences often provide comfort and meaning, as
Speaker 1: well as insight into life led and the death anticipated.
Speaker 1: To date, the research team at Hospice and Palliative Care
Speaker 1: Buffalo has published multiple studies on this topic and documented
Speaker 1: over fifteen hundred end of life events, many of which
Speaker 1: are videotaped. Doctor Kerr's work was published in a recent
Speaker 1: book called Death Is But a Dream, Finding hope and
Speaker 1: meaning at Life's end. Christopher Kerr is a hospice doctor.
Speaker 1: All of his patients die, yet he has cared for
Speaker 1: thousands of patients who, in the face of death, speak
Speaker 1: of love and grace. Beyond the physical realities of dying
Speaker 1: are unseen processes that are remarkably life affirming. These include
Speaker 1: dreams that are unlike any other dream described as more
Speaker 1: real than real. These end of life experiences resurrect past
Speaker 1: relation ships, meaningful events, and themes of love and forgiveness.
Speaker 1: They restore life's meaning and mark the transition from distress
Speaker 1: to comfort and acceptance. Drawing on interviews with over four
Speaker 1: d patients and more than a decade of quantified data,
Speaker 1: Dr Kurrent reveals that pre death dreams and visions are
Speaker 1: extraordinary occurrences that humanize the dying process. He shares how
Speaker 1: his patients stories point to death as not solely about
Speaker 1: the end of life, but as the final chapter of
Speaker 1: humanity's transcendence. Beautifully written with astonishing real life characters and stories,
Speaker 1: this book, at its heart is a celebration of our
Speaker 1: power to reclaim the dying process as a meaningful one.
Speaker 1: Death is but a dream is an important contribution to
Speaker 1: our own understanding of medicines and humanity's great history. I'm
Speaker 1: always fascinated with these deathbed vision stories, but I never
Speaker 1: quite realized the transformation that can come to a life
Speaker 1: at the end of life. We hear of life reviews,
Speaker 1: don't we after we pass away and someone is called
Speaker 1: to the light, and very often near death experiencers describe
Speaker 1: reviewing their life in great detail, often from the perspective
Speaker 1: of the people they impacted, not in a place of judging,
Speaker 1: but in a place of understanding your behaviors and your actions.
Speaker 1: I always think it's good as we live our life
Speaker 1: to follow our moral compass, have integrity, be a person
Speaker 1: of our word, make amends when need be, because we are,
Speaker 1: after all, just human. We make mistake weeks. But if
Speaker 1: we live life knowing that someday we will have this
Speaker 1: life review, why not clean things up before we pass?
Speaker 1: In listening to doctor Kerr's video this morning and also
Speaker 1: doing some reading from his book with the suggestion that
Speaker 1: many people review their life on their deathbed, that may
Speaker 1: mean that they don't have a life review once they transition.
Speaker 1: Who knows. But think of the power when we can
Speaker 1: live our life right now, being fully in the moment,
Speaker 1: being responsible for the life as we've had it. And
Speaker 1: if we can do that to not only not have
Speaker 1: this life review when we pass, but also to have
Speaker 1: that life review before we pass, looking back on our
Speaker 1: life as one of appreciation and growth, as opposed to
Speaker 1: oh I should have done this differently or done that differently.
Speaker 1: Would it make more room for the loved ones to
Speaker 1: arrive and the happier memories and the greater dreams. So
Speaker 1: I want to investigate this in this episode. When we
Speaker 1: come back from the break, I'm going to play that
Speaker 1: clip from what I heard from Dr Kerr. I think
Speaker 1: you're really going to enjoy that, and then we're going
Speaker 1: to share some experiences that people had before they passed.
Speaker 1: If you're interested in this, I want to recommend to
Speaker 1: you just a few places you can find out more.
Speaker 1: First of all, Dr Christopher ker dot com, so it's
Speaker 1: d R Christopher k e r r dot com if
Speaker 1: you are friendly. On YouTube, you can see a lot
Speaker 1: of the videos of the recordings of him actually speaking
Speaker 1: to patients about their dreams. And on YouTube, just do
Speaker 1: a search for hospice and Palliative Care Buffalo. There's tons
Speaker 1: of interviews of Dr Christopher Kerr you can look up
Speaker 1: and read about. Also see his TED talk And I've
Speaker 1: read that PBS has filmed a show about him and
Speaker 1: his work. I haven't been able to find it, so
Speaker 1: maybe that is coming soon. Also on this show, I
Speaker 1: have talked about deathbed visions before, so if it's been
Speaker 1: a while, scroll back through some of the earlier episodes,
Speaker 1: so let's take our break and then we'll be back
Speaker 1: with the words of Dr Kerr about how the end
Speaker 1: of life transforms our life. Pretty great stuff. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Shades of the Afterlife on the I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Coast to Coast a M Paranormal podcast network. Keep
Speaker 1: it here on the I Heart Radio and Coast to
Speaker 1: Coast AM Paranormal podcast Network. Sandra Champlain will be right back.
