Your Brain on DMT and How to Make It Naturally

Most of our decisions are made emotionally. Almost all of them are made with a subconscious supposition formed around previous experience – an imprint that was created from as early as the time we were in our mother’s womb, until we are about five years old (some scientists say until we are 13), when it is said that our world view is already developed. This means if you were raised in a hostile environment, due to poverty, war, psychologically damaged parents, alcoholism, etc. you are likely to internalize a “reality” which then recreates itself over and over again in what Rupert Sheldrake calls the morphic field. DMT may be able to reverse this damaging psychological trajectory.

Conversely, if you were raised in an environment where everyone was loving and kind, all your needs were met with ease, and you were allowed to express yourself creatively, and autonomously, without enmeshment or other more overt forms of suppression of the Soul, then you would have a very different world view from which to base all future experiences and decisions upon.

To further explain this phenomenon, your childhood experience, or arguably your Soul’s experience through multiple lifetimes, would attach meaning to every other similar experience based on your past – not on the present moment.

If the color red was associated with pain and upset, you would again feel pain and upset every time you saw this color, even though it is simply one of a myriad different vibrations on the viewable light spectrum. Red, would therefore act as a trigger.

In other people, red might signify passion, love, or creative force. You can see how this early programming can cause very different life trajectories and experiences. If red is associated to a highly traumatic experience, then we might even feel fearful and shrink into ourselves just seeing pink!

When the ancient yogis talked about samskaras – rote patterns of thinking – they may not have known specifically how proteins bind to neurons to reinforce these neural pathways, or “neurosis” every time someone once again sees “red,” but interestingly, this is exactly what happens.

The neural pathways are bound with proteins and then built up like scar tissue. In some of my earliest yoga classes I was taught that samskaras can be translated loosely to mean, “some scars.” I never knew how prescient this definition truly was until I learned more about the neurological processes of undoing the brain’s patterned thinking.

Nonetheless, substances like DMT, endogenous to the human body, but greatly increased with the use of things like meditation or even a dark room, work to undo these “scars” in our neurological make-up.

They lovingly disrupt these patterns – sometimes with a spiritual wallop we weren’t expecting – but always to help us ascend out of the self-created prison that this mind-set is perpetuating.

Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca, for example, hyper-activates the region of the brain were we store memories – which are almost always entrenched in emotion. Sometimes memories which were long forgotten on the surface – just as in a deep meditative state. We are then able to use a different part of our brain to re-assign meaning to that experience, and to let the emotion go, so that the pattern does not re-establish itself, affecting our future experience.

New neural connections are made, and as we go forward, we have an “evolved consciousness,” meaning we are no longer a slave to our previous experience and the emotions attached to them.

Ayahuasca activates the highly evolved Neo-cortex, where we perceive reason and make decisions. It also activates the amygdala – including the earliest memories – both traumatic and inspiring. This plant medicine also activates the insula, which creates a bridge between our emotions and our ability to reason, but as popular as Ayahuasca is, it isn’t the only ways to increase endogenous substances like DMT which can jolt us out of an uninspired or even traumatic mindset.

Natural Ways to Increase DMT

We can also create higher levels of DMT naturally. Two of the easiest methods require down-time – quite literally.

The ancient Egyptians understood that a dark room and contemplative state of mind can induce the creation of DMT, along with other substances like Ayahuasca, “magic” mushrooms, and even the Acacia tree, however, with a pitch-dark room and meditative states we can achieve these states without the help of exogenous substances.

The dark room helps the brain to create melatonin and serotonin which are precursors to DMT. When DMT levels reach 25 mgs, we start to have a very different experience of reality – some might call them precursors to the psychedelic experience.

Once DMT reaches an even higher level in the brain, people report seeing spirits, angels, and meeting ancestors. These states are likely induced by several endogenous substances (meaning brain chemicals we make ourselves).

Meditation also increases DMT naturally, as evidenced in scientific studies like this one. Different binaural beats, and other meditation methods help us to produce more precursors (tryptamines) to DMT – serotonin and melatonin, but also DMT itself.

Certain breathing techniques as well as diets also increase  DMT naturally. Many yogic traditions focus on slowing the breath, and it is taught that is you can decrease your breathing rate to four breaths per minute, the brain starts to make DMT while you are awake.

Kundalini yoga also offers its own version of pranayama to induce greater DMT production and raised levels of consciousness.

https://youtu.be/S0meWkcH8Ow

Or try, meditations that focus specifically on the 6^th and 7^th chakras for the same benefits.

Image: Andrei Verner/Shutterstock.