# 5-MeO-DMT felt like a complete release of the ego

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/5-meo-dmt-felt-like-a-complete-release-of-the-ego/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Bryan Johnson](https://realalpha.app/people/bryan-johnson/) · Bryan Johnson is a longevity experimenter and investor. · Founded Braintree, sold to PayPal for $800 million, and now runs Blueprint, a longevity experiment.
- Host: [David Friedberg](https://realalpha.app/people/david-friedberg/) · CEO, Ohalo · Founded The Climate Corporation, sold to Monsanto for about $1.1B in 2013.
- Show: All-In
- Episode: [Bryan Johnson: I Just Took the Most Powerful Dose of DMT in the World... Here's What It Was Like](https://realalpha.app/v/Axpnkqd-Agk/), Mar 26, 2026
- Moment: 2:02 to 9:08 of the episode (7 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/5-meo-dmt-felt-like-a-complete-release-of-the-ego/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/Axpnkqd-Agk/?t=122

## Quote

> “you have to release self ego control you just have to just relent entirely and then when you do that it opened up this **unimaginable bliss and euphoria**”
> — [Bryan Johnson](https://realalpha.app/people/bryan-johnson/) at [4:30](https://realalpha.app/v/Axpnkqd-Agk/?t=270) · All-In

## Takeaways

1. He says the experience was not primarily visual.
2. Surrendering control turned fear into bliss for him.
3. He links disrupted brain patterns to new connections.

## About this segment

Bryan Johnson describes a frightening onset followed by surrender and euphoria, then explains how psychedelics may disrupt entrenched brain activity. His account is firsthand, not evidence of a proven treatment.

From “Bryan Johnson: I Just Took the Most Powerful Dose of DMT in the World... Here's What It Was Like”, Mar 26, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/Axpnkqd-Agk/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[2:08](https://realalpha.app/v/Axpnkqd-Agk/?t=128) that data in a minute but then you decided to try 5-meo this weekend yes walk me through the experience because you televised the whole thing it was live streamed you looked amazingly calm going into it and going through the process walk us through your experience yeah i think uh those who have done 5meo would probably relate with me that it feels like an impossible task to explain what it's like so that caveat said i'll give it a go i'm stunned absolutely floored speechless you you basically experience raw consciousness and raw intelligence it's this so whatever when i say these words take these words that i committed you take that idea multiply it by a thousand and then move out infinite depth infinite width width and then dimensions and like that gives you kind of like a rough map of like the size and space that you deal with and uh it was incredibly hard

[3:16](https://realalpha.app/v/Axpnkqd-Agk/?t=196) because you you get blasted into this space that is so foreign you don't even know what's happening it happens very quickly like you you inhale it i did nine milligrams of intramuscular and then seven uh 18 of it of vaporized and it hits you within 10 seconds you're just out you're out and so um but what happens is you you get in that space and then visual changes every very little visual uh like you see on dmt it's a very visual you'll meet the you know like the elves or whatever else this is not a visual experience but you you get in this world and you lock in to basically you either panic because you feel like the gates of hell That the stream of existence is going to just tear you to shreds. It's going to shard you. And if you give up.

[4:10](https://realalpha.app/v/Axpnkqd-Agk/?t=250) Like break your brain. Yeah. You feel like it's going to like threaten your sanity. Like is it going to chop you up into little pieces? And so in that moment, you have to say, do I try to wrestle this and I need to just like wait it out until it's over or you just relent. You say yes. and you have to in that moment you have to say yes so thoroughly you have to release all attachment all preconditions all want all desire you have to release self ego control you just have to just relent entirely and then when you do that it opened up this unimaginable bliss and euphoria and i i again this like a v1 of trying to explain this but if i list out the the most dynamic experiences i've had of a human you know uh like certain accomplishments or getting married or having a child or overcoming a difficulty or like you know state your list

[5:12](https://realalpha.app/v/Axpnkqd-Agk/?t=312) things this is without question the most dynamic experience i've ever experienced as a human does the internal chatter the internal monologue of the ego turn off does so you can't hear yourself speaking how do you rationalize what's going on if you don't have a dialogue going on it's this visceral feeling like you're you're hyper aware of what's happening it's not like you you block out in the first like we take a very high dose you don't really know what's happening the first few minutes but then you kind of come to and you're hyper aware of everything it's not visual but it's this um you're in the depths of existence like this it's just the most majestic experience achievable by by intelligent life i just can't imagine anything more miraculous you've studied the biology the biochemistry what goes on in the

[6:15](https://realalpha.app/v/Axpnkqd-Agk/?t=375) brain as this molecule hits your neurons yeah i mean like it um i mean one it completely dissolves your default mode network describe what that is so like um it's this is the engine that constructs self and ego and so as you ruminate you know like you're going through thinking through your day what's next exactly how am i feeling yeah what should i be doing right now constant conversation Yeah. Do I feel bad about myself? Do I feel, you know, like I, am I shy? Am I like, do I feel bad about whatever? Like you're doing this rumination stuff. Kids don't have this rumination loop. Their default mode network is quiet. And as you age, you basically build up this default mode network into more stiffer patterns.

[6:58](https://realalpha.app/v/Axpnkqd-Agk/?t=418) And so as you age, your experience of reality becomes increasingly narrow. You have these big ruts that form. And so you can just see people in their patterns, like how open a child is to say like very random things. And as adults, you're just very, you're shut in. Like when I did psilocybin, one of the reasons why we did it is because it does have this effect where it dampens the default mode network.

[7:18](https://realalpha.app/v/Axpnkqd-Agk/?t=438) And we could pick this up with kernel, the brain interface. You can see how the default mode network weakens. So basically, I think of the brain like a globe with airports scattered about, and you have certain traffic patterns like New York to London, you have a certain number of flights every day, that's like a very strong connection. But New York to, you know, some small town in Arkansas has a very low traffic map. And so when you do something like psilocybin, it basically takes the airports, picks them up, and then repositions around the world. So it's just all scrambled. So the traffic patterns aren't the same.

[7:51](https://realalpha.app/v/Axpnkqd-Agk/?t=471) And then over time... The neurons don't physically move, but the activity shifts around. Exactly. The neurons are a little bit more random. than they normally would be, which arguably drives neuroplasticity, causes those neurons to reach out for new connections. And when new connections are made, new behaviors, new ways of thinking emerge coming out of these therapeutics. Is that a fair way to describe it? Exactly right.

[8:14](https://realalpha.app/v/Axpnkqd-Agk/?t=494) So you look at my brain on psilocybin from Kernel, you see my patterns before, like the New York to London connection. You see my brain afterwards, and it's exactly what you said. New patterns are emergent the old ones have quieted down so like a new map of connectivity and so we saw that happen and that does generate a lot of neuroplasticity and obviously this neuroplasticity rewiring these connections in the brain is what allows trauma victims or folks that have a certain wiring that they keep repeating in their brain which causes the trauma and the anxiety in their lives to get rewired and then that trauma and that anxiety feels like it dissolves or melts away is that a there exactly right yeah yeah and so this is this has been documented in psilocybin it's kind of well understood how did you connect that psilocybin data to an effort in longevity or was this just