There is also a phenomenon known as ‘terminal lucidity’, whereby, shortly before death, patients suffering from severe and sometimes incapacitating, psychiatric and neurological disorders, and who may be dull or unconscious, and have been so for years, exhibit an unexpected return of mental clarity and memory, with normal, or unusually enhanced, mental abilities, including considerable elevation of mood and unaccustomed spiritual expression. In about half of cases this happens in the last 24 hours of life, and in almost 90% within a week of death.
