DMT

What it is

DMT, short for N,N-dimethyltryptamine, is a small molecule in the tryptamine family, the same chemical family as serotonin and psilocybin [10]. In mammals its psychoactive effects seem to run mostly through the serotonin 2A receptor, a docking site on brain cells that classic psychedelics activate, with other receptor systems shaping the experience as well [20].

What sets DMT apart is time. Injected or inhaled, it acts within a minute or two and is largely gone within half an hour [1]. Swallowed on its own, DMT does almost nothing, because monoamine oxidase (MAO), an enzyme in the gut wall and liver, breaks it down before it can act [7] [9] [20]. Given as a dissolving tablet absorbed through a mucous membrane, DMT alone produced only a weak, brief effect in 8 volunteers [12]. Ayahuasca, the Amazonian brew, gets around this by combining a DMT-containing plant with a vine whose compounds block that enzyme, and the experience then lasts hours [10] [20]. Ayahuasca studies, studies of DMT paired with a harmine tablet (harmine is one of the vine's enzyme blockers) and studies of DMT given into a vein are three different interventions that share a name. A review of 32 studies found that intravenous DMT cleared with a half-life of about 10 to 20 minutes while oral DMT varied widely between people [28].

This page covers N,N-DMT, and 5-MeO-DMT has its own page.

DMT is natural in the plain sense that plants make it, roughly sixty identified species according to one trial team [10], but "natural" says nothing about safety, and nearly all the human research used purified material that does not transfer automatically to plant preparations [12] [29].

What is known

The short version. In screened healthy volunteers, DMT is a rapid, intense experience that was mostly well tolerated under hospital conditions, with temporary rises in blood pressure and heart rate and a real chance of fear and anxiety. Controlled evidence for lasting benefit in healthy adults is very thin. Two placebo-controlled trials measured mindfulness and compassion. One found small differences the day after and none at one and four months, and the other, in experienced meditators, found no significant difference from placebo. A creativity trial found one thinking style impaired and no gain in another.

The first modern controlled studies

The modern human literature starts with two papers from Rick Strassman's group at the University of New Mexico, published together in 1994. In the first, 11 experienced hallucinogen users received intravenous DMT at four strengths or saline in a randomized double-blind design. Blood levels and subjective effects peaked within two minutes and were negligible by thirty, and DMT raised blood pressure, heart rate, pupil size, body temperature and blood levels of cortisol and prolactin, a hormone effect a later review also reports [20]. The authors concluded that DMT could be given safely to experienced users in that setting [1].

The second paper described the experience. Twelve took part and the data come from 11, because one person left midway when a major depressive episode returned. The experience peaked at 90 to 120 seconds and had nearly resolved at 30 minutes, with a brief, overwhelming "rush" followed by a dissociated state in which euphoria and anxiety alternated or coexisted. Earlier MDMA use did not significantly change the scale ratings, and the paper's title calls its scale results "preliminary" [2]. Both papers are small, from the 1990s, in people who already used hallucinogens, and measured physiology and experience, not growth or lasting change.

What the brain shows during the experience

At Imperial College London, multichannel EEG was recorded in 13 healthy people with earlier psychedelic experience after placebo and after intravenous DMT, single-blind, in a fixed order and with differing amounts. One person was removed for head movement, so 12 entered the EEG analyses. DMT produced a marked drop in alpha rhythms, a smaller drop in beta and a rise in signal diversity [3]. A modelling analysis of alpha suppression [5] re-analysed the same 13 volunteers, so it is not independent evidence, and two of its authors report consulting for Entheon Biomedical.

A second study of 20 healthy volunteers with earlier psychedelic experience used simultaneous EEG and functional MRI after a single injection or placebo, single-blind and without an active comparison. Four were dropped from the main fMRI analysis because of head movement, which was greater under DMT, and 12 contributed to the combined analysis. Global connectivity increased and the usual separation between networks loosened [4]. This does not mean a network is switched off: integration inside five of the seven networks measured, the default-mode network among them, fell while connection between networks rose.

