Ok, I have a bit of a story to tell so this is gonna be a somewhat long post. I will talk about 4 very memorable experiences I have had.
First Experience:
Set: calm and relaxed, somewhat happy to meet an old friend again, somewhat sad to meeting another old friend, but other than that, fairly excited for my first DMT experience.
Setting: At a friends place, in his room, sitting on a sofa, starring at his very trippy carpet
time of day: around 23:00
recent drug use: none

Age: 25
Gender: well I have a penis but other than that I don't know...
Body weight: 62kg
History of use: not a regular drug user
alcohol: only a 2-3 times a year.
Hash: mainly whenever I go back to my home country for vacations (say... 20 times in 2 months and nothing for the rest of the year).
Acid: max 10 times in my whole life, stopped around 10 months ago after a few not so good experiences.
MDMA and ecstasy: tried both once, about 9 months ago.
Speed: only tried it once.
Bioassay:
Substance: DMT freebase, my friend had bought it.
Dose: unknown

This was at the end of December last year. I had no idea about anything, my friend had been doing it for quite a while but still hadn't learned how to do it properly. We only had a glass pipe (not the crack pipe, it had a little bowl on top) and he just put some spice in it, without measuring and told me to take a hit. I ended up coughing it all out, so we had to do it again. He had put the flame too close and burned a fair amount of it... anyways, before I tried again, I had a voice in my head going "dude you gotta keep it down! hold it in! don't fuck it up again!". I took another hit, and instantly it felt like everything had stopped. A strange presence leapt out of the wall and I felt as if she had taken over my body. For a moment, I had forgotten how to breathe out, I felt no urge to breathe out, this state of "holding it in" felt perfectly natural. And then, gently, she let me fall against the back of the couch, took her hand away from my throat, and I breathed out. I couldn't see her, but I felt her presence all around me. I was awestruck, filled with a strange mixture of ecstasy, awe, fear and desire. I was hallucinating, but all those colors were a mere side show compared to that presence. For the first time in my life, I was experiencing something which couldn't be described as anything but divine. I come from a very conservative religious family and somehow ended up leaving religion around the age of 15. My hatred for religion matched the suffering it had caused me, and so I scoffed at any and every notion of spirituality. Whenever somebody talked about something spiritual, the voice in my head would go "ah these goddamned hippies...". This was partly the reason why the experience was so... absolutely unbelievable. I was shivering as if standing before god, and funny thing is, the story of Moses asking god to show himself to him came to my mind... Yet her touch moved something inside me. Suddenly I felt sadness, a strange sweet sadness. The music was sinking in to my soul, my fists were clenched, my body lightly shivering, sorrow painted across my face and tears swimming within my eyes... Yet, this was not the sorrow I had known for so long, it didn't chew at my soul, it felt comforting to experience it, and the music... I could never have thought that music could be so beautiful.
Second Experience:
Set: calm but excited
Setting: in my room
Time: 22:00
Recent drug use: none
Substance: home made freebase
Dosage: around 25mg
After that, I was obsessed with it! I spent weeks reading all I could on wiki, and decided to make some myself, which I did. It took me a few times to figure out how to smoke right. The next interesting experience was in February. Once again, I felt her presence, the feeling of awe was very overwhelming. I felt her reaching out to me, her touch was loving as ever, I felt her hand gently move across my forehead and cheeks, yet for some reason I felt the urge to hide myself. I pulled the blanket on me, covered my face with my hands. I don't remember the rest, but by the end I had tears in my eyes again. I had a few more experiences after that but didn't come across her again. Then I stopped, and finally tried again a few weeks ago.
Third Experience:
Set: a bit anxious, nervous but excited
Setting: in my friends car, somewhere in the woods
Time: around 24:00
Recent drug use: none
Substance: DMT freebase ( around 25mg), Harmala freebase (unknown, but most likely less than DMT)
Method: direct e-mesh
