Dreams and DMT

[DocAzz]

My dreams are very rarely vivid, or "real" but in the past few months, after my e-discovery of psychedelics and entheogens, my dreams have been kicking into over-drive. They are ultra-real, even if I was working my way down into a dungeon last night hacking up cyber-zombies with a companion to save my brother, it felt like the only existance I knew. I had all my actual memories to recall, and then they just led to this point! I should have thought about it upon waking, as now its harder to recall. I do remember this make-shift axe I made from a broken pipe, and I spent time just feeling it and noticing how much it weighed, as I was trying to convince myself I was only dreaming, but my mind wouldn't have a bar of it... It felt like a heavy steel pipe, I even cut my finger on the edge.

I can only recall a few times in my past 24 years when dreams have been as vivid as the last few months. Now it is a weekly occurence!

I'm just wondering what people think about this?

I have a feeling my mind is preparing me for a journey with DMT, by giving me smaller doses of it while I sleep.

[WitchDoctor]

i'd love to see a brainscan of you while you sleep, a scan that could show which chemicals were being released and which receptor sites they were targetting. but i'm afraid youre just dreaming dude, as my dad said when i was a kid and would often suffer of extremely lucid nightmares "just realise that youre dreaming, tell yourself youre dreaming, and then you can control your dreams."

now keep in mind if your brain was releasing DMT, it would have to be constantly releasing it at increasing dosages to couteract tolerancy, which would mean that your pineal gland (i take it youre referring to that, which still isnt proven) would be producing an awfully large amount of DMT. would you mind if i took it out and chewed it a little? nothing like having a fresh pineal gland to chew on

[faustus]

now keep in mind if your brain was releasing DMT, it would have to be constantly releasing it at increasing dosages to couteract tolerancy

unlike other serotonergic hallucinogens, repeated DMT adminstration doesn't elicit subjective tolerance.

i vaguely remember a study looking at DMT levels in sleep, which found no association between DMT concentrations and sleep stage. if i find it i'll post it up.

also if any psychedelic were to be a drug model for dreaming in humans, i think ketamine and other NDMA antagonists would be better. would also explain the inability to clearly remember dreams upon awakening.

EDIT: re the role of the pineal in DMT production. the pineal doesn't secrete DMT per se, but releases inhibitors of the enzyme INMT, which synthesises DMT from N-methyltryptamine. in theory the pineal is indirectly involved in DMT production.

Edited October 6, 2006 by twix elbert

[phloom]

DMT has allowed me to 'feel' content in my dreams, trying to understand the information intellectually just serves to confuse me alot of the time. Often what i think could be some meaning or signal is reavealed as more or less impersonal. I can become too self-reflective if i try and understand or pull meaning from dreams.

It shows me that my dreams can be somatic links to potential aspects of myself. Emotions, feelings and unnamable things that are deeper than my everyday thought processes.

I believe words are inefficient tools for understanding dreams and DMT experiences, but we need symbols to understand and communicate.......

[mescalito]

now keep in mind if your brain was releasing DMT, it would have to be constantly releasing it at increasing dosages to couteract tolerancy

unlike other serotonergic hallucinogens, repeated DMT adminstration doesn't elicit subjective tolerance.

i vaguely remember a study looking at DMT levels in sleep, which found no association between DMT concentrations and sleep stage. if i find it i'll post it up.

also if any psychedelic were to be a drug model for dreaming in humans, i think ketamine and other NDMA antagonists would be better. would also explain the inability to clearly remember dreams upon awakening.

EDIT: re the role of the pineal in DMT production. the pineal doesn't secrete DMT per se, but releases inhibitors of the enzyme INMT, which synthesises DMT from N-methyltryptamine. in theory the pineal is indirectly involved in DMT production.

That's really interesting thanks twix can you dig up the study?

I like this dualistic approach because say for example there was a fox taking your chickens.There are a few ways to deal with it:

1:Isolate the chickens from the fox

2:Shoot the fox

3:get rid of the chickens

the 2nd option leaves a place for another predator to take it's place whereas option 1 is foolproof unless the new one is a burrower in which case option 3 comes in and that's not what anyone wants

 

DMT has allowed me to 'feel' content in my dreams, trying to understand the information intellectually just serves to confuse me alot of the time. Often what i think could be some meaning or signal is reavealed as more or less impersonal. I can become too self-reflective if i try and understand or pull meaning from dreams.

It shows me that my dreams can be somatic links to potential aspects of myself. Emotions, feelings and unnamable things that are deeper than my everyday thought processes.

I believe words are inefficient tools for understanding dreams and DMT experiences, but we need symbols to understand and communicate.......

