Hello everyone this is my first post on this website and i was reading an article earlier about a guy called "James Kent" who makes a case against the DMT vision validity which you can read on this link http://www.tripzine.com/...ting.php?id=dmt_pickover

Do you agree with Kent or do you think there is not enough evidence to suggest hes right?

This article has been discussed here before.

My general observation is that people’s beliefs are influenced by their experiences. Not everyone who uses DMT has the same sorts of experiences. Some people, for whatever reason, experience only colorful geometric visuals. Others are transported out of body to other realms, where they proceed to have deep spiritual participatory experiences.

It’s understandable that those at one extreme might not view the DMT experience in the same way as those at the other extreme.

People’s beliefs about the DMT experience are also influenced by pre-existing beliefs. Those who are very attached to a materialistic view of reality will strive to explain the DMT experience in terms of brain chemistry. Maybe they’re right, and maybe not.


What do you believe?

@gibran thanks for replying and personally i don't actually know what to believe because i suppose its impossible to know for sure and Kents argument seems logical but maybe logic alone cant and never will explain DMT in this lifetime, also do you have a link to that discussion thanks.

To me all of this is just rationalistic talk. If you put what he says under the scrutiny of some idealist philosophies it would shatter.

Of course there is no way to DENY what he says, because it is all facts. Very concrete and very solid. We could see it happen a million times, the chemical DMT make its course through the brain. But even this I think could be shattered by philosophy.

I would have to disagree with this man. Even though everything he says makes sense in his little "word game". In some aspects we don't even have proof "this reality" exists. So therefor if we conclude that this reality doesn't even exist outside our human senses, then why would hyperspace be any different? The experience is the same whether or not it is "real" but then again how do you even begin to define "real".

One thing that really stuck out to me is how he talked about controlling the elves in his visions, he tried to make them give him information that would not relate to him as a human.

There are two problems with this:

1) These "higher beings" or elves most likely contain such knowledge but they have "wisdom" not to tell him.
2) He cannot receive information foreign to the human mind, because he is HUMAN.

I could find more of what I disagree with but I do not wish to go on a rant. But I suppose what I am saying is even that he seems to have "proof" of all this. But I believe that humans understand very little, where he most likely thinks we are capable of understanding much.

It it two sides of a coin.

Thank you for the link though I really enjoyed reading that

That was a good hit, thanks for that trip Now I can add a prefix to the word elves and say thems-elves. How grounding, but then what is the point of meditation if its only to switch the input origin of the primary workspace of the frontal cortex from esternal sensory to internal hippocampus memory? So then is DMT the "switch" from external to internal? Maybe this is dose responsive, or maybe under circumstances like calming down, laying down, closing the eyes in the dark when othe neurotransmitters like melatonin can take effect - the dose response for the switch could happen at a lower dose, and usually this is not right after we fall asleep it seems, unless my memory is just not very vivid during that time when I start sleeping. I mean I certainly notice prehypnogogic imagery - that which is increased with the use of LSD and psilocybin - just with day to day falling asleep and or daydreaming. This is a great lesson on how to spot those who are a bit confused, and how this understanding can be bridged if the person is ready for that. Frame translation and lateral inhibition are great to know about.

Still doesnt explain how a holy guardian angel type ent would show me 5 minutes into the future...Something I couldnt have possibly known. Unless we actually do have information like that inside us. Still I feel like this is one of those pieces of the puzzle I should have had long ago that would have acted as a grounding force. I understand my experience of bringing something back from the otherside (actually my eyes were open) is rare, though I'm sure it is common in a random way.

So how do the mystics collapse the visual state into chaos that you can feel the presence of god? I suppose the answer would be related to ontology, but i don't see how this could happen with the eyes open.

Let me know when you figure out what life is all about.

I'm not going to say i know what is going on with dmt..but I read this along time ago and i thought it was mostly garbage to be honest. He obviously has very little experience with DMT, IMO. That article says ridiculous things like "But, like anything, when you do it many times the magic tends to wear off and reveal itself for what it is; an exotic aberration of the brain's perceptual mechanics."..quite the opposite of what most report here- i.e. the rabbit hole only getting deeper and more bizarre.

