Yes, I know of someone, years ago one of our patients told his nurse (not me) that he had a bad feeling about his upcoming, routine surgery. He sadly died during it. I think he had some reaction to the anesthesia, at least that's what I remember happening.

DH's grandmother never talked about dying until 2 days before she did. She said she was ready to go and told a few people including my mother. She woke up early in the a.m., started to get up and fell back into bed, dying of a massive stroke.

My mother, she had dementia and was in a nursing home. I,and my niece, went up in a snowstorm as she was visited three times a day to keep her happy. She knew who we were and that day, she said " this is the end, I am going to God". She looked perfectly healthy and perky. She died that night.

I "had" a renter, he was about 32 years old, she was 28. He had a pain in his thigh and hip. Doctor told him he had a fast moving cancer, gave him 6 months to live....that was how long he lived. He & I had "the talk". I asked if he had a bucket list...anything he wanted to do while he was still healthy...I was going to offer to pay for his wish....but he didn't have one. He was a pilot, flew out of Denver. He said he'd been a bush pilot in Alaska and lived in France growing up. He'd been everywehre. They set up a Go Fund me page & later an obituary. The wife broke her lease early to go live with her mom in California, she'd just graduated from Nursing School. She wrote me a Thank You note, I have to this day...letting her have a cat AND a dog to keep her husband company while she was at work...that sort of thing....

Besides my mother who died of cancer, yes. My dear friend who died July 1 last year. She also died of cancer, specifically non-small cell carcinoma. She spent her last month in the hospital being diagnosed, treated as much as possible and then at home in hospice care. She never smoked.

A mutual friend and I discussed it afterward and concluded she knew something dire was happening before she had to go to the hospital. We had both noticed a slowing down, weight loss, and a cough. But she had made long-range plans with us and with others. I just wish she had not waited and left such a burden on her daughter. We all tried to help but it was hard to see such a vibrant, busy lady go down so hard and fast.

Yes, several. My sister died of cancer and knew she was dying for quite awhile. She made most of her arrangements in advance, including music for her funeral. Once she was diagnosed but still feeling well they took several family vacations but also tried to keep life somewhat normal.

My young neighbor died of lymphoma and also made many arrangements in advance.

The people I know who knew they were dying were all suffering from fatal diseases; I don't know anyone who was in reasonable health who had a premonition of some sort that they were dying.

I agree with Toronto Vet and the rationale she explained. I don't accept the notion that in normal circumstances, other than coincidentally or randomly, anyone experiences real advance feelings of imminent death.

So what the OP meant was someone other than the people who walk with others in the circle of life who have terminal diseases or just age to the extent it is for sure eminent. And if anyone has well coincidence is a thing. For those that ACTUALLY know someone, something to think about no grave stone says "Dang I wish I had completed such and such on my bucket list". Many here don't like it but truth is death is just a beginning to the rest of what's ahead. Hopefully caregivers help those facing that journey to be ready.

This person was given six months to live eleven years ago. About to turn 84. But has been getting around ok. Been on oxygen for many years. This is sudden. It's like they're tying up loose ends. They haven't said outright it's their objective. But the person they want to contact, there is only one reason I can think they'd contact them. After decades of silence. Even though others have stayed in contact (when they come to town, everyone else, not the person contacting them, comes to dinner. Or me, in constant contact).

It's strange behavior. I dunno, it's just a gut thing. There's no more reason to think they're close since they're still driving themselves, feeding themselves, etc. Hope I'm wrong. But I have seen similar behavior before. It's like their subconscious feels it, and lights a fire to get done.

Even though I'm a science geek, I also know some things aren't completely logical.

Oh sorry...the sixth sense thing...I didn't catch. I know of no one who can foretell the future.

Oh I don't think they KNOW it's eminent. My MIL knew something was really wrong/off, but she she didn't know what. While she associated her sense of taste, smell changes can also be an indicator. There are scientific articles which document that. Uncharacteristic for the individual, is what I'm thinking of.

Well, elmer, you may not accept it, but it happened to DH's grandmother. I remember sitting with her and she was telling me that she was ready to go, and told me stuff about her past...regrets she'd had...and she'd *never* spoken with me like that before. I still recall telling her that no she had a long life ahead of her, and she "pshawed" it. Whether she felt any illness coming on or not I don't know. But she exhibited no signs of ill health...just her sudden death.

My GF's grandmother had a different experience. She was from Germany and would often wake up knowing that someone in her family in Germany had died. It was later in the day that she'd get a phone call telling her of the death. And this was back in the 70s when calls were $$$$ and there was no texting so it wasn't like someone contacted her ahead of time.

"Eminent" is the word to describe the innovative and well respected heart surgeon. "Imminent" is something about to happen.

As far as your comment arcy " death is just a beginning to the rest of what's ahead. ", I hope you understand that there are some who share this spiritual view you have and many also who don't. It's a belief, not a truth. No harm done.

My brother had AIDS, and was hospitalized, being treated for pneumonia. He said, soon after waking one morning, "I'm going to die today." And shortly after noon that day he died.

" elmer, you may not accept it "

I accept it was said but I think a rational view suggests there was no way for the comment to have been made with any certainty, by a person not otherwise circling the drain (as they say). Coincidence and random happenings are both to be expected in such cases, along with time continuing to pass and nothing happening at all.

I'm sorry I spelled it wrong.

This is something that's really near and dear to my heart. I think there are times that we know it's coming. Truly!!!!

Like Lindsey's brother. I think they sort of know. Sometimes.

There's a similar thing. When people have cancer, there's a "moment of clarity" (https://www.1800hospice.com/blog/terminal-lucidity/) which coincides very closely with death. I've always seen this as a time to say goodbye in that moment. And this is almost scientific, because I see it time and time and time again???

