Chasing the experience of death.

[jamaica0535]

A little while the thought came to me that the people who aim for powerful experiences on things like LSD, mushrooms, DMT, ketamine, or mixtures of these compounds are simply trying to fulfill a curiosity surrounding the experience of death.

Being one of these people, without even directly realizing it at first, I have "died" more times than i can pull an accurate number from my head. Thrown into a space where the only rational explanation to why the way things are the way they are is that i am dead. And at that point i come to terms with this idea and move forward with it.

The experiences have ranged from unnerving (LSD + Ketamine) to experiences that bordered on religiously profound shifts in the way i live my life and the mindset i experience it in (DMT and LSD, both at different times).

It isn't as macabre as it seems, I don't really consider myself a morbid person, but I have talked with other people who have thought they had died more times than they could count and there are just too many of us with this in common that are still doing it, to me the only logical reason is that we are chasing death, or something close enough to it....

Thoughts?

 

[killermunchies]

I have never had an experience where I thought I was dead. However, the idea of thinking I'm dead doesn't seem that appealing to me. I usually try to trip with the goal of feeling happy and trying to understand the meaning of life rather than death. However, I've always been curious what death will feel like. If the theory that the brain releases DMT before death is true, it could feel profound rather than numb. A free DMT trip before death would be a cool way to go out. I guess there's only one way to find out, and I'm trying to delay that for as long as possible.

 

[greenmeanies]

OP, i have come to the same conclusion as you did, after my hellishly intense ++++ trip. it changed me in ways I still cannot fathom. Basically the way I understood the messages from that trip to be "you cannot die, because everyone is already dead due to the dualistic nature of time"... we are already dead from the moment we are born. the in-between moments that we call "life" are simply a diffraction pattern caused by our physical brains and bodies being limited by chemical kinetics that cannot all happen at one time. so time appears to have a linear direction, when in fact the end of the world is basically predetermined by thermodynamics and entropy.

so by "chasing death", we are actually escaping the linear nature of time and allowing our non-physical selves to transcend the boundaries of...

wat nevermind, i'm making so sense at all

 

[paridiso]

You should check out the Psychedelic Experience by Tim Leary and the rest of the Harvard crew. It's a trip manual based upon the the Tibetian Book of the Dead written almost 50 years ago.

I don't think most newcomers trip with the intention of experiencing death. I think that's something that more experienced users generally are interested in. Next time I trip, which won't be for a while, I'm gonna try to have this experience.

 

[Raw Evil]

We each live every lifetime in existence. I either have lived or will live your life at some point during my experience, as will you mine. Experientially, we see only one at a time, and knowledge is not carried between them, save for interpersonal interaction. This current life could be our first, last, or anywhere in between. I saw the end of this string; a frayed end where life is terminated. This end exists outside of "objective" linear time, after our last life has reached its conclusion.

"True" death, it would seem, is something far less fathomable than the ceasing of the body and "this mind".

 

[Legerity]

Some say that we should "die" before our physical death. We can let go of the superficial identity we have built up piece by piece and experience our true self while we are still alive, rather than waiting until the death of our physical body to experience this.

Or we can just hold on to our neuroses and try to deny that our body will not live on forever

 

[Shambles]

Interesting idea... I was born dead (umbilical cord was wrapped tightly round my neck three times when I eventually made it out and (according to family tradition) I was pulling it tight with me lil baby hand - that part probably isn't true ) and the idea that I may be subconsciously trying to get back to that state isn't so strange to me.

Especially with my two ego-death experiences which have convinced me that the non-alive state is one of individually united bliss - it's a rather lushy place to be so no great surprise that I may want to return. If my infant mind was born betwixt and between due to being a bit dead at birth that would make even more sense maybe.

