Hey guys, I've always been unclear as to what a breakthrough actually is.

Normally in my trips I don't have a body. I dissolve in to the trip and become one with it. It's astonishing, beautiful, profound, alien, magical etc etc. This is definitely beyond just CEV's. This is a fully immersive experience but I'm not aware of my body during it.

Now a week ago on my second trip of the night it had a different quality to it. At first I thought nothing was happening. I was aware of my body, in fact it felt like I had my eyes open and I could see my body but reality had changed. Whether I had my eyes open or closed I was still in the room, but the room was twisted and alien and almost plasticine like. My body was part of the room in the same alien plasticine fashion. I suddenly felt like I was stuck in an alternate reality and felt a little panic rising in me. Like I had come back but not to the same place I was before. Then a thought came to me 'You always come back'. I relaxed and just observed.

It had a solid photo realistic aspect to it rather than the usual neon psychadelia and it felt like my eyes were open all the time, in fact I could not get away from it, I was stuck. I was an object in a 3D reality rather than just flowing like neon energy as I usually do.

It was a totally different experience to my normal trips. I wonder was this the beginning of a breakthrough? I remember Mckenna talking about how when you're in 'that place' you have all your faculties intact. You can check if you're breathing, see your body etc. I'd never had that in my trips until now.

Was this a breakthrough?

I think breaking through is a bit of a grey area and I would say there are different types of breakthrough, eyes open for example but the most definitive break through is when you go unconscious, start breathing in that specific way and also do a some puppet like movements.
Of course you need a sitter to tell you all of this but when you come back from hyperspace and your in a state of shock and tripping hard, you know you just had ticket to the big show.
Or maybe that's just me .
To answer your question I'd say yes you did break through but I'm sure there are more qualified people here to answer your question.
Good luck

That sounds like a break through to me... although breakthroughs are subjective to the user. This means my trip(s) will be wild and insane and your trip(s) will be too. The only difference is when we explain it to each other, we will never really know exactly what the other means. So we use these umbrella terms to try and comprehend and relate our individual trips to everyone elses. There are some similarities but in reality (or in hyperspace, ), everyone's trips are vastly different.

When I am suddenly plunged into that "alternate reality" and everything and nothing makes sense, I tend to consider that a breakthrough of sorts. IMO, it is really just a term loosely meaning a "deep and profound journey."

Some may consider it a sub breakthrough. I think slapping labels on it doesn't really help one integrate. Was it profound? Did you gain any insight? Did it leave you with more questions than answers? Were you awestruck?

These are questions I ask myself at the end of a trip. So, I wouldn't worry too much about whether you are breaking through or not and just enjoy the ride!

Have fun and be safe!

I've had many breakthroughs, but only once have I become unconscious from psychedelic use and that was from my first and only attempt to combine DMT and salvia (go figure). I do not define the breakthrough experience with unconsciousness.

Based on the OP's description, it sounds more like all of the other experiences were breakthrough-like, with this most recent one as the sub-breakthrough.

I find this more interesting than most "breakthrough" reports I read... For personal reasons. I could speculate where you were and how but it probably doesn't matter. Were you outside your body at all? Do you think it was actually your room back in the same exact universe you left? You said you feel like you weren't in the same place as before. Did the plasticine quality feel like a visual distortion or like a physical characteristic of that reality?

I'm always interested in hearing about solid realities that are every bit as real as people feel this "consensus reality" is. Yours was a bit more plasticine, was it the only difference you noticed?

Ps it depends on how you define breakthrough. Different people have different definitions. I like the literal defintion: breaking through to another reality/state/plane of existence. It's when you stop being aware of the reality you left. It's just the definition I use because it's useful to me. There are wildly different definitions and I think most people agree the word is overused and often doesn't serve its purpose because it's seen as a goal in and of itself rather than a word to help describe something that happened.

How you describe it here^^^ is what I would call a "breakthrough", even though some would argue with that definition.

Psychedelics don't truly like definitions...

