Another quick thought that I really wanted to inquire about...Has anyone here on the Nexus ever had a legitimate near-death experience? Perhaps one caused by severe trauma, like a car accident? In your experience how alike/different was this NDE compared to a DMT breakthrough? Some say we are preparing for our deaths by practicing hyperspace travel...Who believes this?

I’ve not had a non-drug NDE, but I’ve lately been reading about them.

There are many similarities, and a few differences. Many NDEs include a life review, and as far as I know, no DMT experiences do. Most NDEs are not at all psychedelic in terms of what is seen, at least during the portion of the NDE where the subject is still earthbound. OBEs experienced by NDE subjects involve them seeing their environment (their body, doctors and other personnel, etc.) from a point of view above the scene. I don’t know of any DMT experiences where the OBE included a non-psychedelic and verifiable view of the body and environment.

Someone on the Nexus (Morphane) made a very wise observation that death is the front door to the afterlife, and DMT is the back door.

Here are a couple of interesting NDE sites:

http://www.nderf.org/

http://www.near-death.com/

really enjoyed that!

I dont think comparing these sort of states to pure DMT experiences is really realistic. There are a whole range of active indoles of which DMT could be concidered a harmonic of present in human metabolism. Pinoline is something that is rarely talked about. Harmine is basically a pinoline analogue, though harmine is a harmala and pinoline in a tryptoline, both are 6methoxylated beta carbolines. Pinoline is a direct metabolite of melatonin and is at least 2x as powerful I believe. According to some theories pinoline is a precurser for 5meoDMT, who's synthesis in the pineal gland is much more likely from what I have read. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that both pinoline and harmine have minor action at the NMDA site..and NMDA dissociatives such as ketamine seem to parallel certain aspects of NDE's. There is also a ketamine analogue called agmatine found in the brain.

In reality, it would make much more sense that endogeous OBE's and NDE's etc are due to higher levels of a whole synergistic cocktail of actives. It's just like how DMT is much deeper and more meaningful when harmalas are consumed with it(IMO)..I think ayahuasa as opposed to just vaped DMT is more similar to this sort of stuff. I have had sleep paralysis,OBE's and lucid dreams my entire life and they are much more similar to high doses of harmalas with or without moderate doses of DMT than just smoked DMT alone. I bet that is becasue harmine actaully increases melatonin and pinoline turn over and the saturation of them in the brain which sort of boosts all these endogenous neurotransmitters. I have woken up into full on ayahuasca like experiences in the middle of the night many times without taking anything. It is distinct, very much like oral harmalas and DMT.

I have never had a NDE so I dont really know how similar they are to OBE's and lucid dreams etc. But I would suspect other chemicals are involved besides just DMT alone.