A different Ketamine of Fish?
Sorry for the awful pun…couldn’t resist it though. I promise nothing so bad appears in either of my books (the novel is coming out tomorrow!)
This is really a footnote to the post I did on psychedelics and is the result of a conversation I had with an ER doctor. He is part of a group of intellectuals I recently started meeting with who discuss some of the deeper issues of life…much of it way too deep for me in fact, especially when it comes to theoretical physics etc. However, we got to discussing NDEs and OBEs and he told me that just a week before he had a phone call from a surgeon who had been performing an operation on his mother (the ER consultant’s mother). The mother had listed in her notes that she has a reaction to Ketamine, and yet the team had still used Ketamine as an anesthetic. Her reaction is that she experiences a full blown OBE. Having received the Ketamine, and had this reaction and still conscious, the surgeon had phoned this woman’s son to calm her down as she was freaking out. He was literally talking to her while she was on the operating table experiencing an OBE. Was it verified? No. Was it a true OBE, or some form of illusory autoscopy in which the brain tricks the person into believing they are seeing themselves? Impossible to know without doing an experiment designed to test this. I will mention it to the doctor next time I see him, but it is highly unlikely his elderly mother would willingly undergo the experience again as it terrified her.
So I did a bit of looking into this, and OBEs with Ketamine are a relatively common phenomenon. The mode of action of Ketamine is quite different from psychedelics and causes dissociative experiences. This paper written by a group from Ryerson in Canada describe the incidence of OBEs.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21324714/
I contacted the author of the paper to ask if any further work had been done to try prove OBEs, and he said that there hadn’t been and that the phenomenen was almost certainly neurologically induced.
For me the key is complete lack of veridical OBEs for Ketamine induced OBE-like experiences. Given its widespread use in medicine, if the OBEs were true OBEs, then you would have hundreds if not thousands of veridical OBEs – as we do with NDEs.
In conclusion, I do not believe that Ketamine causes genuine OBEs.
AwareofAware 
Hey ‘Ben’. I can’t find the article now (if I do I’ll link it here). It was written by a doctor who studied Ket-induced OBEs and was convinced they were caused by the brain. After many years he said to ignore his previous research because he had changed his view completely and they weren’t caused by the brain.
In my younger days, I consumed a large amount of magic mushrooms one evening and had an OBE that I was in another room – it seemed so real and still does many years later.
Brain produced or a genuine OBE? Who knows? Mushrooms are thought to act on microtubules the same way as NDEs do – Orch OR theory anyone!
Paul
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My take on this is, and has always been, I am very unconvinced that drug induced OBEs are genuine due to the lack of veridical accounts, but am prepared to be proved wrong as all they would do is prove that the consciousness can separate from the physical body and observe the physical world. This would support NDEs being real.
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Currently I’m reading a book by Charbonier. You may recall his name as he was the same doctor that related the story about a patient that saw a leg amputation in the adjacent room. He too gave some none life-threatening OBE instances. I don’t think any struck me as being well validated. Perhaps when I finish reading I will give a quick summary of the interesting points I come across as I had done with the last book.
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It concerns me that we now have to consider the existence of both genuine and non-genuine out-of-body experiences (OBEs). Would someone who has experienced both be able to distinguish which one was genuine? From an objective standpoint, the features reported are largely the same, such as viewing one’s own body from an external vantage point. It seems more plausible that there is only one type of experience, which in extremely rare cases might involve paranormal elements.
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I have no objection to drug induced OBEs being genuine, the difference is that whereas there is a huge amount of evidence supporting NDE OBEs there is a derth of evidence supporting drug induced ones.
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Paul the scientist who studied ketamine induced NDES was Karl Jansen
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Hi, xylophonepleasantlyd6ef174331. That’s the one – thank you. I was up at 3.30 am so going to hit the sack for some ZZZZZZs very soon. I’ll be able to find the link now which I’ll do in a day or so when time allows.
Enjoy your evening.
Paul
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Ben did you say your book about the aware 2 study is coming out tommorow. If not when will it be published. Thanks
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correct if i am wrong but i feel like this katemine and other drug explanation is the only theory kinda left standing with the rest of the theories being ruled out completely, i think personally for this final thoery we just have to compare it side by side.
hallucinations debunked via being complete nde being the opposite.
lack of oxygen and too much carbon in the brain debunked by multiple studies finding nde in a brain with full of oxygen or no oxygen and etc just being incostistent with any faces of the oxygen level in the brain which just been the level of oxygen in the brain has nothing to do with nde.
eye ram, being debunked for being very different experience to a nde and most cases occurring when there was no eye ram.
drug in the brain like endorphins and etc have no evidence to support it and typically widely different from nde.
electrical burst outright debunked by the fact no nde occurred when there was a burst so plz never bring this again doctors plz.
drugs like dmt being widely different from nde and of course they being no evidence brain creates them.
lucky guess and made up debunked via being toooo mannyyy cases or veridical and etc cases.
so yea i think a side by side comparison between obe katemine and real one should be enough.
