5 July 2024
DMT, My Music, and Psychedelic Research
by Raphael Egel
MAPS Bulletin: Volume XXXIV Number 1 • 2024
I am an autodidact musician and artist who stumbled into psychedelic research. I have a story I would like to share with you.
In my musical life, I have always aimed to improve my improvisation. The goal of total flow in improvising music can be compared to meditation or low psychedelic doses; the “zone” is reached when you stop thinking and become one with the sound. The ability of psychedelics to induce flow in music improvisation is a neglected research area, but it would certainly bring insights into flow states beyond music and art.
My first psychedelic experience with magic mushrooms was in Palenque, Mexico, in 1995, which pushed my musical and artistic development into the direction of flow in free improvisation. Further on, I have seen some amazing psychedelic kingdoms in my life from time to time. Since the birth of our son, I have been a lucky houseman, and I absolutely love it! Taking care of my family while my wonderful wife is running a scientific career as a psychedelic neuroscientist. Luckily, we always found room in our tiny houses to be creative together, such as our invention of light painting in 2015. Three years later, our little family left Germany since my wife took the chance to conduct Brazil’s first modern LSD study on humans for her PhD thesis under the supervision of Prof. Luís Tófoli at the University of Campinas (Wießner, 2022).
Since we arrived in Brazil, I have been “enlightened” twice in my music production.
The first time, in July 2019, I was offered to participate in a Santo Daime ritual with ayahuasca. After a soft, beautiful trip in the absence of any “bad” side effects, the Mestre told me that I had taken “a lot.” I have only a few memories of the experience, but the most concrete is seeing a fractalized cosmic snake unfolding multidimensionally within space and time. People told me later that I said: “I feel like talking through my hands!” and then started to walk on them.
I also remember having this idea of receiving new grooves from the universe. Maybe I was a little bit too funky in my rhythm interpretation for that Italian anthropologist who soon decided to take away my rattle. While coming down from the effects, I found myself jamming some guitar tunes with Imperial College DMT scientist Christopher Timmermann.
This first, truly mind-bending ayahuasca experience had a strong impact on me, leaving me energized and enthusiastic about my musical activity.
In April 2020, I worked on a music video for the psychedelic folk band TAU & The Drones Of Praise. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I had just canceled my solo tour through Europe. Instead, I was stuck in a tropical garden in Campinas, São Paulo. I was in a rebellious, almost angry mood, jamming with my loop station and electric guitar barefoot under the roof of the terrace when a thunderstorm came up. In an act of spite, I didn’t unplug my equipment and kept playing even though it would become the heaviest storm I had experienced in Brazil, and the rain was already dripping through the roof.
Thereupon, everything happened as if in slow motion. I heard a gigantic BANG about 50 meters above me. At the same moment, I saw a 25 cm-long electrical lightbow leaving the microphone and entering my mouth. My body twisted in a strange dance move, and I noticed a small lightbow exiting my left toe into the puddle I was standing in.
Only the effect section of my audio mixer broke that afternoon, but two essential things changed in my life. First, my fear of dying from a new, unknown virus was gone; I realized that the number of possible deaths was countless. Second, I began to memorize piano chords way better than before.
My musical connection with psychedelic research started two years later. We moved to Natal in Brazil’s Northeast to join Prof. Draulio Araujo’s psychedelic research lab at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. For the world’s first clinical trial with vaporized DMT, I was offered the opportunity to compose and produce music tracks to be listened to by healthy participants and patients with depression during their experiences.
The scientists wished for dedicated music for their study. The specifications were to produce original, comparable, calm, relaxing, ambient-like tracks to be played during two dosing sessions (lower dose, higher dose). I had only two weeks to create six musical pieces of 11 minutes each, but I accepted the offer to support psychedelic research.
My only chance to produce that fast was my father’s good old straight-ahead method: no pondering, just acting and then living with the outcome. I started with the harmonic structure, added some percussive and ambient elements (nature sound samples), and finally improvised melodies over everything. Another requirement was a soft, calm, one-minute intro for preparing and administering the inhaled DMT. With the rapid drug onset, the sound should intensify to support and guide the experience. My goal was to provide secureness, like, “Hey you, don’t worry, I’m here playing some tunes for you while you are traveling.”
The results of my DMT compositions can be streamed or downloaded here for free: https://egel.bandcamp.com/music (donations are very welcome; my piano broke recently).
Furthermore, I contributed visual and auditory stimuli for more complex EEG studies. So, over time, I sneaked into that lovely group of scientists surrounding Prof. Draulio Araujo, all of whom are now progressing amazingly, founding the Center for Advanced Medical Psychedelics (CAMP). As part of the team, I was lucky to join a DMT pilot session at the lab. The first dose was 20 mg of inhaled DMT, and the second was 60 mg.
