speaker-0: Hello and welcome to Outer Limits of Inner Science, where we explore human transformation, consciousness, and the science of meditation in order to empower people to heal and thrive. And with me today, as always, Dr. Hilary Hamilton.
speaker-1: Hey Andrew, and what an episode we have today. I'm so excited to dive right in.
speaker-0: The we try to talk about in every episode are things that empower you to heal and thrive. And today's episode is no different. Today we're talking about DMT.
speaker-1: Yeah, I love this. This is so exciting to dive deep into what DMT is all about and how it affects us.
speaker-0: Yeah, and we don't know exactly how or where it's created. Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about it being created in a pineal gland. People have talked about it coming from the heart, but it's been detected, I believe, in saliva, in blood, in cerebrospinal fluid. That's a fluid that lubricates your spinal cord. So for those of you that do breath work, every time you tighten down and move that CSF fluid, you might be moving DMT throughout your system.
speaker-1: Yeah, that's super cool. That's why I'm glad we're talking about this because it could be during a meditative state. It could be when you're taking DMT from the outside and putting it into your body. It could be when you're born. It can be when you die. It's been detected in all of those places, but no one really knows. It's a lot of theoretical understanding. It's really cutting edge as far as research is concerned.
speaker-0: Absolutely, and I feel like it must have something to do with that transition with birth with death somehow having to do with consciousness coming in or leaving the body and certainly those mystical experiences when people become the universe and or become everyone and everything there must be something about that molecule that helps us experience that and so in a traumatic experience or in a near-death experience levels of DMT are much higher And I think that's part of the easing of the transition, maybe to separate from the body or something.
speaker-1: Yeah, and it's so cool because it's not just in humans. They have found DMT in animals, in plants, and it really makes you go, why? I mean, why is it in plants? Why is it in animals? Why is it not just in humans? If you think that we've evolved as a species, you would think it would only be in humans. But maybe it's so we can all experience the three-dimensional state of reality. I don't know, but it's exciting to explore.
speaker-0: And it certainly seems like it might be the missing link in understanding human consciousness. And what are we and who are we? If we're not these physical bodies, these meat suits, who are we out here? And I think DMT is helping us understand that.
speaker-1: Yeah, and they call it, well some researchers have called it the God particle. So that's pretty exciting. And I know with us, with Inner Science Research Fund, we're at the cutting edge of uncovering, hopefully, what DMT is all about. In fact, we've sponsored and funded through a grant some research behind DMT, haven't we?
speaker-0: Yep, absolutely. So there's a device that's being worked on at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition and Georgia Tech University. They're working together on this device that you'd be able to put on your tongue and it would detect your saliva and then in that saliva, it'll be able to analyze it and pick up whether or not there's DMT in there. The half life of DMT is actually very short. So it's difficult to detect, but this device would allow us to detect it and show that, okay, you had a mystical experience, well guess what? You produced DMT inside your body. You didn't take it from outside, it was in a meditation. And so I think those experiences would be really different.
speaker-1: Yeah, that is super cool and I'm so glad that we have a guest on this episode that is going to talk about it even further. I know he's had an intense quest for what DMT is all about and I know when he was young he had an incredible experience where he was in a whole altered state for like three weeks. So I'm curious was his body producing a lot of DMT so he could experience that and I know his whole life changed after that experience and that That's why he's studying DMT.
speaker-0: Yeah, I wonder if the DMT is was actually flowing and in his system for those five days or or however long that was or was it like the DMT opened the door and once the door is open now the energy is flowing is just feeling connected and whole. ⁓ For sure, my understanding about DMT when it comes from plant medicine and something exogenous that you're consuming it and you're getting that molecule but when it's endogenous when it's coming from within It's a much more complete molecule. It's got all those other derivatives of melatonin and ⁓ tryptophan, L-tryptamine, I think it is. So it's just a much broader, richer experience in that situation. But the door is open.
speaker-1: So cool because this seems like it's out there a lot, Andrew. I mean, a lot of people are doing breath work. A lot of people are doing... meditation, seems like we're reaching like a critical mass of people wanting to uncover more of what's happening inside of them rather than being subjected to their environment, taking things from the outside to have those experiences. And like you said, our body has the biology within it to move cerebral spinal fluid up and activate that pineal gland for that out-of-body experience. And we have that in Dr. Joe's events all the time. And inner science is looking at what's happening from a science perspective, taking consciousness and understanding how the body, the biology and physiology changes when we go out of body and we explore different dimensions. And I think, boy, I'm so happy we're on this path together to uncover all of this.
speaker-0: Absolutely. And you mentioned out of body. I think that ⁓ same situation is happening when somebody transitions at death. That the DMT is helping them either to ⁓ ease that transition or to experience moving out of their body and disconnecting from it. And that's the same thing that's happening in meditation. I feel like every time we lay our body down for meditation and we go elsewhere. I think that's exactly what death is like and it will be really cool if we can dig deeper into the science of all of this.
speaker-1: Yeah, and our researchers I know that are looking at all of this at the events to try to see how can we, you said it's a half-life of how long that DMT lasts in the body, but they want to like take blood, I know, during these mystical experiences to see if they could capture that DMT in the moment. So it's so exciting and I'm so excited to have this episode and talk to our guest, John Chavez.
speaker-0: Yes, I think the device or the blood draw would be a lot better than the lumbar puncture in the CSF fluid, but I know there's scientists and researchers that would love to do that. I just don't know if that's the safest or most effective way of detecting it. So hopefully John Chavez and the DMT Quest team at the universities will be able to develop that device and we can all have one and know when we have that profound experience that there's actually meditation in, I'm sorry, DMT in our saliva and in our bodies.
speaker-1: exciting. I'm looking at this as this could be the Holy Grail and connecting the dots between consciousness and science and we're right there in the middle.
