Science Guide

Ever want to travel to another planet and meet alien lifeforms - without actually leaving planet Earth? 60 volunteers at the University of New Mexico did exactly that, with the oversight of Medical Doctor Rick Strassman and the help of a powerful Hallucinogen, Dimethyltryptamine (DMT).

After being injected with the substance, you may find your consciousness blasted into outer space, laying on board an alien spacecraft, or floating around with fairies, aliens, demons and machine elves. If it sounds crazy, it is.

"Both myself and the volunteers were expecting mystical experiences, near death experiences, psychological breakthroughs, those kinds of things." Strassman said in an interview with Martin Ball, Ph.D. "Some of the motifs were pretty classical science fiction, kind of flying toward a space station or a space ship, or automatons or robots were busily doing their business. Sometimes they would see very hard to describe hybrid entities, machine/animal, even furniture kinds of conglomerates of beings."

Strassman is a published author with a book on his research titled "DMT: The Spirit Molecule". He has also recently contributed to "Inner Paths to Outer Space" and is expecting a DMT documentary based on his book to be released soon.

This is not the end of the road for Dr. Strassman - or the mysterious hallucinogen. His findings have prompted him and some new colleagues to create the Cottonwood Research Foundation (CRF), a research facility they hope will further their understanding into the bizarre nature of DMT and its effects on human consciousness.

The CRF is hoping to find itself built in New Mexico, as the ultimate hub for research, training, education, resources and more, all focused on psychoactive substances. "Once we get our coffers a little more plentiful, we'll be able to hire some staff. Ultimately, we're going to need some land, some buildings, some medical staff, a psychiatrist, a nurse, people who are keen on this work and are willing to devote themselves to it, so a few really large grants would help."

Louisiana State University will be developing technology capable of detecting and measuring levels of certain compounds within the human body, something that has yet to be done. Strassman theorizes at human death and during REM sleep, the pineal gland located in the center of the brain, releases DMT. The CRF hopes to use this technology in their research.

Strassman is confident that despite the CRF being in its early stages with much work still to be done, it's just a matter of time for things to kick off and get moving. "I'm a patient person, obviously I wouldn't have gotten my research on DMT done if I weren't, so I've got plenty of time to work on it, and even if I didn't, it's got to be started off in the way that I would like it to turn out."