A third group recorded inhaled DMT in 35 healthy, experienced participants with a wireless EEG headset, in settings they chose and with their own plant-derived material in an unmeasured amount. Six recordings were unusable, so 29 were analysed. Alpha power fell and gamma power rose, gamma correlating with mystical-type features although it can also reflect muscle tension and tracked anxiety in some regions, and 13 of the 35 (37 percent) met the full criterion for a mystical-type experience [6]. With no placebo and no blinding, this shows association only.

Extended infusions

Three trials in healthy volunteers, two in Basel and one in London, tested running DMT slowly into a vein, since a single injection ends so quickly. The first Basel trial gave 27 volunteers five regimens in a randomized, double-blind crossover. A fast injection brought very intense effects with more anxiety and "bad drug effects", while slow infusions built to a plateau at about 30 minutes. Effects stayed stable from 30 to 90 minutes even as blood levels kept rising, which the authors read as acute tolerance [7].

The London trial enrolled 11 healthy volunteers in a single-blind, fixed-order design with an injection and a 30-minute infusion at four rising levels, and three dropped out. At the lowest level heart rate stayed above placebo until about minute 24. Overall they report no significant acute or lasting adverse effects [8], in a small safety and feasibility study.

The second Basel trial ran two-hour infusions in 22 healthy volunteers, 20 of whom had used psychedelics before. "Good drug effect" reached a ceiling at the second-highest of four infusion rates, while the highest rate added more fear, more "anxious ego dissolution" and more adverse effects. In a final open-label session, participants with recent DMT experience chose strong effects with little fear, which must be replicated in people without such experience [9]. Cortisol and prolactin rose, and BDNF, a proposed marker of brain plasticity, did not change in either Basel trial [7] [9].

An older review reports that four repeated injections thirty minutes apart produced no tolerance to the subjective effects, while temperature, heart rate and hormone responses did fade [20], unlike the tolerance to subjective effects in the infusion trials.

Outcomes that resemble personal growth, in healthy adults

This is the part most relevant to Metanoia, and the evidence is the thinnest.

The best controlled test so far is a Zurich randomized, double-blind crossover trial in 31 healthy men with no psychiatric or neurological history. Each received DMT with harmine, harmine alone and placebo in three sessions, and mindfulness, self-compassion and compassion for others were measured one day after each session [10].

The result is positive but modest. Mindfulness was higher after DMT with harmine than after placebo and did not differ from harmine alone. Self-compassion was higher after both DMT with harmine and harmine alone, by almost the same amount, so the harmine tablet and not DMT may account for that gain. Compassion for others was higher after DMT with harmine than placebo and not clearly higher than harmine alone. The differences were concentrated in the half of participants with the most intense experiences, as the authors predicted, but that split used post-session intensity ratings, so it depends on the response itself, and in the half with weaker experiences the conditions did not differ. No lasting effects were found at one and four months. The sample was all male, young and highly educated, and whether people could tell which session they were in was not assessed [10].

A second placebo-controlled trial took 40 experienced meditators through a three-day retreat. One group received DMT with harmine and the other placebo, in a randomized, double-blind design with no harmine-only arm and no arm without meditation. State mindfulness, self-compassion and compassion for others did not differ from placebo. Trait mindfulness showed a significant group-by-time interaction, yet the difference between groups at one week was not significant (p = 0.076). Mystical experience, emotional breakthrough and non-dual awareness were higher on the day DMT was given and not on day three. At one month 45 percent of the DMT group against 0 percent of the placebo group ranked the experience among their five most meaningful, but these are retrospective ratings from people who mostly knew their group (82.5 percent guessed correctly) and had higher expectations [29]. Two of the authors co-founded Reconnect Labs, the sponsor of the harmine study described below [12] [29].

A separate trial of a similar formulation in 30 healthy men looked at creativity. DMT with harmine significantly impaired convergent thinking, the kind that narrows toward one right answer, while divergent thinking, the generation of many ideas, showed no overall change, with trends toward lower fluency and elaboration. In a painting task harmine alone also reduced incubation-related transitions, and only the combination reduced transitions from incubation to illumination [11].

