In her book Spontaneous contacts with the deceased, Swiss psychiatrist Evelyn Elsaesser shares hundreds of accounts of after-dath communications, or ADC. For me, this is further proof that death is not the end of life, but the passage into another state. Here are a few extracts from his book.
What is an ADC?
An ADC is a spontaneous and direct contact, apparently initiated by the deceased. It therefore differs from cases in which the person seeks to make contact with a departed person, whether by means of a medium, device, hypnosis or other methods.
There are several types of ADC
Contact can be made by sight, sound, touch or smell. Added to this are the ADCs of feeling a presence, and contacts occurring during sleep, when falling asleep or waking up. Very often, several sensory organs are involved simultaneously. Receivers report, for example, hearing a deceased loved one tell them she was fine and that they shouldn’t worry about her, while smelling the perfume she used to wear.
Are ADCs hallucinations or a way to console oneself for the loss?
In my experience as a psychiatrist, ADCs do not meet the criteria of psychotic hallucinations, nor of drug-induced hallucinations.
In fact, hallucinations of psychotic origin occur in the precise context of a mental pathology such as schizophrenia. People afflicted with hallucinatory mental illness suffer from painful psychic confinement. They are tormented, before, during or after the hallucinatory episode.
ADCs have nothing in common with psychotic hallucinations
However, this is not the case for the vast majority of ADC experiencers: they have no psychotic pathology to explain their experience. What’s more, hallucinations of psychotic origin very often have a negative or traumatic tone: experiences of persecution, humiliation, threats and so on.
On the contrary, most ADC participants describe their experience as positive, even very positive. Similarly, the aftermath of a hallucinatory episode accentuates the psychotic person’s suffering, whereas in most cases, people who have undergone an ADC describe a calming, heart-opening experience, often with a beneficial impact on their bereavement experience.
ADCs are not a projection of the desire to see the missing person again.
So no: these are not hallucinations… “Yes, but” we sometimes retort, “isn’t it the desire to find the missing person that induces these manifestations? Yes, but” we sometimes retort, “isn’t it the desire to find the missing person that induces these manifestations? Isn’t it a purely psychological projection? Indeed, what parent, spouse or child wouldn’t want to establish contact with their child, spouse or parent, even after death?
Certainly… but if the desire to be reunited were the only element, the driving force, that induces an ADC, wouldn’t it be logical to think that all mourners would experience a ADC? But we can only conclude that this is not the case!
So it’s hard to argue that the sheer force of the desire to be reunited with a loved one is the cause of ADC. What’s more, ADCs occur in some people who didn’t have such a desire in the first place, but are now experiencing it.
And even more so, what can we say about ADCs experienced by people who, at the time of the experience, were unaware of their loved one’s death? How can you want to find a loved one after they’ve died, when you don’t even know they’re dead? So no: the mere desire to find the other person is not the driving force behind an ADC…
A complementary vision to that of Near-Death Experiences
NDEs also suggest that consciousness continues after physical death. In NDEs, this possibility is addressed through the experience of people who “die”. ADCs, on the other hand, give us the point of view of those who are “staying”. We’re offered two views, two extremely different perspectives, yet both seem to be pointing in the same direction.
ADCs are not religious experiences
Whether you’re a believer, agnostic or atheist has no influence whatsoever on the nature of the experience, nor on the probability of experiencing it. A pre-existing belief in the survival of consciousness after physical death is by no means a prerequisite for experiencing an ADC. So it’s hardly surprising that these experiences only slightly consolidate religious beliefs in the sense of adherence to a particular religion. On the other hand, people who have experienced an ADC say they are much more spiritual after their experience, in the sense that they know that the physical universe is not the only one that exists.
ADCs most often bring a feeling of love, peace and serenity.
“My father, who died in 1994, came to mind. Then I stopped what I was doing, turned around as if someone had entered the kitchen and stood still. I felt warmth and love, and my tears began to flow with joy. I felt cradled, as if he’d taken me in his arms. I had words in my head, words of comfort. It seemed to last a long time. I felt incredibly calm and serene. Then, as good as ever, I resumed my activities, suddenly remembering that it was my birthday.
“When I think of my deceased loved one (almost all day long, as was the case when he was incarnate…), it’s a question of my inner feelings and thoughts. But my inner feelings are marked by the painful experience of absence. When my deceased loved one is present, I first feel him outside myself, and it’s his state that I feel; and his state is only love and joy”.
