Allo allo. Have been a bit of a lurker here after my first experience with DMT, and have been curious about it ever since. I've begun experimenting with it again after soaking up the information out there.
I feel that I might have gotten to the cusp of a breakthrough experience last evening. Sharing the details of the walk down the inner cosmos of that kooky little noggin of mine to see if there are any answers to the questions it brought up - I've read up extensively on Erowid, other sources, and this site, of course! Sometimes, though, it's good to share.
I've smoked about a total of three times prior with some experienced friends with an inclination to share until I decided to take the plunge and snag some for a friend and I for our own little journies. My first times were very pleasant - I usually end up taking about 2 large hits off a 40-50mg dose, held in for about 10-15 seconds, and was able to trip quite hard - I did not 'break through', but I was intensely amused by the visuals and preferred to keep my eyes closed, as I was lead on a lovely visual romp of friendly fractals and meandering thoughts.
I found the way my thoughts wandered and twisted to subjectively interpret or create the reality I saw behind my eyelids very similar to mushrooms. It's hard to describe, but I'll give it a whirl: there's always a tenuous connection between the higher thoughts of myself that realize I am tripping, that remains in slight control of the perception that I am just laying on a bed and hallucinating. I remain ever so slightly grounded in the perception of reality, with only brief spots of being so intensely wrapped up in a particular thought or scene that I'm seeing at the time, that I only briefly forget or lose awareness of my body - there is never a prolonged and pronounced disconnect.
I suppose the most apt comparison would be that I feel like an actor on a stage - I step into a role, but I am aware that role is not me on some level, but I am able to very passionately emphasize and get into the role I am assigned. I am hoping that the 'breaking through' stage severs that awareness of reality, or simply reveals equally strong connections to other realities or entities to where the state of being 'me' is no longer relevant or applicable to my experience.
In terms of visuals, my most intense experience previously was when my eyes were closed and I was focused on going inward - I was entirely aware my eyes were closed at the time, and continually felt the physical space, which was mildly distracting, I had the intense desire to just slough off my skin like a snake might, but then decided focusing on getting out of my skin would probably be a bad idea on such an intense psychedelic. I liken the closed eye visuals to mushrooms - but whereas mushrooms are pulsey, soft, and warm, the visuals I saw here were jagged, explosive, and angular. In terms of consciousness and awareness of my own thoughts, it was also subtly different - whereas thoughts on mushrooms were like driving a car where I could actively think about a subject and explore it in minute detail and layer it onto my overall experience, DMT is more like being a passenger in a train - my unconscious seems to have the most momentum, with my conscious thoughts having only a very small effect on the experience and what I see/feel.
While I saw a variety of things, the closest I felt to being out of reality very significantly was when I encountered 'her' - I've read experiences of some female presences during trips, but I felt I really 'got' what DMT was all about when she darted into my reality and said hello. I'll recount it in as much detail as I can remember as a comparison for the far more intense experience I had recently.
If you couldn't tell already, I am very wordy. Apologies in advance, and consider yourself warned!
I was traveling through fractalspace with my eyes closed, simply enjoying the feeling of watching the kaleidoscope of color. Eventually, my wandering thoughts layered onto these patterns and I found myself in a very dream-like state while awake, and I got the distinct feeling of traveling a long distance within the fractal world. My sitter had put on some wonderfully relaxing music at the time, so this set the mood quite well, I believe. I found it very easy to shift my attention to anything I wished - any sound in the physical world, or any sensation in my body, was distracting to this focus, and kind of made me annoyed at having to deal with those mere five pesky little senses we're all so ingrained to pay attention to.
Eventually, as I continued to travel, the fractals shifted and another pattern was layered onto them - a vast starscape, and a strange, blocky ship hovered in front of me, its lights synchronizing to the beats of the music I had put on. Then another ship winked into existence, then another, until a small group of them appeared - each different in their own fashion. They seemed to be observing me, hovering there quietly in space. There was no dialogue or inferred feelings - they were there, and I was there.
