Actually in another paper Stevenson does a good job of providing evidence that these apparitions are not just hallucinations but are physically present figures. (see below). One of them is that they are sometimes seen by more than one person. In the case of Bell's experience, both her and her husband saw the apparition of her father. That rules out hallucination for me. Hallucinations are very unique and random glitches of a malfunctioning brain. The odds are against the same hallucination happening in both Bell's and her husband's brain. Also bear in mind that Bell's and her husband's experience involved multiple sensory modalities. It was seen. It was heard talking and coughing. It was felt embracing her. And it was smelt as the scent of pear soap which her father always used. I find that further confirmation that the apparition was real and objective. It would not surprise if sometimes a particularly distressed brain might hallucinate a dead relative. As I pointed out, that's basically an unfalsifiable proposition. But other cases, as in the one in the OP where she has a full on conversation with her dead friend before she even knew he had committed suicide, point to a real phenomenon beyond that and that it is an encounter with a real objective entity.
https://www.sciforums.com/threads/bereavement-apparitions.166311/page-4#post-3726419
But we shouldn't discount the fact that we were grieving when we experienced this.
I'm not going to lie, I was in a pretty bad place before and after my father passed away. I'd experienced grief before, but nothing like this. I was exceptionally close to my father, I cared for him during his illness. I bore the brunt of everything he went through, firstly to protect my mother as much as I could from it, and that became even more important after she herself was diagnosed with a CNS lymphoma. Secondly, because I wanted to make sure that he was supported and would never feel he had to keep his feelings about his impending death internally. I was grieving from the moment his cancer was diagnosed as terminal and they could no longer try to contain it, as he had developed a life threatening infection, which meant his regular chemo and avastin treatment had to stop, which resulted in his cancer basically exploding and spreading everywhere. I was also under a tremendous amount of stress and mental strain. I was severely depressed and at times, even suicidal. The only reason I did not die with my father is because of my children, my husband and my mother, who all needed me. I simply could not bear the thought of losing my dad. That is what it boiled down to.
In the final months of my father's life, I was trying to do everything I could to give him what he wanted. My father had not wanted to die in the hospital, he wanted to die at home. He could no longer eat or swallow solid food, due to the tumours that were then pressing on his oesophagus, so to stop him from fading away (he'd lost half his body weight by this point and looked like a skeleton and he was wearing clothes from the kids section), I spent weeks, mostly nights, researching bone broths and soups that he could swallow, and try to maintain his weight and slow the weightloss. I was getting less than 2 hours sleep in a 24 hour period. Then a week before he passed away, we knew he would not see past 2 weeks by that point, we had organised for him to die at home. A hospital bed was ordered, a palliative nurse came in daily to help manage his pain (and he was in so much pain, he would scream into a pillow), because he could no longer swallow his pain medication, so he had to have injections. At that point, the only sleep I was getting was less than an hour and was during when the nurse was there for the short periods she was there, and even then, it was plagued by nightmares of what was to come. Then a week before he died, it was 3am, and during the night, managing his pain was left up to me. It meant changing his nappy, taking care of his colonoscopy bag while he was unconscious, giving him the injections.. And he started to do the death rattle. And I had a complete mental breakdown as I realised I could not do this, that my husband and I couldn't do this and I faced the prospect of doing something my father had been against for his death - he did not want to die in the hospital. But that breathing sound was so loud, it echoed through the entire house. We had an injection to reduce the chances of it happening, and the nurse had told us to use however much we wanted, to not use this stuff sparingly, I used the sage swab to try to absorb the moisture in his mouth and near the back of his throat, but it didn't help. And all I could think in that moment was 'this is going to scar my children for life' and I broke down. Completely and utterly broke down because I found myself in the position of having to choose my children's mental health vs my father's dying wish.
I was obsessed with giving him what he wanted. The guilt I felt when the nurse arrived first thing the next morning and helped prepare him to transfer back to the palliative care ward, and the guilt I felt when we got there.. The guilt I felt as I sobbed by his bedside, begging him to forgive me for not being able to cope with his dying at home. There are no words. I know my father would have been horrified that he'd put me through that. At the time, he was consumed with what he knew was coming and he wasn't able to see or even understand clearly what was going on around him. His brain was already in shutdown mode and it was preparing him for the end of his life. Not to mention that my family had spent days harassing and abusing me for my atheism, for not giving him what he wanted, for the fact that I had supported him when he tried to request euthanasia (my father did not want to linger as he ended up lingering) to die with dignity, which was not legal at the time.
The reason I am telling you this, MR, is to get you to understand that when I felt him hug me, when I saw him, when I smelled his soap, I was under a tremendous amount of mental distress, strain, exhaustion and I was grieving in a way that actually shocked me and ultimately, resulted in my needing over 2 years of therapy to get past everything that happened. My husband was also under a lot of strain, stress and was grieving himself and he was terrified watching me go through this and at the time, I was not open to considering therapy for myself, because I couldn't imagine leaving my father alone to even attend an appointment. I don't understand why the nurse smelled something in that room, maybe there was a smell there. But she'd cared for him before and knew him for close to a year, as my father had been in and out of that ward to treat his infection and for pain management. So it's possible she was having her own moment.
The brain is very good at doing everything it can to shield us from further harm. When children are abused and/or face severe trauma, it can essentially lead to dissociative identity disorder. And occurs to protect the child, to allow them to mentally escape the ongoing trauma and/or abuse they are experiencing. Did we hallucinate? Possibly. Was he actually there? Possibly. Given the state of our mental health at the time, particularly mine, it's not shocking or surprising that I had these experiences. That my brain was trying to do things to give me comfort, to try to prevent further harm would not be surprising during that time. I absolutely experienced things when my father died, and I can't explain any of it. In the same way that I told James that he wasn't in any position to tell me what it was not, no one is really in a position to tell me what absolutely was. At the end of the day, we live and die by our experiences. We are free to believe as we wish when it comes to these matters. I will say, if you find comfort in believing in an afterlife, then I am really happy for you. What I request is when considering these sorts of experiences, to factor in everything else. If you still elect to believe in them and particularly, because it brings you comfort, then that is up to you and how you wish to deal with grief, loss and pain. I am not going to argue with you to try to take that away from you and no one should. These beliefs are entirely personal. Yes, people will disagree with you, some will mock you, some will disregard you because of it. But ultimately, you can only go with what you believe to be true to yourself. But just be mindful that because it is entirely personal, not everyone will agree with you, or believe as you do. We will never be 100% sure that ghosts exist. In the same way you ask people to consider the possibility, you should also consider other possibilities. In all of this, I am truly sorry for your loss MR. Losing a parent is a horrible experience and I am happy that you were able to find something that brought you comfort after she passed away. Take care of yourself.