Few neuroscientist can take to have probed the prohibited boundary of human cognisance to the same extent as Dr Eben Alexander . After contracting bacterial meningoencephalitis in 2008 , the mind sawbones wrote a book describing his remarkablenear - death experience(NDE ) while in a comatoseness . A ten later , he smoked the psychedelic spite of the Sonoran Desert toad frog , and has now provided a detailed comparison of the two life - change events .

Introducing their interviewee , the author of the newfangled report explicate that NDEs andpsychedelic experiencesoften have “ share feature such as entering other worlds , fulfil minacious or benevolent entities , experiencing synesthesia , perinatal regression , and lucid dreamlike properties . ” However , they go on to say that no subject area have ever compare the experience of dying with the core of 5 - MeO - DMT , the master psychoactive component in the secretion of certain hallucinogenic toad .

discover a subject intimate with both experience is no easy exploit , and it ’s unlikely there are many out there other than Alexander . put down the brain surgeon ’s testimony , therefore , provide the researchers with a rarefied opportunity to analyze the “ high layer of comparability ” between NDEs andsmoking 5 - MeO - DMT .

In particular , the authors say that both experiences are characterise by a sensation of “ ego dissolution ” as well as “ transcendency of time and space . ” Regarding the former , Alexander explains that during his NDE , he found himself “ in a stead similar to that of someone with fond but good memory loss . That is , a person who has forgotten some primal aspect about him or herself , but who benefits from having leave it . ”

“ What is articulated throughout here as ' fond but good amnesia ' is near selfsame to what is referred to in the psychedelic vault of heaven as ' ego decease . ' , ” comment the survey authors . “ That is , the obliteration , though temporary , of the gumption of one ’s individuated ego and all of its consequent autobiographic computer storage . ”

Alexander also name how , during his NDE , he experienced a touch sensation of love that was “ somehow beyond … all the different character of love we have down on earth . ” Similarly , while tripping on salientian guck , he delineate how he felt at one with a “ love forcefulness . ”

Despite these similarity , however , the researchers also identify numerous differences between the two experiences . For instance , Alexander ’s NDE included aspect such as a life review , the crossing of a threshold , and see with “ reptilian , wormlike creatures ” - none of which occurred under the effects of 5 - MeO - DMT .

These incongruences are significant as they contribute to the controversial debate over whether or not the human body produces its own psychedelic substances and whether these might be responsible for for sure psychological phenomenon such as NDEs . Tellingly , Alexander himself only rated the similarity between the two experience as two out of ten , and say he did n’t call up his NDE was triggered by the endogenous release of 5 - MeO - DMT .

Long fib short , then - we still do n’t knowwhat happens in the brain when we die .

The study is bring out in the journalFrontiers in psychological science .