It is not always dead family and friends – or angels – that people see. I can recall hallucinating about a number of different things when I was in ICU and shot full of morphine. These included having the unalterable conviction that a new team of doctors was standing around my bed discussing the prospect of performing still more surgery on my already battered body. I saw them and I heard them but they didn't actually exist.

I agree with you both, harrigran and absent. Morphine, especially, can induce halucinations which are very real to the patient.

The night before my uncle died, he was hallucinating about flies all over his bedroom ceiling. And he wasn't on morphine. He told my NZ sister about them on the phone.

The relative I was thinking of saw mice - he would track their progress along the side of his bed and expect us to see them as well. And there was always a 'cabinet meeting' going on somewhere else on the ward...

My aunt told me she was fed up with the noisy children in her bathroom! She was delusional. On another occasion she thought she was on a coach tour of Yugoslavia and had a personal dresser. She did it was the care assistant.

No I do not believe in angels, Coincidence , yes!

My ma, in hospital with a bladder infection and a fever, told me how lovely the ward was with puppies and kittens. Having endured months the previous year when she raved about being killed and her hair being pulled out by individual strands, I let that one ride. Then, pointing, she suddenly said, "There goes the duck," and both Mr absent and I immedialtey looked where she had indicated.

When I was 11 years old I hand meningitus and went into a coma. I remember traveling at high speed down a long tunnel. It was very noisy and there was a light at the end.

Years later when I was on the Underground for the first time the sound of the train was exactly the same as my tunnel experience.

When I was eleven I had never heard of traveling towards the light. I remember doctors and nurses calling me back and being reluctant to return.

My mother died unexpectedly and very fast at home - she stood up to go to bed and turned towards the door - looked ahead and said - I see you - I'm coming now - and dropped down dead. My poor father thought she had fainted and tried to revive her before going to get the next door neighbour who was a nurse. She rang me and also the services etc. Dad was convinced she saw someone whom he could not see. He died exactly three weeks later but peacefully in hospital.

harrigran - my mum was in her 2nd week in a nursing home when she asked me if I could see the 'little people' on the floor. She confided she hadn't told the staff as she didn't want them to think she couldn't manage at home. That was the point at which I knew she would not be able to go home and that her body was wearing out. She had a major stroke 2 days later, from which she didn't recover.

Mum did believe in angels and in a laid back, church of england, pick n mix type god.

10 years ago I moved into a 300 year old house and immediately felt a presence. Over the years I saw her looking at me but only in one room. I watched her come through an old doorway that we never opened. One day a wine glass, alone on a table, suddenly made a clinking noise and then the rim separated but after high tinkling noise settled down on the top of the now broken glass. Apparently the previous occupant, the lady of the house, had also been aware of her. My Grandson, at 7 years old, when we were playing Dominoes asked who she was and looked in her direction.
After a flood in 2012 the door was removed and the wall plastered. I have never seen her again.

That's a lovely story, Emily, and one that gives one hope.

My younger daughter when she was revising for her statistics exam the next day smelled her grandfather's tobacco. He had died a few years before this. Lucy was not good at maths but he was an excellent teacher. She passed.

Wow. I am so blown away by all these brilliant stories. Having been a confirmed cynic up until I was 35, so many things have since convinced me that there is a much bigger picture to our lives than we might think. My first inkling of this was when a friend sent me to see a psychic (at the London College of Psychic Studies) to see if she could tell me what career would bring me the fulfilment I'd been craving for so long. The first thing the psychic asked me was : What did I do for my spiritual life? To which I answered 'nothing'. She then told me that it was important that I look into this other side of life, as my future career would be closely linked to it. I would, apparently, write novels which would be both funny and have a spiritual thread. I told her, grumpily, that I wasn't interested in writing fiction - and I wasn't particularly funny. To which she answered that events would conspire to put me in the right place at the right time so I could learn the right tools for this new career. A month later a friend suggested that I volunteer in the picture department for an afternoon a week at Comic Relief - which I did - and three months after that, out of the blue, I was offered the job of in-house comedy writer. I still have no idea why they thought of me, but I leapt at the chance and for the next three years I got to work with Richard Curtis, Steve Coogan, Sacha Baron Cohen and a whole heap of other comedians. It proved to be the best training ground I could have wished for. That first novel is now published - and selling (phew!) - and I have had so many gorgeous letters from readers telling me how the book has affected them (and made them laugh - again, phew!). I couldn't be happier with what I am doing now - or more grateful to that psychic who opened my eyes to the fact that life is a million times more mysterious and wondrous than I had ever imagined.

Yes but angels come in many forms to help us, if we knew it. the main thing I was a true sceptic until the morning of my Mum's funeral and I woke to see her at the side of my bed, looking radiant and smiling! I got ready for the funeral with a smile on my face and was happy, it was as if she had come to show me that she was ok and happy, and I knew that without doubt, also I knew that it would be the last time that I would see her in this life, it was lovely

A friend who I hadn't seen for some years came to visit, and told me that she had become a Medium and we went o talking about this and that until she said it was difficult for her to concentrate as there was a male presence behind my chair - he was holding a rose and told her a special date had just passed and his picture was in my bedroom - not a photo but a different picture.

Two weeks earlier was the 2nd Anniversary of my husband's death and I had put a rose over the place where his Ashes were in the Remembrance Garden of our Church. In my bedroom was a pencil drawing done by his daughter (second marriage) many years ago.

