meh, james kent...I dunno I never found his ideas to reflect my own experience of DMT at all.

Same. I read his book, and see no reason why to idolize him or put him up on a pedestal any more than anyone else. And in line with what UC said, it's like claiming to be an expert on cliff diving, even though the biggest jump you've ever taken has been off the tenth stair in your house. Part of the beauty to the DMT experience is that at least after literally over a thousand sessions in the past two years, I can honestly say that I often have no clue what will happen. Will it be colorful? Probably. Will it be geometrically complex? Probably. Will it include a sense of "extra"-dimensionality? Hopefully But the details are always up in the air. And there's always new things to notice and new connections to be made which pave the way to territory that I wouldn't even imagine would be in hyperspace to begin with.

i agree..well said

i often feel as though i could explore this tryptamine dimension for several lifetimes and still have infinites to explore

who's claiming to be an expert? did I ever claim to be very experienced with DMT?
please quote where I ever made such a claim.
kent has done dmt way more than I have, probably you too. I don't put him on a pedestal the way a lot of people do with terrence mckenna, I just regard him as having a lot of experience with dmt.

I don't see this at all. There is nothing recreational about a large dose of shrooms to me. I HATE being around people when I'm on them. I only do large doses alone and I almost NEVER have fun when I do them. Yes I come out of the experience feeling much better and more connected, but it is damn sure not recreational. I suppose I could get on board with the afterglow being recreational, but that would be like saying a pain killer for intense pain was recreational when taken for pain just because it's also euphoric.

To be sure, I do sometimes take low dose shrooms or even LSD with VERY VERY close friends and find them to be even better than alcohol at stimulating group conversation. But the doses have to be tightly controlled for myself because once I start feeling the carrier wave I have no interest in people or external stimuli. I want to dive into my mind when I hear that sound.

So no I don't see how you can equate spiritual, or psychological use as recreational. I see them as tools for some people and as recreational drugs for others

Peace

Interesting post, and as I was reading it a potential explanation popped into my mind.

Psychedelics are mind expanding agents. This we all agree. We all also agree that the state of mind we walk into the experience with is what is magnified. Thus the emphasis on set and setting.

Now consider a buddhist monk. A person that has spent year and years cultivating a very quite mind. What is magnified when he takes a psychedelic? Is the quiet magnified?

One conflict I have with this explanation is my own experience. If anything I believe meditation has made it possible for me to get on with much smaller doses than I used to need...but then I seriously doubt that I have even come close to the state of quietness that a monk in a monastery has achieved.

Just more food for thought.

peace

Ah. No. Sorry that is simply not true for MANY other people outside of your core group of dancers/ravers/etc. As you noted there are all sorts of people with all sorts of intentions.

Analogy. If I have severe back pain and my wife gives me one of her prescription pain pills for my pain and I feel some relief AND euphoria from it. Did I take it recreationally? Of course not.

Peace.

I actually agree. I am starting to explore getting up and moving around on Changa more. I like to stand and move my arms around and watch the waves of energy ripple off them. I am becoming much more comfortable with the experience and I guess one could say it's loosing some of it's magic, but then I'd only have to quickly load up 20mgs of pure spice and it would very rapidly become quite novel again. BTW I wouldn't say it's loosing it's magic. I'm just learning how to tame the experience a little more. I can also suggest visions that quite often appear for me now. It's not the same random soup it was initially.

If you take the exact same dose repeatedly there is an element of familiarity that starts to shine through. Yes the visions are different, but they are still similar. Just as mushrooms and DMT are different and similar.

Also lastly Shamans have clearly normalized many aspects of the ayahausca experience for themselves.

Peace.

I dunno. It's hard to comment on such things due to the fact your basically defining it with a single word "recreation" and I don't think you can define why someone who uses psychadelics spiritually, with a single word. That said...

It's is an enjoyable experience. And I can see how if you enjoy exploring your mind you could call that recreation. But what are we really talking about? We're not applying the definitions properly IMO. There is a difference in types of recreational use. I use mushrooms recreationally, sure. But not in a disrespectful way. I don't goto huge keggers and pop a large doses.

I like to take mushrooms with friends while doin fun things. Like camping or something special like that. Even at home around our fire table and entertaining eachother while on this amazing chemical psilocybin. If you take that situation and replace mushrooms with alcohol it's the same thing. The only difference is the experience you get from it. Different drugs cause different things and I enjoy certain ones.

So I don't really think it makes sense to debate about recreational use because that doesn't seem to really be what is being talked about. It's the disrespectful misunderstanding that we all think shouldn't be mixed with the awesome eye openers. Doesn't that boil down to intent? What's your intentions? What's the intentions of the kegger hopper who takes shrooms. Who knows. But I have been to parties before in the long ago past while on mushrooms or acid. Was I using in a disrespectful way?

I'm sure light doses of psychs could be enjoyed "recreationally", but i VERY MUCH doubt that heavy ones could. Of course this is all down to the individual. But i would not imagine a heavy dose of psychs to be a particularly "recreational" or fun type activity at all. In fact quite the opposite, unless you like pain?

Exactly, but for me its always what I get out of it in the end that is the most rewarding. And the painful and scary "bad trips" I have had were very enlightening and taught me a lot. I'm not really defining my use of mushrooms as recreation, but at the same time I dont think its far from the truth. Many things I do recreationally contribute to my well being and personal growth in life.

