Thread: DMT, Joe Rogan, and the Pineal Gland... Is Joe Rogan wrong?

Lovely overview of the topic: and you're right, there has never been any convincing evidence that endogenous DMT plays any role in consciousness, let alone whether or not it exists in humans.

And as per usual, the answer to the question "Is Joe Rogan wrong about..." is almost invariably "Yes. Yes he is."

Intriguing video, Daniel! I've also heard Joe Rogan say that when a group of people take DMT together they sometimes have a group hallucination, in which they all experience the same thing. For example, maybe they all encounter a divine being who looks and acts the same way and says the same things (from the perspective of each of the people in the group). Do you think that's possible? Is there currently any good evidence for it?

On a related note, here's a recent study that looked at the psychological benefits of mystical experiences that occur both naturally and due to taking psychedelic drugs:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ar...l.pone.0214377

Although there were some other differences between non-drug and the combined psychedelic group, as well as between the four psychedelic groups, the similarities among these groups were most striking. Most participants reported vivid memories of the encounter experience, which frequently involved communication with something having the attributes of being conscious, benevolent, intelligent, sacred, eternal, and all-knowing. The encounter experience fulfilled a priori criteria for being a complete mystical experience in approximately half of the participants. More than two-thirds of those who identified as atheist before the experience no longer identified as atheist afterwards. These experiences were rated as among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant lifetime experiences, with moderate to strong persisting positive changes in life satisfaction, purpose, and meaning attributed to these experiences.

Also, I've read that DMT is produced by the lungs and the liver. Could there ever be situations (e.g., near-death experiences) in which the body produces enough DMT to induce psychedelic experiences?

Erowid has lots of good information on DMT:

https://erowid.org/chemicals/dmt/

What they say about DMT and the pineal gland is worth reading:

https://erowid.org/chemicals/dmt/dmt_article2.shtml

It references this journal article:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29095071

Abstract

The pineal gland has a romantic history, from pharaonic Egypt, where it was equated with the eye of Horus, through various religious traditions, where it was considered the seat of the soul, the third eye, etc. Recent incarnations of these notions have suggested that N,N-dimethyltryptamine is secreted by the pineal gland at birth, during dreaming, and at near death to produce out of body experiences. Scientific evidence, however, is not consistent with these ideas. The adult pineal gland weighs less than 0.2 g, and its principal function is to produce about 30 µg per day of melatonin, a hormone that regulates circadian rhythm through very high affinity interactions with melatonin receptors. It is clear that very minute concentrations of N,N-dimethyltryptamine have been detected in the brain, but they are not sufficient to produce psychoactive effects. Alternative explanations are presented to explain how stress and near death can produce altered states of consciousness without invoking the intermediacy of N,N-dimethyltryptamine.

Wonder what those alternative explanations are. Unfortunately, only the abstract is available for free. Costs $40 to get the full paper.

Also, even if DMT isn't normally present in sufficient quantities to produce psychoactive effects, could it be that the body produces much larger amounts under unusual circumstances? Probably not, but maybe it'd be possible if it's produced in such large organs as the lungs and liver.