Years ago, I was intrigued by the apparent similarities between psychedelic experiences and near-death experiences (NDEs). As a result, I started reading and watching lots of NDE reports, and I’m coming to the conclusion that there actually aren’t that many similarities.

As with psychedelic experiences, every NDE is unique. There are common elements in NDEs, but not every NDE includes every element. Here are some of the “classic” NDE features, and my thoughts about their similarities to psychedelic experiences based on the many trip reports I’ve read and my own personal experiences:

Bird’s Eye View
Many NDEs begin with the experiencer suddenly realizing they’re outside of their body, and they’re usually looking down at their body and the surrounding environment from a vantage point near the ceiling when inside or several feet above their body when in other environments. This experience is rarely described in psychedelic terms – what they see is in many ways quite ordinary, except they often report extreme visual acuity and “360 degree” vision. They see their body but generally don’t feel emotionally connected to it, they see doctors and nurses, and other people who may be in the vicinity. It’s also worth noting that much of what they see occurring can later be verified to have actually occurred.

I’ve found very few trip reports where people see their own body from an outside vantage point during a psychedelic experience, and I’ve never personally experienced this.

Entering into an Eden-Like Environment
Many NDEs include entry into a garden, or a forest, or a meadow, or some other naturally beautiful environment. The environment is recognizable and familiar, but often the colors are vibrant beyond what is ordinarily sensed and many report that everything seems “alive”.

There are a good number of psychedelic experience reports that have similar elements, but it seems that they are often more “psychedelic”, if you know what I mean: Geometry, fractals, “impossible” objects, constant movement, …

Meeting Deceased Relatives
NDErs often report meeting deceased loved ones – parents, grandparents, and others. Sometimes they have recognizable human form, other reports describe orbs of light or human forms made of light.

I’ve had lots of encounters with living family members during salvia experiences, but I’ve never encountered a relative during a DMT experience., and I’ve never had the sense that the being was the actual person. When I encounter relatives, it’s usually clear that they’re symbols or avatars.

Life Review
A life review is a well-known NDE feature, and it is usually very explicit. The experience is shown scenes from their life and often experiences the scene as if it’s happening. They also often experience these life scenes from the emotional point of view of others – of those they were interacting with. The life review is often described as a learning experience or a non-judgmental self-analysis. Many of the scenes may have been long forgotten and seemingly insignificant, but their importance and significance is clear when viewed from the viewpoint of others.

Although psychedelic experiences open one up to introspection and encounters with the subconscious, I’ve never read a trip report that closely matches the explicitness and “formality” of a life review. I don’t doubt that there are some out there, but they seem very rare.

Entering Into the Light
NDE repots often describe a point of light in the distance, and an indescribable urge to move toward it. The experiencer moves toward the point of light, usually at incredible speed, until the light fills their field of vision. They describe it as brighter than the sun and are often surprised that they can look at it without discomfort. When they enter the light, they become one with everything, and describe incredible unconditional love. For many NDE experiencers, the love is beyond description and is often the most significant feature of the whole experience.

There are some similarities between this and descriptions from those who have had 5-MeO-DMT. However, based on experience reports I’ve read (I’ve never experienced this directly) the most prominent feature of the 5-MeO experience is being in the “non-dual” state. Indescribable unconditional love does not seem to be the prominent feature, if it occurs at all.

Experience Recall
The degree of recall that NDErs have is remarkable. Their experiences are very long and detailed, and yet they’re able to recall much of the experience (and recall the feelings and emotions) many years later.

Remembering details of psychedelic experiences is often difficult. There are fragments that stand out and can be remembered, but I and many others find recall to be difficult.


After-Effects
An NDE can bring about radical, life-long changes in personality, behavior, and outlook.

Although the same can be said of psychedelics, my experience is that transformation is much more gradual.


So what do you think about the similarities and differences between these two types of experience?

Awesome post first of all!
I don't have any deep insight or meaningful theories to provide,
but how do you feel about 5-Meo DMT in comparison to NDE's?
I have yet to experience it, but what I've read correlates fairly well, except for the life review.

I just think it is a little over-generalizing to put countless substances under the label of "the psychedelic experience"
Not meaning to offend, but I definitely think there are those that more closely resemble the NDE, and others that will never come close. I have not had a bird's eye view , or the "life review" either, but I do believe these things can happen with the right substance, dose, set, and setting. What that is seems to be yet to be determined to enable consistent replicatable results. It may be an undiscovered substance that facilitates this most effectively. Or an extinct one.

