God's molecule
Few molecules have puzzled scientists like DMT: simple, widespread in nature, and capable of producing one of the strangest experiences a human can have.
Dimethyltryptamine is often described as the most intense experience a person can have. It's found in many plants and some animals, and traces have been detected in mammalian brains. A popular theory is that the brain releases it during near-death experiences, which would explain the visions people report.
The experience
It's genuinely hard to describe, because the amount of information hitting you is bigger than anything you've lived through.
With your eyes closed, it's like entering a fractal world: impossibly vivid colors and geometry, non-Euclidean spaces, shapes moving through crazy linear transformations. With your eyes open, you get more familiar psychedelic visuals — shifting colors, patterns, geometry, synesthesia.
And then there are the beings. Encountering some kind of entity is one of the most commonly reported parts of the experience, and researchers have documented how often the same themes come up. Each culture names it differently — God, spirits, guides. In my own experiences, I've often met the same entity, and it communicates with me through my own thoughts.
Afterward, it behaves like a dream: the details start fading almost immediately, no matter how hard you try to hold on to them.
It's also fast. When smoked, the effects begin almost instantly and the whole experience lasts around 15 minutes — compared to the several hours it takes other psychedelics to peak.
Two ways to see it
The rational view: it's your brain processing information in a radically different way. One leading theory is that psychedelics loosen the brain's "priors" — the deep assumptions it uses to model reality — which changes the very way you perceive the world.
The other view is spiritual. Before DMT, I was a much more rational, rigid person. It opened me to a more spiritual view of life — and that's not unusual. Research shows many people come out of these experiences with stronger spiritual beliefs.
Brazil and ayahuasca
In Brazil, DMT has a deep cultural history through ayahuasca — a brew made from Amazonian plants that contains DMT. It's sacred in many Indigenous traditions, and religions like Santo Daime use it legally in their ceremonies.
Bryan Johnson's experiment
Recently, longevity entrepreneur Bryan Johnson made headlines with a related molecule: 5-MeO-DMT, the compound famously found in the venom of the Sonoran Desert toad. He livestreamed himself taking it in March 2026, using a synthetic version because the toads face serious conservation problems from overharvesting. He set out to test whether a single session could measurably influence biomarkers associated with aging, and afterward said that if you don't understand what life and death mean to you, the numbers don't matter.
Have you ever had an experience that changed how you see reality?