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?