I'll tell my story or part of it. I'll start by saying, until maybe 2 months ago, I had no intention of ever doing dmt, too scary, despite frequent psy use before and since, so I guess this is a story of how I changed my mind.

I had some acid experiences in the 90's when I was in my early 20's. These started well and ended badly, largely from me thinking I could trip my way back to mental health. No, that didn't work and I gave up psys until about 3 years ago. I think of the years in between as a long semi recovery process, 100 steps forward, 99 steps back type thing.

So finally, nearly 20 years after my first acid experience I decided to use first mdma then acid again. Mdma fell by the wayside but acid quickly became a weekly recreational thing, smallish doses around 70-100ug but I enjoyed the hell out of this and did it for a couple years, also introducing other psys, mainly 2cx and dox. Then mixing nitrous with all of them, and weed ofc. Lots of good times, but almost all in the recreational realms.

Then a few months ago I got onto some ketamine. My main interest in this was, since it's a disso, to use it in the same way I use nitrous, to enhance acid, or to let acid enhance the disso. That didn't go well at first, too debilitating, so I started using ket by itself. Generally acid and nitrous one day and ket the next night. I did this for a couple months and got very into k holing. This is despite never really getting anything out of it except beautiful imagery and blissful feelings. Lots of fluffy revelations too but I either couldn't remember or couldn't make sense of it when straight.

Ket was starting to feel like a dead end when I finally remembered why I got the ket, to combine with acid. And so I finally did this, having a better idea of how to go about it because of my recent k hole experiences. Ie, doing it in bed at the end of an acid trip. I had several far more intense and seemingly more useful k holes while on acid, and finally felt ready to accept the dmt when it became available. Also contributing to this decision was listening to hundreds of hours of mckenna talks, many which I found inspiring. They encouraged me to at least try dmt and bigger doses of shrooms. I suspect his words were also partly to thank for the visuals on my first breakthrough experience.

This was about 6 weeks ago. Despite doing a fair bit of reading on erowid and elsewhere, I stumbled and fumbled around with dmt in a uncaring, blase fashion that is a bit horrifying to me now. I finally did get my first dmt breakthrough experience. I could write pages about that but in brief, the dose, set and setting, by chance, were perfect. I was launched into the machine elf greeting hall almost exactly as mckenna described it, though it didn't seem that way at the time. It was scary and when these faberge egg looking things came rushing up to me I was still in shock at the unique visuals and mode of connection to my brain. I brushed the entities away and tried to back off a bit. Next I was being led through passages, into the bowels of the elf palace.

At some point a brief audio glimpse of the "real" world came through and I heard soft music playing in the background. My music. I said, "guys, I play guitar, this is my music". We came to a sudden stop and did a sharp left turn.

Next I was in a room, or more like a cave with an entity and between us, a machine with loose hanging cables. The entity made it clear it wanted me to do something. I shrugged, not knowing what it wanted. It gestured again and this time I thought fug it, I'll reach out and touch the machine....

The vision ended before I touched it, but maybe the acceptance of the offer was all that was required. A bit disappointing but overall an incredible experience. I finally got to sleep and had normal seeming dreams from which I woke at regular intervals hearing glossolalia. This seemed to be a translation of what was happening in my dream, pretty cool I thought. This happened at least 5 times during that night.

2 days later I was doing my usual weekly acid/ket celebrating the end of the week thing. These are always good recreational times with lots of laughing. Laughter may not be the best medicine, but it's a good one I think. I think of it as giving my brain a bubble bath. When the time came to do ket, I eventually wound up with a bunch of fairly cartoonish entities. Just seeing entities on ket was a first time thing. It was a gathering where my ketamine entity host introduced me to a dude. This dude happened to have a head like a cube of dmt space. As soon as I realized what I was seeing, I was sucked inside. Briefly, but enough to know that it was indeed the dmt world, albeit a kind of muted, less impactful version of it.

