DMT: The Spirit Molecule's Short and Intense Journey

Explore DMT, short for dimethyltryptamine, one of the most potent psychedelics known. Learn about its short duration, its role in ayahuasca ceremonies, and the profound experiences it offers, including distortions of time and space and communication with otherworldly beings.

What is the Difference Between Ayahuasca and DMT?

Our WORD OF THE WEEK is DMT – Short for dimethyltryptamine, “the spirit molecule” is one of the most potent psychedelics on the planet. Sometimes referred to as the “drive-by” of psychedelics due to its short duration (5-15 minutes), it is also a key ingredient in ayahuasca ceremony ayahuasca tea, in which a specific blend of ayahuasca and chacruna induce significantly longer trips. Whether used in ritualistic, therapeutic, or recreational fashion, DMT side effects include significant distortions of time and space, the revisiting of past lives, and communication with entities and beings not from Earth.

Episode Guests

Episode Resources & Additional Reading

READ: Dive into DMT RESEARCH at The Beckley Foundation.
LISTEN: Season 3 of The High Guide podcast welcomes Natasha Lannerd as the show’s “High Guide,” or psychedelic integration facilitator. You may remember Natasha’s brilliant integration with Colton in INTEGRATION #3 episode, but she was first brilliant discussing DMT in this BONUS episode we shared from High Minded with McCarter podcast.  
WATCH: 5MEO: Are some doors better left unopened? Three male friends document their path to smoking frog venom. If you’re in the throes of an existential crisis, invest the $8.99 to purchase on Prime Video. We’re looking forward to the “GIRLS TRIP” version…

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Podcast Episode Full Transcription

0:00:01.0 April Pride: Hello and welcome to The High Guide. I’m your host, April Pride. The psychedelic we’re reviewing today has been compared to being fired out of the muzzle of an atomic cannon with neon-byzantine barreling. And for any of our listeners that may have consumed this Entheogen, I bet you need no further clues to identify it. And as a reminder, an Entheogen is a chemical substance typically of plant origin that is ingested to produce non-ordinary state of consciousness for religious or spiritual purposes. But before we get into this jackass style atomic cannon blast, I have a favor to ask of you. If you’re a new listener and you love the show or you’ve been loyal each week for nearly a year, please follow, subscribe and review The High Guide wherever you listen to podcasts. It really does help more people find the show, and while our third season is taking shape, we’d love to hear from you. Please DM us, send us an email or leave us a voice message on SpeakPipe. The info to get in touch with our show is in this week’s episodes’ show notes.

0:01:08.6 April Pride: And I’d like to remind all of you that the Entheogen series is a bonus round of episodes we’re dropping between seasons. That’s right, we’re so excited to drop our new season on March 18th, featuring Natasha Lannerd as our high guide or psychedelic integration facilitator. For season three, Natasha will integrate three sister trippers or psychonauts as we explore across the arc of the season, two primary themes that Natasha sees many psychedelic experiences coming back to, and those are separating our soul from our story and our relationship to love. To remind those of you who’ve listened to the previous bonus episodes on MDMA and LSD, I’m not working with an audio editor. [chuckle] So, while I’m going to try to be perfect from start to finish in recording these episodes, I probably won’t. So, laugh along with my mispronunciations, tripping over words, although I swear, I’m not tripping, and probably a few wandering thoughts. And thank you for listening.

0:02:14.4 April Pride: Our word of the week is DMT, short for Dimethyltryptamine. Dimethyltryptamine, say it fast, three times. This is the spirit molecule, and it’s one of the most potent psychedelics on the planet, sometimes referred to as the drive-by of psychedelics due to its short duration, which is five to 15 minutes. It’s also a key ingredient in Ayahuasca tea, which is a specific blend of Ayahuasca and chacruna to induce significantly longer trips. Whether used in ritualistic, therapeutic or recreational fashion, DMT side effects include significant distortions of time and space, the revisiting of past lives and communication with entities and beings not from Earth. I have tried DMT, and I feel like I tried it… I cheated a little bit because I had a vape pen, and while that was something that the people I was with were really excited about, because they had done it in the more traditional way, which was… Didn’t taste very good, and there were some things that were a little bit inconvenient about it, it still did the trick.

