benzyme said:
highly unlikely.
the tryptophan metabolic pathway heavily favors serotonin production over the side pathway producing simple tryptamines,
and the receptors have greater affinity for serotonin.
metabolites of melatonin are more plausible, ex. pinoline, and related beta-carbolines
I still don't feel extensive enough testing has yet been preformed, and as our methods of detection improve, and as the scale of research increases, we may find that this is not as unlikely as it seems.
it would be interesting to quantify the endogenous DMT present while one is awake versus the quantity while one is in REM sleep...
Though if DMT levels only reach the quantity necessary for producing psychedelia under freak circumstances, it still fits in with endogenous DMT playing a role in certain types of abduction phenomena, mystical experience, NDE's, and so on, as these are freak events, and still fits in with Dr. Strassmans conjecture.
All the "dream DMT" events I know of are anecdotal, and as a skeptic and a scientific thinker, I would share your exact views, except these have happened to me before, and they are just as rattling as smoked DMT, often it's in conjunction with my sleep paralysis, and it's extremely frightening, as I always believe that I had
actually died...
I've had dreams where I take MDMA or psilocybin, and I'll feel like I'm on an entactogen, or I like I'm hallucinating, but it's not convincing in the same way these DMT events are...
This is just wild speculation off the top of my head, so I apologize if there are any obvious errors I missed regarding why this would not happen: Could it be neuroplaciticity? Is your brain re-creating and re-using pathways identical to a person's brain who had ingested DMT? Your brain wouldn't have recall of these novel functioning states prior to DMT, but perhaps after one has ingested it, the brain can re-create and re-use functioning and pathways identical to the functioning and pathways your brain experiences while on DMT? (Thalamic gating, dorsal raphe nuclei stop firing, lower blood flow to the thalamus, the posterior cingulate and the medial prefrontal cortex, etc...)?
Ok here's the pathways:
5-hydroxy-tryptamine
Tryptophan enters the system, is 5-hydroxylated to 5-hydroxy-tryptophan (5-HTP), then decarboxalated to 5-hydroxy-tryptamine (serotonin)
Or:
N,N-dimethyltryptamine
Tryptophan enters the system, is decarboxalated (amino acid decarboxylase) giving tryptamine, this tryptamine is then methylated by the indole amine methyl transerase (INMT) S-Adenosyl methionine (SAM) (which becomes S-Adenosyl-L-homocysteine (SAH) after donating the methyl group) giving N-methyl-tryptamine (NMT) Which is again methylated (INMT; SAM giving SAH as it donates the methyl group) giving dimethyltryptamine.
The 5-hydroxy-tryptamine pathway is vastly preferred...
pinoline
When serotonin enters the pineal body it becomes N-acetyl-5-hydroxy-tryptamine, and is then converted to N-acetyl-5-methoxy-tryptamine (melatonin) which is further converted to 6-methoxy-tetrahydro-beta-carboline (pinoline)
-eg