DMT: The Endogenous Spirit Molecule Your Brain Produces Every Day

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The Most Powerful Psychedelic Is Already Inside You

N,N-Dimethyltryptamine — DMT — occupies a unique position in the landscape of psychedelic compounds. It is the most powerful naturally occurring psychedelic known, producing effects that depart from ordinary consciousness more radically than any other substance. When smoked or injected, it launches awareness into spaces so alien that even experienced psychonauts struggle to convey what they encounter: self-transforming geometric entities, hyperdimensional architectures, intelligent presences that communicate through telepathy and light, and a pervasive sense that this world — the “breakthrough” space — is more real than the physical world the user left behind.

But DMT is not merely a drug discovered in plants and abused by seekers. It is an endogenous molecule — produced by the mammalian brain, present at neurotransmitter-level concentrations, synthesized by the same cellular machinery that makes serotonin. Your brain is making DMT right now, as you read this sentence.

The 2019 confirmation of endogenous brain DMT production by Jimo Borjigin’s laboratory at the University of Michigan transformed the conversation about this molecule entirely. DMT is no longer “a drug that mimics mystical experience.” It is a neurotransmitter — an endogenous signaling molecule — that the brain produces, releases, and presumably uses for something.

The question that drives the current frontier of DMT research is not whether the brain makes DMT. It does. The question is: what is it for?

The Chemistry: Two Methyl Groups That Change Everything

DMT differs from serotonin by a single structural modification. Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine) has a hydroxyl group at position 5 of the indole ring and an unsubstituted (primary) amine on the ethylamine side chain. DMT has no hydroxyl group and has two methyl groups on the amine (a tertiary amine).

This seemingly minor modification — removing one hydroxyl group and adding two methyl groups — transforms the molecule’s pharmacological profile completely:

Receptor affinity. DMT is a potent agonist at 5-HT2A receptors (the “psychedelic receptor”), 5-HT2C receptors, sigma-1 receptors, and trace amine-associated receptors (TAARs). Its affinity profile is broader than psilocin (which is relatively selective for 5-HT2A) and includes receptor targets that other classical psychedelics do not engage.

Sigma-1 receptor agonism. DMT’s activity at the sigma-1 receptor is particularly interesting. Sigma-1 receptors are found on the endoplasmic reticulum (the cell’s protein-folding and lipid-synthesis machinery) and are involved in cellular stress responses, calcium signaling, and neuroplasticity. DMT’s activation of sigma-1 receptors may contribute to its neuroprotective and neuroplastic effects — effects that go beyond consciousness alteration into cellular repair and regeneration.

TAAR1 agonism. Trace amine-associated receptor 1 (TAAR1) is a relatively recently discovered receptor that modulates dopaminergic and serotonergic neurotransmission. DMT’s activity at TAAR1 may explain some of the qualitative differences between DMT and other psychedelics — the unique “hyper-real” quality of the DMT experience, the speed of onset, and the rapid return to baseline.

MAO substrate. DMT is rapidly degraded by monoamine oxidase (MAO) enzymes in the gut and liver. When taken orally, DMT is destroyed before it can reach the brain — which is why ayahuasca requires an MAO inhibitor (from the Banisteriopsis caapi vine) to be active orally. When smoked or injected, DMT bypasses the gut and liver, reaching the brain intact.

The rapidity of DMT’s metabolism is itself significant. The brain produces DMT, but it also rapidly destroys it. This suggests that endogenous DMT functions as a fast, transient signal — not a tonic modulator like serotonin, but a phasic signal released in specific contexts for specific purposes.

The Borjigin Study: The Evidence That Changed Everything

The 2019 study by Jimo Borjigin and colleagues, published in Scientific Reports, provided the definitive evidence for endogenous DMT production in the mammalian brain. The study’s methods and findings deserve detailed examination:

Methods. The researchers used in situ hybridization to map the expression of INMT (indolethylamine-N-methyltransferase — the enzyme that converts tryptamine to DMT by adding two methyl groups) and AADC (aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase — the enzyme that converts tryptophan to tryptamine) in rat brain tissue. They then used microdialysis — a technique that samples the extracellular fluid surrounding neurons in vivo — to measure DMT concentrations in the cerebral cortex of living, behaving rats.

