My beliefs were leaning toward atheism and naturalism. Being in my mid 30s I felt it was time to challenge myself and upset the apple cart a bit. Similar to others on this board I think people are stuck in their heads too much. I like the idea of experiential knowledge which is more of an Eastern tradition rather than just a cerebral mind "knowing" common in the West. Simply giving mental assent to facts doesn't mean you really know something.

Anyway below is my experience with DMT and I am interested to hear any other people's stories with DMT, mushrooms, or other psychs.


Background:

I bought a gram of DMT to vape in my Yocan Evolve pen with no prior experience with psychs. I tried mushrooms several times about 18 years ago but those memories are faded and mainly consist of being an emotional mess. I listened to the JRE cast with Mike Tyson where Joe and Mike talk about DMT at length and it all sounded so cool. I liked the idea of killing my ego and being a more humble and gentle person which seemed to be what I saw with Mike Tyson.

My first trip experience was pretty good. I had closed eye visuals of patterns and shapes which was vivid and trippy. This was what I expected and kind of how I assumed LSD and DMT was like. This only lasted a short time but it was enough that I was hooked and really wanted to experience more. During this period I was reading more online and starting to understand that the goal was to reach "breakthrough". Following my first trip I had several failed attempts where I never got off the ground and just had a body high. The body high was anxious energy but still kind of cool and left a lingering positive afterglow feeling of being high. Following those failed attempts I was frustrated with wasting product and not having any real psych experience. I decided for my next trips to do really big hits to ensure I would blast off...

The Trip:

My first mistake is not having a scale to measure dosage accurately. I loaded my pen with way more product than I ever did before with hopes of reaching breakthrough. I had heard people talk about the "void" where you take too much and just blast past everything and there is nothing. I was hoping not to end up in the void but to achieve breakthrough and maybe meet some entities and have a spiritual experience.

I take an absolute massive hit and hold it in as long as I can. As the drug takes hold I am shot out very quickly into a black space. It is dark and quiet for about 1 second and then the trip starts.

I am immediately stuck in a loop. It is like the movie groundhog day where I just keep repeating the same 3 seconds over and over and over. It was like being stuck inside a GIF where you ARE the GIF. The moment I realize I am stuck in a loop it starts over. It was almost like a joke was being told and the moment I heard the punchline the whole joke started at the beginning. I knew in the deepest way possible that this was eternal and I was stuck here forever. I started to panic about being stuck in this loop and I could never escape. I had a fleeting thought that I would be in a psych ward stuck like this. I thought to myself this is how people go crazy. This is what the inside of crazy feels like. Then slowly my mind began to put words to the experience.

You are dying - so this is what dying feels like. You are dying - so this is what dying feels like. You are dying - so this is what dying feels like. You are dying - so this is what dying feels like....once this idea reached my conscious mind I totally panicked and had the sense I was fighting for my life. It felt like those near death experiences where someone is dead and has the choice to live or die. I felt like if I didn't fight in that moment I would die. Meanwhile the narrative switched to: So this is what a heart attack feels like - So this is what a heart attack feels like - So this is what a heart attack feels like. I needed to get help or I would die.

I jumped out of my bed and started yelling "HELP HELP HELP" at the top of my lungs.

The next thing I remember is I am downstairs lying on my back and my mom and my wife are looking down at me. I am still high as **** and very scared. I am telling them I am having a heart attack. My mom is about to call 911. Finally I blurt out "its drugs, I am on drugs!!!". My wife realizes I am just high and hauls me upstairs. I am still super scared this looping will start again so I demand she stays with me.

I give her my vape pen and remaining 1/2 gram of DMT and tell her to throw them away. I am a frantic hot mess at this point. My wife is super pissed off but I make her stay with me and snuggle up to her for about 5-10 min and let some of the high wear off. As I slowly come down I realize I am free and not dying which is a huge relief.

It was just so completely terrifying and I was in a sort of shock the rest of the evening until I went to bed at around 11:00 PM. It really was a near death experience and even the following day I am still kind of reeling and emotionally on edge.



The Fallout:

The DMT wasn't my biggest problem. The big issue was my wife, mom, and kids. My wife and mom didn't know I was doing this. I had left work a few hours early since I had a head cold so I was having a nap in the afternoon around 4:30 PM. After the whole **** storm of going down stairs and telling them I was having a heart attack and screaming for help needless to say they were shaken up. My family is all conservative Christians so this did not go over well. My wife has been pretty cool and understanding with my interest in psychs but this went too far. I spent the rest of the night doing damage control and apologizing to my wife and mom about DMT and trying to explain it to them.

Are you sure what you had was DMT and not 5-MeO or something else entirely?

Never done either but I hear the experiences are much different, with 5-MeO more likely to produce a negative experience.

I've received reports from friends of similar experience to yours from smoking salvia.

Interesting story. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from it. I've had positive experiences with LSD (quite a long time ago) but from the stories I've read about DMT I've never really had much desire to experiment with it.

