Death by Astonishment: DMT and the Hidden Nature of Reality

Podcast Highlights

• Revisiting the brain as an information-gating system
• DMT as a technology rather than a drug
• “Alien intelligences” and what intelligence really means
• The Intelligence Principle and post-biological minds
• Why extended-state DMT (DMTx) matters
• Continuous infusion as deep-sea diving vs. free-diving
• Psychedelics as tools for expanding intelligence
• Non-human entities and “galactic data networks”
• Neuroprotective effects of DMT during stroke
• The future of selective sigma-1 receptor agonistson

Show Links

1. Dr. Andrew Gallimore’s Website
2. Latest book: Death by Astonishment
3. Episode 146 with Andrew: DMT, Alien Intelligence, and Transhuman Ascension
4. Andrew on Instagram

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Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Paul F. Austin:
What if a simple molecule in the brain could reveal that reality is far stranger, far more intelligent, and far more alive than we ever imagined? Welcome back to The Psychedelic Podcast. I’m your host, Paul Austin, and today I’m joined once again by computational neurobiologist and author Dr. Andrew Gallimore.

[00:00:20] Paul F. Austin:
Andrew has spent more than two decades exploring the science and neuropharmacology of DMT, that’s N,N-DMT. His new book, Death by Astonishment, dives into the big question behind this molecule. How does something produced in nature, and certainly in all of us, create experiences of contact with seemingly autonomous, hyper-intelligent beings and environments that feel more real than real?

[00:00:45] Paul F. Austin:
In our last conversation together on Episode 146, we explored N,N-DMT as an information-gating technology and introduced the idea that the brain may normally filter out a much wider reality. Today, we go even deeper into those implications. What if extended-state infusion protocols like DMTx could allow stable contact with non-human intelligence?

[00:01:08] Paul F. Austin:
What if consciousness is not confined to the brain? And what does this all mean for our understanding of evolution, technology, and the future of the mind? It’s always fun to dive into it with Dr. Gallimore. But before we do, let’s hear from our sponsors.

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[00:04:02] Paul F. Austin:
I just want to welcome you to the show, Andrew. Welcome back.

[00:04:04] Dr. Andrew Gallimore:
Good to be here again, Paul. Thanks for having me.

[00:04:08] Paul F. Austin:
You’ve been making the rounds with the new book and appearing on some big podcasts. I was excited to get you back on the show and do a deeper dive between two people who’ve explored a lot of this terrain. I’m curious to open with what mystery you were trying to crack with Death by Astonishment. What was the enigma you were hoping to explore?

[00:04:46] Dr. Andrew Gallimore:
I didn’t write it so much for myself as for the reader. The purpose of the book was twofold. First, to introduce people who may have heard of DMT but don’t really understand why it’s such a remarkable molecule, or why its effects are so confounding. Science has struggled for over a century to make sense of DMT and its effects.

Second, the book is for those who think they understand DMT. You often see two camps. One believes we’re interacting with some kind of discarnate intelligent beings, and the other dismisses it as just hallucinations, the brain making things up. I didn’t want to convince people outright that DMT proves the existence of non-human intelligence, but I wanted to show that it’s not easy to dismiss either.

I argue that standard explanations—exotic hallucinations, dream imagery, Jungian archetypes—fall short. DMT remains a true enigma, and it may only make sense if we take seriously the possibility that we’re interfacing with some kind of intelligent agent. I don’t claim to know what these beings are—spirits, post-biological intelligences, something else—but invoking intelligence is, for me, the most parsimonious explanation.

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[00:12:00] Dr. Andrew Gallimore:
Many people are familiar with the Kardashev scale, which imagines civilizations expanding outward and controlling greater amounts of energy. But if we look at our own civilization, we actually spend more time going inward—toward smaller and smaller scales. The Large Hadron Collider is about probing deeper into reality, down toward the Planck length. There’s actually far more room at the bottom than at the top.

An advanced intelligence may not expand across the cosmos at all. It may instead instantiate itself in the fundamental computational substrate of reality itself. Such an intelligence would effectively disappear, becoming transparent to conventional modes of communication—except perhaps those that interface directly with the brain.

[00:21:00] Dr. Andrew Gallimore:
Aldous Huxley was ahead of his time. He described the brain as a reducing valve and later wrote about what he called the antipodes of the mind. These psychedelic domains were not archetypal structures tied to human culture, but realms populated by entities that appeared quintessentially non-human. Huxley believed these experiences transcended the Jungian collective unconscious and suggested access to something he called “Mind at Large.”

[00:31:00] Dr. Andrew Gallimore:
DMT was first synthesized by Stephen Szára, and later figures like Timothy Leary and William Burroughs explored it via intramuscular injection. Vaporization became common after Nick Sand demonstrated it could be cleanly vaporized in 1965. Rick Strassman later used intravenous administration in the 1990s. DMTx was developed to stabilize the experience, allowing sustained interaction rather than a brief, overwhelming breakthrough.

[00:39:30] Dr. Andrew Gallimore:
John C. Lilly, working with ketamine in sensory deprivation tanks, described encounters with alien intelligences. His framing aligns closely with my own thinking—psychedelics may open a channel through which information from non-human intelligences can enter the brain.

[00:49:55] Dr. Andrew Gallimore:
Beyond psychology, DMT has remarkable neuroprotective effects. It binds not only to the 5-HT2A receptor but also to the sigma-1 receptor, which appears to help neurons survive under hypoxic conditions. This suggests potential applications in acute stroke treatment, where DMT could protect brain tissue while patients are transported to care.

[00:54:00] Paul F. Austin:
Andrew, this has been a fascinating conversation. For listeners who want to go deeper, be sure to check out Death by Astonishment, available now. If you missed our first conversation, revisit Episode 146. Thanks again for joining us.