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When Jonathan Bell first tried DMT, he was already well-acquainted with psychedelics—at 34, he had taken acid and used mushrooms on dozens of occasions. Even so, he was staggered by the intensity of his first DMT trip.“It’s such a bungee jump into a new realm that it can be quite disorienting,” said Bell, now 44, who lives in Denver. Since that first trip, he estimates that he’s used DMT hundreds of times. Advertisem*nt Advertisem*nt
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And then there’s the fact that DMT has been found to occur naturally in the human brain. No one can say with certainty what it’s doing there, but some researchers have speculated that it may underlie some of neuroscience’s more inexplicable phenomena—including some aspects of near-death experiences. Advertisem*nt
What is DMT?
N,N-Dimethyltryptamine is an organic compound found in many plants and, in lesser amounts, in the nervous system of humans and other mammals. Chemically, DMT is related to serotonin, melatonin, and other neurotransmitters that affect core elements of the human experience, including mood and memory.Like LSD, peyote, psilocybin, and mescaline, DMT is considered a “classic psychedelic,” meaning, human beings have long experimented with its psychotropic properties—for at least several hundred years, said Griffiths. “All the classic psychedelics have different effects and onsets and durations of action,” he explained. “But they all share a principal site of action, which is the serotonin 2A receptor.”DMT, like these other classic psychedelics, is a serotonin 2A receptor agonist, which means it binds to these receptors and induces neurochemical shifts that alter sensory perceptions, cognitive processes, and other brain functions related to consciousness. DMT also interacts with a range of other receptors and pathways. Research in the journal Nature Scientific Reports has found that it not only alters the brain’s chemistry, but it also shifts the brain’s electrical activity in ways that map onto people’s psychedelic experiences. In other words, a user’s trip seems directly tied to these brain changes. Advertisem*nt
How do people make, buy, and use DMT?
Synthetic DMT can be made in a lab, but users usually encounter the drug in the form of a powdery white salt that has been extracted from the bark of tropical trees or other plant sources. As with other drugs, dosage can vary depending on the user and the particular extraction. But, like other drugs, smaller doses produce milder effects. Most of the research and literature on DMT has looked at so-called “breakthrough” doses—or those potent enough to trigger a completely immersive psychedelic experience.In terms of how people get a hold of DMT, Griffiths said some users extract it themselves using internet DIY guides and plant cuttings purchased online. Bell said he usually encounters DMT in preloaded vape pens, which cost around $100 and are good for at least 10 to 15 trips. Some users also pay “guides” to walk them through the whole experience. “My understanding is that usually people are paying anywhere from $200 to $500 for somebody to bring them the drug and then dose them with it, so they’re paying for a drug and an experience and that facilitation,” said Alan Davis, a psychedelics researcher and assistant professor at Ohio State University.
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In Ayahuasca brews, which people drink, Griffiths said that DMT powder is mixed or cut with other plant compounds that slow and soften its effects. In this form, the drug takes a bit of time to set in—anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or longer—and the subsequent trip can last for many hours. Advertisem*nt
What is it like to take DMT?
That’s tricky. “Much of the experience is ineffable because it seems to access parts of my brain that I don’t have human language to describe,” said Amy Shula, 40, a Denver-based clinical research program manager.Shula said that she’s smoked or inhaled DMT around 20 times total. Like Bell, she said every DMT experience is unique, but she still recalled aspects of her first trip.“There are levels to it,” she said. “After the first hit, my body gets very relaxed and colors get very vivid.” The second inhale added new layers of experience. “I feel weightless, as if I'm in water but someone or something is holding me,” she said. “And then it’s as if I’m looking at a geometric matrix—a somewhat transparent matrix that encompasses everything.”Shula said she usually tries to inhale and hold three or four hits, but the force of the trip often prevents her from getting there. At a certain point, the world around her is gone. “I go into a kind of hyperspace, not like a tunnel, but like I’m moving through space at lightspeed, and seeing colors and shapes that I’ve never seen before,” she said. “There’s a sense of oneness with everything—like I’m the universe experiencing itself.” Advertisem*nt
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“The message,” he said, “was that being born human is a great gift. It’s a miracle that we exist and that we are conscious of our own existence.”When it comes to the so-called “breakthrough” trips associated with higher doses of the drug, some user experiences are remarkably—almost eerily—commonplace. These often include a feature that is sometimes known as “the encounter.”“Not infrequently, people have these experiences in which they’re encountering some kind of sentient autonomous entity,” said Johns Hopkins’s Griffiths.Shula described one trip where she saw a “godhead” that resembled an Aztec mask. “I felt safe and held by it, and it was showing me that it was about to lead me on a journey,” she said.The specifics of these encounters vary from user to user, and not everyone has them. But these sorts of encounters are so commonplace among DMT users that Griffiths has published research on their features. His surveys of DMT users have found that the entity encounter tends to be mostly visual and telepathic. The most common descriptions of the entity are as a “being,” a “guide,” a “spirit,” or an “alien,” but it can take just about any form—including some that are nonsensical or frightening. (Terrance McKenna, the ethnobotanist and noted psychedelics researcher, famously described the entities he encountered as “machine elves.”) Advertisem*nt Advertisem*nt
Can you use DMT for medical purposes?
Right now, everyone’s talking about psychedelics as potential game-changers in the treatment of addiction, depression, anxiety, trauma, and other mental health conditions. DMT, even outside of Ayahuasca therapy, is a growing part of that conversation.“A lot of depression or anxiety is about feeling disconnected or alone or isolated, or not having a place in the world,” said Davis. “One of the core features [of DMT] is this complete connection to the universe and dissolution of all those thoughts.” Advertisem*nt Advertisem*nt
Why and how does DMT naturally occur in our bodies?
Arguably the most intriguing thing about DMT—and also the most perplexing—is the discovery that we have some of it inside us. No one knows why it’s there.“There are people who have put out some interesting ideas, but there’s not enough [evidence] to even call them theories or hypotheses,” said Davis. Among the speculations is that DMT somehow plays a part in dreaming or spiritual experiences, though why we would be equipped with such a chemical isn’t clear.“One of the more interesting ideas is that DMT may be somehow related to the death and dying process—that it may be released in the pineal gland during death or dying,” Davis said. Again, though, that’s just a guess.
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Davis also pointed out that some common features of near-death experiences—leaving one’s body, connecting with some kind of benevolent higher power—seem to share attributes with DMT trips. Some researchers have even speculated that DMT and the near-death experiences they trigger may help us more convincingly play dead—a life-saving strategy and vestige of a time when humans were not infrequently attacked by wild animals.“Others posit that these aren’t creating hallucinations at all, but opening up real dimensions of contact that we can’t normally access,” Davis said.While there are plenty of unanswered questions about DMT, it seems undeniable that it offers people a profound experience. “I think it helps us tap into something we don’t typically have access to with our human brains, like a gateway to see more truth,” said Shula, the Denver clinical research program manager.“It has 100 percent affected me,” she said. “I feel like it showed me what life is—that there is no time or space, no end, and everything is interconnectedness.”
Are there any new developments in the scientific study of DMT?
The field of psychedelic study is a rich and blossoming one, and that extends to research into DMT and how it affects us. A 2023 study from Imperial College London and published in the journal PNAS is the first to track brain activity before, during and after subjects took DMT. It found that it increases communication between different regions of the brain – particularly those responsible for higher level functions such as imagination. Another ongoing study from the same university suggests that DMT may hold promise as a treatment for depression.Follow Markham Heid on Twitter.This article was updated for clarity. It was originally published in February 2022.