DMT and the Psychedelic Renaissance | Nick Glynos | TEDxUofM

as a kid i'd always joke with my friends and family about being born in the wrong generation i'm a child of the 60s i would say a modern hippie i listen to jimi hendrix and the grateful dead i wore tie-dye shirts and had hair down to my shoulders to my teenage self the 1960s seemed like a vibrant age of creativity and free expression a time of novel ideas fueled by hallucinogenic drugs that challenged the norm and questioned the status quo and at that point in my life there were two possible life outcomes to either become a traveling musician in a rock and roll band or to pitch a tent in the wilderness and live off the land well i gave both of those things a real shot and made the most of them while they lasted but at some point my hippie dreams faded and they were replaced with more traditional goals like a career a salary and a home that wasn't made out of nylon fabric it wasn't until making the transition to graduate school here at michigan when i realized a potential connection between my teenage dreams and a real job in 2015 i was introduced to psychedelic research in this article by michael pollan in the new yorker he described how researchers had given magic mushrooms to patients with life-threatening cancer in an effort to reduce their anxiety surrounding death and the and the overwhelmingly positive results of that study helped fuel what is now being called the psychedelic renaissance a rebirth of the substances that played such an integral role in what made the 1960s so unique were now legitimate topics of study in science and at that moment i said to myself far out man and i started looking for phd programs in psychedelic science but before we get too off track let's make sure we understand what this psychedelic renaissance is all about the word psychedelic is derived from the greek word psyche meaning mind and delos meaning to make visible psychedelic thus translates to mind manifesting or to reveal the mind and psychedelics make up a class of drugs that reliably and drastically alter human consciousness or free your mind as they might have said in the 1960s the classic psychedelics include substances like lsd magic mushrooms and dmt this renaissance of psychedelic research is showing us that psychedelics are able to ease symptoms of depression and anxiety for months in individuals who are previously thought to be treatment resistant many participants in these studies attest that their psychedelic experiences are among the top five most meaningful experiences of their entire lives on par with the birth of a child or death of a family member so today the substances that freed the minds of an entire generation in the 1960s are now helping to free the minds of individuals with crippling mental health conditions but as you might guess psychedelics can also free the mind of healthy individuals too and the psychedelic renaissance is revealing to us that these substances are extraordinary tools for scientists like me to study the mind and understand the mechanisms of consciousness itself in order to understand how psychedelics can be useful here we first have to attempt to understand consciousness which is a big challenge not just for you and me but for all of science because collectively science lacks an explanation for how the molecules cells and organs of our body synergistically combine to generate this all-encompassing experience that we call consciousness and it's not just our mind's eye consciousness is the essence of what it means to be human it is the stage for any and all experiences that will ever happen in our entire lives and without it everything we know ceases to exist yet despite its fundamental importance the mysteries of consciousness remain as the ultimate unsolved mystery of science so where does psychedelics fit in well as a scientist you learn that a good way to improve your understanding of something is to alter it and psychedelics are among the most powerful tools for altering consciousness that we know of with modern neuroscience tools we can now measure exactly what's happening in the brain of an individual over the course of a controlled but radical shift in consciousness and this shift in consciousness is also coupled with a profound meaningful and personal subjective experience so we now have the ability to precisely quantify the physiological and neurological changes that are associated with this intensely subjective altered state which provides a fascinating new path towards studying the studying consciousness in entirely new ways long-time researcher dr stanislav groff once said psychedelics are for the mind what the microscope is for biology and the telescope is for astronomy he was suggesting that psychedelics like the microscope or telescope have the potential to reveal realms of reality that were previously invisible to the naked eye they provide a powerful lens for us to study and examine the mind in entirely new ways but what if our bodies readily and naturally produced its own psychedelic substance might you be interested in how that substance relates to consciousness well for the last several decades scientists have known that to be true your body my body and all mammals for that matter naturally produce a psychedelic substance called n-n-dimethyltryptamine or dmt dmt is a small molecule in our body whose molecular structure is incredibly similar to the structure of the neurotransmitter serotonin and the fascinating thing is that even though we know so much about how critical serotonin is for the regulation of mood and brain function science knows next to nothing