Episode #3 - DMT Entities - are they real? (solo episode)
In this episode of keepingGOING, I move on from the previous episode’s DMT 101 primer and take a closer look at Traces of the Other: DMT Phenomenology in the Framework of Conscious Realism, a 2026 PsyArXiv preprint by neurobiologist Andrew R. Gallimore, mathematician Niffe Hermansson and cognitive scientist Donald D. Hoffman.
The paper starts with one of the most peculiar and recurring features of high-dose DMT experiences: encounters with apparently autonomous, intelligent non-human entities. Rather than simply assuming that these encounters are hallucinations and leaving it there, the authors ask whether there might be another way of interpreting the phenomenology. Their proposal draws on Hoffman’s theory of conscious realism, in which perception is not a transparent window onto an objective world but an evolved interface with reality.
The interesting part, for me, is not whether the paper is right. It is that the authors attempt to move the question from metaphysical speculation towards something that might actually be testable. They propose experiments designed to investigate whether DMT experiences might contain information that cannot be explained by the subject’s internally generated experience alone, including possible constraints from external variables and correlations between independent experiences.
That makes Traces of the Other a useful case study in a much broader problem: how do we remain intellectually open to extraordinary experiences without abandoning scientific standards? Where does established evidence end, where does interpretation begin, and at what point does an interesting hypothesis become something that can genuinely be tested?
This is the territory I want to explore in this series. The previous episode established the basic terrain of DMT and its phenomenology; here we take one particularly strange feature of that terrain and follow it towards neuroscience, consciousness, philosophy and, inevitably, some rather uncomfortable questions about what we think reality actually is.
About the Topic - DMT and Conscious Realism
This episode takes us from the DMT 101 primer into Traces of the Other, a 2026 paper by Andrew Gallimore, Niffe Hermansson and Donald Hoffman.
The paper starts with one of the strangest things about DMT: people often report meeting apparently autonomous beings in apparently autonomous worlds.
The authors aren't saying, “These entities are real.” They are asking whether there might be a way to turn that question into something science can actually test.
They use Hoffman’s idea of conscious realism — roughly, the idea that consciousness may be more fundamental than the physical world as we normally experience it, and that what we perceive may be more like an interface than a direct view of reality.
Gallimore and Hermansson then ask what this might mean for DMT. Could there be a way to distinguish an experience generated entirely within the brain from an experience involving something genuinely external to us?
That is a hell of a question.
And DMT is strange enough to deserve one.
I work with people trying to make sense of psychedelic experiences, and I don't have a neat answer to any of this. Neither, frankly, does anyone else. People have these experiences, they come back changed, and sooner or later the questions end up in the consulting room.
I'm particularly interested because a lot of the people drawn to this territory are highly capable, highly curious and used to getting things done. If you've spent your life discovering that many of the limits around you are negotiable, the possibility of stepping completely outside the ordinary frame of reality is obviously going to be interesting.
And that brings us to something much older than psychedelics: escape.
The rich man's fantasy might be a nuclear-proof compound in New Zealand with a swimming pool and piña coladas while the rest of civilisation sorts itself out. A less dramatic version is FIRE — Financial Independence, Retire Early — finding a way to stop having to play the game.
DMT can look like another kind of escape hatch. Not from work or taxation, but from ordinary reality itself.
That possibility deserves some thought, particularly as psychedelics become more popular and better funded.
I'm not saying the people pushing this work are wrong. Quite the opposite. We need people willing to explore difficult questions. But intelligence, money and technical ability don't automatically produce good judgement.
And this is where I find myself as the slightly smarter dog watching the television.
There are parts of this stuff I simply don't understand. The mathematics is often well beyond me. But I don't think the answer is to leave the whole conversation to people who do understand it.
Science needs scientists. But it also needs clinicians, patients, sceptics, artists, philosophers and ordinary people asking fairly ordinary questions.
The citadel needs the town square, and the town square needs the citadel.
More intelligence isn't necessarily more wisdom. If we're going to explore this territory properly, we probably want as many different kinds of intelligence around the table as possible.
So I'm not arguing against exploration. I'm arguing for curiosity without certainty.
These substances are powerful enough that we should reach widely and comprehensively before hitting the bong.
And one final thing. I'm not obliged to give a disclaimer here. I'm doing it because I think it's the right thing to do.
These are very powerful substances. Be careful. And if you are seriously considering using them, seek medical advice first.
But seek informed medical advice. Having an MD after your name doesn't necessarily mean you know much about psychedelics. Ask questions. Find someone who actually knows the territory.
And look for humility as well as knowledge. “I don't know” is a perfectly reasonable answer to some of these questions. Certainty without understanding is a much bigger problem.
Here is a link to the preprint of the paper