Does DMT change you? What studies of lasting effects measured, and how much they can tell us

THE SHORT VERSION · SWIPE

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“It changed me” is one of the most common things people say about DMT. This article does not try to say whether that is good or bad. It sets out what researchers actually measured, how they measured it, and what each design can and cannot show. Each factual paragraph ends with an evidence label.

Does DMT change you, according to research?

Researchers have looked for lasting change in four places: beliefs about the world, personality traits, mental health scores, and lasting difficulties. Most studies are of inhaled or injected DMT, or of ayahuasca, the Amazonian brew that contains DMT. They range from online surveys of self-selected people to small placebo-controlled trials. No single study answers the question for everyone. Evidence: established that change is reported; how much, in whom and why is unresolved.

Why does it matter how a study asks?

A retrospective study asks people after the event to describe both what they are like now and what they were like before. A prospective study measures people before the event and again afterwards. The difference matters because memory of a past self is reconstructed, and people who chose to answer a survey about a memorable experience may differ from those who did not. Prospective designs remove the recall problem but still lack a control group unless one is built in. Evidence: established as a general principle of study design.

1. Retrospective survey: one questionnaire, after the fact. Shows what people believe changed. Cannot separate change from recall.
2. Prospective survey: questionnaires before and after. Measures change directly, but people who drop out may differ from those who stay.
3. Controlled trial: before and after, compared with a placebo or other group. The strongest design, but usually small, short and in screened volunteers.

Does DMT change what people believe?

The best-known DMT finding is retrospective. In 2020, 2,561 people completed an online survey about their single most memorable entity encounter after inhaled DMT. More than half of those who said they had identified as atheist before the experience no longer did afterwards. Respondents rated it among their most meaningful lifetime experiences and attributed lasting changes in life satisfaction, purpose and meaning to it (Davis et al., 2020). Evidence: preliminary. We read the abstract only.

Its limits are built in. The sample selected itself and was 77% male, the encounter was chosen as the most memorable one, and the “before” identity was recalled after the fact (Davis et al., 2020). For more on what people describe during those encounters, see DMT entity encounters: what the research says. Evidence: established that these are design limits.

A 2021 study took the prospective route. It recruited people planning to attend a ceremony with a psychedelic, including psilocybin, ayahuasca, DMT, San Pedro or LSD, and measured their metaphysical beliefs before and after; 866 answered at some point. Beliefs shifted away from physicalism (the view that only the physical exists) by a modest amount four weeks after the ceremony (Cohen’s d = 0.33, a small effect) and by d = 0.46 at six months (Timmermann et al., 2021). Evidence: preliminary.

Two details matter. The shift was predicted by how impressionable people were at baseline and mediated by how much emotional synchrony, a felt closeness with others, they reported during the ceremony. And the sample mixed several drugs, so it is not a DMT-specific result. A belief measure added to a separate trial showed a shift after psilocybin but not after the antidepressant escitalopram (Timmermann et al., 2021). Evidence: preliminary.

The 2025 prospective study is the sharpest test of the atheist claim. Among 657 people planning a psilocybin experience outside a lab, researchers measured beliefs before and after. They found increases in mind perception, the tendency to attribute minds to things such as plants and rocks, but little to no change in metaphysical beliefs or atheist–believer status (Nayak et al., 2025). It studied psilocybin, not DMT, so it does not settle the DMT question; it shows that the retrospective result shrinks when measured prospectively. Evidence: preliminary.

Does DMT or ayahuasca change personality?

Personality is usually measured with trait questionnaires, such as neuroticism (a tendency toward negative emotion) or self-transcendence (a tendency toward spiritual experience). A Brazilian study compared 127 regular ayahuasca church members with 115 people active in other religions, and followed both groups for a year. Users scored higher on self-transcendence and reward dependence and lower on harm avoidance and self-directedness, and the differences held a year later (Bouso et al., 2012). Evidence: preliminary.

That design compares groups; it cannot show that ayahuasca caused the differences, since people who join an ayahuasca church may already differ. A 2026 cross-sectional study found the same pattern: in 69 regular ayahuasca users against 94 non-users, personality, not cognition, best distinguished the groups. The authors stress their self-selected sample (Bouso et al., 2026). Evidence: preliminary.

Prospective data are scarcer. In 66 people attending neo-shamanic ayahuasca ceremonies for the first time, questionnaires at baseline and up to 12 months showed lower scores on depression, anxiety, stress and negative emotionality, a personality trait. The study, as its abstract describes it, had no control group (Pagni et al., 2026). In a lab study of injected DMT in healthy volunteers, trait neuroticism fell only in the placebo-controlled sample of 13, not in the separate before–after sample of 17 (Timmermann et al., 2024). Evidence: preliminary.

What did clinical trials actually measure?

Trials measure symptoms with rating scales, most often the Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), a clinician-rated depression score. In a phase IIa double-blind trial, 34 adults with major depression received intravenous DMT or placebo with psychological support. At two weeks, MADRS scores fell 7.35 points more in the DMT group. A later open-label phase, with no placebo group, followed participants to three months (Erritzoe et al., 2026). Evidence: preliminary.

In an ayahuasca trial in 29 people with treatment-resistant depression, MADRS scores were lower than placebo at days 1, 2 and 7 (Palhano-Fontes et al., 2019). Most registered DMT and ayahuasca trials are phase I studies whose primary outcomes are acute safety and physiological monitoring, not lasting change (Stojanović et al., 2026). The details are in DMT therapy research. Evidence: preliminary.

In healthy volunteers, depression scores were lower one to two weeks after injected DMT, and changes in depression and trait anxiety correlated with a measure of peak experience. The authors note that pooling two cohorts limits how far the correlations generalize (Timmermann et al., 2024). A change in a rating scale in a small, screened sample over weeks is not the same as a lasting change in a person. Evidence: preliminary.

Can DMT leave lasting difficulties?

Change is not always welcome. In the 2020 encounter survey, 41% reported fear during the experience (Davis et al., 2020). In the Global Ayahuasca Survey of 10,836 self-selected people, 55.9% reported adverse mental health effects in the weeks or months after drinking, and about 12% sought professional support for them; most respondents described these effects as part of a process of growth or integration (Bouso et al., 2022). Evidence: preliminary.

Depersonalization–derealization disorder is a condition in which the self or the world feels persistently unreal. In an internet survey of 394 adults with chronic symptoms, about half said drug use first triggered them; the two most common triggers were cannabis and hallucinogens, followed by ecstasy. Most had modest use histories before onset. There is no DMT-specific figure (Simeon et al., 2009). For the experience of losing the sense of self during DMT itself, see DMT and ego death. Evidence: preliminary.

What we still don’t know

• Whether belief changes after DMT itself, rather than mixed psychedelics or psilocybin, hold up when measured prospectively.
• Whether personality differences in ayahuasca users come from ayahuasca, from the religious community, or were there before.
• Whether short-term changes in rating scales last beyond the few months any controlled DMT study has followed.
• How often lasting difficulties follow DMT specifically; existing figures come from self-selected surveys or other drugs.
• How much setting, group bonding and expectation shape the changes people report, independently of the drug.

For why the experience itself feels so convincing, read why does DMT feel more real than reality. For the molecule and its biology, start with what is DMT.

Shroomverse sells mushroom products. This article is general information about research on lasting changes after DMT and ayahuasca. It is not medical, legal or purchasing advice, and it does not recommend any product.