A real-life story · Iceland, 1962

The night Jacob appeared in the doorway: a shared-death experience

A woman who worked at a sanatorium in Iceland woke up one night in October 1962. She saw Jacob, a patient at the sanatorium, in her bedroom doorway, his face covered with blood. She woke her husband and told him. In the morning she learned that Jacob had taken his own life that night.

Jacob’s case is the best-documented one in the study by the psychologist Erlendur Haraldsson. The husband confirms that she told him that night, and the autopsy confirms how Jacob died. How could she have known?

Step 1

1962 · At the sanatorium · The woman’s account

A woman tries to cheer up a patient who is sometimes depressed

Illustration from The night Jacob appeared in the doorway: a shared-death experience: “A woman tries to cheer up a patient who is sometimes depressed”

The woman worked at a sanatorium in Iceland. Jacob was one of the patients. He was sometimes depressed.

She tried to brighten his stay with a bit of humor.

One day she gave him an invitation.

Step 2

October 7, 1962 · The woman’s account

She invites him to her home, and Jacob promises to come the next day

Illustration from The night Jacob appeared in the doorway: a shared-death experience: “She invites him to her home, and Jacob promises to come the next day”

Jacob came from the same county as the woman’s husband. She thought they would enjoy talking about the people from there, so she invited him to her home.

Jacob said yes and was glad. She said to him: “You promise to come tomorrow.” He answered: “Yes, yes, I promise.”

That night, the woman went home to sleep.

Step 3

The night of October 7 to 8 · The woman’s account

The woman says she woke up unable to move and saw Jacob in the doorway

Illustration from The night Jacob appeared in the doorway: a shared-death experience: “The woman says she woke up unable to move and saw Jacob in the doorway”

She woke up during the night. She felt as if all her strength had been taken away. She couldn’t move.

Suddenly she saw the bedroom door open. Jacob was standing on the threshold, his face covered with blood.

She looked at him for a good while, unable to speak or move. Then Jacob disappeared, and she felt as if he closed the door behind him.

Then she came back to herself.

Step 4

In the middle of the night · The woman’s account

She wakes her husband: “I can swear that something has happened at the sanatorium”

Illustration from The night Jacob appeared in the doorway: a shared-death experience: “She wakes her husband: “I can swear that something has happened at the sanatorium””

She called her husband and told him what she had seen. She said to him:

“I can swear that something has happened at the sanatorium.”

The woman, in her interview with Erlendur Haraldsson

They knew nothing more. They waited for morning.

Step 5

That same night · What came to light in 2002

Jacob had climbed out through the window, and a girl saw him in the middle of the night

Illustration from The night Jacob appeared in the doorway: a shared-death experience: “Jacob had climbed out through the window, and a girl saw him in the middle of the night”

Jacob got out of his room through the window.

A girl who worked at the sanatorium was coming home from a dance in the middle of the night. She ran into him briefly. Jacob told her he had gotten out through the window. As he walked off into the darkness, he asked her to give his greetings to his wife.

The girl never saw him again.

Step 6

October 8, in the morning · The woman’s account

The woman calls the sanatorium and learns that Jacob died by suicide that night

Illustration from The night Jacob appeared in the doorway: a shared-death experience: “The woman calls the sanatorium and learns that Jacob died by suicide that night”

In the morning, the woman phoned the sanatorium. She asked whether everything was all right with Jacob.

“No,” the nurse said, “he committed suicide this night.”

That same day, the police found him.

Step 7

October 8, 1962 · According to the police report and the autopsy

The autopsy says he drowned, with two large wounds on his head

Illustration from The night Jacob appeared in the doorway: a shared-death experience: “The autopsy says he drowned, with two large wounds on his head”

In the morning, Jacob was missing from his room. The police were called. A few hours later he was found drowned, about a hundred yards downstream from a footbridge near the sanatorium.

The autopsy says it was suicide by drowning. It also says he had two large wounds on his head and a badly broken skull.

