In 1990, I began the first new human research with psychedelic, or hallucinogenic, drugs in the United States in over 20 years. These studies investigated the effects of N, N-dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, an extremely short-acting and powerful psychedelic. During the project's five years, I administered approximately 400 doses of DMT to 60 human volunteers.
The book DMT: The Spirit Molecule (rickstrassman.com)
This research took place at the University of New Mexico's School of Medicine in Albuquerque, where I was tenured Associate Professor of Psychiatry. I was drawn to DMT because of its presence in all of our bodies. Perhaps excessive DMT production, coming from the mysterious pineal gland, was involved in naturally occurring "psychedelic" states. These might include birth, death and near-death, psychosis, and mystical experiences.
Only later, while the study was well under way, did I also begin considering DMT's role in the "alien abduction" experience. The DMT project was founded on cutting edge brain science, especially the psychopharmacology of serotonin. However, my own background powerfully affected how we prepared people for, and supervised, their drug sessions. One of these was a decades-long relationship with a Zen Buddhist training monastery.
The Spirit Molecule examines what we know about psychedelic drugs in general, and DMT in particular. It then traces the DMT research project from its earliest intimations through the maze of committees and review boards to its actual performance.Our research subjects were healthy volunteers. The studies were not intended to be therapeutic, although all of us believed in the potentially beneficial properties of psychedelic drugs. The project generated a wealth of biological and psychological data, much of which I have already published in the scientific literature.
On the other hand, I have written nearly nothing about volunteers' stories. I hope these many excerpts from over 1000 pages of my bedside notes provide a sense of the remarkable emotional, psychological, and spiritual effects of this chemical.
Problems inside and outside of the research environment led to the end of these studies in 1995. Despite the difficulties we encountered, I am optimistic about the possible benefits of the controlled use of these drugs. Based upon what we learned in the New Mexico research, I offer a wide-ranging vision for DMT's role in our lives, and conclude by proposing a research agenda and optimal setting for future work with DMT and related drugs.
The late Willis Harman possessed one of the most discerning minds to apply himself to the field of psychedelic research. Willis, earlier in his career, had published the first and only scientific study using psychedelics to enhance the creative process. When I met him 30 years later in 1994, he was president of Institute of Noetic Sciences, an organization founded by the sixth man to walk on the moon, Edgar Mitchell.
Mitchell's mystical experience, stimulated by viewing the Earth on his return home, inspired him to study phenomenon outside the range of traditional science, which nevertheless might yield to a broader application of the scientific method.During a long walk together along the central California coastal range one day, he said firmly, "At the very least, we must enlarge the discussion about psychedelics."
It is in response to his request that I include highly speculative ideas and my own personal motivations for performing this research. This approach will satisfy no one in every respect. There is intense friction between what we know intellectually or even intuitively, and what we experience with the aid of DMT. As one of our volunteers exclaimed after his first high dose session, "Wow! I never expected that!"
Or, as Dogen, a thirteenth century Japanese Buddhist teacher said, "We must always be disturbed by the truth." Enthusiasts of the psychedelic drug culture may dislike the conclusion that DMT has no beneficial effects in and of itself; rather, the context in which people take them is at least as important. Proponents of drug control may condemn what they read as encouragement to take psychedelic drugs and a glorification of the DMT experience.
Practitioners and spokespersons of traditional religions may reject the suggestion that spiritual states can be accessed, and mystical information gained, through drugs. Those who have undergone "alien abduction" and their advocates may interpret as a challenge to the "reality" of their experiences my suggestion that DMT is intimately involved in these events. Opponents and supporters of abortion rights may find fault with my proposal that pineal DMT release at 49 days after conception marks the entrance of the spirit into the fetus.
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