Rick Strassman is an American clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. He has held a fellowship in clinical psychopharmacology research at the University of California San Diego and was Professor of Psychiatry for eleven years at the University of New Mexico.Dr. Rick Strassman
Wasiwaska After 20 years of intermission, Strassman was the first person in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

to undertake human research with psychedelic, hallucinogenic, or

entheogenic Entheogens are psychoactive substances used in spiritual and religious contexts to induce altered states of consciousness. Hallucinogens such as the psilocybin found in so-called "magic" mushrooms have been used in sacred contexts since ancie ...

substances with his research on ''N,N''-dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT. He is also the author of '' DMT: The Spirit Molecule'', which summarizes his academic research into DMT and other experimental studies of it, and includes his own reflections and conclusions based on this research.

Life and education

Strassman was born in Los Angeles, California, on February 8, 1952, to a

Conservative Jewish Conservative Judaism, also known as Masorti Judaism, is a Jewish religious movements, Jewish religious movement that regards the authority of Jewish law and tradition as emanating primarily from the assent of the people through the generations ...

family.Dr. Rick Strassman
Wasiwaska
/ AVI SOLOMON / 6:39 AM TUE MAY 3, 2011 He graduated from Ulysses S. Grant High School in Van Nuys in 1969. He studied zoology at

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists ...

in Claremont for two years before transferring to

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, where he graduated with departmental honors in biological sciences in 1973. He continued laboratory research at Stanford before attending

Albert Einstein College of Medicine The Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a Private university, private medical school in New York City. Founded in 1953, Einstein is an independent degree-granting institution within the Montefiore Einstein Health System. Einstein hosts Doc ...

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a Private university, private Modern Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City.

in New York, where he graduated with an M.D. with departmental honors, specializing in psychiatry. He began his general psychiatry residency at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

, where he received the Sandoz Award for outstanding graduating resident in 1981. From 1982 to 1983, he trained as a fellow in clinical psychopharmacology research at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

. He then served on the clinical faculty in the psychiatry department at UC Davis Medical Center, before becoming an assistant professor in the psychiatry department at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine in Albuquerque in 1984. At UNM, Strassman researched the function of the

pineal gland The pineal gland (also known as the pineal body or epiphysis cerebri) is a small endocrine gland in the brain of most vertebrates. It produces melatonin, a serotonin-derived hormone, which modulates sleep, sleep patterns following the diurnal c ...

. His research group documented the first known role of melatonin in humans. He became clinical associate professor of psychiatry in 1991. He has published over 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles on

psychopharmacology Psychopharmacology (from Greek ; ; and ) is the scientific study of the effects drugs have on mood, sensation, thinking, behavior, judgment and evaluation, and memory. It is distinguished from neuropsychopharmacology, which emphasizes ...

neurology Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine) , medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous syst ...

psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental disorder, mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, Mood (psychology), mood, emotion, and behavior. ...

neuroendocrinology Neuroendocrinology is the branch of biology (specifically of physiology) which studies the interaction between the nervous system and the endocrine system; i.e. how the brain regulates the hormonal activity in the body. The nervous and endocrine ...

and

neuropsychopharmacology Neuropsychopharmacology, an interdisciplinary science related to psychopharmacology (study of effects of drugs on the mind) and fundamental neuroscience, is the study of the neural mechanisms that drugs act upon to influence behavior. It entails ...

Developmental biology research

As an undergraduate at Stanford, working in the developmental biology laboratory of Norman K. Wessells, Strassman developed a new model for growing embryonic avian dorsal root ganglion neurons, suspended in a semi-solid agar matrix, thus allowing three-dimensional assessment of growing patterns. Using this model, he discovered a nonrandom pattern of growth of the leading edge of these cells.

Melatonin research

Strassman's interest in the human biology of altered states of consciousness led him to study the pineal gland

hormone A hormone (from the Ancient Greek, Greek participle , "setting in motion") is a class of cell signaling, signaling molecules in multicellular organisms that are sent to distant organs or tissues by complex biological processes to regulate physio ...

melatonin Melatonin, an indoleamine, is a natural compound produced by various organisms, including bacteria and eukaryotes. Its discovery in 1958 by Aaron B. Lerner and colleagues stemmed from the isolation of a substance from the pineal gland of cow ...

in the 1980s, at which time there were suggestive data regarding its psychoactive effects. This research took place at the University of New Mexico's School of Medicine in Albuquerque, where he became a tenured associate professor of psychiatry. He first developed a model of all-night suppression of melatonin by all-night bright light. He then established a successful exogenous melatonin infusion protocol that replicated endogenous melatonin levels in the bright-light conditions. All-night bright-light suppression of melatonin suppressed the normal trough of body temperature seen between 3-4 a.m., the time of maximum melatonin levels. Exogenous infusion of melatonin, replicating endogenous levels in the bright-light condition (in which endogenous melatonin was suppressed) reestablished the normal core body temperature trough. But melatonin's psychoactive effects were only sedative, leading him to focus on DMT in his future work.

