Hi, folks. I've been an on-again-off-again lurker here for years but only just made an account so this is my formal presentation to y'all. I have never encountered a trip report similar to my first DMT experiences, so I figured I'd share them with you and hopefully get some more information on this kind of phenomenon. This is going to be a very long post, so for anyone with the patience to read through it, you have my thanks.

My fictional alter ego (to whom I refer in the first person because ma English no be too good)'s history with DMT is over a decade long, but most of that was complete silence. Many years ago, when Gen Z-ers were naught but a lustful twinkle in their parents' eyes, I procured some changa from that famous trade route in the depths of the web, made a very poor excuse for a Machine and wasted most of my magical leaf figuring out how to use the darned thing. Which I though was a crying shame because money was not easy to come by for me at the time.

With the remaining changa, I had a very curious set of experiences. When I managed to break through, I would be living the life of another human. Not myself (remember, this is my fictional alter ego's perspective) but a completely separate human male, probably some five or six years older than myself, judging by the one time I saw "my" face in a mirror. I'd experience some of his interactions with his loved ones in the first person. Nothing worthy of good fiction, but nonetheless emotionally significant episodes for him/me. This happened four or five times (I don't fully remember the experiences well enough to be sure of the number). Then the changa ran out.

Despite these intriguing breakthroughs, due to the poor craftsmanship of my Machine and the general idiocy of my teenage self, most of my changa use had simply resulted in me coughing my lungs up on the floor while being teabagged by colorful geometric hallucinations that were very clearly mocking me for something (in hindsight, almost certainly for being an idiot who was trying DMT long before he was ready) and having an absolute blast in doing so. Also, I was really ripped off. So in light of the high financial cost and my own incompetence, I decided to put my experimentation with DMT on hold until I could extract my own. That took longer than I thought it would.

I had generally kept away from psychoactives after a psychotic episode during a K-hole in 2011-ish and only after the pandemic was over did I feel ready to open that door again and start taking lessons from P. cubensis. This year, I remembered that I could probably manage a DMT extraction (I had kept from using psychoactives but not from reading about them and was aware in general terms of what an extraction would entail) and so I did. This time, being a recovered smoker, I had a box mod and decided to vape the DMT instead of making another physical affront to the elves out of a sauce bottle.

What do you know, I was that same other person again. Several flashes of his life came through. Family, friends, lovers, pets, anyone that was meaningful to him, scenes from a memory would race before me too quickly for me to apprehend any single one but it was definitely the same guy, like the point of the trip was to catch me up as quickly as possible with the highlights of his life I'd missed. It felt like reuniting with an old friend. And I had actually forgotten all about being this guy, so it was a very nostalgic experience too.

And on my second breakthrough of this new age, I was him again. In his room, naked, wet, bleeding, with a sharp something lodged inside my throat, holding some broken glass object in my hand that I'm pretty sure I broke myself through sheer force of grip and certain that I was about to die. If I weren't barefoot, it would have scared my socks off. I'm making light of it now, but that was a seriously traumatizing experience. And the one after that? Almost identical.

In both cases, I happened to be dry, clothed, alive and away from any glass once the effect passed.

I still haven't made up my mind how "real" and in what ways I though my DMT-induced telepathic bodyswapping voyages were (dibs on the band name) but I was very alarmed at the possibility that my other me was dead or dying. And what could I do about that, anyway? I was scared to take the sacrament again. But I also had to know.

A little less than a week later, having convinced myself that this was all just a really strong negative reaction to almost touching on ego death and clearly being much more frightened of death than I ever thought I was, I entered hyperspace again.

I mentioned being mocked by geometric hallucinations before. It's odd to put into words, but while I was absolutely certain that they were mocking me, I was also not at all certain that they were people - or to use the conventional word, entities - other than myself. This time was different. This time, this beautiful spiraling form of ever-shifting colorful smoke crystals that graced me with her marvelous presence was definitely alive and Other. She signaled to me quite intentionally that I needed to learn how to die. I have no idea why. I'm not sure if it has to do more with ego death or metaphorically overcoming the illusion of separate selfhood, or about becoming sufficiently prepared to die that it's no longer scary, or if it's important to literally "do it right" when the time comes, or something else that I couldn't grasp at all. But she kindly guided me into a meditation session where my breath became lighter and lighter, my muscles more relaxed and eventually my mind calmer. I kept focusing on breathing until I noticed that the hallucinations had cleared for some time already.

I never again became this other person. I don't know if he was real, if he's still alive, if he was just an invention of my head, a past or future life or what. I mourned him like I would a "real life" friend. I miss him. And I'm pretty sure our paths will never cross again.

In every one of the few DMT experiences I've had since, I've been confronted with an Other. I suspect that I've run into the same entity more than once, but the supernaturally beautiful one from that time hasn't appeared again, at least not in that form. The mocking not-quite-Other hallucinations also pop in from time to time, usually when I get a dry hit. I don't mind them as much.

I've read many trip reports over the years and while my entity encounters seem par for the course, if that phrase can even ever be applied to situations such as these (I have found that it's a characteristic of the truly mystical that it can be viewed as mundane without losing its mystical quality, whereas false mystical experiences demand to be taken seriously or else) I haven't even once seen a situation like mine described anywhere. I've shared this experience before and nobody appeared saying they had a similar story either. Maybe someone here will. Regardless, I hope somebody finds my tale interesting.

I apologize for this long-winded post. It feels good to put it all out there knowing that like-minded individuals might read it, maybe enjoy it, maybe even provide some insight. Plus, if I'm going to make an introduction here I might as well come out swinging, right?

Thanks for reading and I wish you all the love in the world and then some - but please promise to pay it forward!

