DMT-induced shifts in criticality correlate with self-dissolution

(jneurosci.org)

32 points by Anon842 hours ago

6 comments

_spduchamp53 minutes ago
You can find Bill Atkinson's open-source instructions for Jaguar (5-MeO-DMT) Vape Pens from a link here: <a href="https://boingboing.net/2025/07/10/apples-bill-atkinson-creator-of-macpaint-spent-his-final-years-developing-an-open-source-vape-pen-for-safer-psychedelic-experiences.html" rel="nofollow">https://boingboing.net/2025/07/10/apples-bill-atkinson-creat...</a>
- __MatrixMan__7 minutes ago
 I think this paper is about N,N-DMT. 5-MeO is a different beast. Although I've run across N,N in vape pen form so I think its still a relevant delivery mechanism.
Lucasoato1 hour ago
> We find that DMT shifts the normally dominant alpha oscillations towards a quieter subcritical state, increasing entropy while reducing complexity, and that this shift correlates with intensity of disruption of the sense of self.Wait, is this a good or a bad thing? Asking for a friend.
- awakeasleep1 hour ago
 Its terrible if you’re trying to drive or operate machinery
 - isoprophlex1 hour ago
 ... Unless said machinery is provided to you by the machine elves, of course.
 - cluckindan1 hour ago
 1) Absolutely nobody is going to take heavy psychedelics if they are driving or operating heavy machinery, and if they are, they are either very misinformed or simply don’t care to the point of malice. Driving or operating while impaired is a crime in itself.2) The effects of DMT wear off in 15-30 minutes, which is why it’s called ”the businessman’s lunch”. Subjectively, however, a person may experience decades of time pass.
 - meowkit54 minutes ago
 Wheres the wooshing joke jpeg when you need it
bitmasher926 minutes ago
I think the terminology is hacked to produce the most scary looking headline while saying the most mundane and expected things.
- hiddencost10 minutes ago
  I think they're using technical language that you're aware of, and you're misinterpreting the title of a research paper.
ireadmevs1 hour ago
Well, just by reading the abstract I can’t tell if the results are positive or not. But glad to see more research being done on this area.
victor221 hour ago
Who over here in HN has tried DMT?
- boppo140 minutes ago
 I did it once. Felt like my consciousness rocketed "up" out of my body, but not up through physical space, through some 'adjacent' space. Then I saw/felt "infinity". There was no time, and I saw a hundu-esque god/goddess with infinite arms. I had no interest in eastern religion prior. Not disinterested either. I just didn't think about it, the way I don't think about golf.It was a neat thing to experience.
 - Hnus19 minutes ago
 I saw exactly the same infinite arms thing with zero prior interest in religion. It took me to place “I was once before and should know well” other entities protested because why bother when he needs to go back soon. Then I came back to my room and had no idea what to do with that experience.
- isoprophlex1 hour ago
 I did a LOT of that. We made our own in undergrad; depending on audacity and effort we made stuff ranging from beautifully clear, crystalline needles to stuff that looked like satans' earwax. Extremely memorable stuff, that at that moment in life, was a very good thing to happen to me in order to learn how to connect with my feelings.
- cluckindan1 hour ago
 Haven’t tried it, but I’ve been told by decades of research that it is present in many common plants, mostly in low but in certain cases substantial quantities, and merely needs to be extracted and purified via recrystallization.
CuriouslyC1 hour ago
TL;DR: DMT makes brainwaves simpler and more disordered. I have a scientific background and I'm quite familiar with DMT, but I'm struggling to take anything meaningful from this.
- isoprophlex1 hour ago
  They found that DMT disrupts the brainwave patterns that, if you squint a bit, belong to what Hofstadter calls the "strange loop" of consciousness. In a sense it is as you'd expect.