Research into DMT

From 1990 to 1995, Strassman led a government-funded clinical research team at the University of New Mexico studying the effects of ''N,N''-dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT, on human subjects in experimental conditions. The research continued from his work on melatonin. Strassman's studies between 1990 and 1995 aimed to experimentally investigate DMT's effects. DMT is a powerful psychedelic drug found in hundreds of plants and every mammal that has been studied. It is made primarily in mammalian brains as well as lung tissue and is related to serotonin and melatonin. As a result of his research, Strassman came to call DMT the "spirit molecule" because its effects include many features of

religious experience A religious experience (sometimes known as a spiritual experience, sacred experience, mystical experience) is a subjectivity, subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. The concept originated in the 19th century, a ...

, such as visions, voices, disembodied consciousness, powerful emotions, novel insights, and feelings of overwhelming significance. During the project's five years, he administered approximately 400 doses of DMT to nearly 60 human volunteers. Strassman was the first in 20 years to legally administer psychedelics to people in the United States, and his research has widely been regarded as kicking off the "psychedelic renaissance", in which many psychedelic compounds have begun to be scientifically studied for the first time since the early 1970s. Strassman characterized DMT's biological and psychological effects in his first set of dose-response studies, effects consistent with activation of central and/or peripheral serotonin receptors. His team published a companion article describing the psychological effects and preliminary results of a new rating scale, the Hallucinogen Rating Scale, or HRS. Researchers have widely accepted the HRS as a sensitive and specific measure of the psychological effects of a wide variety of psychoactive substances, with over 45 articles documenting its use as of mid-2015. A follow-up study demonstrated lack of tolerance of the psychological effects of repeated closely spaced doses of DMT, making it unique among classical psychedelics. More than half of Strassman's volunteers reported profound encounters/interaction with nonhuman beings while in a dissociated state. Strassman has conjectured that when a person is approaching death or possibly when in a dream state, the body releases a relatively large amount of DMT, mediating some of the imagery survivors of near-death experiences report. But there are no data correlating endogenous DMT activity to non-drug-related altered states of consciousness. He also has theorized that the

may form DMT under certain conditions. In 2013 researchers first reported DMT in the pineal gland microdialysate of rodents. Strassman has detailed his research in his book ''DMT: The Spirit Molecule'', and co-produced a 2010 documentary film of the same name based on this book. He has also conducted similar research on psilocybin, a psychedelic alkaloid found in hallucinogenic mushrooms. In unpublished studies, he administered doses of up to 1.1 mg/kg, nearly three times the doses considered "psychedelic" in contemporary clinical research with this compound.

Religious models for integrating DMT experiences

Inspired by visions he had when he took

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD (from German ; often referred to as acid or lucy), is a semisynthetic, hallucinogenic compound derived from ergot, known for its powerful psychological effects and serotonergic activity. I ...

in the early 1970s, Strassman began studying Buddhism as a young man. He trained for 20 years in

Zen Buddhism Zen (; from Chinese: '' Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka ph ...

, received lay ordination in a Western Buddhist order, and led a meditation group of the order. But his work with DMT led him to feel Buddhist models may not be the most suitable way for us to explain and integrate the spiritual dimensions of the DMT experience: Strassman suggests that DMT experiences may most closely resemble those found in the Hebrew Bible's model of prophecy: Some of Strassman's experimental participants say that other entities can resemble creatures more like insects and aliens than anything in the Bible.Strassman (2001): 206-208. As a result, Strassman wrote that these experiences of his experimental participants "also left me feeling confused and concerned about where the spirit molecule was leading us. It was at this point that I began to wonder if I was getting in over my head with this research."Strassman (2001): 202. He has also hypothesized that endogenous DMT experiences could be the cause of

alien abduction Alien abduction (also called abduction phenomenon, alien abduction syndrome, or UFO abduction) refers to the phenomenon of people reporting what they assure to be the real experience of being kidnapped by extraterrestrial beings and subje ...

experiences.

Bibliography

*''DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences'', 320 pages
Park Street Press
2001, *''Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds through Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies'', 376 pages, with Slawek Wojtowicz, Luis Eduardo Luna and Ede Frecska
Park Street Press
2008, *''DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: A New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible'', 352 pages
Park Street Press
2014, *''Joseph Levy Escapes Death'', Regents Press Printers & Publishers, 2019 * ''The Psychedelic Handbook: A Practical Guide to Psilocybin, LSD, Ketamine, MDMA, and Ayahuasca''. Ulysses Press, Berkeley (California, USA) 2022, ISBN 978-1-64604-381-1

References

External links

Official homepageCottonwood Research Foundation

Rick Strassman's YouTube Channel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strassman, Rick Psychedelic drug researchers Living people Health professionals from Los Angeles 1952 births Pomona College alumni American psychedelic drug advocates Psychonautics researchers Jewish American scientists