Dialogues with Death Experiences at the End of Life

The fear of death, including disabling fear, arises from a mechanistic view of the human being rooted in Newtonian-Cartesian thinking, which prevents understanding ancestral spiritual experiences. Reintegrating the dimension of human spirituality into daily life can help people incorporate not only the physical absence of the deceased but also their own finitude and personal death. The text argues that attending to phenomena such as Holotropic Breathwork, Close Encounters with Death, and End-of-Life Experiences is essential for comprehensive mental health care and general health.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The fear of death, even reaching a disabling fear, is the result of the mechanistic vision of the human being, which derived from the Newtonian Cartesian understanding of reality, leaving human knowledge in the impossibility of understanding and assimilating the ancestral experiences of human spiritual life, from which it is essential to generate spaces that consider the reintegration of the dimension of human spirituality in such a way that it is possible to incorporate into daily experience not only the physical absence of the deceased person, but also one’s own finitude and the consideration of personal death. Therefore, turning our attention to phenomena such as Holotropic Breathwork, Close Encounters with Death and End-of-Life Experiences, among others, are today essential for the comprehensive care of mental health and people’s health in general.