The World Ayahuasca Diaspora
September 1, 2016 St John, Graham 47 citations
DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine) has had a complex cultural career independent of its role in ayahuasca. First identified as a psychotomimetic in 1956, it became a recreational drug in the 1960s and was later classified as dangerous with no medicinal value. By the 1990s–2000s it was reframed as an entheogen enabling access to 'hyperspace.' DMT produces sudden, short-lasting effects (20–30 minutes) including geometric patterns, synesthesia, out-of-body states, and encounters with beings. It is now recognized as a serotonergic neurotransmitter that crosses the blood-brain barrier, but its ubiquity in nature and purpose in the human brain remain unknown.