Since the mood of the gathering was party like and friendly, when I was released from dmt guys head, I tried to say something like, "hey man, good to see you again, I had a great time the other night...". What came out instead was a stream of glossolalia, my first out loud expression of glossolalia and addressed to the dmt entity. My ket guide explained that we're all connected and that we're all on the same journey together. The shock and joy with a dash of absurdity of this message had me laughing hysterically. More glossolalia ensued, as well as lots more laughing, talking and singing in an irish brogue, making up silly rhymes and generally having a great time. The best time I'd ever had on ket to that point tbh. And I've been able to do glossolalia at will since then, though it often feels like a pale imitation of the dmt and ket induced version.

This brings me to about 3 weeks ago when I decided I was ready for my second real dmt breakthrough. I'd had a couple other relatively minor dmt experiences that involved entity contact and attempted communication, but were definitely on the lower end intensity wise.

Looking back, I made 2 mistakes here. The first was figuring out the dose I would need based on the approximate amount of the first breakthrough dose I actually inhaled. I figured this was around 25mg. So I weighed up 25mg and slammed it hard. This was a mistake since on the first breakthrough experience, I inhaled very slowly and I got to a point before finishing inhaling where my brain said, "STOP". I stopped and got the perfect dose, though wasting some smoke in the process. This time I thought I knew the perfect dose so I slammed as fast as I could and ran to bed. Ie too fast for my brain to say "stop".

Within 5 seconds of starting inhaling I was in bed and it hit like a freight train between my eyes. Criss crossing chequered flags and the crunchy cellophane noise, as I understand it, the "you are here" message. Then a vision of another flag. Hmm, this must be the symbol for the place I'm about to go to.

Then I'm there. No elf hall this. In short it appeared to be a barely recognizable version of our own reality, me sitting on a park bench seeing people walk by, trees, buildings. Only I wasn't seeing it in visible light but in the entire (maybe) spectrum from 1hz to 1 trillion ghz. A massive visual overload. There's too much to remember but one thing that stood out was that people had horizontal bands of energy emanating from them (auras?). As did groups of people. Bands of energy came out of the ground. Other kinds of bands and fields of energy all around. Some of these intersected without interacting. Other interacted visibly, throwing off other visible energies where they intersected. This is the main thing I remember but there was a multitude of other interactions going on too.

After gaping at all this for some undetermined amount of time and realising that while the background image was changing, the type of perception wasn't changing and it began to occur to me that I might be stuck here. That I'm going to be wheeled out in a straightjacket and taken to the place where they scoop out part of my brain and I get left as a drooling vegetable in a wheelchair for the rest of my hopefully short life.

It was traumatic, that worst fear came, "holy fuck, I finally did it, went too far and I'm never coming back". But that brought on the thought of, "hey wait a sec, did I do a drug?! What drug, I don't remember doing a drug..."

That was the way out though it seems because next I had calmed down a bit but still wanted out and so said out loud, "hey guys, please stop, that's enough, please take me back in one piece". Within a minute I could see my hand waving in front of my face and bits of my room were starting to reappear.

"THANK FUCK I'M NOT DEAD!" was my first thought. I was sure I could never do dmt again, too harsh, too extreme, too scary. Funnily enough, that wore off within an hour or so. And after lying in bed for 3 hours thinking about what it was and what it meant, my opinion had changed to ofc I'll do it again, just with a much smaller dose.

I'll briefly go through the possibilities for what I think the vision meant. My first thought was that, since I'd been thinking about filters a lot, thinking that unlike shrooms and ket which seem to have all sorts of things added and taken away by filtering parts of my brain before the visions get seen, dmt is an unfiltered experience, you see what's there. This visuals purpose might have been to show me how wrong I was, showing me that in fact, this is what your reality looks like unfiltered, forget about ours, just look at your own.

The 2nd and most attractive option was that we all have the ability, the hardware to perceive a much fuller reality here. But the switch is turned off purely because it uses a huge amount of energy to process this info. I'm basing this on the fact I was starving after the trip. I ate, but was still starving all the next day despite doing nothing physical at all and it was protein I was starving for, like gimme a steak the size of a toilet seat. Not great since I'm vegetarian.

The 3rd option is neither of the above are true and this seems most likely.

