I'm a new member to the Nexus, what's up?! I just got into this whole trade and I am loving what I am learning with it all. I just can't seem to put my finger on how a breakthrough is defined for this entheogen. I will sum up what I mean with a few trip reports.

My first experience involved a reptilian-like memory of some sort in which I, a lizard type form and a sea of other lizards dudes like myself were climbing this tower of light in helix trajectories. It felt somewhat imaginary while visualizing the tower but very real while looking at the other reptilian non-communicating comrades.

One time the first thing I saw was a Mayan calendar-type pattern but just a little different, then I was viewing this tiny tiny rectangular prism room with one short (elf-like?) being who almost looked like a Lego character. It was moving through the room and levitating back and forth seemingly bringing something up to a window at the top and I got the sense that it was just me and this other entity doing this activity somewhere totally unfamiliar x 1000000000.

Another experience involved essentially just laying in a gelatinous kind of atmospheric suspension and being bounced around by giant jester-type characters with very vivid, detailed psychedelic masks and costumes. I also remember an animate bucket tipping over and spilling happy animate fluid in a stair-step pattern with like 9 of these jesters passing me around in a slow, bouncy fashion saying "Oh, isn't he precious?" in the form of facial expressions and simple tones very tongue-in-cheek.

All of these trips felt like "fade-throughs" to me. Perceived entity contact doesn't necessarily mean a breakthrough does it? One time I felt like my contact with reality was completely chopped off very quickly and I had extreme ego death; I felt like I didn't have a body yet I was somehow going to have to endure a bunch of intense experiences that would... I dunno, serve justice.

I felt the momentum of the theater of the mind start to pull me into a scenario of complete alienation and loneliness for eternity, so I got scared and managed to escape panic by opening my eyes (I probably missed the trip by doing this though). I was seriously freaking out, the few visuals I did have were of shiny cat like creatures tossing objects through my body and retrieving them like boomerangs, I interpreted the looks in their eyes and the chaotic atmosphere of hyperspace to be mocking all of my character flaws suggesting that my imperfect soul is their plaything forever to put in these odd uncomfortable places and that my life is just a temporary escape from such hell.

Very peculiar, I still think about it but oddly it doesn't bother me. It was very scary when it happened though.

I can also remember a positive version of ego death before when I'd just close my eyes and visualize *diamond fractals collapse until I'm just visualizing one diamond and I feel this unity consciousness, but these comfortable trips sometimes felt a little fake while the extreme scary isolation trips felt like the real deal. Should I have surrendered to the terrifying level 5 void state instead of opening my eyes? Was that a real breakthrough? I regret opening my eyes but I couldn't shake anticipating going through a lot of painful experiences before the cool universal parts (constructing cities, growing plants, seeing atoms, molecules, imagining yourself as different fractal systems of energy, etc.) Does DMT "tease" you with these goofy fadethroughs as if to say "sorry, pal you didn't do enough!"? It sure seems to have a personality of it's own. Sometimes it's amazing, sometimes it's extremely weird and sometimes it's terrifying. Could anybody at least give me a clue as to what is going on here? Is everyone here just as confused as me? How do you define a breakthrough?

Those sound like wonderful and valuable experiences, even if a few of them were a bit frightening. I am new here too, so I don't have a grasp on exactly what the community views exactly as a "breakthrough", but what you describe I personally would consider most of those breakthrough level trips.

As for surrendering during those terrifying trips, it is probably the most useful thing to do. Often time rolling with the punches makes it ease off sooner for me. I have had my share of terror trips with extreme panic, so I know how hard it can be to surrender. I certainly haven't been able to every time, or even most of the time, but when I can it usually ends up being very valuable, and the rough part passes faster than if I sit up or start freaking out.

Defining a breakthrough for me: Every one is different, but what most have in common is immersion and meaningfulness for me. I have gone on some incredible journeys with clear messages on relatively small doses, where I am in another place, but aware of my lungs and heart beat, but I still consider it a breakthrough.

I have also often taken my normal breakthrough dose and just laid there with awesome CEV's and watched intricate patterns, maybe see some weird landscape and enjoyed the body buzz. But if there is no communication, interaction, lesson or information exchange, and I am not fully gone from here and over "there" I don't consider that a breakthrough.

If you don't consider the experiences you describe in your post as full breakthroughs, what would you consider a breakthrough? It's hard to tell what other people are experiencing, but you're articulate and you described what I would personally consider solid breakthrough experiences.

well strange visions can happen on cannabis , lsd , or even while dreaming

imagination can even open up on microdoses of DMT

so what is the difference ? how does one know they really broke through ?or were they just imagining stuff and day dreaming ?


well this test never fails -

turn on the music at a little loud yet comfortable volume while blasting off to hyperspace ,

if the music can be heard than its not a real breakthrough if its a real breakthrough only one pure tone or a couple of tones will be heard , these tone/tones will sound like a jet engine and will be extremely loud ,this is the carrier wave , this can last from minute to the entire duration of the experience , yet it mostly lasts a minute or two max after which the mind gets occupied with other things ,

this carrier wave can also be sometimes absent from the experience, yet there will still be deafning silence to the external music and sounds for the entire duration of the experience

point is if the external music can be heard its not a breakthrough

if the music loops , glitches and does other weird stuff , then its a sub breakthrough , also remember subreakthroughs can be strong or weak

if the music plays proper and can be enjoyed , then smoalk moar , untill total deafness to the external world arises

also strong breakthroughs with a strong carrier waves last about 20 minutes with afterglow of 1 hour

and the stronger the breakthrough , stronger is its carrier wave

edit : also smoalk it all in one hit

Those all sound like breakthroughs.

