DMT may not hit the "jester center" of the brain, but I suspect that activity in the fusiform face area (FFA) during the DMT experience may account for the perception of jesters, aliens, and the face of god. This area of the brain is specialized for recognizing faces, although recent speculation suggests that it may recognize other familiar objects and shapes. I haven't seen any faces; I tend to see scrambled negative afterimages of familiar locations during the experience.

my missus once saw jester-like creatures dancing and flailing long silky cloths around, kinda like those turkish dervish dancers but with a circus-like colours She also has never heard of other peoples trip reports or anything like that

Anyhoo, thanks for sharing your experiences dream_denizen

Well, if I were to still answer from a purely scientific view than yes, I would still have to say that, what other explanation could there be? The fact of the matter is, they aren't that specific, and I don't believe we've discovered any psychedelic that is as of yet. Like I've said, I'm open to the idea that there's more to it, but my beliefs are fairly grounded and I don't feel any amount of things I experience while on a drug are going to change them; I want evidence of it while my brain is functioning properly.



This would be something along the lines of what I would suspect, I always figured the main reason that DMT is so realistic yet alien is because it's only a few small changes away from the molecule that normally handles these interpretations (serotonin). I believe this can be backed up by the highly realistic imagery of psilocybin and especailly bufotenin (5-HO-DMT to serotonin's 5-HO-T), and in contrast to the less so visuals of LSD and certainly the vastly colorful and chaotic phenethylamines and amphetamines, which are much more similar to dopamine.

My mum encountered jester entities on ayahuasca which I thought was interesting. She said there were a few of them with long noses and there was a bit of a menacing vibe with them, like they could have turned on her. She had no previous knowledge of them cropping up in Strassman's DMT Studies, or in other people's experiences.

Personally, I to subscribe to the view that the imagery is internally generated, via mechanisms we don't yet know about with any degree of clarity. Our brains are 3.5 billion years in the making, and are amazingly weird and wonderful pieces of biological hardware. There is still definitely much to learn and discover about what's going on in our grey matter.

I think I’ve posted this elsewhere, but here’s some food for thought:

My two cents is that after many many journeys and many different kinds
Of encounters I believe that there are beings outside ourselves
It s been a tough nut to swallow for me and a few people shared this with
I believe western science will confirm this at some point in time . Until that time I don't care
One bit if someone wants to label it as delusion . It's real enough for me .

The reality of my trip was uncanny. Through trial and error I've come to the same conclusion as you, Felnik. What made this idea so concrete to me was that the utensils "they" used on me were more real than any hallucination I've ever experienced. I could feel the pressure and texture of "their" tools in my mouth and throat.

So you are saying that even if there was overwhelming evidence that jesters seen during a DMT experience existed independently of any single individual’s mind, you would still cling to the belief that they are the result of simple brain activity? This is not what a responsible scientist would do. When presented with information that contradicts or in some way doesn’t fit current scientific theories, scientists search for new explanations. If it weren’t for scientists willingness to grasp beyond their reach, we’d still believe that the earth was at the center of the universe!

Also, jesters are a very specific form. People who have no thoughts about jesters, no emotional connection to jesters, still see jesters. Of all the things they could see, why jesters?

It's interesting that the topic of jesters has grabbed so much attention. I didn't know this was a common theme nor do I ever think about jesters. It just happened that way.

I wasn't saying that jesters aren't a specific form, I was saying that DMT is not so specific as to fit your hypothetical situation that "many people who take DMT see not just generic jesters, but a particular jester entity dressed in particular jester clothing who interacts with them in a particular way and says a particular things to them". I think it's hardly valid to use this situation as evidence when there aren't any psychedelics we've currently found that are that specific. Jesters, while being more specific than just 'entities' in general, are not nearly as specific as that, and I've already stated that I can not explain the exact logic behind these hallucinations - but that does not mean there isn't any. In addition, while not coming down to exact clothing and words, the Lady Sally entity commonly seen in Salvia trips is a presence known very well by many users and often has the same 'personality', but this is not enough to convince me that she is real. Multiple people seeing the same thing on a hallucinogenic drug in my view is not overwhelming evidence of actual existence. Show me something that can be quantified without taking a mind-altering substance and I may begin to change my mind.

Again, again, I'm not trying to say that this all must happen within the realm of our understanding. I DO believe that there is more to it than we can comprehend as humans. But I don't believe that these hallucinations as we perceive them to fit our understanding of reality are actually taking place, not without more concrete evidence. I personally think that the very thought that other beings floating around in space or in other dimensions need be even remotely similar to the human form or fathomable by the human brain is an entirely selfish view that is just a natural result of our evolution.

All sensations and perceptions are the product of brain activity.

There is no way to prove this. I could just as easily say that the brain/body is an “idea” or “abstraction” created by consciousness to give consciousness the appearance of embodiment.

There is no duality. There is no "they". It's all you buddy.. Everything.

