Yes. See Chris Carter, Science and the Near-Death Experience, pp.187-192. Similarities have been duly noted, though I know of no veridical experiences.
I've been on ketamine several times (too many to count) and, as a youth, spent time with multitudes of people who have taken it for long periods of time, at some *very* high doses. I've only met one person who had a true OBE while on it, and this is not at all like what is being described in the NDE. There are all sorts of ways to induce a feeling of being "outside" of your body in some sense. My anxiety disorder will get me there at times. In the OBEs my friend experienced, he was floating, flying - almost in a dreamlike state - where he felt weightless, and had all sorts of hallucinatory experiences. But he did not look down on his body, perceive things in the room next door, or really experience anything tied to *this* reality, in these "k holes" as they were called. I've also experienced a distorted sense of space on ketamine where things close by look extremely far away or small, you take a regular step and it feels like you have taken a 10 ft stride, etc. This is a very common distortion of a spatial orientation on the drug, but it has no resemblance to anything I've read in the NDE literature. I always found it to be very unpleasant, much like extreme intoxication.
I just finished Carter's book on NDEs. The stuff on quantum mechanics and consciousness is of course very speculative (not that that is terrible), but he makes some good points about the history of science there. His counter-arguments against naturalistic explanations are often very good. I think it is one of the better books on NDEs that I've read actually, and I'm going to read it again.
7 comments:
It seems to be based on Susan Blackmore's research.
Didn't you already do a Post where Greg Stone challenges that research?
I've reposted that.
I've never taken Ketamine, but I read an article that said 60% of people those who do experience the sensation of being "outside their bodies."
Has anyone who HAS had an NDE also taken ketamine? I wonder how they compare the experiences of "being outside the body?"
Edward,
Yes. See Chris Carter, Science and the Near-Death Experience, pp.187-192. Similarities have been duly noted, though I know of no veridical experiences.
I've been on ketamine several times (too many to count) and, as a youth, spent time with multitudes of people who have taken it for long periods of time, at some *very* high doses. I've only met one person who had a true OBE while on it, and this is not at all like what is being described in the NDE. There are all sorts of ways to induce a feeling of being "outside" of your body in some sense. My anxiety disorder will get me there at times. In the OBEs my friend experienced, he was floating, flying - almost in a dreamlike state - where he felt weightless, and had all sorts of hallucinatory experiences. But he did not look down on his body, perceive things in the room next door, or really experience anything tied to *this* reality, in these "k holes" as they were called. I've also experienced a distorted sense of space on ketamine where things close by look extremely far away or small, you take a regular step and it feels like you have taken a 10 ft stride, etc. This is a very common distortion of a spatial orientation on the drug, but it has no resemblance to anything I've read in the NDE literature. I always found it to be very unpleasant, much like extreme intoxication.
cl,
I just finished Carter's book on NDEs. The stuff on quantum mechanics and consciousness is of course very speculative (not that that is terrible), but he makes some good points about the history of science there. His counter-arguments against naturalistic explanations are often very good. I think it is one of the better books on NDEs that I've read actually, and I'm going to read it again.
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