Bryan Johnson: I Just Took the Most Powerful Dose of DMT in the World... Here's What It Was Like

The conversation opens about two days after a 5-MeO-DMT session. The person who took it calls 5-MeO-DMT "the most powerful psychedelic on the planet" and says it is "somewhere between five and ten times more powerful than DMT." They add that, 48 hours on, they are "still learning how to talk about it," which frames everything that follows as a fresh, first-pass account.

Asked why they did it, the answer is that it was "mostly as a longevity experiment." The project began five years earlier with a method: review published evidence on health and longevity, rank interventions by the evidence for their effect size, and work down the list. That list started with exercise, nutrition and sleep and moved on to hyperbaric oxygen therapy, sauna, rapamycin and metformin.

Psychedelics were not originally on that list. The speaker says they were seen either as ancient medicine used in rituals or as treatments being tested for depression and anxiety, "but it was never understood as a rejuvenation protocol." Preclinical psilocybin evidence in mice changed that. The team then ran what is described as "the world's most studied, the most quantified experiment doing psilocybin": three doses of 25 milligrams, which the speaker calls a clinical dose "very, very close to a hero dose." Their conclusion is stated with a hedge: "we think it's a longevity therapy."

The speaker first warns that people who have taken 5-MeO would agree that explaining it "feels like an impossible task." They then describe being "stunned," "floored" and "speechless," and say the experience amounts to "raw consciousness and raw intelligence." To convey its scale, they ask the listener to take whatever their words suggest, multiply it by a thousand, and then add infinite depth, width and further dimensions.

The dose is given as "nine milligrams of intramuscular and then seven eighteen of it vaporized," with effects arriving "within ten seconds." The speaker contrasts it with DMT, which they describe as very visual, with encounters with "the elves or whatever else." By their account, 5-MeO "is not a visual experience."

The account turns on a choice made at the peak. One option is panic, driven by a sense that "the gates of hell are gonna open" and that the experience could "threaten your sanity" or "chop you up into little pieces." The other is to surrender completely. The speaker says that in that moment "you have to say yes so thoroughly," releasing attachment, preconditions and desire. When they did, it "opens up this unimaginable bliss and euphoria."

You have to release self, ego, control. You just have to just relent entirely.

The speaker compares it with major life events such as accomplishments, marriage, having a child or overcoming hardship. They call this "version one" of an explanation, but rank the session above all of those events:

This is without question the most dynamic experience I've ever experienced as a human.

Asked whether the inner monologue switches off, the speaker says it is not a blackout. At a very high dose "you don't really know what's happening the first few minutes," but afterward they became "hyper-aware of everything." They describe it as "the most majestic experience achievable by a human, by intelligent life."