Once again, interesting idea. Dunno if it really is the case but certainly makes some sense to me. Shall ponder

 

[Tunnelfission]

A lot of people feel that they may have died and that this is the only reason that these trip experiences could be happened, i've never found myself in that perspective while tripping but I do feel like I gain universal insights to the realm of energy and spirit, which if I perceive life from an egoless angle can in that instant understand what it is like to die.

the same consciousness, awareness in me is the same that is in you and when "this one" dies then that consciousness is still full and itself...it is but a dot in the axis of space time that witnesses and it is the same in death as it is outside of your body as it is inside of your perception.

I get insights about being and non being, it seems that my spiritual connection can remember everything my human body experienced but it is of less importance to that state.

that is to say I can tell the difference between body experience, mind experience, soul experience, and spirit experience. Spirit is nameless and absolutely free, taking no form but knowing all form. This is the final dispersal into death...then I think it re-densifies and turns back into life with barely a shade of the memory of the soul from before.

All this on one and a half LSD tabs and meth-amphetamine sold as ecstasy one night at my cabin.

I don't fear death because after the "pain trip" part it's a freedom deeper than lucid dreaming. Finally free from "the self" and left in a place that I could only understand to be "gods eye" you are the essence of all grand perception...the same in you as it is in me, that is god to me!

edit : THIS experience is what I have considered one of my few true +4 on the shulgin scale trips.

 

[ogskeeter]

smoken discount moon tickets is near death experience 4 sure

we dosed my buddy 1st time with a huge pile out of the bong n he started twitchng n shifting facial expressions n shit we thought he was guna die or something but wen he came down he told us he saw a white room with everyone hes ever met around him

crazy crazy crazy

 

[DwayneHoover]

What the hell are "discount moon tickets"???

 

[abrad84]

DMT is presume. Why people insist on coming up with such stupid names for drugs is beyond me though.

 

[MrFaust]

you cant fully exerience what death feels like cause when youre actually dying, by the the time youre all done and good and dead, the thing youre using to comprehend what you are feeling is completely gone

 

[jamaica0535]

^^ Well of course that is the case, i wasn't trying to get at the idea that any of us want to die, more the idea that we would like to know what happens while still in this current life.

Powerful psychedelic experiences have taken me to places where i was very sure that i must be dead, and at the very least it is comforting to know that on each one of these occasions, when that realization hit it wasn't filled with regret, remorse, or sadness, only the notion of acceptance of what is happening and then moving on with things.

Death is just as much of a part of life as birth or life itself. I came to terms with my own mortality a long time ago, and at the very least i can say that through these experiences, when my times comes, i will be able to accept it and leave this current existence in peace.

Also on that note, if anyone had Netflix, go and watch Enter The Void. It is a visionary view on the psychedelic experience and the experience of death. Very much going along the ideas of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

 

[moe.ron]

hmmm very interesting points, OP. I am not so sure if death is what people are *explicitly* seeking when they take high doses of psychedelics of dissociatives, but more so just a general exploration of the unknown... Let me explain

I think if we get caught up on the idea of "death", then we are missing very large parts of the picture (a picture we can barely see to begin with)... Certainly when one thinks of the unknown, one thinks of death, and vice-versa, and its hard to say which would have come first: a general fear of the unknown or a specific fear in death. Perhaps they walk side by side, hand in hand. Its maybe a bit easier to see why beings "resist" death, if we understand that the very cells in your body resist their dissolution.

It seems like wishful thinking to think that the extreme +++ or complete ++++ state resembles anything that will come close to death, or whatever it is that comes next for us, but that is not to say there is not something beyond valuable that is relating to death to take away from the experience. See what a psychedelic does, or what a good one at an appropiate dose anyways, is tear down all your preconcieved notions and ideas, it leaves you in a state where you appear to be directly experiencing the contradictory and paradoxical nature of our universe. One thing almost every psychedelic user will think to themselves no matter what the drug is, is that "this can't be happening", or "this is impossible" or "theres no way!"

