We must compare the near death experiences of the testimonies of “trips” of the Bwiti initiates, abstractions made from elements of purely cultural origins, the visions and changes that occur in the life of a person are similar.

Countless persons who have escaped death due to some bad accident or drowning, people under anesthesia from Kethamine, describe an extraordinary experience that will mark them for the rest of their lives

“I leave my body, I float over it, I see it, I see the surgeons around it.

Then I am attracted by a very dark tunnel, at the end, a bright light. I feel deep emotions.

I see my all life pass in front of me. I relive precise events , discover their true meaning.

People (Saints, God) talk to me, ask me questions about my life, I talk to them…

Finally, I decide to come back.

Since I have seen the other side, ( that I came back from the realm of the dead), I am changed, I understand the purpose of my life. I don’t act like I used to.”

The experience takes on, depending on the person, a mystical character, but the main outlines remain the same.

In Philippe Chambon’s article “ COMA, at death’s doors…What they have seen”.

(Science and Life N. 962. November 97 issue) specifies:

“Researchers have established a list of criteria allowing to define NDE:

Ÿ         Sensation to leave one’s body

Ÿ         Passing through a tunnel or dark space

Ÿ         Intense emotions

Ÿ         Perceiving a mysterious light

Ÿ         Perception of a conversation as such as “your time hasn’t come yet”

Ÿ         Meeting familiar people or religious figures

Ÿ         Feeling of perception

Ÿ         Seeing one’s life replayed in accelerated mode

Ÿ         Reaching a frontier

Ÿ         Deciding to return into one’s body

Ÿ         Finally reintegrating with the body

Having at least five of these sensations suffice to be considered an authentic NDE”.

These visions recur frequently under kethamine anesthesia (which has not been used since the 80) and the study of its effects (Karl Jansen) shows that it fixes itself onto the NMDA neural receptors, and blocks them. The NMDA receptors are normally activated by a natural molecule : glutamate.

 “Glutamate is the most important neurotransmitter excitatory of the central nervous system. Glutamate triggered neurons are essentially situated in the cortex and the hippocampus, cerebral formation involved in the process of memory and emotions, that integrates the signals coming from many parts of the brain. Glutamate plays a vital part in the cognitive processes in which the cortex participates: thinking, memory and perception. This receptor is involved in particular in what we call the “long term potentialisation“, phenomenon tied to the memory…

Other neurotransmitters have been suspected to be at the origin of NDE: endorphins. These molecules, close to opium are secreted in abundance during a state of near death. But they do not cause hallucinations or dissociation. Without being directly at the origins of NDE, endorphins are probably more involved with the happiness/well being that generally accompanies them. Endorphins seem to also block the inhibitory cells of the hippocampus activity. In the measure that this formation plays a fundamental part in the process of memorization, it being uninhibited could explain the simultaneous actualization of many memories.” (Chambon)

Beyond the “chemical” considerations, the essential in NDE remains the psychological change of the person.

The one that comes back isn’t exactly the one that has left: he has seen, he knows, from now on, he builds his life on new certainties.

Exactly like the initiation which let’s a new man be reborn.