NDEs and DMT

The SPR Facebook page has a couple of links relating to a study that compared the effects of taking DMT to reported features of near-death experiences.

One is to the text of the paper, published in Frontiers in Psychology:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....01424/full

The other is to an article about the study on the Live Science website, including some comments from a "cognitive neuropsychopharmacologist" who isn't convinced that it demonstrates a real connection between DMT and NDEs:
https://www.livescience.com/63355-ayahua...ience.html

Thanks for sharing the study!

Curious though that the authors did not cite nor discuss the findings of this article.

Additionally, if the authors were actually interested in whether DMT causes NDEs, they would give DMT to actual NDErs and have them report the differences between the experiences. Why haven't they done that? That seems like a very direct way of testing it without any ambiguity or uncertainty. Could it be because NDErs have already stated that the NDE is very different from a psychedelic experience?

Related, perhaps:

https://www.erowid.org/culture/character...mind.shtml

Partial Transcript of a taped workshop
Time and Mind
with Terence McKenna

[...] I took this stuff [DMT] to Tibetans, to the Amazon. I gave it to Tibetans, they said "this is the lesser lights, the lesser lights of the Bardo. You cannot go further into the Bardo and return. This takes you as far as you can go." When I gave it to shamans in the Amazon, they said "It's strong - but this is, these are the ancestors. These are the spirits that we work with. These are ancestor souls. We know this place." [...]

Courtesy of the Daily Grail, here's a Newsweek article on this research:
https://www.newsweek.com/what-happens-wh...ce-1102292

And here's the Daily Grail's own discussion of the study, from a couple of weeks ago:
https://www.dailygrail.com/2018/08/are-n...ing-brain/

Courtesy of the Daily Grail, here's a Newsweek article on this research:
https://www.newsweek.com/what-happens-wh...ce-1102292

And here's the Daily Grail's own discussion of the study, from a couple of weeks ago:
https://www.dailygrail.com/2018/08/are-n...ing-brain/

Obviously the press always hype up any scientific story, but we have one study that thinks they are similar experiences, and one that doesn't. I would say further study required- although I have noted how many people online say DMT causes NDE's as if it is established fact. 

What are your thoughts Chris?

Obviously the press always hype up any scientific story, but we have one study that thinks they are similar experiences, and one that doesn't. I would say further study required- although I have noted how many people online say DMT causes NDE's as if it is established fact. 

What are your thoughts Chris?

I must admit I posted those links after having just glanced at the articles. I hope I'll have a chance to read them, though they are a bit outside my main area of interest.

I don't think much of the DMT drug-caused neurological hypothesis, which is just another materialist neuroscience attempt to explain away NDEs as being a product of disrupted brain function. Such ideas have already been extensively examined and found wanting.

The 2012 paper referred to by Hjortron (at https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/675..._Potts.pdf ) in the IANDS journal (JNDS) summarizes most of these reasons. Potts makes some major points in the paper, that deserve to be quoted:

".... one should consider evidence of veridical perceptions occurring that go beyond current explanatory models of brain functioning. Pam Reynolds is a case in point.
..............................
Many NDEs occur after cardiac arrest, a devastating insult to the body that leads to a flat EEG in less than a minute. While the EEG only measures neocortical activity, a lack of cortical activity is at least prima facie evidence for a lack of consciousness—yet NDErs often have experiences in which they present specific, verifiable details about their resuscitations, have transcendental experiences that have a strong narrative structure (instead of the often choppy experiences involving DMT or ketamine), and occur with a clear sensorium. The increasing number of veridical NDEs documented, including some in children, suggests that something other than an endogenous drug-based theory is (needed to be) adequate.
...............................
The most compelling reason against the DMT hypothesis of NDEs is the same reason the ketamine theory is flawed: The phenomenology of drug-facilitated experiences is far more different from than it is similar to the phenomenology of NDEs. An examination of the DMT literature indicates that studies such as Christopher Cott and Adam Rock’s and David Luke’s that argued for a similarity between DMT phenomenology and NDEs—with the former report emphasizing noetic quality and ineffability and the latter the appearance of discarnate entities—do not square with the bulk of the evidence (from DMT experiences). This is a similar problem to the one ketamine faces: The predominantly emotionally distressing experiences of ketamine do not square with the predominantly emotionally pleasurable NDEs.
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(Finally,) adherence to a DMT or ketamine model (still) does not (logically) negate the possibility that NDEs are evidence of survival of death, of a soul that is separable from the body, or of some kind of “universal consciousness.” Van Lommel is a case in point, with his belief that the pineal gland, through its release of DMT, is the body’s link to universal, nonlocal consciousness. Strassman believed in the ontological reality of the claims of beings from other dimensions DMT experiencers claim to see. Rodriguez agreed. Such an emphasis on the pineal gland as the link between worlds sounds a great deal like René Descartes’s (1649/1989) claim that the pineal gland is the central point at which the soul interacts with the body."

Ahh the old DMT comparisons are back again. Well several of you all have spoken my mind on the explanation for me, but I did discover a talk by a guy named Dave Nichols. He is a researcher who specializes in psychedelics and DMT, and he's got his own reasons to think DMT isn't a significant part in NDEs. Or that it's not in the brain at all! 
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w...REKC35QMzM

To quote him:
"There is no evidence to suggest that DMT can be accumulated in the brain or within neurons at significant concentrations; such inferences either are not supported by direct experimental evidence or are based on flawed experiments."

Courtesy of the Daily Grail, the BBC now has an article on this study:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/d...9686d02afa

It seems to be an uncritical acceptance of the "NDE=DMT" line. (Well, it is the BBC.)