Chapter 5
Karen had not left the hospice room in three days. She sat by her mother's bed in a wooden chair the staff had pulled up, holding the thin, papery hand of the woman who had taught her to read, packed her lunches, and prayed her through every storm of her life. Her mother, eighty-seven, had not spoken clearly in almost two days. The morphine kept her comfortable. The breaths came slow and far apart now. The afternoon light fell across the blanket in a pale yellow stripe.
And then, suddenly, her mother's eyes opened wide.
She was looking up. Not at Karen. Not at the ceiling, exactly. At something past the ceiling. A smile spread across her face — a real smile, not the small twitches Karen had been watching for, but a wide, joyful, almost girlish smile. Her mother lifted one hand a few inches off the blanket. Her lips moved.
"Daddy?" she whispered. "Is that you?"
Karen's grandfather had been dead for forty-one years. He had died of a heart attack in 1984 in the parking lot of a feed store in rural Indiana. Her mother had cried about him every Father's Day for as long as Karen could remember.
The hospice nurse, a woman named Lourdes who had worked this floor for sixteen years, was changing the IV bag. She paused, watched for a moment, and gave Karen a soft, knowing smile. "She's getting ready," Lourdes said gently. "I see this almost every week."
Karen had not.
What was she watching? Was it real? What in the world should she do?
Chapter Thesis: Most Christians have heard of near-death experiences but know almost nothing about deathbed experiences — the visions, awareness, and communications reported by the dying in their final days and hours. Yet deathbed experiences are arguably even more pastorally important than NDEs, because they happen in our own hospice rooms, our own nursing homes, and at our own family bedsides. This chapter is a primer: what deathbed experiences are, how common they are, what the research shows, and how families and pastors can receive them with discernment, faith, and gratitude.
Researchers use the umbrella term deathbed experiences, or DBEs, for a cluster of related phenomena reported by the dying or by those at their bedside. The boundaries between the categories are not sharp, and one dying person may have several at once. But it helps to name them, because what families witness usually fits one of these patterns:1
Deathbed visions (DBVs). The dying person sees deceased loved ones, angelic or spiritual beings, Jesus, or a beautiful place. Often the dying person says the figures have come "to take me home." These visions are visual, sometimes auditory, and almost always described as more vivid than ordinary life.
Nearing-death awareness. The dying person communicates an awareness that death is close — sometimes with plain words ("I'm going home tonight"), sometimes with symbolic language about traveling: a train, a boat, a path, a door.2
Terminal lucidity. A patient who has been confused, demented, or unresponsive suddenly returns to clarity hours or minutes before death — recognizing family, saying goodbyes, sometimes describing what they see. We will explore this more fully in Chapter 11 and again in Chapter 17.
Shared death experiences. Family members at the bedside report sharing in some aspect of the dying person's experience — a light in the room, a sense of presence, even visions of their own. We treat this in Chapter 11.
After-death communications. The bereaved sense, see, dream of, or hear from a loved one after death. We treat these in Chapter 22.
For this chapter, our focus rests mostly on deathbed visions and nearing-death awareness — the two phenomena families most often witness in the room itself.
This is where most readers — including most pastors — are surprised. Deathbed experiences are not rare. They are not weird. They are not the strange exception. They are very close to being the rule.
The most striking modern study comes from Dr. Christopher Kerr and his team at Hospice Buffalo in New York. Over years of careful, daily interviews with hundreds of dying patients, Kerr's team found that more than 80 percent of patients reported meaningful end-of-life dreams or visions, with figures rising as the patient drew closer to death.3 A follow-up qualitative study put the number at 82.5 percent.4 Kerr believes the true number is even higher, since some patients are too confused, sedated, or shy to report what they are seeing.5
A study in India by Dr. Abhijit Kanti Dam, using only two interview points per patient, still found over 60 percent reporting deathbed experiences.6 Australian palliative-care studies, British studies, and the older but still important cross-cultural surveys by Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson all show the same thing: deathbed experiences happen across cultures, across religions, and across personality types.7
What the research finds. Across decades of research and many countries, somewhere between 50 and 90 percent of dying hospice patients report meaningful deathbed visions, dreams, or nearing-death awareness in their final days. In carefully designed daily-interview studies, the figure climbs above 80 percent. Deathbed experiences are the rule, not the exception.
