✦Appearance
Recognizable deceased people; in the field study humans appeared only as the deceased (no living humans).
✦Behavior
Greet, reassure, or deliver a terse message ('There is nothing here for you, kid!') before the scene shifts.
✦Communication
Telepathic recognition and reassurance; short verbal-feeling messages.
✦Emotional tone
Reunion, comfort, bittersweetness, familiarity.
✦Message or purpose
Reassurance about continuity; guidance or redirection.
✦Further notes from the corpus
Effect Index includes 'ancestors' and 'souls' among documented entity archetypes, and human forms were coded in 17% of encounters in Michael et al. (2021). An important community caution now documented in the new Mimic entry: recurring reports of beings wearing the faces of loved ones whose 'essence underneath' did not match (Nexus 'Strange Visitors'), which colors how the community evaluates deceased-loved-one encounters — treasured, but tested.
✦What the sources say
Humans ~17% of encounters and ONLY as deceased persons.
'Deceased family' (~2%), 'deceased friends' (~1%), 'life-review' (~6%) are LEAST common in DMT but quintessential in NDEs.
Meeting deceased loved ones is one of the canonical NDE elements — the contrast that makes its DMT rarity notable.
'Ancestors', 'souls', and 'ghosts' listed among Effect Index's autonomous-entity archetypes.
Human beings coded in 17% of encounters in the naturalistic field study.
'Strange Visitors' entry documents entities wearing familiar faces with a non-matching essence — the community's standing caution around familiar-person encounters.
Questions
What are Deceased loved ones & ancestors in the DMT experience?
Recognizable deceased people; in the field study humans appeared only as the deceased (no living humans). This describes what people report — the Atlas documents the phenomenology, not a metaphysical claim.
How often are Deceased loved ones & ancestors reported?
RARE on DMT (~2%) — and a key DISANALOGY with near-death experiences, where deceased-relative reunions are central. The difference is likely shaped by expectation and context.
When in the experience are Deceased loved ones & ancestors encountered?
Most reports place them around phase 7 — Entity Contact — of the commonly-reported journey arc.