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The Brain's Own Psychedelic Rick Strassman ---------------------..-iiiii..-------··--···--·-·- -·--· . reli- o :he rialy- 2 ;c:ng ~del- DMT The Brain's Own Psychedelic a.ion Rick Strassman We have known about the psychedelic effects produced by plants con- taining DMT, particularly from Latin America, much longer than we have known about DMT itself. In the 1600s, priest-ethnographers from Spain described Latin American indigenous people's use of DMT-containing psychedelic snuffs and smoking mixtures made from the genus Anadenanthera. Intrepid nineteenth-century European explorers of the Amazon, such as Spruce, von Humboldt, and Koch-Grunberg, observed the prepa- ration and use of ayahuasca containing DMT-rich plants, particularly Psychotria viridis in combination with Banisteriopsis caapi) which con- tains the enzyme inhibitors that allow DMT to become active orally. In the last century, the late Richard Schultes was instrumental in car- rying on this tradition of documenting the vibrant use of psychedelic plants in Latin America. 1 The Canadian chemist Richard Manske first synthesized DMT in his laboratory in 1931, as one of a series of tryptamine derivatives related to his research on a toxic North American shrub.' There is no evidence, however, that he was familiar with DMT's psycho activity, and we assume he never used it himself. A 1946 Spanish-language scientific paper first described the presence 33 34 DMT: The Brain's Own Psychedelic of DMT in South American psychedelic snuffs;' and in 1955, a compa- tions."" Ke', rable paper appeared in the English-language Iiterature.? While the pres- European a: ence of DMT in these plants was now established, its psycho activity was book's foc-c not. In 1955, Hungarian psychiatrist and chemist Stephen Szara stymied sentient, ar; in his attempts to obtain LSD for research behind the Iron Curtain, For exa: decided to synthesize DMT based upon the papers documenting its pres- rience 0:'=,: ence in psychedelic plants. As so many research scientists before him had dream, b..:: done, Szara experimented on himself, swallowing ever-increasing doses of or sometr.iz the drug. Failing to note an effect through the oral route, he injected also stucv.: himself intramuscularly, and thus discovered the profound psychedelic volunteer , : activity of DMT: "In three or four minutes I started to experience visual Thev werc : sensations that were very similar to what I had read in descriptions by Hofmann [about LSD] and Huxley [about mescaline]. [... ] I got very, very excited. It was obvious this was the secret." Szara soon thereafter recruited thirty volunteers, mostly physician colleagues, to receive fully , - psychedelic doses of DMT. numc c: :: One of these physicians described his experience: "The whole world is brilliant. [... ] The whole room is filled with spirits. It makes me dizzy. [... ] Now it is too much! [... ] I feel exactly as if I were flying. [... ] I have the feeling this is above everything, above the earth." As effects wore off, he continued: "It is comforting to know I am back on earth again. [... ] Everything has a spiritual tinge, but is so real. [... ] I - - - '-. - -----.•. feel that I have landed. [... ]"6 Szara soon thereafter immigrated to the United States, where he spent a distinguished career spanning more than three decades at ___ ' __ = -]t: the National Institute on Drug Abuse, finally retiring in 1991. His research group in Hungary continued with some additional DMT studies, as did several U.S. groups, but within the academic literature, no one was as thorough as Szara in documenting the subjective effects of DMT. For example, the premier U.S. psychedelic research site at the time, the Federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky, published reports on DMT used in their prisoner volunteers which described effects simply -::n: as "... anxiety, hallucinations (usually visual), and perceptual distor- r • DMT: The Brain's Own Psychedelic 3S O::1pa- tions."? Nevertheless, there were some tantalizing reports generated by e ~res- European and u.s. labs that fall particularly within the context of this r. was book's focus, namely outlining contact with seemingly autonomous, -=:-ied sentient, and interactive beings. L:ain, For example, Szara's former Hungarian colleagues noted the expe- :os ores- rience of one schizophrenic patient on DMT: "I saw such a strange r:::. had dream, but at the beginning only. [... J I saw strange creatures, dwarves 05e5 of or something; they were black and moved about." An American team t;::.:(ed also studying the effects of DMT in psychotic patients reported one lee ':elic volunteer's experience: "I was in a big place, and they were hurting me. .",-:'sual They were not human. [... J They were horrible! I was living in a world C=--~5 by of orange people."