Is DMT a Technology?
The Intriguing Ideas of Dr. Andrew Gallimore
As scientific progress surges, we’re leading ourselves to a mind manifesting time that melds empiricism and mysticism. Nowhere is this more evident than the recent acceleration of neuroscience, much of which happens to focus on psychedelics, in particular DMT. The “spirit molecule” is introducing us to some awesome ideas thanks to one of the world’s foremost experts, Dr. Andrew Gallimore, and he thinks DMT is a technology.
Who is Dr. Andrew Gallimore?
Dr. Gallimore is a neurobiologist, pharmacologist, and writer interested in psychedelics, especially DMT. On July 1, 2025, Gallimore is releasing a new book Death by Astonishment: Confronting the Mystery of the World's Strangest Drug. I’ve been familiar with Andrew and his work for a few years now, thanks to one of my favorite YouTube channels- Third Eye Drops. I’ve followed Third Eye Drops for a long time, and Michael Phillip does high quality work. He flexed his third eye when he dropped this video, interviewing Dr. Gallimore. This is must watch psychedelic content and stunning, high weirdness.
Hightlights of- UFOs, DMT, Alien Abductions & Entities
There’s enough psychedelic content in this podcast to keep you integrating for weeks, maybe months. I picked out some highlights, and tagged on a few comments.
Creating the Set
To set the ceremony space for the conversation if you will, Michael reads a Terrence McKenna quote included in Death by Astonishment:
It's this thing, is what it seems to be. It's a galactic intelligence. It's a billion years old. It's touched 10 million worlds. It knows the history of 150,000 civilizations. It's beyond the possibility of your conceiving it.
Michael Hints at a “Divine Influx”?
It comes reasonably close to capturing the uncapturable in trying to express what it's like to just be hit by the torrent of indescribable psychic input that you get from a heroic dose of something, or from, you know the requisite number of puffs of DMT. Like it's just almost impossible to conceive of the notion, well for me it is, impossible to conceive of the notion that, that said influx of information is coming purely from within us.
“Influx of information” intrigues me quite a lot. Is it perhaps, “divine” also? The conversation between Andrew and Michael gets into mysterium tremendum and mysterium fascinoscum, while touching on wonder and awe. These are all favorite topics of mine and can contribute to a “divine influx.”
Andrew Comparing DMT to Ram Dass’ Idea about Dying
Do you remember that Ram Dass quote where he says that dying is like taking off a tight shoe? It's like you're kind of relaxing into the 4D space. It's like I'm back and it feels, he said it feels very perfectly natural. As if in our normal waking life we're kind of folded, compressed into this three-dimensional form. This three dimensional structure our world is compressed into, this three-dimensional form, with DMT it kind of relaxes out and there is a sense certainly of familiarity and of returning home, as if DMT feels like a homecoming. Even though it's fucking bizarre, beyond description, it's still there's this sense of “Ah, I'm back.” And hey often welcome you back. There's often a party and there's bells ringing and lights flashing and stuff. I think going back to your telepathy point there, it does feel overall like the DMT space is intimately connected to us in a way that we simply don't understand.
Andrew Speculating on DMT and Aliens
I'm speculating wildly here, but I have speculated before that perhaps they might be using potentially DMT with our neural machinery. And I think that's what's happening here. Both with DMT and with the abduction phenomena is that they're they're accessing our neural machinery in some way and inducing our brain to construct these models because I think when you enter the DMT state, the world you're experiencing is still one that's being represented in the brain, I think, but I just don't think it's being generated spontaneously.
Nor is it a dreamt world that's completely disconnected from sensory inputs from external sensory inputs, but more of a directed world in that the inputs, the information is being directed into the brain. Some intelligent agent, the nature and origin of which I don't know, is somehow gaining access and DMT is somehow allowing that intelligence to gain access to your neural machinery and basically to seize control, to commandeer your brain's worldbuilding apparatus to construct these visions. You know, that's how they communicate with us.
Andrew on John Lilly and Constructing Worlds on DMT
And even John Lilly when he was taking large doses of ketamine and entering this, what he called the extraterrestrial reality, they, these intelligences within that space, also made it clear to him in no uncertain terms that his he was constructing the space and he was constructing their form so that they could interact with each other.