It had been over a month since I had DMT. I vaped some harmala, followed by dmt. It came on really strong, hit me all at once. I felt something flowing out of my body, for a moment I felt like I would vomit and shit myself, not because I had nausea or anything, but there was just something trying to come out. The first 2 minutes were pretty difficult and quite bumpy, I couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything, I only remember breathing like crazy and clenching my fists. I went through several different layers of hallucinations until finally, like a droplet of water, I dropped out of a layer of red murky water and became suspended between that and another very bright lightly yellow layer, which seemed like a sea of light. At once everything stopped, the erratic breathing, the shivering, the teeth grinding, all of a sudden there was calm. I stayed there for a while, and then started to go back, and through the same layers of hallucinations, which I had gone through on my way there. The experience felt like diving into an ocean inside of me, reaching the bottom and then being pulled back out. Once I got out, I was still hallucinating, but she was there! That strange feeling of fear and awe was there again, I couldn't lift my head up and see her, but I felt her hand reaching out again. Once again, starting from my forehead, she let her hand slide across my cheeks. The sweet melancholy was there again, this time much stronger than before. I started to cry, I hid my face under my jacket, I bit down on the collar of my jacket, and I cried. The music... the notes were like hooks which had pierced through the fabric of my soul, and now with every bend and twist, my soul had to move with the notes and feel every bit of emotion in them. How could such a loving touch make me want to hide my face and cry? I don't know... Nevertheless, I felt much better afterwards. The trip lasted more than 30 minutes.
Fourth Experience:
Set: mildly anxious, but mostly calm
Setting: in my bed
Time: 13:00
Recent drug use: the above mentioned third experience a week ago.
Substance: DMT freebase (1x:22m, 2x: 20mg with direct e-mesh)
I smoked up, lied down and closed my eyes. This time, there were no different changing hallucinations. Right after breaking through, I found myself in a place, the place is hard to describe, but it was a place! not geometric patterns or flying monkeys or anything, but an actual place, and I had been there once before. I was just staring at the colors, when she appeared, for the first time in actual perceivable form. I shivered, I clenched my fists and grit my teeth, but this time I managed to look at her. She was a mannequin like figure, without eyes, nose, ears or mouth, just a peach colored figure with a powdery/spongy texture. She reached her hand out, touched my forehead. I kept looking at her, another figure emerged out of her body on the left side, a somewhat masculine figure. He stood behind her and just watched. Then a few smaller figures emerged on the right, they too reached out and touched me. I just kept staring, and then they were gone! I opened my eyes and found trails of tears going into the pillow. I kept thinking about it, I felt the urge to remember every single detail, I felt the urge to see her again... after 2 hours I decided to take another hit. But I didn't see her again, I ended up in this place I call the "love zone". It's a bit weird and cringy... all red, violet and pink, with hearts and flowers, feels like some valentines commercial... I have been there a couple of times before on trips which didn't have anything new to show me. Anyways, despite my urge, I didn't go for a third time. May be I'll see her again someday, may be she will help me taste that sweet melancholy again, may be, little by little, I will pour out and empty this chalice of sweet tears.
As someone suffering from sever depression for over 13 years, I am forever thankful to... whatever it is, which taught me to see and feel the beauty again, which poured the elixir of music into my soul. And to this community, for helping me discover a whole new world.

When you stated your gender, I was entertained. When you stated the dose for your first experience, I thought, "this is gonna be good!"

That was wonderful and enjoyed all of it (read it out loud to my lady friend).

A fair amount resonated with me, as I have had similar experiences, such as a particular female presence (though I haven't encountered her in a while), the comfortable, but melancholy state. Shoot, even the am-I-gonna-poop-myself feeling (not anymore though lol)! I do sometimes vomit (or belch/heave), but that's just purging to me.

Having had such powerful experiences, what are your current thoughts on and about spirituality now?

Like you, I too manage persistent and major depression and share in the sentiment of gratitude to the Spice and this forum.