ADCs are more than just a sense of the presence of the deceased; they are messages of love and comfort.
Witnesses also claim to have grasped the intention of the deceased, i.e. their desire to inform them that they continue to exist and that they are well. The deceased also wanted to let them feel the love they bear them and the comfort they wish to bring them.
“One morning, just as I was about to wake up – not quite asleep, but not completely awake – I heard my father-in-law’s voice. I’d seen him the day before in a more depressed state than ever. He said: “Don’t worry. I’m fine now”. Fifteen minutes later, my phone rang. My in-laws’ neighbors announced the presence of the fire department and gendarmes “for my father-in-law”. Death by suicide. He ‘spoke’ to me at the time of his death.”
“A great calm settled over me, absolute confidence, no possible doubt that it was her, a shiver and a gentle warmth ran through me. I stopped crying immediately.”
“It was a message of love and protection: I’m always close to you.
“When I woke up in the morning, my husband, who had been dead for a week, appeared very clearly to me. I opened my eyes and saw him sitting on the edge of the bed beside me, looking radiant. Surprised but not at all frightened, I said to him a little stupidly: “But then you’re not dead? “He disappeared immediately. I was stunned, but with a feeling of great happiness. It’s been two years now, and the memory of his ‘real’ (3D) image is still intact.
When do ADCs occur?
The majority of experiences occur within a year of death, with a high concentration in the first twenty-four hours and up to seven days after death. Further contact occurs with decreasing frequency two to five years after death.
Contacts that take place later, sometimes even decades after death, are rarer and often serve to warn receivers of imminent danger. These experiments are known as “protective ADCs” (see below).
Visions at the time of death
During a vision at the moment of death, people at the end of life perceive and communicate with loved ones who have died very shortly before death.
Like ADCs, the visions feature significant spouses/partners, relatives or friends of the dying with whom they had maintained strong emotional ties during their lifetime.
Occasionally, the object of the visions represents a religious or mystical entity, shaped according to the dying person’s religious affiliation. More rarely, visions of paradisiacal environments are reported, described as sublimated terrestrial landscapes.
A ferryman of souls
Visions at the moment of death feature a deceased loved one whose mission seems to be to lead the dying person into the spiritual world.
Like ADCs, these visions are immediately perceived as real by the dying and bring instant comfort. They free them from the fear of death, and give them serenity and acceptance of their approaching demise.
Increased awareness as death approaches
Visions at the moment of death are part of the broader context of “heightened awareness at the approach of death”, of which they are an essential component. This state of awareness linked to the proximity of death often includes the need for reconciliation and the search for conditions to die in peace.
This state often enables people at the end of life to instinctively know that their death is near, even if their state of health does not suggest an imminent end. This certainty seizes them in the last seventy-two hours or so before death.
A final farewell
More than 20% of the participants in our study, i.e. around 200 people, experienced ADC at the time of death. Witnesses are then informed of the death by the deceased himself, before any other source of information.
They can, for example, see or hear their loved one announce his or her death with serenity. Note in passing that the deceased often seem to use the verb “to leave”, as if they were about to embark on a journey. Sometimes the deceased transmits no message, but the receivers immediately understand that this is a final farewell.
Messages of love and joy
“My grandmother was very ill and we knew the disease would take her quickly. On Sunday evening at the hospital, we all gathered around his bed to say goodbye. I left last, knowing deep down that it was the last time. Curiously, I wasn’t sad! On the night of Tuesday to Wednesday I awoke to a strong presence. And there, right in front of me, only 2 or 3 metres away, slightly higher up, I feel her presence without seeing her! A sort of veiled white mist, luminous, and above all an incredible sensation invades me, of happiness, peace, Love. I smile at her.
At that moment, I know she’s crossed over to the other side and has come to say goodbye and reassure me. Soothed, I go back to sleep and the next day leave for work. The phone rings at my workplace mid-morning: it’s my mom. It was my mum, and she was so moved to tell me that my little grandmother had died!
A shocking awakening
The ADC that awakened our respondent also occurred at the very moment of death: “I was in Madrid and the visit of my smiling husband woke me up at 5:30 in the morning. He was telling me he’d gone and that he loved me. It wasn’t a dream. I found out later that he had died at 5:30 in the morning.
“My sick childhood friend, doomed by a rare disease, came to visit me the night she left. I didn’t know it when I saw her smiling, happy and relaxed, even though she was suffering and paralyzed. She told me that she was fine, that I had nothing to worry about as she was at peace and happy. We were 20 years old and she had her childlike face, like when we were young and carefree, and I was happy for her.
