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What happens in the brain during a DMT experience and do the entities people see exist?

🔬 Science · updated 4 weeks ago · 4 min read
What happens in the brain during a DMT experience and do the entities people see exist?
Short answerDMT can create entity-like experiences, but that does not prove the entities are objectively real.

DMT can produce some of the most intense altered states people report. The visuals, sense of presence, and feeling of entering another reality are common enough that they are not hard to find in trip reports.

But intense perception is not the same thing as external proof. Brain chemistry, expectation, memory, and the way consciousness organizes perception can all create entity-like experiences without requiring a literal outside being.

So the careful answer is: yes, people really do experience entities on DMT, but the experience itself does not settle the metaphysical question.

Sources

PubMed - Psychological and physiological effects of extended DMT
PubMed - The Effects of Psychedelics on Neuronal Physiology
PubMed - Survey of entity encounter experiences occasioned by inhaled DMT

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