Dimethyltryptamine or DMT is an extremely powerful hallucinogenic drug reported to be more powerful than LSD. DMT is a member of the substances known as indoleamines, which are compounds similar in structure to the neurotransmitter serotonin. DMT is an extremely powerful hallucinogenic drug, yet DMT exists and occurs naturally throughout both the plant and animal kingdoms.1
Plants containing DMT are frequently found Latin America where indigenous tribes have been experiencing the amazing effects of this drug for thousands of years. The substance DMT is endogenous to human beings, meaning it is produced from within. DMT is created in small amounts within the human brain during normal metabolism2 and can be found in the blood and urine of human beings, though its origins and functions are unknown.3
Psychedelic alchemist Alexander Shulgin declares in his book TIHKAL: Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved that “[DMT] is, most simply, almost everywhere you choose to look.” Indeed, it is getting to the point where one should report where DMT is not found, rather than where it is.” 4
DMT can be actively administered intravenously, nasally or though inhalation when heated to a vapor. DMT is not orally active when ingested unless combined with a monoamine oxidase inhibitor or MAOI such as harmaline or Banisteropsis caapi. DMT taken orally with an MAOI turns off the digestive enzyme which would otherwise metabolize and quickly destroy the DMT in the stomach and therefore render no hallucinogenic effect.5
The effects of DMT are short lasting. Unlike LSD which effects can last 6-12 hours, the effects of DMT last around 5-10 minutes. Commons experiences reported from DMT use include space time distortion and complete loss of ego and awareness of the human self with an emergence into an alien world. Unlike LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs such as mescaline, the effects of DMT do not seem to development a tolerance with repeated use.
Some researchers believe that DMT plays a major role in the visual activity of dreams, near-death experiences and other mystical altered states of consciousness achieved by certain yogic practices and hermetic traditions of Gnosticism. Medical researcher JC Callaway, suggested in 1988 that DMT might be connected with visual dream phenomena, where levels of DMT in the brain are elevated.6
Dr. Rick Strassman has proposed that DMT is produced within the pineal gland of the human brain. Strassman also holds a theory that massive amounts of DMT are released from the pineal gland prior to death or near death explaining the near death experience phenomenon.
In September 1989 Dr. Rick Strassman was awarded a grant to study DMT through a Schizophrenia Research program funded by the Scottish Rite Foundation branch of Freemasonry. In late 1990 Strassman obtained approval for the DMT research at the University of New Mexico.7
The study concluded that approximately 20% of volunteers injected with high doses of DMT had experiences alien-like entities. One of the subjects reported sexual contact with such a being, and others reported erotic type experiences. Several subjects reported contact with ‘other beings’, alien-like insectoid and reptillian in nature, in technological environments.8
Andean Shamans in South America use a concoction of a DMT containing plant and another plant acting as an MAOI to produce a drink called Yage which means “the vine of souls”. Yage is ingested to allow the shaman to travel outside of his body to the places of the dead. Shamans typically report that they are guided on their journey by spirits.9
The Beat Generation’s avant-garde novelist William S Burroughs described the sensation of long-distance flying when he took ayahuasca during an expedition to South America in 1953. “Yage is space time travel,” he wrote in a letter to Allen Ginsberg. “The blood and substance of many races, Negro, Polynesian, Mountain Mongol, Desert Nomad, Polyglot Near East, Indian—new races as yet unconceived and unborn, combinations not yet realized pass through your body. Migrations, incredible journeys through deserts and jungles and mountains… A place where the unknown past and the emergent future meet in a vibrating soundless hum.” 10
Since DMT is illegal in the United States and yet occurs naturally within the human body, in the eyes of the law we are all guilty of possessing a Schedule I drug.
In December of 2004, the Supreme Court lifted a stay allowing the Brazil-based União do Vegetal (UDV) church to use DMT containing brew in their Christmas services. The “tea” is made from boiling the leaves and vines from plants, one containing DMT and the other an MAOI. The brew is known as ‘hoasca’ to the UDV. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in February 2006 that the U.S. federal government must allow the UDV to import and consume the tea for religious ceremonies under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act.11
Another Brazilian Catholic based religious movement called the Santo Daime partakes in the consumption of Ayuascha tea as part of their religious ceremonies and rituals. Daime meaning “give me”, or “give me love, give me light, give me strength”, described as “a sacrament, a vehicle for the Divine Power that is present in the whole creation”. Disciples of Santo Daime live communally within their own piece of land which they work and live together. There are religious ceremonies, during which people dance and sing after drinking the holy Daime.12
Compared with the late 60s and early 70s, in recent years there seems a resurgence of underground religious psychedelic cults popping up throughout the internet, rave and nomadic subcultures with neo-shamanic techno-pagans contacting aliens and talking to god through their ritual sacraments.13,14
It seems that all sources of reference and research regarding DMT are not only extremely fascinating but indeed screaming for more freedom from the current restricting drugs laws that prohibit mankind to not only gain insight into this amazing compound but perhaps our own human experience. Much of the information available regarding DMT is separated in two distinguishable streams of reference. One of which coming from the academic field of scientific research and the other sect of those seekers of secrets brave enough to travel within hyperspace and experience DMT firsthand.
To understand something so phenomenal, the effectiveness of reading about DMT can only go so far as to perpetuate interest. One can read for days on end with only ignorance to the profound effects of such an amazing substance.
REFERENCES:
1. Rick Strassman, DMT Spirit Molecule (2001) p.42
2. Barker SA, Monti JA and Christian ST (1981). N,N-Dimethyltryptamine: An endogenous hallucinogen. In International Review of Neurobiology, vol 22; Academic Press, Inc.
3. Alexander Shulgin, Profiles of Psychedelic Drugs (1977)
4. Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin, TIHKAL (Berkeley, CA: Transform Press, 1997), 247-84.
5. Callaway JC and Grob CS (1998). Ayahuasca preparations and serotonin reuptake inhibitors: a potential combination for adverse interaction. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 30(4): 367-369.
6. Callaway JC (1988). A proposed mechanism for the visions of dream sleep. Medical Hypotheses 26: 119-124.
7. Rick Strassman, DMT Spirit Molecule (2001) chapter 6
8. Rick Strassman, DMT Spirit Molecule (2001) chapter 13
9. Lamadrid, Enrique R., Treasures of the Mama Huaca: oral tradition and ecological consciousness in Chinchaysuyu, Latin American Institute, Albequerque (1993)
10. Martin A. Lee (2001) Shamanism vs. Capitalism: The Politics of Ayahuasca
11. Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao Do Vegetal. [Supreme Court: Chief Justice Roberts Opens 2005-06 Term]
12. Hannah Bouma (1996) Ayahuasca Plant of the Gods; Amsterdam Drug Magazine
13. http://www.erowid.org
14. http://www.maps.org
AEQEA
