At the historic Venice Beach Post Office in Los Angeles, two frontier research organizations are attempting something unprecedented: translating the ineffable geometry and alien intelligences of the DMT experience into mathematics. The Trace Institute and Noonautics have launched a collaboration to build a quantitative framework for understanding what happens to human consciousness when it encounters N,N-dimethyl tryptamine—a compound that has long fascinated indigenous shamans and modern seekers alike, yet remained stubbornly resistant to scientific description.
For decades, those who have journeyed into DMT space report strikingly similar phenomena: kaleidoscopic geometries that seem to possess their own logic, and encounters with intelligent entities that resist conventional language. But what if those experiences weren't just subjective fireworks, but reflections of something mathematically coherent? That's the audacious premise behind this research initiative. The collaboration combines the theoretical muscle of Donald Hoffman, professor emeritus and scientific director of the Trace Institute, with the experimental expertise of Andrew Gallimore, psychedelic researcher and neurobiologist at Noonautics. Together, they're bringing together theory and practice in ways that could reshape how science understands altered states of consciousness.
The key innovation comes from Noonautics' extended-state DMTx protocol, which can stretch DMT experiences from their typical few-minute duration into hours-long journeys. This extended timeframe allows trained scientists and other expert observers to make precise observations and conduct experiments within the altered state itself—to test and refine hypotheses in real time. Gallimore describes it bluntly: "With a theoretical foundation for the highly unusual state of consciousness induced by DMT, we can test these theories experimentally."
Meanwhile, Hoffman's team will deploy mathematical models, including a new version of trace logic designed specifically for conscious observers, to develop that theoretical foundation. The goal is elegant but ambitious: create a quantitative language for interpreting the rich details of experiences that have historically defied quantification. As Hoffman frames it, the project "will provide a new framework for exploring the effects of psychoactive substances such as DMT on the structure and function of spacetime."
What makes this collaboration significant is not just its scientific novelty, but what it represents about where consciousness research is heading. For too long, subjective experiences have been dismissed as "merely subjective"—as if the fact that something happens inside a mind makes it less real or less worthy of rigorous study. This project suggests a different path: that conscious experience itself might follow mathematical laws we simply haven't yet learned to recognize.
The findings have been published as a preprint on PsyArXiv, and Hoffman and Gallimore will discuss their research and its implications for a new science of reality on June 13, 2026, at the Lighthouse creative campus in Venice Beach, with plans for a public video release on YouTube. Gallimore looks further still: "This collaboration is a first step to a mathematics of altered states of consciousness and, ultimately, for engineering our perceptual interface to expand our view of reality." It's a vision that suggests consciousness research isn't about understanding the human mind in isolation—it's about fundamentally reframing how we perceive the nature of reality itself.