speaker-0: Yep, absolutely. We're unlocking the mystical, the mystery of DMT and consciousness. So let's jump into it.
speaker-1: Let's go. John, your interest is so interesting to me in dodging this DMT, I know it's super interesting to Dr. Joe. How did you get into that space? I'm curious.
speaker-2: Yeah, it's a long story, but I'm here to tell, I'm going to tell. You know, I had a spiritual awakening in 2013 following a health crisis in 2012. I actually had a pulmonary embolism in 2012 that kind of just shed some light on the fact that I obviously had a lot of underlying health conditions that I needed to be taken care of. ⁓ The doctors didn't know why it occurred. And even a year later, I was still having health issues. I was only 33 at the time. So I did what any rational person would do and did the Google doctor thing, did the search thing. And ⁓ long story short, I ended up inducing like a cleansing of the body that induced like a Kundalini awakening of sorts. And I just felt like a deep sort of electricity flowing through my body. I never felt this before. Had no interest in spirituality prior to this, no interest in psychedelics or mysticism. And ⁓ I just had a pretty much a spontaneous healing and a Kundalini awakening at the same time tapped into the source, you know, knowing that God exists pretty much just in the snap of the fingers, knowing that consciousness doesn't necessarily originate in the brain. Our brain is sort of a interface for a greater consciousness. It's just amazing looking back at how quick these realizations came about. And in the process of that, also learned about an autonomic nervous system influence because this sensation of bioelectricity to the body, I quickly found out that my consciousness could actually control it. I was able to modulate the temperature of specific body parts. I'd never heard of this before. I had no interest in any of this. And past that, I realized that these intentions or ⁓ visualizations within the body can extend past the body. And that kind of led me down the path of understanding that energy healing is a real thing. Even things like telepathy, shout out to telepathy tapes, is a real thing. And it really just got me questioning how these things come about. I understand there is a magical aspect to reality, but I also understand that there's ⁓ biomechanisms to reality as well, that we can't deny that. So prior to this awakening, I had worked in the biotech industry for about a decade. And I had kept in contact with some of my ex coworkers, know, scientists doing gene sequencing and things of that nature. And it was interesting to me because after I had this experience, which lasted about 12 weeks, so I had a lot of time to kind of maneuver this experience and actually really sink into it and understand that this was actually really happening. You know, it's interesting that I thought that people in the sciences would be the most interested about these sort of experiences and how they come about, especially from somebody who was considered a rational thinker. And it was funny because it was actually the opposite. The scientists were actually more closed off and actually antagonizing to me that I had just undergone a long bout of psychosis or whatever. And I was like, no, obviously that's not the case. So I need to figure out a way to communicate this experience in a palatable manner for that audience. And I remember ⁓ being at my ⁓ my sister's wedding around that time. And I had a cousin who was in medical school and I tried to tell him about the experience and he kind of brushed it off and he was like, have you ever heard of DMT? should look it up. So I go ahead and look it up. obviously the first thing that comes up is Rick Strassman's book, DMT, the spirit molecule. And I was like, wait, what? What is this? I never even heard of DMT. Like I said, I had no interest in psychedelics. So I read the book. And I find it fascinating that, you this hypothesis is that DMT is produced in the pineal gland and that there was other, there was like 50 or 60 studies showing that DMT was produced in the body. And at that point, I just decided to create an anonymous blog. I just had the initial JC and I started ruminating on the potential of the biomechanism of these altered states and how they might tie in with endogenous DMT upregulation. that changed not only our perception, but our abilities. Because remember, my experience wasn't just visionary, was also visualizations come into life. So basically, I just continued to write as best I could utilizing the best sources that I could utilizing the science of the time. And I realized that the more I wrote and the more I could kind of tie in some of these ⁓ undeniable bio... mechanical differences between baseline consciousness and altered states, whether it be meditation, breath work, or hypnosis, that my ex-co-workers started to become not only receptive, but really interested in what I was saying. And they actually eventually became believers just off pure intellectual discussion. And at that point, it made me realize that this was a vein that could be developed to actually help others that have had mystical type experiences. explain this to maybe their skeptical family or skeptical friends. So they wouldn't have to go through, I guess, the difficult process of maneuvering those sort of discussions, which can be pretty difficult for people that have had these experiences. So that's pretty much ⁓ like the history of how I came about to be interested in endogenous CMT. I'm very interested in the science of it, and I'm also very interested in the narrative that could be developed from it. My main thing when it comes to mysticism is how far can we develop this narrative from a perspective of undeniability, right? So DMT exists, that's an undeniable thing. Endogenous DMT exists, that's an undeniable thing. Whether we can modulate it, make it go up or down, that's still slightly up for debate, but definitely there's changes in our EEG, the electrophysiology of our brain. So currently right now we're interested in looking at specific changes that take place in the brain. Like Dr. Joe talks about, when we get in our author states, we're hitting the theta gamma, the cross-frequency coupling that seems to coincide with these transcendental experiences, these mystical experiences. And is it that far fetched to think that endogenous DMT or even endogenous 5-MeO DMT are involved? I don't think so. Just for a little bit, a little snippet, we're in the middle of doing DMT Quest 2. That's our second film. And we just interviewed a gentleman who had a near death experience as well as having quite a vast amount of experience with DMT and 5-MEO. And he's 100 % convinced that DMT and 5-MEO, DMT are playing a key role in the near death experience. So this is just a little snippet of somebody who's actually had both experiences that was able to actually chime in on this from a firsthand perspective. So I'm really interested in the science and developing a very palatable narrative that is true to the science that's not over sensationalized so that the public can go ahead and use it however they will, whether it's the mystics utilizing it to create discourse with the skeptics and the scientists or scientists that are on the fence but want to be fed like a palatable narrative regarding mysticism. So I think it's pretty important and I'm really grateful for Inner Science helping DMT Quest out in this mission. And like I said, I love what you guys do and I'm looking forward to a lot of research going forward.