0:03:30.2 April Pride: And I guess, I would recommend it because it was so clean, but this is definitely not how most people have consumed Ayahuasca in the past. Or sorry, DMT, in the past, I have also consumed Ayahuasca as a tea, and they felt… Although the effects and the hallucinations when I was seeing were similar, I definitely felt like DMT and Ayahuasca were different for me. So, I would love again, leave a message on SpeakPipe and let us know your experiences with DMT versus an Ayahuasca tea. Alright. Ayahuasca ceremonies are… They’re becoming a hot trend here in the 2020s, but they’ve been occurring for thousands of years throughout the Amazon in religious ceremonies. The medicine has been found to heal PTSD, addiction, depression, and feelings of loss. Various groups around the world are hosting retreats in which individuals can consume Ayahuasca tea and expect profound healing. Firstly, is Ayahuasca, is it legal?

0:04:35.0 April Pride: While the Ayahuasca plant itself isn’t legal, the main substance DMT is considered a schedule one drug in the US, making it illegal to possess and consume aside from some specific regions and religious exemptions. DMT has become a recreational hallucinogenic that is typically smoked to transporting individuals outside of their bodies, yup, into an alternate metaphysical reality within minutes of consumption, [chuckle] felt more like seconds. What’s most interesting is that humans and all mammals produce endogenous DMT. So our bodies have evolved to interact with this chemical. DMT is produced by the brain’s pineal gland, aka the third eye and the seat of the soul due to its ability to elicit out-of-body experiences. And here are a few trip tips, the effects, as we’ve said, you’re gonna have an out-of-body experience, hallucinations, detachment from self, interaction with foreign entities and distortion of time and space. Okay, so imagine a rainbow of colors and shapes that can only be described as geometric.

0:05:49.4 April Pride: I mean, I think of all the iconography from the Aztecs, that is exactly what you are living in for a very temporary… In a very temporary state, when you consume DMT. I don’t know, it’s different for everybody. But geometric shapes that are like pulsing with color and sounds that are outside of the reality that you’re in, you can kind of remember that there are people or things around you, but you’re very much in this place, which is at once the future and very much the past. The dose that’s recommended is 25 to 55 milligrams, which is administered via smoking or vaping. Again, because I am new to intentional, integrated psychedelic therapy I have no idea what the doses I’ve taken are and it’s very rare that most people do. The duration, DMT is shorter lived than Ayahuasca, which is about five to eight hours, DMT is like, five to 15 minutes.

0:07:01.8 April Pride: And if you take a huge hit and you go really deep, it doesn’t mean that you’ll be in that state longer, it just means that you will be further away from anyone or anything that is in, I guess, this 3D reality that we live in. Alright. And some resources that you can check our show notes to get more information on, so that you can learn a little bit more about DMT yourself. Look at the Beckley Foundation’s website and their research on DMT. I found this to be the best resource online for both research studies and information, about the compound in general. Listen to season three. Oh, no, listen to season two of The High Guide. Natasha Lannerd was the facilitator of The High Guide for integration number three with Colton Winger. And we first heard from Natasha actually on an earlier episode that we borrowed audio from McCarter Gets High.

0:08:13.7 April Pride: I guess, she changed the name of her podcast to High Minded with McCarter. And she discussed DMT brilliantly in this episode, so I encourage you to look back in our feed and catch this one as well. I found there are documentaries on Netflix that… Talking about the bliss molecule. But I wanted to find something that was new to me and that had actual people that had taken it, talking about that had never taken it, they were gearing up to take it, what their integration was like following and you’re gonna have to pay for that one. It is a documentary that I found on Prime Video, cost $9, I now own it. [chuckle] And three male friends document their path to smoking frog venom, that’s what it also is. So if you’re in a throes of existential crisis, join the club and invest $8.99 on Prime Video. And I can’t wait to see the girls trip version of this.

0:09:19.3 April Pride: The quote from… A quote from Natasha’s interview on High Minded with McCarter, I think, says a lot about this drug. I said to my friend who I was sitting with for me, I was like, I’m about to blast off. And that’s exactly what happens when you consume DMT. Again, if you’re a new listener, or you’ve been loyal each week, please follow, subscribe, and review The High Guide wherever you listen to podcasts, it really helps more people to find our show. And while our third season is taking shape, we’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line, a DM, or email us, leave us a voicemail on SpeakPipe, again, all of this information is available in our show notes. And tune in next Friday for episode on Ego Death. I’m your host, April Pride, looking forward to bringing you next weeks’ episode of The High Guide.

Episode Credits

Producer & Host: April Pride Audio Engineer: Nick Patri, Cloud Studios Theme music: Cheri Dub, Morris Johnson

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