Hallucinogen DMT Simulates Near Death Experience

What if it was possible to experience death without actually dying?

It’s a question that is currently being pondered by scientists in the U.K, with the assistance of a drug known as DMT.

Credit: Raphaelle Martin

DMT is the hallucinogenic compound in ayahuasca, a traditional spiritual medicine common among the peoples of the Amazon basin. Ayahuasca use has been on the increase in recent years and is not without risks, as evidenced by multiple incidents in South America, including the death of a 24-year-old  New Zealander and a bizarre murder-lynching involving a young Canadian man in Peru.

However, at the Imperial College Clinical Research Facility in London, England, a new study is more concerned with DMT’s effect on the brain. As a recent article from the BBC points out that researchers have found a strong link between the experience of taking DMT and near death experiences.

“It has been speculated in the past that a lot of [psychedelic] experiences — not only DMT but also LSD and so on — contain themes of death,” says Chris Timmermann, who led the study. “If I were to speculate, one possibility may be that the system is reaching such a high level of disorder that the psychological reaction might be, “‘Oh my God, I’m dying.”‘

The tests are intensively monitored and participants are only given a low dose of the drug, so there is no risk of overdose.

Nonetheless, participants in the study describe being outside of their own body and experiencing a kind of ego-death.

Ayahuasca cooking in the Loreto region of Peru

“My body just didn’t seem relevant anymore, and I felt like I arrived in some consciousness soup which seemed like a different realm to the one I ordinarily inhabit –even in dreams,” said one participant quoted in the BBC article.  “It just seemed like everything was rotating and swirling and spiralling. It didn’t seem like there were normal space-time proportions going on. I felt a sense that perhaps death isn’t the end — not that I’m religious.”

The researchers collaborated with scientists in Belgium and France to study the DMT users against known cases of near-death experiences and found the results to be surprisingly similar.

The researchers now hope to gain more insight into the near-death state without putting anyone at risk.

Note: To learn more about ayahuasca, read our interview with Dercas Nidra (a pseudonym) who helps the bereaved using ayahuasca, meditation and yoga.