DMT

Substances, legal or illegal, they all have a story to tell. DMT or N,N-dimethyltryptamine is a powerful, visual psychedelic which produces short-acting effects when vaped. It can also be used orally in combination with a MAOI, as in ayahuasca brews. It is naturally produced in the human body and by many plants. Throughout history, humanity has described contact with "others": angels, demons, spirits, elves, aliens, etc. A girl raised on tales of the Brothers Grimm may believe in faeries; a boy brought up on Edgar Allen Poe stories may believe in ghosts. Children of Hindu households may worship a pantheon of deities, while Muslim kids may bow to a single God. Staid atheists may be "born again" into Christianity. And so on. Individuals' ideas regarding the truth or "reality" of the existence of non-material beings, including gods or God, may change multiple times over the courses of their lives. Such beliefs can fade, disappear entirely, or be replaced by beliefs in the existence of other non-material beings. Psychedelic plants have been employed for thousands of years as spiritual tools, due to the perception that they can provide an experience of non-material realms, be they heavenly, hellish, or anything in between. Traditional ethnographic use of these plants for such purposes inspired the coining of "entheogen", a word that means to "generate God within". It is not uncommon to hear stories of agnostics or atheists "finding God" during their psychedelic trips and subsequently changing their views on the reality of spiritual realms and beings. Direct experience can be mighty persuasive. Even if that experience takes place solely within a mental landscape. Even if one was on drugs at the time. Under the influence of psychoactive plants or drugs, users have reported experiences of watching, receiving messages from, communicating with, and/or interacting with "non-human intelligent beings", hereafter described as "discarnate entities". "Discarnate entities" should be considered to encompass angels and aliens, demons and dragons, faeries and felines, elves and insectoids, ghosts and goblins, harlequins and humanoids, plant teachers and other creatures, even morphing machine minds and fractalline Fabergé footballs, as long as they're non-physical and seem sentient. Terence McKenna seemed inclined to believe that the DMT space is an independent reality populated with intelligent discarnate entities. DMT has been found to occur naturally in mammalian brains, The question as to what function DMT and related substances have in the mammalian body has not yet received a definite answer. DMT is structurally similar to serotonin which is well-known as a neurotransmitter in the mammalian brain. It has been suggested that DMT is also a neurotransmitter, but this has not been established. The history of human involvement with DMT probably goes back many thousands of years since DMT usage is associated with South American shamanism. The subjective effects of a good lungful of DMT are usually very intense, with consciousness usually overwhelmed by visual imagery. With eyes closed this may take the form of extremely complex, dynamic, geometric patterns, changing rapidly. Such a dose of DMT may produce a visual pattern consisting of overlapping annular patterns of small rhomboid elements all in saturated hues of red, yellow, green and blue, being refered to this as "the chrysanthemum pattern." The pattern itself seems to be charged with a Portentous energy. The state of consciousness characterized by amazing visual patterns seems to be a prelude to a more profound state, which subjects report as contact with entities described as discarnate, nonhuman or alien. A very articulate account of the subjective effects of vaping DMT is given by Terence McKenna in his talk Tryptamine Hallucinogens and Consciousness, in which he recounts his contact with what he calls "elves." As usual with tryptamine psychedelics there is normally no loss of ego, although large doses will produce unconsciousness and ego loss as well. There is often loss of body awareness. It is usually possible to think under the influence of DMT, but with larger doses it may become difficult to hold a thought, and sometimes confusion will occur. With a fully effective dose the experience is usually so bizarre that an inexperienced person may believe that he or she has died, or is dying, especially if body awareness is lost. If this belief arises then it is important to remember that one will survive and return to ordinary consciousness. Listed below are eight suggested interpretations of the DMT experience which imply answers (true or false) to some or all of the questions raised above. Some of these, like the experience itself, are bizarre, but at this stage any idea should be considered since in this matter the truth (to paraphrase J.B.S. Haldane) probably is not only stranger than we suppose but stranger than we can suppose. 1. There are no alien entities at all; it's merely subjective hallucination. The DMT state may be interesting, even extremely interesting, but really there are no independently-existing alien entities to be found. 2. DMT provides access to a Parallel or higher dimension, a truly alternate reality which is, in fact, inhabited by independently-existing intelligent entities forming (in the words of Terence McKenna) "an ecology of souls." 3. DMT allows awareness of processes at a cellular or even atomic level. DMT smokers are tapping into the network of cells in the brain or even into communication among molecules themselves. It might even be an awareness of quantum mechanical processes at the atomic or subatomic level. 4. DMT is, perhaps, a neurotransmitter in reptilian brains and in the older, reptilian parts of mammalian brains, Flooding the human brain with DMT causes the older reptilian parts of the brain to dominate consciousness, resulting in a state of awareness which appears totally alien (and sometimes very frightening) to the everyday monkey mind. 5. A non-human intelligent species created humans by genetic modification of existing primate stock then retreated, leaving behind biochemical methods for contacting them. The psychedelic tryptamines are chemical keys that activate certain programs in the human brain that were placed there intentionally by this alien species. 6. The realm to which DMT provides access is the world of the dead. The entities experienced are the souls, or personalities, of the departed, which retain some kind of life and ability to communicate. The realm of dead souls, commonly accepted by cultures and societies other than that of the modern West, is now accessible using DMT. 7. The entities experienced are beings from another time who have succeeded in mastering the art of time travel, not in a way which allows materialization but in a way which allows them to communicate with conscious beings such as ourselves. 8. The entities are probes from an extraterrestrial or an extradimensional species, sent out to make contact with organisms such as ourselves who are able to manipulate their nervous systems in a way which allows communication to take place. These hypotheses can be expanded and are, of course, vulnerable to objections. No doubt other hypotheses are possible. These matters will not be resolved until we have more data with which to test these and other hypotheses. DMT appears to allow us to leave our three-dimensional bodily organisms and enter into hyperspace where we can function (for a short period of earthly time while our brain biochemistry is altered) as disembodied personalities, able to communicate with other discarnate personalities. In fact it may be that this is what happens to us when we die. In death, however, unlike the DMT trance, you can't return to your body. Once your body is destroyed, or is damaged so that it cannot function as a channel for your will, then you have entered hyperspace and you will remain there indefinitely or until association with a new body becomes possible. After telling of frequently seeing spiritual beings enveloped in shining light, one of Evan-Wentz's informants says: "In whatever country we may be, I believe that we are for ever immersed in the spiritual world; but most of us cannot perceive it on account of the unrefined nature of our physical bodies. Through meditation and psychical training one can come to see the spiritual world and its beings. We pass into the spirit realm at death and come back into the human world at birth; and we continue to reincarnate until we have overcome all earthly desires and mortal appetites. Then the higher life is open to our consciousness and we cease to be human; we become divine beings." It now seems possible, by the use of the psychedelic tryptamines, to venture into the death state before we die and toaccustom ourselves to that state. This is the path of the shaman and the spiritual warrior. At death, when the transition is finally and irrevocably made, the psychedelic explorer will enter a realm he or she knows from previous experience, and will, hopefully, not be swept away by fear and ignorance. Hi, I am Kiwi Kawaii! Let's discover substances! Is your curiosity high enough? ^^ Very good, I am happy that you will accompany me into this journey.