If dmt is a neurotransmitter involved in sensory perception then all its effects could thus be explained as stimulating aspects of the brain involved in incorporating that information.

For example when you close your eyes there is still some light coming in. When your on DMT the part of your brain that would normally say oh thats just some specks of light coming in is overstimulated or misaligned some how that the dmt causes the brain to think its more then that. It might try to make that light into the room you were just looking at but it fails miserably because your circuits are going haywire. Thus you can patterns blobs geometric shapes etc.

Something similar is happening with entities. DMT at certain doses I think stimulates the part of your brain that goes active when you see a face or when you know someone else is in the room. Therefore when you close you eyes your brain tries to make a face because it thinks one needs to be there. But again it fails miserably because your circuits are going hay wire and you get very strange looking geometric entities.

All psychedelic experiences all mystical experiences will one day I believe be explained in some manner as roughly outlined above (very roughly no specifics will be given here). In some sense it already has been explained with conditions like meditation and near death experiences.

I think claims that dmt links you to the spirit world are baseless and incorrect and it can be proven so.

I very much disagree... saying the circuits are going "haywire" is a very very poor explanation.. the dmt experiences are not 'random', they are very orderly, highly highly complex forms that are coordinated in many dimensions. Second of all, as Majapanix rightly pointed out in a post somewhere, if entities were a result of the brain's natural pattern and face recognition processes, then we would see way more faces, but entities very often do not have faces at all.

Also, such explanation is very crude and doesnt explain the extreme differences between the different psychedelics substances (yeah they all act at 5HT2a, so what? The neurocircuitry is only the PATH, not the MESSAGE that is being run through it), it would neither explain the amazing difference between trips even if the same person smokes in the same setting a few minutes spread appart.. Plus there's a bunch of other psychological phenomenon that are very interesting to talk about but right now im gonna eat something

Im not saying entities exist in outer dimension literally and thats what the dmt is, all of these would be poor and reductionist explanations.. The mistery continues

I understand your desire to break some myths and how some people over do it in the mystical suppositions, Im also very critical of it, but sometimes it seems like you just react and go to the other extreme, and thats neither a productive way IMHO.. Each one to his own though.

sure there may be aspects of what you said that can be true (james kent's idea on psychedelics seem to match some of what you said, for example, its quite interesting stuff), but to say that this is the whole explanation, nah...

Seems to me you want to reduce the experience to a random misfiring of our wetworks.

I think that's a bit like taking a television apart in order to understand how television programmes are made.

Each to his own.

The scaffolding of consciousness that holds this universe together (much like mycelium holds a mountain) is accessed once enough neurotransmission is absorbed.
This scaffolding, also known as hyperspace, exists on a higher octave of frequencies not "normally" perceivable until one is in the hypersensitive state.
With that said, it is always flowing through us at all times. Our reality is a mere simulation and stems from hyperspace as an experimental test and playground for possibilities.
Here in our vast universe, which is barely even the beginning of it, evolution flows to test preset parameters. All data is compiled by the AI that exist within hyperspace.
We are born with it endogenously as a joke that we are just now beginning to hear, laugh at, and begin to understand.
It does what it does to illuminate our circuitry with a blast of recalibration. Opening up vessels, capillaries, emotions, and mind states to achieve a healthier, happier, more inspired and divine state of being.
This is just what it has taught me. I know this will not resonate with you, but I wanted to voice my views regardless.

Haywire circuits don't even begin to explain the interaction I've had with life forms more real than we are :]

Nice try, though

burnt loves to stir us up. I would recommend higher doses in darker rooms. Don't be afraid, burnt.

The visual and emotional correlation of my experiences seem to be so interlinked that false light image interpretation seems to be very unlikely.

I don't understand why light has to have anything to do with it at all. I always get the feeling that with DMT I'm seeing with my minds eye and my actual vision in often uncompromised even at very high doses, though very often reality can be unrecognisable.

