After nearly three decades caring for dying patients, Dr. Christopher Kerr has documented extraordinary experiences involving deceased loved ones, vivid memories, and emotional reconciliation. His research is changing how medicine understands the final chapter of life—but does it tell us anything about what happens after death?
As human beings, we spend much of our lives trying to avoid death.
We exercise, visit doctors, take medications, and invest in technologies designed to keep us alive longer.
Modern medicine has become remarkably sophisticated at treating disease and prolonging life.
But one of the most fundamental aspects of being human remains poorly understood.
What does a person actually experience as they approach death?
For nearly 30 years, hospice physician and neurobiologist Dr. Christopher Kerr has dedicated his career to investigating that question.
His work has produced an intriguing body of scientific research documenting the dreams, visions, memories, and emotional experiences of terminally ill patients.
Among the most striking findings: many dying people report vivid encounters with deceased relatives, friends, and beloved pets.
These experiences can feel extraordinarily real.
Some occur during sleep. Others happen while patients are awake.
Many bring comfort, although others can be disturbing.
And as death approaches, the emotional content of these experiences often centers on the relationships that defined a person’s life.
In an October 19, 2026 interview on Steven Bartlett’s popular podcast The Diary of a CEO, Kerr discussed what he has learned from approximately 1,500 conversations with people approaching death.
The interview offers a perspective rarely emphasized in modern healthcare.
Dying, Kerr argues, isn’t simply a medical event.
It can also be an intensely personal and emotional experience involving memories, relationships, identity, and the search for meaning.
His research raises profound questions about consciousness, the brain, and human mortality.
But its most valuable lesson may concern something much more immediate.
What if studying the dying could teach us how to live better?
A Hospice Doctor Who Began Listening to His Patients
Kerr is the chief executive officer and chief medical officer of Hospice & Palliative Care Buffalo in New York.
His background includes medicine and neurobiology, disciplines that traditionally examine disease through biological processes.
But his work in hospice exposed him to experiences that conventional medical training had not prepared him to understand.
Patients approaching death sometimes described encounters with people who had died years or even decades earlier.
Some reported seeing a deceased spouse sitting beside their bed.
Others dreamed of childhood homes, parents, old friends, or family members preparing to welcome them.
These experiences were often accompanied by strong emotions.
Rather than dismissing the accounts, Kerr began systematically interviewing patients.
He wanted to understand what they experienced, whether patterns existed, and how those experiences affected their well-being.
The result was a growing research program examining what scientists call end-of-life dreams and visions, or ELDVs.
What Do People See Before They Die?
One of Kerr’s landmark studies was published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine in 2014.
Researchers conducted repeated interviews with patients receiving inpatient hospice care.
Of the 59 participants included in the final analysis, approximately 88% reported experiencing at least one end-of-life dream or vision.
Their descriptions were remarkably consistent in certain respects.
Patients frequently described encounters with deceased loved ones.
Others saw living family members, remembered important places, or experienced dreams suggesting preparation for a journey.
Nearly all described the experiences as feeling real.
Around 60% of the reported dreams and visions were rated comforting or extremely comforting, while approximately 19% were rated distressing or extremely distressing.
Dreams involving deceased loved ones tended to be more comforting than those involving living people or unrelated experiences.
Researchers also observed that comforting experiences involving deceased people became more common as death approached.
The study was small, and its participants were selected from patients able to communicate their experiences.
It cannot establish that nearly 90% of all dying people will have similar visions.
Nevertheless, it provided important evidence that these experiences deserve clinical attention rather than automatic dismissal.
Read the original 2014 study in the Journal of Palliative Medicine.
New Research Shows the Phenomenon Is Common—but Not Universal
Kerr’s findings have encouraged other researchers to study end-of-life experiences more systematically.
A review published in Palliative & Supportive Care in 2023 examined 22 papers describing 18 studies.
Its pooled estimate suggested that approximately 77% of dying patients reported end-of-life dreams or visions in the patient studies suitable for analysis.
But that estimate came from a relatively small number of patients, and the studies differed in design.
More recent research provides a particularly important qualification.
A 2026 systematic review published in the Journal of Loss and Trauma examined 13 moderate- to high-quality studies involving dying adults and caregivers.
The investigators found that reported prevalence varied considerably, ranging from approximately 21% to 90%.
Their analysis also found substantial differences in whether patients experienced comfort or distress.
