Reverse engineering consciousness with 5-MeO-DMT
A retreat retrospective framing the theory of change behind psychedelic consciousness research.
The Qualia Research Institute’s High Energy Awareness Research Team is an interdisciplinary coalition of investigators and curious explorers, who – dissatisfied with the state of phenomenological research, our understanding of consciousness and the lack of a community dedicated to pushing along the boundary of knowledge – have decided to come together to explore a think-tank approach to consciousness research.
We organise hands-on, exploratory work in meditation and psychedelic spaces. This is an invite-only, multidisciplinary team – including meditators, psychonauts, physicists and mathematicians – with a criteria focused on breadth of phenomenological expertise and the technical skills required to sculpt those insights into concrete scientific findings and new directions of research.
What is HEART?
The name draws an analogy to high-energy physics, in which systems behave differently depending on the physical energy they contain. We believe that exotic states of consciousness are interesting from the point of view of the amount of complexity, activity and movement – in other words, energy – that these states express.
One way to think of it is that this is a particle accelerator of the mind where we explore what happens to internal representations – phenomenal space and time, cognition, emotions, and so on – at different levels of energy.
We conducted two pilot studies in 2023 – exploring the subjective effects of ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT – in order to evaluate the feasibility of this approach. In 2026 we ran a third retreat in Tepoztlán, Mexico, focused on jhāna phenomenology, psychedelic visual replication, and somatic-visual coupling. Below, you can find the collected findings from these retreats.
