
A DMT trip 'feels like dying' – and scientists now agree - jeffwass
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/dd52796e-5935-414e-af0c-de9686d02afa
======
JohnBooty

        “My body just didn’t seem relevant anymore," says 
        Iona. "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. 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'm not exactly sure how close I came to dying, but I had the _exact opposite_
experience in the ER one night.

I had a bout of acute pericarditis, a swelling of the sac that protects the
heart, essentially preventing it from beating. Usually it's a milder chronic
condition but for whatever reason (freak infection?) I had an intense acute
attack one night. It presented almost exactly like a heart attack which is why
I rushed to the ER.

We got there just in time. My lips were turning blue and I was drenched in
sweat, semiconscious as I was wheeled back to the ER. Heart rate plummeting,
etc.

So anyway I was _hyper attuned to my body_ as the doctors worked on me. I was
terrified and didn't want to die so for a lack of any other options whatsoever
in my barely conscious state I became profoundly aware of my breathing.

I could feel that I perhaps going to die, and didn't want that to happen, so I
just focused on being the best damn breather the world had ever seen. I
figured whatever the hell was happening...well, I was alive as long as I was
breathing, and the more oxygen I could suck into my body the better.

I have never, ever felt more connected to my body than in those moments.

Think about times you've been asked to focus on your breathing during yoga,
meditation, etc. Like that, except times ten or twenty or a billion or
something.

After some completely amorphous amount of time during which they worked
feverishly, the doctors gave me a jab of atropine and I was more or less
instantly OK, hilariously enough.

~~~
colordrops
I had a similar experience from a bad trip on acid. I felt like I had had a
stroke while trying to leave my body, and got pulled hard back into the
physical realm. All I could feel was my flesh, tongue, teeth, skin, breath,
heartbeat, etc. Everything was physical machinery, and had lost all meaning
and purpose. It was the most horrific experience I've ever went through by
far.

~~~
lostmsu
Are you talking about the comment, or the article? Your description does not
sound anything like what the comment says.

------
bariswheel
On the other hand, 5-Meo-DMT (5-Methoxy-N,N-Dimethyltryptamine), comes in the
form of an organic lab-produced extract, or the Bufo Alvarius venom, takes it
to a completely different level of non-duality and complete and utter
shattering of your ego (temporarily of course, for about 20 minutes). Someone
named Albert Most discovered this bizarre compound a few decades back by
smoking the venom from the glands of a Sonoran Desert toad somewhere in New
Mexico if I recall correctly. I haven't tried it myself but going down a
rabbit hole of reports and practitioners on YouTube is in and of itself a
profound trip: [https://youtu.be/PQctOMSmBuk](https://youtu.be/PQctOMSmBuk) .
EDIT: Here is the piece Vice did on Albert Most:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00jbzI4bcUw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00jbzI4bcUw)

~~~
malux85
> Smoking venom from the glands of a Sonoran Desert Toad somewhere in New
> Mexico

I don’t know why but I just found this hilariously funny. Suddenly my life
seems very mundane.

~~~
arminiusreturns
Have you lived or been to new mexico? Mundane life is what results in actions
like that. Boredom breeds strange creativity.

~~~
ianai
It seems mundane when you live in NM. But I spent a decade in LV, NV. I’m very
grateful to be back in NM. This place even had a Burning Man celebration
before California afaik.

~~~
panarky
Burning Man is in Nevada, 100 miles north-northeast of Reno.

------
api_or_ipa
I think it's important to stress the fact that DMT does not feel like being
thrown in a meat-grinder, or being impaled in a car accident, or any other
grisly way to die. Really, it might be more correct to say "Death might feel
like a DMT trip" because many have experienced a DMT trip, but it's not every
day you get to experience death. Of course, it makes for a less interesting
title.

~~~
jdc
People experience death (and psychoactives) in a variety of ways, and its
metaphorical usage reflects that. The meat-grinder sense maps better to
stimulants (ie., caffeine, amphetamine, etc) whereas the exhausting, perhaps
harrowing and enlightening sense of death is what we tend to experience with
the psychedelics.

