TRANSFORM

Terminal Lucidity in Children

  • This study was the first of its kind to systematically investigate terminal lucidity (TL) in children.

    TL is an unanticipated surge of mental clarity that can occur in the final hours, minutes, or seconds before a person dies.

    Because TL occurs in direct proximity to death, it is a medical enigma, given those who experience it are often (although not always) presumed to have irreversible physiological declines.

    What is currently known about TL is almost exclusively drawn from eye-witness testimonies about what dying adults appear to be experiencing.

    Little is known about TL in children.

  • Terminal lucidity (TL) is a medical enigma. No one know why it happens or when it will happen. But, it happens.

    Many of the children whose accounts were collected for this study had severely compromised medical conditions, with most being in comatose or semi-comatose states just prior to experiencing TL.

    How lucid awareness returns so rapidly, when established understandings suggest recovery from comatose and semi-comatose states to healthy cognitive functioning is gradual, is beyond current explanation.

    While this research could not answer the questions of why or how TL happens, the findings do point to a need to transform existing understandings of the mind-brain relationship and how it functions leading up to and during the dying process.

  • The team comprised world-renown researchers who specialise in exceptional experiences of consciousness, and with expertise across the disciplines of neuroscience, psychiatry, biology, psychology, and sociology:

    • Bruce Greyson, MD

    • Allan Kellehear, PhD

    • Karalee Kothe, MA

    • Maryne Mutis, PhD

    • Michael Nahm, PhD

    • Evrard Renaud, PhD

    • Chris Roe, PhD

    • Natasha Tassell-Matamua, PhD

    • Marjorie Woollacott, PhD

  • ‍ Journal Articles

    ‍ Kothe, K., Tassell-Matamua, N. A., Woollacott, M., Nahm, M., Roe, C., Greyson, B., Mutis, M., & Evrard, R. (2025). Impacts on caregivers of witnessing terminal lucidity in children. OMEGA: Journal of Death and Dying, 302228251391552. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228251391552

    ‍ ‍Tassell-Matamua, N. A., Kothe, K., Nahm, M., Woollacott, M., Roe, C., Mutis, M., Greyson, B., & Evrard, R. (2026). Terminal lucidity in children. A contemporary case collection. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research and Practice. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000458  

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    Book Chapters

    ‍ ‍Tassell-Matamua, N. A., & Kothe, K. (2025). Terminal lucidity. An introduction, some case examples in children, and questions they raise. In M. Nahm, M., Woollacott, & N. A. Tassell-Matamua (Eds.), On the banks of the river Styx. New perspectives on terminal lucidity and other near-death phenomena (pp. 6-18). AAPS.

    ‍ ‍Woollacott, M. (2025). Implications of terminal lucidity for consciousness studies and health care. In M. Nahm, M., Woollacott, & N. A. Tassell-Matamua (Eds.), On the banks of the river Styx. New perspectives on terminal lucidity and other near-death phenomena (pp. 47-60). AAPS.

    ‍ Woollacott, M., & Tassell-Matamua, N. (2025). Lucidite terminale chez les enfants: Une etude enc cours [Terminal lucidity in children: An ongoing study]. In C. Fawer (Ed.), Ces enfants qui dissent voir ou entendre des defunts [Children who say they see or hear the deceased] (pp. 85-99). Editions Exergue.

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    Conference Presentations

    ‍ ‍Woollacott, M., Greyson, B., Kothe, K., &Tassell-Matamua, N. (2023, September 1). Terminal lucidity in children. Symposium presented at the International Association for Near-Death Studies annual conference. Washington DC, USA.

    ‍ ‍Kothe, K. (2024, April 24). Characteristics and impacts of terminal lucidity in children and their caregivers. Poster presentation at the 30th annual  Science of Consciousness conference.  Tucson, Arizona, USA.

    ‍ ‍Tassell-Matamua, N. A. (2025, October 10). Surges of mental clarity in children with cancer before death. Poster presentation at the annual conference of the  New Zealand Society for Oncology. Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand.

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  • With much gratitude, our research team received funding from The Bial Foundation.