What is it about psychedelic experiences that helps people overcome their innate fear of death?

Is it something inherent to the mechanism of action of psychedelic drugs, is there some kind of neural correlate to "fear of death" that is somehow altered by psychedelics? Or maybe psychedelics tend to make us less anxious in general, and this extends to apprehensions about dying?

Or perhaps it's dependent on how people integrate their experiences? If someone didn't perceive their trip to be "spiritual" at all, is the effect the same?

I know these questions are all vague and theres no definitive answer to be drawn from the limited data we have about how psychedelics work, but Im curious what you all think could be at play here.

I have thought about this quite a bit.

I often think of the Tibetan book of the dead. Entering the third bardo and seeing the illusions of the mind. They can set you free if you see them as part or yourself or they can place you into a confusing hell. From my limited understanding of the book of the dead it has to do with recognition of where you are. Can you set yourself free and not buy into the illusions the mind places in front of you?

I have seen my death and felt it under the influence of psychedelics. I felt the coldness and emptiness. I wanted nothing more than to be in my body again. It was such a strong feeling. I missed my life. I missed everything about it. It felt like I was in hell when I was feeling this way. When I made the decision that it was ok to let go I found myself in a state of bliss. This happened instantaneously. A simple perception change and I was free from the coldness and emptiness. I felt like I shot straight out of my body and merged with white light. I became part of it all. I was free from the illusions.

I fear death in some ways still but feel like I have been given some tools of recognition. I feel like I can recognize where I am at the time of my death. I feel like when that time comes I will remember what I had seen under the influence of psychedelics and can better cope with the illusions and let go. My experiences were so real to me that I could not ignore them. They changed my perspective about life and death. It feels like it's all happening at the same time. I am already at my death. I am at my birth. I am in my life. I am in the bardo now. I feel like I chose this. I chose to come here and have this weird life experience. Birth, life, death. We fear the end because the ego wants to survive. Underneath the ego is the white light. I feel like that is my true nature. But to find this nature one must recognize that it is all connected.

I think about this more and more. I would like a more articulated way to express this concept. It feels like it is like describing a dmt journey. Just no words can do it justice.

When I came back into my body it felt as though my ego and life had to be re-downloaded back into my body. I am to remember who I was again. Odd feeling. In many ways I chose what to download. Some of the download I refuse as I see the illusions. In a way born again into a new way of thinking and behaving. I have felt reborn almost every psychedelic journey I have had. Something of me died, something of me was reborn. What remains lives on and expands and evolves.

This may sound a little crazy but it is what I felt and experienced. Death is scary beautiful.

I believe it is because prior to psychedelic/entheogen usage the "average" person is anchored to their ego very heavily, knowingly or unknowingly. That is what the ego is after all. "We"
think we know what we think we know. The ego being the end-all-know-it-all that truly doesn't know what is beyond what it knows, which is waking reality and what we see day to day and experience subjectively. Psychedelic usage breaks down the walls,lifts the curtain and even without necessarily experiencing ego death, it shows you that there is the potential for there to be far more than just what we experience daily prior to or without entheogen usage. This other worldliness presents itself. What is it, where is it, is it anything at all? Immediately upon my first true experience with DMT, my beliefs on death changed. I thought that being here in this life was all there was, and onec you die, bam thats it shows over. I now believe that there is something after life here, and that it is part of a progression; whatever that may be. But I was shown and told that there is something beyond here.

People also are taught via religious institutions to fear some deity, for if they live a life that is morally corrupt or not in-line with their religious values then their afterlife will be unpleasing. So that causes fear of dying as well because many may fear that they are not living according to the religious beliefs that have been bestowed upon them, willingly or not.

I do think it lowers general anxiety, particularly of the "unknown" because these chemicals are able to connect particular areas within the brain, and then we feel the interconnectivity of everything. The universal oneness, that we are truly all the same. Trees, animals, us, all the same things organized in different structures. So these substances do break and reassemble thought patterns to aid us.

Like what dmnstr8 said as well, each experience something negative of mine died and something was born or re-born within me. My ability to be more compassionate, my ability to be patient, my ability to not be so short-fused. I feel more human than I did prior to entheogen use. Lately I have felt very apprehensive to partake in entheogenic/psychedelic usage because of a very unsettling experience a while back, I think it's my ego doing everything it can to hold on to remaining parts of the old me. Ive lost a lot of the old me, though there are still bits and pieces remaining. I know I want to let them go, but fear, manifested by the ego of what may come to surface during a trip, my ego knows will be the end of more of the old self. I'll get there eventually and get back at it again Day to day life gets in the way, career particularly. I feel like Im "functional" in society and a better person than I was, so if it's not broken now dont fix it essentially is my mindset. When the time is right though the time will be right to jump back in.

Perhaps I'm just rehashing what DS and HT have already said so well, but I feel compelled to throw in my angle.

I'm reminded of the famous aikidoist, Thomas F Crum's book "The Magic of Conflict ". In it, he uses a metaphor to elucidate his technique for maintaining perspective in conflict circumstances. He asks you to imagine a walk in the park where you come upon a sandbox where you watch some children playing for a while. After a few minutes, you are inspired to join in and build your own sandcastle. Upon nearing completing the construction of your rather elaborate sandcastle, a very young girl absentmindedly destroys your work. Crum then notes that you have the power to lift the little girl by the hair and toss her out of the sandbox, but obviously you do not, as she is just a little girl, and it was only a sandcastle. He then proposes that we should view all of our conflicts from this perspective.

