Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by rubicon33 3420 days ago
Here's a fun question...

If it has a such a profound change in consciousness, would it be easy for a non-DMT user to identify someone who has used DMT, albeit with some training?

7 comments

there's a very simple heuristic to determine whether someone has used dmt, and even those who haven't can use it: they never shut the fuck up about it
Haha. I have done quite a bit of hallucinogens, but I never bring the subject up myself. My ideas are wild enough, I don't want to give people an easy excuse to dismiss them :)
There's a pretty easy test. Just start talking about the illusion of the ego. People who've never experience ego death will have no idea what you are talking about. Given that ego death is pretty much only caused by epic trips or a profound mastery of meditation, you should be able to get an idea fairly quickly.
> would it be easy for a non-DMT user to identify someone who has used DMT, albeit with some training?

No. There is basically 30% of the population that will believe anything no matter how stupid. Because the percentage of people who have smoked DMT is probably closer to 0.1%, it would be very difficult to separate people who believe dumb-sounding things for good reasons from the people who believe dumb-sounding things for dumb reasons.

I'm curious whether or not there's even a test for the presence of this drug or it's metabolites in the blood of a user who has taken it within say even just the past hour, due to its purportedly short lived effects...

Not curious enough to consult the literature, but curious.

Its naturally occurring in the body, and quickly broken down by mono-amine oxidase enzymes (taking MAOI's, mono-amine oxidase inhibitors, with it extends the duration of the trip).
I think the reverse would make more sense.
I'm not sure if it's a valid test -I'd think that a better test would be to identify if there is a significant positive change before/after use of DMT, without telling anyone of the use.
No.