DMT: The Hallucinogenic Drug Produced In the Brain I The Feed

[ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC]

PROFESSOR: This
crystal-shaped compound

is called dimethyltryptamine.

It's better known as DMT,
the illegal psychedelic drug

you've probably
never heard of that's

produced by your own body.

DMT is created by
mixing an enzyme

with an amino acid,
the latter of which

is found in many
forms of organic life.

It can be smoked,
drunk, or even injected,

and it produces a powerful
hallucinatory experience.

Users say you lose all sense
of time, place, and reality.

ANTONOPOULOS SPIROS:
Then there'd be a hum,

and the hum would get
louder to the point

where it broke apart
everything that I was or knew.

This got louder and
louder until you just

had to surrender to the sound.

And then, you were there.

I remember it being dome-like,
but multi-dimensional.

The texture of
the space was very

much like an animated Mexican
tile, hyper-vivid in color.

It was another world.

There were robot
creatures of some sort.

It feels like just when the
party starts, the trip ends.

PROFESSOR: South American tribes
drink a brew containing plants

with DMT as part of
shamanic rituals.

It's used as a means
of spiritual healing,

allegedly allowing
users to communicate

with interdimensional beings.

In 1956, Stephen Szara, a
chemist and psychiatrist living

in the then-Communist
nation of Hungary,

read about the
tribes' spiritual brew

and started to
experiment with DMT.

Zara was looking
for an alternative

to LSD, which was impossible for
the Communist chemist to obtain.

Hence, he began
experimenting with DMT,

and it was then that the
psychotropic effects of the drug

were realized.

But even if you haven't
knowingly consumed DMT,

a leading researcher of the
drug suggests that you probably

have felt its effects.

The theory is that in times
of extrema physical stress,

some near-death experiences,
and even during deep REM sleep,

the body releases DMT.

The man behind that theory
is Dr. Rick Strassman.

But this theory is
controversial and has never been

proven in a living human brain.

Stephen Szara the
Hungarian pioneer of DMT,

does not agree with
Strassman's theories.

STEPHEN SZARA: So this is a
theory that in a research phase,

and I don't quite agree how
Rick Strassmann presents it

and how he goes
practically overboard

into the new age business.

PROFESSOR: Strassmann conducted
clinical studies of DMT inside

the human body during the 1990s,
and he hypothesized that it

originated inside the brain,
coming from a small gland about

the size of a grain of rice--

the pineal gland, otherwise
known by some as the third eye.

It's responsible for
regulating our sense of time

and is found in practically
every vertebrate species.

RICK STRASSMAN: We
demonstrated that there is DMT

made in a living
rodent pineal gland.

We've published the data
couple of months ago.

In terms of the pineal producing
DMT, we know that for a fact.

Now, we're not quite yet
at the technological level

of being able to measure
naturally-occurring fluctuations

in DMT, but that's
around the corner.

PROFESSOR: Despite DMT being
naturally produced in the body,

it's classified as a Schedule
I drug, which by law makes

it the equivalent of magic
mushrooms, peyote cactus,

and opiates like heroin.

There is still so
much that is unknown

about dimethyltryptamine, DMT,
the drug produced in our brain,

that the mind is
yet to understand.