“Pure consciousness”: inside the drug that erases space, time and self

Holding a Sonoran Desert frog and squeezing the slimy glands on its head to extract its toxic secretions is a strange experience. Even more surprising is what one of the compounds in this mixture can do to the human brain. 5-MeO-DMT, or simply 5MeO, is one of the most powerful psychedelics in the world, capable of shattering your sense of space, time, and self in a matter of seconds.

Like its molecular cousin DMT, 5MeO is found naturally in many plants, with effects that typically wear off within an hour. But unlike other psychedelics, 5MeO does not flood the mind with complex hallucinations. Instead, it tends to erase everything except consciousness itself.

For some, the result is little more than a mind-boggling ride. It is a complete deconstruction of subjective experience itself—perhaps a glimpse of what lies beneath all our thoughts, feelings, and stories.

Minimal model of consciousness

Our minds are constantly buzzing with things: thoughts, feelings, body sensations, images, smells, and sounds. Naive intuition suggests that this is all in the mind. But what if there is a fundamental basis for conscious experience on which it rests?

For thousands of years, Buddhist traditions have described experiences that reveal the minimal state of mind—the state of pure consciousness. Reaching primal, unadorned states of consciousness is a central motivation for many meditators. From the perspective of consciousness science, it also represents an attractive way to study the basic mechanisms of human experience. For example, philosopher Thomas Metzinger said: Argue The simple model of consciousness—that is, consciousness without the remnants of thoughts, emotions, and self—can provide a deep scientific understanding of the essence of consciousness. By examining its simplest forms, we may learn how more complex forms are built on those foundations or what the minimal components necessary for consciousness really are.

But reaching these states through meditation is difficult, if not impossible, for most people. Some meditators never get there, despite decades of practice. Even among those who do report such experiences, their descriptions are often intertwined with the language and images of Buddhist texts, making it difficult to separate real experience from suggestion.

5-MeO-DMT may offer a more practical way to access and study these abstract mental states. As a scientist interested in consciousness, most of my previous research has focused on understanding how psychedelics affect the human brain. Then I I stumbled across the reports of individuals who have taken 5-MeO-DMT (or simply 5MeO), describing effects that seemed similar to those reported by meditators long ago.

That 5MeO could produce these experiences was counterintuitive. After all, psychedelics tend to add things to the mind, not empty it. Most induce a wide range of subjective experiences, including colorful visual hallucinations, physical sensations, changes in perception and thoughts, and feelings of loneliness or connection with the world or others. For example, DMT—the main ingredient of the Amazonian psychedelic beverage called ayahuasca—can propel your subjective consciousness into immersive visual worlds, often described as geometric and highly colorful, and sometimes inhabited by seemingly intelligent beings. But with 5MeO, something completely different happens: it radically dismantles all possible worlds, leaving only consciousness intact.

It’s no surprise that 5MeO has been called the “Mount Everest of drugs”, and appropriately, its experiments are often referred to as “whitewashing”. But far from its ability to annihilate the sense of space and time, its most interesting effect lies in the way it dissolves the self. This is the key. Philosophers have debated for thousands of years the question of whether the self is necessary for consciousness to occur, and it remains unsettled.

No boundaries, no objects, no dimensions

Based on the idea that 5MeO may offer a unique window into consciousness, We proceeded to test Whether it truly induces states of pure consciousness remains to be seen, and may serve as an important tool for consciousness science. Instead of studying the effects of 5MeO in the artificial confines of a laboratory, we decided to first study its effects in the real world. We wanted to understand the range of experiences that the compound produces at different doses and in different environments. So we attended retreats where people were already planning to take 5MeO, and then we measured brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG) caps. As a tool for measuring brain rhythms, EEG helps neuroscientists characterize different states of consciousness, such as sleep, anesthesia, and vegetative states. Understanding how these brain rhythms work under 5MeO can provide a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms behind pure consciousness.

But first, we needed to confirm whether these experiences truly reflected a state of disjointed consciousness with consciousness remaining intact. To do this, we conducted detailed interviews with participants using the microphenomenological technique. This approach helps people vividly recall their experiences, rather than simply recalling them from memory. This distinction is important – naive recollection often blurs our actual life experiences with our current interpretations, leading to distortions or misinformation. Microphenomenology helps reduce these biases, which is why it has become an increasingly popular tool in consciousness research.

our results She revealed that the 5MeO experience consists of several stages. Just seconds after smoking the substance, individuals experience a rapid onset of effects, which are characterized by the body or visual field collapsing, collapsing, or shattering. This was followed by an immersion phase, where the thoughts gradually began to disappear. At this point, many individuals felt that they were becoming the emotion rather than just feeling it.