speaker-0: We have so much to unpack there. I could see talking to you for the next five hours about what you've just said so far. ⁓ the first thing I just want to address is that the DMT related to death, there's got to be a reason why it's in the body. It's for us to have these miscellaneous experiences or perhaps for us to transition or even to protect and preserve the brain as we get really close to death, but maybe come back from death. There's all sorts of science around that, which is just fascinating. I actually want to go back really early, back to 2013, when you talked about the spontaneous awakening or your spiritual awakening, what induced that? Was it just out of the blue something happened or were you meditating or were you doing plant medicine or what? And you said it lasted 12 weeks, right?
speaker-2: Yeah, no, it was, ⁓ I mean, to be completely frank, was just like emptying your gut. So basically a deep cleansing of the gut brain, which for whatever reason induced the experience. I had just done the Google doctor thing. So it was more of an accident. It wasn't intentional. And it was definitely, I had no psychedelics, like exogenous psychedelics, but it was a deep cleansing that took place. And it seems as though, It's interesting is that I've heard other instances of people undergoing like sort of ⁓ cleansing protocols and then feeling like clarity and sort of spiritual sort of connectivity over weeks of it. And mine was all in one day and it was very compressed and very intense. And ⁓ yeah, it was just a deep emptying of the bowels that induced the awakening. It's almost like it was balled up energy at the lowest chakra that was stuck. And then through the physical sort of release that it just shot up. And then I just had, you know, the experience of electric sort of surges throughout my body. And it was crazy because like, it wasn't just in my body. I felt like I could feel like a telephone wire is like 30 feet above. And I was like, wow, I didn't even know that was possible. And then it just led me to question like, obviously we're electromagnetic and more bioelectric than we realize.
speaker-1: fascinating because it actually guided you to where you are today. That experience brought you to who you are and if you didn't have that experience you wouldn't be studying endogenous DMT. So I think that's it's almost like it was intentional.
speaker-2: For sure. mean, like, uh, your group already knows that everything happens for a reason in life, no matter how bad or good really, it's just, these are things that are in our path and it's up to us to do what we will in terms of maneuvering our lives. And I feel like we can make a huge impact. And that's why spontaneous healing. I've, I've kind of undergone it, obviously not through the protocols that dispense it, but I salute the whole team because the fact that you guys are doing hardcore research regarding it and you guys are the leaders in the world. I mean, and you're not even bashful about it. That's the thing that amazes me. Like, you you've got Dr. Joe in front of thousands of people acting like this is a regular thing, cause it is a regular thing amongst your circle. But you know, from the outsider's perspective, it's so far fetched. You know, I talked to a lot of scientists and they're still skeptical. you know, I'm doing my best to push it along, you know, with the work I'm doing so people can actually You know, look at this stuff that inner science doctor George is doing and you know understand that the power and the potential of it all.
speaker-0: Yeah, it's so important and what UCSD brings to the table is incredible because they not only are they teaching the future doctors, you the doctors of tomorrow, they want to start integrating this information into those into their university. And they're asking the right questions. Dr. Joe's collecting data on 9000 participants that's being analyzed there at UCSD. And of course, that's where we're funding what we're funding. So I'm really curious to ⁓ we started funding. ⁓ You and two other organizations and doing some research. Why don't you talk about a little bit what that project is doing and what you're attempting to do.
speaker-2: Yeah, sure. So the research that Inner Science funded last year was in regards to, there was two groups. was the, let me see, I forget, it's IHMC, it's the Institute for Human and Machine and Cognition Learning and Georgia Tech. And they're looking to develop a technology, nanotechnology to measure fluctuations in the saliva. So it's a noninvasive sampling of femtomolar range, which is extremely sensitive ⁓ levels of DMT fluctuated in the saliva. So that could be a game changer in terms of not just Dr. Joe's research, but in the entire world, you might see hundreds of DMT studies a year based on this technology that inner science funded. So it's really important. think one of the challenges regarding endogenous DMT research is how do you measure it, right? ⁓ You know, they had studies in the past where they tried to measure blood. They try to measure urine, CSF, obviously cerebral spinal fluid is very invasive and there's some danger to it. Blood is suboptimal. So this would be, if they can pull this off, which I think they can because they've been able to pull it off for different compounds, ⁓ this is gonna be a game changer in measuring the fluctuations of the spirit molecule within us in a noninvasive way that could be done at Dr. Joe's meditation retreats. So yeah, very important research that you guys helped out with. I think it's gonna be one of the most important of this decade in terms of like mysticism research.
speaker-0: And the idea is just placing this on your tongue to detect DMT in your saliva.
speaker-2: From what I understand, yeah, I'd have to get some details from ⁓ the team, but that's what it seems like. And not only that, it sounds as though the amount of cost per sample is going to be really low compared to things like mass spec and HPLC, which are much more expensive to process the sampling. So that's another aspect in which this is going to be very important because the cost of sampling ⁓ the saliva is going to be really low.
speaker-0: And what's the challenge right now? mean, why, why can't we do that? Or what are we able to detect by just placing something on the tongue? Like I think tryptophan is, is they're able to detect that now.
speaker-2: I'm not exactly sure. I know that part of this technology involves a biosensor. So this is above my pay grade. You know, I'm more facilitating researchers. So it seems as though it's going to be a DMT specific biosensor that allows us to measure the levels in saliva at a very sensitive range. The sensitivity seems to be an issue with all the other past studies. In terms of blood, it seems as though bufonine, which is five hydroxy DMT, that's another endogenous DMT producing the body. has been measured in the blood and urine, but DMT seems to be ⁓ not, maybe it gets metabolized in a certain way that doesn't allow it to be measured in the blood and the urine as well as bufotenine, but this technology would change the game completely.