A couple days later, I was getting ready for the usual acid/ket thing, weighing up the ket doses in advance and found, to my horror, or shock or something, that the mode button on my scales had been pressed, it was measuring in oz not grams. Ie the previous dmt dose I weighed and reweighed (because it looked like a lot) and was sure was 25mg, was actually 75mg. This blew my mind ofc and I still don't know what to think of it. It feels like that info should have come as a relief but it didn't. The simple explanation is I bumped the mode button myself, though I'd swear I've never touched it. This could break down to I was mentally raped by my own stupidity. But what's the other option? The faeries did it? In any case it seems like the kind of mistake I won't be making again.

Anyway, another fun acid/ket time though I went very gently with the ket, not wanting to be thrown back into the scary dmt world. Interestingly, while I just took enough to hole, there was no dmt reference and very few visuals at all, just pure bliss. I could have taken heroin for all I know.

A few days later it was time for my next dmt experience. Feeling somewhat burned but still wanting some contact, I did a low dose and saw the chrysanthemum but it stayed closed and I stayed outside the fence seeing a huge lively carnival, rides and such from a couple blocks away. My reality didn't cave in, everything was just how I wanted it actually, a mild experience just to let me know everything's still ok.

Again a couple days later, acid/ket again. This time on acid I spent a lot of time thinking about the big dmt trip and realizing that I felt traumatised. That despite my certainty that dmt has a lot more great stuff to show and teach me, I felt too scared to go back. Nearly 2 weeks after the big trip, this was a disappointing revelation to have, but it made me realize I had never been completely ok with that experience, I just wanted to be ok with it.

So, ket time. It seemed to take me inside my own head this time. Wonderful sights and revelations ensued but the main one came when I was led to a place where the glossolalia started to flow and flow in this kind of pristine way it hadn't done before, chanting, sometimes almost singing, including a larger vocab. I got into my meditation position and let loose with long strings of glossolalia which became visible as sheets of energy flowing from my hands. My hands felt the urge to move in a dancing fashion over an orb that became visible. So I was singing these small strands or sheets of energy into existence. They became visible through my hand dancing, where I placed and manipulated them onto the orb. This was a beautiful process to watch and incredibly enjoyable to perform, better than sex dare I say it.

So of a 2hr k hole, maybe half an hour was spent singing over the orb. At the time I thought it was like a beautiful song and dance routine but with no real meaning like a lot of ket imagery. I eventually slept and the next day when I woke and spent more hours thinking about it, I realized the "ptsd", the trauma from the big dmt trip was no longer a thing, that the ket induced song and dance was me healing myself.

Well, maybe.

So anyway, hello! I expect I'm coming off as a complete dmt noob, because I am! Critiques of the way I went about things would be appreciated.

I have many questions but I'll start with what thoughts do you have on ketamine as it relates to understanding dmt experiences? I have read several ket threads here, including this informative one: https://www.dmt-nexus.me...spx?g=posts&t=42515. I'll be honest and say the amount of negative thoughts and experiences with ket makes me sad. In my experience, ket is (or can be) love in powder form. At least when it's combined with acid.

I'm not quite ready to combine ket (or anything else) with dmt though, partly because it seems useful to do ket after the dmt experience has stewed in my brain for a couple days, and partly because I don't want to risk breaking the synergy that seems to exist for me atm. Especially its affinity for the glossolalia that dmt gave me.

One last question. As I said, I've taken in tons of mckenna in the last few weeks. I know parts of his shtick are for entertainment purposes only, novelty theory and timewave zero for instance. And that he didn't practise what he preached, at least when it came to shrooms. But are there other mckenna things I should unlearn? Any recs for other gifted speakers on psy matters?

How many cups of coffee did ya drink when ya wrote that? lol One hundred miles an hour.

I like it! Sounds like you used to party it up pretty hard. I partied it up pretty good too in my youth, and more therapeutic nowadays. I get much more out of my experiences now than I did when I was a teenager. Although I would say I was braver in my youth. Or maybe it was that I was just stupider. lol

Well.. cut down on the caffeine a bit. Just messing with ya!

Have a great day and welcome!