Have you looked into making changa? It's a bit more mellow and quite nice.

Happy Travels,
wap

those all sound like breakthroughs. I've tried DMT 4 times and all of them have been sub-breakthroughs, no where near what you describe.

Hey, thanks for replying everybody! Everyone had input I was able to appreciate. I guess this stuff isn't as cut and dry in the way people would normally think about things. Jin, I like your suggestion, and it actually triggered a memory about one of my breakthroughs. The one where I got scared and opened my eyes, I couldn't hear or recognize my music that was playing. Sometimes the lightshows and storyboards are just viewed as layers on top of the black void of my closed eyelids and I can still hear the music normally. I think the deeper or "real" breakthroughs distort time MUCH heavier than a lighter DMT buzz. I can say though that I've actually never heard one of these carrier waves or the crunching sound either. I usually do try to smoalk it all in one hit, sometimes with the 2L bottle w/ dipped aluminum foil base (more intense) and sometimes mixed with Cannabis (more mellow).



I definitely agree with you, it's so hard to tell because 1.the experiences are indescribable and 2.even if you can explain it well, you never know how it's going to be interpreted, and humans have a lot of trouble interpreting anything correctly or objectively let alone complete, accurate details of an intense psychedelic experience that can only be seen and felt one time from a unique human perspective. I also agree about surrendering. This is my biggest trouble I think with DMT. There's little time to ease into the trip, it's kinda like "You might be in for way more than you bargained for, but it's too late to go back now, let's get going shall we?" whereas on other psychedelics you have more time to gradually come up. I was able to surrender to ego death on LSA after passively avoiding it for a while and it was definitely one of the most powerful, positive trips of my life, but I was with friends, in the woods, smoking cannabis, and I had all of this beauty, comfort and familiarity to meditate within. With DMT you're offered a very different and unique experience, but you have to let go of your immediate environment completely, the thought of which doesn't scare me on its surface, but then when I face it, I nearly piss myself! By the way, most of these breakthrough experiences I describe here were on ~35mg, some 25mg and others 40-50mg. I've never done any more than 50mg.

Sometimes there is a very distinct point where things really shift, and other times not at all. I think the names can be useful but mostly just in conveying the level of intensity. They can be misleading if we look at them as very discrete levels with x set of effects here and x set of effects there and forget that these are just categories we've created for the convenience of languaging it, and that it's not necessarily clear cut. It can evolve quite a bit over time to.

Harmalas for example really extend or enhance what you can experience on DMT at all doses, but even with DMT on it's own it is not uncommon to have fully formed visions, entities, and a whole host of bizarre and orgasmic/revelatory experiences at doses many wouldn't consider 'breakthrough' level but in between, and still a glimmer of that at even lower doses can be experienced, especially if your brainwave state is low. It can be like perceiving an object that's a few feet below the surface of the water at lower doses.

There might not be such a distinct shift between imagining something and experiencing other dimensions of being, if that is really what is happening. I don't know, but to me the imagination and hyperspace become more and more one and the same, which leads me to wonder if consciousness itself involves non-locality in some way. It's always been very interesting to observe that point where things seamlessly shift from something being imagined to something being experienced fully formed. It's how the stuff McKenna was obsessed with occurs for me, that mind boggling object that is your imagination exteriorized, but it's something inherent to consciousness generally.

Remember the neuro-imaging study of the visual cortex on ayahuasca, where it behaved as if the people were really seeing the things they were "imagining"?


Jin, that's an interesting way to look at it and sometimes it has been like that for me with music, but not always, so I don't know how of an good indicator it is for everyone's experiences.

Right, that's pretty much exactly what I meant when I said sometimes it's just a layer of objects superimposed over the view of my closed-eyelids. I'm not in that space with them, but I am aware of them, and I can visualize them almost as if behind a transparent membrane. But yea, I was wondering if I was alone in any of this stuff because I have friends who need at least 50mg but they usually take 100mg for one dose and 100mg would be an absolute disaster for me I think... I wondered why they needed so much and they wondered how I could breakthrough on 35mg. I like my method though: I do LSA, LSD, DMT, MDMA, Psilocybin (if available), MXE/Ketamine and of course, Cannabis. I also like extracted DXM if MXE/Ketamine isn't available. I rotate between all of these substance tripping maybe once or twice a month. It's cool because for the most part the doses I've started with on all of them are the same doses I use now. I haven't upped my dosage on anything yet. 1 tab is always enough LSD for me. ~40mg is always enough DMT for me. 0.2g is always enough MDMA for me (usually more than enough). 70mg is always enough MXE/Ketamine for me. So on and so forth. Sometimes I take a tiny bit less than these numbers, sometimes I take a bit more, but generally these are my doses.

