Nearly nothing can be more profound than a near-death experience (NDE) or a psychedelic trip—and for the first time, researchers have studied people who have had both of these rarified experiences, with their findings published in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness on August 30, 2024.

“This [study] is particularly useful considering the fact that NDE research is mostly retrospective due to the unpredictability of these experiences,” Charlotte Martial, the neuroscientist who led the study, told DoubleBlind. “Ultimately, I hope this type of research may also contribute to investigating the potential of psychedelics as a valuable complement to psychological support for palliative and end-of-life patients.” 

The study collected first-hand accounts from 31 adults—mostly men from the UK and the United States—who have tried psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, DMT, or mescaline, and asked them to compare these trips to their NDEs. The results revealed both intriguing similarities and significant differences, with psychedelic experiences appearing to engage the visual system more intensely, while NDEs more profoundly disrupt bodily sensations. 

The study’s participants were recruited through social media, local news, and academic publications. Their experiences were recorded through online surveys, with the researchers asking questions such as: “According to you, was this experience supernatural?” and “At the time of the experience, did you consider that this experience was ‘real’ (ie. different from a dream or hallucination)?” Psilocybin mushrooms and LSD were the most frequently used substances, and many of the participants were experienced trippers, with 21 percent of them having tried psychedelics more than 100 times. 

READ: Can Psychedelics Help Us Face Our Fear of Death?

The researchers found striking similarities between NDE and psychedelic trips, mostly related to mystical-like effects such as distortions in time perception, feelings of harmony/unity, and the sensation of leaving the earthly world. However, there were differences in sensory effects, with participants having stronger visuals in psychedelics, and more disembodiment in NDE. Respondents also reported being more friendly and open to others after a psychedelic trip compared to an NDE, with some saying that NDEs had a more negative impact on their lives. 

“One can hypothesize that NDE is more often associated with an impression of ‘suprareal’ due to its unexpected and involuntary occurrence, as compared with a PE which is (typically) intended,” the authors wrote. 

A New York Times story on the study noted that near-death experiences are shockingly common, with five to 10 percent of the general population reporting having had one. Scientists have mostly dismissed the strange stories from people who have touched the void and come back, Times reporter Rachel Nuwer noted, but some researchers are taking these accounts more seriously, viewing them as potential ways to understand some of the deepest mysteries of consciousness. 

“In recent times, the science of consciousness has become interested in nonordinary states,” Christopher Timmermann, a research fellow at the Center for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London and an article author, told the Times. “To get a comprehensive account of what it means to be a human being requires incorporating these experiences.”

The researchers also noted that the study had some limitations: self-reported responses via online surveys are less reliable because questions can be prone to biases. Furthermore, none of the respondents had tried 5-MeO-DMT, which was linked in previous studies to share striking similarities to NDEs. “Unfortunately, it is challenging to address whether these was a higher correlation between certain psychedelics and NDEs with our current paper, as the number of respondents for each drug was too small to allow for rigorous analysis,” said Martial. However, she pointed towards another study she led, that was published in Consciousness and Cognition journal, where natural language processing tools comparing NDEs and psychedelics found that ketamine produces the most similar phenomenology to NDEs. In the future, the researchers also suggested studying whether atypical psychedelics like ketamine and salvia might have stronger similarities to NDEs than serotogenic psychedelics.

*This story was edited on September 23, 2024 to include quotes from the study’s lead author Charlotte Martial

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