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Is DMT released during REM sleep?

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Running Bear

Running Bear

Rising Star
I have suffered from sleep paralysis my entire life and i often have lucid dreams. the dmt experience is nothing like my lucid dreams and i don't understand why so many people believe in this theory. After a ayahuasca session or smoking dmt my dreams do seem more vivid but alcohol and other drugs seem to do the same thing. What do you guys think?
 
Hey Squating Bear, we were just talking something about this.

I think Rick Strassman was the one that originally theorized it. He also theorized that DMT was produced in our Pineal Glands. I have done some research to sort through the speculation and the facts. Apparently, at the time he theorized this, little research was done on rats. Though it was found in the human body, not the brain. But the finding in the body was not proof that it was produced by the brain or even the body itself and was theorized that it was consumed since may things actually contain DMT.

However, there had since been experiments on rats and it had been found that DMT was produced in the pineal gland of rats. I still have not found any true valid facts on what the role DMT would play or if it is produced during lucid dreaming. My theory is that it is produced while sleeping, because even though smoking dmt and dreaming is a very different experience, they are both different routes of administration and dosage. I have recently felt very similar experiences of waking dreaming and very low doses of smoked DMT.

As far as the sleep paralysis and what we talked about the other day, I think that sleep paralysis is when your mind thinks your body is asleep, but you are not and it actually released DMT and produces what we see during sleep paralysis.

I have recently had sleep paralysis, and have tried studying it and finding research material for the book I am writing.
 
There is no evidence that DMT is released during sleep, and from my layman's perspective evidence seems to point to the contrary, since the serotonin pathway is mostly inactive during sleep, and is inhibitory to REM sleep when active

Also you can check our FAQ since it also states that this REM/DMT connection is thus far merely speculation with no evidence to back it up.

Personally Ive often had lucid dreams in my life (some phases more than others) and I've never felt it to be similar to DMT, neither sleep paralysis.
 
It's important to remember that DMT is a simple metabolic compound that is only a very very small, nearly insignificant, part of the complex neurochemical cocktail that regulates sleep and wakefulness in the human body. There are many other tryptamine and beta-carboline compounds with a lot moar solid evidence linking them to sleep and dreaming, melatonin and pinoline being the most obvious, but also lesser known things like beta-carboline-3-carboxylates (which have good evidence linking them to sleep paralysis, nightmares, and the like), not to even to begin getting into the role of compounds like histamine, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, glutamate, orexin, acetylcholine, etc...

As far as I know there is only one paper lending any support at all to the idea that DMT has any kind of significant involvement in REM sleep, and it's purely hypothetical speculation without much supporting evidence.

There is certainly a lot of parallels between the DMT experience and dreaming, but I suspect that has moar to do with the consciousness modulating properties of tryptamines and beta-carbolines in general rather than any kind of magical spikes in DMT during the sleep cycle. To be honest, if your looking to pin down a single tryptamine candidate for inducing the visionary states of dreams, I'd suggest bufotenine is a moar likely candidate than DMT.
 
I believe i've experienced DMT during sleep, at least three times in my life. The first time was when i was 17, didn't even know about DMT/Ayahuasca or Psychedelics back then, and i had a dream that turned out to be a precognitive vision about me being in the hospital, and two months later, i almost died from Salmonella Sepsis.

Fast forward to 2012, i hear about Ayahuasca and decide to start working with it (using Rue and Mimosa), and one night while sleeping i had a dream where i saw the word Ayahuasca, and then next thing i know i'm being blasted with bright colors, shapes and patterns, and the body feelings felt just like DMT, but it only lasted like maybe 15 to 30 seconds or so before i jolted up and was like "woah i just experienced DMT in a dream", as to me it was completely obvious that it was DMT.

Then, in January 2014, one night i had taken some pure Harmalas (extracted from Rue), some Acacia Confusa, and some Lemon Balm tea, and i had another precognitive vision, but this vision was much, much clearer than the one i had in the dream back in 2007. The vision was about my dads death, and two weeks later, the event came to pass.

But the vision i had in the dream when i was 17, and the vision i had on Acacia/Harmalas/Lemon Balm, were of the same space, they felt exactly like the same precognitive space, except the vision in the dream was foggy/cloudy and was hard to make sense of, but the vision on Acacia was very clear, very detailed, even had real time emotion that came with it, but they were both of the same space.

So the visions, plus the quick DMT flash, leads me to believe that DMT can be released during sleep, but i don't think it happens all the time or consistently, only when it needs to happen i guess.
 
ShamensStamen said:
I believe i've experienced DMT during sleep, at least three times in my life.
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What leads you to believe it was DMT versus some other neurotransmitter? The science seems to point elsewhere (as mentioned by endlessness and dreamer042 above) and we at the Nexus require claims be backed up with more than just gut feelings.
 
I believe it's DMT because it felt/seemed very much like DMT. With that said though, just because i believe it's DMT, doesn't mean it can't be something else, but that something else would have to have similarities to DMT. It could be 5-MEO-DMT, 5-HO-DMT, NMT, 5-MT, Tryptamine itself, or something else. Either way though, DMT is in the body for a reason, and probably has multiple roles/functions, especially at different dosages. I hope there will be more research into the Trace Amines and their roles in the Human body, it's interesting stuff imo.
 
A few times Ive woken up in the middle of the night, which I, 99% of the time, am out like a light until morning. I rarely recall my dreams. Anyway, I wake up middle of the night with SUPER vivid OEV's, very very identical to DMT. Infinite grids swirling and twisting, alive fractal patterns and geometry everywhere. Kinda startles me when it happens because I cant really pull out of it I just have to wait a few moments for everything to quiet down. Mind you my room is 100% pitch dark when I sleep, and the interesting thing is that with my eyes close the vividity becomes less intense, eye open, more intense.

Im not claiming its DMT, but its interesting to say the least that it happens as it does in the middle of the night BAM wake up in hyperspace.
 
[/quote]Mind you my room is 100% pitch dark when I sleep, and the interesting thing is that with my eyes close the vividity becomes less intense, eye open, more intense.

Im not claiming its DMT, but its interesting to say the least that it happens as it does in the middle of the night BAM wake up in hyperspace. [/quote]

Very interesting, this has happened to me aswell. I`m always cheering when it does! :d It has happened so many times (always after smoking hash just before going to bed) that I have started to suspect that it has something to do with my before- bed smoke? How this correlates with me suddenly waking up with dmt-like visuals I have no idea. :surprised
 
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