Something that Brenna Lee Mulligan does during Death Saving throws rounds, is that he gives players the opportunity to magical & spiritual characters to have a small spirit-journey during their turn, making full skill checks and the like to learn VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION that has earth-shattering consequences, sometimes to the fight the players are currently in.

RAW, he should just be asking Kristen Applebee's character to make a death saving throw. But instead they get to journey to heaven to meet with god, only to find that the dead Archmage principal of the school has cold-clocked god and is currently held up in the big guy's main office, awaiting a return to the Material plane with a free time-stop to grant to the players to help them finish off the big-bad.

Another thing I noticed he does, is that when he wants to get quieter players into the game, thinking they should have an opportunity to spotlight themselves in a scene, is that he will say 'your character sees this. What would you like to do, or what does your character think about this?' This allows a player to explore their character, making a decision that immerses them into the scene, but doesn't force them to perform an action if they don't want to.

I love this idea!

Yeah, we do something similar in one of the campaigns I play in, and it's a shitload of fun, and kinda takes the sting out of what is likely to be an inevitable death. We don't grant inspiration for it, we just use it as a fun RP moment. Definitely helps flesh out characters and things that wouldn't normally come to light during a campaign.

This is excellent - I think I'll leave it open ended and ask them what flashes before their eyes and [how] does it relate to what just happened?