Speaker 1: I'm George Nor. Thank you for listening to the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Coast to Coast a UM paranormal podcast network.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the I Heart Radio and Coast to
Speaker 1: Coast a M Paranormal podcast network with the best shows
Speaker 1: that explore the paranormal, supernatural, and the unexplained. You can
Speaker 1: enjoy all shows on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sander Schamplain. What I'd like
Speaker 1: to do now is play that YouTube clip that I
Speaker 1: watched so early this morning. It is Dr Christopher Kerr
Speaker 1: talking about the dreams, the healing, and the acceptance that
Speaker 1: can happen at the end of one's life. Dying is
Speaker 1: a singularly unique vantage point that inherently changes your perspective
Speaker 1: um and your perceptions when you look beyond the veil
Speaker 1: of the obvious, which is again this physical stability of
Speaker 1: and symptology. And started asking people what they were experienced,
Speaker 1: as you find out there's another thing happening. And what
Speaker 1: I learned from my nonposician colleagues was that it was
Speaker 1: very common for people at the end of their life
Speaker 1: to have very intense dream vision experiences. UM dying is
Speaker 1: essentially progressive sleep, so you're in and out of sleep states.
Speaker 1: UM kind of got a foot in two worlds, and
Speaker 1: people who even don't normally dream, we're reporting these very
Speaker 1: good experience instance, and what impressed me was how profoundly
Speaker 1: comforting they were, and they gave such meaning and kind
Speaker 1: of what happened was I was trying to teach this
Speaker 1: to medcal residents and students, and the response I got was, well,
Speaker 1: there's no real evidence for us, and they kind of
Speaker 1: put it in a bucket of confusion and whatever, and
Speaker 1: it would really frustrating me because it clearly had me
Speaker 1: into the patient of their loved ones. So originally I
Speaker 1: did the research just to give it validity. So with
Speaker 1: this a university modern research project, we had to rule
Speaker 1: out confusion, um make sure people were cognitively intact aware
Speaker 1: all those things that had to signed consents, and we
Speaker 1: started interviewing them and uh, knowing that scene is believing,
Speaker 1: we also started filming them. You know, shoot ahead twenty
Speaker 1: years and you know, we published on seven eight papers
Speaker 1: on it, a book, PBS documentary, and we're part of
Speaker 1: a Netflix document series. And what's fascinating is there was
Speaker 1: very little response in the medical world, but the non
Speaker 1: medical world has gone around and around the world. This
Speaker 1: wasn't true a hundred years ago, but the more medicines
Speaker 1: being able to do the scientific revolution essentially from antibiotics
Speaker 1: to imaging to interventions, has self amused the physician to
Speaker 1: really become death defying and death denying. The oath in
Speaker 1: medicine is to cure where possible, but to comfort always,
Speaker 1: and I think we've clung to the one and not
Speaker 1: the other. And it's how we educate and how we train.
Speaker 1: And then you add to it that we become spot welders.
Speaker 1: So you get sick and you can see a buffet
Speaker 1: of six doctors, so everyone's there. It's very organ system based,
Speaker 1: but even our economics of healthcare organ system base. So
Speaker 1: you do things two parts and lose sight of the whole.
Speaker 1: So it's not uncommon for us to have patients who
Speaker 1: by multiple by every measure constitutionally are dying. I'll give
Speaker 1: you an example, person with cancer hasn't eaten in three weeks.
Speaker 1: They're dying. They do the imaging, and the imaging might
Speaker 1: show disease progression, but it's really the burden of the
Speaker 1: disease over the time and frailty to come into play.
Speaker 1: So though it's not uncommon to see physicians prognosticating off
Speaker 1: of a scan that doesn't consider looking at an organ,
Speaker 1: but doesn't consider the body that the organs in for
Speaker 1: the patient's wishes. So we lost our ability to look
Speaker 1: at the totality, not only the person. What's happening happened
Speaker 1: to them in the fullest sense, but what what considerations.
Speaker 1: Some people are just tired. That's a lot of energy
Speaker 1: to be uh to fight illness, and you're eight. You
Speaker 1: can't get up anymore. You know, it's easier not to
Speaker 1: do than to do. So if we treat numbers and
Speaker 1: treat pictures and treat parts, you can miss the forest
Speaker 1: for the trees. So we've done this with now hundred
Speaker 1: patients and families, and in our first study we did
Speaker 1: interviews of them daily, surveys of them daily until death,
Speaker 1: so this is several weeks and months before that and
Speaker 1: not the last moments when people are clearly often confused
Speaker 1: um or deauctionated. And what they will tell you is, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't normally dream um. This was different. We asked
Speaker 1: them to scale the realism of it is usually ten
Speaker 1: out of ten they're virtual, like they've been lived. They
Speaker 1: come out with a sense that they were it happened,
Speaker 1: and of course they're thematically. The content is at random,
Speaker 1: you know, overwhelmingly it's about people who they've loved and lost.
