Psychedelics induce a brain state similar to meditation in a spiritual lama

The master meditator spent 15 years learning to silence his self-consciousness – and brain scans suggest he achieved a similarly altered state with the help of powerful psychedelics.

“Seems like that with the low dose. [of the psychedelic]significant overlap in terms of brain activity with what happens in a non-dual meditation state [a style of practice that makes no distinction between the self and the rest of the world],” he says Christopher Timmermann at University College London.

Psychedelic research is booming, and scientists are investigating how these drugs could expand our understanding of consciousness and improve our mental health. The compound 5-MeO-DMT, commonly found in the North American toad, is of particular interest because it appears to rapidly impair mental processing while producing less vivid visuals than other psychedelics.

Timmermann and his colleagues have now compared the effects of psychedelic states induced by 5-MeO-DMT with advanced meditation. The team worked with a lama who is a master of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and has over 54,000 hours of meditation.

In three separate laboratory visits, the lama meditated continuously for 30 to 60 minutes before taking either a placebo or a low or high dose of 5-MeO-DMT. The researchers measured his brain activity during each of these states and then asked about his thoughts and sense of self.

They found that a low dose of 5-MeO-DMT (5 milligrams) provided striking parallels in brain activity to when he meditated. For example, the scans indicate that they both increased his alpha power – that is, electrical waves often tied to relaxed vigilanceinwardly focused attention and insufficient response to external stimuli – relative to both placebo and baseline. Both also reduced his gamma activity, which is associated with active cognitive engagementattention and memory.

Both of these situations also produced a sense of equanimity, Timmermann says, where the lama’s thoughts “arising and immediately dissipated,” but meditation created a stronger sense of interconnectedness and mental clarity.

With a high dose of 5-MeO-DMT (12 milligrams), the llama’s gamma activity increased. He later said he felt completely disconnected from his surroundings and himself, including a sense of an overwhelming white light. “There are no thoughts,” he said. “Complete loss of perception of the body, the room, everything.”

The high dose was also associated with increased neuronal firing and entropy, defined as more unpredictable firing patterns, compared to both placebo and his baseline, suggesting that the dose overwhelmed his senses and thoughts. In contrast, the low dose was associated with reduced neuronal firing and entropy.

The researchers say their findings help link different neural pathways to the sensation of “dissolving the ego” and “content-free awareness.” But changes in the llama’s brain activity don’t necessarily explain its subjective experiences, he says Matthew Sacchet at Harvard Medical School.

The study was also made up of one experienced meditator, so the results may not apply more widely, especially as studies related to brain activity can be unreliable. What’s more, blinding participants is notoriously difficult in psychedelic research because the side effects of hallucinogenic drugs, unlike placebos, usually alert people to when they’ve taken them, although the llama reported no such effects.

However, Timmermann says that with further research, the findings could benefit a wider group if safe use of 5-MeO-DMT is found to provide similar benefits to advanced meditation. He is now investigating whether the drug helps new meditators progress more quickly in their practice, though he does not recommend trying it at home, especially since 5-MeO-DMT is illegal for general use in many countries.

Meanwhile, Sacchet says that for those looking to take advantage of 5-MeO-DMT’s supposed mental health benefits, meditation could offer “a viable route to states that at least partially overlap with some of the psychedelic effects,” without the risk of toxicity or addiction.

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