endogenous DMT release? Perhaps?

[phuckingnutz]

I don't know what "trace amounts" actually is in mg., but it'd have to be upwards of 35-40mg to give any sort of decent trip and it'd have to be there all the time just waiting...until an event happens and releases it...it couldn't be synthesized fast enough after the event...trauma...or whatever.

 

[Xorkoth]

Yeah agreed, dreaming/sleep is also much more complicated than DMT, even though I'd accept it if someone found evidence that it's involved. I think melatonin probably plays a larger role in dreaming/sleep, as well as likely a thousand other things. Our brains are so incredibly complex.

 

[al-laddin]

We good Doldrugs

Regardless these developments are incredibly fascinating and huge leaps into understanding consciousness. I guess intuitively I thought (on the numerous occasions while tripping) that many of the answers to consciousness may lie in the altered states. If ones consciousness can be so profoundly altered by a chemical well then ones own consciousness itself is flimsy at best....and when I reach the point of ego death and Im seemingly completely helpless to the chemical I have to ask; is consciousness independent of my ego...of me? .......then I go down the existential rabbit hole...

My bad, I felt the need to rant

 

[max_freakout]

Terence Mckenna's theory that spontaneous alien abduction type experience are perhaps the result of some kind of endogenous psychedelic chemistry is quite plausible, given the similarity of many DMT trip reports to alien/UFO experiences.

 

[swilow]

Regardless these developments are incredibly fascinating and huge leaps into understanding consciousness. I guess intuitively I thought (on the numerous occasions while tripping) that many of the answers to consciousness may lie in the altered states. If ones consciousness can be so profoundly altered by a chemical well then ones own consciousness itself is flimsy at best....and when I reach the point of ego death and Im seemingly completely helpless to the chemical I have to ask; is consciousness independent of my ego...of me? .......then I go down the existential rabbit hole...

My bad, I felt the need to rant

A good rant with some good concepts too I think consciousness is definitely flimsy but I feel it is almost non-existent in the singular and unified way that it appears to our perception.

Terence Mckenna's theory that spontaneous alien abduction type experience are perhaps the result of some kind of endogenous psychedelic chemistry is quite plausible, given the similarity of many DMT trip reports to alien/UFO experiences.

It feels plausible but- speaking entirely about my own DMT experiences- these sort of experiences are not really all that common and (beyond me now) are certainly not 'universal' as is sometimes claimed. Rick Strassman is one catalyst of this idea and he based a lot of his conjecture upon observations of people taking DMT and feeling that they were being abducted by benevolent aliens who were experimenting upon them. He seemed to miss the parallel between the subjects hallucinations and the fact that they were at the mercy of some benevolent individuals (Strassman and his assistants) who were performing a medical experiment upon them. Further evidence is the paucity of actual alien abduction stories by DMT users; and here I refer to my comrades on Bluelight and in real life, very few of whom have ever mentioned aliens after taking DMT.

Quite a few mentioned god though

I've certainly encountered the mysterious Other on DMT, but I've experienced it more vividly on drugs like salvia or DPT.

I would think that the use of MAOi's would reveal the prescence of DMT by preventing its metabolism but it is perhaps not found in high enough quantities for such enzymatic interaction to be noticed. Which leads one to propose that DMT is probably not within the human body in high enough concentrations to have any appreciable psychedelic effect, MAOi or not...

 

[Xorkoth]

Yeah that's what I think too, but it doesn't mean it couldn't have some effect on consciousness normally, perhaps even a profound one that we don't recognize because it's just how we live our lives.

We good Doldrugs

Regardless these developments are incredibly fascinating and huge leaps into understanding consciousness. I guess intuitively I thought (on the numerous occasions while tripping) that many of the answers to consciousness may lie in the altered states. If ones consciousness can be so profoundly altered by a chemical well then ones own consciousness itself is flimsy at best....and when I reach the point of ego death and Im seemingly completely helpless to the chemical I have to ask; is consciousness independent of my ego...of me? .......then I go down the existential rabbit hole...

My bad, I felt the need to rant

I also feel that altered states are key in understanding consciousness. There are many kinds of altered states, brought about naturally or unnaturally. In fact, one could say that we are always experiencing altered states because our perception changes all the time. Psychedelics are so fascinating and, to me, useful, because they dramatically alter your consciousness, on demand.

 

[al-laddin]

^^ As I mentioned earlier, Im under the impression that science has come to conclude that our day to day experiences, emotions, etc are based on chemicals.....

Take this for example...Ive been feeling down lately.....cloiudy foggy head, unable to concentrate, just down in general...I decided to do 20 mins of cardio this morning...I was pleasant, social, SHARP and very happy after this...This feeling lifted me for hours. I activated the endogenous opiod system which had a PROFOUND DRUG-LIKE effect on my consciousness. (Not unlike the pleasant sharp stimulation of oxycodone) These internal chemicals very obviously effect how we experience things...how we experience life...

Perhaps these endogenous tryptamines are more prominent in artistic people, phenethylamines in compassionate people....Im just hypothesizing here

 

[solistus]

I suspect that the trace amounts of DMT that have been found in the brain are most likely responsible for some functions, but I doubt it's in a way in which enough is released to make you trip. The brain obviously does produce a variety of tryptamines though, including melatonin and good old serotonin. I think sleep and dreaming is something far more complex than simply a release of DMT or any other substance. Melatonin certainly plays a big role.

Absolutely. People read about endogenous DMT and ask if the brain might make enough to disrupt 'normal' consciousness and cause dreams or near-death experiences... The real lesson is that 'normal' consciousness is far weirder than we give it credit for. It's not like our brains just happen to produce active amounts of a psychedelic drug when we sleep and that's why dreams are so trippy; the only reason that *psychedelics* are so "trippy" is that they fiddle with some of the very strange knobs that our brains come pre-wired with to manage the delicate dance of human consciousness. We actually know next to nothing about the finer details of natural serotonin activity; we didn't even realize there were so many different types of serotonin receptor until modern brain imaging techniques allowed us to literally track the molecules of a psychedelic drug through the brain and see different patterns of activity for different drugs.