~~~
browsercoin
back in the day I experimented with psilocybin mushrooms and experienced what
is called 'ego death'. basically, you lose a sense of self and identity. You
are literally a blank slate. It was a surreal experience and I felt panicky
like 'oh shit i think im dead but im still concious'.

Before I reached this state I was seeing math formulas everywhere. Basically
when my internal thoughts stopped, that is I was experiencing reality in the
rawest form, the only truth we have in the universe is math, in all shapes and
forms, we live inside the 'body of god' that is math, but of course, so
extremely complex to express in our 3rd dimensional world.

~~~
mirimir
Yeah, that can be a frightening state. And yet, it was my favorite part,
during the peak of the peak. To some degree, the rest of the trip was just
something to be endured. Although I eventually learned to go dancing or bike
riding or whatever.

The absolute worst combination is marijuana on the tail of an LSD peak. Your
short term memory drops to about 100 msec. I spent a few hours, decades ago,
reminding a friend who they were, and that everything would be OK in a few
hours. And it was hard work, because I could barely remember who I was, and
who they were ;)

edit: clarity

~~~
browsercoin
yes I should clarify that after the experience, it felt like I had been in a
sauna for the psyche. Basically, I had lingering sense of peace and wellness.

The scariest shit I've seen while tripping was seeing the Eye of Providence.
What's more creepy is that this is a common symbol people experienced. For
example, I didn't know what the hell was a third eye until I saw it. It was
unbelievable.

It changed my life. It gave me an unbiased raw truths about myself,
circumstances, and ultimately the realization that we are where we are because
of our decisions in the past.

Everyone should consume psilocybin mushrooms once. LSD you buy off the street
can be laced. But good ol' mushrooms will never let you down.

~~~
torgian
I'm really interested in trying it out, but I live in mainland China right
now. Have no idea who I could even contact about getting some, even in places
like Taiwan or Thailand.

~~~
sparkie
Houby hunting, then PF Tek.

Obviously, do lots of research. There aren't many deadly varieties by some of
them look very similar to edible ones.

~~~
browsercoin
I wonder how many trial and error and generations of humans it took to realize
which mushrooms were safe to eat. It's fascinating stuff.

~~~
mirimir
Look for ones that turn blue when bruised.

Also, the fundamental methodology is to start with an extremely small amount.
If there are no observable effects after some hours, eat double the amount.
And repeat until there are clear effects, and decide if it's something useful.
For food, for fun, or to use for poisoning enemies.

------
erikpukinskis
> “There is nothing here to begin to enable us to propose that on DMT, you
> literally transcend the laws of this universe and do actually go to another
> world,” he says.

This is faulty thinking. An afterlife doesn’t presuppose a violation of
natural laws, or a separate world. It just means you continue living in a
different form.

The only thing that would be required for that is a causal relationship (yet
to be observed in science) between your dying mind and some other living
structure.

The causal eelationship needn’t even be mind-out. If your mind is caused by
the enduring structure and you experience its presence at death, that would be
physically indistinguishable from you becoming that thing.

Given that we continue to discover entirely new structures in both the
biological world and our own bodies, which were hiding in plain sight, I don’t
find this implausible.

That’s not to mention psychoaocial structures which science hardly can model,
and to which our individual minds are very tightly coupled.

~~~
drakonka
Thank you for sharing. I think too often we assume the concept of an
"afterlife" implies some kind of supernatural or religious phenomenon. Since
we don't have proof of it I can't say I definitely believe such a thing
exists, but I certainly believe it's possible. If there is an "afterlife" I
believe it fits into our natural laws and can be explained and observed
scientifically - we just haven't discovered all of the information we need
yet.

