Very Present and Very Real: A Case Study of Regularly Hearing the Voice of the Deceased Without Distress in Bereavement.
Ruvanee P Vilhauer
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying December 2025 DOI: 10.1177/00302228231195104 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Case study Case report Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 1 |
| Population | A single bereaved individual who regularly heard the voice of the deceased |
| Keywords | Bereavement Continuing bond Hallucination Sense of presence Voice hearing |
| Key findings | The authors report that a bereaved person regularly heard the voice of the deceased as though in external space and experienced it as real while fully acknowledging the death. The person welcomed and benefited from the experience without distress or dysfunction, despite no afterlife belief, no cultural recognition of the experience as normal grieving, and no explanation for it. The authors argue this supports the view that sensory and quasi-sensory experiences of the deceased are a common concomitant of normal 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.