If your loved one had something like this, they were not unusual. They were ordinary. The unusual thing in our culture is that nobody told you it might happen.
Modern study of deathbed experiences began with Sir William Barrett, a British physicist knighted in 1912 and professor at Dublin's Royal College of Science. In 1924 his physician-wife came home from the maternity ward and told him about a dying mother named Doris who had suddenly looked toward the corner of the room, broken into a radiant smile, and said, "Why, it's Father! Oh, he's so glad I'm coming." Then Doris said, with surprise, "He has Vida with him." Vida was Doris's sister, who had died three weeks earlier. Doris's family had carefully kept Vida's death from her so as not to upset her in childbirth. Doris died moments later.8
That case haunted Barrett. He spent the rest of his life collecting and studying similar reports. His book Death Bed Visions was published after his death, in 1926, and remains a foundational text.9 A generation later, Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson conducted the first major modern, cross-cultural study, surveying physicians and nurses in the United States and India between 1959 and 1973, drawing on roughly 50,000 observed deaths. Their book At the Hour of Death (1977) showed that the core experience was strikingly consistent across two very different cultures.10
Since then, the research has matured. Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley wrote Final Gifts (1992) from inside hospice nursing.11 Peter Fenwick published The Art of Dying from the United Kingdom. William Peters founded the Shared Crossing Project. Christopher Kerr brought rigorous quantitative methods to Hospice Buffalo. And J. Steve Miller, in his exhaustive scholarly volumes, has gathered the threads from a Christian perspective.12
Across all this work, the core features of deathbed visions are remarkably consistent:
The dying person sees deceased loved ones — most often a parent or spouse, sometimes a sibling or close friend. The deceased usually appear healthy, peaceful, even glowing. They are often described as "coming to get" the dying person — as escorts, not as ghosts. The dying person frequently describes a beautiful place, a great light, or a figure understood as Jesus or as God. The visions are typically accompanied by deep peace and a loss of fear of death. They are remembered as more real than ordinary life. And they are often cross-checked against waking reality with surprising clarity — the dying person knows the difference between the room and the vision, and reports both.
This is the first question most thoughtful Christians ask. It is a fair one. Let me answer it honestly.
Some hallucinations do occur near death. Morphine, infection, kidney failure, and oxygen deprivation can all produce what researchers call terminal delirium — a confused, often agitated, frightening mental state. Hospice nurses know it well. It looks nothing like a deathbed vision.
The contrast is sharp. Terminal delirium is disorganized, frightening, and unpleasant; the patient picks at the air, becomes agitated, sees things that make no sense and bring no comfort.13 Deathbed visions are the opposite: organized, coherent, comforting, and accompanied by visible peace. The patient becomes more lucid, not less. They speak clearly. They smile. They greet specific people by name. They often report later that the experience was "more real than real."14
Crucially, large numbers of deathbed visions are reported by patients who are not on hallucinogenic medications at all. Osis and Haraldsson found that the presence of medications capable of causing hallucinations did not increase the frequency of deathbed visions; if anything, it lowered it.15 Kerr and his team at Hospice Buffalo developed standardized measures specifically to distinguish end-of-life dreams and visions from delirium — and the two patterns are clinically distinct.16
And then there is one feature that no medication explains: the so-called Peak in Darien case. The phrase, borrowed from a Keats poem, was first applied by 19th-century researchers to deathbed visions in which the dying person sees, with surprise, a person on the other side whom they did not know had died. The classic case is the one Sir William Barrett's wife brought home: Doris seeing her sister Vida, when Vida's death had been hidden from her. Bruce Greyson, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Virginia, has documented many such cases — including a child named Edith who sat up in bed days after her friend Jennie's death (which had been kept from her) and joyfully said, "Why, papa, I'm going to take Jennie with me!"17 Greyson concludes that these cases provide "some of the most persuasive evidence for the ontological reality of deceased spirits."18
None of this proves the visions are real visits with the other side. But it shows clearly that the simple "it's just the morphine" answer cannot account for what the data actually show.