I think jesters, aliens, etc. are hyperspatial memes. It's very much outside of your natural, sober self, but perhaps a very real part of the extended self, that self which is common to us all, maybe something analogous or synonymous with the collective unconscious. If a particular meme is accessed through some shared information field I don't think it is neccessarily real in the literal sense. No matter how realistic a movie seems, it is not real. The DMT experience is an exaggerated form of meme transmission in this sense. These experiences, though uncannily realistic, are probably manifestations of information (in the abstract sense) and not manifestations of autonomous, sentient beings.

I highly doubt that extradimensional lifeforms would bear any resemblance in physical form or technology to that employed by us on Earth. Granted the existence of some form of psychological/spiritual connection, physical apparati are rather unneccessary and crude when they can just read you mentally. I think only if your physical body were accosted by physical beings in this physical universe, would this be possible.

House makes a good point about jesters as an archetype. Let me just blow the dust off my copy of Jung's "Four Archetypes." Jung states that the Trickster archetype is manifested in forms such as "...Pulcinella and the clown." The jester, is of course, a precursor to clowns as we generally conceive of them today. Thus, jesters are cultural manifestations of the Trickster archetype.

Well, that's my take on it.

jesters and clowns are archetypes for sure they are not the aliens. It does feel at times in this duality" line of thinking that hyperspace seen as some kind of universal conscousness seems to use and play with these archetypes as strange ways of communicating with deeper levels of the self.

The beings that i encounter resemble nothing human whatsoever . they seem to be made of energy and light and can assume many forms most of wich are beyond anything I've ever seen anywhere in my life.

This discussion of " is it outside ourselves?" whats real? has been beaten into the ground. There is no way to prove it either way at this point in time.

I was never looking for anything specific when i started this quest. For whatever reason I kept at it and things began to change.



jesters and clowns are one thing but there is much more to be discovered past all of that.

I would have never thought I would reach the conclusions i've had. Its taken me a long time to come to terms with what i've encountered but I'm ok with it. I won't argue with anyone who calls it a delusional meme driven hallucination I understand that perspective. I will submit that you probably haven't tripped hard enough yet.

Excellent points: One reason there are so many different views concerning the nature of the DMT experience is that each of us experiences it uniquely. Sometimes when we talk about experiences, we assume that others have had similar ones, and this can lead to frustration and miscommunication.

I have learned firsthand that it’s possible to have DMT experiences that are capable of convincing a rational, scientifically-minded person that there is something more – much more – to the experience than just drug-induced hallucinations or delusions.

I agree that if someone has significant doubts concerning the “other-worldly” aspect of DMT experiences, then he simply hasn’t yet had a convincing one. If you don’t believe in the reality of “hyperspace”, then you obviously haven’t yet had an experience deep enough or strong enough or convincing enough to cause you to change your beliefs. And if you say that there is no experience deep enough to change your beliefs, then you’re just revealing an intellectual/psychological stubbornness and closed-mindedness.

At least that’s the way I see it.

SWIM once had a very difficult experience with spice. He thought that he was pinned down by a group of elf clown type entities and was mind raped. It scared him away from spice for quite a while. He completely got the jester/clown impression.

In hindsight, I don't believe that these were literal entities, but some archetype. I could see how it could be easily confused though. Terence McKenna definitely set everyone up for the belief that smoking DMT can lead to seeing entities.. It is easy to see why an ego will try its best to make up a fantastical story of the event. It creates mythology. I was sucked in for a while too. Belief is powerful.

The message of spice is beyond "entity" contact. It is self realization.

Isn't this a little bit of a contradiction? You first say that we all experience this uniquely, then you proceed to say that if someone doubt the other-wordly aspect of the experiences we just haven't smoked enough. You're making claims about other people which you have no right to make. Your personal conviction as a result of strong experiences does not necessarily imply the conviction of others. DMT means different things for different people. For example; burnt here just got more rational after smoking DMT, whereas another person just got more spiritual. This is because we experience it uniquely, because we are unique individuals, not because we didn't smoke enough. It's unfair to make such claims about others experiences, don't you think?

After my second DMT experience I was convinced of the autonomous reality and existence of these entities. I met 5-6 of them, they touched me, they performed tests, used weird instruments to perform the tests and I could feel their presence stronger and realer than anything else. For a long time I thought I had visited another, co-existing dimension where each of these beings had an autonomous consciousness existing outside of my own. I don't believe that anymore, but that is not because I didn't smoke enough..

How can you have beliefs about the dmt experience ? To believe means to be 100% sure you are right, which is not possible, for anything.
I think the best way to handle the dmt experience is to simply keep every possible interpretations in mind... Just like robert anton wilson would
probably say.

The trouble with that viewpoint is that quite a few people now have been dead in hospital, hooked up to an EEG machine which can prove there was no electrical activity at all in the brain. When they are later revived they can recall what the doctors in the room were saying & doing, what people in the waiting room were saying/doing/wearing, and what people hundreds of miles away were saying/doing/wearing.

If there was no brain activity at that time, how were these things experienced (according to your recipe), and almost more interestingly, where are these memories stored if it can be shown that they were not being written into some part of the brain?