Death stare a thing?

Three times I have experienced what I call the death stare. First time was my grandfather while I was in the hospital visiting him. In the middle of our conversation he just stopped talking and stared at me, or more accurately through me for an uncomfortably long time. Weirdest look on his face. It was like he somehow knew this was the last time we’d ever see each other. It was and he died a day later. He was ill but nobody expected him to die.

Second time was my mother who was also very ill but nobody expected her to die. She was at my house a few days before she passed. We were sitting talking when she just stopped and stared through me for what seemed like a very long time. The look on her face was the same, like she was trying to bake me into her memory or something.

Third time was at a xmas party at the inlaws. My FIL, an elderly gentleman but in very good shape with no known health problems just stopped talking and started staring at me. Same thing. Very intense stare. Keep in mind this was a party situation so a lot of folks are talking and there was a lot of activity. It was like he was singularly focused on me to the exclusion of everybody else in the room. I hadn’t been interacting very much so I doubt he was staring at me because of something I did or said. He died in his sleep a couple days later of natural causes.

This “death stare” is hard to describe. There is more to it than just locking of the eyes. It’s like they were staring right through me and it lasted for a very uncomfortable length of time. In each case after the “stare” concluded conversation went right back to normal.

I know it’s very likely this is all in my head. I’ve tried googling this phenomenon and came up with nothing. I’ll also quickly say that I am not at all religious and I’m not into any sort of new age woo stuff.

Has anybody else experience something like this with a loved one just before they passed?

Good username/thread subject.

Ha! Mortimus is a nick name I got back in college. It’s kind of a take off on my real first name :slight_smile:

Ha! Mortimus was my nickname in college because it’s sort of rhyming slang for my real name :slight_smile:

Dolores?

Mulva.

Did you think they seemed to be death stares before they died, or was it only afterwards that you thought it strange?

The stares were weird/creepy as they were happening. But I didn’t see them as portending the person’s passing, at least not at that moment. I realize that the connection between the stares and the deaths is extremely tenuous at best. But it happened three times, that’s what got me wondering. And if I ever see the “death stare” again, you can bet I’ll be paying close attention to happens with that person in coming days.

People in extremely stressful situations are likely to be distracted with their own thoughts instead of concentrating on small talk.