Some Christians worry that taking deathbed visions seriously is a kind of compromise — letting hospice research dictate to Scripture. The opposite is closer to the truth. Scripture itself describes moments when the veil between earth and heaven becomes briefly permeable, and God opens human eyes to spiritual realities that are always there but ordinarily unseen.
Think of Elisha's servant in 2 Kings 6. The Aramean army had surrounded the city overnight, and the servant ran out in the morning expecting them all to die. Elisha's response is one of the most quietly stunning prayers in the Old Testament:
"Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Then Elisha prayed and said, "O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see." So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6:16–17, ESV)
Notice what this passage assumes. The horses and chariots of fire were already there. They were not summoned by the prayer. The prayer asked only that the servant's eyes be opened to see what was already real. This is the biblical pattern. God does not invent a heavenly army for the moment; He grants permission to perceive one.
The same pattern shows up in the New Testament — most strikingly at Stephen's death in Acts 7. As his accusers stoned him, Stephen "gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God."19 We give Stephen's vision its full treatment in Chapter 10, but the basic pattern is exactly the deathbed-vision pattern: at the threshold of death, the eyes are opened. Heaven becomes visible. Christ is seen. The dying believer is met, not abandoned.
The Transfiguration (Matthew 17) shows the same permeability from a different angle: Moses and Elijah, long dead in earthly terms, present and conscious and speaking with Jesus. Paul's account of being caught up to the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12) is yet another. The biblical worldview has always been one in which the spiritual realm is real, present, and occasionally seen. Deathbed visions, if real, are not foreign intruders into Scripture's world. They fit it.
This does not mean every reported deathbed vision is genuine, or that every figure seen is who the dying person believes they are. It means only this: a Christian has no biblical reason to dismiss the phenomenon outright. The God of Scripture has a long history of opening human eyes at moments of crisis.
So Karen sits by her mother's bed, watching her smile up at someone Karen cannot see. What should she do?
I would offer her three principles. They are simple, and they are usually enough.
First: believe your loved one. The single worst response is to roll your eyes and say, "It's just the medicine." Whether or not the vision is what your mother thinks it is, it is real to her, and it is one of the last gifts she will ever give you. Receive it. Honor it. Do not argue with it.
Second: pay attention. Deathbed visions and nearing-death communications are often pastorally rich. The dying person may name a deceased relative, ask forgiveness, give a blessing, or speak in symbolic language about leaving — a train, a journey, a door. These are not random. They are often the most important words your loved one will ever speak to you. Lean in. Take notes if you can. Ask gentle, open questions: "Who do you see, Mom?" "What is it like?" Do not interrogate. Do not correct. Just listen.
Third: evaluate charitably but carefully. Most deathbed visions are entirely consistent with Christian faith. A few raise legitimate questions. We will give the full discernment framework in Chapter 25. For now, the basic test is simple: does the experience produce peace, readiness for Christ, and trust in God? Or does it produce fear, occult interest, or doctrinal contradiction? The fruit, more than the form, tells you what you are dealing with.
A Note on Discernment. The vast majority of deathbed visions reported in the research are consistent with Christian faith — often deeply so. But not every vision a dying person reports must be received uncritically. Watch for these red flags: figures who speak or act in ways that contradict the Christ of Scripture; visions that produce sustained fear or torment rather than peace (terminal agitation is different — that is a medical issue); content urging unbiblical practices (necromancy, contacting the dead, occult rituals). When in doubt, pray with your loved one, read Scripture aloud, and consult a trusted pastor. The discernment framework is developed fully in Chapter 25.
Take these questions slowly. There is no test here.
1. Before reading this chapter, had you ever heard of deathbed visions? Where? From whom?
2. Has anyone in your family ever told a story about something a dying loved one saw or said in their final hours? How was the story received — believed, dismissed, never spoken of again?
3. If your loved one had a deathbed vision and you missed it, or did not understand what was happening at the time, what does that bring up in you now?
4. How does it affect you to learn that experiences like the one described in the opening of this chapter are not rare, but reported by 80 percent or more of dying patients in careful studies?
5. Read 2 Kings 6:16–17 again, slowly. What might it mean for your grief if the spiritual realities Elisha's servant briefly saw are real, present, and surrounding your loved one even now?
