Psychedelic causes similar brain state in spiritual lama as meditation

A master meditator has spent 15 years learning to quiet his sense of self – and brain scans suggest he achieved a similarly altered state with a powerful psychedelic.

“There seems to be, with that low dose [of the psychedelic], a significant overlap in terms of brain activity with what’s happening in non-dual meditation state [a style of practice that makes no distinction between the self and the rest of the world],” says Christopher Timmermann at University College London.

Psychedelic research is booming, with scientists exploring 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 quickly disrupt mental processing while producing less vivid visuals than other psychedelics.

Now, Timmermann and his colleagues have compared the effects of 5-MeO-DMT-induced psychedelic states with advanced meditation. The team worked with a lama who is a master from the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and has clocked up more than 54,000 hours’ worth of meditation.

In three separate lab visits, the lama meditated uninterrupted for 30 to 60 minutes and then took 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 asked about his thoughts and sense of self afterwards.

They found that the low 5-MeO-DMT dose (5 milligrams) yielded striking parallels in brain activity with when he was meditating. For instance, scans suggest they both increased his alpha power – electrical waves that are often tied to relaxed wakefulness, internally directed attention and a lack of response to external stimuli – relative to both the placebo and his baseline state. They both also reduced his gamma activity, which is linked to active cognitive engagement, attention and memory.

Timmermann says that both of these situations also generated a sense of equanimity, when the lama’s thoughts would “arise and immediately dissolve”, however, meditation produced a stronger sense of interconnectedness and mental clarity.

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

The high dose was also linked to increased neuronal firing and entropy, defined as more unpredictable firing patterns, relative to both the placebo and his baseline, which suggests that this dose overwhelmed his senses and thoughts. In contrast, the low dose was linked to reduced neuronal firing and entropy.

The researchers say their findings help link distinct neural pathways to a sense of “ego dissolution” and “contentless awareness”. But changes to the lama’s brain activity don’t necessarily explain his subjective experiences, says Matthew Sacchet at Harvard Medical School.

The study was also made up of a single, experienced meditator, so the results may not apply more broadly, particularly as brain-activity related studies can be unreliable. What’s more, blinding participants is notoriously difficult in psychedelic research, because the side effects of hallucinogenic drugs usually alert people to when they have taken them, as opposed to a placebo, although the lama didn’t report such effects.

Nevertheless, Timmermann maintains that with further research, the findings could benefit a wider group, if safe use of 5-MeO-DMT is found to bring similar benefits to advanced meditation. He’s now looking into whether the drug helps people who are just starting to meditate to advance their practice more quickly, though he does not recommend trying it at home, particularly as 5-MeO-DMT is illegal for general use in many countries.

In the meantime, Sacchet says that for those wishing to reap the suspected mental health benefits of 5-MeO-DMT, meditation could offer a “viable path toward states that at least partially overlap with some psychedelic effects”, without the risk of toxicity or addiction.