Strassman’s landmark book DMT: The Spirit Molecule described these landmark studies, which were ultimately discontinued after concerns began to grow around the possible adverse effects these deeply strange experiences were having on the participants.
#DMT HALLUCINATION SERIES#
One 2006 report compiled 340 detailed DMT trip reports and found 66 percent of experiences recounted interacting with independently existing entities, while under the influence of the drug.Īn iconic series of experiments in the 1990s by Rick Strassman also chronicled a number of DMT-induced entity encounter experiences.
That study laid the foundation for a new, and much more targeted investigation.ĭavis notes there is a significant volume of subjective anecdotal accounts describing highly detailed encounters with strange entities while under the influence of DMT. The specificity of this new research topic grew out of a survey by the Johns Hopkins team last year exploring what were deemed “ God encounter experiences” triggered by classical psychedelic substances. “I think of it as psychedelic science is already on the fringe in a lot of ways,” says Davis, “and this is even further out there … frankly it lives on the fringe of all science.” Speaking to New Atlas, Davis excitedly describes the team’s findings while also recognizing how deeply strange this kind of science can fundamentally be. It explores the variety of experiences people have encountering autonomous strange entities after smoking the powerful, fast-acting hallucinogen, N,N-dimethyltryptamine, commonly referred to as DMT. The latest study published by Davis and his team at Johns Hopkins is the largest survey of its type ever conducted.
However, more recently some of the work he has been involved with has investigated the weirder edges of psychedelic science. His clinical experience and research interests have previously been grounded in exploring better ways to treat subjects suffering from trauma-based psychological problems. The fringe of the fringeĪlan Davis is an adjunct associate professor currently working with the psychedelic research team at Johns Hopkins. This was the first study using psilocybin in decades to receive regulatory approval in the United States. In the early 2000s Griffiths led a landmark study investigating how high-dose psilocybin can produce mystical experiences of religious or spiritual significance. Roland Griffiths, the center’s director, is a true pioneer of psychedelic research. It’s no accident the name of the center mentions psychedelic and consciousness research. Of course, this multi-million dollar enterprise is primarily focused on studying the therapeutic potential of psilocybin, from its uses in depression and anorexia, to its potential as a smoking cessation tool.īut that is not all that is going on at the facility. Last year Johns Hopkins University launched the first dedicated psychedelic research center in the United States, called the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. This is research not explicitly focused on specific therapeutic outcomes, but instead on investigating subjects as broad as the very foundations of consciousness. While psychedelic science itself still lives on the outskirts of mainstream science, the world of psychedelic science has its own fringes.
#DMT HALLUCINATION TRIAL#
A subjective psychedelic experience may be somewhat eccentric and obtuse, but if we can slot it into a clinical trial structure and show it to be effective in treating specific conditions, then we can legitimize it as a medicine.Īnd we all understand how medicines work … It is relatively easy for previously close-minded scientific communities to understand modern psychedelic research when it is focusing on a drug’s therapeutic value.
Psychedelic researchers are increasingly being welcomed back into the fold of large institutional structures that had for years ostracized this kind of study. These compounds, for years labelled as illegal, taboo, recreational drugs, with no scientific or medical value, are now being rediscovered for their extraordinary therapeutic potential. Psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms, is currently speeding into Phase 3 human trials as a treatment for major depression, while MDMA, commonly known in recreational circles as ecstasy, is quite literally on the cusp of final FDA approval as a groundbreaking PTSD treatment. Since the turn of the millennium the so-called “psychedelic renaissance” has slowly been growing, with a number of dedicated researchers tirelessly working to legitimize a field of science profoundly stigmatized by decades of social and political disapproval.
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