DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences

by Rick Strassman M. D.

  I hope to have convincingly argued that naturally occurring psychedelic states, such as contact with nonmaterial beings, and near-death and mystical experiences, resemble those induced by outside-administered DMT in our volunteers. Many of the following series of studies build upon these similarities.

  The first step is to examine the role of endogenous DMT in mediating the naturally occurring psychedelic states under discussion. We could begin by investigating the role of the pineal gland in producing endogenous DMT.

  There are many non-invasive ways of studying pineal physiology in the living person using modern brain-imaging techniques. If the spirit gland is more active during dreams, deep meditation, or alien abduction experiences, this would be evidence for its role in their occurrence. In addition, we could use these technologies to determine if psychedelic drugs directly affect the pineal gland.

  We might remove pineal glands from dying animals at various time points after death. If there were measurable amounts of DMT in them, it would support something similar happening in humans. Human pineal release of DMT near, at, or after death would strengthen the hypothesis that the spirit molecule accompanies consciousness’s departure from the body.

  Elevated DMT levels in body fluids during dreams and childbirth would suggest a relationship between endogenous DMT and these profound shifts in consciousness. Even more compelling would be to find high DMT levels in people in the midst of a near-death, mystical, or abduction experience.

  We could explore further the hypothesis that Cesarean-born infants are not exposed to a primordial “high-dose DMT session” at birth. In chapter 4 I propose that DMT’s absence in their deliveries is responsible for some of the psychological and spiritual difficulties Cesarean-born adults encounter later in life. Different responses to DMT in Cesarean-born adults compared to those born vaginally would support this idea. Controlled exposure to DMT in Cesarean-born adults might allow them to partake of the subjective experience of a normal vaginal birth, and therefore may be remedial.

  Another series of experiments would give DMT to those who have undergone spontaneous psychedelic experiences, and then ask them to compare the two experiences. Substantial similarity would support a role for endogenous DMT in the original, naturally occurring event. Outside-administered DMT might then provide more controlled access to those states for us to study and utilize more effectively.

  The simplest of these projects would be to investigate the relationship between DMT and rapid eye movement, or dream, sleep. If giving DMT during sleep caused the immediate onset of typical dreams, this would support a role for naturally produced DMT in this common altered state.

  If administering DMT reproduced part or all of a particular person’s previous spontaneous near-death, enlightenment, or abduction experience, we’d be on firmer ground proposing a role for natural DMT in these experiences.

  We began approaching the issue of natural and drug-induced enlightenment with one of our volunteers, Sophie, a forty-two-year-old former nun. She had had a mystical experience during a retreat at her nunnery that the abbess confirmed as genuine. She demonstrated a minimal response to her high doses of DMT, an exciting initial confirmation of my hypothesis. That is, if DMT were involved in her mystical experience, perhaps her brain had learned to deal with naturally occurring elevated levels by reducing its sensitivity to the spirit molecule. This would be something like tolerance.

  However, the next volunteer who demonstrated even less of a response to 0.4 mg/kg DMT seriously challenged this theory. Charles, a thirty-four-year-old bartender, had never meditated a day in his life. In his case, we proposed a hard-wiring, genetic predisposition to his mild DMT response. He was born that way.

  I therefore needed to be more modest in attributing Sophie’s minimal reaction to her prior mystical experience. Of course, it’s possible that each hypothesis was true for the particular individual, but there would be a certain intellectual dishonesty in using the data in such a self-serving manner.2

  While the above projects would go a long way toward legitimizing the study of highly unusual states of mind, they no longer hold the appeal for me they once did. I am now less interested in the “how” than in the “if so, so what?” Whether what we learn is ultimately helpful depends upon how we use that information.

  I believe the best research use of psychedelics is to treat uniquely human disorders and to enhance distinctly human characteristics. Let’s then visualize an optimal setting for administering and taking psychedelic drugs that accepts these challenges.

  Such a center would exist in a beautiful natural setting but would possess all the required medical facilities for emergency backup. There would be examples of exquisite art and architecture that could provide inspiration for those participating in the research protocols. Research scientists and staff would possess psychotherapeutic, psychedelic, and spiritual training and would work under medical direction. Protocols would occur in the fields of psychotherapy, creativity, spirituality, and the dying process. There would be studies, too, of the being-contact phenomenon and its relationship to parallel universes and dark matter.

  Time and again we saw how the Research Center environment negatively impacted our DMT sessions. The clinical environment was even more problematic for the longer psilocybin sessions. While a more pleasant setting is essential, one of great beauty is even better suited to guide and support research subjects during their highly suggestible and vulnerable experiences. Nevertheless, there are potentially dangerous adverse physical, especially cardiovascular, effects of psychedelics, and equipment and staff must exist to respond to them.