My mother came to wake me up at about 8 a.m. and told me that Christine had left during the night. I then understood that she had come to give me a sign to tell me not to be sad, because she was happy”.
Sometimes totally unpredictable experiences
In some cases, death was not foreseeable because the person was not ill and died in an accident or heart attack. The expectation of the imminent death of a very ill or elderly relative could therefore only act as a trigger for ADC in certain cases.
The data collected support this hypothesis. For 48% of our controls, death was foreseeable, 8% were uncertain, and for 44% death was not foreseeable.
Proof of life
“I’m thinking in particular of a patient with advanced cancer. A very spiritual person. I was head of department and we accompanied her for three months. We were close, with a strong therapeutic alliance. I said hello to her before leaving on vacation abroad, convinced I’d never see her alive again. On the tenth day, in a moment when I was perfectly relaxed and calm, I suddenly felt a warmth in my plexus. It spreads into my heart, then triggers a broad smile… Immediately, I know it’s the patient who’s come to greet me because she’s passed away.
I speak aloud to her, thanking her for coming to say goodbye, and tell her she can go in peace to the Light. Intense joy and deep communion overwhelmed me. On my return to France, I received confirmation of the day and time of this patient’s death… with an hour’s difference from the time noted, which corresponds to the time difference”.
I’m fine, sweetie
“Mom died suddenly of a heart attack. It was very hard, the first time I’d experienced the loss of a loved one. I was full of anger! I was angry at the whole world for taking my mom away from me when she was only 70! I hadn’t even had time to tell him about my book project! The next morning, I wake up from my sleep and feel that she’s there… She gives me a big hug. It’s almost daylight, and I look around my room to see if anyone’s there, but I don’t see anyone. I just feel her presence and she whispers in my ear: “I’m fine sweetie, don’t worry, I’m here and I’ll help you with your book”, then I feel a caress of infinite tenderness on my cheek.
Tears rolled down my cheeks and, paradoxically, I had incredible inner peace! Since that death, I’ve become much more spiritual!!!! She opened a path for me. A year later, my book was published on the anniversary of her death. She accompanied me a lot, and I often felt her coming in my dreams. It was a deeply moving experience.
A very special photo
“If I have to choose one, I’ll talk about this photo: I’m in a farmhouse inn in Belgium, the weather’s fine, we’re eating outside. I find the place and the building very nice, and take some photos. The next day, back at home, I look at them, on one of them I see my reflection in the glass, something catches my eye, I zoom in, there’s another reflection next to me. I’m not sure, so I ask my husband to tell me what he sees, and he says: “That’s him…, I recognize him well, he’s got his sunglasses on, that’s the model he was wearing! ”
When I took this photo I was alone, with no one at my side. Of all the events I’ve had, I think this is the most incredible… It’s a great gift he’s given me! “.
ADC protection
These particular ADCs occur in situations of crisis or imminent danger. They help prevent accidents, fires, assaults, drowning, etc.
These experiences do not occur when a hazard has already been identified by the person concerned. For example, someone who has realized that their house is on fire and is running to get an extinguisher or calling the fire department won’t have this kind of experience.
These ADCs are not designed to manage a crisis situation, but to raise awareness of it. Young children in peril have been saved in extremis thanks to a warning transmitted by various types of ADC. In some cases, undiagnosed health problems have been identified in time thanks to the ADC.
Prevention and protection
“I was crossing a street without paying attention, probably distracted by my thoughts. I felt as if a hand was pulling me backwards as a vehicle was about to hit me. I attributed this hand to my husband, who had died a year earlier”.
“9pm, on a country road in winter, I was finishing my work, it was pitch dark, no radio. Suddenly, in my left ear, I hear a voice saying very calmly: “Careful, girl, to the right”. I wasn’t driving very fast, but I surprised myself by slamming on the brakes anyway, and about 20 metres further on, on the right, I saw two big black cows crossing the road. They were as black as night and I couldn’t make them out.
I can’t explain why I know it was my father who died a few months earlier, but beyond the fact that he always said “my daughter” when he spoke to me, I know it was him. The tears came, I always felt it around me quite quickly after his death and it’s true that it helped me a lot in my mourning because for me he’s just on another level. I thanked him a lot.
A protective father
“My father died in April 2005. The following month I turned 18, got my driving license and bought my first car. Less than a week after buying my car, I had a serious accident. As the car began its wild ride following the loss of control, I felt and saw two hands pushing hard on my chest, securing me to the seat of the car as it rolled over and slid down the left-hand side of the road.