Very interesting, though, if the birds eye view was easily replicated with a psychedelic experience, then that basically all but confirms of the possibility of the "soul" or conciousness leaving the body, which therefor proves the psychedelic experience is something very real and to be explored further by all humankind.

I can't wait to hear others' take on this, super interesting thread.

Great thread, my friend! As per usual, you clearly and succinctly express your ideas in a clean, reasonable fashion and brilliantly pinpoint the most essential characteristics involved in such comparative analyses, in quite a cohesive, comprehensive way.
Kudos my man and bravissimo!


Yes, they are quite rare. Our brother, the incredible joedirt, wrote an excellent account of his OBE and it parallels the NDE to a tee. He was not actually on any psychedelics at the time, but rather, he was coming out of sleep, specifically, emerging but not quite yet out of the dreaming state. Now, I believe he may have been doing psychedelics before going to sleep but I can't quite recall? Perhaps he might drop bye and share a link to his powerful experience? I sure hope so!

My very first MDMA trip surprised me, when about halfway through my initial journey with "the love drug", I suddenly found myself floating near the ceiling, above four people sitting on the floor. Unlike the classic NDE/OBE, I was uncertain just which human body I belonged to. I was aware of being at the appex of a pyramid formed of high frequency light energy.

I could see from my third eye, fuse with the life story of the two men and two women sitting in a perfect square upon the carpet bellow. I didn't really care which material body was mine, for they all seemed to be mine. I was the eye at the top of this vibrating pyramid of light. I knew myself to be the "I Am" within each of these humanoids, all at once. So, I blissfully floated there for an unknown amount of time but eventually, I re-entered my own mortal frame.

Frankly, I was happy with the remembrance of this person, my ego-self, but a little saddened that I no longer felt that I was consciously experiencing my existing as a self identity, equally with the other three people in the room. This was one of the only cases where I experienced such an OBE, one which overlapped with physical reality, like a NDE/OBE. Decades later, it happened with mushrooms, just once and briefly, floating above my prone body, hovering up towards the 12 foot high ceiling.

Usually, with psychedelics, I actually project my attention inwardly and travel upwards into subtler and far subtler planes of existential being (leaving the physical realm behind). It's like going within into a dimension-skipping trajectory. But my initial MDMA experience was very similar to the only NDE that I have ever had... during my childhood.

The second experience did nog facilitate an OBE byt I was able to access some incredible states of heart and mind. I only took ecstasy one other time, because I don't like the after effects at all, but with no OBE or loss of identity. But my heart was blown as wide open as it ever has been. I was head-over-heels in love with everything and everyone, for about four or five hours

Back in 1967, it was quite different. My own NDE/OBE occurred in a sober, waking state. As I said, it was "the summer of love" and I was not quite 9 years old, yet. But I nearly drowned in our swimming pool. For better or worse, and who can truly say which, my step dad saved my life. And while my step father was pumping the water out of lungs, I heard this loud POP sound and I was lifted out of material shell. Oddly enough, my very first thought wasn't wondering why I was hovering above the world I knew as reality, but sympathy for the poor little kid who was struggling for his very mortal existence. I was floating 10 to 12 feet above the ensuing drama unfolding bellow my transported awareness.

My awareness? The next thought was, "If that is me down there, just who and I? What am I if my mind is no longer within my body?" Also, the body I was in was the mirror image of the one beneath me. It was, however, translucent and quite ethereal in substance. Instantly, an idea arose, that the little boy was the material body and "I" was the eternal soul. And so... was I now dead? I felt the presence of a higher reality, a Divine power, way high above me. I looked up to see an incredible expanse of light so blinding, it was impossible to look at for very long without losing oneself in the immensity of the energy. But it felt so loving, so pure and was so embracing, that I truly wanted to go into it and live there forever.

Long story short, I knew instinctively that my time existing on this plane was not yet to be done. There were things I needed to experience, dreams yet to be woven into seeming reality. And seconds later, I was in agony, coughing up mouthfuls of water and experiencing the sharpest, burning pain I have ever felt in my lungs! 50 years of living and learning has passed since that day but it is as vivid to me now, as it was when it happened. And yes, it was very different than a psychedelic experience.

That being said, I feel that one of the biggest differences is that anyone can have a NDE and while this includes an OBE, so it is markedly different than voluntarily taking a trip with a psychedelic substance, either traditionally or recreationally. And the visuals are entirely dissimilar, as psychedelics explode one's view in a fantastical realm of kaleidoscopic fractal patterns, colored in rainbows and morphing hues, etc.