I strongly feel that the projection mechanism is MUCH more complex than that.

burnt,

My most profound DMT trips are using a Mindfold blindfold which blocks 100% of incoming light. Also, I suffer from more than a light case of prosopagnosia and about 95% of my DMT entities are distinctly anthropomorphic, including in standard makeup of facial features . . .

Having said this though, I want to thank you very much for your post. More than a little of it is true . . . It is food for thought and reminds me why we are so lucky to have you here as a member.

Peace & Love,
Pandora

I never see entities that resemble humans or any other creatures of this earth. My experiences are usually alien beyond belief – like nothing I’ve ever seen before, like nothing I’ve ever imagined before or am even capable of imagining.

They seem to be far beyond my brain’s generative capacity, and as a result lead me to conclude that they in fact are beyond my brain’s generative capacity.

We each believe what we choose to believe. I’d like to think that my beliefs are based on a rational analysis of my experiences, but… well, I guess I’m human.

In truth, we each believe what we need to believe. Some find security and tranquility in science and objective, provable, visible fact. Others find peace in the belief of an eternal loving afterlife. Others need to believe that mankind will be saved by hyper-intelligent benevolent space travelers.

But here’s the real truth, and no one wants to hear it: we don’t know.

This statement is a cop-out! If you think you'll never know, you never will!

My words are very innaccurate. I fully admit that. I have no coherent well formulated theory. But at least its something to work with. Saying all this energy/spiritual doesn't explain anything and I am don't want to discuss such trivial ideas.

Let me rephrase:

If DMT is a neurotransmitter involved in perception then all its effects could be explained from that fact if indeed it is true. How that works is far too complicated for me or any of us who isn't actively involved in neuroscience to work out.


My examples of light and faces are just speculation I am sure its far more complicated then that. If there is no light input yes it could just be projections of the minds eye thats another good idea. I just notice that whatever colors dominate the room SWIM is in while on DMT dominate the visuals.

I don't mean also that DMT is a randomly triggering things to fire. Its not just random chaos that causes the effects. But DMT in higher doses are clearly stimulating or inhibiting parts of the brain involved in perception and cognition.

I do think that DMT is a neurotransmitter and that it HAS a function, but it's probably a combination of functions. I also think that substances like mescaline and LSD work because they fool some (like the 5ht-2)receptors by mimicing DMT.

One of the things many people have noticed is that psychedelic's like DMT can create 'mindloops'.
I think that this looping of the mind is a part of the normal functioning of the brain and that serotonin normally inhibit's this proces. That the proces of feedbacklooping plays a part in how counsciousness functions is not a very strange concept and i'm not the only person who thinks this, but also guys like douglas hofstadter and a member of the nexus comunity that i haven't seen for a long time called magic clown. Anyway...we can all understand that no matter how crucial it is, it needs to be inhibited in some way, and serotonin probably plays a part in that proces wich i base on the fact that all kinds of personality disorders in wich a shortage of serotonin is involved, like compulsive disorders have symptoms that resemble this looping (people having to wash their hands a thousend times a day, etc).
So stopping the inhibition of feedbackloops is probably part of what DMT does, and thus it unleashes a cascade of increasingly subjective associations triggered by sensory input and eventualy the minds own information.
So i don't think it's random electric 'noise' what DMT induces.

Part of the visual effects of it, i think, can be explained by looking at the visual system as a puzle of different visual functions like seeing colour, contrast, movement, etc. Normally all the pieces fit perfectly, but by making them run slightly out of sync, you get spectacular visual effects. This definately explains the typical 'mother-of-pearl' shine effect: seeing everything covered by a thin layer of rainbowcolored light, most of the typical psychedelics have. I think this typical effect for instance, is created by letting the contrastlines running slightly out of sync with other parts of the visual system. seeing contrastlines of a 3D world do appears to be not just one singular part of the visual system but a blending of different systems, seeing different types of contrastlines. They each probabably have a different colour contrastline and by looking at a surface they're all activated in a certain wave type of rhytm, but because they're out of sync they no longer blend in invisibly.

That's what i think anyway.