speaker-0: Yeah, and my understanding, I'm not a researcher either. My understanding is the half life of DMT is very short. And so even doing a blood draw or a spinal tap or something like that, if you wait 10 minutes, it's already out of the system. It's already gone. So ideally, if we can detect it really quickly, that would be amazing. People could be in meditation with it on their tongue, or they have a profound experience. They come back, we immediately put it on their tongue and measure it would be incredible.
speaker-2: Yeah, absolutely. And I think like tying that in with the different EEG states would be awesome as well. That's another study that we were talking about, ⁓ you know, possibly ⁓ working in conjunction with is seeing which brainwave states, know, the theta, alpha, beta, gamma, see which brainwave states contribute to more upregulation of endogenous DMT. you know, what's interesting is that if you're able to do brain entrainment, in the mammalian models where you stimulate the brain at 10 hertz, 20 hertz, 30 hertz, 40 hertz, et cetera, and you see that certain specific bandwidths upregulate DMT more than others, then at some point it almost becomes capable of using that as a proxy, right? So now when you look at EEG, you can say, okay, this is upregulating DMT more than others without even taking a direct measurement, but if you have both, that's even better.
speaker-1: So exciting. then tell us a little bit about your first documentary, the DMT Quest. I know there was a lot of great research in that documentary.
speaker-2: Yeah, sure. So the focus of DMT Quest 1 was to spotlight John Dean's research at University of Michigan. It was a live microdialysis study, meaning that they were taking extracellular fluid samples of the brain in live waking rats, and ⁓ they were measuring for DMT levels. And the interesting thing that John found was that it seemed as though DMT is produced in the brain all the time, not just during transcendental experiences, not just during like dreaming. That was the hypothesis before. It seems to be produced at levels similar to serotonin and dopamine, which was, you know, one of the most profound findings that changed the conversation regarding DMT altogether. In addition, they found the enzymes, INMT and AADT. These are enzymes that convert tryptophan to tryptamine to DMT. and they found those enzymes co-localized throughout the brain. We're talking about the choroid plexus, the visual cortex, the hippocampus, as well as the pineal gland. So it looks like DMT is produced throughout the brain at similar levels to serotonin and dopamine. And I think that's probably one of the most profound ⁓ findings of the past several years. You know, what's interesting to me is that when we produced the film, And we got on the Aubrey Marcus podcast. Both of those things did pretty good numbers. And there was so many people in the different spaces of mysticism and psychedelics that had never even heard that the study existed. And then it made me really understand the importance of what we're doing in terms of promoting this stuff via film. Because you have studies, important studies that take place, but if people don't read about it and the media doesn't constantly cover it, then how does it have social impact? So I think that... That's one of the most important things when you look at, you know, the merging or the combination of science and media. think that's a necessity to create social impact. And that's why, you know, the documentary that was done on Dr. Joe's source is awesome. Cause I feel like we need more films on Dr. Joe. I feel like it should be one a year. And I'm definitely gonna put DMT Quest in that mix up. I've had a Dr. Joe in my mind to do a film on him. We want to kind of build up to getting into spontaneous remission, but Yeah, definitely feel like we need more films on what he's doing and what you guys are doing.
speaker-0: I'm sure it's in the works. There's so much science to talk about that's happening specifically at his events. It's incredible. And if people wanted to see DMT Quest, where would they see that?
speaker-2: Go to DMTquest.org and ⁓ it's right there at the top of the page. You can just go click it and it's on YouTube. I like to ⁓ make the films as accessible as possible. So there's no excuse for people not to be able to see it and it's easy to share. And that's what we plan to do with DMT Quest 2 as well. ⁓ yeah, mean, that's what we plan to do indefinitely. Like I said, two films a year for the next 20 years, that would be the goal.
speaker-0: Wow, that was such a great interview. John Chavez is just amazing. I love his story.
speaker-1: ⁓ So inspirational that he had that awakening and stayed in that DMT state for such a long time.
speaker-0: You just never know what's going to be the trigger for somebody. I mean, in his case, it was a medical emergency, a pulmonary embolism, but you just never know what's going to bring on that mystical experience and then how cool it is really dedicated his life to this.
speaker-1: Yeah, his whole timeline changed and I just love what he's bringing to all of us through science and to study DMT the way he's been doing and his documentary is so powerful.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, he's really, honestly, building a bridge between the mystical, having had that experience and the science side of things. And so interesting and not a surprise really that the scientists kind of rejected it initially, but now it's so popular and ⁓ psychedelics and DMT are being studied once again, which is really fascinating. I love that science is finally catching up and being willing to have this conversation again.
speaker-1: And I love that inner science is on the forefront of studying this groundbreaking information. I love that we're a part of it and so is our community.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. The other thing that he mentioned was ⁓ telepathy tapes and how telepathy tapes are kind of opening up those same ⁓ channels and ideas around consciousness and that we all have these abilities. that's really been what John's been looking at from a DMT standpoint. And now he's actually, know, ⁓ there's DMT Quest, the documentary that he did before. And now he's releasing a new one, which is about ⁓ kind of remote viewing, it's called Lost and Found. And so it'll be really interesting to see how that unfolds and ties into all of these things about human potential.
speaker-1: Yeah, I think we're just on the precipice of something really, really big, Andrew, and I'm glad that we're able to bring this to more people that are interested in it.
speaker-0: Absolutely. Well, stay tuned for more information from what John Chavez is doing. Check out his documentary DMT Quest. And if you'd like to learn about Inner Science, we are a nonprofit organization that funds groundbreaking scientific studies on the biological and physiological effects of meditation on the human body.
speaker-1: We explore human transformation, consciousness, and the science of meditation in order to empower people to heal and thrive. We are a mission-driven community shifting the paradigm of healthcare together.
