Shared Death Experiences are the ones in which a bystander of a deceased person shares a vision or a strange experience with the dying person. It could be associated with accompanying your loved one in the journey of death, seeing what he/she is going through, or feeling what they might be feeling at that time, which is mostly in a spiritual way. Also, most reported shared death experiences are about the people who shared a death experience with their loved ones.
In all these aspects, one thing is clear SDEs are about your loved ones someone you care about the most, or someone with whom you recently got too attached. So, even if there is not enough scientific evidence, it can be seen that empathy is linked between all these cases.
It is not easy to be empathetic about any random people, these are the robust and profound feelings that a person generally has for their loved ones, with whom they are genuinely connected by heart.
Defining Empathy and Its Connection to SDEs
Empathy is more like an ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and try to understand their perspective, look at things from their point of view, or feel what they must be feeling in a certain situation.
According to leading researchers of SDEs and NDEs, William Peters and Dr. Raymond Moody shared death experiences are about the people who have lost someone in front of their eyes, specifically the ones they care about the most, which can signify the meaning that there is a role of empathy in SDEs.
Empathy and Shared Death Experiences
As per the resources and studies that have happened until now, there are some similarities and consistencies that have been found in shared death experiences and it is associated with empathy and intuition. People who have gone through SDEs or NDEs are mostly the ones who are either open-minded people, able to reconcile more with others, people with good empathy and intuition, or the ones who have gone through an SDE or NDE earlier.
In this scenario, empathy is an element that played a role, however, it can’t be claimed that it’s the primary aspect that contributes to SDEs or NDEs, but it has a role for some people.
Instances Where Empathy Played a Key Role
Even though, there are not many case studies or research that can link empathy with shared death experiences, which is obvious as it’s a rare phenomenon and there is still a long way to go, the primary sources of studies that have been going on about SDEs or NDEs is mainly based on the insights and real-experiences of people who have shared about their experiences.
Their personal accounts about SDEs are the main aspects that serve as instances for case studies. For instance, even an SDE can occur to anybody, there are people known as empaths who can feel what others might be feeling and it’s like a practice of sensing what their loved one has been going through, about which their subconscious brain connects with them.
There are no better explanations as of now than diving a little deeper into this concept and finding similarities and associations between empathy and shared-death experiences and researchers are doing it with the help of SDEs felt by people.
For instance, listening to Julie Levine’s experience, it can be concluded that empathy and attachment played a key role in her SDE. Julie Levine was a civil service agent who had a friend that she got attached to during her work, which means there was no blood relation between them but the sole attachment.
She explained that she really liked her friend due to her individuality and other good deeds and this is how they came closer. This kind of attachment can be linked with empathy as during the time she was with her, she was sensing something, it could be her feelings, intuitions, or something like that, which can’t be denied and while they were on the way to Kingston, their car hit a truck from her friend’s side and she couldn’t realize what happened to them. Her friend died in front of her and she closely witnessed that experience and found herself in her shoes for a while.
When she underwent surgery, things got mixed up, felt like some kind of unusual experience and when she woke up, she couldn’t remember much of that part. However, listening to her entire experience, this can be concluded that when someone dies near you, many emotional, kind, open-mind or people like empaths have a feeling of viewing other people’s situation and then thinking of themselves in that scene and feel the pain and all, which sometimes for a very few people can result in having shared death experiences.
Moving a little further, think about the doctors and nurses who spend half or more than half of their time with patients in hospitals. Even though there is no previous connection between a patient and a doctor, spending time with a specific patient can make a doctor or nurse develop feelings of some kind of attachment, care, or sympathy.
It’s not too complicated to think that if you start caring about some people to a certain extent, it can lead to an empathetic feeling towards them. Since the phenomenon is already a rare kind, this kind of thing happening with doctors is rarer because their mind is set on not connecting with their patients otherwise they won’t be able to operate them due to the emotional connections.
However, in these rarest scenarios, there are some chances that somewhere a doctor or nurse also must have been through an SDE and one of them is Dr. Jeff O’Driscoll who had shared a death experience with his patient Jeffrey Olsen.
Conclusion: Understanding Empathy’s Influence on SDEs
Since empathy lies within everybody like an emotion, there are very few people who can feel other people’s pain or understand what the other person is witnessing or going through. SDEs are a kind of rare experience, which is true and happens to people who are connected with their loved ones not only on an emotional level but also in an empathetic manner. So, in short, empathy plays a role in SDEs but it may not be the case for every person who has undergone to a SDE.
Last Updated on by Icy Tales Team