hallucinations before death

[mhughes]

I just spent the weekend at home with my grandma who is under hospice care and falling quickly...
I started thinking about how so many ppl see old friends, angels, Jesus, saints, etc. immediately before they die.
I think it would be extremely interesting to see what is going on with your brain chemistry at this point and how similar it is to tripping.
Does anybody know anything about brain behavior at this point?

One interesting caveat of a study like this would be examples of higher beings.
If they do studies and find no explanation for why so many ppl have these hallucinations Im sure many religious ppl will say it is evidence of a supernatural being.
And even if they found some chemical basis for it, it would still be interesting to see why your brain goes thru these hallucinations right before death.

[What'sThatSmell]

Originally Posted by mhughes

I started thinking about how so many ppl see old friends, angels, Jesus, saints, etc. immediately before they die.

Wait..

How the hell has this been proven?

[4ction]

My dad's aunt had cancer in her liver and she was hallucinating when we saw her before she died. It was cool, though, because she was hallucinating about good times with her family back in the day.

[primativezen]

I've heard that the brain releases large amounts of DMT right when you die, the same DMT released during your REM sleep that makes you dream. I don't know if this is true but who knows....I've done DMT once before and it was extremely spiritual and felt in some ways...like eternity....i lost all sense of time...

Who knows I don' know if I believe it, but maybe death is an eternal DMT trip??!!!

[XPiperX]

Originally Posted by primativezen

I've heard that the brain releases large amounts of DMT right when you die, the same DMT released during your REM sleep that makes you dream. I don't know if this is true but who knows....I've done DMT once before and it was extremely spiritual and felt in some ways...like eternity....i lost all sense of time...

Who knows I don' know if I believe it, but maybe death is an eternal DMT trip??!!!

Seconded

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Speculations

Several speculative and as yet untested hypotheses suggest that endogenous DMT, produced in the human brain, is involved in certain psychological and neurological states. As DMT is naturally produced in small amounts in the brains and other tissues of humans, and other mammals,[11] some believe it plays a role in promoting the visual effects of natural dreaming, and also near-death experiences and other mystical states. A biochemical mechanism for this was proposed by the medical researcher JC Callaway, who suggested in 1988 that DMT might be connected with visual dream phenomena, where brain DMT levels are periodically elevated to induce visual dreaming and possibly other natural states of mind. [12]

Dr. Rick Strassman, while conducting DMT research in the 1990s at the University of New Mexico, advanced the theory that a massive release of DMT from the pineal gland prior to death or near death was the cause of the near death experience (NDE) phenomenon. Several of his test subjects reported NDE-like audio or visual hallucinations. His explanation for this was the possible lack of panic involved in the clinical setting and possible dosage differences between those administered and those encountered in actual NDE cases.

Several subjects also reported contact with 'other beings', alien like, insectoid and reptilian in nature, in technological environments[4] where the subjects were 'probed', 'tested' and sometimes even 'manipulated' by these 'beings' (see Abduction phenomenon).

In the 1950s, the endogenous production of psychoactive agents was considered to be a potential explanation for the hallucinatory symptoms of some psychiatric diseases as the transmethylation hypothesis.[13](see also Adrenochrome). Unfortunately, this hypothesis does not account for the natural presence of endogenous DMT in otherwise normal humans, not to mention rats and other laboratory animals. The proposal by Dr. Callaway was the first to suggest a useful function for the endogenous production of DMT; i.e. to facilitate the visual phenomenon of normal dreaming.

Ethical concerns do not allow for the testing of this hypothesis in humans, as the biological samples must come from the living human brain.

Writers on DMT include Terence McKenna and Jeremy Narby, though most scientists who study psychedelic drugs treat their writings with skepticism. McKenna writes of his experiences with DMT in which he encounters entities he describes as "Self-Transforming Machine Elves". McKenna believed DMT to be a tool that could be used to enhance communication and allow for communication with other-worldly entities. Other users report visitation from external intelligences attempting to impart information. These Machine Elf experiences are said to be shared by many DMT users. From a researcher's perspective, perhaps best known is Rick Strassman's DMT: The Spirit Molecule (ISBN 0-89281-927-8);[14] Strassman speculated that DMT is made in the pineal gland, largely because the necessary constituents(see methyltransferases) needed to make DMT are found in the pineal gland. However, no one has looked for DMT in the pineal yet. It's possible Strassman thought that because DMT falls in the large class of chemicals called Tryptamines, which includes Serotonin, LSD, Melatonin (a hormone the Pineal Gland does produce), and Psilocybin.

[mhughes]

Originally Posted by What'sThatSmell

Wait..

How the hell has this been proven?

It hasnt really been proven, but its well documented. Ive seen it, my mother has seen it thousands of times (when she was an ICU nurse)
Ive talked to a few other nurses and they all say the same thing, after working with ppl near death they are all sure there is a god and all ppl have spiritual 'guides' (old friends, Jesus, etc) they see right before they die to help them with their 'journey'
not being religious i dont really see that...

When i saw it, i was visiting a family friend in the hospital, he started reaching up and kept grabbing for something, my father asked what he was doing and he said, 'Jesus is standing next to you, dont you see him'
he passed within the minute

Thanks Piper and primitive, a lil DMT trip before you die, thats some cool stuff
def seems possible, i wish i could find more research on it tho (i knew ethics would get in the way of that)

Side: grandmother passed early this morning, RIP

[barrelhse]

The hallucination before death is called life.

[SaveThyRoaches]

Originally Posted by barrelhse

The hallucination before death is called life.

The Truth Hath Been Spoken

[4ction]

Originally Posted by primativezen

I've done DMT once before and it was extremely spiritual and felt in some ways...like eternity....i lost all sense of time...

I hear ya, I took four tabs of acid this summer and about 5 hours into the trip I thought I died and moved onto the next level of eternal boredom... I totally forgot I was tripping but that's the most intense, I guess, "spiritual" experience I've ever had

[What'sThatSmell]

Originally Posted by barrelhse

The hallucination before death is called life.

Wow, that's the single best quote I've read on Grasscity.
+Rep for that.

[Tripin]

ever since i was a kid i always felt that when you die, you trip out and hallucinate

dmt being released could make you trip out. this could explain why people 'see their life flash before their eyes' -dmt trips are usualy short after all.

they didnt actualy see every waking moment of their life, they just tripped out and couldnt explain it. thats when the media got a hold of it. This is my theory and i dont think its been proven. but it gives me comfort in dieing.
of course, the trip eventualy ends since your body and brain arent alive anymore.

[Smigs]

Originally Posted by Tripin

the trip eventualy ends since your body and brain arent alive anymore.

Yeah, but where did the soul go ?

[notbakedenough]

Originally Posted by Smigs

Yeah, but where did the soul go ?

Yeah, but prove the existance of a soul that exists without a brain.

[Smigs]

Originally Posted by notbakedenough

Yeah, but prove the existance of a soul that exists without a brain.

Why do you ask this question, when you can not disprove the soul ?

[Toke'n Girl]

It doesn't matter at all what happens after your brain stops functioning because you really won't know the difference.