Well, hello and welcome - I can't be the only one who's read your impressively detailed and articulate intro. Perhaps people have been too daunted to have replied sooner (or too lazy/busy to read a long post - hmmm... )
[Whatever, I'd recommend you lot out there to put the time in and read it through.]

You say you're not a native speaker of English? You are at least a highly expressive speaker of your native language and a more-than-capable user of translation aids. I almost suspect you of being a ChatGPT bot, but please take that as a compliment in this instance!

Your experiences are reminiscent of similar reports that do, very occasionally, crop up. It's not always - or indeed, not usually, perhaps - that DMT is the substance being used at the time. Most commonly, experiencing other lives is something that we hear report with salvinorin A/Salvia divinorum usage, where people are as likely to report becoming an inanimate object as much as becoming a different human being. Transformation into other lifeforms isless commonly reported - although maybe people tend to keep quiet about that...

I find the lesson about learning how to die to be highly pertinent; the death of the former, divided self is a key part of spiritual growth. How has this been playing out in your everyday life since then? Where there any pre-existing goals for personal change that you had? Is this even the reason why you recommenced exploring psychedelics?

You're also not alone in receiving the psychedelic lesson that you were acting like an idiot, btw

Well, what do you know, I said I posted this so that like-minded individuals might enjoy it or provide insight and the very first response is someone claiming to have enjoyed it AND providing insight! Talk about a great welcome!

I've never done salvia (it's actually one of the very few plants that are illegal to own or grow here in Brazil - IIRC there's only 8 of them on the list) but you've piqued my interest. I remember way before I ever took any entheogens I read a little about it on Erowid and it really scared me, to be honest. I guess I'll keep it in mind moving forward. Thank you so much for this bit of information.



My pre-existing goals were not related to this at all. I actually have a few mental, let us say, barriers I've been fighting very hard to overcome since a very early age. Therapy and medication only got me so far and I started looking into psychedelics as a way to put myself face-to-face with these issues because, as apathy and avoidance were among them, it was very difficult to do this otherwise. I'd always unconsciously sabotage the attempt. I went in too strongly at first, so in hindsight it's no surprise the elves didn't take me seriously or that I had a psychotic episode on ketamine (which was also related to a sense that I was about to die - don't know why I forgot to mention that in the OP). Ironically, esketamine was the single medication that best worked out for me. In fact, if not for that, ECT and sacred mushrooms I would probably have killed myself already (or would I? Turns out I'm scared stiff of dying). I recommenced because I had gotten a bit too comfortable in my mediocrity and finally felt that I was ready to try again more responsibly, and also not locked in a room at my parent's house where they'd be right there to freak out in case anything went wrong and guarantee that it went worse like in 2011.

As for how this has played out in my daily life, for one thing I now incorporate a memento mori into my daily routine as soon as I wake up and right before going to sleep. Also, it completely changed how I meditate. I never stuck to a disciplined meditation regime and I always did mindfulness or metta. Now, I'm doing two 20 to 30 minute sessions per day (I don't like setting an alarm as it creates an expectation so I wing the time) of what the entity taught me, which certainly has a name but I don't know it. I basically sit still and try to exist as subtly as possible, to the point where I might as well not be there, with soft, slow breaths, no mental or physical agitation. This in turn has helped me to look at things in a completely new way. For some reason, being more aware of death makes life seem to shine even brighter. I don't take things as personally as before. I live less inside my head than I used to. It feels good having an emptier mind, less stressful. I'm much more content, I quit smoking and even my spending on snacks has gone down because I don't feel as much of a need for that quick sugar or nicotine hit.

But these are all beneficial side-effects, as I still haven't learned that lesson. What I really learned is how desperately I need to learn the lesson. I had no idea how absolutely terrified I was of dying, which is especially shocking for someone who never attempted suicide but played a lot with the thought.



As an NI [Natural Intelligence] Language Model programmed by the Great Void, I am not able to fully accept your compliment in this case. The "ma English not too good" line was more of a SWIM joke, and while English is not my first language, I did learn it from the age of 5 so it might as well be.

Thank you for putting up with my huge wall of text and actually replying! I'm glad you found my story interesting and I promise I'm very aware of my problem with keeping things short and am working on it.

EDIT: And happy holidays!

Above the Sky,

Welcome to formal membership and I'm glad you finally signed up.

This was a great read and I'm really grateful that you took the time to write it up, edit it and give us all those details. Anyone who does not take the time to read it is really missing out.

Nothing I read surprises me and yet it doesn't compare to any of my experiences. For me that's one of the many things DMT is all about - surptise and astonishment.

Who knows maybe you literally broke through to a parallel universe and met a version of yourself. Difficult to say.

I personally do find the spice to be very good practice for death not that I've actually died yet so all the material you wrote about that resonated nicely.

I do hope you will choose to be an active member and I look forward to seeing you around.

Thank you very much for the reply and warm welcome, Pandora!

I've chosen not to decide what I believe regarding the reality of my experiences. As a panentheist, I believe that all of reality is ultimately an experience "inside the head" of God, including the experiences of all living beings which are subsets of the Godhead. So I don't see a distinction between what happens "in my head" and "in reality".

Of course, in terms of physical reality, there's a distinction. But when the question is, was it imagination, a past/future life, me in an alternative reality or someone else right here on Earth that I might even have otherwise physically met, that distinction just doesn't seem as important as the simple fact that it happened and was meaningful. I trust that answers will come when they must, so long as people remain inquisitive and open-minded and just feel so lucky and privileged to have been able to live through these experiences.

Learning to die is proving a lot harder than I'd have ever thought, though. Is there a class anywhere I can sign up for?