Speaker 1: So we looked at this as people. What changes occurred
Speaker 1: as people who got closer to death, and what happened
Speaker 1: is they stopped dreaming of everyday events and started experiencing
Speaker 1: people who were most important to them and time didn't
Speaker 1: seem to matter. So they could have lost a parent
Speaker 1: eight decades ago, but they were tangible to them very little.
Speaker 1: As said, they don't need a lot of interpretation. They're
Speaker 1: not looking for metaphor. They're just given an understanding, and
Speaker 1: the predominant themes are themes of love. The people who
Speaker 1: condition their love are often removed, so it could be
Speaker 1: one parent present, not another um. Whatever injury you had,
Speaker 1: um that could be lost, a child that comes back
Speaker 1: to We've had a many veterans who had survivor's guilt
Speaker 1: that gets addressed. We've all been harmed and when we
Speaker 1: were the other for having lived, and we seem to
Speaker 1: get put back together through these experiences, and so the
Speaker 1: life you lead gets kind of validated. Adversely, the fear
Speaker 1: of death seems to lessen. And when we asked them
Speaker 1: to measure comfort from these experiences, whether they're company and discompany,
Speaker 1: the actual comfort level goes up, so as that as
Speaker 1: I approached death, So there's an increase in frequency, intensity
Speaker 1: and the comfort given. About six people have a non
Speaker 1: comfort experience. But it's really interesting is those are often
Speaker 1: the most transformational or meaningful. I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1: We had a guy who was in his forties who
Speaker 1: has spent most of his life in and out of
Speaker 1: in prison, more in prison than out. He had drug
Speaker 1: addictions and he had had a neck cancer, and he
Speaker 1: was dreaming and we caught this on film by accident.
Speaker 1: Really we're just interviewing from another topic and he's Joe
Speaker 1: came was very jovial. He's one of these guys who
Speaker 1: couldn't afford to live with wi grat or look backwards.
Speaker 1: And then he starts crying because he's having these horrible dreams.
Speaker 1: He's being stabbed by all the people he's hurt out
Speaker 1: the sight of his cancer and he breaks down. But
Speaker 1: then when he comes out of it, he asked to
Speaker 1: see a daughter that he wanted to express his love
Speaker 1: towards and apologize, and after that he slept. So these
Speaker 1: dreams don't deny life. Um. We had a mother who's worthless,
Speaker 1: questioned as because two of her kids were in prison
Speaker 1: for tread related offenses, and in her end of life,
Speaker 1: she's back in her home in Puerto Rico and her
Speaker 1: parents come to her and tell her what a good
Speaker 1: mother and what a good person she was. So again
Speaker 1: they're not denying that bad things and painful things transpire,
Speaker 1: but they addressed them and suthed them in a way
Speaker 1: that's very interested. Um. I talked about the most powerful
Speaker 1: one in my ted talk to where a guy he
Speaker 1: had been involved in the invasion of Normandy, and his
Speaker 1: whole life had been he had been suffered with PTSD.
Speaker 1: He never got help, and he kept it all to himself.
Speaker 1: His wife knew because he'd scream in the night, and
Speaker 1: so he came into our unit at the end of
Speaker 1: his life because he was having such her off experiences
Speaker 1: where he's seen body parts and bloody water and screams,
Speaker 1: and he couldn't rest. He can't die really unless you
Speaker 1: can sleep. It's pretty hard to do because you're to
Speaker 1: passive sleep. So he couldn't sleep. And then one day,
Speaker 1: going to see him, he's he slept and I said,
Speaker 1: it's a dream about he was in our study. He goes, well,
Speaker 1: I had a great dream, he said, where I relived
Speaker 1: the best day of my life, which was the day
Speaker 1: he got his discharged papers. And he said, and I
Speaker 1: had a really good dream, he said. I was on
Speaker 1: a beach, presumably Normandy, and a soldier who he didn't
Speaker 1: know came up to him and said, now we're going
Speaker 1: to come and get you. So that sense of that
Speaker 1: he abandoned people had kind of gone full circle. And
Speaker 1: he slept peacefully after that, and he died peacefully. This
Speaker 1: whole notion, first of all, that their year passive to
Speaker 1: the process where there's nothing to be learned from a
Speaker 1: negative experience. This isn't true. So we took dying and
Speaker 1: there's actually an inventory to measure, something called post traumatic growth.
Speaker 1: So the idea, for example, you go into war and
Speaker 1: we all the negatives are obvious, but is there positive
Speaker 1: elements to it? And that's what we found in dying.
Speaker 1: So people who are who are dying, who are having
Speaker 1: these experiences, when compared to people who weren't, we're adapting,
Speaker 1: we're learning, we're gaining insight, and it was measurable right
Speaker 1: up until the very end. So yeah, there's this other
Speaker 1: side to it. Basically, because you're dying doesn't mean you've
Speaker 1: stopped living, and you do intense living in that latter period.
Speaker 1: It kind of makes sense, and you go, you knew
Speaker 1: you were dying. Your worries and focus and concerns are
Speaker 1: on affairs and other people and your own mortality. But
Speaker 1: if you actually get close to it, you're looking back
Speaker 1: on the life you've left and you're extracting from it.