Glad to have you with us. Looking forward to your future reports

One love

Well, I'd say that god or the divine lies in the realm of aesthetics. It is often said that god is beyond reason, I'd accept that in a fairly literal sense and say that one cannot speak of god in any logical or meaningful terms. That is, the divine cannot be described, but only experienced, and at best, expressed. The expression, as opposed to description, does not include any claims about how things "really" are, or what the metaphysical nature of things is etc. A good example is how poetry can be said to express things, but not describe them. Or how music can be said to express feelings and emotions, but no melody can be said to be a description of anything. In the realm of aesthetics, things are simply experienced, felt, and taken at their face value.

If the divine is an experience or a feeling, then it seems that only those who lack this experience, would try to bind god in a web of words and symbols. God is nameless and voiceless, any attempt to name or describe god with language is an attempt to force something in the confines of language, which is far beyond it. God lies in madness, absurdity and ecstasy. Ecstasy is particularly interesting, since it is not joy or sadness, nor pain or pleasure, even "euphoria" falls short to describe it. Ecstasy is beyond all these categorizations and can at best be described as a strange amalgam of awe, fear, joy and madness.

Consider a really intense experience of music where you let yourself be completely immersed and dissolved into the music. I have had experiences where my eyes rolled back (as if I was having an orgasm), my face became blank and devoid of all emotions, a strange blank state, my body moving with the music, and all I could feel was the urge to dissolve away, to move my body in a way that it breaks apart and dissolve into the music. This is my usual sober, non drug induced but intense music experience, drugs only amplify it several folds! During such an experience, the music feels like a piece of fabric, a veil of some sort behind which "something" is moving, breathing, convulsing, something strange, something alive. That "thing" expresses itself through the musician or even the listener, which is why we see that the musician doesn't simply play the instrument, but something expresses itself through a collection of several different gestures, facial expressions and body movements which a musician makes while playing. These include weird faces, moving the lips and eye lids, stiffening and relaxing neck muscles and so on. Music is a lot more than just playing the right notes at the right time, it is something far more comprehensive which is felt as if trying to pour itself out of the your body (somehow comparable to the feeling on DMT that something's trying to "come out". This, I would say, is one of the several different examples of a spiritual experience. As for what all of this means in a metaphysical sense... I do not know! What we know of is the experience itself, anything beyond that is a mere speculation and the only reasonable way to talk about what lies "beyond" is to do is in a nonsensical way i.e. using poetic expressions.
But this is still a thought under development...

I'm feeling it

I like your example in music. I think you hit on a lot of really good points in how there's aspects about what is conveyed extending far beyond any dialectical approach. And even if there was a verbal counterpart it wouldn't be the same as the experience of the music itself. I think of John Coltrane, who not only composed amazing and dynamic pieces, but played them with fervor and passion that helped relay more of the message of the music. The instruments and the players are vehicles that need to literally drive the part for the entirety of a piece to be conveyed.

Do you feel that God/The Divine does not reside anywhere in realms of a more rational/logical nature also? For me, in this context and conversation, I'd have to entertain fields such as pure mathematics, that, while predicated on logic, are elegantly beautiful in their abstract structuring. Keeping in line with what you stated about not explaining God in terms of logic, does that mean that God can't be found in what is seen as logical?

I am fond of the idea you've posited about expression vs description. We cling to descriptions As creatures, but the reality may be beyond our comprehension of such is a manner that suits us. Descriptions help us to decide what to do, but when experiencing the ineffable, the decision procedure needs to transcend what we're familiar with in order to be able to do so in other spaces of existence.

One love

What mathematics really is, is a difficult question. Is it our mind impressing certain notions upon the world, or the other way around. Does mathematics exist beyond our mind? Do order, structure, systematicity etc. exist beyond our mind?