~~~
filoeleven
It’s tricky, because the kinds of natural laws that are necessary for the
existence of an afterlife are the same kinds of natural laws that invalidate
the principle of physicalism or materialism, which is the consensus view of
the scientific establishment today. So if you decide to investigate something
easier to test for than “the afterlife” which could also plausibly exist with
these expanded natural laws—like remote viewing, or the effects that
consciousness has on physical systems—your research will be generally
dismissed as quackery. Not many folks will try to replicate your results, or
even spend the effort to examine them deeply for flaws, because the assumption
is “we already know that cannot happen, so you’ve done something wrong in your
setup or you’re lying.”

There is plenty of evidence out there that points to something odd going on;
the challenge lies in getting more skeptics to seriously evaluate it. Some
HNer years ago turned me onto the book _Irreducible Mind_ , whose last hundred
pages or so is a bibliography of evidence for this kind of thing provided by
people who say “I don’t believe it, but I can’t explain it.” But a lot of that
evidence comes from skeptics testing exceptional individuals, and James Randi
did a good job of showing how fakers can fool scientists, so I can’t really
say how reliable it is other than as a jumping-off point for further study.

I came across an interesting and more rigorous set of studies done recently on
how consciousness can influence quantum effects. They had observers try to
influence the amount of interference generated by the double-slit experiment,
and have repeatedly under various conditions gotten a significant effect.
Perhaps most interesting is that while all humans had an effect, the
meditators reliably outperformed the non-meditators. The setup is simple
enough that it’s just begging for replication.

Here’s the video link for any curious folks. Skip the first 5 minutes which is
just a refresher on what the double slit experiment is:

[https://youtu.be/nRSBaq3vAeY](https://youtu.be/nRSBaq3vAeY)

~~~
erikpukinskis
> the existence of an afterlife are the same kinds of natural laws that
> invalidate the principle of physicalism or materialism

I don't see why that follows.

There are lots of phenomena in the world, like money, which are manifest in a
non-physical substrate. Many many other things are immaterial. The characters
I am typing right now are immaterial. There are bits in memory that represent
the characters, but it's only in interplay with an entire system of physical
structures that you can say the characters themselves are manifest. You can't
point somewhere and say "that's where the character is". It's diffuse across a
bunch systems in such a way that it's not manifest in any one location.

Almost all of our social and political realities are like this. Where is
Conservatism? Where is calculus? These are not things with locations, which is
what makes them extremely difficult to study, which is why so many people
reject things like Social Psychology or Science Studies as bunk science.

Money, algebra, and the capital M that starts this sentence are all things
that exist, in a way that's totally compatible with materialism. It's not
necessary to claim that these things exist outside of a material substrate.
They merely exist above it. Distinct from it, yet contained within it. Fully
determined by its laws, but not described by them.

~~~
meowface
Consciousness is an abstract, non-physical structure and concept, but
everything we know suggests it is inextricably tied to and an emergent
phenomenon of the brain.

In the distant future there may be a way to extract and transfer consciousness
into a new substrate, but with current technology, there's no reason to
believe any sort of life, consciousness, sentience, awareness, etc. after
death is possible at all. Just because it's possible in theory doesn't mean
that applies to any currently living humans.

~~~
erikpukinskis
> everything we know suggests it is inextricably tied to and an emergent
> phenomenon of the brain

I don’t think that’s universally accepted. I think trees are conscious and
they have no brain.

I think the brain does create an illusion that other things are not conscious.
It tricks us into thinking our own consciousnesses are distinct from the rest
of consciousness. And that’s been a useful adaptation for us. And it confuses
the hell out of consciousness philosophers. But we were conscious before we
evolved it. It’s possible we were human before we evolved it.

> In the distant future there may be a way to extract and transfer
> consciousness into a new substrate

It’s possible such a thing already exists. We have ancient stories about it.
If it were true it would be very difficult to detect.

If the universe is a simulation then it seems extremely unlikely that
consciousnesses would never be read, just operating until they get eaten by
the 2nd law.

~~~
meowface
>I don’t think that’s universally accepted. I think trees are conscious and
they have no brain.

I don't think consciousness of trees is accepted by nearly anyone. But even if
any trees were conscious, I don't see how it helps your argument at all.

