(by Steve Taylor Ph.D.)
Some bereaved people report sensing the presence of a deceased loved one.
In my recent book Extraordinary Awakenings, I described how bereavement can be a catalyst personal transformation.
In the aftermath of bereavement, it’s not uncommon for people to undergo an intense form of post-traumatic growth. They may even change so radically that they feel as if they’ve become a different person – someone with a wider sense of perspective, a new sense of purpose and meaning, a sense of connection to nature, and deeper relationships.
In some of the cases, an important element of the transformation is a sense that the bereaved person was still in contact with the friend or relative they lost. For example, a woman called LeeAnn had a close friend who was murdered while working as a nightclub bouncer.
A few months later, LeeAnn was at home when, in her words,
All of a sudden, the room filled with this golden light. There was a sense of peace that was overwhelming…Then I saw Bruno in his human form. My eyes were closed, but he was standing there, surrounded by blue colors and light. He said to me, 'You keep asking for me to come back. Don’t ask that — this is where I’m supposed to be.’
Such experiences may sound bizarre, but they are common. In 1971, a Welsh doctor named William Dewi Rees became intrigued by some of his elderly patients commenting that they had sensed the presence of their deceased spouse. He followed this up with a systematic study of 293 widows and widowers in his group practice. Dewi Rees found that almost half (46.7 percent) of the widows and widowers had had a “hallucination” (in his term) of their spouse.
One of the most interesting findings of Dewi Rees’s study was that only around a quarter of his participants had talked about their experiences before. This suggests a high degree of reluctance which might even have extended to Rees’s study itself, meaning that his figure of 46.7 percent of patients may be an underestimate.
More recent studies (which also might be affected by reticence, of course) suggest that as many as three-quarters of bereaved people have sensed the presence of a deceased loved one.
The experiences occur in a variety of forms. Besides seeing the deceased person, it may be a strong feeling that they are nearby, watching or helping. It may be a sensory experience of smelling or hearing — for example, smelling their perfume, being touched by them, or hearing them call out. Less directly, people may feel that deceased friends and relatives are contacting them through animals or by symbolic means. In many cases, the experiences occur regularly so that people feel the deceased partners or relatives are still with them.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/202202/can-there-be-communication-after-death