speaker-0: So if you'd like to join our mission as a catalyst for change, please check our website at InterscienceResearch.org and we'll see you in the field.
speaker-1: Hey Andrew, and what an episode we have today. I'm so excited to dive right in.
speaker-0: The we try to talk about in every episode are things that empower you to heal and thrive. And today's episode is no different. Today we're talking about DMT.
speaker-1: Yeah, I love this. This is so exciting to dive deep into what DMT is all about and how it affects us.
speaker-0: Yeah, and we don't know exactly how or where it's created. Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about it being created in a pineal gland. People have talked about it coming from the heart, but it's been detected, I believe, in saliva, in blood, in cerebrospinal fluid. That's a fluid that lubricates your spinal cord. So for those of you that do breath work, every time you tighten down and move that CSF fluid, you might be moving DMT throughout your system.
speaker-1: Yeah, that's super cool. That's why I'm glad we're talking about this because it could be during a meditative state. It could be when you're taking DMT from the outside and putting it into your body. It could be when you're born. It can be when you die. It's been detected in all of those places, but no one really knows. It's a lot of theoretical understanding. It's really cutting edge as far as research is concerned.
speaker-0: Absolutely, and I feel like it must have something to do with that transition with birth with death somehow having to do with consciousness coming in or leaving the body and certainly those mystical experiences when people become the universe and or become everyone and everything there must be something about that molecule that helps us experience that and so in a traumatic experience or in a near-death experience levels of DMT are much higher And I think that's part of the easing of the transition, maybe to separate from the body or something.
speaker-1: Yeah, and it's so cool because it's not just in humans. They have found DMT in animals, in plants, and it really makes you go, why? I mean, why is it in plants? Why is it in animals? Why is it not just in humans? If you think that we've evolved as a species, you would think it would only be in humans. But maybe it's so we can all experience the three-dimensional state of reality. I don't know, but it's exciting to explore.
speaker-0: And it certainly seems like it might be the missing link in understanding human consciousness. And what are we and who are we? If we're not these physical bodies, these meat suits, who are we out here? And I think DMT is helping us understand that.
speaker-1: Yeah, and they call it, well some researchers have called it the God particle. So that's pretty exciting. And I know with us, with Inner Science Research Fund, we're at the cutting edge of uncovering, hopefully, what DMT is all about. In fact, we've sponsored and funded through a grant some research behind DMT, haven't we?
speaker-0: Yep, absolutely. So there's a device that's being worked on at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition and Georgia Tech University. They're working together on this device that you'd be able to put on your tongue and it would detect your saliva and then in that saliva, it'll be able to analyze it and pick up whether or not there's DMT in there. The half life of DMT is actually very short. So it's difficult to detect, but this device would allow us to detect it and show that, okay, you had a mystical experience, well guess what? You produced DMT inside your body. You didn't take it from outside, it was in a meditation. And so I think those experiences would be really different.
speaker-1: Yeah, that is super cool and I'm so glad that we have a guest on this episode that is going to talk about it even further. I know he's had an intense quest for what DMT is all about and I know when he was young he had an incredible experience where he was in a whole altered state for like three weeks. So I'm curious was his body producing a lot of DMT so he could experience that and I know his whole life changed after that experience and that That's why he's studying DMT.
speaker-0: Yeah, I wonder if the DMT is was actually flowing and in his system for those five days or or however long that was or was it like the DMT opened the door and once the door is open now the energy is flowing is just feeling connected and whole. ⁓ For sure, my understanding about DMT when it comes from plant medicine and something exogenous that you're consuming it and you're getting that molecule but when it's endogenous when it's coming from within It's a much more complete molecule. It's got all those other derivatives of melatonin and ⁓ tryptophan, L-tryptamine, I think it is. So it's just a much broader, richer experience in that situation. But the door is open.
speaker-1: So cool because this seems like it's out there a lot, Andrew. I mean, a lot of people are doing breath work. A lot of people are doing... meditation, seems like we're reaching like a critical mass of people wanting to uncover more of what's happening inside of them rather than being subjected to their environment, taking things from the outside to have those experiences. And like you said, our body has the biology within it to move cerebral spinal fluid up and activate that pineal gland for that out-of-body experience. And we have that in Dr. Joe's events all the time. And inner science is looking at what's happening from a science perspective, taking consciousness and understanding how the body, the biology and physiology changes when we go out of body and we explore different dimensions. And I think, boy, I'm so happy we're on this path together to uncover all of this.
speaker-0: Absolutely. And you mentioned out of body. I think that ⁓ same situation is happening when somebody transitions at death. That the DMT is helping them either to ⁓ ease that transition or to experience moving out of their body and disconnecting from it. And that's the same thing that's happening in meditation. I feel like every time we lay our body down for meditation and we go elsewhere. I think that's exactly what death is like and it will be really cool if we can dig deeper into the science of all of this.
speaker-1: Yeah, and our researchers I know that are looking at all of this at the events to try to see how can we, you said it's a half-life of how long that DMT lasts in the body, but they want to like take blood, I know, during these mystical experiences to see if they could capture that DMT in the moment. So it's so exciting and I'm so excited to have this episode and talk to our guest, John Chavez.
speaker-0: Yes, I think the device or the blood draw would be a lot better than the lumbar puncture in the CSF fluid, but I know there's scientists and researchers that would love to do that. I just don't know if that's the safest or most effective way of detecting it. So hopefully John Chavez and the DMT Quest team at the universities will be able to develop that device and we can all have one and know when we have that profound experience that there's actually meditation in, I'm sorry, DMT in our saliva and in our bodies.
speaker-1: exciting. I'm looking at this as this could be the Holy Grail and connecting the dots between consciousness and science and we're right there in the middle.
speaker-0: Yep, absolutely. We're unlocking the mystical, the mystery of DMT and consciousness. So let's jump into it.