So, the psychonaut chooses to voyage into alternates spheres of consciousness, whereas the victim of some NDE is chosen by their own fate, chance or whatever you want to call it. This involves will and like embracing spiritual practices, a deep desire to explore beyond the parameters of the known.

I would personally, want to add another comparative characteristic between mind-expansion through entheogens and sober NDE/OBE experiences, although arguably, both are highly altered states of the body-mind complex. The former fuels itself from a radical change in the neurological chemistry of the material organism, the latter, from sudden separation from the material organism, as with astral projection.

But in each experience, there can be introductions to a higher power, AKA, The Divine. Sure, this happens more so from NDE, statistically, but many psychonauts return from their spiral voyages blissed out from touching the eternal radiance of the Godhead. The chemically altered brain can experience a transitory ego death, which simulates a near death-like shift in one's cognition.

Direct Encounter With God/Divinity/Sacred Being
By "God"... I don't necessarily mean in the traditional religious perspective, although for many it does unfold in such a manner. I am more directly pointing towards an interphase with the epicentrical Oneness pulsing inside each soul, undifferentiated being, The Tao, The Sacred flame, The Omniself in resplendent bloom... or perhaps in physics terminology, The Unified Field.

Such an encounter dissolves the differentiation between the subjective witness and the undifferentiated sea of consciousness itself, cultivating a realization of our truest nature. That place where oneself is the same as all other selves, all beings... for at such a pivotal moment, the awakening of Godself is the very cause of this universal phenomenon. or in rare cases, as remembering being everything existent and yet, rooted in no-thing at all.

This transcendental fusion of individuated awareness, augmented to a state where everything is wholly interconnected, can be found in the spiritual practices of: Yogis, Tantris, Sufis, Gnostics, Buddhists and Taoists. A lifetime of meditation and contemplation opens doors of perception and incrementally, raises the conscious-awareness of the mystic. "Cosmic Consciousness" is what 20th century spiritual seekers labeled this pinnacle in spiritual vision. It equates to Savikalpa Samadhi, Satori, Divine rapture and enlightenment. Accessing these sky high states naturally, can take a lifetime.

I would be fascinating to cross-reference accounts of mystically inclined peoples, who have also had NDE and experimented with psychedelics. This would create a third category of study, but of course. For example, were one a seasoned practitioner in Kriya Yoga or Kundalini Yoga, one's experience would be channeled along such a paradigm. Both, in cases of NDE and with entheogenic journeys.

I cannot honestly say, since it's been 50 years since I nearly died and I had yet to exercise intent or traverse the ascending levels of internal cultivation. But I first experienced heart chakra activation, the opening of the "third eye"/Ajna chakra and the full bloom of the Sahasrara or "thousand petalled lotus", while under the enigmatic spell of LSD-25.

It took me many years of training to experience the fringes of these exalted states without the boost of Sacred Medicines. And it seems quite natural to note, that when the seeker is well practised in deep meditation, astral projection becomes gradually doable. It is about changing the state of mind by intent and transmutation of thought content. Even so, plant teachers gift the seeker with a temporary but profound, transcendence.

I imagine 5-MeO-DMT takes one the deepest, right into a full blown whiteout experience. I believe that in real cases of death... loss of ego-self within the effulgence of Godself, said "whiteout experience" wholly engulfs the witness to one's own dream of existence.


Like yourself, I have yet to be graced by the sacred venom of the toad, 5-MeO-DMT. I feel a strong pull to throw myself into it's powerful vacuum, to dissolve into the portal it dramatically opens into the ineffible Void.

But I feel that all of the primary psychedelics enable the traveler to shift attention, transcend ordinary reality and in the most sublime experiences, facilitate union and immersion within the intricate, interconnected web of The Grid. In this union, the effulgence of the white light is intoxicating. There is a symbiotic interrelationship between each and every aspect of the whole. Right?
"As above, so bellow. As within, so without."

Now, I am not trying to homogenize all entheogens as equal in power and effect. But in terms of accessing a portal through alchemistry, voyaging with that magical energy lying hidden within the hard-wiring of our human cognition (kundalini, Qi, juju)... allows access to a fusion with the effulgence of Omniversal Being, thus being "Blinded by the Light.". I have melted into the glorious effulgence of the Light of Lights, through the aid of many teachers, some human, some entities, some molecules. Many of these spiritual teachers are indeed Sacred Medicines.