about the role that dmt might be playing in the body and what's more dmt seems to be nearly ubiquitous in nature not only is it present across the animal kingdom dmt is naturally produced by hundreds if not thousands of species of plants and when i first learned that my inner flower child transcended so that's where i come back my dreams of becoming a traveling hippie and selling out music festivals didn't exactly pan out but i found a job researching psychedelics and studying one of the most fascinating topics i could have ever imagined my phd work is focused on the study of dmt in the body and the role that it may play in brain function and consciousness in other words what is this psychedelic compound doing floating around in our body and can it provide clues as to the mysteries of the mind to answer that we should look at how dmt affects consciousness when taken in its pure form dmt brings about altered states of consciousness reminiscent of other psychedelics visual hallucinations distortions of reality altered perception of time and space but the dmt experience is said to exist in an entirely separate domain relative to those of the other psychedelics within usually less than 30 seconds of dmt ingestion the user is catapulted through a visually immersive kaleidoscopic labyrinth of vibrant and shifting geometry and then plunged into a seemingly alternate and otherworldly dimension a realm of space that was previously unfathomable to the mind and this coincides with the feeling of complete and utter disembodiment from their physical self oftentimes forgetting that their body even exists and during that brief stint in this alien realm users report communication with higher intelligences confrontations with death and an overwhelming feeling of the experience being more real than real but within a matter of about 10 minutes the effects will have almost completely subsided and normal waking consciousness resumes so that just begs the question if that's what happens when we consume dmt then what in the world is it doing in our body early guesses propose that dmt might act as a schizotoxin or substance responsible for the hallucinatory effects of schizophrenia other guesses suggested that dmt might be involved in dreaming consciousness states of spiritual or religious mysticism or near-death experiences our work here at michigan is aiming to not only understand the brain effects of the dmt experience but also to understand the basic role that dmt might play in day-to-day physiological functions but the short answer is science currently has almost no grasp about what dmt might be doing in the body but the fact that it's withstood generations of human evolution and remained a part of our own physiology to this day suggests that it's here for a reason and of all the psychedelics being investigated for their consciousness altering effects and therapeutic benefits dmt is the most widespread in nature and the only psychedelic known to be endogenous to humans are naturally produced by us and since it's produced by us it may be a part of a yet undiscovered natural hallucinogenic system within our body a system that becomes activated at certain times to regulate perception or bring about altered states of consciousness or perhaps this system plays some role in our ability to receive or experience the effects of other psychedelics like lsd or magic mushrooms or perhaps dmt is in fact involved in our normal perception of reality and its dysfunction contributes to psychiatric hallucinatory disorders all of these are possible but nothing is yet proven but i believe that the mystery of dmt deserves the attention of scientists philosophers psychologists therapists and anyone interested in trying to make sense of the situation we call reality so i'd like to summarize with a quote by the founder of american psychology william james who over a century ago advocated for the importance of studying altered states of consciousness he said that our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness whilst all about it parted from it by the filmiest of screens there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different no account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded through self-experimentation william james realized that the reality we're currently experiencing waking reality is merely a fraction of possible conscious states that exist and if we prevent ourselves from studying these altered states of consciousness we will never have a complete understanding of the universe the psychedelic renaissance is revealing to us the vast amount of power and potential that psychedelics have and the presence of naturally occurring dmt in the body represents a great unsolved mystery and a tangible link between altered states of consciousness and human physiology so i suggest we take the advice of william james let's adopt the psychedelic experience as a tool to study consciousness and let's determine if dmt the only psychedelic known to be produced by humans plays a role in the most fundamental and important mystery of science human consciousness thank you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 152,136

Rating: 4.9439216 out of 5

Keywords: Biology, Chemistry, Cognitive science, Curiosity, Drugs, English, Science, TEDxTalks

Id: LFnCwXPjSCk

Length: 11min 57sec (717 seconds)

Published: Wed May 19 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/tomski1981]

That's pretty cool. But what does one do when the happy little elves tell you there is a deep secret to their realm, and they stop being happy and threaten to kill you if you tell anyone the secret?