N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT or N,N-DMT) is a substituted tryptamine that occurs in many plants and animals, including humans, and which is both a derivative and a structural analog of tryptamine.[4] DMT is used as a psychedelic drug and prepared by various cultures for ritual purposes as an entheogen.[5]

DMT has a rapid onset, intense effects, and a relatively short duration of action. For those reasons, DMT was known as the “businessman’s trip” during the 1960s in the United States, as a user could access the full depth of a psychedelic experience in considerably less time than with other substances such as LSD or psilocybin mushrooms.[6] DMT can be inhaled, ingested, or injected and its effects depend on the dose, as well as the mode of administration. When inhaled or injected, the effects last a short period of time: about five to 15 minutes. Effects can last three hours or more when orally ingested along with a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI), such as the ayahuasca brew of many native Amazonian tribes.[7] DMT can produce vivid “projections” of mystical experiences involving euphoria and dynamic pseudohallucinations of geometric forms.[8]

DMT is a functional analog and structural analog of other psychedelic tryptamines such as O-acetylpsilocin (4-AcO-DMT), psilocybin (4-PO-DMT), psilocin (4-HO-DMT), O-methylbufotenin (5-MeO-DMT), and bufotenin (5-HO-DMT). Parts of the structure of DMT occur within some important biomolecules like serotonin and melatonin, making them structural analogs of DMT.