After a moment, what I can only describe as white-hot lasers spanned the blackness between the stars - I did not know what was happening, but while it seemed like some sort of sci-fi battle was about to be playing out before me, none of the ships appeared to be damaged as the light struck them, rather, the fiery plasma connecting the ships glowed brighter, forming an intricate, labyrinthine webwork between the vessels that pulsed with a steady, thrumming heartbeat. It was only after I saw the pattern form fully that I sensed her, her silhouette casting inky shadows on the surrounding pale blue nebulae - first a curved leg, its surface like pure, polished obsidian, reflecting the light off the swirling cosmos surrounding us in warped patterns.
Then another leg, then another, until I had counted about 8, moving slowly through the black morass of the galaxy, only glimpses of a stiletto-like talon seen before disappearing and reappearing elsewhere. I sensed a distinctly arachnid presence around me - the legs were arched and jointed like a spider's, and while I never completely saw her, I knew she was the one behind the web I had just witnessed being spun. There was also the sense of great mass when seeing her - she just seemed a monstrously huge and all-encompassing being. I only briefly glimpsed the vaguest silhouette of her face in the starry shadows, and while I could not see her facial features, I knew she was smiling at me as she bid me goodbye. This caused me to snap my eyes open and come down from the trip, silently thanking my sitter for having the foresight to buy horrendously colorful curtains that helped me come down laughing all the way.
While this was quite intense, I am unsure if it would technically be considered 'breaking through'. I did not lose my grip on reality, but rather seemed to be idly floating into a waking dream of some sort - very intense, but I did not lose my sense of self. Still, it was very exciting. I also felt some very intense swings in emotion - when I began to see the spider lady in the stars, I experienced a sort of transference of feeling from her - I could tell innately that she was mischievous, playful, and wonderfully sneaky, and it made me quite giddy that she was there, I felt as if I was a child playing hide-and-go-seek with this being - in the way that children REALLY get into their fun little games and experience incredible amounts of pure joy from such a simple, innocuous act. I did not experience much audio hallucination, which was disappointing, though I did hear a kind of 'cracking' - as I peaked after the second hit and started feeling the effects, this is common for me - vague pains in my chest and the feeling of being 'cracked' - when this pain strikes, as it were, I both feel and "hear" the cracking sound.
While this is very detailed and I totally enjoyed the experience, I'm pretty sure it was not the 'breaking through' I've read up on, as I did not lose my sense of self, or my grip on reality, but it was definitely far more intense and far more visually appealing than any psychedelic I've had so far. I liked the feeling of being inexorably lead through the experience - the visions would happen whether I thought about them or not, and if I just allowed myself to let go and surrender to the journey, that it was incredibly peaceful and relaxing - I'm guessing this feeling of being 'lead' may give rise to the talk of this chemical being a teaching tool - I felt that way, anyway.
Anyway, now that we have some background on the level of intensity I've already experienced, let me recount my latest adventure, as I'm finding myself curious if this was breaking through or merely me approaching the threshold. It was around midnight at the time, and we had smoked a very little amount of weed prior - I was warned that mixing the two could dampen the experience, so I didn't get ridiculously high, just comfortably buzzed. When I went to set everything up, the buzz was definitely winding down and trailing off.
Sitter eyeballed a 50-60mg dosage, sandwiched between two ash layers in a large glass pipe. Was able to effectively get 3 large hits in and a very small 4th one once the world started to bleed color. Only problem was that I didn't hold all but the 4th one in for very long, so I believe I may have gotten the full dosage in a short amount of time, but did not hold it in long enough to absorb as much as I could.
Laid back in bed. Sitter was noodling and strumming soft music on her guitar. I waited for the walls to sprout their distinctive, shifting skins, and greeted them happily when the patterns began to take form.