Thanks, dmnstr8. No caffeine for me these days though, too little reward and by far the worst withdrawals of any drug I've tried, that stuff is a mystery to me! It was more about just missing the registration period the previous week and having time. Looking back, I should have done what most others did, a much shorter and to point intro (including my soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-715735308, horribly self indulgent ket and lately dmt inspired guitar loops at 80bpm, sorry, had to get it out there). Then redone most of it in another thread in the first steps in hyperspace forum.

Re partying hard in my youth, I guess it seemed that way then but all my meaningful experiences have happened this year. If I had tried or even heard of dmt in my 20's... well, it didn't happen and maybe I should be thankful, I probably wasn't ready.

.....Thanks so much for that post. I have been looking for your posts, as you were one of the first people to contact, comment, communicate with me. It appears we both share a love of "L", although I like mine with "E" and don't have much experience with "K" but that is neither here nor there. I appreciate your candor and the tone or you post. Your's will be the last "trip report" I view. I dont want to have any one else's experience influence mine. When I first tried this substance 15 or so years ago, I had absolutely zero expectations the potential was limitless. And although I have read a few "Trip Reports" I still know absoulity nothing, zero, ziltch, about my own, unique, personal experience that is to come. I laugh at myself because I probably wont be able to not talk about my experience which could possibly limit some one else's. What I have learned from you, my brother, is liberating. It's the thought process the altered way of thinking. It will be like coming home....or will it hahaha I'll just have to wait and see.

I often think of the moderators here on the nexus and how they must see this kind thing all the time. I know they are observing, quietly. And I try to imagine the bigger picture. I am thankful of the roles they play. Someone has to man this most remote outpost, the final weigh station, before hyperspace......

The salting has begun..... (~);}

Just curious, from your story I'm guessing you are in your 40's, how does one this age interpret DMT? I mean, is this something people this age have interest in? Or a you a unique case?

-eg

I am in my 40's. I have a much better perspective on any psychedelic experience than I did in my youth. I didn't try DMT until about three years ago. I revisited psychedelics after almost 20 years of not using anything at all besides marijuana. I really take much more from it now than I ever did.

So are others your age accepting of DMT? Or does it seem to be only those who were familiar with psychedelics in their younger years?

You don't have to answer these questions if you do not want to, I'm not trying to get into anything personal, it's just:

...Often when I bring the topic up to individuals in their 40s and beyond who we're not familiar with psychedelics in their younger years its received quite poorly. Most get the idea that the psychedelic experience is some type of drug induced psychotic break, or some negative psychotomimitic ordeal fraught with the potential menace of death or permanent insanity, which could not possibly be beneficial in any way, that these claims must be drug addled delusional bombast generated by the fried freak mind of a hedonistic drug pusher ...and when I try to explain that this is something beautiful, and that it's not at all what your culture influenced perceptions and drug war miseducation leads you to believe, I'm dismissed immediately, which is fine, it's not my job to convince others to consume these things, but it's also a bit disheartening, as it appears that during the later years in life these substances could be the most benneficial.

It's not like I go around promoting these things, people approach me, I'm always working in my notebook, or reading a book, and people will approach me and ask what I'm doing, needless to say it's not always received well when I enthusiastically begin to explain.

I smoked a good deal of cannabis extract before I wrote this, and tended to venture off into threads relating to the topic which were unnecessarily literary ...you begin to write and play with words rather than focus much on content, you forget this isn't for the fun of writing, this is a response...

Any way...

-eg

Most people do not know how to take mckenna, but I won't get into that now, some advice though, rather than thinking about what he is telling you think about why he is telling you these things. Terence McKenna was incredibly intelligent, and much can be gained from his work, but again, most have no idea how to take McKenna, and again, I won't get into that here.

I feel he practiced everything he preached. Just because he stopped consuming mushrooms later in life does not erase everything that mushrooms had taught him during his life, it doesn't erase all those life changing psychedelic events which he experienced, and it surly doesn't erase all the things those experiences taught him, and how they forever changed himself and his perception of existance. He never promoted life long psychedelic use, it was more related to getting people to even have just a single psychedelic experience in their life. I think the fact that he stopped using mushrooms later in life changes nothing.