  Medical doctors’ training and experience provide them unique abilities to appreciate, understand, and respond to the whole human organism’s reaction to medications. Therefore, the law places the privilege and responsibility of using drugs in the hands of physicians. Within the field of medicine, psychiatrists receive the most exhaustive training in dealing with human behavior and its relationship to the physical body. However, traditional psychiatric medical training ought to be only the preliminary requirement for being able to administer psychedelic drugs to another human being. One of the most important additional qualifications should be having taken psychedelics oneself.

  In the 1950s and 1960s self-experimentation was a generally recognized tool in psychopharmacology. Similarly, and in contrast to contemporary American protocol, European psychedelic researchers must “go first” in their studies. This approach increases the quality of informed consent provided by the investigator, provides pilot data for further refinement of hypotheses and techniques, and enhances researchers’ empathy with volunteers’ experiences. Future North American studies should request permission from regulatory boards to follow our European colleagues in this extraordinarily important matter.3

  In addition to “having been there oneself,” a researcher who plans on administering psychedelics to others must clearly examine his or her motivations to do so. Formal supervised training in self-examination is necessary for anyone in the powerful position of giving people psychedelic drugs. While there are many such systems, I believe the psychoanalytic model is the most thorough and comprehensive. It explores important childhood experiences in the context of developing and working through a close relationship with a therapist. It also examines unconscious motivations and urges affecting our behavior and feelings. This inner psychological work is crucial in helping us relate to our research subjects whose interpersonal needs and fears are magnified powerfully while under a psychedelic’s spell.

  Understanding religious sensibilities in as deep a manner as possible also is necessary for being fully supportive and understanding while supervising psychedelic sessions. This does not mean simply having spiritual or religious experiences oneself, with or without a psychedelic. Rather, it ought to include training and background in religious sensibilities. Education in theology, ethics, and ritual additionally will help in empathizing with and understanding important aspects of the
full psychedelic experience.

  Before performing the DMT research, I never would have suggested that familiarity with alien abduction phenomena would be important in providing the best possible supervision for sessions. However, I do now. I also believe it’s helpful to know something about current theories regarding “invisible realms,” like dark matter and parallel universes.

  Equipped with these types of training and experience, research scientists and staff will be ready to understand, accept, and react to nearly everything that might come up during deep psychedelic sessions.

  Ongoing studies at this ideal research site could generate an exhaustive dose-response database for old and new psychedelic drugs. By standardizing and optimizing the setting, we will learn what really is possible with particular doses of individual drugs.

  In addition, there’s a lot to be learned from small doses of psychedelics. These “little trips” receive scant attention, but they can have highly desirable effects. For example, many of the early psychedelic psychotherapy researchers preferred treating patients with low doses in “psycholytic,” or “mind-loosening,” psychotherapy because they were easier to use and patients better retained therapeutic effects.

  Over a cup of tea one summer day at his house in Switzerland, Albert Hofmann, who discovered LSD, shared with me his fondness for low doses of this drug. He and others have described a quickening of thought, brightening of perception, and elevation in mood that contribute to subtle but profound effects on mental function. Side effects are nearly nonexistent.

  Psychedelics may help treat our most troubling psychiatric and psychological problems. Our proposed psychedelic research center would focus much of its work in this area. However, we must be ready for the potentially clashing views of healing that will surface in the design and interpretation of such research.

  For example, there are several reports in the psychiatric literature describing relief of symptoms in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, after taking psilocybin-containing mushrooms. The OCD syndrome consists of irresistible urges to repeat useless behavior and thoughts that consume distressing amounts of time and energy. That serotonin- active drugs like Prozac help patients with OCD has focused attention on this neurotransmitter. Researchers now plan to give psilocybin in an attempt to treat patients with OCD, using serotonin-receptor physiology as their underlying model. No recourse to psychological processes really is necessary, although it may prove crucial to a fuller understanding of its beneficial effects.

  We also might treat conditions with deficits in psychological, rather than only neurotransmitter, health, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, drug and alcohol abuse, and the anguish and suffering associated with terminal illness.

  Post-traumatic stress disorder causes feeling of being trapped in the past, endlessly rushing backward on a time machine toward horrible events. Childhood physical and sexual abuse and exposure to natural and manmade catastrophes are ever-increasing concerns in our society. Early studies by psychedelic psychotherapy researchers explored these drugs’ use in post-traumatic conditions. Up until his recent death, the Dutch psychiatrist Jan Bastiaans used psychedelic drugs to treat successfully many difficult cases of concentration-camp survivor syndrome.4

  Many people abuse drugs and alcohol in an attempt to resolve similarly painful memories and emotions. Soon, however, complications of substance abuse become more troubling than the initial problems. It’s been shown that membership in the peyote-using Native American Church reduces the incidence of alcoholism. Similar effects on alcohol and cocaine dependence seem to occur in members of ayahuasca-using churches in Brazil.5

  Finally, negative reactions to the pain and deterioration of terminal illness trigger a vast array of unresolved feelings. The growing number of aging and dying “baby-boomers” as well as AIDS and other epidemics give great poignancy to a desire for a comfortable and “good” death. Several early studies demonstrated promising results using high-dose psychedelic therapy sessions.