I will just mention there was a paper published by the Imperial College research team just in the last few weeks that actually demonstrated this neurological state in DMT.
I think the paper Andrew is referring to is- Micro-phenomenology of immersion and perceived presences under DMT.
It's nice to see that these, you know, what to many would seem like wild speculations on my part, seem to be borne out to some extent. At least by the neuroscience which is showing this kind of highly sensitive malleable state of the brain that these beings can access whether using DMT or through other means; maybe even during the dream state when the brain isn't being polluted so to speak by sensory inputs. Or in the deep ketamine state, in a sensory isolation chamber, or many other states, potentially can allow these intelligences, these intelligent agents to gain access. It's fascinating.
It's like the brain has found a new channel. Other psychedelics at normal doses tend to kind of nudge the dial out of tune perhaps. But with DMT, it's like finding a new channel on the TV set, but then discovering that the antenna has been disconnected. You're like, where did this channel come from? Why does the brain know how to construct these entirely nonhuman alien realities filled with these intelligent beings that have no relationship to the normal waking world that you've left behind?
Andrew: DMT is a Technology
This clearly isn't spontaneous activity of the lower sensory cortices. We can use that to explain you know, form constants going back to Heinrich Kluver. You know cobwebs or geometric patterns. You know that kind of thing can be explained by spontaneous activity of the lower sensory cortices but not complex alien realities filled with strange beings.
Heinrich Kluver who developed these form constants back in the middle of the, well the early 20th century, now this was all done with mescaline. We know that when you stimulate the cortex or when you release the lower sensory cortices that you do get these spontaneous patterns emerging. So I expect you'd see some kind of flow of information from the back. But whether it's much stronger with DMT, I don't know. But clearly this isn't just form constants. But yes, it clearly is like seeing with your eyes shut. You're observing. You know, it's often described with DMT that it's not like a drug. It's more like an observation. It feels more like a technology. That you've simply, your reality channel has been switched to another channel. You're observing this world that's been going on before you arrived and will continue to do so long after you've left and may well have been going on for trillions of years before our universe popped into existence.
For a primer about form constants and Heinrich Kluver’s work, read my article about the prevalence of hexagons during psychedelic journeys.
Andrew on DMT Entities, Indigenous Cosmovision and Intelligence?
So this idea that you're interacting with beings that are everywhere and nowhere. That don't have a form. That could be faithfully represented in visual forms, are interacting with our brains in some way and manipulating our neural machinery. I'm certainly not the first person to think of that although I couch it in entirely different terminology. It's going back, you know, Lilly's beings told him the same thing, right? Pesoto understood that, and clearly these indigenous peoples who had no understanding of neuroscience, understood what was going on.
I think that these intelligences that we are interacting with and I really do lean towards that position now, that we are interacting with some kind of intelligence, to understand all of that. No doubt about it. They understand that they can use our brains whether to benefit us or you use the word trickstery and I think that's very important. It's a very important word. DMT is very trixy or the beings that we interact with are very trixy. We shouldn't necessarily believe the insights that we receive. We shouldn't certainly take everything that we see and experience at face value. That can, I think, lead us into very dangerous territory where we think we've got a handle on the truth. We think we've got a handle on reality. Whereas in fact we are being guided or misguided towards some end.
Yeah. I mean, I refer to DMT as a technology because well, to me, that's it looks more like a technology I mean, than it does a drug. I mean, calling it a drug seems like, seems a bit weak to me considering, you know, if we do take seriously, as I do. The idea that this is allowing us to interact with some, you know, allowing us to communicate and to interact with, interface with some other much more advanced intelligence, that to me is a technology. That's not just a drug. It's doing far more than manipulating our physiology, which is basically how a drug is defined. It's doing something else. It's allowing, it's gating access to the flow of information from some intelligent agent that we don't know anything about basically. So that's why I call it a technology because I want to get away from the idea that this is just a psychedelic drug. So that's why I call DMT a technology.
