It is almost universally recommended that people "set their intent" before any ayahuasca ceremony, and based on endless reports, this works extremely well (i.e. you set some reasonable intent and your intent quite often ends up being integrated into your experience). But with DMT, it seems this is rarely even suggested, in fact often the opposite, recommendations are typically to clear your mind and have no expectations or "expect the unexpected". I was just wondering WHY this difference in approach exists?

I feel like it is only myth that one cannot influence the content of a DMT experience - there is plenty of evidence that you can. For example, listening to Joe Rogan talk about his most amazing DMT trips, he actually quotes almost word for word, many of the things Terence McKenna spoke about from his own most influential DMT trips. Clearly, Joe had listened to or read about McKenna's reports before tripping, and that influenced his own experience. In the Strassman studies (Spirit Molecule), the participants were meeting together socially outside of the research setting, and discussing their experiences, this clearly (in my opinion anyway) influenced outcomes. Do you really think if you gave DMT to random volunteers who had never heard of or read anything about DMT before, that they would see clowns or be probed by aliens? I for one don't think so and would bet heavily against such an outcome.

I set my intent all the time. It gives me a sense of purpose which eases some of the pre flight anxiety, and I often end up with answers to the questions I went in with.

Intention is a powerful thing. It should not be underestimated.

I set an intention well in advance of every psychedelic experience. Anything that puts me in a trance. Except cannabis. Maybe I would have an easier time with cannabis if I set an intention. I've even started setting an intention, psychedelics style, before I do an improvisation on my guitar or modular.

I've considered intent as an important part of playing music for a long time, but I didn't realize it was essentially the same thing as with psychedelics. I used to have serious musicians come up to me after performances (long after I had abandoned most of the rules) and say to me: "I was paying attention to what you were doing. Those notes shouldn't work over those chords, but they did! How did you do that?" I would reply: "Intention." (In reality, I was full of shit. I just played what I played and really meant every note. But it turned out I was right.)

My approach to setting an intention for psychedelics really works for me. I start working on it a week or more before the experience.* It solidifies in the days right before the trip. At the last moment, right before I take the substance, I let go of the intention and I change it to: "Do with me what you will." And I mean it. Sincerely. This takes some practice.

It's gonna do with you what it wants to do anyway. I usually end up getting exactly what I need. Sometimes what I get doesn't seem to be related to my intention at all, but I see later that there is a deep connection between my experience and my original intention. Integration takes time and attention.

Purity of intention is key. Keep it up.

* This also applies to DMT work. When I start to have the desire to do DMT, I assume it will be a run of experiences. Usually accompanied by sublingual harmalas. So, when I get the desire to go into hyperspace, I look at my life and set an intention, and set mini-intentions before each session. Or I read a random passage out of a book, like Be Here Now, This, The Cosmic Trigger, The Bhagavad Gita or even a novel lying by my bed. An intention can be deep and serious, it can be seemingly shallow (I just want to look around or whatever). For me, reading a random passage is an exercise in trust. Trust of self, the molecule and the "universe" , whatever that is.
At the very least it can have interesting results. Sometimes the random passages seem to trigger stacking synchronicities in the real world. Or I just see the world more clearly or have bias confirmation, or I'm a little wacky from daily use of harmalas and dmt.

Actually, yes.

Over the years, I’ve introduced only 2 people to DMT, and they both saw “jesters” during their first experiences. I had never mentioned this as a possibility to them, they had never heard about this before, and they didn’t share information with each other before or after their experiences.

I´ve know about other people, who haven´t read McKenna´s experiences, to experience jesters or beings showing them incredible toys.
Also, one of them was speaking in McKenna´s "glosolalia". We thought he was crazy, cause he was the only one doing it (and he is a little special also).
When I later showed them the Youtube video of McKenna´s speaking like him, we had many laughs and a WTF moment.