An open-label Brazilian study gave inhaled DMT to 27 healthy people, with no placebo, and found lower state anxiety for up to one day and higher life satisfaction for up to 14 days, with the open-label design and modest sample listed as limits [13]. A systematic review of 67 studies, 47 in humans and 20 in animals, of lasting cognitive change after classic psychedelics, MDMA and ketamine found no consistent changes for LSD and DMT, with selective reporting in the underlying studies, and how many concerned DMT is not known from the abstract that was read [14].

No controlled trial located for this page tests DMT alone against placebo for growth-type outcomes in healthy adults over months. A single-blind factorial study in 16 healthy volunteers found that harmine raised exposure to DMT in an amount-related way, although DMT's half-life did not change clearly, and DMT delayed harmine's peak, which the authors mostly put down to absorption, so the two cannot be treated as independent. The study was sponsored by Reconnect Labs AG, whose founders include two of its authors [12].

Studies in people with depression

Several DMT trials were done in people with depression, and their results should not be carried over to healthy adults. They are summarized as evidence about safety and effect size, and nothing on this page claims that DMT treats any condition. A phase IIa trial of intravenous DMT in 34 adults with moderate to severe major depressive disorder, given with supportive psychotherapy, found a depression score 7.35 points lower than placebo at two weeks, with a wide 95 percent confidence interval. In an open-label extension the benefit persisted to three months, with no significant difference between one and two sessions, although at week 14 the group with one active session scored about 7 points better (p = 0.08) after 9 of the 34 had dropped out, which the authors treat as hypothesis-generating. Adverse events were mostly mild to moderate and none were serious, and blinding was not assessed. The sponsor, Small Pharma, now part of Cybin, designed the trial and supplied the material, and several authors list affiliations with that company [15]. The true effect could be small, and the three-month figure has no placebo comparison.

An earlier exploratory study at Yale gave DMT open-label to 3 healthy volunteers and 7 people with treatment-resistant depression. One left after the first session for administrative reasons, so the fall in depression scores the day after the larger session rests on at most six patients. One serious event, about five minutes of a slow heartbeat and low blood pressure without symptoms, happened in a participant whose history of reflex fainting had not been reported, and it resolved on its own. The authors read willingness to take DMT again as low abuse potential, a reading drawn from ten people, and with three healthy participants the study says little about healthy adults [16].

A scoping review of 26 DMT, ayahuasca and DMT-with-harmine trials registered on ClinicalTrials.gov, the only register searched, found an early-stage field of mostly phase I academic trials. The search ran on 14 July 2025, and the review did not assess study quality. It lists completed trials with no published results, including a bolus study in healthy volunteers finished in March 2025 (NCT05695495) and two finished in 2023 (NCT05644093, NCT05553691) [17]. An ongoing Johns Hopkins trial in healthy volunteers (50 planned, six active substances including DMT and psilocybin against placebo, primary completion June 2027) is recorded as both parallel and within-subject, so its structure is unclear, and it was recruiting on 4 October 2026 [18].

Entity encounters

Some people report meeting seemingly independent beings during inhaled DMT experiences. A survey by the Johns Hopkins group collected accounts from 2,561 people about their most memorable encounter. Forty-one percent reported fear, yet the emotion named most often was love (21 percent), followed by surprise (16 percent), trust and joy. Most respondents endorsed that the entity was conscious, intelligent and benevolent, and 69 percent said they received a message [19].

The survey is peer reviewed, so grade 1 as a source type, but the design is weak for causal claims. People chose to take part, described a memory in their own words, had no comparison group and were recruited through websites and forums, including DMT discussion forums, and 2,561 of 10,308 who agreed were analysed. The median respondent reported six lifetime uses, and two thirds described their first encounter. Respondents had to have had an encounter to qualify, so the survey cannot say how often encounters occur, and the authors warn that harms may be under-reported. Beliefs about the beings' reality are reports of belief, and this page takes no position on whether the beings exist [19].

Endogenous DMT and the pineal gland

DMT is also present, in small amounts, in mammalian tissue, which is why it is called endogenous, meaning made inside the body [20]. A popular story has the pineal gland releasing DMT at birth, during dreams and at death. The evidence does not support it, and the science has grown less settled over time.

