:Rick Strassman

Strassman was born in Los Angeles, California, on February 8, 1952, to a Conservative Jewish family.[https://www.wasiwaska.org/rick-strassman-2/ Dr. Rick Strassman] Wasiwaska[https://boingboing.net/2011/05/03/strassman.html Interview: Dr. Rick Strassman] / AVI SOLOMON / 6:39 AM TUE MAY 3, 2011{{cite web |last1=Lattin |first1=Don |title=GOD ON PSYCHEDELICS |url=https://rebooting.com/article/god-on-psychedelics/#:~:text=Psychedelic%20researcher%20Rick%20Strassman%20was%20raised%20Jewish |website=Rebooting.com |publisher=Reboot |access-date=9 September 2023}} He graduated from Ulysses S. Grant High School in Van Nuys in 1969. He studied zoology at Pomona College in Claremont for two years before transferring to Stanford University, where he graduated with departmental honors in biological sciences in 1973. He continued laboratory research at Stanford before attending Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University 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, 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. 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. 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, neurology, psychiatry, neuroendocrinology and neuropsychopharmacology.

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.{{cite journal|last1=Strassman|first1=RJ|last2=Letourneau|first2=P|last3=Wessells|first3=NK|title=Elongation of axons in an agar matrix that does not support cell locomotion.|journal=Experimental Cell Research|volume=818|issue=2|pages=482–487, 1973|doi=10.1016/0014-4827(73)90539-9|year=1973|pmid=4796638}} Using this model, he discovered a nonrandom pattern of growth of the leading edge of these cells.{{cite journal|last1=Strassman|first1=RJ|last2=Wessells|first2=NK|title=Orientational preferences shown by microspikes of growing nerve cells in vitro|journal=Tissue and Cell|volume=5|issue=3|pages=412–417, 1973|doi=10.1016/s0040-8166(73)80034-5|year=1973|pmid=4744679}}

Strassman's interest in the human biology of altered states of consciousness led him to study the pineal gland hormone melatonin 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.{{cite journal|last1=Strassman|first1=RJ|last2=Peake|first2=GT|last3=Qualls|first3=CR|last4=Lisansky|first4=EJ|title=A model for the study of the acute effects of melatonin in man.|journal=Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism|volume=65|issue=5|pages=847–852, 1987|doi=10.1210/jcem-65-5-847|pmid=3667882|year=1987}} 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.{{cite journal|last1=Strassman|first1=RJ|last2=Qualls|first2=CR|last3=Lisansky|first3=EJ|last4=Peake|first4=GT|title=Elevated rectal temperature produced by all night bright light is reversed by melatonin infusion in men.|journal=Journal of Applied Physiology|volume=71|issue=6|pages=2178–2182, 1991|doi=10.1152/jappl.1991.71.6.2178|year=1991|pmid=1778910}} But melatonin's psychoactive effects were only sedative, leading him to focus on DMT in his future work.

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.{{Citation needed|date=March 2019}} It is made primarily in mammalian brains{{cite journal |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-45812-w |doi=10.1038/s41598-019-45812-w |title=Biosynthesis and Extracellular Concentrations of N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) in Mammalian Brain |date=2019 |last1=Dean |first1=Jon G. |last2=Liu |first2=Tiecheng |last3=Huff |first3=Sean |last4=Sheler |first4=Ben |last5=Barker |first5=Steven A. |last6=Strassman |first6=Rick J. |last7=Wang |first7=Michael M. |last8=Borjigin |first8=Jimo |journal=Scientific Reports |volume=9 |page=9333 |pmid=31249368 |bibcode=2019NatSR...9.9333D |pmc=6597727 }} 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, 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.{{Cite web|url=https://www.vice.com/read/blasting-off-with-dr-dmt|title=Blasting Off with Dr. DMT |date=2014-04-02|language=en-us|access-date=2016-09-14}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/mystery-school-in-hyperspace/|title=Mystery School in Hyperspace - North Atlantic Books|language=en-US|access-date=2016-09-14}} 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.{{Cite web|url=http://www.medicaldaily.com/psychedelic-drugs-mental-health-disorders-bad-rap-war-drugs-385946|title=The War on Drugs May Have Misrepresented Psychedelics; Here's Why That Matters|date=2016-05-13|access-date=2016-10-06}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.popsci.com.au/science/why-doctors-cant-give-you-lsd-but-maybe-they-should,379414|title=Why Doctors Can't Give You LSD (But Maybe They Should)|access-date=2016-10-06|archive-date=2018-04-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180403051956/http://www.popsci.com.au/science/why-doctors-cant-give-you-lsd-but-maybe-they-should,379414|url-status=dead}}