Also, I can mention the opposite experience. I showed McKenna´s video to another person who was about to try DMT for the first time. And he said he was kind of forcing himself on trying to see the "chrysamthemum". He went for a second time, this time trying to let go and not forcing himself to see things as described by other people, he reported having some sort of short breakthrough, being in another place-landscape and looking at a car and old man.

These are reports of people I know personally, if you go around YT, you´ll see a lot of talking about jesters and toys, I couldn´t affirm whether those trips where under the influence or "suggested" by listening to McKenna´s videos.

Personally, I thought I had seen or contacted a "mantis" (insect) like entity (only the head at least). Later I found out about similar reports by other people (there´s even art about it).

I agree with this wholeheartedly and agree it takes some practice. It *is* going to do with you what it will anyways. That is a fact. And the more I can surrender to it, the more pleasant the experience is. If my intention is too rigid (even just wanting a pleasant experience can do it) I have a lot of suffering.

Intention is powerful in that it helps to set your compass and it turns me towards my own spirit and my desire for goodness. It makes the experience more sacred and intentional, rather than recreational. But letting go completely is even more important. As far as the intention can help me let go completely, it is helpful.

"Whatever I need to go through, whatever I need to feel, whatever I need to see, if it is for my highest good and the highest good of all beings, I agree to it."

People usually see whatever they believe in on psychedelics. If you're a Christian you'll probably see Jesus. If you listen to McKenna you're probably going to see santa's little helpers lol. I went to a ayahuasca ceremony one time and everyone was told that you experience your birth and see angels your first time and sure enough that's what people seen .. the power of suggestion my friend. I don't think it's important to set your intent before smoking DMT. It doesn't always have to be spiritual experience. Even Dennis Mckenna said there's nothing wrong with having fun on psychedelics. Although it would be extremely difficult to use DMT for fun lol.

Perhaps I am mistaken but is not the evangelical activity of "speaking in tongues" during the prophetic state the same thing as glosolalia?

I apologize for my ignorance in religious practices, I was just quoting McKenna´s own words to describe that weird language he speaks when on DMT. Here are some links:

https://youtu.be/VavdCpewQbA?t=9m1s
https://youtu.be/p2PbQ989kvA?t=3m4s

He says that these creatures showing him amazing 4th-5th dimensional morphing toys made of minerals, metal, rock, flesh, etc, encorauge him to start talking and then geometry or shapes start pouring from his mouth, speech becomes form or something like that.

Nothing to be sorry for friend!

If you're interested, Dr Rick Strassman published a book called 'DMT and the Soul of Prophecy' that is an interesting insight to the potential correlation between the effect of DMT and what would be described as a 'prophetic state'

Don't feel bad, you are on the mark. Lots of people here seem to be big time into The Veneration Of All Things TMK. IMHO it qualifies as a genuine religious practice as much as any other.

I've introduced twice as many people as you have over the last decade. None of them saw clowns or jesters, BUT two of the people saw geisha. Something I saw, early in my DMT experiments. I did not tell them about what they might see. On every occasion I mention that there may be visuals such as interlocking fractal patterns, and that some people report entity contact and I try to describe ego death and encourage them to let the experience happen. I am purposely vague. Only one of the people knew McKenna. They didn't see elves, but instead, giants with shiny black painted skin, who were playing with wooden children's blocks, and geisha. I see the guys with deep black skin too. Not giants, but normal guys. Just like the geisha I see, they are usually staring directly into my face.

I don't know of a connection between jesters, clowns and geisha, except the face paint. Maybe someone can make the connection.

I dm not a Christian and not a Catholic. I get A LOT of Christian iconography and reliably get direct, extended contact with the Virgin Mary. Lots of saint related stuff too. The funny thing is that I don't know much about it, but when I go look saints etc up after trips, I seem to have somehow known obscure details.

Not only that, but glossolalia was in the dictionary long before (the late) T McKenna came to use the term.