The river is shallow, but it runs over sharp lava rocks. According to Haraldsson, that explains the wounds.

The woman had seen Jacob with his face covered with blood.

Step 8

1982 · The interview

Twenty years later, the husband confirms that she told him in the middle of the night

Illustration from The night Jacob appeared in the doorway: a shared-death experience: “Twenty years later, the husband confirms that she told him in the middle of the night”

In 1982, the psychologist Erlendur Haraldsson interviewed the woman for his study of encounters with the dead in Iceland. She didn’t know Jacob’s surname.

Haraldsson also interviewed the husband. He confirmed that his wife woke him in the middle of the night and told him what she had seen. He also confirmed that they knew nothing about Jacob until the morning.

The study doesn’t say whether the husband remembered the blood.

Step 9

2002 · The documents

The team finds the 1962 police report and autopsy

In 2002, Haraldsson’s team identified Jacob and found the police report and the autopsy. That is where what we know about that night comes from.

Haraldsson published the case in 2009, in a study of 337 encounters with the dead. On the page about the study we explain how it was done and what can be checked about it.

The question remains: how did the woman know that night that something had happened to Jacob?

What does the evidence say?

What can be checked

We ask every story the same five questions. They don’t tell us whether someone is telling the truth. They tell us what can be shown today. Here we ask them about what the woman saw that night: Jacob in the doorway, his face covered with blood.

3 of 5

Yes
Unconfirmed
No data

Did the woman say she had seen Jacob in the doorway before she knew that Jacob had died?The woman’s husband confirms that she told him beforehand, but he said so twenty years later. In 1982, the husband told the psychologist Erlendur Haraldsson that his wife woke him in the middle of the night. He said she told him what she had seen before they knew anything about the death. Haraldsson’s study doesn’t say whether the husband remembered the blood. Nothing was written down in 1962.
Is it known what time the woman saw Jacob in the doorway?The night the woman saw Jacob is known, but not the time. The woman and her husband say it was in the middle of the night, on the night of October 7 to 8, 1962. They are going by memory, twenty years later.
Is it known what time Jacob died?The night Jacob died is known, but not the time. It was the night of October 7 to 8, 1962. A girl who worked at the sanatorium saw him alive in the middle of the night, and by morning he was no longer in his room. The study doesn’t give the time of death.
Is there any document from the time that confirms Jacob’s death?Yes. The 1962 police report and autopsy say that Jacob drowned that night and that he had two large wounds on his head. The team of the psychologist Erlendur Haraldsson found those two documents in 2002.
Could the woman have known in some other way that Jacob was going to harm himself that night?The woman couldn’t fully know that Jacob was going to harm himself that night, but she knew something about him. She worked at the sanatorium and knew that Jacob was sometimes depressed. Also, waking up unable to move and seeing someone is something that happens to many people. That explains what the vision was like, but not why it came on that very night.

Why we ask each question

What is hard to explain

The woman told her husband in the middle of the night, before she knew anything. The husband confirms it.
That same day, Jacob had promised her he would come to her home the next day.
The autopsy confirms that he died that night, with large wounds on his head.

What remains unresolved

The woman knew that Jacob was sometimes depressed.
Many people wake up unable to move and see someone in the room. It is called sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis explains what the vision was like, but not why it came that night.
No one knows what time Jacob died or what time the vision happened.
The blood appears only in the account the woman gave twenty years later.

Where this story comes from

Studies

Erlendur Haraldsson (2009), “Alleged encounters with the dead: The importance of violent death in 337 new cases,” Journal of Parapsychology 73, pages 91-118, case 5076Read for free

Case documents

The 1982 interviews with the woman and her husband, in the study
The 1962 police report and autopsy, which Haraldsson’s team located in 2002 and summarizes in the study

Learn more

The Haraldsson study: 337 encounters with the dead in IcelandRead
Annie Harriss: the dream of her mother’s death, another shared-death experienceRead
More shared-death experiencesRead

Our archive

Our full reading of the study and its scoring against our five criteria, as of October 21, 2026

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