Hi dmt-nexus members!

Firstly I'd like to state that I have occasionally browsed through these forums for at least a year, and have found much of interest and benefit. I also love how respectful, compassionate and wise the vibe is

Before posting I have searched to see if any similar questions have been asked, and whilst they have to large degrees, I feel that to get what I seek from you I must ask for your perspective on my particular experiences.

I've myriad experience with psychedelics however very little with DMT. On 5 different days of my life have I smoked the spice. Two of these being in the past week.

I'm quite certain that I haven't broken through, although I've heard a perspective of breaking through to be akin to a spectrum of intensity, whilst another being more of an objective distinction. Am I correct to assume the latter is the predominant view?

So about a week ago I smoked DMT and quickly felt what was for me a very strong effect. I basically had no choice but to lay down and close my eyes, it felt like an instinctual reaction to the intensity. With my eyes closed I saw 3d geometric 'shapes' moving in extremely complex ways. The 'shapes' themselves seemed to defy reality, the way they moved seemed to as well! I'd never before encountered such intense CEV. Not even close!
The most amazing and beautiful part was that part of what I observed seemed to be sentient. It too was geometric in nature. It felt feminine and I felt love and understanding emanate from it. It felt good!

As I stated earlier, I have a couple of questions. However I'll write my next experience first as the questions relate to both experiences.

Having presumed I failed to break through, I decided to try again. Two days ago I went to my friend's house in the bush (Huon Valley of Tasmania, so beautiful!). I figured it would be a lovely location to explore DMT with. I often stay with her or camp there for mini meditation retreats, the natural beauty is so conducive to stillness and peace.
Ok so in the morning I consume roughly 100ug of LSD. I had around 8 alcoholic drinks before I peaked, this was due to a fear of the intensity of DMT. I am aware that many consider this an unwise approach, nevertheless my fear got the better of me! I do not intend to drink again in general, let alone with DMT.
At the peak I was feeling blissful as, I explored then set up a lovely spot near some beautiful flora to attempt my break through.
Once more fear got the better of me and I didn't hold it in my lungs for very long at all. Nevertheless I felt a near irresistible instinctive urge to close my eyes, which I did.
Like my last experience I witnessed insane CEV. Like my last experience I intuitively felt that at least part of what I saw was sentient. However there was no love this time, in fact it was malevolence. For a moment I felt terrified and I thought for a second that this would traumatise me forever. Luckily at this point my sense of self was massively diminished and I just let go a little more. I'm quite sure my self was temporarily gone completely, and in it's place was what I as a Buddhist might call 'Buddha Nature', or one might call 'God' or 'pure consciousness', essentially the term is irrelevant and I know you all know what I'm referring to because you're a lovely bunch of meditating psychonauts.

Ok so this 'entity' continued in it's attempts to 'attack' me, I don't exactly know what I mean by that, so please forgive me that. However with no self, obviously there's nothing to fear. I felt complete bliss and liberation and laughed at it's increasing desperate attempts to ensare 'me'.
I've never experienced such a depth of ego death, from meditation or psychedelics. It was absolutely beautiful and has massively inspired and strengthened my motivation for my meditation/Buddhist practice.

Before asking my questions I must state that at any point during both experiences, I could open my eyes and be on this normal plane of existence. Of course my sensory input was massively altered but nevertheless I was here. It's not that I kept my eyes open, in fact I wanted and basically always had them shut, it's just that I checked both times.

I presume that means I didn't break through. Also I didn't feel an eternity pass. You guys are such intense trippers if that wasn't a break through (which I don't believe was, thus consider you guys intense trippers!).

My questions:

For those of you who consider entities to be actual entities and not manifestations of one's subconscious, do you think what I experienced were entities? In other words, can one see entities sub-breakthrough and can they be merely impossible fractals (as opposed to machine elves, dragons, lizard scientists ect lol)?

Does breaking through necessitate feelings of eternity? I felt strongly that my mind's eye was in another place, but if I opened my eyes I wasn't. I've heard that one knows for certain when one experiences a break through, thus I'm practically convinced I didn't.

Thank you for reading this. I hope I've posted it in the correct place.

May you all be feeling extraordinarily blissful <3

Welcome to the nexus friend!

Before answering the questions id like to say that a "breakthru" cannot truly be defined/classified by visuals, it may appear as though alot of people see jesters, aliens, dragon,ect.. but these descriptions are just motifs used to help describe the indescribable, our human language hardly does hyperspace any justice. A breakthrough by "definition" is a sudden, dramatic, and important discovery or development, which dmt will provide in someway or another, and by those standards i think you have had one, as ego death and feeling love and understanding seems to be quite an achievement, not every breakthrough will be remembered or involve entities, but you will know when you have one, also look into what a hyperslap is so you can tell the difference.

to answer your first question, im still on the fence with weather or not theyre "real" leaning more towards they are, simply because my mind cannot make this shit up. For me alot of the times i may not see an entity but i can definitely feel there presence or intention, and this has happened on sub breakthrus and breakthroughs accompanied by geometric patterns, just remember you may not see any of the classic motifs as everyone is different and these things are hard to describe.

As for your second question, a breakthru doesn't have any specific time preference as for me it feels like it goes by to fast all the time and i feel like that has to do with the smoking method which has the shortest real time effects. and ive broken trhu many times but rarly experianced an overlap of hyper space into actual reality when i open my eyes rather just insanly strong distortion of the room.

Safe explorations my friend and try not to have any preconceived perception of what you think should or what happens to other as they can taint the experience.