The researchers concluded that end-of-life dreams and visions may be frequent and meaningful, but existing studies do not support a single reliable prevalence estimate applicable to everyone.
This distinction matters.
It would be inaccurate to conclude that virtually everyone sees deceased relatives before dying.
It would be equally inaccurate to dismiss the experiences as rare or medically irrelevant.
The strongest conclusion is that end-of-life dreams and visions are a well-documented phenomenon whose frequency, causes, and emotional effects require further investigation.
Read the 2026 systematic review.
Why Do Dying People See Loved Ones Who Have Already Died?
Of all the patterns in Kerr’s research, perhaps the most emotionally significant is the recurring presence of loved ones.
Patients frequently describe deceased parents, spouses, siblings, friends, and pets.
The experiences often involve more than simply recognizing a person.
Some describe familiar voices, expressions, physical closeness, or the sensation of returning to meaningful moments from earlier in life.
In the interview, Kerr discusses a patient who recalled his mother, who had died during his childhood, with extraordinary sensory vividness.
For some patients, these encounters appear to restore feelings of security and belonging.
For others, they provide an opportunity to revisit emotionally important relationships.
Kerr believes such experiences may be part of a process of emotional integration near the end of life.
Patients sometimes reconnect with memories or relationships that have remained important beneath the surface of their conscious attention.
A separate qualitative study involving 63 hospice patients identified six recurring themes: comforting presence, preparation for departure, interaction with deceased people, loved ones waiting, distressing experiences, and unfinished business.
Not every experience was positive.
Some patients confronted painful memories or unresolved relationships.
Yet the consistency of these themes suggests that the emotional content of end-of-life experiences is often closely tied to a person’s life history.
The final weeks of life may involve much more than physical decline.
They may also involve remembering, reconnecting, and searching for meaning.
Read the qualitative study of hospice patients.
Are Deathbed Visions Just Hallucinations or Delirium?
An important question is whether these visions can be explained by medical conditions affecting the brain.
Patients approaching death may experience delirium, a condition involving disturbances in attention, awareness, and thinking.
Delirium can arise from infections, medications, dehydration, organ dysfunction, or other physiological problems.
It can cause hallucinations, agitation, confusion, and distress.
Kerr argues that many of the experiences documented in his studies differ from conventional presentations of delirium.
His research included assessments intended to exclude patients with significant confusion.
Some participants were coherent and could describe their experiences consistently.
Many retained awareness of their circumstances and were able to explain why the dreams mattered to them.
But this distinction is not always clear-cut.
A patient can experience both delirium and emotionally meaningful dreams.
Comforting content does not, by itself, establish that an experience is unrelated to a neurological or medical condition.
The underlying physiology of these visions remains incompletely understood.
Changes in sleep, memory processing, perception, consciousness, medication effects, and brain function may all contribute.
The most useful clinical approach is neither to dismiss the patient’s experience nor to automatically interpret it as evidence of a supernatural event.
Instead, physicians can evaluate medical causes while recognizing the emotional significance of what the patient reports.
Do Deathbed Visions Prove There Is Life After Death?
Perhaps the most provocative aspect of Kerr’s work involves the relationship between consciousness and death.
If a dying patient reports seeing a deceased relative with extraordinary clarity, what should we make of that experience?
Some families interpret such encounters as evidence that loved ones continue to exist after physical death.
Others understand them as dreams, memories, or neurological events occurring during a profound physiological transition.
Kerr discusses both biological and spiritual possibilities.
But an essential scientific distinction remains.
His research documents what patients experience. It does not establish that deceased people are objectively present or that consciousness survives death.
No available study can reliably determine whether these visions originate from processes within the brain or from something outside current scientific understanding.
Nor should the vividness of an experience be confused with independent evidence of its external reality.
Human perception can produce exceptionally realistic experiences under many circumstances.
Nevertheless, the fact that the underlying causes remain uncertain does not diminish the importance of studying them.
Science can investigate the timing, content, frequency, and emotional consequences of end-of-life visions without claiming to have resolved the philosophical or spiritual question of what happens after death.
For now, the most defensible answer is that the experiences are real to the people reporting them, while their ultimate explanation remains uncertain.
What Dying Patients Say Matters Most
The most consequential part of Kerr’s interview may have little to do with visions.
It concerns the priorities people express as their lives approach an end.
