DMT entities are beings that people report meeting during a DMT experience. In a 2022 study that coded 3,778 experiences posted online, 1,719 (45.5%) included an encounter. The most common types were feminine figures (24.2% of encounters), deities (17.0%) and aliens (16.3%); communication was recorded in 74.4% of encounters (Lawrence et al., 2022).
A survey of 2,561 people who described their most memorable encounter found that the most common labels were being, guide, spirit, alien and helper. Although 41% reported fear, the strongest emotions reported were love, kindness and joy, and 69% said they received a message (Davis et al., 2020). Both studies used self-selected samples, so they describe what people chose to report.
Lab work is starting to map when presences appear. In a 2026 study of 23 people given DMT during brain scanning, a sense of space usually formed before any presence did (Sanders et al., 2026). None of this research shows what the entities are. Whether they are products of the brain or something else is a question the data cannot settle, and the famous “machine elves” turn out to be a small minority of reports.
Sources
- Lawrence et al., 2022, Scientific Reports: 3,778 coded DMT reports
- Davis et al., 2020, Journal of Psychopharmacology: survey of entity encounters
- Sanders et al., 2026, Neuroscience of Consciousness: immersion and perceived presences
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