The Epistemic Drive, DMT, and the Re-Connection Hypothesis: A Built-in Threshold Model of Transcendent Access

Humans display an uncommonly intense epistemic drive—a motivation to understand that extends far beyond immediate survival. The Re-Connection Hypothesis proposes that this drive ultimately guides Homo sapiens to discover and ritually employ N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Rather than postulating that the brain must “self-flood” with DMT, we argue that cortical circuitry is pre-tooled—analogous to dormant Wi-Fi hardware—to respond to modest, externally supplied DMT and switch awareness to a non-material information domain we term the Transcendent. Three empirical anchors motivate the model: (i) conserved expression of the DMT-synthesising enzyme INMT across mammals; (ii) widespread occurrence of DMT-rich plants; (iii) reproducible, network-reset phenomenology at low–moderate exogenous doses. Drawing on signalling-bias pharmacology, receptor-reserve experiments, and ethnobotanical convergences, we articulate testable predictions—including a “low-threshold, high-gain” 5-HT2A circuit assay—and sketch preregistered study designs. Detailed tables, Bayesian sensitivity analyses, and power calculations are provided in the Supplementary Materials. By integrating biochemistry, cognitive neuroscience, and cultural data, we offer a coherent research programme for evaluating possible teleological features of human curiosity.