Summary: A highly unconventional scientific alliance has launched a research program to mathematically decode the human psychedelic experience. Detailed in a newly released scientific preprint, the project focuses on N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) to map out a quantitative framework for altered states of consciousness.
By pairing an advanced intravenous protocol that extends the normally brief DMT window into sustained, hours-long windows with observer-centric mathematical logic, the collaboration aims to treat psychedelic states as measurable data arrays to explore the fundamental structure of reality.
Key Facts
- Decoding the Psychonaut Interface: Psychedelic journeys have long been defined by geometric visions and perceived entities that defy standard description, leaving a massive diagnostic gap between subjective experience and objective neuroscience.
- The Extended DMTx Protocol: Led by neurobiologist Dr. Andrew Gallimore, Noonautics will deploy an extended-state intravenous infusion protocol known as DMTx. This methodology safely stretches a typical multi-minute DMT experience into a stabilized run lasting several hours, allowing trained experts to conduct real-time observations and inner experiments.
- The Observer Math Deployment: Professor Emeritus Donald Hoffman and the Trace Institute team will apply an updated version of their mathematical “trace logic” for conscious observers, creating a rigid quantitative framework to interpret the structural features of the experience.
- Testing Spacetime Hypotheses: The project is designed to combine mathematical theory with human trials to evaluate specific predictions, exploring how compounds like DMT alter the baseline structure and functional perception of spacetime.
- Engineering Reality Interfaces: The ultimate goal of the research, according to Gallimore, is to establish a foundational mathematics of altered consciousness that could eventually allow scientists to actively engineer the human perceptual interface and expand our baseline view of reality.
- Public Symposium Announcement: The two scientific leaders will hold a public conversation regarding the background, mechanics, and philosophical implications of their reality model on Saturday, June 13, 2026, at the Lighthouse creative campus located at the historic Venice Beach Post Office, with a video release planned for YouTube.
Source: Trace Research Institute
Psychedelic drug experiences are among the most fascinating but mysterious journeys of the human mind. Long the domain of indigenous shamans and modern “psychonauts” who seek self-discovery, the sensory rich experiences often include kaleidoscopic geometries and intelligent entities that defy description – until now.
A new research collaboration and scientific preprint between two frontier research organizations, the Trace Institute and Noonautics, respectively, detail a plan to study the mathematical architecture of human experience based on the psychedelic compound N,N-dimethyl tryptamine (DMT).
Noonautics, led by the psychedelic researcher, neurobiologist Dr. Andrew Gallimore, will use their extended state DMTx protocol – which can extend DMT experiences from a few minutes to hours – to send trained scientists and other experts into the DMT space to make precise observations and conduct experiments.
Trace Institute Founder and Scientific Director, Professor Emeritus Donald Hoffman, and colleagues will deploy their arsenal of mathematical models, including a new version of the trace logic for conscious observers, to develop a quantitative framework to interpret the rich details of the DMT experience.
The collaboration will combine a theoretical basis for the psychedelic experience with human experiments to test predictions of the models for an empirical understanding of altered states of consciousness.
The two scientific leaders will have a conversation about their research, and its background and implications for a new science of reality, on Saturday, June 13, 2026, at the Lighthouse, an applications-only creative campus at the historic Venice Beach Post Office, with plans for video releases to the public on YouTube.
The project, Hoffman says, “will provide a new framework for exploring the effects of psychoactive substances such as DMT on the structure and function of spacetime.”
Adds Gallimore, “With a theoretical foundation for the highly unusual state of consciousness induced by DMT, we can test these theories experimentally.”
Reflecting forward, Gallimore says, “This collaboration is a first step to a mathematics of altered states of consciousness and, ultimately, for engineering our perceptual interface to expand our view of reality.”
Key Questions Answered:
A: By using a specialized medical protocol called DMTx to safely stretch out the timeline. Developed by neurobiologist Dr. Andrew Gallimore, this method extends a brief, fast-acting DMT experience into a regulated window lasting several hours. This gives trained researchers the necessary time to remain stable inside the environment, collect precise data, and run structured experiments.
A: It turns subjective visuals into structured, calculable equations. Professor Donald Hoffman uses advanced mathematical models that place the conscious observer at the absolute center of reality. Applying this logic to the highly detailed geometries reported during DMT experiences allows the team to build a quantitative framework to test whether these visions follow a hidden mathematical law.
A: To move past simple self-discovery and enter the realm of perceptual engineering. The team believes that compounds like DMT alter how the brain constructs spacetime. By mapping the exact mathematical rules of this shift, they hope to learn how to modify our biological interface, permanently expanding how much of the universe humans can perceive.
Editorial Notes:
- This article was edited by a Neuroscience News editor.
- Journal paper reviewed in full.
- Additional context added by our staff.
About this psychedelics and consciousness research news
Author: Charles Yokoyama
Source: Trace Research Institute
Contact: Charles Yokoyama – Trace Research Institute
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Closed access.
“Traces of the Other – Are DMT Entities Real? DMT Phenomenology in the Framework of Conscious Realism” by Gallimore, A.R., Hoffman, D.D., Hermansson, N. PsyArXiv
DOI:10.31234/osf.io/8qvgy_v2
Abstract
Traces of the Other – Are DMT Entities Real? DMT Phenomenology in the Framework of Conscious Realism
Encounters with apparently autonomous and intelligent non-human entities are a striking and recurrent feature of high-dose N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) experi-ences. Such encounters are typically interpreted as complex hallucinations derived from internally generated brain activity, although many features of the DMT state remain a challenge to explain within the standard neuroscientific paradigm.
Here, we explore an alternative hypothesis grounded in the conscious realism framework, in which reality consists of interacting conscious agents and perception functions as a species-specific interface rather than a veridical representation of an objective world.
Crucially, the space of conscious agents we can normally perceive and interact with represents only a thin slice of the agent network that comprises the totality of reality and is partly determined by representational limits set by the qualia kernel that gov-erns transitions between experiential states.
We propose that DMT induces a profound perturbation of our perceptual interface, expanding the accessible region of experience space and allowing consciousness to reach regions with entirely different dynamical regimes under the qualia kernel.
Under such conditions, normally imperceptible agents may influence experience, leaving per-ceptible “traces” in its dynamics that can be rendered as stable, coherent, and mean-ingful structure and experienced as the abundantly populated, inordinately complex alternate worlds typical of the DMT state.
This framework enables us to distinguish between internally generated hallucinations and experiences exhibiting structured, stable, and causally efficacious dynamics consistent with interactions with normally imperceptible conscious agents.
Rather than asserting the reality of DMT entities, we draw on the phenomenology of the DMT state, models of psychedelic brain dynamics, and the formalism of con-scious agent theory to derive testable predictions and propose experimental para-digms to assess whether DMT experiences can be constrained by external variables or exhibit non-trivial intersubjective correlations.
The outcome of such experiments may have profound implications for our understanding of perception, consciousness, and the structure of reality.