Now, considering the beauty which we may find in mathematics and geometry, we may say that that beauty seems divine, it feels divine, it leaves us with a strange sense of mysteriousness and awe, but logic doesn't help us arrive at any of these conclusions. The rules of logic do not tell us, from where the divine comes. There's nothing which would necessitate the validity of statements such as "x implies that y is divine". So even if we are to make such a claim, we would have to go beyond logic. We would have to arbitrarily define what implies what, whether elegance and beauty point towards something divine or whether their very opposite does. The beauty of experience is, that it embraces this arbitrariness so elegantly.

any interpretation is a mind game = )))...

Perhaps I should reframe the question: While the divine eludes logical description, can it not be seen or experienced IN logic and mathematics? Through its abstraction, could a divine nature not show itself while not being able to be described.

In entertaining Plato's theory of forms, I have one idea of mathematics and logic being far removed and transcendent from us. It's our implementation that is created by the human mind, but the playground of math and logic are explored through the mind.

I apologize this isn't more consice and exploratory. I got my second covid shot yesterday and am feeling out of it today.

One love

Kabbalah is closely intertwined with the wording of the dial .. in any case, all teachings speak of ONE. what do they say? Beauty in the eye of the beholder ∆V I am grateful for the opportunity to be born human =

Yaaaassss! Love it

One love

only two feelings are love & not love (acceptance or rejection) all other interpretations

Thanks for your explanation, I think I can understand you somewhat better now. As you say, we can differentiate between the usage or implementation of logic, and some meta theory about logic itself. The world we usually know of, which some, for example, refer to as consensus reality, or the realm of logic, can at best only use logic. This is the world of "sense" and "reason". On the other hand, any meta narrative about logic itself, by the very definition, must go beyond this realm. We cannot meaningfully say something about a system while remaining within the system, so to say anything about logic itself, we must step outside. This is more of Wittgensteins idea... although I wouldn't claim to have understood Wittgenstein, so may be it's just my wrong interpretation of his idea. The difference, I think, would be that he would consider it impossible to step outside while I don't.

The realm of reason is very limited, it's boundaries are marked by the boundaries of language [here, by language I only mean the part which is structured on logic (only the descriptions); excluding poetry and other literary forms of expression]. Any metaphysical account of logic, say, the platonic idea, that there is a realm of logic and pure mathematics, which the mind explores and thus discovers its rules, is beyond the scope of logic. It lies in the realm of nonsense (I use the term in a value free sense). By nonsense I simply mean the much larger realm of all things which one cannot speak of. We may use metaphors or poetic expressions, but we cannot say anything descriptive of it. We can entertain the thought that there is a platonic realm of logic, we may even strongly believe it, we may even experience it, but we cannot, while using the apparatus of logic, say anything about it. The belief in this case, would be different from other believes, ones which can be reasoned for, for this would be a belief which we couldn't reason for.

I treat "nonsense" not merely as nonsense, but as something which has a domain of itself. The entire world of aesthetics and all our expressions of indescribable things belong to that realm. Using such nonsensical expressions, I would say that we, for the greater part, live in that realm, we deal with it on a fairly regular basis without noticing. Everything I have written here is essentially nonsense, for I am saying something about logic itself and it's boundaries. Yet... nonsense is more than just nonsense!

That's a lot of what was being hinted at.

Thank you for your response. The way you shown how you think aligns with a few paradigms I operate off of. Kinda feel like a connection with similar interests has been established. Makes me smile.

Anyway, relative to Wittgenstein (depending on what writing you're interpreting, I think you have a good interpretation) I think that's a great adjunct to this discussion seeing as in the Tractatus, he pretty much "logically" invalidates his entire argument of the piece. Which I find not only elegant in execution, but powerful in the paradoxical point he establishes. It shows the axiomic necessity for our systems of thought in a logical framework. The piece (almost) transcends itself.

In Godel, Escher, Bach, Hofstadter states that no matter what we think, it's predicated on faith before and in the axiomic structure that supports the system. I've had similar observations, hence my skepticism (which I find a lot of peace in), and my approach to understanding.

