One needn’t apply at NASA nor hitch a ride on a billionaire’s rocket ship to visit strange new worlds, at least according to the results of a dimethyltryptamine (DMT) study published recently in Frontiers in Psychology.

Authored by University of Greenwich’s Pascal Michael, David Luke, and Oliver Robinson, the U.K.-based study analyzed the experiences of 36 seasoned psychonauts who volunteered to take at least 40 mg of DMT in a non-clinical setting and then allow themselves to be immediately interviewed about their experiences.

The findings were both eye-opening and consistent.

 “Invariably, profound and highly intense experiences occurred,” the authors wrote, explaining 94 percent of subjects reported breakthrough encounters with otherworldly “beings” and a full 100 percent reported that their adventure connected them with another world.

The entities that the DMT trippers encountered presented a vast array of different features. One was cartoonish and clown-like while another was said to have a “multidimensional moth structure.” Others had serpentine, octopoid, and insectoid qualities. While most were described as humanoid, subjects also reported run-ins with “dancing lattices” and “sentient geometries.”

Regardless of how the beings appeared, most subjects believed they were intrinsically kind. Many even saw them as teachers or guides.

“These meetings were also overwhelmingly positive, with over half of participants conveying the entities’ enchanting nature, often including their benevolence (compared to only 8 percent suggesting some malevolence to their demeanor),” Michael, a University of Greenwich PhD candidate, told PsyPost. “Almost half felt some, usually ‘telepathic,’ communication from the entity, mostly happening to be on the subject of cosmic insight (such as the game-like nature of reality) or love for others and oneself.”

Michael also suggested the findings poked holes in a common myth which posits dying feels like a psychedelic trip because the human brain releases DMT upon death. If anything, he felt the trips his team chronicled had less in common with near-death experiences than they did with typical recounting of alien encounters and abductions.

This BIAL foundation, Society for Psychical Research, and Parapsychology Association-funded analysis isn’t the first study to link DMT trips to encounters with strange beings, but a previous one relied upon subjects having to retroactively recalling their psychedelic experiences.

“The uniqueness of this study, despite there being one small and another much larger prior online survey of DMT experiences, is it being the first qualitative analysis of these experiences conducted from very detailed interviews immediately after participants’ experiences, as part of a semi-controlled naturalistic field study,” Michael said.

DMT is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in small concentrations in many plants and mammals, including the human brain. Nicknamed the “spirit molecule,” it becomes an incredibly potent hallucinogen in concentrated doses and serves as the active psychedelic ingredient in ayahuasca, a healing plant medicine indigenous cultures have utilized for centuries.

“All psychoactive chemicals are enthralling just by virtue of their being able to manipulate the mind via their molecular mechanisms — but DMT is especially so, because of just how quickly and dramatically it can transform almost everything about one’s conscious experience,” Michael continued.

“The intense, profound and typically ontologically shifting journeys that result, quite inconceivable even after reading our extensive paper in question, are not only why in modern psychedelic communities the drug has garnered an arguably cult-like status — but is also why, given its use for thousands of years by indigenous groups (especially the Americas and Australia), it has become the fulcrum of entire cosmologies, shaping beliefs about the features of life, death, and the cosmos,” he concluded.

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Last month, Health Canada’s new Special Access Program (SAP) amendment went into effect, allowing physicians to request access to psilocybin, MDMA, DMT, LSD, and other psychedelic treatments not officially approved for sale in the country. The amendment, which reversed a 2013 policy prohibiting special access to restricted drugs, signifies a positive change in the healthcare industry’s perception of psychedelics.

But while medical professionals and psychedelic advocates responded with enthusiasm, the news also ignited a few misconceptions around program eligibility and psychedelic legality.

“This [amendment] shows that Health Canada is aware of the promise of psychedelic therapy and committed to understanding more through further research,” says Dr. DJ Cook, Head of Neurosurgery at Queen’s University and Chief Medical Officer at Dimensions Healing. “But it won’t be an assured means of acquiring these medicines for therapy — there will be a threshold to gain approval.

To better understand, we dug deeper into how the program will work, who will benefit, and whether there’s potential for full legalization.