6. If you are caring for a dying loved one right now, what is one thing this chapter helps you do, or stop doing, at the bedside?
7. What about deathbed visions still unsettles you? Bring that to God in prayer. He is not afraid of your honest questions.
If you minister at the bedside often enough, you will eventually witness a deathbed experience. The question is not whether you will see one. The question is whether you will recognize it when you do.
What pastors are usually missing. Most clergy receive almost no training in deathbed phenomena. Most hospice nurses, by contrast, witness them constantly and develop a quiet, working theology of dying that the church rarely hears. One of the most important pastoral postures we can take is humility before that nursing experience. When a hospice nurse tells you, "Yes, this happens almost every week" — believe her. Sit with her over coffee. Ask her what she has seen. You will learn things in an hour that seminary never taught you.
What to say to the family. When a family describes what they witnessed — even haltingly, even sheepishly — your response matters enormously. Try something like: "What you witnessed is something many families witness. It is meaningful. I'd like to hear everything you can remember." Or: "You were not imagining it. That is something hospice nurses have been seeing for decades. Tell me what your mother said." Then listen. Take notes if it helps. The family will remember your response for the rest of their lives.
What not to say. Avoid these. "That was just the morphine." Even when medication is present, this dismisses something that may have been the most important moment in your parishioner's grieving. "Don't read too much into it." This shuts down conversation about what may be the very thing the family needs to talk about. "We can't really know what they were seeing." True epistemically, but pastorally cold. The family is not asking you to confirm metaphysical certainty. They are asking you to sit with them inside the wonder.
Watch-outs. Distinguish carefully between deathbed visions and terminal agitation. A dying patient picking at the air, frightened, speaking in fragmented and disturbing ways, is most likely experiencing terminal delirium, which is a medical issue requiring the medical team's attention. A dying patient lighting up, smiling, speaking calmly to a deceased loved one, is most likely experiencing a deathbed vision, which calls for pastoral presence and gentle attention. The two look different. If a family is unsure which they witnessed, ask them about peace. Peace is the surest signal.
A second watch-out: do not over-promise. A deathbed vision of a deceased relative is not — by itself — proof the dying person is heaven-bound. The visions themselves cross faith lines and cultures. They tell us something profound about the threshold; they do not settle every theological question about who passes through it. Receive the gift. Do not try to mine more from it than it offers.
Next steps. Encourage the family to write down what they witnessed while it is fresh — names, words, gestures, timing. Memory blurs quickly under grief. Their notes will become a treasured family record. If the family found the experience disturbing rather than comforting, return for a longer conversation; that case is worth deeper attention. And quietly, in your own pastoral library, begin reading. Christopher Kerr's Death Is But a Dream is a graceful starting place. Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley's Final Gifts is the hospice classic. Read them, and the next bedside you walk into will be different.
Christopher Kerr with Carine Mardorossian, Death Is But a Dream (Avery, 2020). A palliative-care physician's accessible, deeply humane account of decades of hospice research at Hospice Buffalo; the best single-volume introduction.
Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley, Final Gifts (Bantam, 1992). The classic hospice-nursing guide to nearing-death awareness; gentle, practical, and enduringly useful for families.
J. Steve Miller, Deathbed Experiences as Evidence for the Afterlife, Volume 1 (Wisdom Creek, 2023). The most comprehensive Christian-scholarly treatment available, organized by lines of evidence; ideal for pastors who want depth.
William Peters, At Heaven's Door (Simon & Schuster, 2022). A founder of the Shared Crossing Project gathers research and case studies on shared death experiences and other end-of-life phenomena.
Peter Fenwick and Elizabeth Fenwick, The Art of Dying (Continuum, 2008). A British neuropsychiatrist's careful, sympathetic study of end-of-life experiences.