This was followed by an abstraction phase, where participants began to feel their bodies completely dissolving. All ability to think has disappeared. At this moment, participants described their experience in abstract terms. “There were no boundaries or objects,” one participant said. “Not even dimensions.” “I didn’t have any thoughts. I didn’t have any senses… but I had some feeling… like a pyramid or something… it was more like a feeling of space.”

Only 29% of individuals reached the peak of their 5MeO experience, a phase we called the “Everything and Nothing” phase. These individuals experienced consciousness without self, time, or space. There was no distinction between subject and object, or even the ability to think and contemplate. But at the same time, the experience felt full, containing everything while also evoking a sense of emptiness. “I wasn’t there,” one participant said. “It was as if I had access to ‘whiteness’. A quiet, joyful, immense whiteness…I was everything…there was no controller or observer…it was not ‘me’. I don’t know what happened. I had somehow caught a glimpse of…of…of perfection.”

This description provided strong hints that we were on to something meaningful. A state of completely disintegrated consciousness that has preserved consciousness. A glimpse into the minimal model of consciousness identified by Metzinger. It seems that 5MeO could be a potential way for us to induce states of pure consciousness without having to rely on reports of advanced meditators who have thousands of hours of practice. But the potential advantage goes further. By understanding how 5MeO interacts with different receptors in the brain, we can gain a detailed understanding of how changes in brain activity give rise to these experiences.

The EEG data we collected complemented these subjective reports, revealing a reduction in alpha and beta brain rhythms. These rhythms help coordinate signals between the higher and lower regions of the brain. Higher-level areas process abstract ideas associated with our sense of self, which often become more prominent when we close our eyes and think about ourselves, our relationships, and our place in time. We also found a decrease in beta rhythms, which is the change we had Previous research It has been associated with feelings of freedom from the body during psychedelic experiences and meditation. Together, these neural patterns seem to correspond to what many participants described: the disappearance of physical boundaries and a narrative sense of self.

Reductions in alpha brain rhythms reflect a state in which neurons function more freely. But how can a state of disjointed consciousness – without any contents except consciousness itself – arise from a state of freedom from inhibition? A closer look at our phenomenological results offers an interesting possibility. Rather than reflecting an experience of nothing, an experience of everything and nothing reveals a state of hyperawareness, beyond the ability of attention to capture any meaningful information from the experience.

However, these results are preliminary, and the experiments were not conducted in a controlled laboratory setting. Other researchers I mentioned recently Somewhat different brain results in a study also conducted in retreat settings. We are currently seeking to resolve these potential differences in a controlled study where we will administer 5MeO while capturing brain activity in more detail and with a wider range of participants.

Getting rid of the burdens of the mind

One of the most striking elements of our findings is that 5MeO-induced dissociative experiences were typically associated with feelings of bliss and well-being. Meditators report a similar phenomenon of intense feelings of pleasure once they reach advanced stages in their practice.

Why does pure awareness lead to bliss? We still don’t know, but it opens up fascinating questions about the relationship between consciousness and mental health. It can be that our daily onslaught of thoughts, sensations, and feelings constricts and burdens the mind. Removing these burdens may free the mind to simply appreciate consciousness itself, and in that simplicity find refuge. Similar claims suggest that excessive focus on the self can lead to increased psychological distress. Psychedelics offer unique ways to relieve suffering by loosening strict self-focus.

But while 5MeO may induce feelings of bliss, it can also lead to elevated states of anxiety while under its influence, and we still don’t fully understand why this happens for some people. It is also possible that the compound reduces suffering through other means. Research suggests that 5MeO can enhance neuroplasticity in a rapid and lasting way, with recent findings showing that it increased the number of spines (parts of neurons that enable connections with other neurons) in the medial prefrontal cortex of mice, an area that plays a crucial role in many mental health conditions and sense of self.

Future research will be key in clarifying how 5MeO affects the brain and its potential mental health benefits. What has become clear is that this psychedelic may be a reliable gateway to paradigms of consciousness that most people would never otherwise access—experiences stripped of the thoughts, sensations, and feelings that normally swamp the mind. It is a glimpse of the abstract consciousness that lies quietly beneath every waking moment.