Every September in Ancient Greece , an occult arts ritual known as theEleusinian Mysteriestook place at a chancel near Athens , where the secret of expiry itself are said to have been revealed to those who ingested a unusual substance called kykeon . While the nature of this secretive potion remains obscure , Albert Hofmann – the chemist who first synthesizedLSD – has speculate that it may have hold a character of psychotropic fungus called Claviceps purpurea , which produce effects that are akin to dropping acid .
Hofmann ’s purview is shared by Robert Gordon Wasson , a former Vice President of J.P Morgan who inspired the psychedelic bm of the 1960s by present the world toMexican magic mushrooms . Both agree that psychedelics enable users to “ see , more clearly than ourperishing deadly eyecan see , panorama beyond the horizons of this life , ” and researchers are now get down to enquire whether these realness - deform drug can serve us die more peacefully .
Do Psychedelic Experiences Mirror Death?
While Wasson may have pose the understructure for the LX counterculture , it was Harvard prof Timothy Leary who became its high priest , co - write the noted bookThe Psychedelic Experience : A manual of arms Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead . A re - work out of a Buddhistic school text about pilot the various degree of dying , the book argues that LSD and other alike drug can be used to bring about the end and subsequent rebirth of the ego .
More latterly , studies have suggested that the therapeutic effects of psychedelics may hinge upon their ability to reduce oreliminate death anxiousness , and that the experience of “ ego demise ” while under the influence of these drugs can assist people to confront and overcome their fear of dying .
Among those investigating the connection between psychedelics and end is Dr Christopher Timmermann from Imperial College London ’s Centre for Psychedelic Research , who late author a subject field on the effects ofDMT . “ subject of decease and death are very common in the DMT experience , ” he tells IFLScience , bestow that many of his study participants claimed to “ encounter their own death ” while actuate on the drug .
When examining thesimilarities between the DMT state and near - expiry experiences(NDEs ) , Timmermann and his confrere launch that all participants “ scored above the standard threshold for an NDE ” after smoke DMT . Of the 16 characteristics link up with NDEs , 15 “ were snitch significantly eminent under DMT compare to placebo , with ten of these reaching statistical signification . ” Among the components that DMT trigger share with NDEs are such facet as “ detachment from the body ” , “ encountering a occult being or entity ” , and seeing a “ smart light . ”
After interviewing participants about their DMT trips and liken these to reports from hoi polloi who have undergone an NDE , the generator concluded that “ complete ego - dissolution ” appears to underlie both phenomenon and “ may be the common factor that can bridge between these different states . ”
It ’s also deserving note that while the volunteers in this study all smoked consummate DMT , the compound is also famously regain in the Amazonian industrial plant - based brewayahuasca , which literally interpret to “ the vine of the dead . ” As Timmermann taper out , “ ayahuasca in many endemic culture is seen as a way to get at the world of the dead , so there ’s that overlap which has an interesting cross - cultural scene to it . ”
Indeed , psychoactive plants have been used to commune with the heart for M of year , so clearly it ’s not just westerners who lean to interpret their psychedelic experiences as a crossing of the great divide .
Do Our Brains Release A Psychedelic Substance When We Die?
Dr Rick Strassman famously tag DMT “ the spirit mote ” after observing its effect on study participants in the mid-90s . notice the spectacular similarities between DMT trips and NDEs , Strassman proposed that this lap may be more than coincidental and that the thing people receive when they pop their clogs could in fact be induce by the brain releasing DMT at the moment of death .
Little evidence has been discover to affirm this claim , although we do lie with that the compound exists in trace amounts in the human body . While the role of this endogenous DMT remains poorly infer , the fact that it appears to avail O - deprived neurons live in a petri dish lends some credibleness to the thought that it may be secreted as a last - ditch attempt to protect dying brain cell .
In spite of this , Strassman ’s supposition has been challenged by several of his contemporaries , include Dr Karl Jansen , who concluded that thetrips produced by ketamineare in fact more similar to NDEs than those father by DMT . As with DMT , ketamine - same compounds are also known to have neuroprotective effect , leading Jansen to speculate that the brain may release a substance that resemblesSpecial Kwhen we expire .
Yet whileStrassman and Jansen have debatedwhich compound is most potential to shape our last experience , others are unconvinced that either could ever be creditworthy for our final mortal bit . Timmermann , for example , says he ’s “ agnostic and sceptical ” of the hypothesis that our brains release a psychedelic substance as we die . “ I think the evidence is not sufficient for us to take that , ” he enounce .
One problem with this theory is that a wide range of dissimilar drug have been found to trigger NDEs , suggest that there may be multiple mechanisms underlying this phenomenon . “ For good example , when you give people high doses of ketamine hydrochloride or LSD , you may reach similar types of mystical experience even though you ’re activating whole different molecular sense organ in the brain , ” says Timmermann .
“ So it seems that the mechanisms that are relevant are those located at the net level in the brain , rather than in the molecular aspect of brain activity . After you ignite a set of initial conditions then these internet are configured and reconfigured in a sure way , and that seems to be the relevant face . ”
Exactly what these initial conditions entail is hard to say , but Timmermann speculates that “ perhaps it ’s simply that when you introduce enough chaos in the brain then it thinks it ’s collapsing and tries to make sense of that experience , and perhaps that is the near - death experience . That is something that can happen in psychedelic land , in death state of matter and so on . ”
Can We Benefit From Dying On Psychedelics?
Modern medicine has very lilliputian to offer those endure from last malady , both in price of heal their strong-arm disease and relieve the experiential little terror that comes with confront up to one ’s mortality . Yet several recent studies have indicated that psychedelics may serve the summons of dying by alleviate this aroused distress .
In one run , up to 80 pct of terminal cancer affected role who received a individual dose ofpsilocybinreported significantreductions in death anxietythat lasted for a full six month . Amazingly , this decrement in fear over one ’s impermanency was have in the majority of participants who remained alive 4.5 years after their psychedelic trip . When interviewed about the experience , almost all rated it as among the most meaningful and enlightening of their lives .
“ What the research has show is that a spate of these reductions in death anxiousness are pertain to certain word form of brainstorm [ gained during psychedelic experiences ] ” , tell Timmermann . More specifically , these psychological improvements be given to hinge on “ the awareness that there ’s a larger connecter between the soul and the all-encompassing world ” than our “ fragmented minds ” would have us believe .
Such a realisation typically arises from the experience of ego dissolution , which often lead to an reason that our existence is not limited to our physical variant and that our consciousness transcends death . By helping people to transform their relationship with decease in such a way , psychedelics may well give the door to a less traumatic oddment - of - life-time experience .
“ Some authors paint a picture that death is our elementary fear and that every other difficultness or challenge that we have in our aliveness is somehow derived from this initial fear of dying , ” explicate Timmermann . “ I think some of the most beautiful oeuvre being done with psychedelics in good order now is this idea that we can play death into our awareness as a aliveness process , and that a psychedelic stumble would enable people to have a more peaceable transition into dying . ”
We might never screw what ingredients the Ancient Greeks used to ready kykeon , but thanks to psychedelic substance such as DMT , psilocin , and others , we may yet have a opportunity of recreating the Eleusinian Mysteries and ease the procedure of death .
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