I like this discussion, thanks for the input. I think it would be a fantastic study to find volunteers who have never used any psychedelics and have never heard anything whatsoever about DMT just to compare what they see in a more scientific way than the anecdotes shared here (but I do find the anecdotes interesting nonetheless). This theme was covered in Strassman’s book DMT The Spirit Molecule, but to me it still seems pretty far fetched, here is a relevant quote from an interview he did on his newer book:

“That’s the beauty of DMT in some ways—it’s such a pure pharmacological effect, that any preparation or biases are moot.”
“I don’t believe longer acting drugs’ effects are as immune to the influence of suggestion. This is apparent in the fact that both I and the vast majority of volunteers expected an enlightenment-like state, but only one of nearly 60 volunteers had that kind of experience. I was as complicit with this approach as anyone, but my DMT data forced me to reassess these assumptions. Two primary factors played a role. One was the absolute conviction of the reality basis of what my volunteers apprehended in the DMT state. It was not an hallucination, a dream, or similar to any previous psychedelic drug experience. They couldn’t accept any models that viewed what they had witnessed as anything other than what it appeared to be: a free-standing, objective, external alternate level of reality as real or more so than everyday reality. While the “brain on drugs” model was not outright rejected, it was accepted only with the caveat that the newly reconfigured brain was now able to see this objective external that it was incapable of so doing before. The DMT world was revealed, not generated.”

This idea of DMT being immune to ‘the influence of suggestion” and preparation being pointless seems like nonsense to me and others here seem to feel the same way. At the same time I’m also intrigued (and maybe a little entertained) by the more fanciful ideas of where the DMT experience comes from. Personally I’ve already read so much that it’s impossible for me to be impartial, I wouldn’t be surprised by anything. I’ve also convened with God for hours on ayahuasca and saw many original and lifelike things that I had never read about or imagined before - but I still don’t believe in magic, parallel universe crossover or any other ideas about how this was more than just something my mind produces under the right chemical conditions. I dream every night, when lucid it’s just as realistic as everyday waking life. I’m not saying DMT or aya are exactly like the lucid dream state, but there are many parallels (and some people are doing work with using harmalas to enter lucid dream states). It’s relatively easy to manipulate the lucid dream state for someone experienced in those realms, it also seems easy for me to manipulate the aya state. I’m wondering how much of that carries over to the pure DMT state, I guess I need to do more research into this and maybe personal experiments but already I’ve seen comments from T McKenna that support this idea (for example asking things what they really are is classic lucid dream 101, and also something T McKenna has spoken about).

This statement makes me laugh a lot harder than it probably should. However its entirely true. My entity experience is limited.

Ive been shown geometric landscapes and amazing light shows, but a break through for me is more similar to a dream, where it seems like an alternate realty. I would then observe friends and family in an astral projection like state.

Ill be honest. I enjoy the geometry and landscapes alot more than the alternate reality dreams. Sometimes those dreams lead to the hyperspace bitchslap. Your experience may vary :-)

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.....I feel like it is only myth that one cannot influence the content of a DMT experience - there is plenty of evidence that you can. For example, listening to Joe Rogan talk about his most amazing DMT trips, he actually quotes almost word for word, many of the things Terence McKenna spoke about from his own most influential DMT trips. Clearly, Joe had listened to or read about McKenna's reports before tripping, and that influenced his own experience. In the Strassman studies (Spirit Molecule), the participants were meeting together socially outside of the research setting, and discussing their experiences, this clearly (in my opinion anyway) influenced outcomes. Do you really think if you gave DMT to random volunteers who had never heard of or read anything about DMT before, that they would see clowns or be probed by aliens? I for one don't think so and would bet heavily against such an outcome.
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I have completed probably around 30 trips with changa ( in doses enough to "breakthrough" , before of that i read a lot of unbelievable experiences of people in this forum and of course Mckenna too. I mean, i should be really influenced by those experiences that i read before trying changa but at the moment i never saw any kind of entity in my travels ...

At the same time people that was never reading or knowing nothing about DMT till the moment i put it in the table , experienced in the first time , encounters with "aliens" or any kind of entities that they call "aliens" ,probably because they dont find a better word to call it.

......