My general impression of people who are enthusiastic about psychedelics from a philosophical standpoint (e.g. people who might talk about "knowing" and DMT in the same sentence) is that I think they are conflating interesting perceptual experiences (and the knowledge you might gain from those about the nature of subjective consciousness?) and objective knowledge about the world. I've never understood why people who take psychoactive drugs sometimes think that the altered states are more fundamentally real than non-altered states. If anything, my conclusion from my own experiences was mostly a greater awareness of the difference between perception and reality.

I didn't test it or anything so I suppose it could have been something else but I specifically requested DMT and from what I have read online it does seem to be DMT.

Yes and the subculture of DMT is specifically very interesting. I have been spending more time after my experience reading on DMT Nexus and the DMT subreddit. It is common for people to have what are called "breakthrough" experiences on DMT and then interact with entities. People who use mushrooms also at times report interacting with entities as well.

To be honest I don't know what to think but to say the least it is really interesting. I know that you are familiar with the conversation around consciousness and how complex it is. The interesting thing about DMT is you are presented with a lot of "stuff" and then you kind of need to make sense of it later.

There seems to be two main schools of thought. Some people claim these experiences are all in your head and manifestations of your subconscious mind. This is the view most people not involved with psychs hold.

The other perspective is that these altered states are actually people being transferred to a different realm and interacting with real entities.

I reserve judgement either way but my curiosity is piqued. Even if these experiences are all just your subconscious it is still very interesting to see what surfaces and to access parts of your mind that have hitherto been explored.

However, given my bad experience I am slowing down mucho. Consciousness is one of the great mysteries we as mankind really have not fully explored and I think these substances like Ayahuasca/DMT/mushrooms are keys of sorts.

Having said that I think there are some concerns with sanity to just put it bluntly. In my DMT experience I felt I was going crazy and would never come back. I think there are dangers with prolonged use of people becoming disconnected from what we know as the real world. If not disconnected then at least the line between this world and trippy dippy land can become blurred.

Yeah, I'm vaguely familiar with some of those claims, especially from people who use DMT. The argument I've heard (but can't really evaluate) is that people think it must be an objectively real realm because of shared details between different people's experiences. Obviously I'm skeptical.

Definitely. DMT just seems a bit intense for my tastes

Yeah, I think that makes sense.

I’m not a drugs are bad mkay kind of guy but inhaling massive doses of hallucinogens in the same house as your unsuspecting wife and kids seems pretty irresponsible to me.

There is a great little bit in Peep Show that touches on this. No time for an animated GIF, so I'll transcribe it. (But like, go youtube it, because its actually amusing if you watch it rather than read it).

Jeremy: ...[Y]ou might want to make yourself scarce because we're going to be taking some magic mushrooms.
Mark: Magic mushrooms?
Jeremy: Yes, and we're gonna smash down the doors of perception so we can see all the stuff that...
Mark: Isn't really there.
Jeremy: That is really there but we don't normally see because we're so transfixed on...
Mark: The stuff that is really there.
Jeremy: Oh, it's so simple for you, isn't it? But the truth that you're so scared of hearing is that in fact reality and fantasy are exactly the same thing.

I've never done any type of drug and don't have anything to add but I found your experience interesting. Thanks for sharing.

I've never used any hallucinogen so my comment is not based on experience, but it seems very disturbing that the experience of external entities is so incredibly common. This can't be good.

I would assume that it is a lot easier to experience external entities if people tell you beforehand that this is whats going to happen and especially if this is what you are doing it for.

Clearly you are not saying every person who ever experienced the feeling of external entities had the idea seeded from someone else? Your statement on it's face does not contain much explanatory information.

• How do we know how much if any of a DMT induced experience is affected by external suggestion?
• Do we know how many had the experience and did not have prior knowledge of the external entities experience?

I've been stuck in similar loops on high dosages of shrooms.

It's two things mainly. For one, you had a bad trip. It happens; particularly if doing it on your own the first time with no one to remind you that you're "just trippin". And you weren't wrong about one thing by the way. You did go insane. Now you can empathize with insane people, congratulations. You can also understand why some choose suicide perhaps.

Secondly, it's a lack of experience. Most of my trips start as bad trips. Knowing this and just letting go; letting it take you on a journey; letting go of control; this transform it into a good trip. What it wants most of you, is what you want to offer it least: control. It is a kind of unspoken requirement that you must surrender; have faith; and all will be good. This requirement is also a reason why some smoke weed before or during - help them to surrender.

Also why I would not recommend hallucinogens to uptight people, control freaks and those who take all of this a little too seriously. It's not for everyone.

Attempts to rationalise the irrational will only take you further into insanity. Just let go and embrace all it has to show you, indiscriminantly, good or bad. Think of yourself as a passive observer. When it finally settles down a little, you can begin to experiment with some levels of control.

All Im saying is this:

If I were to tell my friends about a DMT "breakthrough" and described it as "I was in the realm of gods, talking to our entities" or whatever.

I can already tell you in advance who will try it and also who is most likely to come back claiming to have experienced the same.