speaker-1: Let's go. John, your interest is so interesting to me in dodging this DMT, I know it's super interesting to Dr. Joe. How did you get into that space? I'm curious.
speaker-2: Yeah, it's a long story, but I'm here to tell, I'm going to tell. You know, I had a spiritual awakening in 2013 following a health crisis in 2012. I actually had a pulmonary embolism in 2012 that kind of just shed some light on the fact that I obviously had a lot of underlying health conditions that I needed to be taken care of. ⁓ The doctors didn't know why it occurred. And even a year later, I was still having health issues. I was only 33 at the time. So I did what any rational person would do and did the Google doctor thing, did the search thing. And ⁓ long story short, I ended up inducing like a cleansing of the body that induced like a Kundalini awakening of sorts. And I just felt like a deep sort of electricity flowing through my body. I never felt this before. Had no interest in spirituality prior to this, no interest in psychedelics or mysticism. And ⁓ I just had a pretty much a spontaneous healing and a Kundalini awakening at the same time tapped into the source, you know, knowing that God exists pretty much just in the snap of the fingers, knowing that consciousness doesn't necessarily originate in the brain. Our brain is sort of a interface for a greater consciousness. It's just amazing looking back at how quick these realizations came about. And in the process of that, also learned about an autonomic nervous system influence because this sensation of bioelectricity to the body, I quickly found out that my consciousness could actually control it. I was able to modulate the temperature of specific body parts. I'd never heard of this before. I had no interest in any of this. And past that, I realized that these intentions or ⁓ visualizations within the body can extend past the body. And that kind of led me down the path of understanding that energy healing is a real thing. Even things like telepathy, shout out to telepathy tapes, is a real thing. And it really just got me questioning how these things come about. I understand there is a magical aspect to reality, but I also understand that there's ⁓ biomechanisms to reality as well, that we can't deny that. So prior to this awakening, I had worked in the biotech industry for about a decade. And I had kept in contact with some of my ex coworkers, know, scientists doing gene sequencing and things of that nature. And it was interesting to me because after I had this experience, which lasted about 12 weeks, so I had a lot of time to kind of maneuver this experience and actually really sink into it and understand that this was actually really happening. You know, it's interesting that I thought that people in the sciences would be the most interested about these sort of experiences and how they come about, especially from somebody who was considered a rational thinker. And it was funny because it was actually the opposite. The scientists were actually more closed off and actually antagonizing to me that I had just undergone a long bout of psychosis or whatever. And I was like, no, obviously that's not the case. So I need to figure out a way to communicate this experience in a palatable manner for that audience. And I remember ⁓ being at my ⁓ my sister's wedding around that time. And I had a cousin who was in medical school and I tried to tell him about the experience and he kind of brushed it off and he was like, have you ever heard of DMT? should look it up. So I go ahead and look it up. obviously the first thing that comes up is Rick Strassman's book, DMT, the spirit molecule. And I was like, wait, what? What is this? I never even heard of DMT. Like I said, I had no interest in psychedelics. So I read the book. And I find it fascinating that, you this hypothesis is that DMT is produced in the pineal gland and that there was other, there was like 50 or 60 studies showing that DMT was produced in the body. And at that point, I just decided to create an anonymous blog. I just had the initial JC and I started ruminating on the potential of the biomechanism of these altered states and how they might tie in with endogenous DMT upregulation. that changed not only our perception, but our abilities. Because remember, my experience wasn't just visionary, was also visualizations come into life. So basically, I just continued to write as best I could utilizing the best sources that I could utilizing the science of the time. And I realized that the more I wrote and the more I could kind of tie in some of these ⁓ undeniable bio... mechanical differences between baseline consciousness and altered states, whether it be meditation, breath work, or hypnosis, that my ex-co-workers started to become not only receptive, but really interested in what I was saying. And they actually eventually became believers just off pure intellectual discussion. And at that point, it made me realize that this was a vein that could be developed to actually help others that have had mystical type experiences. explain this to maybe their skeptical family or skeptical friends. So they wouldn't have to go through, I guess, the difficult process of maneuvering those sort of discussions, which can be pretty difficult for people that have had these experiences. So that's pretty much ⁓ like the history of how I came about to be interested in endogenous CMT. I'm very interested in the science of it, and I'm also very interested in the narrative that could be developed from it. My main thing when it comes to mysticism is how far can we develop this narrative from a perspective of undeniability, right? So DMT exists, that's an undeniable thing. Endogenous DMT exists, that's an undeniable thing. Whether we can modulate it, make it go up or down, that's still slightly up for debate, but definitely there's changes in our EEG, the electrophysiology of our brain. So currently right now we're interested in looking at specific changes that take place in the brain. Like Dr. Joe talks about, when we get in our author states, we're hitting the theta gamma, the cross-frequency coupling that seems to coincide with these transcendental experiences, these mystical experiences. And is it that far fetched to think that endogenous DMT or even endogenous 5-MeO DMT are involved? I don't think so. Just for a little bit, a little snippet, we're in the middle of doing DMT Quest 2. That's our second film. And we just interviewed a gentleman who had a near death experience as well as having quite a vast amount of experience with DMT and 5-MEO. And he's 100 % convinced that DMT and 5-MEO, DMT are playing a key role in the near death experience. So this is just a little snippet of somebody who's actually had both experiences that was able to actually chime in on this from a firsthand perspective. So I'm really interested in the science and developing a very palatable narrative that is true to the science that's not over sensationalized so that the public can go ahead and use it however they will, whether it's the mystics utilizing it to create discourse with the skeptics and the scientists or scientists that are on the fence but want to be fed like a palatable narrative regarding mysticism. So I think it's pretty important and I'm really grateful for Inner Science helping DMT Quest out in this mission. And like I said, I love what you guys do and I'm looking forward to a lot of research going forward.
