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End-of-Life Dreams

commonwealmagazine.org

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Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#141

Post by lm28469 »

Kaizeras wrote: post #112
asdfman123 wrote: post #12

People have a lot of good intuitions about how they’re doing. They know what being sleepy feels like, they know when they’re angry, and a number of other things. Seems like knowing when you’re going to die might be evolutionarily useful to the rest of the tribe, and it might seem normal if we somehow died multiple times in a year.

Cats (and perhaps other mammals/animals with complex nervous systems) have the tendency to „disappear“ a few days before they die. I lived in the countryside as a kid and saw several generations of our farm cats come & go. We never found out where and when they died, but all of them lived a long (cat) life and I‘m pretty sure most of them died of old age. My assumption is that humans can feel that their time is comin…

> Cats (and perhaps other mammals/animals with complex nervous systems) have the tendency to „disappear“ a few days before they die.

That's what I was going to say, the only death I directly experienced was a cat, it 100% knew it was going to die, days before

I have absolutely no doubt other animals, including humans, can feel it too (depending on the cause of death of course)

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#142

Post by lm28469 »

magic_hamster wrote: post #135

The subject of death is absolutely terrifying. I fear delving too deep into the subject will give me a mortality crisis. However, this article was pleasantly comforting.

Dozens of books have been written about it, it's worth digging into imho. You can't be sure of what's coming but you can build your own little scenario instead of avoiding the subject and dreading the void. As with a lot of things in life the actual thing doesn't matter much, what matters is how you perceive/approach it

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#143

Post by andrepd »

clnq wrote: post #133
yes_man wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In defense of doctors, they are ideally supposed to practice based on evidence. That is the whole point of Western medicine in good and bad. As a physician you might see people in your work that report these dreams and take it as a data point if it is very common. But what about people who see such dreams that don’t report them, or who aren’t even sick and it was just a dream, and most of all, who are sick and see su…

I disagree that a good doctor needs to be skeptical of everything until they properly gathered evidence. That is more a description of what a rigorous scientist should do. There is a school of thought in medicine among some doctors (at least in Central and Northern Europe) that many patients know what’s wrong with them and one can go a long way toward a diagnosis by listening to and trusting a patient. Tests are used…

> There is a school of thought in medicine among some doctors (at least in Central and Northern Europe) that many patients know what’s wrong with them and one can go a long way toward a diagnosis by listening to and trusting a patient. Tests are used to confirm the diagnosis if possible, but they are well-known to be less reliable than the patients’ own experience (pains and other symptoms, for example). As an ex-medic myself, I strongly believe this is a more correct way to practice medicine

What evidence do you have to "strongly believe" this? It's quite something, to state that the patient does a better job diagnosing himself than the doctor does. In that case, there should be some evidence to that effect, to show that this is indeed the case? Otherwise, saying "I strongly believe" or "school of thought" is just a way of saying "I have a hunch".

> There is nothing worse than a distrusting doctor who dismisses the patients symptoms to instead blindly and arrogantly applies a schematic based on assumptions that our testing and examinations have very good specificity

What on earth are you talking about? Medical diagnoses are made using a variety of sources of information, including of course symptoms! What do you mean exactly "dismisses symptoms to arrogantly apply a testing scheme"? Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#144

Post by simion314 »

LT_SPA wrote: post #117
wishfish wrote: post #10

When my father died, he had a waking dream of this. Saw a river with all his dead family across the water. Smiling and waving. Coming to the banks. Waiting for him to cross. His last words were “Cover me in a blanket of sunshine.” He died two hours later. What’s a little remarkable to me is that he had these visions in this detail despite being lifelong blind. As I was reading the article, I kept wondering which came…

> If this is universally true, then the religious beliefs about death & heaven are shaped in part by the dreams and not vice versa. However, it seems not explained why we will have this kind of dream.

So people that dream a lot or remember their dreams will often dream about dead loved ones, This can explain why we would have a believe or hope that there might be something after death.

