DMT Dialogues: Encounters with the Spirit Molecule

by David Luke

RUPERT SHELDRAKE: Well, yes, in 1984 I was in Esalen with Rick Strassman and Terence McKenna etcetera, and both Rick and I took DMT for the first time, with Terence, and it then led to a series of conversations. I started my career as a tryptophan biochemist; my Ph.D. thesis was on the breakdown of the amino acid tryptophan, and I discovered that in plants when tryptophan breaks down as part of a dying process, it releases indole acetic acid, known as auxin, which is the main plant hormone. Auxin is a breakdown product of tryptophan. Another breakdown product is tryptamine and its derivatives, like DMT. So we were discussing the breakdown of tryptophan in dying cells, and the idea was that in the pineal there’d be these tryptophan precursors, and the pineal, at the moment of death, could flood the brain with DMT. This is a speculation Rick and I came up with in a conversation. I was amazed to see how far it’s gone!