When we lose our minds, where do they go?

Thank you to DailyOM for the image. Photographer unknown.

 

A former patient of mine, an elderly lady with severe dementia, passed on a few weeks ago. She had commented many times that she was ready to go whenever it happened, but that she hadn’t been invited yet. At last she received that invitation.

She had told me some years ago about seeing her husband a number of times after his death (long before she was stricken with dementia), and she kindly gave me a copy of her notes on those events. However, it wasn’t entirely clear that she was describing genuine spirit contacts; some of the instances sounded more like dreams, like the one in which she said her husband was driving, which I don’t really understand. I wasn’t sure what to do with the less-clear notes and I didn’t use them in a post. Now, since I’m thinking of her and since she did take the trouble to write them for me, I’m copying them here. She didn’t want her name used, she said at the time, so I’m respecting her wishes and referring to her as R. I’ve removed the names of her husband and other family members as well.

Numbers refer to addresses, and names are those of the family dogs. R. wrote “he had both legs” because her husband had had a terrible time with diabetes that sadly had included amputations.

Note that the events from 2000 and 2004 in particular do sound very typical of spirit contacts.
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1998
No. 1   at 1848— New room— he liked it
No. 2   at 8711
No. 3   with Reggie walking towards me on Stilwell [a street], I had Skipper walking to him (going north) he had both legs, and he looked good.
No. 4   8711— in the shower
No. 5   we were sitting huddled together on the curb— it was very cold.

Jan. 1999
No. 6   He was driving me from Eastdale to 8711 in a snowstorm— we had three dogs.
No. 7   S. came, we were having an estate sale at 8711
No. 8   S. came to take me with him to a gun show, going to England (8711)

May 1999
No. 9   S. came to new shop, he was sitting reading the paper
No. 10   We delivered a cake together from CIMM., we had to get more frosting to finish it

June 1999
No. 11   Saw S. and Zack, just for a minute. Zack was jumping up and down— they were going for a walk

July 1999
No. 12   Saw S., he was waiting for me with his arms open to me— made me very sad.

May 31, 2000
No. 12   Saw S. at Lagniappe (restaurant)— he was coming down the hallway, smiling, looking good.

Nov. 1, 2000, 11 am
No. 14   I did not see him but I felt him there at 8711, I was by B.’s bedroom and there was a distinct loud thump in the closet by his gun room— I opened the door & found N.’s duvet coverlet that we had been searching for. I know S. was there, I could feel him close to me. His love reached out to me.

Oct. 10, 2004
No. 15   I saw S. just for a few minutes, he was very agitated & did not speak to me— it was the day G. (cousin) had a heart attack— he was running back and forth— I had not actually seen him in four years

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(R.’s daughter told me that she heard the thump mentioned in No. 14.)

R. was a vibrant and talkative lady, full of stories about her life in three different countries and her experiences of being a child during WWII. (She had been particularly incensed at the Germans for dropping bombs nearby because they scared her dog.) She had been an energetic businesswoman throughout her adulthood and into old age. In the last few years of her life she was severely affected by dementia, and there was a kind of grey curtain covering her face, so that it was difficult to see through it to who she really was.

In Chinese medicine we have the concept of Shen, often translated as “spirit” but not quite synonymous with it. Shen is what you see when you look into someone’s eyes. You know what I mean— the Shen can appear bright, haunted, clouded, darkened, or spaced out and not all there. An animal can project these effects as much as a human can. Facial expression is only part of it. And when it fades, everyone can tell.

When we lose our minds, where do they go? Are they still there the entire time?

Did I ever tell you the story about Adyashanti’s mother and her client? I was reminded of it while thinking about R. Adyashanti is an American spiritual teacher, and in a talk I heard online, he related something his mother had told him about one of her home-health clients. She was working with a lady who was approaching the end of her life, who had such advanced Alzheimer’s that she no longer spoke. The lady suddenly popped up with this statement: “I just want you to know that none of this is really affecting me.” Then the lights went out again and never came back on. You can imagine that the caregiver, as she reported, thought that she must have been hallucinating for a moment. I wish I had more details— I don’t even know the name of Adyashanti’s mom.

Terminal lucidity is well-documented though not well understood. People with dementia also have moments of astonishing clarity. R.’s hospice caregiver reported that R. had at times been with it enough to teach her a few words of French. That’s amazing for a woman who needed explicit step-by-step instructions just to dress herself.

My best understanding comes from Bruce Lipton’s concept that the body and brain are only the receiver, while the mind is a program being broadcast from somewhere else. In dementia, the “TV set” works very poorly, but the program is still going on.

I’d love to see R.’s latest episode.

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