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DMT: THE SPIRIT MOLECULE «+ 325 tween thought, perception, and feeling. The spirit molecule led them to the edge, but it was up to them to take the final step. Now that we've covered some of the ways in which naturally occurring or outside-administered DMT may provide us with access to such remark- able and astonishing experiences, let's consider the evolutionary signifi- cance of naturally produced DMT. In other words, why is there DMT in all of our bodies? Is it a coincidence? Or is it for a purpose? From the perspective of plants, mushrooms, and animals that contain DMT, it is reasonable to propose that other species, especially humans, would seek and protect them. Those who smoke, drink, or eat DMT-rich life-forms experience highly desirable transport to worlds beyond the imagination. Those psychedelic experience-inducing species would rank high on a list of essential renewable resources, and their survival be- comes important to their neighbors. But then why do humans produce DMT? To date we have discovered no life-form that smokes, eats, or drinks human pineal glands, so we must discard the hypothesis that DMT somehow ensured our physical survival. Perhaps our ancient ancestors who produced DMT possessed some adaptive advantage over those who did not. Maybe their access to differ- ent states of consciousness provided superior problem-solving abilities compared to DMT-less members of our species. Those who had the ca- pacity to synthesize DMT eventually replaced those who did not. While there is some appeal to this argument, the presence of DMT in so many other readily available forms weakens it to some extent. That is, if someone could not make their own DMT by, for example, deep medita- tion, there are plenty of plants full of DMT much easier to use than austere spiritual practices. This would certainly be the case for people who live in a DMT-rich environment, such as Latin America. A more fruitful line of reasoning emerges from the implications of DMT release at death and near-death conditions. These are the times in which the life-force or spirit moves into, out of, and through our bodies. We discussed the biological mechanisms of this proposal in chapter 4. Here, let's use those ideas to investigate their possible significance.