I think the psychedelic experience gives us unfettered access to this perspective; whether you view consensus reality as only one of many (and quite possibly a rather lower permutation), or simply can't bring yourself to give any perspective a definitive primacy, or have a profound reorientation to love as the absolute center of your being.

I think various factors are at work. Lets take terminal cancer patients:

1. A spiritual awakening- greater awareness that we are more than we think we are.

2. A change in perspective from the constant mind focus of cancer and death.

3. A peek into another realm that is more beautiful than the current one. Death becomes a transition to welcome, rather than be afraid of.

For me it has alot to do with the dissolving of boundaries, dissolving of the "I"- "Thou" relationship, "Subject" - "Object", "Observer" - "Observed". These experiences have taught me that a very flimsy layer separates the two, that the "Me" is inherently interwoven with the experience of life.

tseuq

beautifully said. it only took one time for me to understand this, and it was enough for me to think about such things every day for years on end.

I am so glad that you wrote this! It is very reassuring knowing someone else is having similar problems. The ego wants to hold on and will play all sorts of games to survive. Stripped down and brought back to a fundamental frame of mind. Not unlike a child. The child is scared and needs reassurances that everything will be ok enable to feel comfortable and safe. Psychedelics can bring you into a state of child like wonderment. I see the child within me, the fundamental structure from which I have grown. My goal is to take care of this child within me. Give him reassurances and tell him he is loved! I hope in doing this I can revisit psychedelics, namely DMT, and feel a sense of strength and protection.

A story that Ram Dass used to tell a lot:

An army invades a small nation and the general asks if everybody has been evacuated. He is told that everybody left except for one old monk in the temple who is praying and refuses to leave. This infuriates the general, who finds the holy man, and says "Don't you know who I am? I am the one who could run my sword through you without blinking an eye!" The monk says, "Don't you know who I am? I am the one through whom you could run your sword, without blinking an eye!"

I think it might be because Entheogens could possibly break down fears into their constituent parts. Usually when we fear something as big as death, it's like a shock, probably because there are so many big concerns at stake: Saying bye to loved ones; fear this is forever; the pain of dying, and the unknown thereafter.

If you can break these down, and find peace in each of them, then you greatly reduce the overall fear or at least the IMPACT.

Fear stops the mind from being rational, and able to see the beauty in death. Fear hates change, but life is all about change, therefore life is death. When we overcome fear, we free ourselves from our biggest stumbling block.

I don't know, psychedelics really manifested a fear of death I never thought I had. Now that I've seen how vivid and real life can be, I'm far more terrified to die than I was before I'd ever entered hyperspace or tripped on a psychedelic.

I think this is why set, setting, dose is so important, as well as choice of Entheogen.

Whilst a beautiful experience may produce calm and peace, a scary one obviously won't.
Psychadelics are 'tools', that can be used or abused.

Well, intezam still has "fear of death". That fear is mostly centered upon "being on the path at the moment of death -- or not". We are a lowly beginners doggg after all.....we are under the impression that we (the intezam) is not fully rooted at all...(100% good set & setting at all times) We are somewhat calm, but not fully relaxed.

Wow, great responses everyone! I've got quite a lot to think about now!


This resonates with me a lot. I think psychedelics help us to break things down and analyze their constituent parts, like you said, but also help us to recognize patterns where we normally don't see them--I think this extends to cycles pertaining to life and death, it becomes obvious that death is just another phase in a long cycle, another piece of the pattern.



I totally feel you. I feel like psychedelics have opened me up to a level of intensity I never really could have comprehended before. To be staring eternity in the face when you aren't ready for it is far from serene or peaceful, and I often wonder if I'll ever be truly prepared for death.

I just thought that it's also 'probably' because Psychadelics might temporarily disengage the 'thinking and labelling', part of our brain, which likes to control and categorise everything. When that's 'switched off', we could percieve reality with a 'child like quality', of awe and inspiration.

I think that psychedelics actually help overcome the fear of life, much more so than they do the fear of death. The fear of death represents a fear that manifests in life..it's another source of anxiety surrounding the experience of life. We don't know death..not really. It's a fear of the unknown. Life is all about unknown.

Interesting, well thought out philosophy.

We use our life as a point of reference about Death, since it's all we know about.....untill an Entheogen is consumed?

Is it that so called 'spiritual experience', that re calibrates that perspective?, and eases the 'near death anxiety' of some Cancer patients, upon Psilocybin therapy?

Absolutely! I feel like now life is so intense, in the positive and potentially the negative, if I let myself get sucked in. But the fear of death is inescapable, at least in my perspective. Once I don't fear death, I know I've gone down the wrong path again. Fearing your own demise is natural, but I sometimes think that psychedelics crank up the dial on everything, which sometimes includes that fear.

Absolutely! As much as I feel like I want to actively get back into it, I don't want to so much jump in unless it just happens. I dont want to be like Ah when I get home Im going to load up my GVG and blast off, I want it to happen a little more unplanned like, yes, right now is the time. I dont want to feel any apprehension. Which I still do. Part of me wants to ignore the apprehension, but a greater part says if Im apprehensive it's not time.