I've had longer DMT-style "fade-throughs" on LSA+Cannabis, LSD, Ketamine, DXM, and MXE with eyes closed. I used to be a big OEV fan, but now I'm in love with CEVs. I should probably get good mushrooms and try eating more, because I bet I could do this with Psilocybin as rumored, but I just rarely ever get the opportunity to do mushrooms. Regardless, it's awesome knowing I can maintain this tolerance and get the most out of enjoying these things.

I also wanted to say this forum has pleasantly surprised me by perfectly reflecting what I had in mind when I joined the nexus. It's basically a bunch of chill people passionately interested in the most obscure thing known to man and all of the tantalizing questions it raises, and because we all already know that, we understand and relate to each other much quicker and easier despite the fact that we're discussing the most difficult subject matter in the world. It's neat!

What you describe as a fade through sounds to me like a medium to high dose of a psychedelic, where you can drift into CEVs and complex psychedelic thought if you make an effort, but not enough of a dose to force such experiences. For me these type of experiences can be even more valuable (if not as smashingly impressive) than a full blown forced breakthrough. I can often guide or direct the experience more at such a level, and it seems to me like I remember more detail, thus bringing more insight and value back when I come down.

CEVs on mushrooms are incredibly rewarding for me, very similar to DMT experiences. I find I have clear CEV's on even light doses of mushrooms, if I pay attention. Psilocybin with an MAOI is also quite the beautiful thing, and changes the character in a positive way and will stretch your mushrooms quite a bit further, I highly recommend it.

If you like psilocybin and have a hard time sourcing it, why not try growing your own? It is quite easy and inexpensive, and can be done in a very stealthy manor if required.

As for 'breakthroughs' - i personally feel that the term is too black and white for me. I mean plenty of times entities will come into my living room a
and the experience will be fully immersive and meaningful. Other times I get thrust into a bizarre landscape and not much else happens, just 5 mins of weird. Which is more valuable? Which would I rather repeat?

I must admit I do wince when I hear of these 100mg doses. It's difficult to imagine how anyone could comfortably consume that much. I suppose vaping techniques make a huge difference. I would also caution against vaping off foil. It's not a good plan long term.

Exactly! Why does it have to be that way I wonder? You can't ever know what to expect, but what happens is so different every time. I really don't enjoy the trips where I'm thrust into a bizarre landscape and not much else happens. This one trip was literally just a severed finger-like limb wiggling around on a table and as the camera panned up viewing the finger in birds eye-view floating away, I became completely filled, nae, I was overflowing with the sensation of complete and total shame/embarrassment. Like I made the worst mistake one could possibly make and the whole universe saw. No logical connection to why I should feel that way, no explanation as to what the finger is all about. Just the finger and the shame. What gives, right? Why the hell would anybody wish to repeat such an experience? LOL, but at the same time, if you don't risk repeating it, you close off the opportunities for better, more meaningful ones. I feel that this is really not a hobby for the faint of heart; this is strictly for the most curious and courageous truth-seekers and personal explorers.

And about the foil: I hear ya! I haven't done dmt in a while now, but I think I'm just going to stick with lower doses in a glass bowl with cannabis for now, until I can get more adjusted. The really fast breakthroughs are too much for me right now, I need time to ease into such a state. Maybe if I get comfortable enough, I'll actually go out and get an appropriate vaporizer, because not only are the foil methods unhealthy, they're also pretty wasteful (too much vapor escapes from these makeshift devices).

Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I had some jungle spice a long time ago, and had some of the most amazing other worldly experiences then came sliding back into my body. I'd love to have those type of experiences again.

Recently though I've been having some playful entity toy with me consistently. The same character... I've been having a rough time lately with a large transition in my life and I was sitting in front of the TV (ambient music station) and vaped. My vision was controlled onto the TV where the entity moved speakers, shifted the tv angle and then finally manipulated the text on the TV, it was going forward then backwards then exploding out 3d style. Controlling every visual aspect of the experience. Saying to me that every one of my doubts and failures is me, everything that is a result of what is going right or wrong is me...hard to explain in short but it correlated to everything that was being moved and shifted on the television and surrounding.

The next trip a day later broke through instantly, same type of thing, open eye, I looked at my legs and I'd have pants on, socks on, then pants off, shoes on, socks off. Clothing shifting, the legs rolled up, then rolled down (jeans). Objects in different places in the room shifting around. It's been really bizarre of late.

The one thing that tripped me out most of all is the tiny flat blade screw driver that I used to spoon a bit of freebase onto my changa ended up on the mantle piece around 2 m away from where it started. Perfectly aligned in the center of the mantle, you couldn't have placed it there any more perfectly. As thing became a little normal I saw that the backdoor was wide open also.

Haven't been able to make much of that....I'm not terribly bothered by it but can't find a rational explanation for it. It kind of defies logic and I'm a pretty level headed logical guy.

I got off point however I think it's really hard to define a breakthrough. It seems to transition with your mental state.