Monoamine oxidase, endogenous DMT and the 'chees dream' phenomenon :)

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(Mods, please feel free to move this to the 'euphoric mind' forum if you think it would be more appropriate there.)


I expect most people viewing this forum are aware of the role played by enzymes called MAOs (monoamine oxidases) which are particularly good at breaking down compounds in the tryptamine class - well, that's just about all I know about it, so I'm in no position to give a biochemistry lesson. Anyway, it's well known that chemicals called MAOIs (monoamine oxidase inhibitors) can temporarily neutralise MAOs or stop the body producing them, and that this is why plants containing chemicals that act as MAOIs are used in ayahuasca-type potions to make the normally inactive tryptamines in other plants active.

Something else MAOIs can do is make the body vulnerable to poisoning by a chemical called tyramine, which is normally broken down by MAOs. Tyramine is generally found in foods that have been aged, fermented or pickled, such as cheese - in fact it was named after the Greek word for 'cheese'. Now when I heard about this it got me thinking: what if there's some connection between the well known phenomenon of having vivid dreams after eating cheese, and the fact that the tryptamine DMT is produced in small amounts in the brain? So my hypothesis is that eating a large amount of tyramine-rich food before going to bed essentially 'ties up' the body's supply of MAOs for a while - they're working overtime to keep you from getting poisoned, in other words - and as a result there's less of them available to mop up the continuous trickle of endogenous DMT being produced?

What if, when you have unusually vivid or memorable dreams after eating cheese, you are in fact tripping (more strongly than usual) on the tryptamines produced by your own brain?

I'd be very interested to hear if anyone else has had this idea, or if it's had any mainstream scientific acceptance, or even if there's massive holes in it and I'm talking rubbish...as I said, I don't really know anything about this stuff beyond the level of a purely amateur interest.

Reputation Comments on this post:

started an interesting thread