What beautiful insights into unknown worlds! Now I know what people mean when they talk about sacred geometry. Listening to Harmonic Trip, I synesthetically explored these detailed cosmic panoramics of light fibers, their behavior, and forms directly influenced by the music (I still need to smile when I remember this). At the same time, part of my mind was constantly analyzing the track for mixing issues: too loud here, less bass there, maybe too much flute in this part, fewer chord changes in that part, yeah, here the flute fits! I hope to find the resources to improve my musical outcome further in the future.
The first studies have concluded, and the results on DMT’s safety and antidepressant action have been published. More projects that will use my tracks are in prospect!
The impact of music and the specific pieces on healthy participants and those with depression are currently being analyzed and will be presented in further works. However, I will already give a quick glance into some reports of healthy subjects on how my music influenced their DMT experiences:
“At first, many images at the same time, fast and very colorful images, fractal images, there was no kaleidoscope. And then it calmed down (…). It was interesting, when there was no music it was a bit loose, just reflecting, and when the music was on again, some of the colorful images came back. It was just like I said (…), the music guides you.” [P26]
“The shapes were all in tune with the music, they danced to the music. And the thoughts came in accordance with the music too, everything was very simple, very slow, it spoke to me very calmly.” [P04]
“If music had a color and created an image, it would be the one I was looking at. The images danced with the music, it’s incredible.” [P21]
“(T)here was a very interesting synchrony between the beginning of the inhalation, the retention of air and the music, it came, it was very pleasant and it started like little bells: ‘blim blim blim’; then, when I was about to enter the experience, the music changed, that was very appropriate and it guided me a lot and I felt myself smiling throughout the experience a little bit, because of the music.” [P27]
“What I saw was already a really crazy trip, and music, in fact, has a lot of influence because the music buzzes, and it’s as if I was traveling with it. (…)speed and rhythm (… ) guided my experience because I traveled or flew over these shapes according to how the music was unfolding.” [P06]
“Contemplative to the extreme. These things make it seem like you are facing something extremely superior. And it elevates your thoughts. Fantastic method. The song was very peaceful; it left me very calm and in that contemplative state, of understanding, of deepening. Deep perception and contemplation.” [P23]
These quotes not only allow for delightful insights into participant experiences but also spotlight the crucial potential of music to influence and shape the quality of psychedelic journeys. I am thankful to contribute my little part to this great scientific adventure of exploring human consciousness and excited about what will come next.
In December 2024, I will give my first lecture about flow states in music and art in the CAMP course: Journey of knowledge in therapy with psychedelics for mental health.
Resources and References
Falchi-Carvalho, M., Barros, H., Bolcont, R., Laborde, S., Wießner, I., Ruschi, S., Silva, B., Montanini, D., Barbosa, D. C., Teixeira, E., Florence-Vilela, R., Almeida, R., de Macedo, R. K. A., Arichelle, F., Pantrigo, É. J., Arcoverde, E., Galvão-Coelho, N., Araujo, D. B., & Palhano-Fontes, F. (2024). The antidepressant effects of vaporized N,N-Dimethyltryptamine: a preliminary report in treatment-resistant depression. medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.01.03.23300610
Falchi-Carvalho, M., Wießner, I., Silva, S. R. B., O Maia, L., Barros, H., Laborde, S., Arichelle, F., Tullman, S., Silva-Costa, N., Assunção, A., Almeida, R., Pantrigo, É. J., Bolcont, R., Costa-Macedo, J. V., Arcoverde, E., Galvão-Coelho, N., Araujo, D. B., & Palhano-Fontes, F. (2024). Safety and tolerability of inhaled N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (BMND01 candidate): A phase I clinical trial. European Neuropsychopharmacology: The Journal of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 80, 27–35.
Wießner, I. (2022). Deconstruction and Reconstruction: The Effects of LSD on Stream of Thought, Creativity, Cognition, and Psychotic-and Therapeutic-Like Experiences [PhD, University of Campinas]. https://repositorio.unicamp.br/Acervo/Detalhe/1268573
Raphael Egel
Raphael Egel is an improvisation musician and visual artist. He is Creative Director of the Center for Advanced Medical Psychedelics (CAMP) at the Brain Institute of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil. He recently produced music and art for clinical trials with DMT.
Born in 1975 in the Black Forest, Germany, he grew up in a family of classical musicians. In his early youth, he started to experiment with synthesizers and drum computers, soon after connecting his simple gear to an Atari computer with a built-in MIDI interface. Sometimes he samples his great grandfather or grandmother to create new music of classical recordings. Also together with his wife and brothers, he produced art.
Since 2013, with the birth of his son, Raphael has been focusing on solo live improvisation with loop station, drum machine, keys, voice, and electric guitar. In addition to his engagement in painting and photography, he has been remixing his art with AI since 2019.