>I think the brain does create an illusion that other things are not
conscious. It tricks us into thinking our own consciousnesses are distinct
from the rest of consciousness.

Yes, but consciousness of animals doesn't really mean anything here. If
anything, it's a point in favor of the opposite side: that consciousness
really isn't very special.

>It’s possible such a thing already exists. We have ancient stories about it.
If it were true it would be very difficult to detect.

Many things are possible. We have ancient stories about many of them. If they
were true they would be very difficult to detect. That's why the basic
scientific principle is falsifiability.

>If the universe is a simulation then it seems extremely unlikely that
consciousnesses would never be read, just operating until they get eaten by
the 2nd law.

I don't agree. If the universe is a simulation then they _could_ be read, but
they don't have to be, and I don't think it's extremely unlikely that they
wouldn't be. If it's a very "raw" or "real" simulation with no interference,
they could very well just dissipate into nothing.

Assuming it is a simulation, what happens when you get shot in the head and
lose brain function? Where is your consciousness at that moment? Is there a
pre-damage backup somewhere? When was the backup taken? If backups are taken
every instant or otherwise very infrequently, which one is the "real" state
after you die? The one from right before the damage occurred? Something picked
at random? If there is no backup needed because there is instead just some
outside extra-dimensional consciousness "force" or "energy" existing since
long ago, what is that thing doing exactly when you suffer from a brain
injury? Does it just "stop working" in or "lose connection" to those parts of
the brain? What is it doing when we're children?

I think even if we're in a simulation where nearly all living things are
conscious, the chances of some kind of post-death experience is still
basically zero.

------
armitron
The feature that sets DMT apart from other psychedelics such as LSD or
mushrooms is the persistent environment called "hyperspace". In short, various
psychonauts over the years have discovered an environment - for lack of a
better word - they named hyperspace, which consists of surprisingly similar
perceived attributes _over many different observers_.

Experienced LSD/mushroom users know that there is a tremendous degree of
subjectivity and symbol/archetype emergence in their trips. If I only had a
few words to describe the LSD/mushroom experience it would be "lack of
clarity". It's as if one is looking through a scanner darkly (personal
unconscious).

With DMT, this is not the case. There is no perceived intermediate filter,
nothing impure or fuzzy. One feels as if one is already there and directly
interfacing with the space itself. Rather than exploring his own psyche, a DMT
user feels like he's exploring an entirely new space. This becomes apparent
even when dealing with the difficulties of trying to use shared language to
describe the experience with other explorers in order to discover common
attributes [1].

[1] [https://wiki.dmt-nexus.me/Hyperspace_lexicon](https://wiki.dmt-
nexus.me/Hyperspace_lexicon)

~~~
akvadrako
This is often my experience too - DMT is like being in VR. The geometry is
simplified - lots of smooth curves and sharp angles, mostly flat textures or
gradients. And it's populated by barely intelligent entities made of the same
stuff.

------
ggm
Can anyone give a reason in darwinian terms, for why brains would evolve a
feeling of detachment and contentment near death? I can't project a selfish-
gene reason.

Maybe, if you hypothesise its in the 'I die, so others live' space, its like
altruistic behaviour and favours the group genome, not the individual

~~~
TaupeRanger
Well we don't really understand the nature of "feelings", so the answers are
going to be very speculative. But a better question might be: why do we feel
contentment _at all_? Why isn't it all just fear and rage all the time, with
certain things lessening the fear and rage, like eating, pooping, and
copulating? After all, if we avoid death and reproduce, the genes get passed
on - evolution doesn't care about feelings. This entirely sidesteps discussion
about the epiphenomenalality of conscious experience and how/whether it can be
"causal" in any sense.

~~~
ggm
"I don't want to die" has a pretty strong biological determinancy to it. It
helps, mostly in adverse situations. Flipping over to "meh, who needs bodies"
is inexplicable (to me)

~~~
rangibaby
There’s a moment where your brain switches from “fight for your life” to “I’m
fucked, don’t bother trying to save me”.