These two hands were my father’s hands. The sensation is still distinct fourteen years later, her fingers raspy, the shape of her fingers broad, the size of her hands. I was able to walk away from the accident unscathed, with only a large scar on my left cheek – the windows having shattered during the impacts – but no other haematomas, no seatbelt lacerations, no stiffness and no locking of the cervical vertebrae, much to the astonishment of the firemen and doctors who examined me after the accident”.
ADCs can be very concrete
The term “practical ADC” covers experiences in which the deceased seem to pass on to their loved ones material information of which they were previously unaware.
This may include the location of a family record book, a life insurance policy taken out without the knowledge of loved ones, investment securities kept confidential, or other documents urgently needed by loved ones. These contacts can occur when the receiver is frantically searching for a document he can’t locate or, on the contrary, when he suspects nothing.
ADC for a third party
ADCs for a third party often occurs in the context of a sudden death, for example accidental, when death was not expected and a final farewell impossible.
“I had a message from a friend of my son, who died in a car accident, asking me to tell his mother that she didn’t blame him, that he had to go and that he was happy and at peace”.
Symbolic ADCs
They often occur on a significant date, such as the anniversary of a birth or death, or, as in this story, on Mother’s Day: “It’s Mother’s Day, the first day without my son, who died a few months before… We go down to the pool for a swim, and suddenly a dragonfly appears. It revolves around my son’s diving mask, left on the edge of the pool after I’d used it to clean the bottom the day before.
And now I have no doubt, I know it’s him! I say, “Have you come to check I’m taking care of your mask? “. I call her by holding out my finger… she comes and lands on it! Very calm, I have no doubt it’s him… I tell him to go and see his uncle, who’s taking a swim. The dragonfly flies off and lands on my brother’s head. I tell my brother to hold out his finger…, she lands on it! My mother, in tears, also holds out her finger… she flies off to land on it! It’s a good thing I took photos of all this, otherwise I’d think I was dreaming.
Messages mostly focused on the recipient
The content of the messages is mostly focused on those who receive them. It serves to console them and lighten their sadness:
“I’m close to you and I’ll stay close to you as long as you’re in pain.”
“I’m here, don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay, I’m going to help you.”
“You have to keep going, life is beautiful, you have to enjoy it.”
“You are loved and you will always be loved, you are not alone.”
Other messages offer advice, the fruit of wisdom acquired over a lifetime: “Don’t worry like I’ve done all my life, don’t make the same mistakes, be at peace, don’t worry, everything will work out.”
Sometimes messages focused on the deceased
In these cases, the deceased informs his or her loved one that he or she is still alive and well. A bit like a traveler telling his family that the trip went well and that they can rest assured.
“I’m alive, everything’s fine”
“My mother used to tell me that she was doing very well, that I shouldn’t worry, that where she was everything was fine.”
“I am close to you. Death doesn’t exist, don’t be afraid and pass on this message”.
“Calm down my darling, I’m alive and with you”
“Call the family and let them know I still exist”.
“I’ve never been happier”.
Letting the departed go
The deceased sometimes ask their loved ones not to mourn them for too long, and to let them go on their way, about which we know nothing. It’s as if our sadness grieves them and hinders their evolution.
ADC testimonials help us to understand that the deceased can need us. We can help them by doing our best not to hold them back too long with our grief and tears. It’s not easy, of course, but it’s perhaps the last proof of love we can give to our loved ones who have preceded us in death.
Very clear messages
The following excerpts from testimonials underline this point:
“My mom told me she was happy and asked me to let her go”.
“I’m fine, let me go”
“He asked me to stop crying, he was tired of seeing me cry all the time”.
“He told me not to mourn him anymore, that he was fine where he was and that he was very happy.”
“A few days after my mother died, I began to feel an angry, unpleasant presence in my room. It lasted for a while, a few weeks. I didn’t understand it at the time, I was angry and very down. It took me a while to understand that it was Mom and that she wanted me to let her go. I finally agreed to let her go, and since then I’ve never felt that “negative” presence again.
Spontaneous contacts with the deceased is the result of an international study conducted by Evelyn Elsaesser and other researchers. They questioned over 1,000 people worldwide about their experiences of communication after death.
For further information, I recommend Evelyn Elsaesser’s website: https: //www.evelyn-elsaesser.com/fr
