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Thus, they were better able to combat pathologically high levels of DMT, and their psychotic symptoms improved.* for the source of this abnormal enzyme function, but unfortunately did not study the pineal gland.” 72 © THE BUILDING BLOCKS this idea. Stress worsens hallucinations and delusions in psychotic patients. DMT levels in those patients are related to the degree of psychosis—the more intense the symptoms, the higher the levels of DMT. We know that DMT also rises in animals exposed to stress. More common levels of stress- induced catecholamines may overwhelm inadequate pineal defenses in psychosis, thus producing too much DMT. This DMT then brings on or wors- ens symptoms in psychotic patients.* Another factor normally protecting the body from pineal production of psychedelic amounts of DMT resides within the pineal gland itself. A particular kind of small protein, first discovered in blood, has been shown to interfere with the activity of the DMT-forming enzymes. The pineal has quite high levels of this protein, a sort of "anti-DMT." If this inhibitor itself were blocked, DMT formation is more likely. Where better to pro- vide an anti-DMT for preventing potentially dangerous excessive DMT formation than where it is made—in the pineal gland? Data from psychosis research also support this contention. Individu- als with schizophrenia received pineal gland extracts as an experimental treatment in the 1960s. Their symptoms improved markedly. The expla- nation for this finding was that the pineal extracts provided patients with an additional dose of the anti-DMT that their own pineal glands lacked. Two other possible brakes on DMT production in the pineal relate to enzymes: those that produce and those that break down the spirit mol- ecule within the body. Researchers have found that the methyltransferase enzymes that form DMT are more active in schizophrenia than in normal conditions. This would raise production of DMT. Scientists looked at many human tissues Finally, if the MAO system normally destroying DMT were defective, more DMT might linger and produce "psychedelic'Vpsychotic symptoms. MAO is less efficient in schizophrenics than in healthy volunteers, and it may be that schizophrenics do not clear DMT quickly enough from their