According to Dr Christopher Kerr, a hospice and palliative care physician based in Buffalo, New York, many people nearing the end of life have visions of deceased loved ones or those who cared for them during their lives. The doctor, who has worked in the field for 27 years, said patients are convinced these experiences are not hallucinations.
Visions of deceased loved ones
Speaking in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Dr Kerr explained that patients often see deceased relatives in the days before death. 'Very little is said between the person in the dream and the dreamer, but everything seems to be understood,' he said. 'And what I think is most fascinating, I've been doing it for 27 years. I've never had a patient ask me, "What do you think this means?"'
The physician noted that dying patients knew which deceased loved ones had visited them, and that those they might have had a difficult relationship with in life were not present. A majority of those he spoke to described the interactions as positive, providing reassurance about what awaited them in the afterlife.
Case of Jean and Julie
Dr Kerr, author of the book 'Death Is But A Dream', based on 1,500 interviews with patients before they died, highlighted a specific example during the interview, which aired on The Oprah Podcast in July 2026. He spoke of a woman named Julie, whose mother Jean began seeing her own mother sitting in a chair in the room they were in. Jean recalled her mum saying: 'Mom is sitting in the chair across the room and she is waiting for me, and she wants me to know that she's going to be there for me.'
Jean's account also saw her receive visits from her father, uncle and brother-in-law, and she patched up a rocky relationship with her own mother before her death. She said of the encounters: 'I was lying in bed, and people were walking very slowly by me. The right-hand side I didn't know, but they were all very friendly, and they touched my arm or my hand when they went by. And the other side were people that I knew.'
Spiritual healing and closure
While Dr Kerr was unable to say whether the visions were real, he noted that many seemed to address an unresolved issue in that person's life, giving patients the chance for 'spiritual' healing and closure before they passed away. 'In the end, there's this you're almost put back together by being brought back to family,' he explained. 'You certainly carry loss. You've lost people who are lingering in your heart, and they come back to you. And so that's a form of healing.'
Dr Kerr also explained that dying is a gradual process, and for most people death comes as part of a deepening sleep rather than when they are awake and alert. 'People don't die in an awake state. They die in the depths of sleep. And you can't get there unless you're comfortable. And everybody seems to have an understanding of that from a physical perspective,' he said. 'But psychologically, existentially, you also have to find peace.'