Speaker 1: The things that come to surface are actually overwhelmingly positive,
Speaker 1: a firm life. Rather than deny it, they don't deny death.
Speaker 1: That's what's really interesting, nobody. They don't come out of
Speaker 1: these experiences so you're you're not dying. You're you're dying,
Speaker 1: but you're doing so with a better sense of meaning.
Speaker 1: We didn't measure fear per se. What comes out in
Speaker 1: abundance is they're not fighting the dying of the light stuff.
Speaker 1: They're actually trying to get towards, not away from so um.
Speaker 1: There's a great lady in the video who had lost
Speaker 1: her daughter and her husband, and you know, days before death,
Speaker 1: she's just sitting around the kitchen table. Nobody's talking, but
Speaker 1: she feels them and it gave her a sense of
Speaker 1: warmth that was beyond description, and you know that's what
Speaker 1: she wanted to return to. They just are left with
Speaker 1: a sense of knowing, a sense of love, of being
Speaker 1: put back together, of reacquainted with their loved one, what
Speaker 1: have you. They've gone through a period of accepting their mortality,
Speaker 1: the finality of their life. If I was hearing this
Speaker 1: on the outside, you think we must be the most
Speaker 1: depressed people in the world. Were the best depressing, it's
Speaker 1: actually the opposite. You'd find the place oddly uplifted, full
Speaker 1: of humor. There's undeniable sadness, particularly in unfinished lives. You know,
Speaker 1: a young parent leaving choice, and we care for three
Speaker 1: kids a day. But you know, we're also enormously privileged
Speaker 1: to witness participate in the care of patients along with
Speaker 1: their loved ones. And what we see on the caregiving
Speaker 1: side is the best of our nature. We see people
Speaker 1: finding courage to care for their loved one in ways
Speaker 1: they couldn't imagine. It's heroic. We think of caregiving in
Speaker 1: terms of burden, but we actually see is remarkable. It's
Speaker 1: not easy, and what we here and see it's the
Speaker 1: best hardest thing they've ever done. I can totally relate
Speaker 1: to the best and hardest thing I've ever done when
Speaker 1: my thought their past. So let's go to the break
Speaker 1: and we'll be back. You're listening to Shades of the
Speaker 1: Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast,
Speaker 1: a m paranormal podcast network. Don't go anywhere. There's more
Speaker 1: Shades of the Afterlife coming right up. Hey, it's the
Speaker 1: Wizard of Weird Joshua Pee Warren. Don't forget to check
Speaker 1: out my show Strange Things. Each week as I bring
Speaker 1: you the world of the truly amazing and bizarre right
Speaker 1: here on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast,
Speaker 1: a m paranormal podcast network. Welcome back to Shades of
Speaker 1: the Afterlife. I'm Sandra shall Plane. I found the Buffalo
Speaker 1: Spree magazine had an article about Christopher Kerr's life written
Speaker 1: by Sally Cunningham, and I just want to read a
Speaker 1: little bit about it. She's talking to him about his book,
Speaker 1: but there's some really good nuggets of information here. So
Speaker 1: talking about Dr Kerr, he was born in Canada, but
Speaker 1: came to Buffalo, New York as a cardiologist, first moonlighting
Speaker 1: for Hospice Buffalo to pay some bills. He recalls himself
Speaker 1: an inexperienced but confident young resident approaching the charge nurse
Speaker 1: to recommend fluids and meds for a forty year old
Speaker 1: end stage AIDS patient to buy him some more time.
Speaker 1: The charge nurse, Nancy knew better. She said, too late,
Speaker 1: he's dying. He's been dreaming about his dead mother. Chuckling inwardly.
Speaker 1: The young doctor thought that sounded crazy and replied, I
Speaker 1: don't remember that class from medical school. Nancy put him
Speaker 1: in his place, son, you must have missed a lot
Speaker 1: of classes. The writer says that story illustrates a broad
Speaker 1: gap in the ways we approach dying in the United States,
Speaker 1: both medically and socially, as described in Doctor at All
Speaker 1: Gwandhi's bestseller Being Mortal. The medical profession has excelled at
Speaker 1: managing diseases, repairing body parts, and extending life, but doctors
Speaker 1: often withdraw when there's nothing more we can do. The
Speaker 1: tendency is to duck or disdain choices that supports spiritual
Speaker 1: needs and the quality of lives that are ending. Doctor
Speaker 1: Kerr phrases it, in many ways, we have lost our
Speaker 1: way in dealing with dying. It is easier now to
Speaker 1: live longer than to die well. After learning from Nurse
Speaker 1: Nancy and other dedicated people, he committed his life's work
Speaker 1: to palliative care. There are three common things that dominate dreams,
Speaker 1: Curse said about his research. First, traveling, preparing to go somewhere.
Speaker 1: One third of his interviewees reported travel as a recurring theme,
Speaker 1: whether or not the person had traveled much in life.