...speaking of practicing what he preached, terence, Kat, and others purchased land in Hawaii and founded "botanical dimensions" an organization which collects, cultivates and saves valuable and threatened plant life, as well as the mythology, lore, and details regarding human use relating to these amazing plants. Terence and Denis also wrote one of the first psilocybin mushroom grow guides under the pseudonyms O.T. odd and O.N. O'eric. And through out his life terence actually did more for the psychedelic community than most give him credit for.

You can learn a lot from terence, but even terence said that the stupidest outcome of all this would be some type of terence McKenna cult, that would demonstrate that his point was entirely missed and misunderstood.

I don't watch TV, I don't like sports, I don't obsess over movies or rock stars, when I want to be entertained, I smoke some hash and throw on some terence McKenna, these are thought provoking and mind bending concepts, it's always an intellectual journey to sit through McKenna lectures.


-eg

Squares are squares. I don't hang out with narrow minded folks. I think a majority of this culture in which we live is blind to what these experience have to offer. 20's, 30's, 40's...whatever. It's all across the board. It's all about individuals. It's about what people are exposed to and that shapes how open minded they are about psychedelics.

I don't ever speak with anyone about my psychedelic use. Only a few good friends know about my interest in psychedelics. When I do feel ok to enter into a discussion about psychedelic, people are always shocked that I am a psychonaut. I don't look the part. I don't advertise. I am just an everyday average blue collar guy that took great interest in psychedelics. My mind always seemed geared towards it.

I feel like there are likely plenty of everyday joe's out there that are just like me, psychonauts quietly exploring the weird and odd realm of psychedelics. I would love to have a psychedelic circle of friends. It's hard to find that sort of thing at my age so perhaps you are on to something.

I have found is that it is much easier to speak about Ayahuasca nowadays. I am baffled as to why aya has become so trendy all of the sudden. I have mentioned that I have tried Ayahuasca and am met with interest and wonder about what it is like. When I mention DMT I get blank stares and I feel like some look at it like it's a hardcore drug. I hope eventually psychedelics will be accepted in our weird culture we live in right now. It seems to be heading in that direction right now, fingers crossed.

How do you think your perspective will be on psychedelics when you arrive into you're 40's? I find just as many close minded millennials as I do generation X. And I would add that many millennials are just as dismissive about psychedelics as any other generation, if not more.

Hey Elmo, thanks for your reply, that means a lot to me. I understand what you say about not wanting anything to influence your own dmt experience but you'll probably find your dmt experience will be very much your own regardless. When I said Mckenna's dmt experience description may have influenced mine, I listened to him describe the same experience, which he admitted was an amalgamation of many experiences, at least 20 times in many different talks. And I'm sure many people come to the machine elf greeting hall without having heard Mckenna's story. Best of luck with your extraction and return home! And do share your experience. If you're anything like me, you'll feel a desire to share it with the group. Again according to Mckenna, sharing it with the group is part of what the experience is about.


re older people using dmt for the first time, I think you're right that it usually requires previous psy experience. Too much old dogs, new tricks syndrome otherwise. The one exception might be as dmnstr8 suggests, with aya, maybe because it's so often described as a healing process that's been used for millennia rather than as a drug.

I try not to be too one eyed about the word "drug" though. I mean I have no intention of ever using heroin, meth, cocaine etc but I can accept there's plenty of people who can use those things carefully and have perfectly normal, responsible, happy, productive lives, despite the addiction horror stories. I find this myself with ket and benzos, two substances I find very useful in moderation despite all the sad stories about people misusing them and getting addicted or having horrible withdrawals.

As for talking to uninitiated people about psys, I don't. I found, maybe as you have that there's nothing to be gained but plenty can be lost (eg friends, respect). I think people who come to psys need to do it on their own hook. I talk about psys only with a small group who are well versed in their use and ofc here and on other boards.

Don't get me wrong about Terence. I have the utmost respect for what he did and said. I just wonder if things might have been better both for him and his audience if he had talked publicly about this shroom trip that was so scary that he never did shrooms again. Maybe it was too personal or painful, but he talked about many of his other trips and about fear.