Can breathwork or meditation release DMT? What has actually been measured

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A popular claim says you can reach a DMT state without DMT: breathe the right way, or meditate deeply enough, and your brain will release its own. Online, the breathing version is often called “DMT breathing”. This article checks what has been measured, what breathwork is known to do to the body, and why breathwork and meditation can produce experiences people compare to psychedelics.

Does meditation release DMT?

Not as far as anyone has measured, because nobody has measured it. On 20 October 2026 we searched Europe PMC, a large open database of biomedical literature, for studies of DMT with meditation, breathwork or hyperventilation. A query requiring DMT, one of those practices and a measurement term (plasma, urine, serum, concentrations or measured) in the abstract returned zero records (Europe PMC search). Evidence: established that no such measurement has been published, as far as this search can show.

Broader searches did return studies pairing DMT with meditation, but they run the other way: researchers gave DMT to meditators. In one double-blind study, 40 experienced meditators on a three-day retreat received either placebo or DMT combined with harmine, a compound that slows DMT’s breakdown (Meling et al., 2024). That tells us how administered DMT interacts with meditation. It says nothing about whether meditation makes the body release DMT. Evidence: established for the study design.

What has actually been measured about DMT in the body?

The strongest data come from rats. In 2019, researchers sampled fluid from the living rat cortex and found DMT at levels similar to serotonin, with or without a pineal gland (Dean et al., 2019). The same team found the enzyme thought to make DMT in human brain tissue, but they write that it is unknown whether their findings occur in humans. Evidence: preliminary; rats.

In people, the record is thin. A 2022 review notes that only a handful of studies have tried to detect DMT in the human brain, and only indirectly, through cerebrospinal fluid, the liquid around the brain and spinal cord (Barker, 2022). A 2018 review concludes that the tiny amounts detected in brain are not enough to produce psychoactive effects (Nichols, 2018). So no one has measured a release during meditation either. Evidence: established. See does the brain make DMT.

What does breathwork actually do to the body?

“Breathwork” covers many practices. The ones linked to DMT-like claims are high-ventilation styles, where people breathe faster or deeper than they need to for a sustained period. A 2023 review describes these practices as having profound effects on the central and autonomic nervous systems, through changes in the brain’s chemical balance and in the senses that monitor the body’s inner state (Fincham et al., 2023). Evidence: established that these practices change physiology; preliminary for detailed mechanisms.

The core change is to carbon dioxide (CO2). Breathing out more CO2 than the body makes lowers its level in the blood, a state called hypocapnia. Studies of circular breathwork find it lowers CO2 and raises blood oxygen; with less CO2, blood becomes more alkaline (respiratory alkalosis), which narrows blood vessels, particularly across the outer layer of the brain (Havenith et al., 2025). Evidence: established.

A 2025 brain-imaging study reached the same picture. It notes that hyperventilation acutely reduces regional blood flow in the brain through combined effects of low CO2, alkalosis in the brain and low oxygen. In experienced practitioners, fast breathing also raised sympathetic “fight or flight” activity in the heart (Kartar et al., 2025). Evidence: established for the physiology; preliminary for the imaging findings, from a small sample.

What is Holotropic Breathwork?

Holotropic Breathwork is a named form of breathwork, usually practised with music. A 2007 paper describes it as “a prolonged, voluntary hyperventilation procedure”, and proposed, as a hypothesis, that it might help in psychotherapy (Rhinewine and Williams, 2007). In a 2025 study comparing Holotropic Breathwork with a similar style, Conscious-Connected breathwork, in about 30 people each, the two produced highly similar outcomes (Havenith et al., 2025). Evidence: established that it is a form of hyperventilation; preliminary for its effects.

Why can breathwork feel like a psychedelic without DMT?

Because the altered state tracks measured changes in the body. In the 2025 study of 61 experienced practitioners, lower end-tidal CO2 (the CO2 level in each breath at the end of exhaling) was significantly correlated with the onset of altered states, and the states resembled psychedelic ones on standard questionnaires, including ego dissolution, a loss of the usual sense of self (Havenith et al., 2025). Evidence: preliminary; a correlation in a self-selected, experienced group.

