Research analyzes the similarities between near-death experiences and psychedelic experiences

Researchers analyzed the similarities and variations between a near-death expertise (NDE) whereas in a coma and the expertise induced by a psychedelic drug. Regardless of the frequent themes that emerged, corresponding to space-time transcendence or ego dissolution, solely within the NDE the themes life assessment, assembly deceased liked one, and threshold of no-return have been reported.

In 1994, Stanislav Grof, one of many founders of transpersonal psychology, reported discovering excessive comparability between LSD and a subsequent NDE.

Nevertheless, aside from Grof’s examine, no different has systematically reported on individuals experiencing each a classical psychedelic and a near-death expertise, in addition to their reflections on comparability. Thus, there was a spot within the examine on the connection between the NDE and the expertise induced by the extremely potent endogenous psychedelic drug known as 5-Methoxy-DMT (5MeO-DMT).

With the help of the BIAL Basis, Pascal Michael and collaborators analysed the similarities and variations between a NDE, throughout a coma, and an expertise induced by the psychedelic drug 5MeO-DMT. The article

“That is your mind on dying: a comparative evaluation of a near-death expertise and subsequent 5-Methoxy-DMT expertise”, printed in June within the journal Frontiers in Psychology, presents a case examine on a 54-year-old Caucasian man from North America, who’s popularly documented for having had a profound near-death expertise whereas in a coma attributable to bacterial meningoencephalitis. As well as, the person additionally subsequently underwent an expertise with 5MeO-DMT.

The researchers from the College of Greenwich and Imperial School (UK) carried out a semi-structured interview with the topic regarding his experiences with each the NDE and 5MeO-DMT, after which analysed the same and totally different emergent themes between the 2 states, with explicit emphasis on the topic’s personal perceptions on the similarities and variations between the experiences.

General, a excessive degree of comparability was noticed between the NDE and the psychedelic expertise, with frequent themes rising, such because the transcendence of time and house, ego dissolution, and cosmic love. Nevertheless, particular themes additionally emerged in NDEs that weren’t current within the psychedelic expertise, specifically life assessment, the deceased, and the brink. This discovering echoes an additional examine presently in assessment by the authors, additionally funded by BIAL Basis, evaluating an analogous psychedelic, NN-DMT, and the NDE.

Regardless of the noticed convergences within the a number of aforementioned domains, the experiences have been thought-about to be completely totally different by the participant themselves in a number of dimensions, on account of which the participant argues that his NDE shouldn’t be attributed to endogenous psychedelics.

On this examine, a number of mechanisms that might doubtlessly clarify the NDE have been mentioned, together with the speculative speculation of correlation between the participant’s NDE and the distinctive means during which the bacterial meningoencephalitis impacted the topics’ cortex, which can mimic the motion of psychedelics.