There really is no scientific reason for either of the things I'm talking about. But I've seen it, I know it. It's just one of those inexplicable things, that may be explainable later? The only way we can know is on the other side. Possibly.

I was at my father's bedside during his final two weeks of cancer. He knew he was dying. I lived 1100 miles away and when he woke up at the hospital and saw me there, he asked how long I was staying. I said, "As long as you need me." and that was as close as we came to discussing his imminent departure. Mostly I kept him company and tried to keep him comfortable. I'd stolen the little airplane blanket on the way down, and he loved having it tucked around his feet. I told him that my brothers and I would always look out for one another. I also spoke of people from his life who had already died, but when I suggested that maybe he'd see them, he gave me a sideways look like "yeah, right." (Neither one of us was religious; it just seemed like something nice to say.) I was with him when he passed and I'm grateful to have shared that moment with him.

Well, Elmer, we'll just have to disagree (not an unusual occurrence). My take is a rational view would recognize that the matter/energy/universe we study and yet know so little about makes up only 5% of the universe. The other 95% is dark matter and dark energy about which we know essentially nothing. Thus there is tremendous room for us to simply not understand how it all works, and that things that may seem coincidental or inexplicable or even magical to us may actually have a rational explanation, but we just don't know it yet.

Or as Hamlet put it, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

One of my great Aunts knew. She had been organizing and giving things away. She was ready. She wanted to go. As a person who was a believer in an after life she was confident she would meet the people important to her. I don't see any reason to doubt it especially as she did die but she didn't see death as an end so "there is that" which was something she said. I can think of others. My father-in-law knew but he was told so.

" Well, Elmer, we'll just have to disagree "

Sure, that's fine. I'm not sure your random cosmology comment has anything to do with this, does that indicate some degree of confusion?

The absence of positive evidence leads to the default assumption, there is no such phenomenon. It doesn't open the door to or give validity to anyone's speculative or spiritually- derived suggestions.

How about this elmer, we may figure out later on why things like off sense of taste or a sudden urge to tie up loose ends is some sort of hormonal release or tastebuds dying thing... but for now, merely seem like oddities to those of us who notice these things. I mean, we didn't know what sundowning was in dementia patients, but now we do. Maybe time will reveal the whys. Some of us just happen to notice, and some don't put as much stock into them. As an alternate idea.

"It doesn't open the door to or give validity to anyone's speculative or spiritually- derived suggestions."

I don't think you are so obtuse as to not understand my cosmological reference or my purpose for bringing it up...but I could be wrong. Again I disagree in part. It doesn't *prove* what is happening or how ...not yet... but it certainly opens the door to inquiry.

As regarding predicting the imminence of death, did you ever hear about Oscar the cat?

Oscar the Cat was born in 2005 and was one of six cats adopted by the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island in the United States. He earned his fame through a publication in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007.1 Oscar was noted to make his own ward rounds in the nursing home, sniffing and observing patients. Indifferent to most, he would then decide to curl up on the bed of only certain patients. The patients he identified would invariably die within a few hours. The cat was so precise in his assessment of impending death, that the staff developed a protocol that required that patient’s family to be called in, in anticipation of death. We read – ‘His mere presence at the bedside is viewed by physicians and nursing home staff as an almost absolute indicator of impending death’.1 The author of the article, geriatrician Dr David Dosa, later published a touching book about dementia – Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat.2 While the reliability on the cat may seem strange in modern health care settings, the family of a patient that died with Oscar at the bedside reported: ‘it’s not that we trusted the cat more than the nurse. Not, exactly. It was … well, there was just something about Oscar. He seemed so convinced of what he was doing. He was so clear in his intention and his dedication’. This underscored the importance of the prediction of death and the acknowledgement of the dying process.2 As of January 2010, Oscar the Cat accurately predicted 50 deaths.3

Source https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5624465/

" ‘His mere presence at the bedside is viewed by physicians and nursing home staff as an almost absolute indicator of impending death’. "

I worked in an emergency clinic with a cat like that. Absolutely every animal that he sat next to (beside their cage) would die within 12 hours, regardless of why they were there.

That is a really interesting article Annie.

I suppose the really interesting thing about Oscar was not that he knew the person was dying if that was indeed what he was indicating rather than this person had some signature he recognized and wanted to be near but why did he stay? One assumes other cats probably have this same ability. There are dogs that can tell if you are having certain medical crisis but you have to find a dog that cares enough to let the person know.

I have noticed in my life that doctors that I have met will never state things with certainty. When people say a doctor told them they had two years to live I always wonder who their doctor is.

Interesting the article quoted David Hume. He is one of the people who knew he was dying. He wrote his friends and gave them a heads up. I thought about him yesterday oddly enough. He did not believe in an after life. Died in the late 1700's.

"... we may figure out later ...."

Of course, very much so. That's what's happened over the years with scientific and medical research and discoveries. In the meantime, the lack of positive evidence for any particular notion doesn't open the floodgates to suggest the need for or to validate "explanations" derived by people with no technical education or work experience who offer speculation and spiritual superstitions.

" but why did he stay? "

Gallows humour.......we used to joke that the cat sucked the last remaining tiny bit of life left, and so could extend his life just a teeeeny bit more.

"I worked in an emergency clinic with a cat like that. Absolutely every animal that he sat next to (beside their cage) would die within 12 hours, regardless of why they were there. "

C'mon! What do you think it was that prompted it? I know animals have exceptional olfactory sense

Of course the thing about Oscar is, it would be terrifying if he decided to hang out with me!!