Now if we see these thoughts as "resistance" to the experience, in the same way we see thoughts of an afterlife, of a god, of not wanting to die in general as "resistence" to death then we begin to see why this instinct to resist the strong psychedelic experience is a sort of literal psychedelic metaphor, with the experience representing death and our resistance representing our natural fear. In this way, one can view the experience as one of the most healing events of their life, because what good psychedelics also allow you to do, is to come to peace with this inevitability, to come to peace with the paradoxical nature of the universe, to understand that life is not "meaningless" but instead "meaning irrelevant", to know that we must die to live, to know dark is meaningless without light.

 

[jamaica0535]

A lot of it for me is the lack of an explanation for why these things are happening around me, and the most logical being that i must have somehow died. Im maintaining this thought process as I drift through the "void".

I use "void" as a symbol, the space that i am in during this notion occurring has been a number of things, salvia was a talk show about my death and judgement, DMT was a beautiful bright space radiating with light, positivity, and warmth, LSD was emotion in its truest forms in all facets of the idea, Ketamine + LSD was this mechanical system in this grey space that radiated with energy as i was pushed along by this unseen but very much felt force as if on a conveyor belt. And the most logical reason for such a drastic change in perception has usually been death, at that point im no longer aware that i have taken any drugs so that is the next best bet.

I don't see this as being resistant to it, I have never tried to fight it or experienced fear about the idea. I simply let go and the trip continues, and i often learn a lot about myself. And then the drugs wear off and it occurs to you "im not dead, holy shit.... It feels great to be alive".... Coming back from that sort of experience after accepting it and not letting it turn into something negative is a great experience.

I am liking this thread, lots of good insight.

 

[moe.ron]

^see with me high doses create a lot of fear and anxiety, and I recently have come to believe this may have something to do with either the drug releasing or some how interacting with flight or fight hormones. Either way for me, the come up of a high dose experience is always challenging. I am envious of you if you can breakthrough without fear, but for me the two (high doses and high amounts of anxiety) directly correlate with each other until I break through. In fact, the fear has been the biggest obstacle to over come in my tripping career.

But the wonderful thing about psychedelics is how much they can very from person to person, experience to experience, drug to drug so obviously my interpretation of what is going on, may be in direct contrast to what somebody else interpets from it.

 

[DwayneHoover]

This is DEFINITELY the greatest Bluelight thread EVER! So many thoughtful, touching, insightful comments, THANKS EVERYONE!

I once became convinced I must be heading for death, doing 5-meo-DMT orally after an mao-inhibitor... here's a report:

NOTE: While I was in the midst of the below process, realizing what seemed to be happening, I momentarily had a little panic, thinking "No fucking way.... this sensation is impossible... this ***IS*** what it feels like to die... I must be dying, nothing else could POSSIBLY feel this astonishing." But fortunately I still had enough wits about me to do a little inventory. Pulse, fine, a tiny bit fast but no more than going up some stairs... blood pressure seemed fine, not popping veins anywhere... sensation every where, fine... respiration fine... I stood and walk a little and back, swung my arms, so movement and balance fine, body even felt a little euphoric in fact...

NOPE, not the slightest bit dead, silly me!

SO, I sat back down and gave in.

The magical mystery tour recipe: 3g ground Syrian Rue seed as an MAOI; after fuzzy feeling developed, 10mg 5-MEO-DMT dissolved in alcohol.

Methodically and gradually over the course of oh 15-20 minutes, everything went from being normal and still and "dead", to being totally ALIVE and whited-out with an overwhelming cosmic energy. Every atom and every stitch of space-time became imbued with a glowing vibrating awareness that was obviously the very ground of being itself.

The feeling/idea my consciousness was somehow being "created" by some mysterious electro-chemical process inside of my skull was revealed as an extreme folly, perhaps the height of human scientific egotism, a fairy tale we tell ourselves... OBVIOUSLY evolution had just worked out a sort of RECIEVER, like a radio, that captured and focused some of this.. this...