Thats why I dont find it disturbing that many people claim that experience. Especially in drug circles, because if you take DMT you know people who take DMT. And aside from some crazy people, most people have heavy respect for drugs and would never take a drug without someone experienced guideing them through it.

I think there is a kind of communication with something 'other' - something that seems to understand you better than you understand yourself.

However, this communication is non-traditional, in the sense that you're not actually talking to anyone or listening to anyone. You're understanding someone or something's view of you, without talking or listening.

You could describe it as Alien, definitely. But you can't with any certainty say that's it's aliens. That's silly imo.

Your reasoning still does not wash. People who talk about "aliens" seem disproportionately to talk about unpleasant or at least unfriendly experiences with these "aliens". They seem to intrude into an experience where people are, foolishly in my opinion, trying to gain some kind of insight into their own mind. If it's purely suggestive as you are claiming then it would be trivial to steer the mental whims of people to believe there are no aliens. I would think people would want to avoid the unpleasant exercise.

From my understanding and Terence Mckenna speaks about this on Youtube, you have to take another hit, this is very important, once you think you are there and its working, you need to take 1 more big hit!!!

If you don't there's a chance you end up with a negative experience and nervousness etc. Not the out of body experience and no machine elves, no entities etc.!

What I find the hardest to believe is that while on DMT or other drugs, people claim to talk to God, Aliens, entities from other worlds.

Let me ask you a simple question, if they exist and clearly to these people they exist,so lets assume they exist, why are they making it next to impossible to talk to them? Why do we have to go through some much trouble and take drugs?

Wouldn't it be easier for them to communicate with us when we are clear minded, logical and not high as a kite?

Are there verifiable examples of people who have solved problems they previously could not solve after taking DMT?

It wouldn't be evidence either way, but it would at least support the notion that you are expanding your mind beyond merely believing you have done so.

Not that I doubt that people might feel they have achieved or done something profound after doing psychedelics. But a sensation of such things might be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you expect it to give you a spiritual or mind-broadening experience, it is more likely to. Give a person a random yoga exercise without telling him what it is, I suspect not much will happen. Give him the whole enchilada about personal growth and I expect the chances are much higher the person would feel something has happened.

Good question.

There's many anecdotes out there of people solving personal problems and artistic problems in music and other arts; not sure how reliable much of this would be.

I'm sorry but opening post is hysterical. But congrats on still taking risks like a teenager.

I'm pretty sure that is accurate. That is not a professional opinion, more of a layman's opinion for being a (hobbyist) creative artist for a decent amount of years. Changing how you experience should certainly affect the creative process.

That said, it is not something I have used. I want my creative process to stem from my "normal me", so that it is always there and without much need for artificial inducement. That might very be more a result of my general distrust of drugs than anything else, however.

There is also something to be said for an analytical approach to creativity. Not in the sense of a mechanical approach to "how things should be", but in the sense of examining the traits and patterns of what you like and dislike. so more "why do these things affect me".

Nah, DMT just makes this so real that people believe it happened.

Good read:
Rick Strassmann "DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences"

His patients got DMT shot in the veins, do a two minute trip, come back and some of them absolutely swear to god that they talked to alien lifeforms. even though beeing pretty experienced with hallucinogenes. strassman even compares his notes with the ones of psychologists treating persons who believe they have been obducted by aliens: if you leave out DMT both read nearly identical. because, strassmann claims, DMT is responsible for those abduction-patients.

and this OP, amazes me: taking DMT after only having had some mushrooms two decades back. this really makes me question what you read about DMT in the first place. DMT is a 600 horsepower bigblock where mushrooms and even LSD are mere bicycles. the human body produces DMT when a womes gives birth to negate the absoluet horrible pains and in the moment of your death nearing. so taking DMT is a self-induced near death experience - but a nice one for some.

also with all hallucinogenes "set" and "setting" are important. yeah, I know hippie speach in a time where consumption is everything. read about and take what you want from it. but please don't ever take DMT without a second person beeing sober around you and knowing what you do.

cause then things like this don't happen:

(made me laugh real hard, sorry).

Still makes me wonder though, the fact that it seems so real, have you ever thought about DMT mimicking actual death. So the mind thinks you are dying as a result goes into this next dimension, where we end up anyways after death.

The fact that DMT sends you to these places, the fact that many people have the same visions, the same entities, some while in a group sessions have similar experiences, these can't be coincidences. You get cheered on the other side, once you break through, as if these entities are waiting for us to die and enter their world.

While I truly believe a "real" God does not exist, there might be Aliens and other life forms far beyond our own intelligence, something I think about is perhaps a system that's in place for when we die, that they have built.

That system is automatic, programmed to get you out of your body and into another dimension. This all seems far fetched and obviously it is, but it explains why people on DMT go to these dimensions and experience the things they do.

Im not claiming that. I just dont think it is disturbing that people claim supernatural encounters because once someone articulates this idea within that community - these claims are inevitable.

Whether they are suggestive or actually happen, is not for me to judge.