One man sat in the desert, one man sat under the Bodhi Tree.

1. Did their pineal glands produce the same thing near the end of their near-death sojourns?
2. Was it produced because of near-death starvation?
3. Did they visit the same realm?

We all know DMT is produced by our pineal glands if one has a near-death experience. And SWIM has personally and vividly broken through more than a few times to have witnessed the divine. But SWIM is curious about what happened to these two men.

There is no proof that DMT is produced in the pineal glad in primates. Has any of your DMT experiences been exactly the same? If no then how would they have the same experience?

Squattingbear is correct, while DMT is detectable in human urine and blood, and while we know it is produced by the human body, we still are uncertain as to where this DMT production is actually occurring.

The "DMT is produced in the pineal gland" thing was a piece of conjecture by Dr. Strassman that many mistakenly take as fact.

DMT was found in the pineal body of the rat brain
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23881860

DMT is produced endogenously (naturally in the body) from tryptophan, which is decarboxalated (amino acid decarbixylase) to give tryptamine, this tryptamine is then methylated by the indole amine methyl transerase S-Adenosyl methionine (Sam), which becomes S-Adenosyl-L-homocysteine as it donates the methyl group, giving N-methyl-tryptamine, which is again methylated by SAM (which becomes SAH) giving N,N-dimethyltryptamine...

However, the enzymes necessary to do this are found through out the body...and its never been confirmed where endogenous DMT is being produced in the human body...

Most the tryptophan you get from diet (and it must be obtained from diet, this is why it's an "essential" amino acid) will be 5-hydroxylated to 5-hydroxy-tryptophan, which is then decarboxylated to give 5-hydroxy-tryptamine (serotonin)

( Around 90% of the human body's serotonin is found in the enterochromaffin cells in the GI tract, where it is used to regulate intestinal movements The remainder is synthesized in serotonergic neurons of the CNS... )

When This 5-hydroxy-tryptamine enters the pineal gland and is converted to N-acetyl-5-methoxy-tryptamine (meletonin), which is then cyclised to 6-methoxy-tetrahydro-beta-carboline (pinoline)

...so the pineal gland is an area for tryptamine chemistry, however the chemistry needed to produce DMT can potentially occur in other places in the body...

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I hear these three unconfirmed bits of speculation constantly repeated:

·DMT is involved in the chemistry of birth and death as well as near death experiance.

·DMT plays a role in dreaming

·Spiritual, mystical, near death, and alien abduction phenomena are a result of endogenous DMT.

These are all fascinating prospects, interesting ideas, but as far as I know there's nothing to confirm any of them...

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We're you implying that endogenous DMT played a role in the enlightenment of Siddhārtha Gautama as well as the crucifixion or desert wandering of Jesus Christ? And that perhaps it was the stress Siddhārtha endured through starvation and meditation which nearly killed him just before he was enlightened under the bodhi tree that caused this DMT flush? And that in the case of Christ it came through wandering through the desert or the stress of crucifixion?

I'm just trying to understand...

If I got it right, this is an interesting concept, but I doubt you will ever be able to generate any evidence for it...

-eg

..to add (moar juice) to your riddle

- 108 - 108 - 108 - 108 - 108 - 108 - 108 -

Agreed. Seems to me that wherever it is getting produced, a lot of it winds up in the Cerebral Spinal Fluid:

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Blood serum < LOD (n = 66)[24]
Blood plasma < LOD (n = 71)[24] ♦ < LOD (n = 3; 1,000 & 10,600 ng/L (n = 2)[47]
Whole blood < LOD (n = 20); 50–790 ng/L (n = 20)[48]
Urine < 100 ng/L (n = 9)[24] ♦ < LOD (n = 60); 160–540 ng/L (n = 5)[45] ♦ Detected in n = 10 by GC-MS[49]
Feces < 50 ng/kg (n = 12); 130 ng/kg (n = 1)[24]
Kidney 15 ng/kg (n = 1)[24]
Lung 14 ng/kg (n = 1)[24]
Lumbar CSF 100,370 ng/L (n = 1); 2,330–7,210 ng/L (n = 3); 350 & 850 ng/L (n = 2)[50]

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So that is higher by a factor of at least 1000 times than anywhere else found so far in the human body based on the list above. My guess is INMT produced in the lungs somehow finds its way into the CSF and there it methylates tryptamine, but that is just a guess. CSF also bathes the pineal...

I should add FWIW that I have had powerful visionary experiences just from doing Pranayama breathwork alone, so my own experience seems to match what Dr. Steven Barker says about INMT being produced in the lungs and being a likely mechanism for endogenous production.

