So there you are, comatose and bloated like a beached whale after a marathon Thanksgiving binge. You’ve unbuttoned your pants. You’re drowsy—you tell yourself it’s the tryptophan kicking in. To think, you could be on the Other Side right now.

That’s according to the above video, which purports to show how to synthesize dimethyltryptamine, the intense psychoactive compound perhaps best known as the spirit molecule, from tryptophan, an essential amino acid that for whatever reason becomes a bit of a novelty this time of year. It makes it look so easy, right?

I’m not an organic chemist, so I asked VICE science editor Hamilton Morris to weigh in. “None of this is surprising,” Morris tells me. “Many psychoactive substances are closely related to amino acids.” It’s definitely possible to perform this sort of route, then, though Morris adds that it would be plain impractical and unnecessary. Tryptamine is cheap and readily available, for one. But it’s also “simply decarboxylated tryptophan.” In other words, there is no need to decarboxylate tryptophan, as shown above. 

Anyway, something something cosmic gobble. 

Front image via Flickr/CC.

@thebanderson