? t: very, These reports of DMT effects, both from the late 1950s, are the reafter only ones I have found in the peer-reviewed academic scientific lit- 't: ::"ully erature that describe contact with beings, despite the vastly greater number of studies describing effects of LSD and other better-known : 7.orld psychedelics. ke s me DMT garnered a rather negative reputation on the street based t-:':~ing. upon some popular literature describing its effects. Naked Lunch by :.L~As William Burroughs is probably the most widely read account of the 12':";: on tendency of DMT to overwhelm its users with its rapid onset and dis- ~... J I orienting "rush." DMT emerged from its relative scientific obscurity, especially rela- -;;~here tive to LSD, when scientists discovered that both it and the necessary aces at enzymes for its synthesis were present in laboratory animals. In 1965, n. His German scientists demonstrated that DMT is present in human blood." ~:\1T Soon thereafter, brain, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid (which bathes F:;,:ure, both the brain and spinal cord) were also found to contain DMT. The I -- i errects requisite enzymes, similar to those in nonhumans, were also found in i ~ at the brain and lung cells and red blood cells. Thus, the endogenous nature beeS on of DMT, its short duration of action, and its possible role in psychosis o:..rnply made it the object of substantial scientific inquiry. c istor- Nevertheless, DMT suffered a fate both similar to and, in some 36 DMT: The Brain's Own Psychedelic ways, even more tragic than that which befell LSD during the antipsy- value of :~-_: chedelic furor of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The relevance of its 188. TL,_, unique endogenicity was limited to being a possible cause of mental ill- viding a., = ness, primarily schizophrenia. When studies measuring its presence in ten tiIT_E'Z various human body fluids failed to demonstrate significant differences with a :::-E_~: between normal volunteers and those with psychotic illness, enthusiasm Pure = waned. Rather than refine the assay technology for DMT to measure ture a::-_-=--_, more accurately the very low endogenous levels found in human body like =- = :_-_:' fluids or the diagnostic criteria by which to parse research subjects, the is fai::-~-;--:;;-:: studies lost momentum. The most quoted paper in this field remains a British report that describes fluctuations in DMT levels in psychotic patients correlating with their level of psychosis.'! _-:.. __- ::1 -.,.,-..:.- By limiting the importance of endogenous DMT to mental illness, --'-.: ... _ .•... _--- -~--.::.- - - .- psychiatry lost a golden opportunity to study the more general topic -~. - .--~- -~-..!.. of human consciousness and its perturbations. Even if DMT was ulti- .•.. - - - -- - mately not found to be involved in psychosis, it may have been shown -- .- -. ~.. -.~ .;: - - -,":' -. ,"'-'." that it was involved in nonpsychotic altered states of consciousness such ••... _,--- - - - '-, .•........;.. as mystical, spiritual, and near-death states. This, however, was more than psychiatry could undertake at the ------.,.:...- - --- -- ~.".,-. - ~ time. Psychedelic drugs were high-risk as a reputable research agenda, as was any attempt to relate them to religious sensibilities. Though there existed psychiatric research groups that tackled thorny religious .-_- ::Ie issues with psychedelics, such as the University of Maryland's group,12 and though some of these even exist today,':' the relationship between endogenous DMT and endogenous spiritual experiences seems to have - --~-- ] been overlooked. --.-- - :&: WHAT IS DMT? N,N-dimethyltryptamine, the prototypical tryptamine psychedelic, is first and foremost a chemical entity. It contains twelve carbon atoms, six- .- J teen hydrogens, and two nitrogens. Its molecular weight-the combined r--- - DMT: The Brain's Own Psychedelic 37 L_::PSy- value of the weights of all its elements, relative to the 1 of hydrogen-is c of its 188. This is only slightly more than that of glucose, the simple sugar pro- r..:d ill- viding all of our body's energy, which is 180. The weight of DMT is only .c::-::ein ten times greater than that of water, which is 18. Thus, we are dealing - :e:-·ences with a relatively small, simple molecule. rz siasm Pure DMT is a waxy or crystalline substance at room tempera- Leasure ture and usually has a slightly orange-pink tinge. It may smell slightly coody like mothballs due to its indole ring. DMT's pharmacological profile ~'::" the is fairly well understood. It binds to the same subtypes of serotonin =:.ins a receptors as do the other classical psychedelics such as LSD: the 5- ".-':;:otic HT2A and 5-HTIA sites." A unique pharmacological property of DMT -different from the .. , ~~:1ess, nonendogenous psychedelics such as LSD,
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