he saw dead people...

It is not an infrequent experience to have a patient tell me "Last night I saw my mother or sister or whoever in my room and they told me I would be ok." Or "chaplain, my dad is here (dad died 20 years ago). I miss him so much."

Many times this is followed with "what does this mean?"

"What does it mean to you?" (good chaplain question)

True to form, the responses to that question vary greatly. Though, overwhlemingly the events are positive. In fact, I can not think of a negative response no matter the patients' religious beliefs or lack of them, education or socio-economic status.

Since I work in a hospital driven by medicine and medical practices I wanted to hear what a doctor would say about these experiences.

"What do you think Doc?"

"Whether here in America or at home in Eygpt or in Africa or wherever when you eliminate all the B...S... that divides us you discover that we all have the same fears, hopes, dreams and expectations. We are not that different. In my home country many people think those experiences mean the person has been a good person and heaven will be there home. I have heard of these 'super-normal" experiences everywhere I have been. What do you think about them?"

"Same as you, I can't explain them either."