As soon as you think you've got them figured out, they'll throw you a curve-ball so fast & furiously that you'll think twice before doing any again.

One of the many definitions made in the forum:
semi breaktrough: one is observing or the observant what is experienced;
breaktrough: one no longer is observant but is becoming the experience itself.

Agreed. Also I really like the way you worded it "I dissolve in to the trip and become one with it." Yep.

Thanks for the replies guys.

Here's a recent trip report I wrote about my trauma releases during my trips - https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=65757

This happened during one of my 'normal' fully immersive trips where my body dissolved. I was definitely unconscious during it, with only fleeting glimpses of memory what normal reality was.

So during my normal trips as I said I have no body, I am the trip. I'm completely paralysed during it. It's not until the shaking starts at the end when I know who I am and that I have the ability to go with the shaking and I just let it happen. From reading your replies this does sound like a breakthrough.

This latest experience had a more photo realistic quality. More solid if you will. Instead of everything being made of bright coloured energy flowing at 1000 miles an hour running through me and around me until I merge with it, this was very much more static and slow but also very solid in a 3D kind of way. When I say 3D I mean that I was the observer in a 3D space. When I have my usual trips, 3D and space don't have any meaning. I just 'am' the trip.

In my usual trips there is no solidity, everything is vibration and colour. This other experience was solid chunks of things floating around either slowly or not moving at all. Much more like normal reality. It had the physical dynamics of normal reality but I wasn't in normal reality if that makes sense. In my usual trips the physical dynamics go out the window and there is no time for confusion, everything is happening so fast I don't have a chance to even think about it. I just let go and then thinking becomes meaningless.

In the latest experience I was very confused to begin with and I was in a different place although it resembled the room now when I look back on it. There was a 3D solid quality to it. Nothing made sense, I forgot who I was for sure. I had a friend next to me also tripping and he was like this weird giant head statue. That was all I could see to begin with. Just his head. I didn't really know what it was. I had no idea what was happening. He was laughing a lot as he usually does during his trips and this was quite unnerving. A giant head making this strange sound.

At one point he reached over to take the vaporizer and he had to physically unclasp my hand from it and take it as I couldn't make sense of what was happening.. It felt like he was teaching me something in a 'fatherly' way.

When I think about it, it felt like I was a new born baby surrounded by sensations but with no means of making any sense of it. Just pure sensitivity absorbing experience without cognitive thought to interpret it.

One other thing I forgot to mention was right at the beginning after I took my third hit my whole body went freezing cold and for a second I thought I was dying. I'd never had this before either.

I think these are both breakthrough experiences in a way. Just 2 amazing ways DMT can change our reality. One fully immersive eyes closed experience and the other more a regression to a state of pure sensitivity without cognitive thought to label what was happening.

What do you think?

why do you care?

what difference does it make?

it was what it was

I have only had this type of a breakthrough once and it was my most profound experience yet.
It was a massive overdose that did that to me vaping spice with my machine.
I assumed that is what happens to most people on most breathroughs... You live n learn I guess.

The most comfortable break through I've had was with Changa, it took me so gently from this world to that ..

I think the confusion might stem from different ways that we are using the word "unconscious." I understand the breakdown of subject/object in a breakthrough, but I don't believe that entails being unconscious. A state of unconsciousness implies that there is zero awareness whatsoever, and as such there can be no memories to be brought back from an unconscious state. The most common unconscious state in life is that of dreamless sleep. If the hallmark of a breakthrough were unconsciousness, then they couldn't be remembered.

Very True. I guess I use the word unconscious as asleep and unaware.
In my case, I went instantly into Hyperspace after a loud rip of a carrier wave, after some confusion as to what's going on I popped back to my surroundings. I could barely make out that my friend was sat next to me. Also I felt as if my body had half sunken into the ground I was lying on and then pop! back into hyperspace.
My friend later told me I looked like I'd gone to sleep then I sat up and started looking off to my left like I could see some one or some thing.
I've had numerous breakthroughs but that was the only one that gave me a cerebral high afterglow which lasted a few weeks.