Modern society often measures success through careers, financial achievements, property, influence, and recognition.
Many people spend decades pursuing higher income, greater independence, or an improved social position.
But Kerr reports that dying patients often focus on much simpler concerns.
They want to be comfortable.
They want to feel loved.
They want to know that their families will be okay.
And many want reassurance that they aren’t becoming an overwhelming burden to the people caring for them.
In the interview, Kerr challenges the popular belief that people spend their final days obsessively reviewing professional failures or regretting every choice they made.
That does not mean dying patients never experience regret.
Some clearly do, particularly when confronted with unresolved relationships or painful memories.
But Kerr’s experience suggests that companionship, emotional security, and the quality of relationships can become more central than achievements that once seemed extraordinarily important.
These observations are not a universal psychological rule.
People approach death with different values, beliefs, circumstances, and emotional needs.
Yet they raise an uncomfortable question for the living.
If relationships become so important at the end of life, why do we so often organize our lives as though relationships can wait until after our next achievement?
The Difference Between Achievement and Fulfillment
There is a psychological distinction between achieving a goal and experiencing a meaningful life.
Achievement is often measurable.
A person earns a promotion, purchases a house, builds a business, or reaches a financial milestone.
These accomplishments can create security, opportunity, and genuine satisfaction.
But fulfillment is not always measurable in the same way.
It often involves connection, purpose, belonging, peace, and the experience of being valued by other people.
A person may achieve extraordinary professional success while feeling emotionally isolated.
Another may lead a relatively ordinary life while enjoying deep relationships, meaningful work, and a strong sense of belonging.
Kerr’s research does not suggest that ambition or wealth is inherently misguided.
Rather, it invites us to consider what those achievements are ultimately supposed to provide.
Money can create freedom.
But freedom becomes valuable through how it is used.
Success can create opportunities.
But those opportunities mean little if they consistently displace the relationships and experiences a person cares about most.
The lesson is not to abandon ambition.
It is to avoid treating fulfillment as something that must always be postponed.
Can Emotional Healing Happen at the End of Life?
One of the most surprising elements of Kerr’s research is his observation that psychological growth can occur even as the body is deteriorating.
Some patients revisit memories that shaped their identities.
Others describe reconnecting with people whose relationships brought them comfort or pain.
In certain cases, difficult dreams appear to accompany reflection on unresolved experiences.
Kerr describes this as part of the emotional dimension of dying.
The possibility challenges a conventional medical perspective in which the final stage of life is understood almost exclusively as decline.
Physical function may deteriorate while a person’s inner life remains active and meaningful.
However, more research is needed before drawing conclusions about whether dreams or visions directly cause emotional healing.
Much of the evidence is observational and qualitative.
The important practical implication is that emotional care should continue even when curative medical treatment is no longer possible.
A patient may still benefit from conversation, reconciliation, familiar relationships, spiritual support, or simply having someone listen without judgment.
Why These Experiences Matter to Families
End-of-life dreams and visions can also affect surviving relatives.
A family member may feel reassured when a dying loved one reports seeing someone they cherished.
Others may feel confused, frightened, or uncertain how to respond.
A 2020 study of 228 bereaved family caregivers examined relationships between end-of-life experiences and grief.
Researchers found that the emotional meaning caregivers attributed to the experiences was associated with aspects of bereavement.
However, simply reporting that a loved one experienced dreams or visions did not automatically correspond to lower overall grief scores.
This is an important limitation.
There is no evidence that deathbed visions consistently prevent complicated grief.
But discussing meaningful experiences and understanding what comforted a loved one may be helpful to some families.
Read the caregiver bereavement study.
Is Dying Always Painful?
Kerr also challenges the assumption that death necessarily involves unbearable physical suffering.
Many terminally ill patients gradually become weaker, sleep more frequently, and lose interest in eating or engaging in demanding activities.
With appropriate hospice and palliative care, symptoms can often be managed effectively.
But experiences vary considerably.
Some patients face significant pain, breathing difficulties, confusion, anxiety, or other severe symptoms.
Not everyone dies peacefully.
The National Institute on Aging emphasizes that end-of-life care should address physical comfort, psychological needs, spiritual concerns, and practical matters.
Pain and breathlessness should be evaluated and treated rather than accepted as inevitable.
The purpose of hospice care is not simply to stop medical treatment.