"In short, I do not believe DMT is a gateway to an alternate dimension, nor does it induce contact with autonomous elves and alien entities. Yes, DMT produces a vivid other-worldly landscape when ingested, often including elves, aliens, insects, snakes, jaguars, etc. This is true for the majority of people who try it. Some people do not have such vivid responses, but many do. Although this may appear at first glance to be "shocking," it is actually no more shocking then the fact that most people dream at night, or that most people see geometric patterns (pressure phosphenes) when they close their eyes and press against their eyeballs. But the difference between pressure phosphenes and DMT is that DMT is illegal and very hard to come by, so most people never have the opportunity to experience it. If we could all hold our breath for a minute and produce vivid hallucinations of alien landscapes it would seem quite mundane, no more than a mere curiosity of the human condition. However, since this particular alien landscape is produced by a specific rare substance (DMT), people seem to think it is akin to unlocking the mysteries of the universe when they actually get their hands on it."

seriously? He clearly has very little experience with it and/or had some bad trips and is pulling a joemolly/joenobo in my opinion

I agree with universecannon that i doubt his writer has a lot of working knowledge with dmt. For starters ive heard many friends and strangers tell me that they've smoked dmt multiple times and that its not all that what others claim it to be. For me this instantly tells me either they didn't vape enough or more likely smoked it in an in-efficient method. You can totally screw up smoking dmt and your still going to get good visuals and sometimes people dont understand that there is so much more past that point. The longer you work with dmt the deeper and more complex and bizarre it becomes. It becomes anything but mundane or same ole same old. To me the guy shows his hand right there.

So clearly this guy has made contact with the phenomenon of the countless reporting's of meeting other beings. Great kudo's, yippie. He is far from alone in his beliefs. Id say the nexus community is close to 50-50 on this topic. There are many people here that I have ton's of respect for their knowledge and wisdom but very much disagree with when it comes to the "other's". Yes, for me they are as real as reality gets. It all comes down to personal experiences in my view. My best friend and long time respected senior member was a sceptical user for years and years until very recently had and experience as he described "was the absolute proof he needed" to now fully enlist in the entities are real camp.

So what I am saying is that maybe for some they just haven't had that un deniable mind blowing contact experience that makes the user just know its a real experience with actual conscious entities. After all my buddy has vaped for over 4 years and is as versed and experienced with dmt as it gets but it didn't happen to him till just a few months ago. So why could that not be the case for this guy or many other sceptics or doubter's? No one could argue that it's a reasonable possibility as no 2 people have the same experiences. And for whatever its worth i speak from first hand, i for a long time didn't believe they entities were "real".

In the end it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you get something out of your work with dmt that further's your progression as a person. If its not the what the hell are you doing it for. If believed its all in our heads and was getting nothing out of it to integrate into my life I doubt I had much interest in dmt after a short period much like the writer of the article. So that could be the case here.

Who know's, who cares? I know what I think and thats all that matters to me.

I agree with universecannon that i doubt his writer has a lot of working knowledge with dmt. For starters ive heard many friends and strangers tell me that they've smoked dmt multiple times and that its not all that what others claim it to be. For me this instantly tells me either they didn't vape enough or more likely smoked it in an in-efficient method. You can totally screw up smoking dmt and your still going to get good visuals and sometimes people dont understand that there is so much more past that point. The longer you work with dmt the deeper and more complex and bizarre it becomes. It becomes anything but mundane or same ole same old. To me the guy shows his hand right there.

So clearly this guy has made contact with the phenomenon of the countless reporting's of meeting other beings. Great kudo's, yippie. He is far from alone in his beliefs. Id say the nexus community is close to 50-50 on this topic. There are many people here that I have ton's of respect for their knowledge and wisdom but very much disagree with when it comes to the "other's". Yes, for me they are as real as reality gets. It all comes down to personal experiences in my view. My best friend and long time respected senior member was a sceptical user for years and years until very recently had and experience as he described "was the absolute proof he needed" to now fully enlist in the entities are real camp.

So what I am saying is that maybe for some they just haven't had that un deniable mind blowing contact experience that makes the user just know its a real experience with actual conscious entities. After all my buddy has vaped for over 4 years and is as versed and experienced with dmt as it gets but it didn't happen to him till just a few months ago. So why could that not be the case for this guy or many other sceptics or doubter's? No one could argue that it's a reasonable possibility as no 2 people have the same experiences. And for whatever its worth i speak from first hand, i for a long time didn't believe they entities were "real".