I am more urgently and emphatically implying that the person undergoing the trip, himself or herself, voyaging through the spirit journey beyond consensus parameters of reality, as we co-dream it, wholly shapes the content and paradigm of the trip, by direct intent, one honed through well exercised concentration and unwavering focus, imagination and deepest beliefs.

Given this concept, all true psychedelics potentially intervene with our ego patterning and shatter the fixation, just long enough to open up a seamless fusion within The Clear Light of The Void (mescaline, psilocybin, LSD-25, ketamine, Iboga, Salvia Divanorum, NN-DMT and yes... the enigmatic 5-Meo-DMT).


Well, I think that you totally rock, gibran2! Such studies trigger much profound musing. Thanx for initiating such a provocative thread. I have truly missed our epic banter and philosophical exchanges, here at the Nexus. It's so good to be back home, hanging out with you great folks!!!

Just shortly a few comments from my current POV. I have had lot of OBEs, one NDE, and a life review without psychedelics, and then a few ego deaths with them.



Possible explanation:
I could think that as this is the first step outside, that as people usually cannot let go, you often hastily go over that step if you finally release.
I have to say that I also didn't yet experience a direct go outside on psychedelics. Only something then further out, namely the coming back, where you see your body before reentering.



In my personal opinion this is just the visual warping of a mind altered by a substance.
E.g. as I said before: I do not believe that hyperspace actually really looks as on DMT.
E.g. still in the real world you also see it in geometric forms etc. IMHO this is just because the substance alters the way how the brain functions and therefore these visual misinterpretations. Then when you are out, what gets stored in your mind is still with this wrong interpretation, therefore everything seems geometric...



Well I heard from quite some experiences on 5-MeO-DMT reporting that. But I wasn't there yet on 5-MeO-DMT. But I was there on several other substances and it was at least for me a very prominent feature (actually it was there 100% of my ego deaths). Basically an overwhelming peace embedded in a feeling of unimaginable pure unconditional love.



As said above: IMHO this is simply because the substances wreck chaos in your brain (that's how they work), which makes remembering very difficult (the more difficult, the higher the dose). Also if what you experience is so far above your current state, your mind just cannot integrate it (at) all.



I think this is much related to the remembering. E.g. the psychedelic experiences I got most out of them, were those which I could remember clearly.

As said, this was just a short comment, from my current POV.

Hey gibran2,

Yeah this is a very interesting topic, the overlap and differences between psychedelic experiences and NDE's, as well as the longer term impact they can have on personality and outlook.

Of all the psychedelics I have encountered, 5-MeO-DMT seems to be the more reliably NDE like, at release/OBE dose levels. In both experiences, an encounter with an all-pervasive white light is commonly reported...one of the differences I've noted between experiences though is that with 5-MeO one must surrender their ego and individuality to merge with this light, whereas the NDE'rs are both one with it and retain their individuality.

Out of general interest and research for a coming talk, I asked the views of people on a Near Death Experiences group on facebook if anyone of them had had psychedelic experiences, and how they would compare the experiences. Below is the feedback from people I received (including one DMT Nexus member's account) which I thought may be of interest. A key difference that repeatedly comes up between experiences is the very great clarity of NDE's compared to the more dream like psychedelic experience, as well as the formers more profound and deeply affecting insights.

NDE’s vs Psychedelic Experiences - From those that have experienced both

People who think they’re similar (2)

Account 1: I have had two NDEs and had NDE-like experiences on LSD and mescaline. Both experiences were beneficial to me.

Account 2: In my life so far I've had a near death experience, smoked DMT, and also had brief insights through Kundalini yoga (which I had to stop), interestingly enough they were all very similar experiences with similar visuals, emotional states and thoughts. ... In my opinion the DMT experience is about more than just taking a drug and getting high, it's about reconnecting with the higher state you existed in before you came here and will return to when the ride is over, so in theory I suppose there are many ways of getting there.

People who think they’re different (7)

Account 3: There is no comparison, in my opinion to tripping and having a near death experience. There also is no brain chemical reaction or release in the brain that causes a person to have a near death experience.

Account 4: I have had an NDE and also taken ayahuasca, the experiences were very different. My NDE was very real, like waking life experience. The ayahuasca experience was more like a dream.

