This is your brain on death: a comparative analysis of a near-death experience and subsequent 5-Methoxy-DMT experience

Summary & key facts

This paper reports a careful look at one person who had a dramatic near-death experience while in a coma from a brain infection, and who later took the powerful psychedelic 5‑MeO‑DMT. The researcher talked with the person and compared the written report of the coma experience with the later psychedelic report. They found many strong overlaps, like entering other worlds, meeting beings, mixed-up senses, a feeling of going back to birth, and a loss of ordinary self and time. But some features — a life review, meeting dead people, and crossing a clear threshold — showed up only in the near-death event. The author says this single case shows overlap between near-death and psychedelic states, but it does not prove that near-death experiences are caused by the brain making psychedelic chemicals, and any brain-based explanations offered are speculative.

Key facts:

• The paper is a single case study of one person who had a near-death experience during a coma from bacterial meningoencephalitis and later used 5‑MeO‑DMT.
• The researcher used a semi-structured interview and a simple theme-by-theme analysis to compare the original near-death report with the later psychedelic report.
• Many features were shared between the coma near-death experience and typical psychedelic reports, including entering other worlds, meeting benevolent or menacing beings, mixed senses (for example 'seeing' sounds), feelings like going back to birth, and a dreamlike clarity.
• The 5‑MeO‑DMT experience showed strong similarity with the near-death event for major mystical elements, especially a loss of ordinary sense of self and a feeling of transcending normal time and space.
• Some themes appeared only in the near-death report and not in the 5‑MeO‑DMT report: a life review, encounters with deceased people, and a clear ‘threshold’ that had to be crossed.
• The participant judged the near-death and psychedelic experiences to be different enough that he did not accept the idea that his near-death event was caused by the brain making psychedelic chemicals.
• The paper discusses a speculative idea that damage to the brain’s outer layer during the infection might have triggered brain activity similar to that produced by psychedelics, but the author treats this idea as tentative and not proven.
• Because this is one-person, retrospective, and subjective reporting, the study cannot show cause and effect or be generalized to other people.

Abstract

Introduction: Much research has focused on the modeling of the near-death experience (NDE) by classical and atypical psychedelics; however, to date, no study has reported on the relationship between the NDE and the experience induced by the highly potent, endogenous psychedelic drug 5-Methoxy-DMT (5MeO-DMT). This article presents a case study of an individual who is popularly documented to have had a profound near-death experience while in a coma caused by bacterial meningoencephalitis. Additionally, the individual also subsequently underwent an experience with 5MeO-DMT. Methods: A semi-structured interview was conducted with the subject concerning his experiences with both the NDE and 5MeO-DMT. A basic thematic analysis was performed on both the original text describing the NDE as well as the interview itself, which mainly focused on the subject's experience with 5MeO-DMT. This analysis was organized to identify both the similar and different emergent themes between the two states, with a particular emphasis on the subject's perceptions of the similarities and differences between the experiences. Results: There is a very high level of comparability between the original NDE and psychedelic experiences in general, including shared characteristics such as entering other worlds, meeting menacing or benevolent entities, experiencing synesthesia, perinatal regression, and lucid dreamlike properties. Much comparability was also identified with the 5MeO-DMT experience, in particular the major mystical experiential domains, such as ego dissolution, but especially transcendence of time and space. However, there were also a few unique themes (life review, the deceased, and the threshold) that emerged in the NDE that were not present in the 5MeO-DMT experience or other psychedelic experience studies, suggesting that these themes may be more unique to the NDE. Discussion: Despite such similarities, the participant asserted that his NDE and psychedelic experiences were not similar enough to be attributed to endogenous psychedelics. In this study, we discussed several mechanisms that could potentially account for the NDE, including lucid dreams and perinatal regression. However, the study also explored the possibility that the unique etiology of the participant's NDE, bacterial meningoencephalitis affecting the neocortex, may have triggered similar downstream neural activity as that initiated by psychedelic agents through pyramidal neuronal activation. This hypothesis is presented with appropriate caveats and acknowledged as speculative.

Topics

Pain Management and Placebo Effect Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs Psychedelics and Drug Studies

Categories

Clinical Psychology Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Art Combinatorics Comparability Computer science Epistemology Experiential learning Id, ego and super-ego Library science Literature Mathematics Mathematics education Mysticism Philosophy Psychoanalysis Psychology Qualitative research Religious experience Social psychology Social science Sociology Subject (documents) Thematic analysis

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