Burnt have you read this?

Apparent Communication with Discarnate Entities
Induced by Dimethyltryptamine - Peter Meyer

It came to mind as I was reading through this thread.

I said we don’t know. I didn’t say we’ll NEVER know. Although that is a possibility.

Some people seem to be very uncomfortable with the idea of never knowing, but there are many examples (particularly in mathematics) of things that we will never know.

Here’s a simple non-mathematical concrete example from another post:

No matter how much time you spend digging for diamonds, trying to discover the largest diamond on earth, and no matter how large the diamonds you discover may be, you can never know and never prove that the largest diamond discovered is the largest diamond on earth, even though we are certain that the largest diamond does indeed exist.

Here is his list of possibilities. I think number one can easily be set against all the others and thus we have two possibilities. A supernatural explanation or a natural explanation. Only the natural will I think be shown to be valid.

I'm a big fan of ii or iii

V!
This thread is nice to read.

James Kent made an interesting correlation between the DMT experience and dreams. Both modes of consciousness seem as tangible as sober reality, but we do not go around saying that our dreams are some sort of parallel or alternate world that exists independently. If you took a drug that put you into a nocturnal dream, would you propose that it was literally transporting you somewhere? If you answered No, then why would you put the DMT experience in a different category?

The (iii) category resonates strongly with swim. He has had many trips in which he was under the distinct impression of being inside of some molecular structure. These places are fun to be in and bizarre at the same time. Interestingly, he has these kinds of trips only when using yellow powder spice. Although swim comes into contact with various intellegent entity forms, he never sees any anthropomorphic entities. However, swim prefers to keep his mind open and consider that the case for DMT could very well be any or all of the aforementioned categories.

I would agree with burnt that the effects of DMT can be scientifically explained. Maybe DMT can substitute for a large number of neurotransmitters. In a manner of speaking, DMT can be the "master key" to the city. Seeing as how our brains are pattern seeking devices, it's no wonder that the effects of DMT are not projected by our minds eye as random miss firings.

Burnt. I don't mean this sound like a snide reply. It's not, but, this comment in and of itself is "baseless". If you disagree and truly believe it can "be proven so", then prove it.

I'm a hard-core believer of science fact, I'd be an idiot not to be, but I also know that if one encapsulates themselves too deeply in the known facts, they end up disregarding the unknown facts. Like gibran2's diamond example (I love that example btw), just because we haven't proven something as fact, does not mean that it isn't fact. I believe that science CAN prove everything, but in order for that to happen, we have to KNOW everything and apply this knowledge to our scientific theories, studies, algorithms, etc. Therein lies the paradox...

I can respect your view on this, but with no basis of fact whatsoever, I can only regard it as theory and speculation.

This reminds me of the "Alien Life Paradox" as I like to call it. You regularly hear that "life" can not exist on planet X because the basics for life (carbon and water) do not exist on that planet. What is missing from this statement is the phrase "as we know it". i.e. "Life as we know it". In other words, there is no proof that non carbon / water based life forms can not exist. Carbon and water based life forms are "life as we know it", but what we don't know is if there are other forms of life in the multiverse that do not depend on the basic elements of life "as we know it".

Peace,
-idt

Not in my experience. I'm not sure that you can disprove someone's experience either, especially in a weird place like hyperspace. I don't know, we create our own reality and it is all open to interpretation and Dependant on the way that you look at it, what you'd decided beforehand, but In my eyes psychedelics open us up to a world of infinites , spirits being a part of this.

Here's how I see it. Imagine clouds floating around in a vast space, each with its own energy. If you say you wanna go up, you give out that kind of energy, other spirits which do the same will join you. if you say you want to go down and you give out that kind of energy, likewise spirits will join you. That's great though, the problem is how high is too high? in a world of infinites, you can go up and up and up forever, really quickly. I think the spirit world is like flying a kite in a really strong wind. Before you know it, you're off the ground and you're just gonna keep getting carried on that wind.

So, be careful which wind you pick.