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.{{cite journal|last1=Strassman|first1=RJ|last2=Oualls|first2=RC|title=Dose-response study of N,N-dimethyltryptamine in humans. I. Neuroendocrine, autonomic and cardiovascular effects.|journal=Archives of General Psychiatry|volume=51|issue=2|pages=85–97, 1994|doi=10.1001/archpsyc.1994.03950020009001|pmid=8297216|date=February 1994}} His team published a companion article describing the psychological effects and preliminary results of a new rating scale, the Hallucinogen Rating Scale, or HRS.{{cite journal|last1=Strassman|first1=RJ|last2=Qualls|first2=CR|last3=Uhlenhuth|first3=EH|last4=Kellner|first4=R|title=Dose-response study of N,N-dimethyltryptamine in humans. II. Subjective effects and preliminary results of a new rating scale.|journal=Archives of General Psychiatry|volume=51|issue=2|pages=98–108, 1994|doi=10.1001/archpsyc.1994.03950020022002|year=1994|pmid=8297217}} 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.{{citation needed|date=November 2019}} 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.{{cite journal|last1=Strassman|first1=RJ|last2=Qualls|first2=CR|last3=Berg|first3=LM|title=Differential tolerance development to biological and subjective effects of four closely-spaced administrations of N,N-dimethyltryptamine in humans.|journal=Biological Psychiatry|volume=39|issue=9|pages=784–795, 1996|doi=10.1016/0006-3223(95)00200-6|pmid=8731519|year=1996|s2cid=3220559}}

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.{{Cite web|url=https://erowid.org/chemicals/dmt/dmt_article2.shtml|title=Erowid DMT Vaults: DMT and the Pineal: Fact or Fiction? by Jon Hanna|website=erowid.org|access-date=2016-09-14}} He also has theorized that the pineal gland may form DMT under certain conditions. In 2013 researchers first reported DMT in the pineal gland microdialysate of rodents.{{cite journal|last1=Strassman|first1=RJ|last2=Barker|first2=SA|last3=Borjigin|first3=J|last4=Lomnika|first4=I|title=LC/MS/MS analysis of the endogenous dimethyltryptamine hallucinogens, their precursors, and major metabolites in rat pineal gland microdialysate.|journal=Biomed Chromatogr|volume=27|issue=12|pages=1690–1700, 2013|doi=10.1002/bmc.2981|pmid=23881860|date=Jul 2013|hdl=2027.42/101767|hdl-access=free}}

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.{{Cite web|url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dmt-is-everywhere-conversation-with-spirit-molecule-director-mitch-schultz_b_2248834 |title=DMT Is Everywhere: A Conversation With 'Spirit Molecule' Director Mitch Schultz |first1=Jonathan Talat |last=Phillips |date=2012-12-06|website=The Huffington Post|access-date=2016-09-14 }} 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.{{cite journal|last1=Griffiths|first1=R|title=Psilocybin occasioned mystical-type experiences: immediate and persisting dose-related effects|journal=Psychopharmacology|volume=218|issue=4|pages=649–665, 2011|display-authors=etal|doi=10.1007/s00213-011-2358-5|pmid=21674151|pmc=3308357|year=2011}}{{Citation needed|reason=The reference provided does not mention these experiments by Strassman|date=July 2017}}

Inspired by visions he had when he took LSD in the early 1970s, Strassman began studying Buddhism as a young man. He trained for 20 years in Zen Buddhism, 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:

{{quote|I worked through various models' methods of understanding the DMT volunteers' experiences, and found them wanting. The Buddhist psychological model didn't comport with the data—the "more real than real" element of volunteers' experiences (Buddhism proposes these phenomena are all generated by the mind, rather than "real" observations of external reality); [this] did nothing to suggest a satisfactory evolutionary explanation for the presence of DMT in the human body.[https://boingboing.net/2011/05/03/strassman.html Interview: Dr. Rick Strassman] / AVI SOLOMON / 6:39 AM TUE MAY 3, 2011}}

Strassman suggests that DMT experiences may most closely resemble those found in the Hebrew Bible's model of prophecy:

{{quote|The Hebrew Bible's model of prophecy is appealing because it comports well with the reports of the DMT volunteers. One's sense of self is maintained, there is an external free-standing independent-of-the-observer spiritual world. One relates to the content of the experience, rather than being dissolved into it.[https://boingboing.net/2011/05/03/strassman.html Interview: Dr. Rick Strassman] / AVI SOLOMON / 6:39 AM TUE MAY 3, 2011}}

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 experiences.

• Luis Eduardo Luna
• Terence McKenna
• Dennis McKenna
• Jeremy Narby
• David E. Nichols
• Jonathan Ott
• Benny Shanon
• DMT: The Spirit Molecule, a documentary based on Strassman's nonfiction book of the same name

• DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences, 320 pages, [https://web.archive.org/web/20150626110702/http://www.innertraditions.com/BrowseByImprint.jmdx?action=browseByImprint Park Street Press], 2001, {{ISBN|0-89281-927-8}}
• 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, [https://web.archive.org/web/20150626110702/http://www.innertraditions.com/BrowseByImprint.jmdx?action=browseByImprint Park Street Press], 2008, {{ISBN|978-1-59477-224-5}}
• DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: A New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible, 352 pages, [https://web.archive.org/web/20150626110702/http://www.innertraditions.com/BrowseByImprint.jmdx?action=browseByImprint Park Street Press], 2014, {{ISBN|1594773424}}
• 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

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.rickstrassman.com Official homepage]
• [https://cottonwoodresearch.org Cottonwood Research Foundation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160514090651/https://www.cottonwoodresearch.org/ |date=2016-05-14 }}
• [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6Dt3VgB--vP3zvlSskhNgw Rick Strassman's YouTube Channel]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Strassman, Rick}}

Category:Psychedelic drug researchers

Category:Living people

Category:People from Los Angeles

Category:1952 births

Category:Pomona College alumni

Category:American psychedelic drug advocates

Category:Psychonautics researchers

Category:Jewish American scientists