Some early studies suggest that combining meditation with a psychedelic substance may increase mindfulness, compassion, and well-being beyond meditation practice alone. Most of this research involves psilocybin, but little is known about whether other psychedelics might have a similar synergistic effect when combined with meditation. 

Meling et al. [Journal of Psychopharmacology] tested whether a combination of Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and Harmine had psychologically beneficial effects when compared to a placebo. DMT is one of the psychoactive substances in ayahuasca, a plant that contains the monoamine oxidase inhibitor Harmine. The combination of DMT and Harmine is often considered an “ayahuasca analog” because Harmine slows the biodegradation of DMT, thereby prolonging its effects. 

The researchers randomly assigned 40 experienced meditators with an interest in DMT research (average age = 44 years; average meditative experience = 2,400 hours; 55% male; 83% with postgraduate degrees, 95% White) to either a DMT-Harmine group or a placebo group. All participants attended a 3-day meditation retreat at a Swiss Zen Meditation Center focused on mindfulness, compassion, and walking meditations. On the second day of the retreat, participants received four sublingual doses of DMT-Harmine or placebo over a 2-hour period. Each active dose contained 30mg of DMT and 30mg of Harmine. 

Participants completed self-report measures one day before the retreat, on each of the three retreat days, one day after the retreat, and at 1- week and 1-month follow-up.  Measures included state and trait mindfulness, compassion,  insight, emotional breakthrough, and mystical and non-dual experience.

Insight was a measure of how much participants thought they learned new information about their personalities and lives, while emotional breakthrough was a measure of how much participants experienced a cathartic emotional release, explored their emotions, or resolved an emotional issue.

At 1-month follow-up, participants were asked whether they could guess whether they had received the substance or placebo (83% correctly identified their group) and how meaningful, spiritually significant, and beneficial the retreat had been.

The results showed that DMT-Harmine did not offer advantages over the placebo in terms of enhanced mindfulness or compassion scores. However, DMT-Harmine significantly enhanced psychological insight (ηp2 = 013), emotional breakthrough (ηp2=0.21), and mystical (ηp2=0.30) and non-dual (ηp2=0.13) experience on the day it was administered.

At 1-month follow-up, the group receiving DMT-Harmine rated their experience as significantly more personally meaningful, spiritually significant, and more positively impactful in terms of well-being and life-satisfaction. 

The study shows that while DMT-Harmine did not offer improved mindfulness or compassion scores in experienced meditators beyond the meditation retreat, it does boost psychological insight, emotional breakthrough, and transcendent experience. Forty-five percent of the DMT-Harmine group rated their experience as one of the top five spiritual experiences of their lives.

The study’s limitations include the absence of a non-meditation control group and the fact that participants detected their study group. It remains unclear how divided doses of DMT-Harmine compare to a single dose, or how the low dose of Harmine in this study compares to studies that employ ayahuasca which has higher naturally occurring amounts of Harmine.

Reference:

Meling, D., Egger, K., Aicher, H. D., Jareño Redondo, J., Mueller, J., Dornbierer, J., Temperli, E., Vasella, E. A., Caflisch, L., Pfeiffer, D. J., Schlomberg, J. T., Smallridge, J. W., Dornbierer, D. A., & Scheidegger, M. (2024). Meditating on psychedelics. A randomized placebo-controlled study of DMT and harmine in a mindfulness retreat. Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Link to study