Complete death experiences are part and parcel of the Ayahuasca experience.
Imagine: a person starts to feel like he is dying, his life flashes before his eyes, he feels himself as a formless essence oozing from a body that disintegrates, he becomes pure energy, he feels insanity when everything is one and the same, his thoughts about himself, his personality, his wants and desires, all of that fades into nothing...
Death...
And beyond that, after death, there is still pure consciousness, That Which Always Observes. Pure consciousness needs no body, needs no thoughts, needs no identity, is ultimately everywhere and in everything... But, sometimes it's great to forget all of that and play dress-up!
On a grand and cosmic scale.
If one can find the fortitude to go beyond death, ideas of the self and even of the universe, there is still an observing consciousness beyond anything the mind vaguely relates to.
I feel very well equipped for the afterlife.
There was another dream, where the Earth appeared to be a giant receptacle, and upon death, the body is parked into the soil and recycled. Organic rent-a-car. Earth energy, and graves, are like portals--there could be other portals, too, but this was the particular one that was explored. A tall figure clothed in black with a scythe stood underground before a thick wooden door with a heavy-duty iron lock. A peek into the door revealed highly intricate skeletal systems performing complex tasks underground, beyond total comprehension; The Gatekeeper stood, unmoving, while The Teacher seemed to admonish, "Remember him!" A brief and sheepish hello was uttered, and finally, the lesson was allowed to progress.
Rumor has it the Tibetan Book of the Dead isn't actually about DEATH--it's about mystical death and rebirth, resonates a lot with psychedelic experiences.
To flip the coin, for people worried about burning out a possible death experience, here is one last thing to contemplate: the human brain has actually started shrinking, and for many years the species has been under stress in a number of unnatural environments (we have only prevailed because of our brilliance). Just look at the skyrocketing prevalence of depression and degradation of the seratonergic system in modern society. What if we have become deficient? What if the earliest purposes of psychedelics was to restore a connection to something that was lost? (Therefore: DMT should be explored much more, and this exploration, IMHO, should take priority!)
http://www.brainwaving.com/?p=377 (my favorite author EVER!)