I felt heavy, insanely heavy, moreso than previous experiences. My chest began to hurt slightly, and my breathing became quicker - I felt as if I was getting out of sync with my body, when I attempted to TRY to breathe, my body did otherwise, it just didn't feel... right, and was mildly unpleasant. I heard the *crack* sounds again, but they soon melded into a vague buzzing sound. The pain was more pronounced in my chest, and I started to get a little scared - was I overdosing? Was this the right amount? Was I going to die? I kept thinking stuff like this, as it was far more intense than I had previously experienced, and the pain only got worse in my chest. The buzzing sound manifested physically in the form of a lashing curl of vibrating wire - it was like a fissure in reality itself - its visual presence was more the *absence* of reality/matter than any specific terrestrial texture, twitching rapidly as if it were filmed in stop motion, jerkily winding its way down across my face.
Then reality seemed to snap - my face distinctly hurt where the wire had been, only the hazy afterimages of its presence lingering on the back of my eyelids when they closed. It was like seeing a deep, winding crack on a car window.
I felt... displaced, would be the most accurate word. I was still there, in the physical sense - I was totally aware of the room I was in, but I also distinctly felt I was *elsewhere*. As the pain/experience peaked in intensity, I began to see things flash before my closed eyes in perfect clarity, not hazy as the fractals were prior. At the time, I was experiencing a very scared, very terrified feeling - again, I felt as if I was dying - the fear was intense, and I felt as if time was racing past me - visuals kept happening at hyperfast speeds, and I could not focus on any one specific thing, even when I closed my eyes - the familiar friendly fractals were not there, just rapid fire images of things I can't completely remember - a million little lightning strikes went off in my mind's eye, flashes of white that would snap into crystal clear images only to be struck again and whited out to make way for the next visual snapshot, like someone was pelting me with memories flash frozen in time.
The only thing I can really remember absolutely vividly is a ridiculously clear vision of being in front of a twisted double-helix structure - it was a vaguely golden hue mixed with a rich, earthy brown. Its surface was almost... oily, and rippled sheens of light played across its constantly shifting surface like some kind of warped mirror. A real world comparison to the visual style I can most liken this to would be ferrofluid. It was both monstrously large and monstrously complex - within its shifting haze, tiny components or beings moved within it - the movement was akin to watching a massive crowd of people move in unison from a very long distance away - there is an organic fluidity, and a sense of chaotic, imposing density, like watching a crowd of teeming billions from orbital heights. It was like I was observing both a living being and an alien city all at once. It twisted around itself slowly, like a planet spinning on its axis, its deliberate turns only highlighting more of the strange activity on its surface, which began to get more fluid and rapid as it churned in front of me - its patterns becoming a bit swirled, the movement resembling the vast cloudy miasmas whose only appropriate comparison would be the great spot of Jupiter - it was inky and gargantuan, moving with the steady slowness of something of indescribable size, trailing beautiful golden starlight in its wake.
While it did not speak, and while I did not feel any sort of direct awareness or acknowledgment of my presence from it, it felt... connected to me, in that it felt alive. I could sense an intelligence from it - a general awareness - but it was more a feeling of collective intelligence - as if the billions of components inside of it were stars on a galaxy of thought. The impression was more that it contained a vast, teeming, multifaceted intelligence an a bountiful sentience, but I was simply too far away to have any of that intellect directed at me.
However, it disappeared shortly after as the pain began to fade. I still had some vague pain, but I felt as if I had come to a conclusion - the fear building up inside of me washed away, and I realized that I could die if I wanted to then. It was not a scary realization, it was simply an acknowledgment - the pain was so intense and frightening, but it was over and fading. I accepted the ultimate finality of myself and felt instant relief. I think, perhaps, if I wanted to, I could have tried to leave my body then, but instead opened my eyes, the pain having been a bit too intense for me.
My reality was completely, persistently altered.
It was awesome.