Speaker 1: Destinations were usually undefined. The patients took trains, planes, taxis, buses,
Speaker 1: and cars. Others started walking, even attempting to leave their beds.
Speaker 1: Many reported that deceased loved ones arrived to pack up suitcases,
Speaker 1: saying things like we'll come back for you soon. Next
Speaker 1: is seeing departed loved ones. As death neared, Reporters found
Speaker 1: that dreams of the deceased began to win over dreams
Speaker 1: of the living. Some dreams recalled people who had been
Speaker 1: nearly forgotten. Long repressed memories re emerged. Stillborn babies came
Speaker 1: back to their mother's arms, relatives visited who had died
Speaker 1: decades ago, and long lost pets cuddled in their hospital beds.
Speaker 1: Children especially found solace in joyful reunion with deceased pets.
Speaker 1: Widowed men and women were often reunited, as in the
Speaker 1: story of Joan and Alfred. Just after their fifty seventh anniversary.
Speaker 1: Alfred died, and soon Joan was seeing him in her
Speaker 1: room and calling out, Alfred, come get me. She went
Speaker 1: to join him within two months. In a similar story,
Speaker 1: eighty nine year old Beverly danced again in dreams of
Speaker 1: her ballroom dancing husband, every detail clear, even the colors
Speaker 1: of her dresses. The dream Researchers reported that most of
Speaker 1: the patient's dreams produced emotional healing or resolution, even when
Speaker 1: relationships had been destructive. Or hateful feeling forgiveness towards oppressors
Speaker 1: or seeking forgiveness from victims is typical to be seen
Speaker 1: in the future public television special. One Unforgettable patient named
Speaker 1: Dwayne had lived on the street, hurt many people, and
Speaker 1: been incarcerated. Toward the end. He wept, saying he'd been
Speaker 1: a sick and terrible person and acknowledged that the bad
Speaker 1: things all caught up with me. But something remarkable happened.
Speaker 1: He became a good father, giving peace and comfort to
Speaker 1: his daughter who had suffered greatly. After bad lives are
Speaker 1: good ones, people seemed to find near death dreams as
Speaker 1: great equalizers. Next is remembering trauma, war abuse, horror dreams
Speaker 1: towards the end of life maybe nightmares, especially for those
Speaker 1: who suffered trauma in war or in a terrible personal circumstance. John,
Speaker 1: a World War Two veteran who had survived Omaha Beach,
Speaker 1: had never spoken of the trauma until his last weeks,
Speaker 1: when he vividly relived the horrors in a true state
Speaker 1: of terror. Over many nights, he saw and spoke of
Speaker 1: floating limbs in the water, a bloody beach strewn with bodies,
Speaker 1: and nothing but death. Dead soldiers all around me undesirable
Speaker 1: As that experience sounds something that would normally cause one
Speaker 1: to take mind numbing drugs, it actually resulted in a
Speaker 1: great transformation. John finally had dreams of reward, which was
Speaker 1: his friends coming to take him safely. He found peace.
Speaker 1: In kurs book Death Is But a Dream, page fifty nine,
Speaker 1: the author summarizes John's story exemplifies the process through which
Speaker 1: even the most difficult dreams can provide substantial psychological or
Speaker 1: spiritual benefits to the dying patient. Why are these dreams
Speaker 1: not just brain cells malfunctioning the equivalent of drug induced
Speaker 1: to loosen nations or clues to bodily breakdown. The hospice
Speaker 1: and palliative care team has answered this question consistently. First,
Speaker 1: these dreams are reported as absolutely real. Even when interviewers
Speaker 1: ask the dreamers to report the level of reality on
Speaker 1: a scale of one to ten, the tens were the norm.
Speaker 1: They had no doubt. Second, the experience of the hospice
Speaker 1: patient's dreams is qualitatively different from hallucinations. In delirium, people
Speaker 1: are often agitated and terrorized, so different from the clear
Speaker 1: dreams reported here. And then here are some questions the
Speaker 1: interviewer gave doctor Kerr after reading Death Is But a
Speaker 1: Dream and seeing the Ted talk and video, I visited
Speaker 1: doctor Kerr on his farm where he relaxes with his
Speaker 1: dogs and horses. She asked him where does religion come from?
Speaker 1: How many patients are concerned about heaven and Hell or God?
Speaker 1: He said, really not the case. Hospice has a wonderful
Speaker 1: chaplain and nondenominational, non judgmental approach to all spiritual beliefs.
Speaker 1: But beyond institutional religion, remember that all religions are first spiritual,
Speaker 1: and the basic tenets of religion are love and forgiveness.
Speaker 1: So even cross culturally we may be saying the same thing.
Speaker 1: At the end of life. Most people's concerns go back
Speaker 1: to everyday life, family, love, pets. Death is a full
Speaker 1: circle inclosing the whole human experience. We die as we lived.
Speaker 1: Next question, why do you think the medical community often,
Speaker 1: perhaps typically, disengages in the end of life spiritual processes?