1 For the standard taxonomy followed here, see J. Steve Miller, Deathbed Experiences as Evidence for the Afterlife, Volume 1: A Groundbreaking, Scientific Apologetic, Evaluating Death-Related Visions, Terminal Lucidity and After Death Communications (Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek Press, 2023), introduction and chap. 2, "Categories of Deathbed Experiences." Miller distinguishes deathbed visions, nearing-death awareness, terminal lucidity, shared death experiences, crisis apparitions, and after-death communications as related but distinguishable phenomena. ↩
2 Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley, Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying (New York: Bantam, 1992), 81–100, on the symbolic language of dying patients ("traveling," "going home," "needing the ticket"). ↩
3 Christopher W. Kerr, James P. Donnelly, Scott T. Wright, Sarah M. Kuszczak, Anne Banas, Pei C. Grant, and Debra L. Luczkiewicz, "End-of-Life Dreams and Visions: A Longitudinal Study of Hospice Patients' Experiences," Journal of Palliative Medicine 17, no. 3 (March 2014): 296–303. ↩
4 L. Nosek, Christopher W. Kerr, et al., "End-of-Life Dreams and Visions: A Qualitative Perspective from Hospice Patients," American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Medicine 32, no. 3 (May 2015): 269–74. ↩
5 Christopher Kerr with Carine Mardorossian, Death Is But a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life's End (New York: Avery, 2020), 49–72. Kerr argues that reported figures almost certainly underestimate true prevalence, given patient reluctance, sedation, and cognitive decline. ↩
6 Abhijit Kanti Dam, "Significance of End-of-Life Dreams and Visions Experienced by the Terminally Ill in Rural and Urban India," Indian Journal of Palliative Care 22, no. 2 (April–June 2016): 130–34. ↩
7 Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson, At the Hour of Death, 3rd ed. (Norwalk, CT: Hastings House, 1997 [orig. 1977]); Michael Barbato, Cathy Blunden, Kerry Reid, Harvey Irwin, and Paul Rodriguez, "Parapsychological Phenomena Near the Time of Death," Journal of Palliative Care 15, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 30–37; Peter Fenwick and Sue Brayne, "End-of-Life Experiences: Reaching Out for Compassion, Communication, and Connection — Meaning of Deathbed Visions and Coincidences," American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Medicine 28, no. 1 (2011): 7–15. ↩
8 The Doris case is reported in Sir William Barrett, Deathbed Visions: How the Dead Talk to the Dying (Guildford, UK: White Crow Books, 2011 [orig. 1926]), 23–26; Miller summarizes the case and its significance in Deathbed Experiences, Volume 1, chap. 1, "Sir William Barrett and the Beginnings of DBE Research." ↩
9 Barrett, Deathbed Visions. Barrett's earlier related works include On the Threshold of a New World of Thought (London: Kegan Paul, 1908) and On the Threshold of the Unseen (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1917). ↩
10 Osis and Haraldsson, At the Hour of Death, esp. chap. 14, on the unity of the experience across cultures. The U.S. survey ran from 1961–1964 and the Indian survey from 1972–1973, drawing together about 50,000 observed deaths. ↩
11 Callanan and Kelley, Final Gifts, the source of the term "nearing-death awareness." ↩
12 Peter Fenwick and Elizabeth Fenwick, The Art of Dying (London: Continuum, 2008); William Peters, At Heaven's Door (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022); Kerr, Death Is But a Dream; Miller, Deathbed Experiences, Volume 1; J. Steve Miller, Deathbed Experiences as Evidence for the Afterlife, doctoral dissertation manuscript (cited from project file; this is a dissertation-length scholarly version of the published volume). ↩
13 See Deborah D. Moyer, "Terminal Delirium in Geriatric Patients with Cancer at End of Life," American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Medicine 28, no. 1 (2011): 44–51, contrasting the disorganized, frightening character of terminal delirium with the organized, peaceful character of deathbed visions; cited and discussed in Miller, Deathbed Experiences, Volume 1, chap. 3, on distinguishing DBVs from delirium. ↩
14 Kerr, Death Is But a Dream, 51, reporting that patients consistently rated the realism of their experiences at the top of the available scale and described them as "more real than real"; Angela M. Ethier, "Death-Related Sensory Experiences," Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing 22, no. 2 (March–April 2005): 104–11. ↩