  The implications of our research with DMT may make work with the dying perhaps even more compelling. If DMT is released at the time of death, then administering it to the living would provide a “dry run” for the real thing. The letting go, the experience of consciousness existing independently of the body, encountering a loving and powerful presence in that state—all seemed to provide a powerful intimation of what happens as the body drops away.

  However, we are treading in sensitive waters when considering work with the dying. If a patient has frightening encounters with their own psyche or nonmaterial realms, there may be precious little time to set things straight. Furthermore, what if there is nothing at all similar between the experience of dying and a high dose of DMT? The shock, disorientation, and fear could make the dying process more difficult than would otherwise have been the case.

  In addition to the treatment of clinical disorders, psychedelics could be used to enhance characteristics of our normal state of being, such as creativity, problem-solving abilities, spirituality, and so on. The research institute I envision will carefully and responsibly take the lead in such studies. This work may ultimately serve more people, and have greater overall impact, than strictly pathology-based therapy projects.

  We are seeing an ever-increasing availability of relatively side-effect-free antidepressants, sexual performance enhancers, stimulants, and mood stabilizers. These new, easy-to-take chemical agents are forcing us to reevaluate the risks and benefits involved in making us better than average. Why not use psychedelics, too, for indications other than treating the sick?

  DMT elicited ideas, feelings, thoughts, and images our volunteers said they never could have imagined. Psychedelics stimulate the imagination, and thus they are logical tools to enhance creativity. The problems facing our society and planet require the use of novel ideas as much as new and more powerful technology. It’s impossible to overstate the urgent need to improve our imaginative abilities. Psychedelics may provide a powerful tool for doing so.

  I’ve mentioned previously Harman’s and Fadiman’s 1960s studies of psychedelics’ positive effects on problem solving. Research subjects, all professionals in their fields, found that many of these psychedelically enhanced solutions were quite effective. There currently are many well-characterized ways of measuring creativity, including artistic, scientific, psychological, spiritual, and emotional. It would be relatively straightforward to renew research into psychedelics’ effects on this crucial human quality.

  Many definitions of imagination refer to the divine nature of this attribute. To conceive of and produce something new allows us to share in some of God’s creative power. Our imagination extends us by thought into places where nothing previously existed. We therefore return to the role of psychedelics in spirituality.

  As I suggested in chapter 20, “Stepping on Holy Toes,” there is a rational course of action for melding psychedelics within a spiritual discipline. If a religious aspirant lacks firsthand knowledge of the sublime states that trickle down through scripture, ritual, and discipleship, carefully guided, supervised, and followed-up psychedelic sessions may spur him or her on within the chosen faith. This type of work also may help develop a more broad-minded and universal approach to the spiritual.

  We may quibble about what is biological, psychological, or spiritual. Resolving inner conflicts, ending damaging relationships with people or substances, and stimulating the imagination all can be held and supported using these three models. However, we are pressed far beyond our comfort zone as clinician-researchers when dealing with psychedelic subjects who return telling tales of contact and interactions with seemingly autonomous nonmaterial entities. How, then, do we study these “transdimensional” properties of DMT?

  We must begin by assuming that these types of experiences are “possibly real.” In other words, they may indicate “what it’s like” in alternate realities. The earliest attempts at systematically investigating these contacts should determine the co
nsistency and stability of the beings. With lessening shock at their presence, is it possible to prolong, expand, and deepen our interactions with them? Do people encountering beings possessing similar appearances, behaviors, and “locale” also report the exchange of comparable messages and information?

  Not only research would take place at such an institution. Experimental studies first would establish the best use of psychedelics for particular indications: therapeutic, creative, or spiritual. As in any other comparable setting where innovative treatments take place, greater numbers of people then would receive these specialized services. During their stay, there would be less data gathering and more emphasis on outcome measures for follow-up purposes.

  A natural consequence of the expertise available at this institute is that education and training also would be a prominent activity. There would be ongoing opportunities for learning from experts in all the fields that might inform, and be enhanced, by the psychedelic experience. Finally, the research center would house an exhaustive library and archival service and could serve as a clearinghouse for all manner of educational materials.

  Epilogue

  While professionally and personally grueling, the University of New Mexico psychedelic drug research was undoubtedly the most inspiring and remarkable time in my life. The resumption of this work in the United States was my lifelong dream, and I’m glad to have been in the right place at the right time to do it.

  As a clinical research scientist with extensive psychotherapeutic and spiritual training and experience, I believed I was qualified to initiate this American renewal of human psychedelic research. In some ways I was, and in others I wasn’t, ready for where the spirit molecule would lead us. We succeeded in opening a door that had remained tightly locked for a generation. However, the box, like Pandora’s, once opened, let out a force with its own agenda and language. It was a power that healed, hurt, startled, and was indifferent in wild and unpredictable ways. At every turn, I heard it call out in a voice that was tender, challenging, engaging, and frightening. But the question never changed.