Are Supernatural Entities Encountered on DMT Healing People?
Could supernatural entities encountered during a psychedelic trip be responsible for the dramatic psychological healing that many reports? New research seeks to find out.
DMT or N, N-Dimethyltryptamine is widely considered the Earth’s most powerful hallucinogen. It is the latest psychedelic to be clinically studied for its potential to treat mental health issues like major depression and PTSD.
One frequently occurring phenomenon of the DMT trip researchers are particularly interested in is the appearance of entities whom experiencers often credit with the healing they receive.
Jay Waxenberg is the director of the DMTx program at the Center for Medicinal Mindfulness. Based in Boulder, CO, it was one of the first centers to offer legal psychedelic therapy in the U.S.
“The entities are really this unique aspect of DMT and they play different roles for different people in that space. What’s very common is, one, you’re going to encounter one of these things, and two, that you’re going to feel like they’re giving you some piece of information to take back to the regular consensus reality. Also, that they are benevolent — lots of love and kindness, these are very common elements for the entities — and we have linguistic models to kind of relate to those spaces, whether they’re elves or imps or fairies, they could be angels, bodhisattvas, aliens, interdimensional beings — these are kind of like the things that people will come back and say ‘[T]hat’s kind of what that felt like, that’s kind of what that thing is.’”
The groundwork for current research on the topic was laid by Dr. Rick Strassman- a psychiatrist and pioneering psychedelic researcher who first described these entities in his book ”DMT: the Spirit Molecule.”
“The beings were beneficent, they did healing, they gave advice, some predicted or showed volunteers the future, some were examining the volunteers. But one of the hallmarks of the interaction was the strength of those beings,” Strassman said.
A recent study surveyed 2,500 individuals who encountered entities after taking DMT. The researchers found that “[T]he experiences were rated as among the most meaningful, spiritual, and psychologically insightful lifetime experiences, with persisting positive changes in life satisfaction, purpose and meaning attributed to the experiences.”
“People will refer to the entities as guides to some extent that they’re trying to teach something or give some piece of information. You’re getting this very positive loving, kindness feeling; feeling supported, feeling cared about, or observed in some way. That comes back and can be really beneficial, it’s kind of the groundwork of ‘wow, I am loved’ or ‘I am supported in some kind of way’ and then you can build on that therapeutically.”
There are a number of theories about the nature of these DMT entities, from neuroscience research into activation of specific brain regions to more metaphysical ideas about extra-dimensional visitations.
“The most mundane explanation of what these things could be, I think, comes from Carl Jung who talks about the collective unconscious and autonomous pieces of the collective unconscious. So if you’re interacting with archetypal energy — the warrior, the healer, or whatever that is — that interaction itself can be the healing.”
Further research into this space is underway. For Waxenberg and his team at Medicinal Mindfulness, that will take the form of a fascinating new program called DMTx.
“So, DMTx — the x being ‘extended’ — so we’re looking to extend the DMT state, we’re really focusing on the fact that these experiences, like the peak experience, is less than five minutes. So, when it comes to therapeutic benefit, problem-solving, or even understanding if that space is real or these entities are real, five minutes is not really enough. DMTx we’re pioneering the research that Rick Strassman and Andrew Gallimore wrote up, which is this pharmacokinetic model of basically (using) an anesthesia machine and running DMT through that and keeping someone in the DMT state for extended periods of time to allow more healing and more understanding of that space and to maybe even map that space in some capacity.”
As DMT is still considered a schedule 1 controlled substance in the U.S., the DMTx program will take place in a country, such as Jamaica, where this kind of use is legal.
For proponents of DMT therapy, hopes are high that exploration will yield definitive findings of the therapeutic value of the psychedelic, so as to ultimately make healing available to all who could benefit.
Brain Scans of Shamans Show Ability to Alter Consciousness Naturally
A new study is the first to investigate what occurs in an alternate state of consciousness by looking inside the brain of a shaman.
Shamanism is considered to be the most ancient form of healing and spiritual practice. While science has been studying the healing benefits of the psychoactive plants used by shamans to enter into an altered state of consciousness, there have been very few studies to look at the neurological nature of the state itself. A groundbreaking new study investigated the shamanic state of consciousness accessed without the use of psychedelics.
Carlos Tanner is a longtime student of traditional shamanism and the director of the Ayahuasca Foundation. an educational and ceremonial center in Peru. “Shamanism refers to an alternate dimension, a dimension where spirits reside, where communication is possible, where greater insights can be acquired and brought back to the waking-day life,” Tanner said. “So a shaman would be someone who can enter into a different dimension and then pull that back.”
The process by which shamans access this state is rooted in the rich tradition of what Tanner calls, a ‘science of consciousness enhancement.’
“Oftentimes, there is the term ‘ceremony’ to describe the intentional entrance into this shamanic state. So there would be a preparation where there might be rituals to essentially prepare, certain clothing might be worn, and the use of certain tools, oftentimes a musical instrument, might be used,” Tanner said.
“All of those are a beautiful science of consciousness enhancement that, I think, has been developed through the continual use of a psychotropic substance, although to a point where, in many cases, the psychotropic substance is no longer needed to enter that state because the consciousness enhancement that was provided by the psychotropic substance can be accomplished without it.”
Richard Harris Ph.D. is a researcher at the University of Michigan who conducted the recent study on the shamanic state of consciousness. Dr. Harris and his team were interested in investigating this state in its purest form, unaffected neurologically by the use of any exogenous substances. To facilitate the entrance into the altered state without the use of psychedelics, the practitioners all listened to a recording of shamanic drumming.
“So, we did a study with 24 shamanic practitioners and 24 normal, control individuals and we collected EEG data (electroencephalogram data), you know brain activity data, while each participant had their eyes closed while they were listening to classical music which was the control condition, and then while they were listening to shamanic drumming music which was the more experimental condition,” Dr. Harris said. “So, what we’re doing with the shamanic drumming, we’re using the person’s own physiology to engender the state.”