Account 5: I would agree with your final statement on the difference. Before I had my NDE, I did quite a bit of experimenting with hallucinogens. The NDE was of an entirely different order of experience, in my case. No comparison. But I must say, after my NDE, (years after,) I took a dose of mescaline, and had dreams that took me back to some of the scenarios experienced close to death. So.... In general, and in my personal experience, drugs are a hint at what is on the other side. Like hearing about Africa, versus going there. (Maybe a stretch...) But from the accounts of many other people, drugs could be a doorway just as profound. … Yes, I would say nothing compared to my NDE for breathtaking, cosmic splendour. And the ability to access multiple scenarios in vivid, crystalline detail, simultaneously, was like nothing before or since. It was like having a thousand eyes and unlimited sensory control. It was way beyond the distorted mind-bending of my drug experiences. Except there was that one mescaline dream that took me back to the City I viewed from a distance during the NDE. In my dream I actually entered that city. So that was a big deal for me. I would really like to avoid the comparisons between different types of experiences, however. It is highly possible that some people can achieve these states by methods other than almost dying, isn’t it? “....mysterious ways”.

Account 6: I'd say the two are about as similar as a bowl of spaghetti and a ball of yarn. They might sound the same to someone who has only experienced one or the other. But a person who experienced both will noticed several differences.

1. NDE had a clear, sober feeling. LSD had a confused melty feeling.

2. LSD trip was always in first person perspective. NDE included third person perspective.

3. The voices in an LSD trip sound like echoes. Like something you almost thought you heard with your physical ears. NDE telepathy was more like a firm, clear thought that seemed to come from an outside source and occurred alongside my own thoughts which were normal except for the crystal clear focused / alert sobriety. (This clarity / focus is also different from the focus one gets from stimulants. Stimulant focus feels choppy / scattered. NDE focus was calm and clear)

4. Realizations gained in NDE got stronger over time. Realizations following LSD trip got weaker over time and usually made little to no sense once I sobered up.

5. Knowledge gained in NDE was verified later through other life experience. Knowledge gained through LSD made for some fun artistic inspiration, but had little to no correlation to real world events. Only possible exception to this is lights / auras.... but I see those anyway. The big difference between LSD auras and "normal" auras is the normal ones go away if / when I ask them to. The LSD ones only leave after the drug has worn off.

6. NDE contained perspectives completely outside my own understanding / life experience. LSD only ever had chopped up versions of stuff I already was familiar with. It is as if LSD was a remix of life and NDE was a completely new song.

7. LSD produced hung over / sick feelings. NDE left me feeling physically healthier than I should have felt (by a lot).

Account 7: Having also been through both (my young trip days...and my NDE 3.5 years ago) ...when I attempt to compare the experiences.....the trips were not even in the ballpark of the NDE....the NDE was on a much, MUCH higher level....and so embedded in my mind - I relive it often....it was completely life changing....the trips (although some very enjoyable...some not so enjoyable) had little - if any - effect on my life. The book (currently in rough draft...now on chapter 3 of volume one...and in VERY high demand locally) will clearly clarify the differences. Walking with Jesus was the Ultimate High....tripping could never hold a candle to it....not by a long shot.

Account 8: Well I have had a NDE and an OBE by an epileptic status and a cardiac arrest and my experience isn’t similar as the ayahuasca tea experience... Am not telling that my experience is supernatural but it was very clear and more real than the real life... I’m not pretty sure but I feel like my body was outside the strangest thing is that I saw a big "tv" with red and green numbers that finish as 998, 999 and later began as 000, 001... And I saw too a Nurse and I remember to a "girl" with red hair as classical Irish girl with a nasogastric tube and another hallucination with an Amazon native man passing a river saying to me hello hahaha it's curious that's the reason why am obsessed about NDE how I say am not saying that my experience was supernatural because I was clinically Dead... Hahaha am not joking and inventing fake things am very curious it's about my OBE am not pretty sure if it was an autoscopy...

Account 9: Having had both the luxury of tripping numerous times when younger and a NDE in 2010...it's apples and oranges…tripping you set your mind up for a good trip and enjoy the ride...you expand your mind and explore your trip…always being in control...each time is different...tripping with others…you’re on your own as each individual has their own mindset...having a NDE...in my opinion is not related or can be compared to a LSD trip....your on journey with a theme...(family members...and others I spoke to...we have a bond and can speak of our NDE and compare and amaze how the same they are).

