2/18/2017 Belleville Death Cafe Summary
A write up of Belleville, IL Death Cafe
By maggieboone
We had a lot of interesting discussion spanning a variety of topics. It was nice to see all of the new participants from last month return as well as one of our original participants. After greeting everyone and more introductions, we started our discussions.
The first topic began when it was asked of the participant that was diagnosed with Parkinson’s had started a dialog with the family about death in respect to what she wanted at the end of life. This became a segway into the importance of advanced directives, and the different forms one should have easy access to. The information everyone in Illinois should look into, can be found at http://www.dph.illinois.gov/topics-services/health-care-regulation/nursing-homes/advance-directives. Descriptions of the forms help inform people on what they need to know and have. The pdf of each form can also be found there and printed out.
Last month we had discussed visitation dreams. How many people and what kind of people report visitation dreams? Do visitation dreams occur shortly after the death of a loved one or can it happen years afterward? What kinds of effects do visitation dreams have on emotional life of the dreamer? Are our loved ones sending messages? Perhaps, we receive what we need when we need it – even if it is a laugh.
Unfortunately we do not yet have reliable answers to any of these questions. We do however have good information on the basic characteristics of visitation dreams thanks to some excellent recent studies and the work of Jennifer E. Shorter from the Institute Transpersonal Psychology in palo Alto CA. Her doctoral project "Visitation Dreams in Grieving Individuals: A Phenomenological Inquiry into the Relationship Between Dreams and the Grieving" (Shorter, 2009; Palo Alto CA) identified some common elements of these dreams. The internet is full of information on spirit visitations so one should probably develop their own beliefs and perceptions about the reliability of answers to those questions.
This brought us to discussions on NDE (near death experiences). Although it appears that each individual that has had a NDE, has similar experiences, they are not all exactly the same. Again, the internet has a plethora of information and there is even a Near Death Experiences Research Foundation (http://www.nderf.org/),
One of the participants who has terminal cancer as well as heart condition shared something that after hearing him makes a lot of sense. What happens when one is told they are going to die in two years? We were able to hear the answer to that from the perspective of the person with terminal cancer. He mentioned that after the acceptance phase finally happened, he made all his plans and waited for that death sentence. When it did not happen within that two years, this person said he was actually angry when it did not happen. Are there others out there that feel that way, too?
It seems there are way more questions than answers out there and what a blessing we can come together and openly talk about it without fear.
Our next Belleville Death Café will be on Saturday, March 25th from 6 – 8pm. Watch for the reminder and the announcement on deathcafe.com.