Also some people can feel they are not well and they will die soon, it is normal to then have visions or dreams about something your mind is obsessing. We do not have a number here , so I expect the percentage of people that have such visions or dreams not too be to big.

Some people tell about life flashing before their eyes, but for me when I had an accident and I thought I will die in that moment I just thought "fuck, what a stupid way to die", there was no flashes, but I was not injured too much so maybe those come after some chemicals are released in your blood.

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#145

Post by andrepd »

amatecha wrote: post #77
drain wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have similarly experienced dreams (day dreams even) that seemingly predicted the future. Not discounting a possible spiritual phenomenon, but at least for me I reconciled these situations as being possible "memory falts". E.g. one time I knew exactly what a friend was going to say before they even said it (phrase was long and unique enough to seem unlikely for me to just be able to predict it). Although it seemed m…

Nah, one time I was startled by a phone ringing full seconds before it actually rang. The person I was around was startled by me reacting to it, because "nothing was happening", then the phone rang. Unless we both simultaneously falsely constructed that memory :) lol

You live for 700,000 hours. There's bound to be plenty of weird coincidences during your lifetime. You're not a psychic.

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#146

Post by andrepd »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #42
tomohelix wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in biotech and as I am sure you know, it is the field where unknown phenomena are the expected norms. So yes, I made peace with not being able to know everything a long time ago. But by the same virtue, it means I can't dismiss anything unless I have concrete evidence against it. It is better to leave rooms for doubts rather than settling with a half-answer and consider it a solved matter. To do so would mean…

Agreed. I'm just confused why so many people are pre-facing their comments with some version of "I'm a life-long atheist but I can relate to this story somehow" as if there is a discrepancy between atheism and the article. For the record, I think strong atheism, or the confidence that there is no god or after-life, is just as wrong as being confident that there is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_…

Of course it isn't. Believing there's a kettle orbiting Neptune is infinitely more implausible that believing there isn't, even though there is zero empirical evidence to either position.

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#147

Post by mejutoco »

ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #138
mejutoco wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But sure, cling to dusty metaphysics while sending messages at light speed. I do not understand what you mean by dusty metaphysics. I am guessing you mean religion? I can criticize science without endorsing religion. It is not either or. If that is the case, I believe you read into my comment things I did not say. I already said science is great. At the same time, we hardly know anything. These are orthogonal. We a…

In a funny way, by dusty metaphysics I actually meant the great Swiss philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In Genealogy of Morals he has quotes such as "Science is not nearly independent…, in every respect it first needs a value-ideal, value-creating power, in whose service it can believe in itself,—science itself never creates values." [1] using the word wissenschaft for science, knowledge-making, translating literally…

Thanks for the detailed response. I will try my best to answer.

> science itself never creates values

I did not say I agree with Everything Nietzsche says. I disagree on that one.

> The point was that we are already beyond any dreams Nietzsche could have imagined, the dichotomy religion/science was merely a cultural artefact of the Enlightenment. Hence the replacement you mention is not even an issue.

Why are we already beyond any dreams Nietzsche could have imagined? You state it as fact but do not justify it.

The Hadron collider has not discovered many of the things people were hoping to. Mathematics optimism was demolished with Gödel. If anything, it feels like we need to put more and more effort to get less and less progress (diminishing returns).

IMHO it is fine, what else can we do, but I don't think it is a situation to brag about. This naïve positivity that Science will solve all problems _is_ the cultural artifact of the Enlightenment. By now the optimism has faded. In 150 years no more illnesses? Who can believe that, if we are not all dead from the environment or nuclear war.

But most importantly:

> As for "hardly knowing anything", just looking at the front page of HN right now

If instead of looking at hn we go to a hospital it will be obvious how little we know.