Speaker 1: He answers, medical training doesn't include these topics mostly, and
Speaker 1: the systems we've set up, the huge body of medicine
Speaker 1: that doctors must absorb the time available. It all contributes
Speaker 1: to a brushing aside an avoidance of the spiritual aspect
Speaker 1: of dying. Next question, what do you want to tell
Speaker 1: family members and partners about hearing of their loved ones
Speaker 1: dreams and concerns. He answers, listen, be present, don't invalidate,
Speaker 1: don't correct, don't say they're hallucinating, except that spiritual and
Speaker 1: emotional changes are at least as important as physical decline,
Speaker 1: and don't interpret. The time for therapy is past and
Speaker 1: may feel awkward to talk or hear about death, but
Speaker 1: just be there for them. What do you think about
Speaker 1: people dying at home versus in an institution or hospital?
Speaker 1: The answer, some people require a medical facility. Isolation is
Speaker 1: the worst suffering for dying people. That can happen at
Speaker 1: home too, so there may be times that an institution
Speaker 1: is more supportive. It's an individual situation, so family should
Speaker 1: talk about it. Next question, what about telling a dying
Speaker 1: person and he says the truth about the time left
Speaker 1: and pending death. People want to know and have the
Speaker 1: right to know. Families often want to spare the dying
Speaker 1: person the truth as if it's comforting. Usually the patient
Speaker 1: knows anyways, But we see the worst deaths in people
Speaker 1: who didn't know it was coming, even rage a feeling
Speaker 1: of abandonment and betrayal. I have observed children, especially coming
Speaker 1: to terms matter of factly about their mortality and then
Speaker 1: moving on to enjoy the time that they have left.
Speaker 1: Tell people the truth. Death is but a dream. Is
Speaker 1: a book and topic for the living. It is neither
Speaker 1: depressing nor sad to read or view the stories and
Speaker 1: interviews with hospice patients. Humans often live as if death
Speaker 1: is out there, somewhere far away, and many in our
Speaker 1: culture treat the subject as taboo. But these patients and
Speaker 1: their dreams suggest otherwise. None of us will avoid the
Speaker 1: death of loved ones, and we are all going to
Speaker 1: pass through that stage ourselves. Let us embrace the end
Speaker 1: of life experience in all of its richness, unforgettably, a
Speaker 1: ninety year old patient named Patricia in the videos and
Speaker 1: books says, dying is the most interesting thing I've ever done.
Speaker 1: She had a rich and varied life, but her pre
Speaker 1: death experience was equally as exciting. She lamented that now
Speaker 1: nobody wants to talk about it. Fortunately Dr Christopher Kerr
Speaker 1: and his team did and we can all benefit. Wow,
Speaker 1: those are some good words from the dying for the living.
Speaker 1: I have to be honest with you. When I first
Speaker 1: started this episode, I thought I was going to tell
Speaker 1: you lots of stories of deathbed visions. But after reading
Speaker 1: what I have to you and hearing the audio clip
Speaker 1: from Dr Christopher Kerr, I realize that what was said
Speaker 1: in this episode is so important. I've been on this
Speaker 1: journey over twenty five years, like I've said, and I've
Speaker 1: never heard about these dreams. I heard them as though
Speaker 1: loved ones come to visit, but not the transformation that
Speaker 1: can happen at the end of our life and the
Speaker 1: joy that can come and the closure two things. And
Speaker 1: like this last lady said, it's the most exciting time
Speaker 1: of her life. You may ask what happens to people
Speaker 1: that die suddenly, that didn't have time to prepare for death.
Speaker 1: I know that they get greeted with loving arms and
Speaker 1: they are taken care of. Truly they are. I've got
Speaker 1: a little piece of good news for you coming up
Speaker 1: in the next segment, So let's take our break. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast AM
Speaker 1: Paranormal Podcast Network. Don't go anywhere. There's more Shades of
Speaker 1: the Afterlife coming right up. Thanks for listening. Keep it
Speaker 1: here on the I Heart Radio on Coast to Coast,
Speaker 1: a M paranormal podcast network. You're listening to the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Coast to Coast, a M paranormal podcast network.
Speaker 1: Heard on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you find your favorite shows. Welcome back to Shades
Speaker 1: of the Afterlife. I'm Sander Champlain and we are talking
Speaker 1: about the wonderful Dr Christopher ker his book Death Is
Speaker 1: But a Dream. And I told you I have some
Speaker 1: good news. Yes I do well. First I mentioned that
Speaker 1: you can go to YouTube. You can find his ted talk.
Speaker 1: You can also search on YouTube Buffalo Palliative Care and
Speaker 1: see many videos. You can look up Christopher Kerr on YouTube,
Speaker 1: see lots of interviews. You can pick up a copy
Speaker 1: of his book, Death Is But a Dream. But here's
Speaker 1: the good news. I found out that there was a
Speaker 1: eighty minute PBS television special that was being created on
Speaker 1: the work of Christopher Kerr. And from this morning when
Speaker 1: I started recording this episode until now, I have finally
Speaker 1: found where we can watch it. Go to Death Is
Speaker 1: But a Dream dot com Death Is But a Dream
Speaker 1: dot com. You can purchase for currently a copy of
Speaker 1: the video and watch it yourself, filled with stories and
Speaker 1: meeting some of the patients and hearing their testimonials. So
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about that. On this last segment together, yes,
Speaker 1: I will be telling you some stories and reading from
Speaker 1: the book. But I want to give you another hint.
