Two studies of ayahuasca ceremony participants found that at least 50% of these individuals had an ayahuasca-induced personal death experience. These experiences were associated with an increased sense that consciousness will continue after death and increased concerns for the environment. The paper was published in the Frontiers in Psychiatry.
Ayahuasca is a traditional South American psychedelic brew made from the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and the Psychotria viridis shrub, or from other ingredients containing similar psychoactive compounds. The primary active ingredient in ayahuasca is N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a powerful hallucinogen. The vine also contains specific chemicals that allow DMT to be active after drinking the brew.
Ayahuasca is typically consumed in a ceremonial setting, led by a shaman or an experienced facilitator. This individual prepares the brew by boiling or soaking the plant materials. Typically, participants drink the bitter, earthy-tasting liquid in a ritual that involves singing, drumming, and guided meditation, with the intention of spiritual healing and self-discovery.
The effects of ayahuasca can last several hours and often result in intense emotional, psychological, and physical experiences. These include vivid visions, introspection, and a sense of connectedness to the natural and spiritual worlds. A commonly reported occurrence is also the experience of personal death.
Ayahuasca-induced personal death experiences, often referred to as “ego death” or “psychological death,” are experiences where individuals perceive the dissolution of their sense of self. During these experiences, users may feel as though they are dying or have died, leading to a loss of personal identity and a sense of merging with a greater consciousness or the universe.
This can be accompanied by intense emotional reactions, including fear, joy, and a sense of liberation, as well as profound insights into one’s life, relationships, and existence. Such experiences are considered significant in the context of ayahuasca ceremonies, as they are believed to facilitate deep healing, spiritual growth, and a greater understanding of one’s place in the world.
In their new study, Jonathan David and his colleagues wanted to explore how prevalent personal death experiences are among ayahuasca users. They also wanted to explore their characteristics and long-term outcomes. These researchers conducted two studies.
The first study was a preliminary examination of veteran ayahuasca users. The aim was to see how many of these individuals had a personal death experience and what was it like. They also wanted to know whether it was associated with death-related beliefs of these individuals, their attitudes, and feelings of connection with the extended world and the environment.
This study involved 44 experienced ayahuasca users who were recruited through social media and personal networks. These individuals completed assessments of personality (the Big Five Inventory), ayahuasca use habits (age of first consumption, time since last consumption, lifetime use etc.), ayahuasca-induced personal death experiences (four questions about whether they had it, how often and how intense was it), and past ego dissolution experiences (the Ego Dissolution Inventory).
They also completed assessments of death anxiety (the Death Anxiety Scale), beliefs in the afterlife (questions designed by the researchers), death transcendence attitudes (the Death Transcendence Scale), depression (the Beck Depression Inventory), anxiety (the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory), depersonalization (the Cambridge Depersonalization Scale), relation to nature (the New Ecological Paradigm Revised), and relation to others (the Self Prioritization Task).
The subsequent study aimed to confirm the preliminary findings regarding the prevalence of ayahuasca-induced death experiences and examine their association with stress coping mechanisms and life values.
This study surveyed 306 ayahuasca users from Israel, who were found through ayahuasca contact groups and psychedelic social media. They completed assessments of ayahuasca use habits, personal death experiences and afterlife beliefs from study 1, but also assessments of coping strategies (the Coping Strategies Scale) and values in life (the Engaged Living Scale).
Results of the first study showed that 67% of study participants had an ayahuasca-induced personal death experience at least once in their life. Most participants with this experience reported experiencing it more than once, two participants even more than 10 times. Most participants saw it as an experience of extreme intensity. 78% of these individuals reported an extreme change in their attitude towards death after it. However, these experiences and their number were not associated with death-related anxiety.
Individuals with personal death experiences had stronger death transcendence views (beliefs that consciousness or the essence of an individual continues or transforms in some way beyond physical death) compared to those without these experiences. Individuals with personal death experiences also reported a higher concern for the environment on average.
In the second study, 49% of participants reported having personal death experiences, with 80% experiencing them between one and five times, while 7% reported experiencing it more than 10 times. These participants also reported that personal death experience changed their attitude towards death.
The researchers also found that 93% of participants in both groups believed that soul/consciousness continues after death.
Looking at coping strategies, participants with personal death experiences were somewhat more prone to using problem-focused coping strategies i.e., approaches that directly address the source of stress or a problem in order to reduce or eliminate its impact. These individuals also tended to have higher scores on fulfilled living i.e., to see their lives as more fulfilled.
“Our findings indicate that APDs [ayahuasca-induced personal death experiences] are a common experience among those participating in ayahuasca ceremonies, being reported by at least half of the participants. Having such experiences was not related to gender, age, education, personality, or ontological belief,” the study authors concluded.
“However, while prevalent, these experiences were not very frequent with participants mostly experiencing them no more than 5 times over their lifetime, and very rarely more than 10 times. As expected, these experiences are perceived as powerful and impacted people’s attitudes toward death. In both studies, most participants rated APD experiences at the maximum intensity afforded by the scale, and most participants reported APDs to have significantly changed their attitudes toward death.”
“These reports were further validated by other measures showing that lifetime APDs predicted having a stronger sense of having transcended death, and more certainty in the continuation of the soul/consciousness after death (in Study 2). However, in contrast to our expectations APDs did not influence death anxiety levels, and neither were they predictive of psychopathology including depression, anxiety, and depersonalization.”
The study sheds light on characteristics of ayahuasca-induced personal death experiences. However, it should be noted that the study was based on self-reports and exploring an experience that is highly socially desirable among ayahuasca users, leaving lots of room for reporting bias. Additionally, the study design does not allow any cause-and-effect inferences to be made from the results.
The paper “Ayahuasca-induced personal death experiences: prevalence, characteristics, and impact on attitudes toward death, life, and the environment” was authored by Jonathan David, José Carlos Bouso, Maja Kohek, Genís Ona, Nir Tadmor, Tal Arnon, Yair Dor-Ziderman, and Aviva Berkovich-Ohana.
