"I did my best in the DMT book to differentiate between what is known, and what I was conjecturing about (based upon what is known), regarding certain aspects of DMT dynamics. However, it's amazing how ineffective my efforts seem to have been. So many people write me, or write elsewhere, about DMT, and the pineal, assuming that the things I conjecture about are true. When I was writing the book, I thought I was clear enough, and repeating myself would have gotten tedious.

"We don't know whether DMT is made in the pineal. I muster a lot of circumstantial evidence supporting a reason to look long and hard at the pineal, but we do not yet know. There are data suggesting urinary DMT rises in psychotic patients when their psychosis is worse. However, we don't know whether DMT rises during dreams, meditation, near-death, death, birth or any other endogenous altered state. To the extent those states resemble those brought on by giving DMT, it certainly makes one wonder if endogenous DMT might be involved, and if it were, it would explain a lot. But we don't know yet. Even if the pineal weren't involved, that would have little overall effect on my theories regarding a role for DMT in endogenous altered states, because we do know that the gene involved in DMT synthesis is present in many organs, particularly lung. If the pineal made DMT, it would tie up a lot of loose ends regarding this enigmatic little organ. But people seem to live pretty normals lives without a pineal gland; for example, when it has had to be removed because of a tumor.

"In both these regards--the pineal-DMT connection, and endogenous DMT dynamics--we ought to know a lot more within the next several years due to the efforts of a research group being led by Steven Barker at Louisiana State University. He, with his grad student Ethan McIlhenny, are developing a new super-assay for DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, bufotenine, and metabolites. This assay will be capable of detecting those compounds much more sensitively than previous generations of assays. They're looking at endogenous levels in awake sober normals, to assess baseline values of these compounds. We should have some data from those samples within a year. They also will be looking at pineal tissue. Once we have some baseline data in normal humans in normal waking consciousness, comparisons can be made between those levels and levels in endogenous altered states, like dreams, near-death, and so on."

DMT is not produced by the pineal gland, because the mRNA sequence for indolethylamine N-methyltransferase (INMT) simply isn't present in the pineal gland. INMT is an enzyme that is needed to synthesize DMT. Without any gene coding for the enzyme, the enzyme isn't present. It is present in the lungs though, among other places.

The race was on. In 1965 a research team from Germany published a
paper in the flagship British science journal Nature announcing that they
had isolated DMT from human blood. In 1972 Nobel-prize winning scientist
Julius Axelrod of the U.S. National Institutes of Health reported finding
it in human brain tissue. Additional research showed that DMT could
also be found in human urine and the cerebrospinal fluid bathing the
brain. It was not long before scientists discovered the pathways, similar to
those in lower animals, by which the human body made DMT. DMT thus
became the first endogenous human psychedelic.12
Endogenous means that a compound is made in the body: endo,
"within," and genous, "generated" or "formed." Endogenous DMT, then,
is DMT made within the body. There are other endogenous compounds
with which we've become familiar over the years. For example, endogenous
morphine-like compounds are endorphins.

This is straight out of DMT: The Spirit Molecule -