Finding 1: Co-localization. INMT and AADC mRNA were co-expressed in the same neurons in the cerebral cortex, pineal gland, and choroid plexus. This means that individual neurons contain the complete enzymatic machinery for DMT synthesis — they can convert tryptophan to tryptamine (via AADC) and then to DMT (via INMT) within a single cell.

Finding 2: Brain-wide production. DMT synthesis was not confined to the pineal gland. It was found throughout the cerebral cortex — in the same brain regions that produce serotonin and that mediate conscious experience. Pinealectomized rats (with their pineal glands surgically removed) showed no reduction in brain DMT levels compared to intact controls.

Finding 3: Neurotransmitter-level concentrations. Extracellular DMT concentrations in the rat cortex were comparable to serotonin concentrations — on the order of nanomolar. This demolished the long-standing objection that endogenous DMT existed only in “trace” amounts too small to be physiologically significant.

Finding 4: Increased release during cardiac arrest. DMT levels in the cortex increased significantly during experimentally induced cardiac arrest — providing a neurochemical mechanism for near-death experiences.

The implications of these findings are difficult to overstate. DMT is not a trace metabolite or a biochemical accident. It is a neurotransmitter, produced in the cortex by the same neurons that make serotonin, present at functional concentrations, and released in increased quantities during the dying process.

The Entity Encounter Phenomenon

The most distinctive feature of the DMT experience — and the feature that most challenges the materialist worldview — is the entity encounter. Approximately 60-80% of individuals who achieve a “breakthrough” DMT experience (a dose sufficient to produce complete departure from ordinary reality) report encountering autonomous, intelligent, non-human presences.

These entities are described with remarkable consistency across individuals, cultures, and historical periods:

Form. Entities are described variously as humanoid, insectoid, geometric, amorphous, or made of light. Common forms include “machine elves” (Terence McKenna’s term), “jeweled self-dribbling basketballs” (also McKenna), “mantis beings” (insectoid entities), “light beings,” and “geometric intelligences.”

Behavior. Entities are typically described as purposeful, communicative, and engaged with the experiencer. They may welcome the visitor, teach them, show them things, perform tasks, or communicate information through telepathy, gesture, or visual display.

Emotional quality. Encounters are typically described as profoundly positive — characterized by love, joy, astonishment, and a sense of homecoming. Some encounters include an element of tricksterish playfulness or cosmic humor. A minority include fear or confrontation, though these are less common.

Ontological conviction. The most striking consistent feature is the experiencer’s conviction that the entities are real — not hallucinations, not products of imagination, but genuine autonomous intelligences existing in a dimension of reality that ordinary consciousness does not access. This conviction persists after the experience ends and is reported even by committed materialists and atheists.

A 2020 survey study by Davis et al. (Johns Hopkins), published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, examined entity encounters in 2,561 individuals who had used DMT. Key findings:

• 72% reported that the entity experience was among the most meaningful of their lives.
• 80% reported that the entity encounter altered their fundamental understanding of the nature of reality.
• 69% reported receiving a message or information during the encounter.
• 58% reported that the entity existed in some other dimension of reality.
• 53% of those who identified as atheist before the experience no longer identified as atheist afterward.

These findings do not prove that the entities are “real” in any conventional sense. But they do establish that the entity encounter is a robust, replicable, cross-cultural phenomenon with consistent features and lasting psychological effects — not an idiosyncratic hallucination.

Andrew Gallimore and the Extended-State DMT Protocol

The brevity of the smoked DMT experience (10-20 minutes) has always been a limitation for both experiential exploration and scientific investigation. Andrew Gallimore, a neurobiologist at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, and Rick Strassman developed the DMTx (extended-state DMT) protocol to address this limitation.

The DMTx protocol uses pharmacokinetic modeling to calculate continuous intravenous infusion rates that maintain stable blood DMT levels for extended periods — hours rather than minutes. The model accounts for DMT’s rapid metabolism and predicts the infusion rate needed to sustain a target plasma concentration.

