Understanding
Long-form essays on the foundational science of DMT and related psychedelics — receptor pharmacology, neurobiology, metabolism, the endogenous-DMT question, and what these compounds actually do to the brain. Critical reviews of evidence and careful unpicking of common claims: pineal gland myths, default mode network, ego dissolution, near-death experiences. The conceptual scaffolding behind the daily Field Notes, for readers who want to follow the primary literature with confidence.
Start Here
A sequential introduction — read in order.
What is DMT?
A plain-English orientation to DMT: the molecule, its forms, what it does, how it works, where it sits in UK law, and why the science is back open.
What is Ayahuasca?
A plain-English orientation to ayahuasca — the plants, the pharmacology, the ceremony, the regional variations, the modern global story, and the open questions.
What is 5-MeO-DMT?
The shorthand version of why 5-MeO-DMT warrants its own primer: it is the DMT-family compound most likely to be confused with N,N-DMT and the one most likely to surprise readers
Harmine and the MAOIs
Oral N,N-DMT, taken on its own, reaches the gut wall, encounters intestinal MAO-A, and is broken down before it can be absorbed. Almost none reaches the bloodstream. The body's protection against dietary amines is, in this case, doing exactly its job. Oral DMT is pharmacologically inactive.
What is the Default Mode Network?
The brain regions that hum when you are not doing anything, the self that hums with them, and what psychedelics seem to do to the whole arrangement.
What is the Sigma-1 Receptor?
A strange protein inside cells, why DMT binds to it, and the increasingly serious question of what that binding might mean.
Pillar Essays
Comprehensive, referenced long-form work.
Endogenous DMT in Humans: A Critical Review of the State of the Evidence
A critical review of the evidence, the inferences drawn from it, and the limits of cross-species extrapolation: detection, biosynthesis, function and psychoactive sufficiency .
Ayahuasca is not one thing
yahuasca' denotes a variable ethnobotanical category, not a single brew. The variation matters for ceremony, chemistry, consent, and clinical research.