This omnipresent and eternal Meta-Awareness that was building and building, buzzing and sparkling all around me... the air, the space between the molecules, the walls, the rocks, the trees, all dissolving into their constituent atoms of "consciousness" that really made them up... not just visual, I *FELT* it, it was me, I was it. Not just light, but BEING, CONSCIOUSNESS ITSELF.

My body and skull became translucent and permeable... "I" leaked out of my skull and melded with this "All Singing, All Dancing" energy and was everyone and everything everywhere for one shining moment that lasted for ever and ever. Thus once was all that was necessary.

And the most astonishing thing about it all, when the transformation was complete, there was one and only one actual "thought" that utterly suffused it all:

Love Love Love

What did it mean? Well as I interpreted the experience - The ultimate truth? All of our awarenesses, as well as the entire physical universe is something happening inside of some One And Only primordial eternal "I", nothing more, nothing less... consciousness created it all. (Just as Alan Watts demonstrates in "The Book") Whoa.

Here's almost exactly what it felt like:

http://www.alexgrey.com/a-gallery/8-24/dying.jpg

 

[jamaica0535]

This is DEFINITELY the greatest Bluelight thread EVER! So many thoughtful, touching, insightful comments, THANKS EVERYONE!

http://www.alexgrey.com/a-gallery/8-24/dying.jpg

Thank you, its something that i have never seen talked about, but with all the "ego death" threads, it would probably overwhelm the search. I am very happy with some of the responses.

Its an idea that stands in the vicinity of "ego death", but i am aiming more at the notion of ego death causing the notion of the death of one's self, and the type of experience that results from that notion.

I imagine a lot of people would panic. Years ago i went through 4 years of depression, going that long feeling very little positive emotion and you start to want to die. I never made any attempts to take my life, i discovered LSD before that. But the point of the matter is that by the time you reach a point where you want to die, you have accepted your mortality and that you, everyone you know, and everyone you don't will all die at some time or another. So when that times does come, how should one react? Do you try to weep and mourn the things you didn't do, or things that were never said? Or do you accept it, and move on with your existence feeling a sense of peace in the situation?

There are an infinite ways that this situation will be handled, or not handled well. It feels comforting to know that while the actual experience of death will probably be very different, when that realization of "I am dead/dying" crosses through my thoughts at the end, i feel much less trepidation going into it with an idea of how I tend to handle it. At that point there isn't much that can be done, best just to roll with it.

I am hoping to meet Alex Grey in a personal calm setting sometime later this year, like getting to know him in a quiet domestic setting instead of briefly shaking his hand at an event; instead I get to sit down and talk to him, discuss things. Kind of off topic, but i was very excited when offered this opportunity.

 

[MrFaust]

^^ Well of course that is the case, i wasn't trying to get at the idea that any of us want to die, more the idea that we would like to know what happens while still in this current life.

Powerful psychedelic experiences have taken me to places where i was very sure that i must be dead, and at the very least it is comforting to know that on each one of these occasions, when that realization hit it wasn't filled with regret, remorse, or sadness, only the notion of acceptance of what is happening and then moving on with things.

Death is just as much of a part of life as birth or life itself. I came to terms with my own mortality a long time ago, and at the very least i can say that through these experiences, when my times comes, i will be able to accept it and leave this current existence in peace.

Also on that note, if anyone had Netflix, go and watch Enter The Void. It is a visionary view on the psychedelic experience and the experience of death. Very much going along the ideas of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

I have had the same thought during really intense experiences like "I may be dead that may be why this is happening" but its always pretty fleeting and uncomfortable and I try to move on pretty quickly I hope someday I'll be able to "sit" in that feeling comfortably and really feel and think about it. Enter the void is a great movie completly changed the way I look at death even if I'm still totally clueless about what its really all about.

 

[jamaica0535]

The movie is based around the ideas in the Tibetan book of the dead.

A retrospective journey of life, death, and rebirth from the first person perspective of the soul of the protagonist Oscar.

There are so many subtle psychology references in it, watch it a couple times and it makes a lot more sense.