DMT Flash? - Natural DMT release?

[Fable]

I had a very unusual experience 2 nights ago while settling down to go to sleep.
I was not at the verge of sleep where dreams and reality seem to cross over but more relaxed and hoping to sleep soon. With the lights out and my eyes closed I experienced a sudden flash of intense light with my third eye that was startling enough for me to recoil and feel my neck crack. It was absolutely like I was seeing a flare set off in front of me from a point in the center of my forehead. I was very much alert afterward and my heart was beating fast.
It seemed very DMT like and I can only assume it was a natural release of pineal spice.
This correlates to me taking melatonin this week to get better sleep and also taking ORMUS powder which was extracted from seawater by a friend.

 

[88]

Once you have unlocked the door, it is open; even when it is closed

 

[benzyme]

It seemed very DMT like and I can only assume it was a natural release of pineal spice.

not likely.
unless by pineal spice you mean pinoline, then sure


but if people insist on thinking their pineal gland dumps dmt while dreaming and just before going to sleep, then ok.

and i can do telekinesis with my appendix.

 

[benzyme]

for which statement?
obviously I can't do telekinesis with my appendix.

and the pineal gland lacks mRNA transcripts for INMT expression, essential for DMT production.

 

[yayscience]

for which statement?
obviously I can't do telekinesis with my appendix.

and the pineal gland lacks mRNA transcripts for INMT expression, essential for DMT production.

I just read your post on this subject in another thread where you mentioned that the issue here is methylation. I'm starting to get out of my depth, but I'm damn sure Strassman addressed methylation at one point in the book. I'll check it out when my friend returns my copy. Very interesting. Nice to have a guy who knows what's up around.

 

[benzyme]

the methylation isn't the issue, the issue is enzyme expression.
5-HIOMT (which is expressed in the pineal gland) is a completely different enzyme from INMT, it converts different substrates. Presti (2004) reported that Thompson et al. had isolated the human enzymes from peripheral tissues, and that INMT transcripts from the brain were lacking.

 

[SnozzleBerry]

I'm pretty sure strassman states several times that many of the proteins necessary for dmt synthesis are in the pineal. At no point does he empirically prove they're all there. He also maintains that it's speculation throughout the entire book. Also, why wait for your copy? It's attached to my post over here: First Steps - First steps in Hyperspace - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

 

[Entropymancer]

Snozz, many of the proteins are in the pineal gland... the pineal is the site of some tryptamine chemistry - it synthesizes and secretes melatonin. But without indoleamine-N-methyltransferase, it can't make DMT. Those methyl groups aren't just going to magically hop onto the amine nitrogen because Strassman has a soft spot for the pineal gland.

 

[benzyme]

I had the book and read it several times over.
none of the chapters reference anything about INMT enzyme isolation and activity assays

Strassman hypothesized it, but without an assay, it's anecdotal at best.
an entertaining book, no doubt...but a lot of questions left unanswered.

 

[SnozzleBerry]

ahhh, didn't realize the enzyme was missing too, just thought he couldn't show that everything needed protein-wise for dmt was there. Good to know though, i'll be pulling that one out the next time I get to be on DMT Mythbusters :d . He does a good deal of speculating in that book and usually acknowledges it as such, but sometimes its phrased in such a way that it could be taken as more than speculation, it was the kind of thing I kept having to remind myself to check for in his syntax on my first read.

 

[benzyme]

Could someone please share a link to the source(s) with evidence that our LUNGS are indeed where DMT is produced?

( Not a sarcastic question, I seriously would like to read that, because a Gland just seems to make more sense. )

http://www.tripzine.com/pit/DMT_TA_anxiolytic.pdf

A contemporary investigation, utilizing modern
genetic and structural techniques, has provided a
more detailed analysis of INMT, but does not provide
a complete story. In two studies, Thompson
et al. [35,36], cloned, expressed, localized, and
characterized the activities of rabbit and human
INMT. Using Northern blot analysis, they found rabbit
INMT transcripts expressed heavily in the lung,
moderately in the liver, and weakly in the brain. Human
INMT was expressed in the lung, thyroid, adrenal
gland, heart, muscle, and spinal cord, but not in
the brain. The authors observe high Km values (an
order of magnitude higher than in previous studies
[33,34]) of TYP for recombinant human INMT and
an absence of INMT mRNA transcripts in the brain.
Thus, Thompson et al. conclude that the production
of DMT in humans is not physiologically significant.
Their conclusion places much weight on the significance
of observed Km values for recombinant human
INMT and does not take into account several
additional genetic and enzymatic concerns.

many enzymes are expressed in epithelial cells, not just in glandular cells.