NDE type event induced through psilocybin (1)

Account 10: My "NDE" was more a psychedelic experience [via psilocybin…truffles]. But I find solace in the company of NDE'rs because they are the only people who have experienced the same energy as I have and know the truth of Love. My experience was VERY intense telepathy with (it went in stages) it started as communication with the "cosmic consciousness" then it became a communication with my guardian angels, then I was speaking (telepathically) with Jesus - OR the Christ Consciousness- and then God revealed Itself to me. The nature of God-Source-Higher Power was immersing me in its energy. Amazing. Mind blowing. Life changing. Awe inspiring. Inspiring, period. Mine was a 4 hour communication and vision. It is far too long to tell here but I am nearly done with the rough draft of my book.

As gibran2 said, there are many features of the NDE experience that are almost never encountered in psychedelics trips, such as the prototypical OBE (out-of-body experience), the life review, encountering relatives, and so on.

I still think it makes sense to classify both psycedelic trips and NDEs in the same general category of "mystical experiences", since they share the common features as described by William James:

1. Ineffability - "The subject of it immediately says that it defies expression, that no adequate report of its contents can be given in words"
2. Noetic Quality - "mystical states seem to those who experience them to be also states of knowledge. They are states of insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect. They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance, all inarticulate though they remain"
3. Transiency - "Mystical states cannot be sustained for long"
4. Passivity - "Although the oncoming of mystical states may be facilitated by preliminary voluntary operations (...) the mystic feels as if his own will were in abeyance, and indeed sometimes as if he were grasped and held by a superior power"


Ketamine is not a psychedelic, but it has been shown to be able to produce mystical experiences and OBEs (which are very common in NDEs).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih...pmc/articles/PMC4091719/
http://www.sciencedirect...le/pii/S1053810011000067
http://www.tandfonline.c...080/13546805.2012.663162


By the way, we should also not forget that there are also the so called "distressing NDEs", NDEs that are experienced by the individual as terrifying.

Greyson and Bush (1996) classified "distressing NDEs" in three categories, according to the people who experienced them:

1. a similar version of a classic NDE with the usual components (the tunnel, the light, life-review etc.) but experienced as frightening by the individual
2. a terrifying experience of an overwhelming feeling of being alone in the universe forever in the void. They often receive a very convincing message or impression that they never existed and nothing ever truly existed.
3. an even more rare case of an NDE with hellish imagery, such as demons, scary animals, loud noises.

https://med.virginia.edu...istressingfNDE-Psych.pdf
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ877038.pdf


The second type of distressing NDE reminds me of a bad trip with DMT or 5-MeO DMT, and the third kind remind me of a classic bad trip with a high dose of mushrooms or DMT.
So there might be similarities between specific features of certain psychedelic experiences and NDEs, but they might be found in the negative version of both experiences (bad trip and distressing NDEs).

A major difference is ofcourse that in the case of psychedelics, to undergo the experience must have been a choice. With NDE's, that's probably less often the case. Except when someone tried to commit suicide, or realy made the deliberate choice to risk his/her life for something or someone (policemen, firefighters, soldiers, mountaineers, basejumpers, etc.).


That whole 'set and setting' stuff.

Interestingly I found this "choice" actually was there in both events: NDE and psychedelics.

It's not the choice to take the substance, what I mean, but the choice to let go and accept death.

Short explanation what I mean:
When I nearly drowned and got the NDE. I fought before to try to stay alive, but then at one moment I accepted it, and this is when it all started with the NDE.

Something similar happens to me on psychedelics with ego death. I come to a point where I have to accept to die. Either I fight to stay "alive" (and experience hell) or I accept to die right there on the spot.
Although objectively seen it is obvious that I'm not going to die. Subjectively that doesn't make a difference in this moment. As that what is going to die is "me" (my ego).

Somehow, i'm quite moved by what you said there Aum_Shanti. I mean, yeah, we all have to face it at some point, don't we? And it's so damn frightening that for most of our lives we're in total and absolute denial.

The time we spent, fighting the innevitable.

It put's everything in a different perspective, if you think about it that way, doesn't it?

One could raise the question if being seriously fed up with life is a smoother starting platform to 'leave all this'. Of course when it really comes to it, one might be surprised to cling on harder than expected. I wonder if sober life bias (positive, neutral or negative) has an influence on the NDE transition struggle of the ego. I suppose it does so for psychedelics that's why the set/setting plays a role in the outcome, while on the other hand at a certain level it doesn't matter much how one got there. It's a curious matter.

First off I totally agree that they are likely very separate events.



Interesting I was about to login and talk about this experience in response to Gibran2 when I noticed you mentioned it!