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One other candidate I heard mentioned was syncope. According to Kevin Nelson the symptoms are identical to OBEs (or maybe he was talking about NDEs?). I don’t know enough about them to state one way or another.
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Syncope usually results in a complete lack of consciousness as the brain is not getting enough blood pressure to function properly.
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This was of particular interest to me as I have had one NDE (over 50 years ago) and maybe one of the early patients in a hospital where Ketamine was used as an anesthetic for hernia operation. I don’t remember the year but a long time ago. Maybe the drug was being tested at that time. But both experiences were entirely different. Under the Ketamine was strange, not an OBE but it felt like every thought I had (and I assume everyone else) changed the universal consciousness. I can’t t really explain it. Maybe it was some kind of hallucination,. although I’ve never taken drugs of any kind. so nothing to relate to. I remember wondering if I’d been in some kind of accident so I knew I was “unconscious” and when I came too I could understand everything said but couldn’t formulate words for a while. Maybe the doctors didn’t have the dosage down yet and gave me too much. The NDE was entirely different. Not in hospital not sick or onn medications, but wide awake when it started also when it ended, but a fascinating experience of “visiting” the other side. But too long a story to tell hjee but proven real later. Definitely not hallucination. I’m, also 82 now and still in good health.
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Re above, I’m almost 92 now. I wrote 82.My eyesight not as great, hence some errors. As long as I’m back maybe I should finish my story re my NDE, This is an abbreviated version I wrote a while back: But I should mention again I was wide awake but in bed when it started. It began with a tingling sensation almost electrical vibrations, then I felt my consciousness begin to drift away from my body. Of course I got scared and assumed I must be dying. But the thought came to me that I should just let go and immediately I am in a dark tunnel traveling very fast towards a bright light where a “being” in a robe is waiting to greet me. I somehow frrl I know him (later via a medioum he comes through and knows all about my experience because he was the being 🙂 He tells me through the medium my experience was no accident, It had been arranged and that they would e bringing me back while I was asleep to essentially be given a tour of the different levels of consciousness in the spirit world from where we all came and will go back to: “Although raised in the Protestant tradition a near death experience over 50 years ago revealed to me that while one’s experience after death may not be exactly as expected based on traditional teaching, the Catholics appear to be right regarding purgatory. By that I mean that there appeared to be various levels of consciousness created by the collective minds od the inhabitants. So while no one is “sent” there by God, they in effect send themselves but not voluntarily. It is all based on their inner state of mind, either dark and negative, or in some cases, pure evil. or if a kind and gentle soul the opposite becomes true as these states of consciousness are perhaps the many mansions spoken of since they can be highly spiritual. This would explain what is meant by our works we shall be known. Or ‘Faith without works is as tinkling bells’ I wrote the following: Make of it what you will.
TRUNCATED AT THIS POINT
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HI Robert,
Thanks for sharing your experience. I did delete the essay portion as this comments section is not designed for such lengthy contributions and makes it hard for others to navigate. Also this site is not really a place to share the details of their experience, it is more a place to discuss the science and general characteristics.
However, what I will say is that my non-fiction book which will be published in two week’s time spends a significant amount of time discussing the implications of the subjective accounts from NDEs that differ from one person to the next. I think you will find it interesting, although you may not agree with the conclusions I come to. All explanations for these differences have the potential to be true, but ultimately there is only one ultimate truth.
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Hi Robert.
Very interesting – I read the full post. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Paul
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I don’t know how relevant this is to this blog but I think discussions about consciousness often brings up the idea of whether machines can become conscious or whether they can reason. Well according to research conducted by Apple LLMs can’t:
https://m.slashdot.org/story/434217
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Another theory is the temporal lobe. Melvin Morse calls it thevGod spit. Mario Beaureguard says we have a God brain. I believe its thevright temporal lobe.
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Could it be that drugs such as psychedelics or ketamine may simply be disrupting the brains disinhibition mechanism (as Parnia puts it) or as Bernardo Kastrup calls the brain disassociation from what he believes to be some universal consciousness. What some nders describe as being at one with others. This disruption of these brains mechanisms could be experienced as some middle ground – that is grounded in normal reality but some sort of infiltration into a spiritual realm?
in the case of OBEs they seem to occur in earlier stages of an NDE or the latter stages. I tend to think that MAY be occurring when some brain function might still be active. This may also be similar to how I see these drugs effect the brain (a mixed state) so it would be reasonable for obes to occur when on these drugs.
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I agree with Paul, great post. I have long since held that if there is something going on with these drugs, then that only proves that the consciousness may be a separate entity and that the drugs are causing the consciousness to “wobble” in the brain and loosen its grip. The same goes for epilepsy or electrical stimulation. The connections that bind or “inhibit” the consciousness are loosened. I think Parnia may be on to something with his theory, but the AWARE II data does not provide any evidence for it unfortunately.