Andrew on the Future of Extended State DMT (DMTx) and Going Endogenous
So you can keep pumping someone full of DMT and they don't develop tolerance or at least significant tolerance to it which means that DMT, well we can use this target controlled intravenous infusion technology with DMT what's now called DMTx to bring someone into the DMT state and hold them there. So clearly, you know, we're still learning how to use it, you know, and this takes a massive amount of intelligence. It requires an extremely intelligent, albeit still rather arrogant species, to actually identify, isolate, and then learn to use this molecule. And we can imagine in the future, you know, or I'm already thinking about endo DMTx and actually working on a project with the company I work with, Noonautics in the US, to fund a project to actually study the endogenous regulation of DMT in the in the human brain. Because I think ultimately we might be dispensing with needles and infusions and actually hacking the brain's endogenous DMT biosynthesis system to naturally raise DMT in the human brain. So we would directly be induced using our own DMT rather than taking it from synthetic or plant material.
So, it's not out of the question that in the next 10 years you might be going to a retreat center and just sitting in a pod and being injected perhaps with a small amount, you know, 30 micrograms or something, of a small peptide inhibitor and then boom, you gradually, you find yourself within the DMT world and your systems are supported. You're being fed by intravenous drip and your body is maybe cooled down and waste products are managed. You can manage all of your bodily functions and bodily needs whilst you are away, you know on an excursion, an extended excursion.
Andrew on DMT Island
…it's in the Caribbean, so things move more slowly. They work on Caribbean island time, so to speak…we've been working getting investments and funding. We're just kind of closing deals now. So we have everything we need to get it off the ground. So hopefully within the next few months we'll start being able to bring people to the island, and safely and legally, in a much, much more optimal context than what DMTx participants are in.
So here people can go to this beautiful Caribbean island, the Grenadines, and experience DMTX in an optimal setting. So yes, it's definitely happening. But these things take much longer than you anticipate both in terms of getting the funding together and just the whole practicalities of this, to do this safely, is no small task. But yeah, it's happening. It's happening.
This is not like an outpatient thing, so to speak. It's like you're there, you're in the retreat, you're staying there for maybe a week with several experiences and integration sessions over that period. So it's more than just an injection, an infusion of DMT, but it's the whole, everything that surrounds it, the preparation and the integration as well. So yeah, it's going to be completely unique. There's certainly nowhere else in the world where you can do that. I mean there's many ayahuasca retreats now, but people who want to experience DMTx particularly, it's very, very difficult, if not basically impossible for most people. But we aim to change that.
Andrew on Psychedelic Science 2025
I applied to talk about DMTx and the kind of stuff we were talking about. The idea of, you know extension, you know the origins of DMTx and how we might extend it in the future; endo DMTx stuff. But they kind of rejected my application and they put me into a panel where I will give a short presentation. There were three people but the panel was something like DMT, Hinduism, Daoism. I don't know what it was but it was something very, an unusual juxtaposition of me and then these very kind of metaphysical Hinduist, anyway, yeah Daoist kind of people. So I have no idea what that's going to be like, but it should be an interesting discussion at least.
The Psychedelic Science 2025 panel Andrew is joining is, “One and Many: DMT, the Multiverse, and Mystical Convergences in Christianity, Taoism and Hinduism.” It is Wednesday, Jun 18 at 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM MDT, and located at- SOCIETY - Four Seasons 4.
I would have loved to see Andrew earn his own lecture. However, I’m surprised that Andrew doesn’t see the sweet symbiosis here. In fact, earlier in the podcast Michael mentions Donald Hoffman.
Donald Hoffman is an idealist, or a monistic idealist to be exact. I wrote a piece about the merging of science and mysticism, and the glue is monistic idealism.
I think Andrew may enjoy reading my article- Does 20th Century Science Fit 21st Century Consciousness? Reading this helps explain why science, psychedelics, and mysticism are on a collision course, and why Dr. Gallimore is perfect for this panel.
Psychedelic Science 2025 For the Win
I don’t have to meet Dennis McKenna, Robin Carhartt-Harris, Paul Stamets or even Rick Doblin. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve already met Robin and Dennis. However, oh boy, do I want to meet Andrew Gallimore. Furthermore, Michael Phillip said at the end of the podcast, that he’ll be attending Psychedelic Science 2025, and be seeing Andrew’s panel discussion. I’d love to meet Michael too.
Take one guess where I’ll be Wednesday, June 18th at 5pm. I feel that this will be one of the most edutaining and mind manifesting moments at the Psychedelic Science 2025 conference. If Santa’s little helpers are the machine elves, then I feel like a kid on Christmas morning in June. Ho, ho, ho, on a breakthrough I go!