One evening in the late fall, Lucien Majors, 84, sat at his kitchen table, his wife Jan by his side, as he described a recent dream.

Mr. Majors had end-stage bladder cancer and was in renal failure. As he spoke with a doctor from Hospice Buffalo , he was alert but faltering.

In the dream, he said, he was in his car with his great pal, Carmen. His three sons, teenagers, were in the back seat, joking around.

“We’re driving down Clinton Street,” said Mr. Majors, his watery, pale blue eyes widening with delight at the thought of the road trip.

“We were looking for the Grand Canyon.” And then they saw it. “We talked about how amazing, because there it was — all this time, the Grand Canyon was just at the end of Clinton Street!”

Mr. Majors had not spoken with Carmen in more than 20 years. His sons are in their late 50s and early 60s.

“Why do you think your boys were in the car?” asked Dr. Christopher W. Kerr, a Hospice Buffalo palliative care physician who researches the therapeutic role of patients’ end-of-life dreams and visions.

“My sons are the greatest accomplishment of my life,” Mr. Majors said.

He died three weeks later.

For thousands of years, the dreams and visions of the dying have captivated cultures, which imbued them with sacred import. Anthropologists, theologians and sociologists have studied these so-called deathbed phenomena. They appear in medieval writings and Renaissance paintings, in Shakespearean works and set pieces from 19th-century American and British novels, particularly by Dickens. One of the most famous moments in film is the mysterious deathbed murmur in “Citizen Kane”: “Rosebud!”

Even the law reveres a dying person’s final words, allowing them to be admitted as evidence in an unusual exception to hearsay rules.

In the modern medical world, such experiences have been noted by psychologists, social workers and nurses. But doctors tend to give them a wide berth because “we don’t know what the hell they are,” said Dr. Timothy E. Quill, an expert on palliative care medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Some researchers have surmised that patients and doctors avoid reporting these phenomena for fear of ridicule.

Now a team of clinicians and researchers led by Dr. Kerr at Hospice Buffalo, an internist who has a doctorate in neurobiology, are seeking to demystify these experiences and understand their role and importance in supporting “a good death” — for the patient and the bereaved.

These events are distinct from “near-death experiences,” such as those recalled by people revived in intensive care units, said Pei C. Grant, the director of the research team. “These are people on a journey towards death, not people who just missed it.”

Hospice Buffalo, in Cheektowaga, N.Y., cares for 5,000 patients a year, mostly with visits to private homes and nursing facilities. After doctors, nurses, social workers or chaplains ask patients, “How have you been sleeping?” they often follow up with, “Can you recall any dreams?”

I was laying in bed and people were walking very slowly by me. The right-hand side I didn’t know, but they were all very friendly and they touched my arm and my hand as they went by. But the other side were people that I knew — my mom and dad were there, my uncle. Everybody I knew that was dead was there. The only thing was, my husband wasn’t there, nor was my dog, and I knew that I would be seeing them. — Jeanne Faber, 75, months before her death from ovarian cancer.

For their primary study, published in The Journal of Palliative Medicine, the researchers conducted multiple interviews with 59 terminally ill patients admitted to acute care at Hospice Buffalo, a facility furnished in warm woods, with windows that frame views of fountains, gazebos and gardens. Nearly all the patients reported having had dreams or visions. They described the majority of their dreams as comforting. About one in every five was associated with distress, and the remainder felt neutral.

The dreams and visions loosely sorted into categories: opportunities to engage with the deceased; loved ones “waiting;” unfinished business. Themes of love, given or withheld, coursed through the dreams, as did the need for resolution and even forgiveness. In their dreams, patients were reassured that they had been good parents, children and workers. They packed boxes, preparing for journeys, and, like Mr. Majors, often traveled with dear companions as guides. Although many patients said they rarely remembered their dreams, these they could not forget.

A 76-year-old patient said he dreamed of his mother, who died when he was a child. He could smell her perfume and hear her soothing voice saying, “I love you.”

An older woman cradled an invisible infant as she lay in bed. (Her husband told researchers it was the couple’s first child, who had been stillborn.)

Nine days before she died, a 54-year-old woman dreamed of a childhood friend who had caused her great pain decades earlier. The friend, who had since died, appeared as an old man and said, “Sorry, you’re a good person,” and “If you need help, just call my name.”

This is certainly research in its infancy. The investigators, counselors and palliative care doctors, are trying to identify and describe the phenomena. Dr. Quill said he believed the studies would help make these experiences more accessible to skeptical doctors.