Early DMTx trials at Imperial College London (conducted by Christopher Timmermann and colleagues) have shown that:

• Extended DMT states are tolerable and do not produce the escalating anxiety or “bad trip” dynamics that some researchers feared.
• The sense of self (ego) is preserved during extended DMT states — unlike high-dose psilocybin, which typically produces ego dissolution, extended DMT maintains a functional observer.
• Entity encounters can be sustained and explored in detail over extended periods, opening the possibility of systematic investigation.

The DMTx technology represents a paradigm shift: from brief, overwhelming, hard-to-study DMT “flashes” to sustained, navigable, scientifically accessible DMT states.

The Endogenous Question: What Is Brain DMT For?

The Borjigin findings establish that the brain produces DMT. They do not establish what it does. Several hypotheses are currently being explored:

The dream hypothesis. DMT may be released during REM sleep and may contribute to the generation of dreams — particularly vivid, bizarre, and emotionally intense dreams. The phenomenological similarity between DMT visions and dream imagery supports this hypothesis, though direct evidence (measuring DMT during human REM sleep) is not yet available.

The near-death hypothesis. The increased DMT release during cardiac arrest in rats suggests that endogenous DMT may mediate near-death experiences (NDEs). The phenomenological parallels between DMT experiences and NDEs are striking: tunnel of light, encounters with beings, life review, perception of a “more real” reality, loss of fear of death.

The neuroprotective hypothesis. DMT’s activation of sigma-1 receptors — which are involved in cellular stress responses and neuroprotection — suggests that endogenous DMT may function as a neuroprotective agent, released during brain injury or oxygen deprivation to protect neurons from damage.

The neuroplasticity hypothesis. DMT promotes dendritic growth and synaptogenesis (the formation of new synaptic connections) through BDNF-TrkB signaling and sigma-1 receptor activation. Endogenous DMT may serve a trophic function — maintaining neuronal health and plasticity in brain regions critical for cognition and consciousness.

The consciousness-regulation hypothesis. This is the most speculative but most interesting hypothesis. If serotonin sets the baseline of consciousness and melatonin initiates the transition to sleep/dream consciousness, endogenous DMT may regulate transitions to the deepest states of consciousness — states accessed during profound meditation, mystical experience, extreme stress, and death. In this model, DMT is the “emergency channel” — the molecule the brain uses when consciousness needs to access resources beyond the ordinary bandwidth.

The Shamanic Concordance

The DMT experience bears extraordinary parallels to shamanic journey reports from cultures that do not use DMT-containing plants:

Shamanic Journey	DMT Experience
Travel to “other worlds”	Transport to alien landscapes
Encounters with spirits/guides	Encounters with entities
Information received from spirits	”Download” from entities
Death and rebirth	Ego dissolution and reconstruction
Healing received in spirit world	Psychological/emotional transformation
Return with knowledge/power	Return with insight/changed worldview

These parallels suggest two possibilities:

1. The brain hypothesis: All shamanic experiences and all DMT experiences are products of the same brain mechanisms — endogenous DMT release during drumming, fasting, and other shamanic techniques produces the same neurochemical state as exogenous DMT administration.

2. The reality hypothesis: Both shamanic techniques and DMT access the same real dimension of reality — a dimension that is not produced by the brain but perceived by it, using DMT as the molecular interface.

The current state of science cannot distinguish between these hypotheses. Both are consistent with the available evidence. The choice between them is, at present, a philosophical commitment — not a scientific conclusion.

But the existence of endogenous DMT in the brain at neurotransmitter-level concentrations makes the second hypothesis more plausible than most scientists are willing to acknowledge. If the brain produces its own portal molecule in quantities comparable to serotonin, the question is not “Why do drugs produce hallucinations?” The question is: “Why does the brain produce a molecule whose effects feel like contact with another dimension of reality?”

That question remains the deepest and most unsettling challenge that DMT poses to the materialist worldview. And it is a question that cannot be answered by pharmacology alone. It requires a theory of consciousness. And we do not yet have one.