Death and Rebirth Experiences

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Brandon Heckman
April 28, 2009

I was writing to see if anyone has had any death/rebirth experiences, particularly when engaging large doses of psilocybic mushrooms.

Last summer (on the 4th of July, no less), my partner and I went to a Coastal Oregon beach and took some mushrooms. We'd just moved to Oregon from Chicago and we wanted a clean break--we thought a rite of passage to demarcate our new life from our old would be useful. The trip was the most shattering and deeply profound experience of my life. It stripped away everything I knew--from my experiences with culture, language, and commonly ordered perception, to basic and unquestioned concepts such as up/down, gravity, gender, memory, and time. My partner, terrified for me, was able to ignore his own trip and focus on mine. He served as my guide and says that he witnessed my death and rebirth. At one point, I collapsed in the forest after saying, "This is it. I'm going to die. I'm dying right now."--he was certain I'd had a heart attack and died. He took me further into the woods where he said I, screaming in agony, dislocated from reality, experienced full-on birth. He said the only comparable experience for the thrashing and crying he witnessed from me was the birth of a human baby.

Without delving too deeply in what was shown to me, his metaphor makes sense. I did engage a deep, moving experience, and I do feel like I'm living a new, clean life now, one that is more deeply informed about the nature of things and my place in it, and one that is also freed of the stale old trappings of my life before Oregon.

It was the most horrific experience of my life because I faced my two greatest fears--madness and death--head on. But I was also shown somethings by the old woods about the nature of Nature and the ravages of Western culture, and was literally forced out of that space of calmly multiplying geometries and and wordless knowings, through darkness, and abruptly thrust back into the light of being. It was also the most beautiful and profound experience of my life because it so deeply changed my notion of the world and of the universe, showed me shocking beauty in creation and death, and brought me and my partner closer together.

My partner reconstructed my life for me as I cooled from my rebirth, and in so doing I gained a new, freshly different perspective on my own experiences. I am ever grateful to him for guiding me through that.

How common/uncommon are these kinds of experiences? Mine was successful and deeply eye opening, and despite the screaming and the terror, I know only gratitude and happiness when I reflect on it. Are psychic deaths/rebirths useful to all humans, or just a few? Can we communicate these kinds of experiences more broadly, not as cautionary tales to recreational hallucinogenic users but to educate the broader community about the real transformative power these kinds of experiences can offer us in life?

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Personal Experience

Clayton — Jun 19, 2009

Just a few months ago - evening of April 16th, to specify - I took the largest dose of psilocybin mushrooms that I have ever eaten: 3.8 grams, completely dry. I had tripped at least five times prior to this, but none of those experiences could match this one: near the end of the 2-hour peak, I felt as if I had experienced and then come to terms with, my own death.

For a few seconds it seemed as if I were seeing a landscape of the afterlife open before me and I was "flying" towards it, but before I could discern any details my slowly descending "flight" was interrupted and the vision evaporated, as if the Cosmic Powers-that-Be were saying, "No, you are by no means ready for this, you're not meant to see this yet; go back and live". I should mention that only a few minutes before this, I felt like I was melting into my bed, into the room, into everything around me, becoming a part of everything; that was the "ego death". Then I had the sensation of apparent physical death.

As the most intense effects of the trip were wearing off a few minutes after my "death flight", I felt basically like a different person, or a "new" person who had to re-learn everything about life. I called my friend and found that yes, I could talk, but the words and their sounds were a novelty to me; in a way I did have to "learn" to walk and to talk again, just like a baby (of course it took much less time and I never worried about it). I didn't want to put on clothes - I tripped entirely by myself and was wearing only my underwear - but I also wanted to see my friends, to be with people for whom I care and who care for me.
As I was dressing myself, still noticeably experiencing the psilocybin, I kept feeling as if I had to piece myself back together; I had to gather all the broken shards that formed my outer, social image. When I went into my friends' rooms across the hall, of course they asked how I felt, etc. and I responded, "I feel like I have to put myself together again; I have to find these pieces scattered around". His reply: "Why? What do you mean?" I didn't really respond; rather, I thought about it and came eventually to the conclusion that I didn't have to try to find the old "pieces" with which to rebuild myself: I was a new person now. I had shed the old skin.

Archetypal images

AnB — Jun 19, 2009

there are four or five depths one can usually plumb with psychedelics; The land of archetypal experiences is just below the analytic stage most recreational users know, and just above (and often surrounding) the comparatively rare noetic/mystic experience. The experience can follow the script of death-rebirth, but also the hero mythology, initiation rituals, beauty and the beast,and often transcendence. Brendon, the part "that was shown to you" may have been the noetic state, and will likely be a source of great insight to you over the years.

Clayton, as I can guess it, you had a monitored experience? /Very/ cool. If you find yourself in the same situation again, be open to exploring the idea of death in the experience (no, that is not how people wind up jumping out of windows--running away due to fear of seeing the land of the dead would do that). You just had an experience far beyond seeing auras, galloping agape, and enhanced empathy, and--given the proper setting--will probably see it re-occur in some fashion as you get everything in line for a noetic experience you can integrate into your life. The way to get there: Trust, let go, be open.

best
-Andrew Byrne
--------
Community Outreach Coordinator
Psilocybin Cancer Research Project
Johns Hopkins Behavioral Biology Research Unit

Link to study: http://www.cancer-insight.org

My experience was not at all

Clayton — Jun 19, 2009

My experience was not at all monitored; I was alone in the dark, lying on my bed in my college dormitory room. I did this purposely; I had been reading Terrence McKenna's Archaic Revival and I wanted to try my own "heroic" dose, alone and at night in a comfortable setting(although it wasn't the 5 grams that McKenna usually swallowed). I did try to explore the idea of death because my grandmother had died of cancer only a month before and I had just recently found out about McKenna's death from brain cancer, but by the time this incident manifested itself the peak of the overall experience was just starting to wear off; I didn't have enough energy and/or momentum left to push through to the other side of the veil.
Hope to talk to you lots more about these substances and their impact on the world, Thanks. -CDL
P.S. Do you have any reliable information about Brugmansia/Datura in the form of electronic files that perhaps you could post for me to read?

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