The entire time, my sitter had been laying next to me quietly strumming on the guitar. As I opened my eyes, the moody red glow of the single lamp we had in the room shone down on her like some divine, alien sunrise, and that's when I saw HER again - the spider lady from my last trip, though at this point, she had chosen to inhabit my lamp and I did not get any sort of impression or visuals of the arachnid form - but I knew it was her, somehow. I had strung a rather large, gaudy feather along the lamp's edges earlier, and this had begun to take on a life of it's own - every tendril within the feather squirming about as if it were a living tentacle, dancing in tune to the music happily like a jolly anemone adrift in a gentle, unseen ocean current. Within the scarlet hues of the light, I could see the lady dancing to the music being played, always half-hidden in the folds of crimson, a mere blur of movement silhouetted thinly against the warm light, a frozen vignette never fully seen. The patterned red fabric of the lampshade pulsed and glittered with new patterns, becoming the skin of a hundred different creatures all with the same steady, rhythmic heartbeat that rose and fell in tune to the music. I knew that these skins, these patterns, were just different facets of the lady dancing within the light.
I felt intense joy at seeing all of this, and simply took in the sight of a beautiful person playing beautiful music while basking in the beautiful ethereal light. It was like watching a goddess seed a planet with life when I focused my eyes on my sitter - I felt as if I was observing the very fundamental and sacred processes of creation itself, that a mere melody plucked from simple strings contained within it the very chords which spun the universe into creation, and that I could comprehend and recognize the minutiae of existence, the raw components of that divine beauty in every single act of creation. The music seemed almost tactile, like an invisible presence on its own - I feel like I could have SEEN the music at some point if I really focused on it, but I let my thoughts drift freely instead of trying to direct them. The whole visual scene comforted me, and put me in a very good state of mind after the slight trauma.
I reflected on what I had experienced - of the death I had gone through, and it was then that the lady in the lamp seemed to take a rather heated interest in me rather than the music. I saw the tentacles on the lampshade reach out toward me, and I closed my eyes instinctively. I don't remember seeing anything particular distinctive, but I remember feeling quite a bit of emotion: she seemed to want to comfort me, and while she said nothing, I knew that she was behind the feelings I was experiencing somehow.
As for what I felt when I closed my eyes? I cannot describe it properly. The world became a blurred melange of meandering music - high, crisp notes that resonated deeply with the joy in my psyche - coupled with pure emotion rather than anything distinctly visual. As I sensed the lady's intent to comfort me, I lost track of time, but I remember very soon after the desire to comfort me manifested, that I suddenly felt incredibly, unwaveringly and infinitely loved. I felt as if a secret had been revealed to me, as if a dam had been broken, and I was utterly awash in this complete euphoria - first from the utter acceptance of experiencing death and losing my fear of it in the process, then from fully realizing the indescribable beauty held within everything I had ever experienced in my life. It was raw, unfiltered, universal love, and it was wrapped around my soul for what could have been an eternity.
As I opened my eyes and felt the experience begin to wane, a tear was rolling down my cheek, and I was laughing so deeply and so fully, my lungs filled with such heavy gasps of air, that it felt almost like I was uncontrollably sobbing - perhaps it was a mixture of the two.
As I said before - it was absolutely awesome.
While I'm kind of vivid in describing this, I'm still unsure if I broke through in comparison to other's reports - I've read numerous accounts of other's experiences regarding the feeling of 'death' that I also felt, before seeking this out, and while my own experience may seem very, very intense, there was still that tenuous grasp/awareness of physical reality throughout. What I am wondering, though, is if the intense pain/fear I was experiencing was some form of ego death, and that once I had accepted it and felt I *could* leave and the terror began to leave me, that I might have achieved a break through experience if I decided to 'die', as it were - at one point when the pain was fading and I had accepted the experience, I felt a very distinct choice was before me: I could 'leave' or 'die', as I thought it, or I could stay. As I had lingering pain and thoughts of something going wrong and felt I might actually die, I decided to stay terrestrial.