The I experienced when I nearly drowned once. I was very calm and ready to go.
You can see it in videos of how to spot a drowning person.

~~~
dpwm
I am an anxious person. About a decade ago I was a passenger and at one point
I was within about one second of almost certain contact with a vertical box
section on a very slow moving vehicle. There was no way that my friend, and
inexperienced driver, could brake in time.

That one second was slow and I was unnervingly calm. Right at the last minute
with probably less than 200ms to go, the driver very gently swerved and we
must have avoided collision by less than two inches. Quarter inch if we
include wing mirrors. My friend, the driver asked later why I didn't say
anything. I explained that had I panicked, he would have panicked and we would
probably both be dead.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
I was driving 60 the speed limit on a rainy day in southern Cali when a truck
appeared out of nowhere, spinning into my path. I had a very brief ‘oh shit,
this could be the end of me and my wife ‘ moment and then I calmly swerved to
the left into oncoming lane that was empty at the time. The back of my car
clipped the spinning vehicle at probably full speed perhaps slower If I slowed
down (I can’t remember if I did) and we spun a complete rotation and a half to
end up on the oppoite side of the road facing the opposite direction. My wife
went into full panic mode while I was as calm as I’d ever been for reasons
unknown to me. I realized later had I panicked and waited a second longer to
take action, we’d likely both be dead now. I don’t know if t all happened too
fast or if my mind decided to stay chill instead of panicking, but I’m glad i
did what I did and that there were no cars in the other lane.

------
Alex3917
If anyone is in NYC this week, this conference on DMT has a ridiculously
stacked speaker list:

[https://events.theassemblage.com/dmtdialogues](https://events.theassemblage.com/dmtdialogues)

~~~
neom
A HN friend and I are going to this. Email in bio if anyone attending is
interested in meeting up.

~~~
codetrotter
I don’t live in the US so I don’t have the opportunity to meet up with you
guys, but I just wanted to say that your mention of “a HN friend” piqued my
interest. Is that to say you guys met through HN? Does that happen often, that
people meet through HN?

~~~
kaielvin
Most likely a friend who is also a HN user. But who knows — he is calling for
people to meet up after all.

------
tom_
If it's near death experiences you want, no need to push the boat out - just
skip dinner, go to the pub, drink 7 pints of beer, have a kebab (you'll
probably be hungry by then), go home, drink the 2 bottles of beer you found in
the fridge, that and eat the pork pie, then sleep for 6 hours, then wake up.

~~~
imesh
FWIW DMT is far more pleasant and far less of a hangover than the experience
you're describing.

------
mirimir
The key distinction here is between dying and all of the unpleasant stuff that
normally comes with it. I've experienced loss of body awareness with LSD,
psilocybin and DMT. But what didn't come with it was pain, cardiopulmonary
stress, cramping, and so on. So it was easy to relax, and let go of body and
consciousness. With just naked virtual awareness left.

So anyway, I can imagine that a pleasant death from opioid or barbiturate
overdose might be comparable. Or maybe breathing helium, where there's no
overt respiratory feedback. Or maybe hypothermia, although in my experience
that involved too much twitching around.

------
bongo662
Ive done DMT probably 10-15 times in my life so far but quit all recreational
drugs ~3 years ago. My last trip being the most intense; me and a friend used
a dabbing rig and poured about a gram of dmt onto the heated metal nail - for
20 minutes but what seemed like eternity I Observed the birth, life, and death
of myself multiple times over until I finally came back down to the ‘real
world’.

~~~
dustingetz
did you regret that last one? how much of a DMT trip can you actually
remember?

~~~
akvadrako
In general it doesn't seem like memory is affected; the main difficulty is
making sense of what you experienced.

~~~
KennyCason
This. I spent a solid year reflecting and trying to understand everything that
happened during my first LSD experience. The whole thing simply transcends
anything you have ever experienced.

When you “see” a strange loop involving your mind creating the physical world
as you know it, and at the same time realizing the physical world enables your
mind, it can take a long time to unpack. Sure when I’m here, we say that the
mind is just a construct within he physical world, that just happens to be
modeling the physical world. But that Doesn’t make it any less of a
significant experience.