Speaker 1: Any time you are on YouTube and you watch something
Speaker 1: about deathbed visions or any other afterlife topic like near
Speaker 1: death experiences, look in the comments. There are tons of
Speaker 1: people who tell their stories of what happened when their
Speaker 1: loved one past and the people that were there to
Speaker 1: greet them. I know there's not too much time that
Speaker 1: we have left here together on this show today, so
Speaker 1: what I read to you is just a sample from
Speaker 1: Death Is But a Dream by Christopher Kerr. Frank's advanced
Speaker 1: age and frailty disguised the remarkable agility of his mind.
Speaker 1: He had been admitted with severe congestive heart failure, but
Speaker 1: at he was still completely aware of his surroundings and
Speaker 1: loved a good conversation. He had collected encyclopedic bits of
Speaker 1: baseball lore the way others do treasured objects, and he
Speaker 1: could talk the game like no one else. He could
Speaker 1: recount of the sports development from the very beginning of
Speaker 1: the professional leagues. He reminisced about players, teams, seasons, and
Speaker 1: incidents in the game's history. He remembered the first televised
Speaker 1: major baseball game in nineteen thirty nine, and could name
Speaker 1: the baseball legends as well as the not so famous.
Speaker 1: He boasted the accuracy of the stats he had developed
Speaker 1: for seasons that players had not yet played. His passion
Speaker 1: for the sport had clearly sustained him since childhood, and
Speaker 1: he still derived intense satisfaction from it. Yet, despite his
Speaker 1: recall and engagement, when Frank closed his eyes to rest,
Speaker 1: his room became crowded with dead relatives that only he
Speaker 1: could see. This was a reoccurring phenomena, and one I
Speaker 1: knew better than to mistake for the manifestation of a
Speaker 1: broken mind. I remember the day I was summoned to
Speaker 1: Frank's bedside because he was demanding medication to help him rest.
Speaker 1: That morning, he had greeted his nurse Pam with a
Speaker 1: roaring where is my damned doctor? Frank was so agitated
Speaker 1: that before I entered his room, Pam cautioned me that
Speaker 1: he was particularly cranky that day. Frank had been a
Speaker 1: steel worker and was most comfortable bending things to his will,
Speaker 1: me included. I went in to ask how he was doing,
Speaker 1: and he shot up in bed, exclaiming, I can't sleep. Look, Doc,
Speaker 1: it's been great to see my uncle Harry, but I
Speaker 1: wish he'd shut up. Turns out Uncle Harry has been
Speaker 1: dead for forty six years. During the final stages of dying,
Speaker 1: the pull to sleep is typically strong, deep, and soothing.
Speaker 1: The sporadic wakefulness that at times interrupts it looks increasingly
Speaker 1: like slumber. Sometimes this trend takes an unexpected turn. The
Speaker 1: slow drift comes to a halt as the sleep awake
Speaker 1: state is flooded with intense and lifelike dreams and visions.
Speaker 1: The exhausted patient is not always ready for this turn
Speaker 1: and may react to it in a surprising way. Frank
Speaker 1: certainly did. Three days before his passing, he was slipping
Speaker 1: in and out of consciousness when he suddenly cried out
Speaker 1: in wonder, I am in nineteen twenty seven? I am
Speaker 1: a boy? How did they do that? His dreams and
Speaker 1: visions were so true to life that he was compelled
Speaker 1: to inquire about the behind the scenes workings of the
Speaker 1: magic trick that was creating this illusion of time travel.
Speaker 1: He did not doubt that what he had seen had
Speaker 1: taken place. Instead, he assumed that trickery must have been
Speaker 1: involved to make this possible. His body was shutting down,
Speaker 1: but his mind had not yet lost its foothold. In consciousness,
Speaker 1: he knew where and who he was, but continued to
Speaker 1: identify what he was experiencing as an alternate reality. In truth,
Speaker 1: he had a foot in two worlds, only one of
Speaker 1: which we shared. Over time, Frank's inner world experiences returned
Speaker 1: him to what he treasured most in life, his wife's love.
Speaker 1: The more he dreamt of her, the more he felt
Speaker 1: her presence, and the more peaceful he became. He finally
Speaker 1: requested that we discontinued treatment. His decision to decline care
Speaker 1: was medically appropriate, As is so often the case, patients
Speaker 1: recognize medical futility before their physician does, and in a sense,
Speaker 1: release the doctor from an obligation that can no longer
Speaker 1: be honored. Frank wanted to join Ruthie in heaven. We
Speaker 1: helped him reach comfort for this much awaited reunion, and
Speaker 1: he died with the integrity He had lived and created.
