A real-life story · Iceland

“My name is Margret”: a shared-death experience in Iceland

One night, a man in Iceland woke up and felt a woman beside the bed, who said to him, “My name is Margret.” He looked at the clock. It was three thirty. He and his wife were fostering a little girl. Soon after, the man learned that the girl’s grandmother had died of a heart attack at that same minute, in another part of the country. The grandmother’s name was Margret.

Margret’s case is one of the clearest in the study by the psychologist Erlendur Haraldsson. The man’s wife confirms that he told her about it in the morning, before they knew anything about the death. How could he have known?

Step 1

A house in Iceland · The man’s account

A couple is fostering a little girl of two and a half

A man and his wife lived in Iceland. They were fostering a little girl about two and a half years old.

The girl’s grandmother lived in Hvammstangi, a town in another part of the country.

The man didn’t know her. He had never seen her.

Step 2

One night · The man’s account

The man says he woke up and felt a woman standing beside the bed

One night he woke up. He felt as though a woman were standing beside the bed.

The woman said to him:

“My name is Margret.”

What the man says the woman told him

Then the woman vanished out the door.

Step 3

At that moment · The man’s account

He looks at the clock: it is exactly three thirty

The man looked at the clock. It was exactly three thirty.

He didn’t write it down anywhere. The time comes from his memory.

Step 4

The next morning · His wife’s account

In the morning he tells his wife, before they know anything

The next morning, the man told his wife what he had experienced during the night.

They still knew nothing about anyone’s death.

His wife later confirmed this to the researcher. The study doesn’t say whether he told her the name and the time.

Step 5

That day or the next · The man’s account

He learns that the girl’s grandmother died of a heart attack at that same minute

Illustration from “My name is Margret”: a shared-death experience in Iceland: “He learns that the girl’s grandmother died of a heart attack at that same minute”

That same day, or the day after, the man learned of a death. The girl’s grandmother had died of a heart attack in Hvammstangi. According to what he was told, it happened at that same minute.

The grandmother’s name was Margret.

The man says he knew nothing about her health. And he isn’t even sure he remembered her name.

Margret is one of the most common women’s names in Iceland.

Step 6

Years later · The study

A psychologist records the case and checks the death in the national registry

Illustration from “My name is Margret”: a shared-death experience in Iceland: “A psychologist records the case and checks the death in the national registry”

Between 1980 and 1986, the psychologist Erlendur Haraldsson interviewed hundreds of Icelanders who said they had perceived someone who had died. The man was one of them.

Haraldsson also spoke with the man’s wife. He checked in Iceland’s national registry that the girl’s grandmother had existed and that she died of a heart attack. The registry gives the year of death, not the time.

Haraldsson published the case in 2009. On the study’s page we explain how that study was done and what can be checked in it.

One question remains: how did the man know the name of a woman he had never met, on the night she died?

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 man says he experienced that night: a woman beside the bed who told him, “My name is Margret.”

3 of 5

Yes
Unconfirmed
No data

Did the man describe what he experienced before he knew that the girl’s grandmother had died?The man’s wife confirms that he told her beforehand, but it isn’t known in how much detail. She told the psychologist Erlendur Haraldsson that her husband told her what he experienced the next morning, before they knew anything about the death. Haraldsson’s study doesn’t say whether he told her the name and the time. Nothing was written down at the time.
Is it known what time the man felt the woman beside the bed?The time is known only from what the man remembers. He says he looked at the clock and it was exactly three thirty. He didn’t write the time down anywhere.
Is it known what time the girl’s grandmother died?The time of the grandmother’s death is known only from what the man was told. He was told that she died at that same minute. Iceland’s national registry gives the year of death, not the time.
Is there any document that confirms the death of the girl’s grandmother?Yes. The psychologist Erlendur Haraldsson checked in Iceland’s national registry that the girl’s grandmother had existed and that she died of a heart attack.
Could the man have learned the girl’s grandmother’s name, or that she was going to die, in some other way?It is unlikely that the man learned the name or the death in some other way, but it can’t be fully ruled out. The man says he knew nothing about the grandmother’s health and isn’t even sure he remembered her name. But Margret is a very common name in Iceland, and the grandmother was someone who could have come up in conversation at home. That would explain the name, but not the time.

Why we ask each question

What is hard to explain

The man told his wife in the morning, before they knew anything. She confirms it.
The man didn’t know the girl’s grandmother and knew nothing about her health.
According to what he was told, she died at the same time he saw on the clock.

What remains unresolved

No one knows whether he told his wife the name and the time, or only what he had felt.
No document gives the time of death. The registry gives only the year.
Margret is a very common name in Iceland, and the girl’s grandmother was someone who could have come up in conversation at home.
Waking up at night and sensing someone in the room happens to many people.

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 2180Read for free

Case documents

The interviews with the man and his wife, in the study
The death and its cause, in Iceland’s national registry, which Haraldsson consulted

Learn more

The Haraldsson study: 337 encounters with the dead in IcelandRead
Jacob: the vision on the night he died, the other strong case from the same studyRead
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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