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#148

Post by clnq »

andrepd wrote: post #143
clnq wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that a good doctor needs to be skeptical of everything until they properly gathered evidence. That is more a description of what a rigorous scientist should do. There is a school of thought in medicine among some doctors (at least in Central and Northern Europe) that many patients know what’s wrong with them and one can go a long way toward a diagnosis by listening to and trusting a patient. Tests are used…

> There is a school of thought in medicine among some doctors (at least in Central and Northern Europe) that many patients know what’s wrong with them and one can go a long way toward a diagnosis by listening to and trusting a patient. Tests are used to confirm the diagnosis if possible, but they are well-known to be less reliable than the patients’ own experience (pains and other symptoms, for example). As an ex-med…

Yes, possibly misunderstanding or perhaps I did not communicate clearly enough. My position is not extreme and speaks of the relative minority of medics who suffer from medical arrogance.

> to state that the patient does a better job diagnosing himself than the doctor does

This is not what I stated. I stated that listening to and trusting the patient helps arrive at a diagnosis more reliably than only doing tests. Sometimes it can even help arrive at a diagnosis more reliably than doing tests (for example, fungal infections can be seen or felt by patients more reliably than their cultures grow in the lab, and most doctors diagnose without a culture test).

> Medical diagnoses are made using a variety of sources of information, including of course symptoms!

Yes, but too often the diagnoses are made following algorithms or guidelines that don't suit many patients. A doctor is often required to follow the algorithms (and perhaps for a good reason), but should also know when they are not applicable to an individual patient.

My position is not extreme, although it's not mainstream either. There is a large body of research talking about medical arrogance specifically manifesting as doctors ignoring the patients. Likewise, many people in the field (at least in some regions like the UK) have experience dealing with colleagues who swear by algorithms (or worse — their own ideas) and are skeptical of patients who don't fit within them. This seems to be much less common in other regions. My family works in the medical field in Central Europe where, in my opinion, very few medics have issues with medical arrogance. I cannot comment on the US where I assume a good number of readers of this text are from, although academic literature indicates it's a global problem.

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#149

Post by clnq »

usefulcat wrote: post #63
clnq wrote: post #33

Whatever is happening, it is sad to hear about yet another case where doctors are too arrogant to listen to their patients and try to understand. It might not be a spiritual experience, it might be delirium. But perhaps it is important step in the human mind making peace with death. And it disappoints me greatly that the medical community shuns this phenomenon and anyone who tries to research it. There is nothing wor…

> it is sad to hear about yet another case where doctors are too arrogant to listen to their patients and try to understand It's not 'doctors', it's 'people'. The width and breadth of the world is a greater challenge to our understanding than most of of are even able to comprehend. I suspect.

Very true. I was specifically talking about medical arrogance as a phenomenon, but of course, arrogance and choosing to remain close-minded is common in people.

Almost everyone could benefit from being more receptive, observing, and open to new ideas. The most open-minded people I ever met spoke most of how much more observant and receptive they would like to be.

Re: End-of-Life Dreams

#150

Post by cogogo »

bluecatswim wrote: post #96
Zircom wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've asked a close friend of mine something along those lines. His native language is Spanish but he's been speaking English was well since he was around 3, so I think he safely grew up bilingual. Anyhow, he said his default voice in his head these days most of the time is English, unless he is around his family and is exclusively speaking Spanish out loud with them, in those cases he just naturally continues speakin…

Can confirm. I speak 3 languages (A (English), B (my mother tongue) and C). For most of my life I monologued in some combination of A and B. When I was a NEET for a couple years it was mostly in A because I spent most of my time on the internet. When I got a job my coworkers spoke in C so (as much as I hated it) my mind quickly started to occasionally default to C. Another thing I noticed very often is when I consume…

Native English speaker that learned Spanish at 25 - now in my 40s and speak it with my wife and family. Inner monologue changed pretty quickly depending on context - long before I was fully fluent. Now flips to Spanish when I’m reading or watching something in Spanish or been with people speaking it. The hilarious thing to me is my accent still has the same faults internally and is actually worse. I can’t roll my rs in my head though I can actually do it without effort physically.

Our kids are natively bilingual, they are little but I’ll ask them about it today. Very curious how they say they think.

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