Speaker 1: When ninety one year old Anne was admitted to our
Speaker 1: impatient facility with congestive heart failure, she was having such
Speaker 1: clear visions of her long deceased sister that, upon waking
Speaker 1: one day, she looked around and asked where is Emily.
Speaker 1: Emily had been dead sixteen years, but to Anne, her
Speaker 1: presence and appearances were as real as her doctor's. Anne
Speaker 1: was subsequently admitted to our impatient unit and acute respiratory distress,
Speaker 1: where she woke up, stared up at the ceiling, and
Speaker 1: acted as if she was seeing things that were not there.
Speaker 1: At one point, she sat up in bed and stretched
Speaker 1: her arms out to the ceiling as if to embrace someone.
Speaker 1: She asked her family, am I going to die now?
Speaker 1: When her condition improved, she awoke, looking around and asked
Speaker 1: again for her dead sister, explaining that Emily had been
Speaker 1: there all along, sitting next to her on her bed.
Speaker 1: Anne also we ported having frequent dreams of a more
Speaker 1: youthful Emily going about doing the usual things around the house.
Speaker 1: She described her sister's appearance in detail, the strong jutting chin,
Speaker 1: the dark blonde hair pulled up in a high, loose bun,
Speaker 1: the sagging pea green cotton jersey dress whose sleeves were
Speaker 1: rolled carelessly at the elbows. Sometimes Emily put her hand
Speaker 1: over her mouth and laughed before moving on to the
Speaker 1: next task at hand. Few words were uttered, but the
Speaker 1: dreams were heartwarming and invigorating, and Anne often envisioned herself
Speaker 1: as much younger and going for walks with her sister.
Speaker 1: She had been one of five siblings, but she was
Speaker 1: closest to Emily, who had raised her. I am not
Speaker 1: going alone, Emily will be with me, she insisted. Most
Speaker 1: of our patients pre death dreams and visions staged meaningful
Speaker 1: reunions with the ceased loved ones. Doris, however, seemed to
Speaker 1: be experiencing freedom from those bonds. She had dreams of
Speaker 1: flying through the air above crowds and buildings, unimpeded and
Speaker 1: free from fear. This was one of the most exhilarating
Speaker 1: feelings she had ever experienced. It made her feel so
Speaker 1: empowered that had conjured up images of superhero like power.
Speaker 1: I am flying. I can just push my feet and
Speaker 1: take off, so I said to everyone around me. All
Speaker 1: you have to do is have faith the size of
Speaker 1: a mustard seed, and you can go too, but I
Speaker 1: was the only person in the world who could fly
Speaker 1: around on top of mountains anywhere, looking down at all
Speaker 1: these people in those buildings. Doris dreamt of being waitless
Speaker 1: among undifferentiated crowds, and she found this state so joyful
Speaker 1: she didn't want to wake up from that one. The
Speaker 1: dream concluded with her witnessing a winged angel flying through
Speaker 1: a church's stained glass window, to the amazement of the
Speaker 1: crowd of onlookers. The story with Doris continues quite a while.
Speaker 1: She was a woman who had a very tough childhood,
Speaker 1: never experienced love, and it's quite sad the life that
Speaker 1: she led, never having freedom. You'll be happy to know
Speaker 1: that not only did she experience freedom of flying, but
Speaker 1: the love that she never felt while on earth. She
Speaker 1: had the dreams and had a beautiful, beautiful experience of
Speaker 1: love before she passed. So many great stories. I'm excited
Speaker 1: to keep reading the book myself Death Is But a
Speaker 1: Dream and also go to Death Is But a Dream
Speaker 1: dot com and watch that film. I hope you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: this episode as much as I have. As always, come
Speaker 1: visit me on one of our Sunday gatherings or something
Speaker 1: else we do online. Go to We Don't Die dot com.
Speaker 1: If you are experiencing grief, go to the store page,
Speaker 1: scroll down, find that We Don't Die, a skeptics Discovery
Speaker 1: of Life after Death audio book, and be my guest
Speaker 1: and use coupon code of free. The information about the
Speaker 1: afterlife is great, but I think we all need to
Speaker 1: know how to navigate through grief. And speaking of navigation,
Speaker 1: I couldn't be happier to learn about the dying process.
Speaker 1: It's something to be excited for. Hard to believe I'm
Speaker 1: saying that, but I truly am Death is but a dream.
Speaker 1: Our loved ones will be there greeting us. Sounds like
Speaker 1: we can have some extraordinary vision of what's to come
Speaker 1: and who will be with us. We've got a life
Speaker 1: to live here first, but we won't be afraid. I'm
Speaker 1: Sander Samplain. Thank you for listening to Shades of the
Speaker 1: Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast
Speaker 1: d a M paranormal podcast network. And if you like
Speaker 1: this episode of Shades of the Afterlife, wait until you
Speaker 1: hear the next one. Thank you for listening to the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast d a a M
Speaker 1: paranormal podcast network