Summary: A novel scientific collaboration has launched a program to mathematically map the human psychedelic experience. Described in a recently released scientific preprint, the initiative centers on N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and aims to create a quantitative framework for altered states of consciousness.
Combining an intravenous protocol that lengthens the normally brief DMT window into sustained, hours-long sessions with observer-centered mathematical methods, the team treats psychedelic states as measurable data sets to probe the underlying organization of perception and reality.
Key Facts
- Decoding the psychonaut interface: Psychedelic journeys often include intricate geometric patterns and encounters with perceived entities that resist straightforward description. This gap between subjective experience and standard neuroscience motivates a rigorous, quantitative approach.
- The extended DMTx protocol: Noonautics, led by neurobiologist Dr. Andrew Gallimore, will use an extended-state intravenous infusion called DMTx. This protocol safely stretches a DMT session from a few minutes into a stabilized interval lasting several hours, allowing trained observers to make real-time measurements and controlled observations.
- Observer-focused mathematics: Professor Emeritus Donald Hoffman and colleagues at the Trace Institute will apply updated mathematical tools, including an evolved form of their trace logic for conscious observers, to interpret the structural features reported during DMT experiences.
- Testing spacetime-related hypotheses: The project combines theory and human trials to evaluate specific predictions about how DMT may alter the brain’s representational interface and the functional perception of spacetime.
- Engineering perceptual interfaces: The longer-term aim, as stated by Gallimore, is to develop a foundational mathematics of altered consciousness that could inform ways to deliberately modify the human perceptual interface and broaden our baseline access to reality.
- Public symposium: The project leads plan a public conversation on the research background, methods, and philosophical implications on Saturday, June 13, 2026, at the Lighthouse creative campus in the historic Venice Beach Post Office, with a planned video release for public audiences.
Source: Trace Research Institute
Psychedelic experiences are among the most intriguing and least understood phenomena of the human mind. Historically explored by indigenous traditions and more recently by psychonauts and researchers, these states often produce vivid geometries and encounters that challenge normal explanatory frameworks.
A new collaboration between the Trace Institute and Noonautics lays out a program to study the mathematical architecture of human experience, focusing on the powerful psychedelic compound N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT).
Noonautics, under Dr. Andrew Gallimore, will use the extended-state DMTx protocol to provide trained scientists and other experts with sustained, controlled access to DMT-induced states. By stabilizing the experience for hours rather than minutes, the protocol allows systematic observations, structured tasks, and data collection that are normally impossible during typical, short-lived DMT sessions.
At the same time, Professor Emeritus Donald Hoffman and the Trace Institute team will apply mathematical frameworks—centering on an updated trace logic for conscious observers—to convert phenomenological reports and experimental measurements into testable quantitative models.
The collaboration is explicitly designed to integrate theory and experiment. The researchers plan to derive predictions from their formal models and then evaluate those predictions through carefully controlled human studies, seeking empirical evidence about how psychedelic compounds change the brain’s mapping of experience.
Hoffman describes the project as an effort that “will provide a new framework for exploring the effects of psychoactive substances such as DMT on the structure and function of spacetime.” Gallimore adds, “With a theoretical foundation for the highly unusual state of consciousness induced by DMT, we can test these theories experimentally.”
Looking ahead, Gallimore frames this collaboration as an initial step toward a mathematics of altered states that could, in time, support deliberate engineering of the human perceptual interface to expand what we can perceive.
Key Questions Answered:
A: By using a specialized medical protocol called DMTx to extend the timeline. Developed by Dr. Andrew Gallimore, this method converts a brief, fast-acting DMT session into a regulated window lasting several hours, giving trained researchers time to remain stable in the environment, collect precise data, and perform structured experiments.
A: Trace logic translates subjective visuals into structured mathematical representations. Professor Donald Hoffman uses models that position the conscious observer centrally and treat perception as an interface. Applying this logic to detailed DMT geometries allows the research team to formulate quantitative hypotheses about whether those visions reflect underlying mathematical structure.
A: The team aims to move beyond individual insight toward perceptual engineering. If compounds like DMT shift how the brain constructs spacetime, mapping the mathematical rules of that shift could reveal ways to adjust our biological interface and broaden human access to different aspects of reality.
Editorial Notes:
- This article was edited by a Neuroscience News editor.
- The referenced journal paper was reviewed in full by the editorial team.
- Additional context and clarification were added by staff writers.
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 prominent and recurring feature of high-dose N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) experiences. These encounters are often treated as complex hallucinations produced by internally generated brain activity, yet many aspects of the DMT state are difficult to reconcile with standard neuroscientific explanations.
This preprint explores an alternative hypothesis grounded in the framework of conscious realism, which posits that reality consists of interacting conscious agents and that perception operates as a species-specific interface rather than a literal representation of an objective world.
A key idea is that the network of conscious agents accessible to our ordinary perception represents only a thin slice of a larger agent network comprising reality. The available slice is constrained by representational limits imposed by a qualia kernel that governs transitions between experiential states.
The authors propose that DMT profoundly perturbs the perceptual interface, expanding the accessible region of experiential space and allowing consciousness to enter areas governed by different dynamical regimes under the qualia kernel.
Under these altered conditions, agents normally beyond our perception might influence ongoing experience, leaving detectable “traces” in the dynamics of perception that manifest as coherent, structured, and meaningful phenomena—consistent with the richly populated alternate worlds reported during DMT sessions.
This framework provides a way to distinguish between purely internally generated hallucinations and experiences that display structured, stable, and causally effective dynamics consistent with interactions involving otherwise imperceptible conscious agents.
Rather than asserting the literal reality of DMT entities, the paper draws on DMT phenomenology, models of psychedelic brain dynamics, and conscious agent theory to produce testable predictions. It proposes experimental paradigms to determine whether DMT experiences can be constrained by external variables or show non-trivial intersubjective correlations.
If supported by empirical evidence, these experiments could have significant implications for our understanding of perception, consciousness, and the broader structure of reality.