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Understanding Near-Death Experiences 67

New Clues Found in experience. What is remarkable is how precise a dependency, negative sensations, drug
tool this turned out to be. Even though the preparation, and also a group that included
Understanding Near- stories were open-ended subjective accounts disease state, religion and ceremony. NDEs

often given many years after the fact, the reflected three of these components related to
Death Experiences linguistic analysis focused down not only to a perception and consciousness, religion and
specific class of drugs, but also to a specific drug ceremony, disease state, and drug preparation.
as causing experiences very similar to NDEs. The component related to perception and
Research finds parallels to
This new study compared the stories of consciousness was labeled “Look/Self” and
certain psychoactive drugs 625 individuals who reported NDEs with the included terms such as color, vision, pattern,
stories of more than 15,000 individuals who had reality and face. The component
By Robert Martone taken one of 165 different psychoactive drugs. “Disease/Religion” contained elements such as
When those stories were linguistically analyzed, anxiety, ceremony, consciousness and self,
similarities were found between recollections of whereas the component related to preparation
Imagine a dream in which you sense an intense
near-death and drug experiences for those who “Make/Stuff” contained elements such as
feeling of presence, the truest, most real
had taken a specific class of drug. One drug in prepare, boil, smell and ceremony. Again,
experience in your life, as you float away from
particular, ketamine, led to experiences very ketamine had the greatest overlap with NDEs in
your body and look at your own face. You have
similar to NDE. This may mean that the near- this type of analysis.
a twinge of fear as memories of your life flash
death experience may reflect changes in the Other drugs that cause similar
by, but then you pass a transcendent threshold
same chemical system in the brain that is experiences to NDEs include LSD and N,N-
and are overcome by a feeling of bliss.
Although contemplating death elicits fear for targeted by drugs like ketamine. Dimethyltryptamine (DMT). The famous
The researchers drew on a large hallucinogen LSD was as similar as ketamine to
many people, these positive features are
collection of NDE stories they had collected NDEs when the near-death event was caused by
reported in some of the near-death experiences
over many years. To compare NDEs with drug cardiac arrest. DMT is a hallucinogen found in
(NDEs) undergone by those who reached the
experiences, the researchers took advantage of a South American plants and used in shamanistic
brink of death only to recover.
large collection of drug experience anecdotes rituals. It caused experiences like NDEs and is
Accounts of NDEs are remarkably
found in the Erowid Experience Vaults, an open- also made in the brain, leading to speculation
consistent in character and content. They
source collection of accounts describing that endogenous DMT may explain NDEs. It is
include intensely vivid memories involving
firsthand experiences with drugs and various not known, however, whether levels of DMT
bodily sensations that give a strong impression
substances. change in a meaningful way in the human brain
of being real, more real even than memories of
In this study, the recollections of those near death, so its role in the phenomenon remain
true events. The content of those experiences
who experienced NDEs and those who took controversial.
famously includes memories of one’s life
drugs were compared linguistically. Their This study has significant weaknesses
“flashing before the eyes,” and also the
stories were broken down into individual words, because it is based on purely subjective
sensation of leaving the body, often seeing one’s
and the words were sorted according to their reports—some taken decades after the event.
own face and body, blissfully traveling through
meaning and counted. In this way, researchers Similarly, there is no way to substantiate the
a tunnel toward a light and feeling “at one” with
were able to compare the number of times words accounts in the Erowid collection as there is no
something universal.
having the same meaning were used in each way to prove that any individual took the drug
Not surprisingly, many have seized on
story. They used this numerical analysis of story they claimed or believed they were taking. This
NDEs as evidence of life after death, heaven
content to compare the content of drug-related makes it all the more remarkable that a linguistic
and the existence of god. The descriptions of
and near-death experiences. analysis of stories derived in this manner could
leaving the body and blissful unity with the
Each of the drugs included in these discriminate among different drug classes in
universal seem almost scripted from religious
comparisons could be categorized by their their similarities to NDEs.
beliefs about souls leaving the body at death and
ability to interact with a specific neurochemical Linking near-death experiences and the
ascending toward heavenly bliss. But these
system in the brain, and each drug fell into a experience of taking ketamine is provocative yet
experiences are shared across a broad range of
specific category (antipsychotic, stimulant, it is far from conclusive that both are because of
cultures and religions so it’s not likely that they
psychedelic, depressant or sedative, deliriant, or the same chemical events in the brain. The types
are all reflections of specific religious
hallucinogen). Few similarities were found of studies needed to demonstrate this
expectations. Instead, that commonality
when the accounts of one stimulant drug were hypothesis, such as measuring neurochemical
suggests that NDEs might arise from something
compared with another within the same changes in the critically ill, would be both
more fundamental than religious or cultural
stimulant drug class, and few if any similarities technically and ethically challenging. The
expectations. Perhaps NDEs reflect changes in
were found between accounts of stimulant drug authors propose, however, a practical
how the brain functions as we approach death.
experience and NDEs. The same was true for application of this relation. Because near-death
Many cultures employ drugs as part of
depressants. The stories associated with experiences (NDEs) can be transformational and
religious practice to induce feelings of
hallucinogens, however, were very similar to have profound and lasting effects on those who
transcendence that have similarities to near-
one another, as were stories linked to experience them, including a sense of
death experiences. If NDEs are based in brain
antipsychotics and deliriants. When fearlessness about death, the authors propose
biology, perhaps the action of those drugs that
recollections of drug effects were compared that ketamine could be used therapeutically to
causes NDE-like experiences can teach us
with NDEs, stories about hallucinogens and induce an NDE-like state in terminally ill
something about the NDE state. Of course,
psychedelics had the greatest similarities to patients as a “preview” of what they might
studying NDEs has significant technical
NDEs, and the drug that scored the highest experience, so as to relieve their anxieties about
hurdles. There is no way of examining the
similarity to NDEs was the hallucinogen death. Those benefits need to be weighed against
experience in animals, and rescuing a patient at
ketamine. The word most strongly represented the risks of potential ketamine side effects,
death’s door is far more important than
in descriptions of both NDEs and ketamine which include feelings of panic or extreme
interviewing them about their NDE. Moreover,
experiences was “reality,” highlighting the sense anxiety, effects that could defeat the purpose of
many of the drugs used to induce religious
of presence that accompanies NDEs. High the intervention.
states are illicit, which would complicate any
among the list of words common to both More important, this study helps
efforts to study their effects.
experiences were those related to perception describe the psychological manifestations of
Although it’s impossible to directly
(saw, color, voice, vision), the body (face, arm, dying. That knowledge may ultimately
examine what happens to the brain during
foot), emotion (fear) and transcendence contribute more to alleviating fear of this
NDEs, the stories collected from them provide a
(universe, understand, consciousness). inevitable transition than a dose of any drug. []
rich resource for linguistic analysis. In a
The researchers then sorted words into
fascinating new study, NDE stories were The ‘X’ Zone TV Channel on
five large principal groups according to their
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