 

[SnozzleBerry]

Hmmmm, the lungs, eh? Wouldn't THAT lend a very interesting significance to god breathing life into man. Or any of the other religious/spiritual historical texts dealing with breath, I'm pretty sure there are a number of cross-cultural examples...

 

[TheNtt]

I'm admittedly ignorant on some of the body chemistry being discussed here. Considering the knowledge (or lack of) we had in regards to DMT before the Strassman studies, I think that the pineal was a damn good guess, and a good starting point. We know that the pineal does have SOME of the building blocks for DMT. Do those same building blocks exist in the lungs? Or anywhere else in the body? Do the lungs contain mRNA transcripts for INMT expression? Do you guys currently consider the lungs to be the most likely candidate for dmt production?

With our advanced technology it seems somewhat odd to me that we have trouble identifying where a neurotransmitter is produced. Maybe this is due to my own ignorance, but in any case it certainly adds another level of mystery to it all.

 

[yayscience]

My feeling is that Strassman had the really best case for psychologically significant endogenous DMT with the pineal. If it turns out that the pineal argument falls apart (which I'm gathering from what you say benzyme it HASN'T yet, it just has a couple serious issues to contend with), I don't see endogenous DMT being at all interesting.

Then again, I'm not exactly an authority

 

[benzyme]

"A potent inhibitor of INMT, which is a necessary enzyme for the synthesis of DMT and 5-MeO-DMT, is found in particularly high concentrations in the pineal gland. A bypassing or inhibition of the synthesis of this inhibitor might be responsible for trances and other psychedelic states achieved "without drugs" " (Strassman 1990).


the building blocks you guys refer to is serotonin and N-acetyl-serotonin. feedback inhibition is likely, hence the aforementioned Strassman quote. again, the pineal gland is known to express 5-HIOMT, not INMT.

 

[TheNtt]

That doesn't really answer my question benz.
maybe you weren't attempting to, but id sure like it if you did

 

[benzyme]

the mRNA transcripts for INMT have been found in the heart, lung, muscle, and adrenal tissues.

and it's been problematic to detect DMT production in vivo, because the molecule is quickly degraded.

 

[TheNtt]

the mRNA transcripts for INMT have been found in the heart, lung, muscle, and adrenal tissues.

and it's been problematic to detect DMT production in vivo, because the molecule gets quickly degraded.

I see. So I guess the next logical question is do any of those have the other essentials to produce dmt? Could you offer insight into what you think is the most likely candidate and why? Also, I realize this has probably been discussed before, so if you've already expressed your view somewhere else and would prefer to link me, I can deal with that

is it possible there isn't a logical explanation for the production of DMT?

And please do forgive my ignorance. When I say "the other essentials" I refer to it as that, because I don't know what they are! I'm not well educated in physiology or chemistry to be perfectly honest.

 

[yayscience]

Benzyme, what I'm hearing here is this:

INMT inhibitors are in great quantity in the pineal, so Strassman says they need to be bypassed for INMT to make DMT.

You're saying that we have no evidence that INMT can even be made there.

But you're also saying that there are inherent difficulties in detecting INMT.

Is this ever-so-roughly accurate?

 

[benzyme]

something like 80-85% of serotonin production occurs in the gut; with that reasoning, the tryptophan byproducts are likely found in the peripheral tissues surrounding it, DMT being one. DMT production inhibits serotonin production, as it occurs in the beginning of the tryptophan metabolism pathway. the chances of finding DMT in non-neural cells is much higher than finding it in neural cells