most of what Purges said is true for me though it was 16 when I first tried pot and realized that what I was force fed in school and by my parents was an outright lie.. 16 was when i tried "e", mushroom and lsd for the first time .. from there the rest followed as far as substances go .. and by 17 i had tried the majority of the "street" drugs (in my area) that i have today ..

some 5 years later, age 23, i became infatuated with dmt, once i realized its "availability" from plant sources..

now with barely 1 or maybe 2 dmt breakthroughs under my belt i long for the unknown.. for something more real than life.. (if that is even possible)

i feel we focus too much on arbitrary things (money, possessions etc) when we should look within to value ourselves..

and "here" we do not place any value on this, rather we tend to look at (because we have no other choice) who, rather than what..

(not sure if that makes much sense but here "I" am)

well in a nutshell (meaning a totally arbitrary and grossly condensed version that basically is totally unable to truly explain anything well) i was always interested in the weird

sensed there was way more going on here than the majority realized, and had some odd experiences to support my intuitions

then i got stoned for the first time at 13 and tripped incredibly hard. Hours later, fell asleep and was stuck in hyperspace for eternity

got really into conspiracy theories, ufos, and eventually hippy oneness/eastern thought

started reading loads of books

started exploring many psychedelics at 16

finally extracted dmt at 18, started lurking around here more, and joined soon after

It's time to wake up.

"Are you a God?" they asked the Buddha. "No," he replied. "Are you an angel, then?" "No." "A saint?" "No." "Then what are you?" Replied the Buddha, "I am awake."

Weed told me that school was a bunch of crap.
Work told me to find something else.
Mushrooms told me to learn more.
Learning removed fear.
Fearlessness brought balance.
Balance directed me towards the source.
The source was revealed.

Disclaimer: I do not recommend any of this for anyone.

Presenting: A SWIM'S TAIL! (How I Found The Nexus)

A psychopathic homeless man into demonology was walking by SWIM's house, and SWIM's girlfriend stalked him. He hypnotized and seduced SWIM's girlfriend. SWIM broke up with crazy girlfriend. Even though she had given the homeless man a free place to stay, she was yelling at him and constantly freaking out over nothing. The vagabond wanted her panic attacks to go away so she wouldn't drive him so crazy, so he extracted and fed her dissociative drugs. She became addicted, but she was still delusional and ungrounded.

Unsatisfied with his experiment, he wanted to kill away the illogical places inside her head with DMT to help her find truth, as well as to explore his mind for spiritual reasons and help him cope with his past of being locked up most his adult life. He extracted and administered DMT. It helped him cope, understand emotions, the cosmic joke, insight into himself, and helped reduce some darker inclinations.

It helped her with being less schizophrenic / delusional and helped her become more firmly grounded in reality. They propositioned SWIM one day when he rang the doorbell. SWIM sat down and tried DMT. He told SWIM he learned how to extract from the Nexus.

~End

In short I'm grateful for circumstances leading up to my experience, but more so for this community. Without it, I wouldn't have insights in how DMT can be used as a tool for unlocking consciousness. The Nexus's structure assures quality of information which is IMHO the glue that keeps worthwhile high caliber contributions coming in, and incidentally all of us together.

I thank all the contradictory information on Youtube. It drew me to dig for deeper insights into DMT & the brain. Misinformation indirectly led me into 9 months of research before initially taking it. The sum of all DMT information on the net is a drop in the bucket compared to here. I feel more information on DMT will never be enough.

I would also like to thank my anti-conformist mother for seeking the truth, past psychedelic experiences for courage, and The Nexus/Erowid for existing. This forum would be nothing without it's members. You are the "reasons" why I found this place, but in the end it's all thanks to The Traveler. Without these factors I would never have had a chance to experience DMT in my lifetime.

The DMT experience is responsible for my insatiable thirst for knowledge and novelty which keeps me learning, experiencing, applying and sharing back here from time to time. I have no doubt the paradoxical nature of the DMT experience draws together people with a similar fascination to the strange and abstract.

