Mapping the thresholds under N,N-DMT

The mapping of thresholds under N,N-DMT describes the neurodynamic trajectories, the modal phenomenology, and the epistemic status of the experience. The plate posits that the breakthrough is not a unified event whose intensity would be a monotonic function of dose: the actual phenomenology distinguishes five qualitatively distinct thresholds, with a decisive modal bifurcation between threshold 4 (territory peopled with entities) and threshold 5 (unitive collapse without an observer). These neurodynamic trajectories can diverge from a nearly equivalent starting point.

The sheet is organized into four columns, read for each of the five levels: phenomenology, neurodynamic mechanism, position in the Bayesian frame, epistemic status.

Level 1: loosening of the DMN

Phenomenology: sharpened vision, heightened texture, but no rupture of the self, the world remains ordinary yet charged. The DMN does not become more complex under certain regimes but loosens its most abstract layers: it relaxes, and more sensory data flows up. On the Bayesian side, the weight of high-level priors decreases, but the sensory signal stays anchored. The epistemic status is solid: proposed mechanisms consistent with current data (DMN, entropy, connectivity), a robust but not detailed model.

Level 2: the DMN gives way

Phenomenology: perceptual systems fall, identity wavers (step by step, the self becomes plastic, alien, it melts and recomposes). Mechanism: collapse of DMN coherence, rapid disintegration of the usual perceptual models, marked fragmentation of cerebral inference. On the Bayesian side: high-level descending priors lose their precision, content begins to emerge, what was stable becomes unstable. Status: firmly supported for most steps (entropy, integration, DMN disintegration, hyperconnection), a readable but not univocal interpretation.

Level 3: appearance of the entities

Phenomenology: allusive presences, gazes, silhouettes, communication beginning. A quality that is fluid, or not quite, yet already phenomenally constructed, lived. Mechanism: hyperactivation of the social-cognition regions (TPJ, medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus), autonomous generation of agents, heightened salience, attribution of otherness to the self. On the Bayesian side: prediction error explodes, the brain seeks a plausible cause for the massively reconfigured internal inputs. Theory-of-mind structures, still functional, frame one format of interpretation among others. Status: the hypothesis of endogenous agency attribution is well supported by the cognitive sciences, plausible but not exclusive.

Level 4: breakthrough (territory peopled with entities)

Phenomenology: encounters with near-certain entities, the world becomes other, coherent, autonomous (the ordinary becomes the anomaly). Mechanism: global reconfiguration, the system stabilizes into another attractor organization, the phenomenological space has become coherent, autonomous, with its own internal rules. Inter-network hyperconnectivity settles into a stable weave. On the Bayesian side: the prior is entirely reconstructed, new priors constitute a generative model the subject inhabits, the brain is no longer in model error but in another model stability. Status: phenomenology reported convergently by countless witnesses, a dynamic status, lived as real but with the status of the entities left open to interpretation.

Level 5: unitive collapse (without an observer)

Phenomenology: disappearance of entities and structure (the observer itself collapses, no more self, no more object, no more scene, no more time, no more entities, no more separation, unity, emptiness, without horizon, without time). Mechanism: complete disintegration of the models, of the self and of others. Absence of an object for the model. A state of maximal coherence without structure or subject, subject and object no longer exist, complete dissolution of the central subjective pole to produce the unitive state (partial convergence with 5-MeO-DMT). On the Bayesian side: the absence of a higher observer, the model collapses upon itself without a target and there is no longer a system (there is no more inference since there is no more subject, no more model). Status: phenomenology reported but hardly communicable, fragile epistemic status, the absence of any testifiable return limits the modal experience via return.

Transversal principles

The plate draws out three common principles. The decisive modal bifurcation: the thresholds are not a staircase of intensity but qualitatively distinct regimes, with a bifurcation point between the peopled collapse (level 4) and the unitive collapse (level 5). Bivalent neuroplasticity: the same neuroplasticity produces radically different phenomenological regimes depending on the trajectory followed, which undermines any prediction from dose alone. The convergence dual: inter-subject convergence constrains the models, without settling between an external reality and stable cognitive structures.

Global epistemic status

The explanatory frame is judged robust and consistent with current data, a model among others. The mapping describes convergent lived phenomenologies, not established ontological truths.

Sources

• Carhart-Harris and Friston (2019), REBUS model and anarchic brain.
• Timmermann and colleagues, EEG signatures and phenomenology of DMT (2019, 2023).
• Strassman (2001), research on N,N-DMT and entities.
• Work on theory of mind and agency attribution (TPJ, medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus).
• Literature on brain entropy, the DMN, and psychedelic phenomenology.