It was like seeing the concept of ying-yang (duality and mutual dependence)
reflected onto mind-body problem, and everything else.

Oh great times when you get bored of all the analytical logic problems of the
everyday world. :)

------
jetrink
The subhead is a much better title: "A new scientific study suggests strong
similarities between near death experiences and [DMT]"

------
breatheoften
I just associate DMT with nausea — and have no desire to repeat that pain. I
did an ayuasca ceremony and only managed to drink one dose (you are encouraged
to drink a lot more) — but my body felt so awful and all the evidence
suggested the pretty obvious cause that there was no part of me that wanted to
drink more and I felt completely fine with my decision to stop.

~~~
dkersten
ayuasca and smoked DMT are too very different experiences.

~~~
mirimir
Yes. And the article didn't make that clear enough. The biological lifetime of
DMT is very short, because there are enzymes (monoamine oxidase aka MAO) in
many tissues. So the effects last 15-30 minutes. But ayahuasca includes MAO
inhibitors, so the effects can last for many hours. And it's mainly the MAO
inhibitors that make users feel ill.

~~~
simonsaidit
Changa includes rima (hamalas from b.capii) and lasts around an hour if good.
And No nausia or effect from food.

~~~
mirimir
Hey, thanks for that!

I used to have a book about ayahusca-like formulations, using plants from
various continents. But I've forgotten the name. Basically, many plants
contain DMT, and many others contain MAO inhibitors. Also, I believe that one
can combine some MAO inhibiting antidepressants, such as selegiline, with DMT.

------
neom
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17795900](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17795900)

------
mattdeboard
Can we hear this "specially commissioned ambient soundtrack" somewhere?

------
noahdesu
One thing people talk about is the short-lived effects of DMT, and how they
would like more time in the the DMT space. But as I understand it, your body
doesn't build up a resistance to it. The DMTx [0] project is seeking to
exploit this property and created extended-state DMT experiences using some
basic medical techniques. Also, they are looking for volunteers.

[0]: [https://www.dmtx.org](https://www.dmtx.org)

~~~
md224
That sounds awesome. I wish I could pay to lie in a hospital bed and have a
medical professional administer intravenous DMT just for a short period (at
least initially). Hopefully this work will bring us closer to a world where
supervised DMT voyages are available to the public.

~~~
nprateem
They're looking for volunteers in the UK for psilocybin experiments:

[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Volunteers%20sought%20...](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Volunteers%20sought%20to%20take%20%27magic%20mushrooms%27%20ft)

------
jtmcmc
I feel at some point we changed what an NDE was really categorized as. When
Rick Strassman did his research in the 90's and wrote DMT the spirit molecule
he stated that classical NDEs were distinct from alien encounters and that in
his trials alien encounters were far more common than NDE. Now it seems that
alien encounters are also considered NDEs.

------
simonsaidit
It feels like having sex with the Universe. Pure dmt is more “cold”
experience. With hamalas (changa/rima) its a more warm prolonged loving
experience that happens more gradually Where the pure is more a fast blast
into space. Its medicine and Works sonders for the mind. It saved marriges,
lifes, jobs among my friends.

------
synecdoche
Once when taking mushrooms I saw myself go into countless pieces in something
that resembled a starburst. It was beautiful. I felt completely at ease. Then
a profound realisation came to me; This is death. Then I connected the two.

------
r00fus
I wonder if "beta thanatine" from _Altered Carbon_ was based on DMT...

------
jacobush
Am I the only one who read this as _" A trip to the DMV feels like dying - and
scientists now agree"_ ?

~~~
pluma
Being neither an experienced drug user nor American, I misread that similarly
(Department of Motor _Transport_?) before remembering that DMT is a drug
because I saw it in the title of a documentary on Netflix.

I don't know if my life has just been too sheltered, or not sheltered enough,
because I wouldn't even know where to begin if I wanted to buy anything not
available over the counter.

------
kr3wn
I died in a dream. Does that count?