speaker-0: We have so much to unpack there. I could see talking to you for the next five hours about what you've just said so far. ⁓ the first thing I just want to address is that the DMT related to death, there's got to be a reason why it's in the body. It's for us to have these miscellaneous experiences or perhaps for us to transition or even to protect and preserve the brain as we get really close to death, but maybe come back from death. There's all sorts of science around that, which is just fascinating. I actually want to go back really early, back to 2013, when you talked about the spontaneous awakening or your spiritual awakening, what induced that? Was it just out of the blue something happened or were you meditating or were you doing plant medicine or what? And you said it lasted 12 weeks, right?
speaker-2: Yeah, no, it was, ⁓ I mean, to be completely frank, was just like emptying your gut. So basically a deep cleansing of the gut brain, which for whatever reason induced the experience. I had just done the Google doctor thing. So it was more of an accident. It wasn't intentional. And it was definitely, I had no psychedelics, like exogenous psychedelics, but it was a deep cleansing that took place. And it seems as though, It's interesting is that I've heard other instances of people undergoing like sort of ⁓ cleansing protocols and then feeling like clarity and sort of spiritual sort of connectivity over weeks of it. And mine was all in one day and it was very compressed and very intense. And ⁓ yeah, it was just a deep emptying of the bowels that induced the awakening. It's almost like it was balled up energy at the lowest chakra that was stuck. And then through the physical sort of release that it just shot up. And then I just had, you know, the experience of electric sort of surges throughout my body. And it was crazy because like, it wasn't just in my body. I felt like I could feel like a telephone wire is like 30 feet above. And I was like, wow, I didn't even know that was possible. And then it just led me to question like, obviously we're electromagnetic and more bioelectric than we realize.
speaker-1: fascinating because it actually guided you to where you are today. That experience brought you to who you are and if you didn't have that experience you wouldn't be studying endogenous DMT. So I think that's it's almost like it was intentional.
speaker-2: For sure. mean, like, uh, your group already knows that everything happens for a reason in life, no matter how bad or good really, it's just, these are things that are in our path and it's up to us to do what we will in terms of maneuvering our lives. And I feel like we can make a huge impact. And that's why spontaneous healing. I've, I've kind of undergone it, obviously not through the protocols that dispense it, but I salute the whole team because the fact that you guys are doing hardcore research regarding it and you guys are the leaders in the world. I mean, and you're not even bashful about it. That's the thing that amazes me. Like, you you've got Dr. Joe in front of thousands of people acting like this is a regular thing, cause it is a regular thing amongst your circle. But you know, from the outsider's perspective, it's so far fetched. You know, I talked to a lot of scientists and they're still skeptical. you know, I'm doing my best to push it along, you know, with the work I'm doing so people can actually You know, look at this stuff that inner science doctor George is doing and you know understand that the power and the potential of it all.
speaker-0: Yeah, it's so important and what UCSD brings to the table is incredible because they not only are they teaching the future doctors, you the doctors of tomorrow, they want to start integrating this information into those into their university. And they're asking the right questions. Dr. Joe's collecting data on 9000 participants that's being analyzed there at UCSD. And of course, that's where we're funding what we're funding. So I'm really curious to ⁓ we started funding. ⁓ You and two other organizations and doing some research. Why don't you talk about a little bit what that project is doing and what you're attempting to do.
speaker-2: Yeah, sure. So the research that Inner Science funded last year was in regards to, there was two groups. was the, let me see, I forget, it's IHMC, it's the Institute for Human and Machine and Cognition Learning and Georgia Tech. And they're looking to develop a technology, nanotechnology to measure fluctuations in the saliva. So it's a noninvasive sampling of femtomolar range, which is extremely sensitive ⁓ levels of DMT fluctuated in the saliva. So that could be a game changer in terms of not just Dr. Joe's research, but in the entire world, you might see hundreds of DMT studies a year based on this technology that inner science funded. So it's really important. think one of the challenges regarding endogenous DMT research is how do you measure it, right? ⁓ You know, they had studies in the past where they tried to measure blood. They try to measure urine, CSF, obviously cerebral spinal fluid is very invasive and there's some danger to it. Blood is suboptimal. So this would be, if they can pull this off, which I think they can because they've been able to pull it off for different compounds, ⁓ this is gonna be a game changer in measuring the fluctuations of the spirit molecule within us in a noninvasive way that could be done at Dr. Joe's meditation retreats. So yeah, very important research that you guys helped out with. I think it's gonna be one of the most important of this decade in terms of like mysticism research.
speaker-0: And the idea is just placing this on your tongue to detect DMT in your saliva.
speaker-2: From what I understand, yeah, I'd have to get some details from ⁓ the team, but that's what it seems like. And not only that, it sounds as though the amount of cost per sample is going to be really low compared to things like mass spec and HPLC, which are much more expensive to process the sampling. So that's another aspect in which this is going to be very important because the cost of sampling ⁓ the saliva is going to be really low.
speaker-0: And what's the challenge right now? mean, why, why can't we do that? Or what are we able to detect by just placing something on the tongue? Like I think tryptophan is, is they're able to detect that now.
speaker-2: I'm not exactly sure. I know that part of this technology involves a biosensor. So this is above my pay grade. You know, I'm more facilitating researchers. So it seems as though it's going to be a DMT specific biosensor that allows us to measure the levels in saliva at a very sensitive range. The sensitivity seems to be an issue with all the other past studies. In terms of blood, it seems as though bufonine, which is five hydroxy DMT, that's another endogenous DMT producing the body. has been measured in the blood and urine, but DMT seems to be ⁓ not, maybe it gets metabolized in a certain way that doesn't allow it to be measured in the blood and the urine as well as bufotenine, but this technology would change the game completely.