15 Osis and Haraldsson, At the Hour of Death, 190: medical history "suggestive of hallucinogenic factors" did not increase the frequency of afterlife-related experiences. ↩
16 Kerr et al., "End-of-Life Dreams and Visions"; Kerr, Death Is But a Dream, chap. 3. ↩
17 Bruce Greyson, "Seeing Deceased Persons Not Known to Have Died: 'Peak in Darien' Experiences," Anthropology and Humanism 35, no. 2 (2010): 159–71, esp. 162; the Edith and Jennie case is recounted at 88–89, drawing on earlier work by James Hyslop. ↩
18 Greyson, "Seeing Deceased Persons Not Known to Have Died," 169. Miller discusses these cases at length in Deathbed Experiences, Volume 1, chap. on Peak in Darien experiences, "Line of Evidence #6." ↩
19 Acts 7:55–56 (ESV). The pastoral significance of this passage for the dying believer is developed in J. Steve Miller, Is Christianity Compatible with Deathbed and Near-Death Experiences? The Surprising Presence of Jesus, Scarcity of Anti-Christian Elements, and Compatibility with Historic Christian Teachings (Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek Press, 2022), chap. on biblical examples of NDE/DBE-like phenomena, "Stephen's Vision Before His Martyrdom." ↩
Barbato, Michael, Cathy Blunden, Kerry Reid, Harvey Irwin, and Paul Rodriguez. "Parapsychological Phenomena Near the Time of Death." Journal of Palliative Care 15, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 30–37.
Barrett, Sir William. Deathbed Visions: How the Dead Talk to the Dying. Guildford, UK: White Crow Books, 2011. Originally published 1926.
Callanan, Maggie, and Patricia Kelley. Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying. New York: Bantam, 1992.
Dam, Abhijit Kanti. "Significance of End-of-Life Dreams and Visions Experienced by the Terminally Ill in Rural and Urban India." Indian Journal of Palliative Care 22, no. 2 (April–June 2016): 130–34.
Ethier, Angela M. "Death-Related Sensory Experiences." Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing 22, no. 2 (March–April 2005): 104–11.
Fenwick, Peter, and Sue Brayne. "End-of-Life Experiences: Reaching Out for Compassion, Communication, and Connection — Meaning of Deathbed Visions and Coincidences." American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Medicine 28, no. 1 (2011): 7–15.
Fenwick, Peter, and Elizabeth Fenwick. The Art of Dying. London: Continuum, 2008.
Greyson, Bruce. "Seeing Deceased Persons Not Known to Have Died: 'Peak in Darien' Experiences." Anthropology and Humanism 35, no. 2 (2010): 159–71.
Kerr, Christopher W., James P. Donnelly, Scott T. Wright, Sarah M. Kuszczak, Anne Banas, Pei C. Grant, and Debra L. Luczkiewicz. "End-of-Life Dreams and Visions: A Longitudinal Study of Hospice Patients' Experiences." Journal of Palliative Medicine 17, no. 3 (March 2014): 296–303.
Kerr, Christopher, with Carine Mardorossian. Death Is But a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life's End. New York: Avery, 2020.
Miller, J. Steve. Deathbed Experiences as Evidence for the Afterlife, Volume 1: A Groundbreaking, Scientific Apologetic, Evaluating Death-Related Visions, Terminal Lucidity and After Death Communications. Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek Press, 2023.
Miller, J. Steve. Is Christianity Compatible with Deathbed and Near-Death Experiences? The Surprising Presence of Jesus, Scarcity of Anti-Christian Elements, and Compatibility with Historic Christian Teachings. Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek Press, 2022.
Moyer, Deborah D. "Terminal Delirium in Geriatric Patients with Cancer at End of Life." American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Medicine 28, no. 1 (2011): 44–51.
Nosek, L., Christopher W. Kerr, Julie Woodworth, Scott T. Wright, Pei C. Grant, Sarah M. Kuszczak, Anne Banas, Debra L. Luczkiewicz, and Rachel M. Depner. "End-of-Life Dreams and Visions: A Qualitative Perspective from Hospice Patients." American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Medicine 32, no. 3 (May 2015): 269–74.
Osis, Karlis, and Erlendur Haraldsson. At the Hour of Death. 3rd ed. Norwalk, CT: Hastings House, 1997. Originally published 1977.
Peters, William. At Heaven's Door. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022.