31–40 of 142 posts
I just associate DMT with nausea — and have no desire to repeat that pain. I did an ayuasca ceremony and only managed to drink one dose (you are encouraged to drink a lot more) — but my body felt so awful and all the evidence suggested the pretty obvious cause that there was no part of me that wanted to drink more and I felt completely fine with my decision to stop.
Can anyone give a reason in darwinian terms, for why brains would evolve a feeling of detachment and contentment near death? I can't project a selfish-gene reason. Maybe, if you hypothesise its in the 'I die, so others live' space, its like altruistic behaviour and favours the group genome, not the individual
Well we don't really understand the nature of "feelings", so the answers are going to be very speculative. But a better question might be: why do we feel contentment at all ? Why isn't it all just fear and rage all the time, with certain things lessening the fear and rage, like eating, pooping, and copulating? After all, if we avoid death and reproduce, the genes get passed on - evolution doesn't care about feelings.…
Can anyone give a reason in darwinian terms, for why brains would evolve a feeling of detachment and contentment near death? I can't project a selfish-gene reason. Maybe, if you hypothesise its in the 'I die, so others live' space, its like altruistic behaviour and favours the group genome, not the individual
Unless it has an impact on your ability to reproduce, there's no reason at all. Lots of biology is just a consequence of implementation details.
Can anyone give a reason in darwinian terms, for why brains would evolve a feeling of detachment and contentment near death? I can't project a selfish-gene reason. Maybe, if you hypothesise its in the 'I die, so others live' space, its like altruistic behaviour and favours the group genome, not the individual
Sometimes there is no reason. That might just be symptoms of gradual neuronal failure. It’s unlikely that the sensation of dying significantly increases or decreases the likelihood of passing on one’s lineage, except maybe imparting a peaceful impression on family around you.
But the bleak argument might work. Keep the young 'uns motivated to breed, it helps in the long term.
We're a long time dead. "Enjoy yourself, its later than you think"
“My body just didn’t seem relevant anymore," says
Iona. "And I felt like I arrived in some consciousness
soup which seemed like a different realm to the one I
ordinarily inhabit – even in dreams. It just seemed like
everything was rotating and swirling and spiralling. It
didn’t seem like there were normal space-time proportions
going on.”
I had a bout of acute pericarditis, a swelling of the sac that protects the heart, essentially preventing it from beating. Usually it's a milder chronic condition but for whatever reason (freak infection?) I had an intense acute attack one night. It presented almost exactly like a heart attack which is why I rushed to the ER.
We got there just in time. My lips were turning blue and I was drenched in sweat, semiconscious as I was wheeled back to the ER. Heart rate plummeting, etc.
So anyway I was hyper attuned to my body as the doctors worked on me. I was terrified and didn't want to die so for a lack of any other options whatsoever in my barely conscious state I became profoundly aware of my breathing.
I could feel that I perhaps going to die, and didn't want that to happen, so I just focused on being the best damn breather the world had ever seen. I figured whatever the hell was happening...well, I was alive as long as I was breathing, and the more oxygen I could suck into my body the better.
I have never, ever felt more connected to my body than in those moments.
Think about times you've been asked to focus on your breathing during yoga, meditation, etc. Like that, except times ten or twenty or a billion or something.
After some completely amorphous amount of time during which they worked feverishly, the doctors gave me a jab of atropine and I was more or less instantly OK, hilariously enough.
If it's near death experiences you want, no need to push the boat out - just skip dinner, go to the pub, drink 7 pints of beer, have a kebab (you'll probably be hungry by then), go home, drink the 2 bottles of beer you found in the fridge, that and eat the pork pie, then sleep for 6 hours, then wake up.
FWIW DMT is far more pleasant and far less of a hangover than the experience you're describing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless it has an impact on your ability to reproduce, there's no reason at all. Lots of biology is just a consequence of implementation details.
That's not entirely true. If it impacts your direct descendents or even distant relatives, there'll still be an impact assuming you share the genes in question.
Can anyone give a reason in darwinian terms, for why brains would evolve a feeling of detachment and contentment near death? I can't project a selfish-gene reason. Maybe, if you hypothesise its in the 'I die, so others live' space, its like altruistic behaviour and favours the group genome, not the individual
As for the DMT, there's only one way to find out. One grain of pure DMT in a pipe and get your answers.
If it's near death experiences you want, no need to push the boat out - just skip dinner, go to the pub, drink 7 pints of beer, have a kebab (you'll probably be hungry by then), go home, drink the 2 bottles of beer you found in the fridge, that and eat the pork pie, then sleep for 6 hours, then wake up.