A Philadelphia couple had gone to California to live. One night a few years afterward the young woman had a dream which she relates as follows:

I was back in my husband's family home and in the master bedroom and my father-in-law was sick in bed. My mother-in-law was in the room. She never cared much about me, but my father-in-law did. How I arrived there was not in the dream. But I was sitting on the side of the bed, which was an adjustable hospital bed.

He looked at me, and although he did not speak I knew that he wanted to say, 'I want to tell you something but cannot because Mother is here.' (Meaning his wife.) He reached up and put his arms around me and sobbed. At that point I awoke; I lay there wondering why I dreamed about back home.

Right then a man's voice called me, 'Florence.' I thought it was coming from outside through a window, that was at the head of my bed. The voice spoke again, 'Florence.' As I turned around to look out the window, I had the feeling as though ice water was being poured down my neck and as though every hair on my head was standing up straight. There, standing alongside my bed, was my father-in-law. I saw every feature just as though he were in the flesh. He was facing me and right beside him, standing in profile, holding Daddy's hand, was Jesus. My father-in-law looked right in my eyes and spoke my name again. He said, 'Florence, the Lord is my shepherd and we go in peace.' This vision was enveloped in a very pale blue light. Then it just seemed to dissolve and fade away.

I cannot prove what I have written. But it is true, as true as I am writing this letter to you.

The next day a telegram came saying that Dad had passed on. We did not go back East for the funeral, but in due time a letter came from my mother-in-law, giving us the details of his death. She said they had to get a hospital bed for him, just as I saw in the dream. She said when he was dying she stood beside his bed, and at the last minute he revived and said, 'The Lord is my shepherd and we go in peace.'

EDITOR'S NOTE

Whether we call this vision of a father's last words a hallucination, a ghost or a false-waking dream scene, the verifiable information Florence got was correct--her father-in-law was dying at that moment and he did say these words. This adds weight and credibility to the content of the message she got from her father-in-law: that he at least found death was nothing to fear. He got the chance to say goodbye, to reassure loved ones he was all right, and then met a trusted guide to lead him onward. It's not evidence of a long-term afterlife, but it IS evidence that death itself is experienced as a door opening, not closing. Dismissing it as Florence's opinion, not her father's real experience, comes up against her undeniable psychic hit.

--Chris Wayan--

SOURCE: Hidden Channels of the Mind by Louisa E. Rhine, 1961, p. 93-94. Account untitled, author's name witheld; title & byline added to aid searching & indexing.

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