Extended state DMT at Imperial College London (DMTx) (Patreon)

The link is to a pre-print paper from the team at Imperial College London.  This is one of the more exciting projects in modern psychedelic research.  DMT is rather unique among psychedelic drugs: 1) when vaped or injected its deep immersive experience begins nearly instantaneously 2) there is little or no tolerance build up meaning a person can use it back to back many times and still have deep immersive visual experiences, 3) most generally will not lose consciousness, and 4) yet if one stops vaping or injecting, the effects rapidly diminish over 5 to 15 minutes.  No other psychedelic drug has this incredible combination of properties.  This has fueled speculation for many years or even decades about the possibility of doing high tech, continuous IV infusions of DMT allowing people to remain in the profound DMT realms for as long as they wish, but also being able to quickly "pull out" if vital signs indicate stress or simply when the participant decides they've had enough (most retain the ability to communicate while on DMT).

While there have been scattered reports of people trying various forms of intravenous DMT over the years, this is the first reputable, soon to be published, formal study on the idea of continuous infusions.

So what exactly did they do?  They gave 11 healthy volunteers an initial larger dose that launched them into the deep DMT experience and after waiting one minute they began a slow small continuous infusion of DMT for 29 additional minutes while monitoring vital signs and periodically sampling blood so that DMT levels could be studied later. Participants wore eye shades and were instructed to keep eyes closed, as they listened to this music via headphones (used for psychological comfort).  They were instructed to verbally give subjective ratings of the intensity of the experience (from 0 = “no effects” to 10 = “most intense imaginable”). These were collected at -8, -6, -4, -2, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and every two minutes thereafter, with minute 0 being the start of the DMT injection.  Subjective ratings of anxiety were also collected every four minutes using a similar procedure (from 0 = “no anxiety” to 10 = “most anxiety imaginable”) in order to assess the psychological safety of DMT infusions.  They tested different dosing levels with sessions separated by 2 weeks (see table below).

What did they find?  They discovered that participants calmed down by minute 15 with baseline heart rates and low anxiety, and despite blood levels of DMT rising during the infusion, the subjective effects remained stable (meaning rising DMT levels in the blood did not produce more intensity of the experience, this is known as acute psychological tolerance).  Extended administration of DMT was well tolerated.  Furthermore they found that the initial spike in anxiety was likely just related to psychological anticipation, rather than actually being caused by the DMT itself.

Part of the purpose of this research was to figure out the proper initial and continuous dosing required for sustained deep subjective experience.  "The first subject receiving a bolus dose of 6 mg of DMT fumarate, followed by a constant rate infusion of 0.63 mg/min. Doses were increased for subsequent dosing sessions if the previous dose was well-tolerated and produced an average peak subjective intensity of < 7.5 (scale 0-10), with the aim of identifying a dose that sustains a high level of intensity throughout the infusion to be used in future studies investigating the phenomenology and brain activity related to states of immersion commonly reported for DMT."

Here's a look at how intensity was rated over the course of the DMT administration:

And anxiety:

Heart rate:

No surprise, but the higher the dose, the more "entity encounters":

Another finding of the study is that different people had pretty large differences in blood levels of DMT even at the same dosage levels.  This confirms what has been described in anecdotes for decades, some people require higher doses of psychedelics than others to achieve the same level of effects.  In past studies (Strassman) they found that 5% of people were not even able to have significant experiences on DMT (as if immune to it), but no one had that problem in the current study possibly because the group was very small (11 participants) and they were partly selected because of having previous psychedelic experience.

Note that nothing officially has been released yet describing what any of the participants actually experienced as far as the content of their trips while on extended DMT in this study.  It would be reasonable to expect reports that are similar to the hundreds if not thousands of DMT trip reports already out there on the internet, only perhaps a bit longer, but we don't know yet.  Notably, FOUR of the study participants will be interviewed live on Tuesday, May 23rd at 9AM Eastern time (6AM Pacific, 2PM UK).  If this is something you are interested in, you might want to tune in live or watch the replay once it becomes available:

[UPDATE: Vid has been posted now for anyone to see, updated link below]

https://www.youtube.com/live/Myq_Hc_39aI

I am looking forward to hearing from the participants, I just wish the hosts would tone down the hyperbole and be more objective. In case you haven't noticed yet, I'm not a fan of the lunatic fringe in the psychedelic community, and both moderators could easily be lumped into that category.  These guys seem to think DMT may be a way for aliens to communicate with us, or that DMT somehow lets us visit actual external places that can be "mapped".  This is "tin foil hat" territory from my perspective:

"Drawing parallels with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), the focus of the discourse will be on the profound encounters with DMT entities. This psychedelic odyssey promises revelations and insights that parallel the awe and wonder that accompanies our encounters with extraterrestrial phenomena. Just as SETI deciphers signals from distant stars, our panelists will unravel and interpret their experiences in the DMT realms, potentially reshaping our understanding of reality."

But for the sake of the science and my own curiosity, I definitely want to hear perspectives from the participants of the study despite having questionable moderators (Graham Hancock and Andrew Gallimore) steering the conversation.  Note that even Hamilton Morris, in his own very subtle and non-confrontation way,  criticized Gallimore in the post-recorded intro to his recent interview with Gallimore in what is sure to become a classic rant including the gem "You don't want to become Jesus" hahaha.  But James Kent produced the best Gallimore rant I've ever heard on his podcast which I'll have to track down (may be difficult to find).

UPDATE: Huh, I'm going to have to do a separate post or maybe even video on my reaction to that interview with the participants of DMTx.  There were actually a few surprises from my perspective.  The biggest surprise to me was the theme that extended state DMT, unlike your typical vaped DMT, is actually a lot more like ayahuasca! In fact one participant was even questioning if IV delivery method was even necessary for an extended state experience.   One of the participants said no matter how high the IV dosage, vaped always hits harder.  Also very noteworthy was the participant who basically said "Terrance McKenna was wrong, DMT is not about traveling outside yourself or going outward, it was quite personal and internal from his point of view.  I think for the most part, the lunatic fringe of the psychedelic community "lost" this round 😂🙏.

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Links to all of my TEKs, Videos, Trip music, and frequently asked questions with answers can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/22774475 (everything is made available for FREE, I do not use pay walls, support the work only if you feel like you've benefited from it and you are able to do so).  People have told me my work has helped them overcome depression, addictions, PTSD, relationship issues, direction in life, and to have important, meaningful, sometimes life changing mystical experiences.  I feel honored and blessed to play a small role in this.  That is my reward.