Giving 5MEO to a Lama and advanced meditator
We've all heard the spiritual talk: "Meditation can dissolve the ego," or "True enlightenment is just a moment away." But how does that stack up against a chemical shortcut, like a powerful psychedelic?
Imperial College London, led by Dr. Chris Timmermann, decided to find out. They put one of the world's most advanced Mahamudra meditators—a Lama with 17 years and over ten thousand hours of practice—into the lab.
The question that drives this research? Can the sense of self switch off in more than one way?
The Experiment: Nond Gual vs. 5-MeO-DMT
This was a first-of-its-kind experiment. They directly compared the Lama's brain and self-awareness across three different conditions, all within one protocol:
- Nond Gual Meditation: The Lama entered a deep meditative state where the boundary between "me" and the world softened. He reported clarity and equanimity.
- Low Dose 5-MeO-DMT: A small dose of the psychedelic, which brought imagery, emotional shifts, and a quieter sense of self.
- High Dose 5-MeO-DMT: A stronger dose that completely removed the body and the environment, leaving only a bright, empty awareness. The Lama described the awareness as subtle, with no notion of the "gross aspect of self".
They tracked brain data, psychological ratings, and interviews moment-by-moment.
🧠 What the Brain Waves Told Us
Brain rhythms are just electrical waves that shift with different states of mind. The recordings revealed some seriously intriguing differences:
- Nond Gual Meditation & Low Dose 5-MeO: The brain became quieter and more stable. Alpha activity (linked to calm focus and a quiet mind) increased, and gamma activity (linked to active thinking and intense sensory processing) dropped.
- High Dose 5-MeO: This was a different beast entirely. Gamma activity increased, and the signal became chaotic. The brain signal showed high Neural Entropy (a measure of chaotic brain signal), matching the flood of intense internal experience.
- The Big Takeaway: An AI trained on the Lama's nond Gual brain activity recognized the low dose of 5-MeO as similar—they shared an overlapping neural signature. But the AI did not recognize the high dose.
The Verdict? (It's Preliminary!)
The findings are preliminary and still waiting for peer-review, but they tell us something profound:
- Low Dose = Meditation's Neighbor: The low dose creates a brain state much closer to advanced meditation than to a strong, chaotic psychedelic state. Meditation and this low dose simply thin the boundary of the self.
- High Dose = Beyond: The high dose of the psychedelic pushes the brain into a completely different state, moving past that boundary altogether with an overpowering loss of self.
This suggests there's no single form of ego loss. It's not just an ON/OFF switch.
So, the question hanging in the air is this: How far can self-awareness truly dissolve, and what lies beyond the point where even advanced meditation simply cannot follow?
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Giving 5MEO to a Lama and advanced meditator
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