speaker-0: Yeah, and my understanding, I'm not a researcher either. My understanding is the half life of DMT is very short. And so even doing a blood draw or a spinal tap or something like that, if you wait 10 minutes, it's already out of the system. It's already gone. So ideally, if we can detect it really quickly, that would be amazing. People could be in meditation with it on their tongue, or they have a profound experience. They come back, we immediately put it on their tongue and measure it would be incredible.
speaker-2: Yeah, absolutely. And I think like tying that in with the different EEG states would be awesome as well. That's another study that we were talking about, ⁓ you know, possibly ⁓ working in conjunction with is seeing which brainwave states, know, the theta, alpha, beta, gamma, see which brainwave states contribute to more upregulation of endogenous DMT. you know, what's interesting is that if you're able to do brain entrainment, in the mammalian models where you stimulate the brain at 10 hertz, 20 hertz, 30 hertz, 40 hertz, et cetera, and you see that certain specific bandwidths upregulate DMT more than others, then at some point it almost becomes capable of using that as a proxy, right? So now when you look at EEG, you can say, okay, this is upregulating DMT more than others without even taking a direct measurement, but if you have both, that's even better.
speaker-1: So exciting. then tell us a little bit about your first documentary, the DMT Quest. I know there was a lot of great research in that documentary.
speaker-2: Yeah, sure. So the focus of DMT Quest 1 was to spotlight John Dean's research at University of Michigan. It was a live microdialysis study, meaning that they were taking extracellular fluid samples of the brain in live waking rats, and ⁓ they were measuring for DMT levels. And the interesting thing that John found was that it seemed as though DMT is produced in the brain all the time, not just during transcendental experiences, not just during like dreaming. That was the hypothesis before. It seems to be produced at levels similar to serotonin and dopamine, which was, you know, one of the most profound findings that changed the conversation regarding DMT altogether. In addition, they found the enzymes, INMT and AADT. These are enzymes that convert tryptophan to tryptamine to DMT. and they found those enzymes co-localized throughout the brain. We're talking about the choroid plexus, the visual cortex, the hippocampus, as well as the pineal gland. So it looks like DMT is produced throughout the brain at similar levels to serotonin and dopamine. And I think that's probably one of the most profound ⁓ findings of the past several years. You know, what's interesting to me is that when we produced the film, And we got on the Aubrey Marcus podcast. Both of those things did pretty good numbers. And there was so many people in the different spaces of mysticism and psychedelics that had never even heard that the study existed. And then it made me really understand the importance of what we're doing in terms of promoting this stuff via film. Because you have studies, important studies that take place, but if people don't read about it and the media doesn't constantly cover it, then how does it have social impact? So I think that... That's one of the most important things when you look at, you know, the merging or the combination of science and media. think that's a necessity to create social impact. And that's why, you know, the documentary that was done on Dr. Joe's source is awesome. Cause I feel like we need more films on Dr. Joe. I feel like it should be one a year. And I'm definitely gonna put DMT Quest in that mix up. I've had a Dr. Joe in my mind to do a film on him. We want to kind of build up to getting into spontaneous remission, but Yeah, definitely feel like we need more films on what he's doing and what you guys are doing.
speaker-0: I'm sure it's in the works. There's so much science to talk about that's happening specifically at his events. It's incredible. And if people wanted to see DMT Quest, where would they see that?
speaker-2: Go to DMTquest.org and ⁓ it's right there at the top of the page. You can just go click it and it's on YouTube. I like to ⁓ make the films as accessible as possible. So there's no excuse for people not to be able to see it and it's easy to share. And that's what we plan to do with DMT Quest 2 as well. ⁓ yeah, mean, that's what we plan to do indefinitely. Like I said, two films a year for the next 20 years, that would be the goal.
speaker-0: Wow, that was such a great interview. John Chavez is just amazing. I love his story.
speaker-1: ⁓ So inspirational that he had that awakening and stayed in that DMT state for such a long time.
speaker-0: You just never know what's going to be the trigger for somebody. I mean, in his case, it was a medical emergency, a pulmonary embolism, but you just never know what's going to bring on that mystical experience and then how cool it is really dedicated his life to this.
speaker-1: Yeah, his whole timeline changed and I just love what he's bringing to all of us through science and to study DMT the way he's been doing and his documentary is so powerful.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, he's really, honestly, building a bridge between the mystical, having had that experience and the science side of things. And so interesting and not a surprise really that the scientists kind of rejected it initially, but now it's so popular and ⁓ psychedelics and DMT are being studied once again, which is really fascinating. I love that science is finally catching up and being willing to have this conversation again.
speaker-1: And I love that inner science is on the forefront of studying this groundbreaking information. I love that we're a part of it and so is our community.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. The other thing that he mentioned was ⁓ telepathy tapes and how telepathy tapes are kind of opening up those same ⁓ channels and ideas around consciousness and that we all have these abilities. that's really been what John's been looking at from a DMT standpoint. And now he's actually, know, ⁓ there's DMT Quest, the documentary that he did before. And now he's releasing a new one, which is about ⁓ kind of remote viewing, it's called Lost and Found. And so it'll be really interesting to see how that unfolds and ties into all of these things about human potential.
speaker-1: Yeah, I think we're just on the precipice of something really, really big, Andrew, and I'm glad that we're able to bring this to more people that are interested in it.
speaker-0: Absolutely. Well, stay tuned for more information from what John Chavez is doing. Check out his documentary DMT Quest. And if you'd like to learn about Inner Science, we are a nonprofit organization that funds groundbreaking scientific studies on the biological and physiological effects of meditation on the human body.
speaker-1: We explore human transformation, consciousness, and the science of meditation in order to empower people to heal and thrive. We are a mission-driven community shifting the paradigm of healthcare together.
speaker-0: So if you'd like to join our mission as a catalyst for change, please check our website at InterscienceResearch.org and we'll see you in the field.
