How DMT went mainstream: from counterculture to Joe Rogan, documentaries and celebrity interviews

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DMT’s public profile did not come from one event but from a chain: a storyteller, a clinical researcher’s book, a documentary, a podcast with a large audience, then celebrities telling their own stories. This article follows that chain using public, sourced statements, and then looks at what the pattern says about how drug stories spread. It does not endorse anyone’s views or use.

Where did DMT’s popular image start?

In the 1960s DMT circulated in small countercultural circles. A cultural history by Graham St John dates Terence McKenna’s first DMT experience to the fall of 1965 in Berkeley, and describes McKenna touring through the 1980s and 1990s, giving talks that became a reference point for visionary art and dance culture (St John, via Chacruna). McKenna’s descriptions supplied vocabulary still used online, most famously his machine elves, a term researchers found recurring in forum reports (Lawrence et al., 2022). Evidence: established for the dates and touring. For his story in detail, see Terence McKenna and DMT.

How did Strassman’s research become a book and a film?

The scientific turn came in the 1990s. Rick Strassman published a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of intravenous DMT in 11 experienced hallucinogen users in 1994, reporting peak effects within 2 minutes that were negligible by 30, and dose-dependent rises in blood pressure, heart rate, pupil size and body temperature (Strassman and Qualls, 1994). In 2000 he published a popular book, DMT: The Spirit Molecule (Open Library). For the book’s claims checked against later research, see DMT: The Spirit Molecule. Evidence: established. Our Rick Strassman explainer covers the research in detail.

The book’s title became a film. DMT: The Spirit Molecule, directed by Mitch Schultz and narrated by Joe Rogan, premiered at the San Francisco DocFest on 15 October 2010 and is built on interviews with people who took DMT in Strassman’s studies or as ayahuasca (Wikipedia). In 2018 Variety reported that the production company’s documentary had become one of the most-streamed documentaries on Netflix (Variety, 2018). Evidence: established for the credits; the streaming claim is a trade-press report without figures.

Some ideas the film helped spread have since been challenged. A 2018 review by the pharmacologist David Nichols describes recent claims that DMT is secreted by the pineal gland at birth, during dreaming and near death, and concludes that the scientific evidence is not consistent with them (Nichols, 2018). For the evidence on that question, see is DMT in the pineal gland?. Evidence: established that the pineal claims are unsupported; whether the brain makes meaningful DMT in other places is still studied.

What has Joe Rogan said about DMT?

Joe Rogan is a comedian, UFC commentator and host of The Joe Rogan Experience. A 2015 Rolling Stone profile, written when the podcast had 705 episodes and was being downloaded 16 million times a month, reported that DMT was his favourite psychedelic and that he often discussed it favourably on the podcast. It also lists DMT: The Spirit Molecule among the documentaries he had appeared in (Rolling Stone, 2015). Evidence: established for what the profile reports.

In that interview, as summarised from the profile, Rogan described the experience as overwhelming, alien and almost impossible to put into words, with geometric patterns and strange figures; said he did not know what it was; said he saw no downside to it; and said he thought people should be free to explore it legally (Rolling Stone, 2015). These are one person’s views and reported experiences. Research does not support “no downside”: in a 2020 survey of 2,561 people describing a DMT entity encounter, 41% reported fear during it (Davis et al., 2020), and the 1994 study recorded rises in blood pressure and heart rate (Strassman and Qualls, 1994). Evidence: established for what the profile reports he said; his views are opinions.

What has Mike Tyson said, and was it DMT?

Celebrity accounts can blur two different molecules. Mike Tyson’s reported statements concern toad venom, which, as Complex notes, contains 5-MeO-DMT, not the N,N-DMT of Strassman’s studies (Complex, 2024). For why the two molecules should not be confused, see 5-MeO-DMT vs DMT.

Ahead of his November 2024 fight with Jake Paul, Tyson told Rosie Perez in an Interview Magazine conversation, as reported by Complex, that he had used it many times with a shaman, described the experience in spiritual terms as feeling God rather than seeing him, connected it with losing his fear of dying, and said it motivated his return to boxing. He also argued against legalising it, for reasons he framed as social (Complex, 2024). Evidence: established that he said these things, as reported; they are his reports and opinions.

We include only figures whose statements we could open in a public source today. The pattern across them is similar: a well-known person describes a personal, often spiritual experience, a large audience hears it, and the molecule’s name travels with the story whether or not it is the same molecule. Evidence: our analysis of the sources above, not a measured finding.

Timeline: DMT’s path into the mainstream

Did DMT use actually rise? What the surveys show

The most quoted figures come from the Global Drug Survey, an anonymous online survey. Of 22,289 people who responded in late 2012, 8.9% reported ever using DMT and 5.0% in the past year; DMT had a larger share of new users than psilocybin, LSD or ketamine, which the authors read as a sign its popularity might increase (Winstock et al., 2014). As HuffPost reported, the paper suggested that mainstream interest since Enter the Void in 2009, the 2010 documentary and a Vice article had raised awareness (HuffPost, 2013). Evidence: preliminary. The sample is self-selected and many respondents had used drugs, so these figures say nothing about the general population, and the media link was the authors’ suggestion, not a tested cause.

Nationally representative data paint a calmer picture. A 2026 analysis of the US National Survey on Drug Use and Health for 2021–2023 found overall past-year hallucinogen use stable at about 2.8%, LSD declining and ketamine rising, while use of tryptamines, the category that includes DMT, stayed stable (Chen et al., 2026). Evidence: established for the US over those years. Fame and frequency are different things.

The media pattern: how a drug story spreads

Putting the sources together, four features stand out. This is our analysis of the sources cited in this article, not a measured finding:

1. Testimony travels further than data. Each step in the chain was a first-person story (McKenna’s talks, the volunteers in the film, Rogan’s and Tyson’s interviews), while the trials themselves were small.
2. Long formats suit the subject. A 75-minute documentary (Wikipedia) and long podcast conversations leave room for detailed first-person descriptions.
3. Vocabulary loops back. Researchers who coded 3,778 forum reports warned that earlier posts may shape later ones, pointing to the recurring use of machine elves (Lawrence et al., 2022).
4. Molecules get merged. Toad venom’s 5-MeO-DMT, ayahuasca and DMT on its own are discussed as one thing in popular accounts, though their effects and risks differ.

The third point has direct evidence behind it: in the 2022 analysis, the authors listed the influence of earlier forum posts on later ones as a limitation, shown by recurring terms such as machine elves (Lawrence et al., 2022). Evidence: preliminary.

Laboratory science now sits alongside the stories. A 2019 EEG study found that DMT markedly reduced alpha and beta brain-wave power in 13 volunteers (Timmermann et al., 2019), and a 2026 trial randomised 34 people with depression to DMT or placebo (Erritzoe et al., 2026). That trial was small and its three-month follow-up was open-label, with no placebo group. Evidence: preliminary. For the state of the clinical research, see DMT therapy research.

What we still don’t know

• Whether media attention changed how many people use DMT; the 2014 survey authors suggested it, but no study has tested it as a cause (unresolved).
• Whether media accounts shape what people experience, or only how they describe it (unresolved).
• How DMT use has changed outside the US national survey and self-selected online samples (unresolved).

The fair summary: DMT went mainstream through stories more than statistics, and the stories came from a small number of very visible people. For the longer timeline, see the history of DMT; for the molecule behind the stories, start with what is DMT.

Shroomverse sells mushroom products. This article is general information about the media history of DMT. It is not medical, legal or purchasing advice, and it does not recommend any product.