DMT
Pronunciation:dee-em-tee
Chemical Abstracts Service Registry Number:61-50-7
Formal Names:Dimethyltryptamine, N,N-Dimethyltryptamine
Informal Names:AMT, Businessman’s LSD, Businessman’s Special, Business-
man’s Trip, Cohoba Snuff, Disneyland, Disneyworld, Dmitri, Fantasia, 45 Min-
ute Psychosis, 45 Minute Trip, Instant Psychosis, Psychosis
Type:Hallucinogen.Seepage 25
Federal Schedule Listing:Schedule I (DEA no. 7435)
USA Availability:Illegal to possess
Pregnancy Category:None
Uses.Various plants contain this chemical, and minute quantities are man-
ufactured by body processes in mammals. The substance can also be made in
a laboratory and is chemically similar tobufotenine. Grasses containing DMT
can sicken and kill livestock.
Native peoples of the Amazon use snuffs and drinks containing DMT for
religious purposes. Supposedly such drinks can give a person telepathy and
other ESP (extrasensory perception) powers, but one researcher failed to
achieve such states even though he used the drink 30 times while living
among a native population for three years.
In rat experiments the animals acted as if DMT is similar toLSD. A human
study found DMT to evoke visual and auditory hallucinations so intense that
the volunteers lost contact with ordinary reality during the drug experience.
The volunteers vacillated back and forth between euphoria and unease.
In contrast, a different human study comparing DMT and delta-9-
tetrahydrocannabinol (also called THC, the main active ingredient inmari-
juana) found their actions to be equivalent. The finding was exceptional,
however; most reports describe DMT as a potent hallucinogen with actions
reminiscent of LSD ormescaline. Some people are said to become relaxed as
DMT’s initial actions wear off.
One commonly mentioned DMT effect is awareness of elves, fairies, or some
alien intelligence—encounters that users do not necessarily find pleasant.
Some users say that time seems to slow. Most scientists seek explanations that
do not require acceptance of alternative realities, because throughout the his-
tory of science the simplest explanations tend to be correct. For example, time