How Does the Special Access Program Work?

For several years, Canadian health care providers have relied on Health Canada’s SAP to access otherwise unavailable drugs for “serious or life-threatening conditions” — particularly when traditional paths fail to yield positive outcomes. For example, the SAP might grant access to a not-yet-approved chemotherapy drug for a patient with a rare tumor or a new antiviral for a patient with long-standing, treatment-resistant HIV.

However, requests are decided on a case-by-case basis and don’t automatically guarantee access. When a healthcare professional determines a patient may benefit from a drug that’s not yet available for sale, they must submit a request to Health Canada and wait for a decision. If approved, the manufacturer is cleared to supply the drug to the licensed health care professional to distribute to their patient.|

When it comes to psychedelics, health care providers can only access drugs from a dealer licensed under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). In other words, the SAP doesn’t give carte blanche to all psychedelics from any source.

However, the SAP amendment also doesn’t require psychedelics to be dispensed in a therapy setting — which Dr. Cook says could be an oversight. “There is a key aspect to the environment and setting in which these therapies are undertaken,” he says. “Having therapists and retreat centers and therapeutic settings where patients can [take psychedelics] in a way that respects the cultural and ceremonial aspects of the therapies is critical.”

Kelsey Ramsden, co-founder and CEO of MINDCURE, agrees that integration is essential. “I think people are a bit misguided about this idea that psychedelics without psychotherapy will get the same kind of result,” she says. “Having psychotherapy paired with these drugs allows people to integrate what they learn.”

Of course, patients can choose to seek psychological therapy alongside the medication on their own, and health care professionals may even encourage psychotherapy or include it within their care plan. But, currently, it’s not required.

Who Will Likely Benefit Most from the SAP?

We still don’t know how Health Canada defines “life-threatening” regarding mental health conditions or how many failed conventional treatments are necessary before a patient can access a psychedelic drug. And we likely won’t know more until there have been a significant number of cases authorized or denied. But experts have some ideas about which conditions may be more likely to get approval.

“I think individuals in a palliative state who are experiencing death anxiety, for instance, and where there is reasonable literature supporting the use of psychedelics to treat anxiety, have a clear case,” Dr. Cook says. Additionally, he notes patients with treatment-resistant PTSD and those with a high potential for suicidality also have a strong case. “But again, the threshold and the requirements of proof are unknown.”

Without a concrete list of conditions, we can assume Health Canada will follow the data. And studies on psychedelic use in end-of-life care, Alzheimer’s care, and treatments for people grappling with post-traumatic stress do make compelling arguments.

Kelsey also believes the conditions that fall into the “serious or life-threatening” category will shift as clinical research evolves and the SAP fields more cases. “I believe that, over time, we’re going to see ’emergency’ classified as people who’ve had consistent drug overdoses, for example, and we’re going to see this expand and morph.”

Will Psychedelics Follow the Same Path to Legalization as Cannabis?

One of the biggest questions amidst the amendment’s rollout is whether psychedelics are on the same course to legalization as cannabis. However, it appears, at least in this stage, that Health Canada is treating these drugs more like a controlled medicine and less like a recreational substance.

“What we’re talking about with respect to psychedelic medicine is very different than cannabis,” Kelsey says. “Comparing the two is like comparing a Ferrari to Toyota Tercel. Both will get you places, but one is very powerful and requires a lot of experience to handle properly. Who do you want to put behind the wheel of something that performs this way?”

Dr. Cook echoes this sentiment and says the pathway to legalization for psychedelics should more closely resemble pharmaceutical development than cannabis. “I hope that there is a more metered and regulated approach to accessing the therapies,” he says.

But even with its limitations and ambiguous thresholds for accessibility, the new amendment is an exciting step in a progressive direction. It’s also a clear signal that regulators are interested in seeing psychedelics advance. And as new data moves science forward, patients’ first-hand accounts will likely sway culture toward normalization and acceptance.

“The more we have individuals who can speak to the transformative effects of psychedelics for mental health care, the better we all will be,” Kelsey says. “It’s a testament to the forward-thinking nature of our healthcare system. And for that, I’m grateful.”

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