Usually there is also quite a lag time. I might finish the breathing, be laying there for quite awhile relaxing and THEN suddenly have the visionary states happen. Which would seem to mesh with the idea that INMT produced in the lungs then takes some time to get things going. Also, these states have not usually lasted for me more than a few minutes, so if there is somehow additionally some natural MAOI component like pinoline then it is not prolonged.

...there is also a gate-ways of sleepstreaming into the various chrysanthemums from at the moment of sleep/death. Warning: this may lead to pre-sleep-death-anxiety and irreversible perma-rupture, a true terror-kar-bird. There is true horrors and taste of death frenzy in this kar-bird.



Mantriacs calls it the-smoalk-like-sign (...we think) a.k.a = quantum fog(foam?) to ppl like Stevan Hawkinnnnnnggs (...we think), it seems that, the minds' illusory boday is not defined by lenght and breadth, or size, density and grain, it can pass through with some ease....but in the end it seems there is nothing looked at, no observer too, nothing born, nothing dead, so this is quiet crazy.....?

Fascinating...

Do you by chance have any references to research data that I could review?

I have also recently become very interested in breath work, any recommendations in this area would be much appreciated...

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4845689

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5034200
INMT in lung

The indole amine methyl transferase in the biosynthetic pathway of dimethyltryptamine is S-Adenosyl methionine (SAM), after donating a methyl group, the SAM becomes S-Adenosyl-L-homocysteine (SAH)



-eg

Technically mescaline could be produced in the human body using SAM as well...

-eg

You have some of the better papers listed already. In terms of the one that got me thinking that the brain might not be where it is getting produced primarily or at all, there is this:

http://www.neurophys.wisc.edu/~cozzi/Indolethylamine%20N-methyltransferase%20expression%20in%20primate%20nervous%20tissue.pdf

And what was really interesting too was that the eye seems to have a really high concentratoin of INMT (the green in the pictures). I have not followed up on things, but I did read somewhere that CSF can actually leak out of the eye in some cases, so maybe CSF actually reaches the eye as well.

As for resources, I took some classes in Pranayama and read a book called The Science of Breath by Ramacharaka. Usually to get to a visual state takes me a lot of relaxation beforehand, often I do stretching, sometimes epsom salt baths and meditation in the dark, going for a massage beforehand, etc. Then, cycling hyperventilation type Pranayamas with kumbaka types (long retentions) for up to an hour or more. So it is a fairly long process and it does not always produce immediate or consistent results. Once I did a "Merkaba activation ceremony" where I did not experience anything until the next day, and I could not sleep for about 2 hours but saw a continual barage of hypnogogic imagery the whole time.

In terms of a long term practice, I like Spinal Breathing Pranayama as taught by AYPsite. It has not produced visionary experiences directly, but back when I was doing that together with their deep mediation and Kechari mudra, all twice daily for up to 2 hours, I started getting random energy surges in my body that would be followed by everything going into a nice eyes open crystaline mode, a lower version of what many here might be familiar with. All that while doing just random things like getting groceries, and with no real apparent catalyst. Lots of cool synchronicity around that time too...

I actually backed of those practices because I started wondering what would happen if that became my permanent state, I'd probably wind up sitting on a park bench for 2 years just marveling at the beauty of reality...

I've also done a Holotropic breathing workshop, but oddly that did not give me any visuals. It is hit and miss as I have said though. I had even drank a ton of green algae before that workshop hoping that the tryptophan would get converted lol.

On nights that I do cyclical breathing before bed, I seem to have a higher chance of having an OBE too. But again, never a guarantee. In the past I taught some classes on how to have OBEs, and if I could figure out some kind of magic pill breathing/supplement combo, I'd make a lot of money :-)

I think that is why I try to learn more and more on the chemistry side, so that I can better understand what might make it all happen more on demand vs. hit and miss.

Glad someone else here is as interested in the breath as I am. On the face of it, its just breathing, I mean it sounds so boring until it illuminates your brain with blissful visions that make you cry from the sheer beauty and presence of it all and you realize it is likely from a low dose of internally generated spice or spice-like substance...

OK I did not know that there was that pathway, very cool. Even if it has not been proven to happen as yet, it sure is one of those things that make you go "hmmmmmm".... :-)

Very cool too that dopamine would be the precursor. Meditation releases dopamine, and can often directly lead to visionary states without pranayama, so...

..can't wait to hear swimwithlove's view on the matter...

SWIM has been invited to participate in a traditional all night Peyote ceremony on native lands. Somewhat syncronistic given this recent discussion... it has been years since the one and only time SWIM might have had mescaline