My friend had come straight in to the lounge and no other part of my flat, so no way could she know of the photo, or the date or the rose.

Make of it what you will. I know he is here.

If you can prove it there is a million dollars with the James Randi foundation to be won.

Absolutely, no doubt in my mind at all! Because I believe, and other people know, I get given angels, so they are all over the house. I believe because I have seen one, and he never had wings, although am sure there are both winged and non-winged angels everywhere. I do believe we each have a guardian angel too, and that small inner voice that tells us when something is not right, is them helping us. I wear an angel necklace every day, it comforted when my mother died, it was a present from an elderly lady, and it comforts me still, years later.

my mother was admitted to hospital with suspected stomach cancer and had loads of tests. They were all negative and she was due to be discharged after an assessment in a few days time. I took my daughter (7) to see her as she seemed much better. All the way driving there my DD kept saying 'granny is going to die in the hospital' and I kept telling her no and that granny was getting better. I found it really upsetting. Anyway, a few days later she developed a blocked artery in her leg and they had to operate. They put the pre-med in and she had a major heart attack in the pre-op room (or whatever its called) Brought her back to the ward and she passed away, so never came home from the hospital.
So I do believe in premonitions, and I also talk to my mum when things are bad and I believe she helps if she can.

I think that we dont know a lot about the full capacity of our brain and that a lot of 'unexplained' things are developed in some people's brain and not in others eg premonitions, deja vue, sensing danger, seeing people who have died, knowing a future event etc etc. I often think of someone and then out of the blue they contact me after months of not seeing them but then again this could be coincidence.
One thing I am sure of is that there are an aweful lot of people who are fake and just in it for as much money as they can make out of vulnerable grieving people. Genuine mediums are really hard to find.

A lot of things have happened in my life that I have no explanation for, but I still remain very sceptical about as I feel frightened by them.
My mother was the same, both of her grandmothers were spirit mediums and she believed she had inherited something from them but was frightened to use it.
One incident of my experience I will give here.

Eight years ago my niece-my sister's daughter-died of suicide.My mother was suffering from severe dementia at the time so we did not tell her of her granddaughter's death.She died the following year and in the week before her death she began calling out the names of her dead relatives, her parents and brother especially.Then she suddenly held out her arms and called out my niece's name.Two of my sisters, including my niece's mother were also present and heard this.As I said before, my mother had not been told of her death as she had stopped understanding anything

I am also aware of the effect of strong drugs given to seriously ill patients.I am a retired nurse and heard many very ill people hallucinating especially while under morphine.My DH had open heart surgery 12 years ago and when he was in ITU had tried to get out of bed while still attached to various drips and moniter leads.He told me afterwards that he kept seeing a group of children standing round his bed and had tried to get up to take them out of the room as they should not be there in this horrible place.When I visited him when he was back on a normal ward I arrived to find him shouting angrily at a young doctor who was asking him questions.He was very rudely telling this doctor to go away and keave him alone as he did not like nosy people.This was completely the opposite of his normal easy going nature. I aplogised to the doctor about my husband's behaviour, but he said that he understood as DH was still very ill and had had a lot of strong pain killing drugs going through his system.

What wonderful stories. Yes I believe. I always think it makes you feel better about dying if you believe and if it turns out to be untrue then you'll never know but die believing you're going to a better place.
My brother passed away last May after a very short illness. I went for a sleep and was woken by someone sitting on my bed,I got the fright of my life as it was my brother looking so well and dressed in a suit and pink shirt with very small checks on it. I shouted, "Don't you frighten me like that" he said he was sorry he had left me to deal with everything then vanished. A few weeks later we were putting our house up for sale and had about four estate agents in each wanting the business. One turned up wearing the exact same pink checked shirt my brother was wearing when I saw him so he got the job.
Also one day when I was feeling very low I was on a bus when an elderly man dressed in a Salvation Army uniform got on ,he headed straight for my seat even although there were lots of seats on the bus. He said I looked troubled and I told him how I felt. He was easy to talk to and I felt I knew him. He eventually said this was where he got off the bus and said goodbye he told me not to worry God would take care of everything.
I looked out the window when he left and he was no where to be seen ther was no place he could have walked to without me seeing him,I always wondered if he was an angel.

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I don't suppose there's a "ratonal" explanation, it just depends on how you choose to interpretate it. When my DF died, everywhere I went the shops were playing Vivaldi - he loved Vivaldi and it was played at his funeral. It wasn't a case of my being 'tuned in' (forgive the pun!), it was a fact that it was the shops' favourite at the time. It upset me, but was strangely comforting, too. Not the same as your experience, but odd that out of all the millions of composers in the world, that one was chosen at that particular time.

Whatever the explanation for your experience, take comfort from what's happened - it's bringing you a closeness to your DH.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

My friend's son died suddenly at home and ever since she has found his bedroom light switched on at various times. She will go in to his room on a morning and it will be on. She has asked DH if he was doing it and swears he hadn't. She also finds candles lit in the lounge, those battery powered tea lights. She and DH have tried to make the candles light up without switching them on but they are not activated by sound or movement. I can not offer any help on this because I do not believe in ghostly happenings but after all these years it remains a mystery and it continues to happen at regular intervals.

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