My question is, though, has anyone had felt this specific kind of intense pain/fear before, and if so, did you work through it and decide to 'leave', if you were given a choice? Or did it eventually fade and blast you off into a total out of body experience? I have the nagging, lingering feeling that if I had just calmed down a bit and accepted it sooner, that that fear and pain was the 'push' that would break me through - it felt like I was being propelled somewhere while this was going on, and when reflecting on it, it seems like the pain might have been caused by my resistance to what I perceived as death and the fear of dying. I can't help but think that if I embraced that element with respect next time instead of fearing it, that I would be whisked away into another world entirely and have a true out of body experience.
So far, even with this intense experience that I am incredibly thankful for, I have felt mostly like a dreamer sinking into some fairly intense dreams, and those dreams leak out into reality when everything is quite intense and my eyes are open, like this last trip - the physical transformation of objects felt *very* real and *very* concrete, not just like the normal kind of twitchy, dreamy pattern overlays or phantom movement I've generally seen while tripping before - the tendrils of the feather I mentioned were solidly moving on their own with no blurry patterned kind of illusion - it was both very fascinating and a little surprising, as there was no indication that I was hallucinating - reality was quite simply and cleanly altered, and I was able to clearly observe and study the anomalies I saw, brief as they were.
The impressions I get from hearing about break through experiences, however, leads me to believe that if I truly do break through, I won't feel as if I'm sinking into a dream, but rather would feel as if reality itself was the dream and I was waking up from it into an entirely different world. I am seeking to experience a complete disconnect of my awareness - an out of body experience, basically. I am unsure if I can achieve this or if this is accurate at all, which is why I'm sharing my experience and hoping for some clarification and discussion.
I am also slightly concerned to go back - obviously, part of the trip was very very painful/terrifying to me, but laden with that kind of...expectation of something more if I got past it. I have felt some physical symptoms after taking a hit prior, such as the heaviness in the chest/body, but the pain here was quite strange, acute, and unexpected. I am asthmatic, and I have read up on problems with breathing and DMT, but it doesn't seem to match up to what I experienced - I *think* I was fine with my breathing, I was just perceiving it strangely due to the fear acting as a magnifier, and my sitter said she didn't observe me acting overly intense in a physical sense or notice anything alarming about my breathing patterns except for a few deep, but overall normal gasps at certain points.
Still, though, any kind of pain or unpleasantness is something I'd like to be aware of from a safety standpoint - from what I've read, I shouldn't have any fear of overdosing with the amounts taken. I'm thinking that the pain was likely my lungs screaming at me from the harshness of the smoke coating them, but I have no idea if this is something that is incredibly common or not. As I mentioned before, the pain manifested itself in very distinct, physical ways - it was literally a set of wires crawling and twisting over my body, and wherever they touched, it hurt slightly more sharply. It was most pronounced in the chest/neck/face area. Obviously, I'd like to be incredibly cautious when little red flags like this appear and treat it with the respect it deserves, so if anyone's had any similar experiences, I'd love to hear about them. The only thing I've heard that was similar was where someone described being cut or disassembled by a presence in the room for a few brief seconds.
Anyway, that was my most intense experience to date, and I'm very curious to dip my toes back in the pool, so to speak. I'm hoping to garner some opinions on the whole breaking through aspect, because that's the goal of the next trip if it's concluded I didn't break through this time - either way, I absolutely adore DMT now and will continue to experiment with experiences!
So here's my plan for next time: I will be eliminating as much terrestrial influence as I can - no weed, and possibly no music as well. I find myself occasionally 'brought back' by music or any sort of sound or disturbance in the physical space that requires my attention, so perhaps I'll go a bit more inward when it's absent and silence serves as my guide. I do not think I will be upping the dosage at all, as I feel if I had held it in a bit longer, I would've been pushed farther. I will also try to be less of an observer try to 'speak' more - in a lot of experiences, people describe trying to speak to entities - I do not do this as often as I would like, mainly because I'm enthralled by what I'm seeing/experiencing.
We'll see, though, I'm looking forward to more amazing experiences!
Any suggestions, obviously, are welcome!