To be fair though my most intense OBE (that left me truly in wonder) wasn't psychedelically induced at all. It happened at night in bed and it was quite possibly one of the most surreal experiences in my life.

However Gibran2 mentioned "Entering Into the Light" and I wanted to comment on this as well.

I have never entered the light from an NDE so can't really compare but I have 3 experiences. Two with DMT and one with shrooms. One of these three (DMT) was totally emotionless like I was just wrapped in white meaningless light. The other two however were utterly indescribable. With the shroom / change experience resulting in 20 minutes of total immersion and coming out face down in on the ground with hands in prayer position with tears streaming down my face... I had a literal feeling of my mind stretching to infinity and snapping..but the only part that broke was the self referential part of it...aka the ego. The whole experience was utterly fantastic. Intense clear light and extreme feelings of love and gratitude unlike I had ever experienced before or prior.

BTW Good to see some of the old timers still around.

Have a good weekend everyone.

OBE, NDE, lucid dream..these are all rather messy to define as seperate experiences for myself. In the context of my own subjective reasoning, I can with some sense of confidence know when I have shifted from a lucid dream to an OBE. I have no reason to speculate beyond that for obvious reasons best simplified as "I dont know".

..in terms of letting go, that applies to sleep paralysis as well if you want to pass into lucid/obe states rather than wake up..

Then there are these other things..and I can go on and on about that with a lot more I dont knows to follow. Maybe later when I have more time I can get into a recent trip I had with LSD and ketamine, and my two iboga experiences I had over winter, because both of them involved experiences of being outside of my body in other places.

I don't write about these things much any longer. Too much fill in the blanks..

Yes, exactly. This is why I really think using (specifically) 5meoDMT to "practice" that final letting go, or to at least experience it once truly before dying in body is a very beneficial thing. I think I heard of a person developing a practice like this awhile ago she called 'westing', which I thought was superb.


I've said that when I had my experience, committing suicide sounded like a rational decision. That was the place I was and I do think it helped to just let go and die.

What struck me was this
because this is how I always pictured it for myself (intuition? hoping?), it would be the most natural thing to happen and therefore self guiding in a way.
If the hundreds/thousands of incarnations are true, one would get the hang of it when it comes to the real issue? Just a thought.

Thank you for sharing, it's a very unique testimony, we can't expect much redundancy on this matter. From what I read of you here at nexus I truly applaud your spirit to come back. My respect and imho your posts reveal that there's something very valuable inside of you.

I totally agree, null24

is good to see gibran2, and some other 'old timers' still here..hi jamie too..

i'm reminded in this discussion of your work here on salvia, gibran2, and that that's another 'kind' of road to apparently 'non-dual' experiences, though i see most of these as forms of 'absolutes', rather than truly and completely non-dual

i don't think the completely 'non-dual' is simply realisable by entheogens alone by any means

i would chip in that from a personal experience many years ago once of a plant with both 5meo-dmt and dmt in it, that following something akin to Alex Grey's eyes painting, i then had a complete Life Review, in photographic reality if you like, of all the moments which had lead me to become interested in plants leading to what was my 'death' then...then it went way beyond that..and i would say that there is a beyond 'immersion in the light' as well..more like sound..but i don't know that ego death and 'physical' death are exactly the same playing field, though the final level of 'non-dual' may be..

different entheogens can produce different 'absolute' kinds of experience at different times, be that light or void, but these are still not truly 'non-dual' in that if the mind still perceives for instance absolute light it is still aware of an opposite, hence a duality is still present..the immersion in absolute love is probably the most powerful, and produced by a variety of etheogens or life experiences..people have also believed they are dying on dmt or psilocybin, or lsd...and i have heard people report Birds Eye View from smoked dmt..

my main thoughts on similarities or differences between entheogen or non-entheogen NDEs, is that what is in common is that the mind believes (or tricks itself in the case of entheogens) into thinking the body is going to die..this in itself i think would potentially release a cascade of neurochemical processes which begin to produce NDE-type experiences...this in itself raises some neurobiological and philosophical questions..but the other thing in common is that it's still a kind of illusion, in that in both cases people didn't actually die...the non-substance related experiences, however, might be a result of an even more intensified neurochemical cascade (in preparation for physical system failure) and because of often actual physical harm this would be different and complexified compared with entheogenic mind tricks..which may account for the greater level of recall and the differences..

Sometimes (non entheogen induced) real death visitors come home with similarities which is very intriguing, but still, all of them are not unanimous about it. Differentiation there also.