"WORD"

To paraphrase a treating psychiactrist friend of mine...

"The subconscious recognises symbols...a circle is a circle no matter where you come from"..."which is very intelligent programming as far as human beings go...otherwise we would literally need to understand every dialect of language just to reach it and make change possible"..."otherwise proper psychiatric methods wouldn't work"

After many trials with re-uptake inhibitors he/we dicided that CBT using altered states being hypnosis not unlike sleep/tripping or waking consciousness-and symbolism was the only way to not only treat the symptomology but understand and disseminate the root cause of each "illness".

He read some stuff I gave him and knew what I planned to do and totally supported me alongside his tried and true alternative methods

DMT is truly the spirit molecule and tryptamimes in general IMHO are doors to every aspect of our being.

[faustus]

too much spare time on my hands

DMT and lack of subjective tolerance:

Differential tolerance to biological and subjective effects of four closely spaced doses of N,N-dimethyltryptamine in humans

Tolerance to the behavioral effects of the short-acting, endogenous hallucinogen, N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is seen inconsistently in animals, and has not been produced in humans. The nature and time course of responses to repetitive, closely spaced administrations of an hallucinogenic dose of DMT were characterized. Thirteen experienced hallucinogen users received intravenous 0.3 mg/kg DMT fumarate, or saline placebo, four times, at 30 min intervals, on 2 separate days, in a randomized, double-blind, design. Tolerance to "psychedelic" subjective effects did not occur according to either clinical interview or Hallucinogen Rating Scale scores. Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), prolactin, cortisol, and heart rate responses decreased with repeated DMT administration, although blood pressure did not. These data demonstrate the unique properties of DMT relative to other hallucinogens and underscore the differential regulation of the multiple processes mediating the effects of DMT.

DMT and sleep (INMT is involved in the biosynthesis of DMT and 5-Meo-DMT):

Plasma indolethylamine-n-methyltransferase activity and growth hormone level during sleep: a pilot study.

Polygraphic recordings and sequential growth hormone (GH) samplings were performed in eight healthy adult males. In the plasma samples from seven of the subjects, indolethylamine-N-methyltransferase (INMT) activity was also determined. Five of eight subjects showed significant fluctuation in plasma GH level, and six of seven subjects showed significant fluctuation in plasma INMT activity level. There were also significant positive correlations between plasma GH and INMT activity level during the second episode of NREM sleep stage 1 and during the third episode of NREM sleep stage 2. A significant negative correlation between plasma GH and INMT activity level during the seventh episode of sleep stage 2 and during the fifth episode of post sleep-onset wake was found. In view of a previous finding that INMT activity in the serum of psychiatric patients is positively correlated with severity of delusions, the observation that NREM sleep is associated with mental activity characterized by repetitive thoughts, and the result that GH level in plasma is increased in NREM sleep early at night, our present findings suggest the hypotheses that increased plasma INMT activity during sleep is indicative of both increased INMT activity in the central nervous system (CNS) and the activation or maintenance of NREM mental activity during sleep. Additional research will be needed in order to validate our observations and test these hypotheses.

Spectral analysis of mouse EEG after the administration of N,N-dimethyltryptamine.

Mice were implanted with permanent cortical electrodes. The EEG was recorded during the sleep-wake cycle and after the administration of N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Based upon spectral analysis the EEG was classified into three categories: awake, slow-wave sleep (SWS), and rapid eye movement sleep (REM). The dominant frequencies were located below 2 Hz in the case of SWS and between 6 and 9 Hz for REM. When DMT was administered intraperitoneally at 20 or 40 mg/kg, a dose-dependent hypersynchrony at 2.5-4.5 Hz was always observed lasting for up to 60 min. Hypersynchronous activity in the same range was occasionally observed during awake. In this range DMT induced a different but unique frequency for each animal. This individual frequency was closely reproduced by repeated administrations of DMT to the same animal.

for the role of the pineal gland in DMT synthesis, look at this one:

Inhibitor of indolethylamine N-methyltransferase in pineal extract.

Res Commun Chem Pathol Pharmacol. 1974 Oct;9(2):375-8.

actually, after reading some papers i'd say a ketamine-like substance probably doesn't induce REM sleep in humans. but i believe that ketamine more closely resembles sleep phenomenology than does DMT.

[occidentalis]

When DMT was administered intraperitoneally at 20 or 40 mg/kg, a dose-dependent hypersynchrony at 2.5-4.5 Hz was always observed lasting for up to 60 min.

That's a lot of dmt... are mice particularly tolerant to it?