The imaging study found that the intensity of the altered state was proportional to the rise in sympathetic activity and to changes in blood flow in regions involved in sensing breathing (the insula) and in emotional memory (the amygdala and hippocampus) (Kartar et al., 2025). None of these studies measured DMT, and none needed it to explain what they saw. Evidence: preliminary.

Expectation plays a part too. In a small randomised trial, 24 healthy adults did either breathwork or a body-scan meditation, and breathwork produced larger mystical-type and “emotional breakthrough” scores. But allocation was open-label, and only the breathwork group was prepared for psychedelic-like experiences, which the authors flag as a limitation (Fincham et al., 2026). Evidence: preliminary.

Meditation can also produce reports that read like psychedelic ones. When 197 people wrote about their most meaningful experience, the meditation and psychedelic accounts were highly similar in content, though the psychedelic ones were more emotionally charged (Kallio-Mannila et al., 2025). Similar words do not mean a shared molecule. As the 2018 pineal review argues, stress and other states can produce altered consciousness without invoking DMT (Nichols, 2018). Evidence: preliminary.

Is breathwork safe? What researchers flag

Fainting is the best-documented physical risk. A 2014 review links low CO2 from hyperventilation to reduced blood flow to the brain and, in some circumstances, to syncope, a brief loss of consciousness. The risk rises when hyperventilation is combined with other strains on circulation, such as cold-water immersion or reduced heart output (Immink et al., 2014). Evidence: established for the mechanism.

Water makes this far more dangerous. A US public-health review identified 16 fatal and nonfatal drownings in New York State, between 1988 and 2011, linked to deliberate underwater breath-holding behaviours. The incident that prompted it involved two healthy young men who lost consciousness underwater after hyperventilating before submerging, a phenomenon described as hypoxic blackout (Boyd et al., 2015). Evidence: established.

Breathwork studies screen people out for specific conditions. One trial excluded people with a history of low or high blood pressure, respiratory or cardiovascular conditions, fainting, epilepsy or seizures, panic disorder or panic attacks, or cerebral aneurysm, and people who were or might be pregnant or were breastfeeding (Fincham et al., 2026). Another excluded psychosis, personality disorders, recent substance use disorder, cardiovascular disease, chronic lung disease, pregnancy and chronic nervous-system disease, especially epilepsy (Havenith et al., 2025). Evidence: established as published research criteria, not a complete medical list.

Physical reactions can be strong. In the 2026 trial, facilitators prepared participants for body-temperature changes, tetany (involuntary muscle cramping or stiffening) and emotional expression (Fincham et al., 2026). The 2025 authors caution that adverse effects have not been sufficiently studied, and that recruiting experienced practitioners will underestimate how often they happen in the general population (Havenith et al., 2025). Evidence: preliminary.

Why does the DMT-release idea persist?

It borrows credibility from real findings: the body can make DMT in rats, and breathwork and meditation can produce vivid, meaningful experiences. Joining those two facts gives a tidy story, but the link between them has never been measured. Related claims about the pineal gland and dying follow the same pattern; see is DMT in the pineal gland and does the brain release DMT when you die. Evidence: unresolved for the link; established that it is untested.

What we still don’t know

• Whether DMT levels change in any human body fluid during breathwork or meditation; no study has looked (unresolved).
• Whether DMT plays any role in the living human brain; it has never been measured there (unresolved).
• How much of breathwork’s altered state comes from CO2 and blood-flow changes, and how much from music, setting and expectation (preliminary).
• How common adverse effects of breathwork are in the general population, beyond experienced volunteers (unresolved).

The fair summary: breathwork and meditation can change how people feel and what they experience, and breathwork has measurable physiological effects. That they release DMT is a hypothesis nobody has tested. For the bigger picture, see our pillar guide, what is DMT.

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