Very Present and Very Real: A Case Study of Regularly Hearing the Voice of the Deceased Without Distress in Bereavement.

Abstract

Although sensory and quasi-sensory experiences of the deceased (SED) have been the subject of much debate, research on the phenomenology of auditory verbal experiences in the bereaved has been neglected. This case study describes the phenomenology of a regularly occurring voice hearing experience and its meaning for a single bereaved individual. The voice of the deceased can be heard as though in external space, and the experience can feel real, even when the death is fully acknowledged. A bereaved individual can welcome and benefit from the experience even when it is not recognized as a normal part of grieving in the individual's cultural context, when no afterlife belief is present, and when the experience remains unexplained. The case study demonstrates that hearing the voice of the deceased can be a regular occurrence without causing distress or dysfunction and lends support to the idea that SED are a common concomitant of normal bereavement.