A Psychedelic That Mimics Meditation? New Research Says Yes
A powerful psychedelic may produce the same brain state as decades of meditation practice. Researchers at Imperial College London studied a Tibetan Buddhist lama with over 50,000 hours of meditation experience. They compared his brain activity during deep nondual meditation with his brain activity after taking 5-MeO-DMT. The overlap was striking.
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| Key Takeaway | Detail |
|---|---|
| The Study | Imperial College London case study using high density EEG on an expert meditator from the Mahamudra tradition |
| The Substance | 5-MeO-DMT, one of the most potent psychedelics known, tested at low (5 mg) and high (12 mg) doses |
| Core Finding | Low dose 5-MeO-DMT produced brain patterns nearly identical to the lama’s deep meditation state |
| Shared Brain Changes | Both states showed increased alpha power and decreased gamma power in posterior and right frontal regions |
| Shared Experiences | Timelessness, reduced mental narration, quieting of the “storyteller” self |
| High Dose Difference | 12 mg overwhelmed the brain with signal, producing a distinct “saturation” state rather than a meditative one |
| Why It Matters | Suggests psychedelics could offer a pharmacological shortcut to states that otherwise require thousands of hours of practice |
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What the Researchers Found
The study was led by Dr. Christopher Timmermann. His team used high density EEG to map the lama’s brain across four conditions: nondual meditation, placebo, a low dose of 5-MeO-DMT (5 mg), and a high dose (12 mg). The lama, age 57, came from the Mahamudra meditation tradition and had spent over 15 years in intensive retreat.
During meditation, the lama described a state of total mental clarity. All thoughts stopped. His internal narrator went silent. His brain data confirmed this. Gamma band activity dropped. Neural entropy decreased. The brain grew quieter.
The low dose of 5-MeO-DMT produced a remarkably similar signature. Alpha power increased. Gamma power fell. Machine learning models trained on one state could accurately predict the other. The lama himself described overlapping qualities: timelessness, reduced labeling of sensory content, and a fading of the narrative self.
Two Paths to the Same Place
This is where the research gets particularly relevant for the alternative mental health space. The low dose did not act as a weaker version of the high dose. It operated through a different mechanism entirely. The researchers described the low dose effect as “subtractive.” It simplified experience rather than flooding it.
The high dose, by contrast, overwhelmed the system. The lama described boundless white light and a total loss of bodily awareness. Gamma power surged. Neural entropy spiked. The researchers called this the “saturation route,” a fundamentally different path to altered consciousness.
What This Means for Mental Health
The implications extend well beyond neuroscience theory. Both meditation and psychedelics show promise for treating depression, anxiety, PTSD, and addiction. They appear to share a core mechanism: quieting the default mode network, the brain system tied to rumination, self criticism, and rigid thinking patterns.
This study suggests that a carefully calibrated low dose of 5-MeO-DMT could replicate specific therapeutic brain states. That possibility opens new questions about dosing protocols, clinical applications, and the role of set and setting in treatment design.
The research remains preliminary. This was a single case study. Larger trials will need to confirm whether these findings hold across a broader population. But the signal is clear: psychedelics and meditation may converge on the same neural territory. Understanding that overlap could reshape how we approach mental health treatment.