It is to focus treatment on relieving suffering, respecting patient preferences, and supporting quality of life.
For some people, that care takes place at home.
For others, a dedicated hospice facility, hospital, or nursing setting may be appropriate.
The essential objective is to treat the person, not merely the disease.
What Families Should Do When Someone Reports a Deathbed Vision
The practical implications of Kerr’s research are surprisingly straightforward.
When a dying person describes seeing a deceased loved one, the first response need not be disbelief or correction.
The National Institute on Aging advises allowing people to describe such experiences and avoiding unnecessary interruption when they are comforting.
Families can:
- Listen attentively and ask how the experience made the person feel.
- Avoid arguing over whether the vision was real.
- Respect the patient’s personal or spiritual interpretation.
- Share meaningful memories and provide reassurance.
- Tell the medical team about new confusion, agitation, frightening visions, or other concerning changes.
- Ask hospice or palliative-care professionals for help managing physical and emotional distress.
These approaches recognize that the experience can matter to the patient regardless of its underlying cause.
They also preserve an important distinction between compassion and medical evaluation.
A comforting dream may need only understanding.
A sudden change in cognition or awareness may require clinical attention.
What the Dying Can Teach the Living
Perhaps the greatest value of Kerr’s work is that it encourages people to reconsider their priorities before they reach the end of life.
When people are healthy, the future can feel unlimited.
There is always another year to reconnect with family.
Another opportunity to take a meaningful trip.
Another chance to repair a friendship, pursue a calling, or become more present in everyday life.
But time is finite.
And the goals that occupy our attention do not always correspond to what brings lasting emotional satisfaction.
Kerr’s patients remind us that being loved, feeling connected, and having meaningful relationships can remain deeply important even as health and independence disappear.
This is not an argument against building businesses, creating wealth, advancing science, or pursuing ambitious goals.
It is an argument for understanding their purpose.
A successful life need not be defined exclusively by what a person accumulates.
It can also be measured by the quality of their relationships, the contribution they make to others, and their ability to experience meaning in ordinary moments.
There may be no greater missed opportunity than spending an entire life preparing for a future in which one finally expects to begin living.
The Bottom Line: Death Reveals Something About Life
Dr. Christopher Kerr’s research has brought scientific attention to experiences long described by hospice workers, families, and dying patients.
Vivid dreams and visions of deceased loved ones appear to be a meaningful part of the end-of-life experience for a substantial number of people.
Many patients find comfort in them.
Others experience distress, confusion, or unresolved emotions.
The research does not prove an afterlife or establish a single biological explanation.
But it does provide strong reasons for healthcare professionals to listen more closely to the people they care for.
Dying is not exclusively a medical process.
It is also a deeply human experience involving memory, identity, emotion, and relationships.
And perhaps the most important lesson extends beyond the hospice room.
The things that ultimately give life meaning are not always the things that receive the most attention in daily life.
Careers matter.
Financial security matters.
Health matters.
But so do companionship, love, belonging, and the experience of being present.
We do not need to wait until life’s final chapter to recognize what makes it valuable.
Sources and Further Reading
- The Diary of a CEO — Dr. Christopher Kerr Interview, October 19, 2026
- Kerr et al. — End-of-Life Dreams and Visions: A Longitudinal Study of Hospice Patients’ Experiences, Journal of Palliative Medicine, 2014.
- Nosek et al. — End-of-Life Dreams and Visions: A Qualitative Perspective From Hospice Patients, American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, 2015.
- Hession et al. — End-of-Life Dreams and Visions: A Systematic Integrative Review, Palliative & Supportive Care, 2023.
- Figueiredo-Sousa and Reis-Pina — End-of-Life Dreams and Visions in Dying Adults and Caregivers: A Systematic Review, Journal of Loss and Trauma, 2026.
- Grant et al. — Family Caregiver Perspectives on End-of-Life Dreams and Visions During Bereavement, Journal of Palliative Medicine, 2020.
- National Institute on Aging — Providing Care and Comfort at the End of Life
- The ASCO Post — How End-of-Life Dreams and Visions Are Bringing Comfort to Dying Patients, 2024.
Editor’s note: This article draws on Dr. Christopher Kerr’s October 19, 2026 interview, peer-reviewed research, and federal health guidance. It distinguishes patients’ experiences, clinical observations, scientific evidence, and personal beliefs. The article is for educational purposes and is not medical advice.