Oh lord, where to start.

I guess it stemmed from my curiosity about marijuana when I was 17. In my senior year my friend turned me on to smoking and with those first 100 or so highs, they were very psychedelic and incredible.

Natural curiosity led me to shroomery after that, where I would spend hours pouring over trip reports with amazement.

I knew I had to try for myself and so did my friend that turned me on to weed, we acquired some P. Cubes and skipped school one day to consume them. 1.5 grams and 5 hours later, I came out a different person than going in.

As time passed I cherished my experience and had many more, loving everything about it, the good and the bad.

I first heard of DMT sometime after this, because a group of friends at school were very into it, and ayahuasca. They had brewed their own and consumed, and spoke of it's wonder.

I began my research on DMT through the web, and every time I would search something, the nexus would be in the top results.

I surfed the forums for a good while and decided to join because of it's high level of maturity and information from very experienced members. I wanted to contribute to that, and here I am.

I am here on a mission, a quest if you will, to explore, learn, expand and awaken

They showed us anti-drug films in elementary school in the early seventies. I remember a scene from one of these films where some teenagers were driving down a tree lined street in a convertible, getting high on cannabis. The producers of the film used a few different special effects to depict what it was like for the kids in this car - the trees were waving, colors were shifting, speed was altered, sound was distorted, etc. Wanted to do it right then and there, but had to wait until high school. There was never any doubt that it was right for me.

Seven years later I found my counterpart, my shakti. She gave muse to me to do acid. I saw the tao, and found out many things over the course of a couple years with the help of my shakti wife and some very clean liquid lsd (yeah, some of the stories about the old days and clean acid are true).

We raised a family to find out what that was all about, and over the years of doing that, we became lost, distant from each other, frustrated, and in general fairly miserable, even though we saw ourselves as a "loving" family.

Much damage was done, even so, and so I decided to start asking again the questions that I had answered so many years ago. First question, "what is time". This I asked on google, and it led me to Terence McKenna because of his Novelty Theory. Terence led me here. Here I found out about salvia, which healed my heart, and brought me and my wife back to the intimately close and beautiful thing that we are.

We were gone so long...It's nice to be home.

I started off smoking weed, then shortly after some friends had given me some mushrooms they grew and ever since then I've been exploring the psychedelic realm almost (dare i say) obsessively. Through the use of psychs I've learned more than I would have ever imagined or been able to imagine. About myself, others, society, reality, and much much more. I may not continue using these substance for the rest of my life, but I'll always remember and use all of the thousands of lessons they've taught me. Once DMT came into my life, I realized how much more I could learn from it. Because at one point I naively believed I knew all there was to learn from psychs. Once I started preceding to higher doses and experiencing DMT I was proved horribly wrong. The one thing that i guess is the main reason i came here though is to learn more efficient ways to vaporize spice but now I am starting to utilize this great site for all its wonderful information and resources.

The gateway drug

then over the course of a year I climbed the ladder of psychedelics inevitably leading me here.

lost my job, had a lot of questions about myself and where i was going. began meditating and floating regularly in a sensory deprivation tank which led me to DMT.

I've always had this feeling that I was able to do something special as a kid (like fly or something else strange) but that I just can't remember. Ive been able to produce these strange feelings of energy, that drains me into an almost pain, well not exactly pain but very uncomfortable states. 'I just know that something is going on here' at that time I've never heard of astral projection/dmt/obe. It wasn't till recently (post dmt) that I started researching astral realms and such and I finally figured out why I was 'different'. That was my answer I've been looking for.

It actually seems to me like this substance found me. I didn't look for it. It came to me at a time when I was ready for it and now everything is unfolding and expanding into a multidimentional highway and im in for the long ride. just the way it's supposed to.

The recognition that no teraphy, person or circumstance could show me, what I needed to be shown to.
Other than DMT