A 2019 Michigan study found messenger RNA for INMT, an enzyme proposed to make DMT, in the cortex, pineal gland and choroid plexus of rats and humans. In humans only the RNA was looked for, in autopsy tissue, and DMT itself was not measured. In rats, DMT outside cells in the cortex was about 0.6 nanomolar with a pineal gland and about 1 nanomolar without one, a difference on the edge of statistical significance, and serotonin in the same samples from rats without a pineal gland was about twice the DMT level, which puts DMT inside the range reported for other brain signaling molecules. DMT rose in the rat visual cortex after cardiac arrest, unevenly and whether or not the pineal was intact [21].

In 2023 the same laboratory generated rats lacking the INMT gene. No DMT was found in tissue extracts of either kind of rat in the test tube, and the rat version of the enzyme was inactive, while the recombinant human version did make DMT. The authors suggest that a different pathway may make DMT in rats, an inference, because they found no DMT in the extracts, relied on others' live-animal measurements, and did not measure DMT in the living brains of the knockout animals. Rat INMT is only about 57 percent similar to the human enzyme, so the rat may be a poor model for the human question [22]. The 2019 measurement of DMT in rat cortex has not been overturned, and how the body makes DMT, and whether the human brain does so by the INMT route, is unsettled.

A review by a psychedelic chemist argued that the adult pineal gland weighs under 0.2 grams and exists mainly to make about 30 micrograms of melatonin a day, that the trace DMT in brain tissue is too little to be psychoactive, and that stress or near-death states can alter consciousness without DMT [23]. That is one author's argument, read as an abstract only. Natural DMT in human blood, urine and spinal fluid varies widely [20] [24], but no source used here measured it in a living human brain or linked natural levels to a reported experience, so pineal release at birth, in dreams or at death is an untested hypothesis.

Safety in healthy adults

The safety evidence comes from screened volunteers, in hospitals, with trained staff, under protocols that excluded heart disease, psychiatric illness and a family history of psychosis. It should not be read as the risk profile of the general public.

Every study that measured them found rises in blood pressure and heart rate that scaled with the amount given [1]. In the first Basel trial a fast injection produced a marked rise within two minutes and infusions only mild, nonsignificant rises, with vital signs normal within 15 minutes of stopping [7]. In the two-hour infusion trial blood pressure rose with the infusion rate and heart rate was significantly elevated at the higher rates [9]. One review named the cardiovascular and hormonal effects as the main adverse effects that remain [20].

Fear and anxiety were common. A fast injection produced more anxiety and "bad drug effects" than a slow infusion [7], and at the highest infusion rate fear, anxious ego dissolution and adverse effects rose significantly, with three infusions in two experienced participants stopped early because the effects were overwhelming [9].

Reported complaints included headache, palpitations, nausea, tiredness and thirst [7] [9]. In the first Basel trial one participant developed flashbacks of moderate to strong intensity that began two weeks after the last session and lasted several weeks, and two serious adverse events were judged unrelated to DMT [7]. In the second Basel trial one serious event was judged possibly related, a worsening of existing tinnitus after which the participant withdrew, and another participant withdrew after two sessions because of anxiety about higher amounts [9]. In the London trial one volunteer stopped an infusion at minute 26 because of anxiety and chest pain, which passed within 10 minutes with a normal ECG and normal blood tests and which the authors attribute to a psychological reaction [8]. In the harmine study, headache and nausea were the most common complaints, and one volunteer had emotional instability that lasted two weeks [12]. With a few dozen participants per study, a rare event could go undetected.

Deaths with DMT are very uncommon, and the published record is small. A 2025 toxicology paper described two UK deaths, in 2022 and 2023, and found three earlier reports, with other substances present in all five. In the first UK case, a man in his thirties, six substances were found, among them cocaine and alcohol, and the coroner's conclusion named cocaine and DMT toxicity, with coronary artery disease as a contributing factor. A man in his fifties with depression and high blood pressure, taking several prescription medicines including antidepressants that act on serotonin, had nine substances in his blood, ketamine among them, and died of a hypertensive crisis and serotonin syndrome, a dangerous overload of serotonin signaling. The measured DMT levels were similar to peak levels in volunteers given intravenous DMT in an earlier study, and the authors judged that dosing errors with DMT itself were unlikely. The time between intake and death was unknown and DMT dissolves in fat, so levels can shift after death and a lethal amount cannot be inferred. The authors warned about combining DMT and MAO-blocking compounds with serotonergic medicines and drugs, and noted that DMT is not always tested for after death and reporting to the case database is voluntary, so cases may be missed [24].