I was in an utter void once, due entheogens, no 'me' was left for sure, but there was still 'something' experiencing/observing exactly this void. So still not a non-dual. The most non-dual experience would be the no-experience?

Majority of people visiting the brinks of death came back with no tale to tell [see attachment], no white light, no tunnels, no old relatives awaiting. If we search for the most striking similarity in near-deaths, than the no-experience-at-all is the most fitting answer.
Assuming that they all just forgot about it, this contradicts the prominent character of NDE's that these things are absolutely non forget-able when they strike.

Brilliant observations!!!

Threads like these are the very fuel which helps to ignite my ever-expanding, thirsty, entranced mind's heart. And in direct reference to the beautiful observation about "no-experience" (as in emptiness is fullness), within the vortex of an immersion, a whiteout experience, there is only ever, the pre and post experience to measure the state of total unity... which vibrates far beyond cognitive, quantifiable mortal rationale.

For if nonexistence is hiding within the dream of existence, which came first? Or is there no beginning of ending? Does the Void dream itself to be the witness of each aspect of life as we understand it... or do we perhaps, create the need for an undifferentiated state of nonduality, by the very nature of ego-self's necessity of conceiving of a holistic philosophy and integrated belief system?

Such breadth of clear insight, shapes that desire for freedom, which so shapes my own, most fervent degrees of self-inquiry. My honest feeling about the sheer irony of being the observer of the dissolution of duality and the tightly woven fabric of reality, as we co-dream it... becomes a wholly self dissolving experience. Infinity divided by zero is the causative factor here, eh?

With or without the skyrocketing boost of entheogens, there is a pivotal point in the expanding perception of the individual, which is highlighted by becoming so immersed within the blinding field of the undifferentiated, unified field of being (God), that no individuality or conscious separation from the Absolute state is possible. What becomes key is the capacity towards our remembrance of the interphase.

I have, whoever I dream myself to be, come to believe that it is through our cultivation of focussed attention, our clarity of intent, our willingness to shift our own isolated perceptual paradigmn towards alternate frequencies and our incremental growth in concentration and steady attunement... that leads to the epiphany light years beyond our rather self-shattering ego fixations and modality of a limited habitual patterning of existential being.

That's exactly why one's ability to fix attention to an unwavering point and to incrementally fuse the observer into a higher, more transcendental realm of conscious-awareness, which spontaneously explodes into a portal of clear, translucent light. One in which there is but one interconnected frequency of Omniversal Being, dancing through myriad dreamscape and self epicentrical points of observation.

Ineffible and without form or substance, it dreams itself to be you, I and everyone else here and now. For within this eternal moment, the force of life peeks out from it's nonduality center to create multiverse ad infinitum. With or without Sacred Medicines, we choose to awaken to a new shift in attention, a calling towards freedom. And simultaneously, we are also chosen to awaken by the Divine residing deep inside each and all of us. Ain't life grand? Live, love and laugh out loud!

good to see Rising Spirit still rising


..hey Jees, before i retire for a while, i thought i'd respond to this, which is a good observation..
the most eloquent and intellectual of spiritual writers over the centuries have said that the 'non-dual' (advaita etc) is impossible to describe, can only be pointed to...and there are a few different approaches in this pointing..
one would be to say that yes, exactly as you said when there was void and the observer was still a duality...the non-dual is the experiencer (observer), from which the experience (duality) is emergent, or a property of..it is present without the need for experience or reflection...entheogens or NDEs are shifting the observed parameters

those kinds of spiritual seekers are trying to 'find' and be constantly aware of that, whereas for the average person (especially in a NDE context) it would probably just be 'nothing' meaning no-experience...but it may simply be seen as un-recallable in ordinary linear dual consciousness (as Rising Spirit alludes to) ..but it's not 'nothing' in absoluteness...it is that 'something' you refer to..independent of time, space, or even 'experience'..

another way the non-dual has been pointed to is as the seen/seeing/and see-er merged into one..but that is also a rather unfathomable thing for the everyday mind to imagine..impossible to 'visualise'..and this is where i think the mis-understanding of buddhist 'nothing' is involved too..the absence of experiences does not remove the consciousness

peaceful contemplations to you..
.

Thanks nen, you and RS gave me quite some bone to chew on
We have a set of words like consciousness etc that lead to a storm of iterating concepts around it, non-duality as yet another. Pondersome stuff
People who are really rolling in all this are the Theosophy dudes/dudettes.