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What I’m trying to understand regarding his disinhibition theory is if he’s just echoing William James and the filter theory? That is to say, some greater consciousness exists, but it’s being reduced to a form that is required for us to navigate/survive life. The superfluous experiences (perhaps seeing a white light, dead family members, etc) are really not needed. And he explains this by using the analogy of a TV. The TV acting similarly to the brain. To me this analogy comes short because it’s one way. The TV does not affect the source signal, but we ARE the signal. We are not the television audience.
If Parnia is referring to an inhibition mechanism, then he may be saying the brain actually inhibits consciousness, that is it has a direct effect on consciousness, not filtering it. That is not consistent with the TV filter analogy which he uses.
Hope I’m making sense. If anyone else has a better grasp of what Parnia means, please share!
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Tony. I agree and will pitch my tent next to yours. Good post.
Paul
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I agree Ben. More research is clearly needed. However, Im glad both Dr. Morse and Dr. Parnia are doing good research. Also check out the research of the university of Virginia division of perceptual studies. Bruce Greyson and his collegues.
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Forgive me for going off on a tangent, but I just wanted to mention that Charlotte Martial does in fact lean predominantly to a materialist explanation of consciousness. I bring this up because of a previous post that included her research and because I sent her an email requesting that she clarified her position to which she finally responded. In the explanation, she left a small space for the unknown.
Hi,
Thank you for your interest in my research. As a neuroscientist, I hypothesize that consciousness is produced, at least in part, by the brain. However, there is still much to be done to fully understand how consciousness is created. The same applies to near-death experiences (NDEs); I believe that this subjective experience arises from neurophysiological mechanisms, but we still have a long way to go in understanding this phenomenon.
Best wishes, Charlotte Martial
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Yep, she is on the physicalist side, which is fine provided they don’t try to create something out of nothing like Bourjigin did. I am deeply skeptical of their motives for doing the NDE study.
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I finished reading the book by Charbonier. I thought I’d give my thoughts here so it wouldn’t be mistaken for your book.
Unfortunately I can’t recommend it. I usually highlight the parts I find interesting in a book or the new facts I learned but I didn’t find myself highlighting much for this book since I didn’t really find anything new or interesting. Also the author discussed mediumship. I’m quite skeptical but I tried to keep an open mind to the author’s arguments but was pretty underwhelmed. He also discussed clocks stopping at death which I’m also pretty sceptical of although I heard Peter Fenwick discussing the same thing. Perhaps I wasn’t the target audience. I was mostly interested in OBEs since I think you can somewhat objectively verify people’s accounts in that instance but didn’t find too much new material.
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Hey Pablo,
Thanks for doing it so we don’t have to!
I am 100% aligned with your position on focusing on OBEs. I make that point in my new book, out in the next few days, although I suspect it may have a limited appeal due to the deliberate bias I impose. The OBE is the only subjective part of an NDE that can be verified. Everything else is subjective and untestable…doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but still untestable. I spend a lot of this next book discussing that.
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I think Robert G. Mays and Suzanne Mays have put forward a solid hypothesis that could help resolve debates around interpreting all kinds of NDEs. Their idea addresses the issue of why not all NDEs are the same, potentially offering a unified explanation. I also think their hypothesis could be extended to other states like trance or psychedelic experiences.In their paper, they argue against the “multiple component hypothesis” favored by physicalists and instead propose a single explanation with a proximate cause.
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1727983/
Enrico Facco advocates for a strictly non-physical explanation for NDEs, and I think Mays might have misunderstood his perspective. If Facco’s view is accepted, it eliminates the need to explain why specific elements are absent in someone’s NDE. Instead, it leaves room for the idea that these elements could still potentially occur within the framework of non-physicalist theories , even if they weren’t present in a particular experience of someone,he still has potential.
Regarding ketamine-induced OBEs, I don’t think the brain alone can generate such experiences. The argument here seems to rely on ignorance—because non-physicalist theories can’t be conceived in a straightforward way, materialists assume it’s metaphysically necessary that veridical information in such experiences is instantiated by the brain. However, they often misuse Occam’s Razor. To apply it properly, the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) must be satisfied. Unless they can demonstrate a clear link between the veridical information and the brain’s coherent generation of that information through one of its properties, I see no reason to entertain their explanations.
I think the whole issue stems from a misunderstanding. Non-physicalist theories don’t really struggle with the memory hypothesis or the brain’s stability during NDEs as long as the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) holds. It’s the physicalists who need to explain how the brain generates this information at all, especially since their hypotheses rule out clairvoyance entirely.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00429/full
I’m just saying that having veridical information obtained under drugs doesn’t invalidate non-physicalist hypotheses. The main issue, I think, is faulty intuitions. Physicalists have no solid explanation for veridical cases, like those involving “outside the room” observations, other than resorting to ad hoc claims like “a specific part of the brain was activated,” and so on.Want a more extreme example? Let’s say astral projection is real, and through meditation, we can obtain veridical information. The brain would still be functioning during these conditions, but are we seriously going to claim that the brain itself is generating that veridical information?
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