In the end it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you get something out of your work with dmt that further's your progression as a person. If its not the what the hell are you doing it for. If believed its all in our heads and was getting nothing out of it to integrate into my life I doubt I had much interest in dmt after a short period much like the writer of the article. So that could be the case here.

Who know's, who cares? I know what I think and thats all that matters to me.

ahhh James Kent...

The guy comes off as quite arrogant at times if you start to read his book and listen to him online.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could sum all this up and package neatly in a little book called "psychedelic information theory"?..

..no notable DMT-advocate has ever suggested that all people have the same kinds of experiences on it..Terence McKenna told me that he had had many kinds of DMT experiences other than the 'machine elves'/'self transforming jewelled dribbling basketballs' etc..
apparently communicating entities are experienced by many people above the 'threshold' (of body loss) but not all..some children are disposed to seeing spirits and are guided in a shamanic direction later in life (in such cultures..ours wants to give them proxac to shut-em-down)

..the possible mechanisms of discarnate entities have been discussed in other threads..
like olympus mon wrote, it's about 50/50 at the nexus for belief in them..in non-European 'indigenous' cultures it's probably 99% belief in the validity of spirits (or higher)
.

Probably more like 100% Im currently here in Peru and its had a great impact on how I see this topic for sure.

I'm finding it harder and harder to care about whether these experiences are real or not. That to me seems like a moot point.

To me a far more important question is "Do you find yourself liking what you do and how you feel after DMT"? Whether they are real or not does not matter. Plenty of folks get by loving life AND Jesus. I doubt we have many Christians here though.

(I'm not advocating any belief system her, but if christianity doesn't warm your cocklesjust replace it with a religion that offends you less)

I think it´s important to realise that the brain is fully capable of producing these experiences by itself...the phenomena can be explained by pointing at the innate capability´s of the brain.

That does not proof that elves don´t exist. It only shows that the existence of elves is not necessary to explain their occurence in our hyperspatial experiences.

It's real to me when it happens and has had long lasting positive implications for my life.

What more needs to be said?

If only people wouldn't say more than that we wouldn't have articles like this!

That's a great article,I wonder why I've never stumbled on it before...
In my opinion people believing that the hallucinations they see during a trip are from another dimension or w/e is really naive.As he said,it is just the mind processing information in a different way.

I think Kent leaves it pretty open in his final paragraph:

"The "Gaia consciousness" that infuses the experience is undeniable, and what to make of that I don't know, other than to entertain the possibility that this ancient plant consciousness actually exists and is attempting to make itself known through the DMT-enlightened mammal brain. If so, then this is the real discovery of the DMT experience, and this is the topic that should be looked at more closely. In the context of DMT being a two-way radio for plant-human communication, the "elves" themselves are nothing more than a cartoon interface for the exchange of information. " - KENT

In the words of Kent, the elves are "NOTHING more than a cartoon interface" for a "two-way radio [between] human-plant communication." oH?? ^^

If anything, this only strengthens the elf meme in my opinion. The elves are unreal messenger's of Gaia's real info radio?

Either way it's a win-win IMO. Either these experiences are other-worldly and externally generated, or our imaginations/minds are way way more powerful than I would have ever expected to imagine. Cheers!

Well, I find it hard to believe that people who call others naive for this sort of thing have actaully sat down and drunk just a bit more ayahuasca than they are prepared to handle. Does not really seem so naive when it actaully happens to you. you can smoke all the DMT you want and have crazy visuals but it does not mean you will touch down on some of the places that DMT, and moreso(IMO) ayahuasca can take you. Until you have been there you just dont know enough about it to even talk about it. Anyone assuming they know is just as naive as anyone else IMO.

It does not really matter how many degrees a person has..they still dont know exactly what is going on in a high dose DMT breakthrough..I dont think anyone really does at this point. We know alot about the neurological and pharmacological traits of such experiences, but that is *very* far from actaully knowing everything about the nature of such experiences.

I could also sit here and go on about how a radio works and try to then make the case that the radio station is being broadcast from inside the radio..

But...aren't claims about the "real" existence of elves claims to indeed know what's going on?



That's right. It's easy to come to an erroneous conclusion without factual data. Yet there are those who are ready to conclude they speak with real, objective elves and aliens from other worlds (or dimensions). In fact they DO NOT actually know where the "broadcast is coming from;" they only pretend they do.