DMT-induced shifts in criticality correlate with self-dissolution
55 points
5 hours ago
| 6 comments
| jneurosci.org
| HN
_spduchamp
3 hours ago
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You can find Bill Atkinson's open-source instructions for Jaguar (5-MeO-DMT) Vape Pens from a link here: https://boingboing.net/2025/07/10/apples-bill-atkinson-creat...
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__MatrixMan__
2 hours ago
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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 this is still a relevant delivery mechanism.

In terms of ergonomics pens can't be beat, though if you'd rather go from 0 to escape velocity on a single hit, "the machine" is the way to go (https://wiki.dmt-nexus.me/The_Machine)

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Lucasoato
3 hours ago
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> 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.

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awakeasleep
3 hours ago
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Its terrible if you’re trying to drive or operate machinery
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isoprophlex
3 hours ago
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... Unless said machinery is provided to you by the machine elves, of course.
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almog
5 minutes ago
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... It comes with a free frogurt!
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cluckindan
3 hours ago
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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.

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meowkit
3 hours ago
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Wheres the wooshing joke jpeg when you need it
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cluckindan
1 hour ago
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Not everyone reading these discussions is going to be expecting humor, and will take any commentary affirming their prior indoctrination at face value.
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dylan604
17 minutes ago
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That sounds like a YP not an MP though. Everyone jokes about the sarcasm font being hard to use, but the printed word has been around for a long time, much longer than the internet, yet the sarcasm font complaints has only been an internet thing.
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ireadmevs
4 hours ago
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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.
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victor22
3 hours ago
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Who over here in HN has tried DMT?
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isoprophlex
3 hours ago
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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.
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chiefgeek
17 minutes ago
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I’ve sat with 5MeO-DMT over a dozen times, always in the form of Bufo flake from the toad. It has been one of the most transformational and healing modality I’ve encountered. I have a low dose Jaguar (synthetic) pen that I use occasionally.

I’ve also used NN from a pen. It gave me a strange body load and intense kaleidoscopic visuals.

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boppo1
3 hours ago
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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.

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Hnus
2 hours ago
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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.
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adriand
2 hours ago
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These stories never fail to astonish me. Why the same deity? It’s so interesting.

The fact the mind is able to create these powerful visions and patterns and other realities is really incredible. We have this machinery for perceiving the world and moving though it, but that machinery is capable of so many other insane and beautiful and terrifying things - capabilities which are inaccessible except in rare instances.

It’s really quite remarkable. Underneath our prosaic experience of consciousness is something that can generate infinite fractals, awe-inspiring visions of otherworldly creatures, dream landscapes of colour and shape. Why? Where does it all come from? Is this what life would be like all the time without us filtering the information coming into our senses?

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card_zero
1 hour ago
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The night hag comes to mind, a cross-cultural supernatural creature with a mundane physiological origin:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_hag

So, some common sensory interference might suggest many-limbed things, maybe. Like how LSD makes things wobble and crawl about.

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DisruptiveDave
1 hour ago
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May I suggest "Man And His Symbols" by Car Jung? It was his final writing and, I believe, his only one that focused on the common(ish) reader as the audience. The basis of the book (and generally his studies and beliefs) is that the subconscious is as meaningful as the conscious, it just communicates in ways that are harder to access in modern society, and therefore it's been pushed away and ignored.
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1MachineElf
1 hour ago
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Small doses. Never enough to disassociate. Only lots of LSD and 4-HO-DET ever did that to me.

The most striking memory with DMT was at night seeing a moonlight cloud full of skulls staring back down at me. I frequently saw skulls in any texture.

It was very long ago. Unfortunately the dealer was raided.

It left a noticable residue in the simplistic vape we had and a few subsequent uses still carried traces of it.

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cluckindan
3 hours ago
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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.
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bitmasher9
2 hours ago
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I think the terminology is hacked to produce the most scary looking headline while saying the most mundane and expected things.
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hiddencost
2 hours ago
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I think they're using technical language that you're aware of, and you're misinterpreting the title of a research paper.
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CuriouslyC
3 hours ago
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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.
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isoprophlex
3 hours ago
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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.
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