Kurt Godel developed his (in)famous Incompleteness theorem, which shows that for any formal system, there are true statements about the system but not found in or produced by the system. Thus, a complete formal system must be incomplete (because of truths that cannot be found in or by the system; the negative space of a picture is an analogy: the negative space is brought about by what is pictured, but isn't about the picture, being incidental to it. It's still part of the picture. (Example paraphrased from GEB)).

I like your statement about nonsense is more than nonsense. Reminds me of one of my college course back in the day, Philosophy in Pop culture. I chose to write a paper in reference to Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland in particular since we watched that movie, along with the Matrix, and Shutter Island (wasn't a fan of that one lol)), and discussed how Carroll uses a play of logic, syntax and semantics to build nonsensical themes that can be followed and one is likely to find a way in which it makes sense; making sense from nonsense. He studied logic and math too.

One love

Update: I forgot to mention, you should check out Dodgson's (Carroll's) sorites 😉

Yes, I was talking about Tractatus. There are still further problems, even with what I have called "the realm of sense", which can give more reasons to be skeptical of the very distinction between sense and nonsense. For example, there's Quinn's problem of indeterminacy of translation and inscrutability of reference, which, if taken in a more extended/extrapolated sense, says that any theory can only be scrutable within the framework of another "meta" or "background" theory. Following the regress, we would arrive at a theory which would have to remain indeterminate and inscrutable.

Then there is the idea that there is no real distinction of concrete and abstract, for example, even in case of simple "sense statements" such as "I see a dog" or simpler still "I see green", we are already making use of abstractions. In an extreme sense this would mean that we have no linguistic and therefore epistemological access to our own perception, that even at the very basic level, we use abstract notions such as "this bundle of sense data is to be organized so and so, cut and cropped so and so, divided into such and such categories, and the resulting categories labeled thus and thus". None of this is provided by the sense data... the sense data contains no dogs or any "objects" in general, the very notion of "object" is an abstraction. Thus, it cannot be said whether there truly is a bottom up case, for we seem to create most, if not all of our reality (or it is created for us by our minds).

So what is one to make of this world if it's all nonsense through and through... nothing! I think two conclusions can be made. a) forget about language... distance yourself as much as possible from words, focus more on the wordless/thoughtless things. b) Anything goes! The first one is the reason why I would rather not name or in general speak of god or the divine or spiritual.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll try to read it!

I'm going to throw a monkey wrench 1. Because it's fun. 2. To take things a step further.

That said: Considering your present stance (the overall baselessness and abstraction of our thinking), how does your stance hold up?

Is it not sense data that brought you to your supposition about sense data, thus being void at the core ("very notion of object is an abstraction"?

Again, with your current stance in mind, can even those two conclusions be reached (can any conclusion truly be reached)?

Just to clarify, I am in no way challenging what you've stated (I already see paradoxes all over the place, and that's what this is coming down to for me), but just exploring it further.

That line [between concrete and abstract] as well as a barrage of others I find hard to draw once you get deep enough toward it. Things become blurred and cohesive, making one wonder if the way they got there is valid any longer. That place of an enigmatic and esoteric nature.

In regards to your two conclusions, I definitely feel that. When it comes to explaining trips to others, I typically tell people to pretend there are quotes around everything I say because our language is too limited to do the experience justice. While language helps us in so many ways to communicate things from what's necessary for survival to how we feel, there will always be some limit, because what one person means by a word is not always exactly the same as someone else's; through intersubjectivity it becomes generalized so that words can be used to communicate. There are words in some languages that there's no counterpart or direct translation for in others, leading me to think there are intersubjective experiences that some have had that others haven't, otherwise there would be a correspondence for said word.

And to add to your point about further problems (such as indeterminacy), there's indeterminacy in fields of science as well (like cosmology). All the same, the first paragraph screamed GODEL to me lol.