On dependence and tolerance, a review concluded there is little sign of tolerance or dependence to DMT apart from heart and hormone effects [20].

No trial followed healthy people for years, and repeated exposure over time is unstudied. Laboratory work shows DMT binding the sigma-1 receptor and, at 100 micromolar, far above the 0.06 to 0.5 micromolar reported in human blood, inhibiting heart sodium current in cultured cells and mouse heart muscle cells [20] [30]. Whether that matters in people is unknown. People with undiagnosed heart, psychiatric or medication-related risks were screened out by design, so the trials cannot say what happens to them.

Legal status

Each entry names the jurisdiction and the official text opened on 4 October 2026. They are grade 1 as source types, describe the law and grant no permission, and only the entries for DMT were read. Research with a controlled substance generally needs official authorization, not verified here for each jurisdiction, and plant preparations such as ayahuasca are outside this page.

United States (federal). DMT is a Schedule I hallucinogenic substance, listed at 21 CFR 1308.11(d)(19) with DEA code 7435, under a lead-in covering any material, compound, mixture or preparation that contains any quantity of it [25]. The text was read in the eCFR, up to date as of 1 October 2026 (accessed 4 October 2026). The section carries amendment notes dated 11 December 2025 and 21 September 2026 whose content was not read, so whether they touch paragraph (d)(19) is not verified. State law varies and is not surveyed here.

United Kingdom. N,N-Dimethyltryptamine is named in paragraph 1(a) of Part I (Class A drugs) of Schedule 2 to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, on the legislation.gov.uk page marked as the latest revised version, with no known outstanding effects when opened [26].

Canada. N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and its salts are listed in Schedule III of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, item 7, in a text last amended 18 July 2026 (accessed 4 October 2026) [27].

What is not known

Open scientific questions

How long does anything last in healthy adults? Of two controlled trials that followed people for a month or more, one found no effect at one and four months [10] and the other found higher one-month ratings of personal meaning and wellbeing, but retrospective ones by people who mostly knew their group [29]. DMT alone has not been separated from DMT with harmine for growth outcomes. Blinding is a problem throughout: most participants in the first Basel trial guessed their treatment order [7], 82.5 percent of the meditators guessed their group [29], and the Zurich crossover trial did not test it [10]. Samples are narrow, often male, young, educated and experienced with psychedelics, so how a first-time volunteer responds is largely unmeasured.

Outcome measures vary too, and the Zurich authors note that mindfulness is hard to measure [10]. There is no agreed set of growth outcomes for a molecule whose effects last minutes. Whether plant preparations behave like purified material is unstudied in controlled trials of healthy adults, and how the mammalian body makes DMT, and what it does there, is open.

What Metanoia asks

The first question is what DMT does on its own, in someone with no diagnosis, when growth-type outcomes are measured over a longer period than a day. The second is how much of what is believed about DMT actually comes from ayahuasca or from DMT combined with harmine, and what belongs to DMT alone. The third concerns the body, and whether the enzyme that governs DMT's breakdown, MAO, varies between people in ways that predict response. That is a plausible starting point and has not yet been turned into a specific question. A fourth concerns preparation and integration for an experience that lasts minutes rather than hours, for which no framework exists. A fifth is sourcing and purity for any research program, which is at an early stage, including whether plant-derived and synthesized material behave alike.

Any future human work by Metanoia would start from four record-keeping standards (what the material was, what exposure occurred, the surrounding context, and the outcome) and an outcome measure, still in development, addressed to the twelve dimensions of human potential the research asks about. None of that infrastructure has been built for this substance yet.

History and tradition

Tradition is graded 4 and described here only for context. DMT-containing brews are used in ceremonies in parts of the Amazon basin, a description taken from a recent toxicology paper that also reports growth in ayahuasca tourism and recreational DMT use, including in the UK [24]. No ethnographic source was read, and this page does not describe ceremonies or take a position on practices that belong to the communities that hold them. Tradition validates neither a safety claim nor a benefit claim.

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