One love

Two complaints at last. Remember that all of these wonderful substances are unique. Why do they behave the way they do? I don't know, and there is never enough data to explain everything. I hate the fact that the word "data" is plural. ..but singular or plural, keep collecting it (s), and keep trying to give meaning to everything. And one more little greetings from my childhood. ..The Last of the Mohicans is one of the very first books I read, and I quite innocently took the shoes of these Indians as a metaphor for the people themselves. I saw this headline as "The Last of the Moccasins." ..I still confuse this word for no reason, as well as shoulder and soldier, avatar and atavar, and, which is especially annoying during lectures, irrelevant and irreverent .
©Sasha Shulgin =)🇯🇲I & I am a reflection of everyone and everything ..

Isn't language wonderfully mercurial?!? From definitions (including the multiple definitions of a single word) to the affects of pronunciation! But something seems to always be able to be drawn from them. In the states, there's a "contentious" issue with the word for a carbonated beverage. Some places say "pop" others say "soda" and others say "soda-pop." Some places call any carbonated beverage, regardless of brand, "coke." I've heard people from different parts of the country debate about what's right (neglecting the subjective frame of reference for their positions lol).

One love

Today was the absolute worst day ever
And don’t try to convince me that
There’s something good in every day
Because, when you take a closer look,
This world is a pretty evil place.
Even if
Some goodness does shine through once in a while
Satisfaction and happiness don’t last.
And it’s not true that
It’s all in the mind and heart
Because
True happiness can be attained
Only if one’s surroundings are good
It’s not true that good exists
I’m sure you can agree that
The reality
Creates
My attitude
It’s all beyond my control
And you’ll never in a million years hear me say
Today was a very good day

Now read it from bottom to top, the other way

////////////////////////

language is a means of conveying information ... and information is energy with a certain pattern, which has a symbolic meaning. hence information is mobile, mind too .. mind is a process embodied in the body that occurs where it isthe interaction between the individual elements and the regulating flow of energy and information .. everything around is vibration and the perceived information from all senses is just impulse vibrations. it turns out that sound is both color and light and everything in the world, soundas if Lego builds a picture brick by brick that we involuntarily see the density .. the eye is not just a light sensor. in conjunction with neural circuits, it performs the primary processing of visual information, including the definition of the boundaries of objects, themmovement, as well as the spectrum of light reflected from objects. consciousness is equal to information and, consciousness is information accumulated at the quantum level
1love=)

Thank you for sharing your paradoxical palindrome poem I enjoyed it.

I like your philosophy as well. One question I'd like to pose in on your position with vibration and sound. Since sound doesn't seem to be able to travel in a vacuum, would you say that it defined as you state? Light travels and produces waves in a vacuum, as well as other phenomena. On the same token I think of synesthesia when reading your idea. I feel it shows the mutability of our minds and the fundamentals of matter and physicality.



One love

I do not pretend to be true .. just an interpretation. The rhythms of brain activity waves are formed into several groups, depending on their frequencies, these are beta, alpha, theta and delta. in space, waves propagate very similar to our sound waves. to hear themour ears are completely unadapted, so they cannot be called sound, they lie in a different range of wavelengths .. they are infrasound. This is of course a theory, but the Higgs boson hints that the vacuum of the universe may be unstable by its nature, existing ina constant metastable state. there is a moment when, during the transition of consciousness into hyperspace, with the help of DMT, there is a characteristic hum. sound Om, or Aum, the beginning of beginnings. sounding impulse of energy is a great formation, sound is a sign thatenergy and matter, meeting, become two sides of one and the same ... as in the other interpretation, there was a word (or rather a sound), everything through it began to be, and without it nothing began to be that began to be. there was life in it and life wasshine. and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

Gotcha! And to clarify, in my questioning of your idea I wasn't trying to break it down or add any insult. Just wanted to better understand and perhaps drop a seed for further thought. I do understand more of what you mean now though.

Your writing is poetic and I enjoy it.

I think of the primordial "OM/AUM" with the onset of a DMT experience. I don't always experience it, but when it's there it's of tremendous resonance and power.

One love