Having pure fun with psychs in whatever way seems fun to you, IMO, contribute to your mental well being whether you know it or not, or whether thats why you do it or not. So even if you used them recreationally, wouldnt you still be adding to your personal growth in one way or another? Although there are certain situations that would not, as well. Like DMT at a 100+ person house party, wouldnt be very fun at all I can imagine, nor a good way of utilizing its potential.

I see my spirituality as a recreation. Its not my main path but it is extremely important to me. Maybe I'm mixing ideologies.

I think the general consensus is that it was malted beer with pennyroyal in it

with the thousands of plant species in south america I am sure there are beneficial enthogens that even the locals still do not know about. Even in great organizations like Erowid I cannot find much information, academic or otherwise, on the majority of natural drugs outside the scope of those sold on the street.

I am willing to bet it would be very easy to start a not for profit organization devoted to the study of the sacred plants. Would be easy to find investors (woody allen, robert downy jr ext...)and test subjects. Also, with the number of extremely well educated people in this community we could probably fill all positions in the organization with accredited staff.

has anyone ever ran a deep web search about research into these drugs?

It is a delicate thing to discuss the philosophy of psychedelic use in a community of users of powerful hallucinogens. As diverse as regular peoples opinions are, each of our minds operate on levels different than each others and way outside of social boundries. You can not possibly try and stereotype the use of these drugs. What you can do, however, is simply classify the type of person doing the drug by how he explains his interaction with it. Some day I hope to be called Shaman, not junky, or raver, or geek, or space cadet. I dont see these drugs as a doorway to escape reality, but a tool to chisel away the illusions in it. Anyone who has been knocked off they're feet and felt the light can never again say these drugs are recreational, and recreational users will never understand that because they will never see the light.

I don't agree that psychedelics used recreationally are automatically abused. If you have grown up in a christian society, you might feel that hedonism is the devil or something along these lines, even though you might not be christian per se... however I don't see the problem with a little hedonism once in a while.

Hell, we ought to enjoy life, no? If we don't enjoy what we are doing, how can we give off positivity? How can we make positive decisions, if everything we do and see is based in discontent?

Taking psychedelics to get that boost you need to experience euphoria is a good thing, no? If this happens at a trance party with hundreds of other people sharing the same vibe... why not. Personally it's not how I enjoy them, but I don't see anything wrong with the idea of it, in general.

I do see something wrong with it when I meet some of the people and they strike me as burned out and spaced out and out of touch with reality... which unfortunately happens to some. I've met both kinds - the burned out and the non-burned out party goers - so I know both exist. There's a lot of escapists mixed in with this crowd I think, and instead of enjoying life they end up destroying it. At least this is what I've seen from a distance.

Personally I've been to very few parties. Most of the times I have taken my entheogens alone or with very close friends. I've laughed and cried equally, been horrified but also been higher than I could have imagined. I've used psychedelics for healing, for solving internal issues, for experimenting, out of curiosity and sometimes just because I wanted to enjoy myself. I like to think that the sate of our mind matters alot. I don't know to whom exactly, but I like to think of it as a cosmic thing - it matters to the universe. So if I can help myself become happy, if I can learn about this state of euphoria and bewilderment and use it to better my state of mind in general, so I can better enjoy every second of my life... then that's a good thing for the universe. Maybe I'm just being very ego-centric, thinking we are / I am that significant. But at least I don't see anything bad in it either.

I was actually referring to Kent, not you benz. I read PIT and did not get the strong sense that he was well versed with DMT.

so what defines how well-versed someone is with dmt? how many elves or jokers they've seen?
perhaps how many iterations in julia sets they've counted in a fractal temple?
or maybe it's the acceptance of the alternate hypothesis that such a state of being is "more real than this reality"

honestly, I wouldn't know. I haven't been there, which is why I ask.

That's tough. Possibly not able to know. You have number of experiences. But you also have the person and what is in their head. Their beliefs, knowledge, and understanding. Who knows. It seems to be quite a plethora of variables that can't be nailed down to a black and white answer, ever.

A person that has worked with dmt extensively with different forms of administration under various conditions and settings. That's where I would start the definition.

Secondly to the other posts here. It seems what is needed is to define what recreational is. Everyone seems to be making their points on clearly different definitions of the word the most common one here seems to be confusing the word recreational with a word like social.

Because an act done alone in a quite spiritual setting doesn't make it not a recreational activity. You can all kid yourselves all you want but imo we are ALL doing this for enjoyment in some form. It's not our job nor a requirement therefore it is indeed recreational. I don't see how intentions can change that.


Yes we get many philosophical and spiritual ideas and confirmations and some use dmt as a tool in their path of understanding or spirtiual practice but everyone is doing what they are doing with dmt because it brings them joy in some form. Whether that is the initial experience or the growth and development or just some visual kicks its recreational.

Maybe define what recreational means to you and we can get further along in the discussion.

For me it means something you do out of interest or passion in your free time away from other obligations. The thing you do to enrich your life experience. Dmt certainly fits that mold for me.

Neeeext! Id really love it if we all got off our damn high horses here and stopped condemming and judging other peoples way of exporing their minds and consciousness! Ive done the solo work, ive done the festival expereince and social use and never...NOT Ever did i feel I receievd no insight, growth or benefit from the experiences nor were any of them meaningless. Some of the happiest moments in my life where dancing to good Electro in a deep trip dancing in an alternate reality, becoming the music and one with everyone and everything in my own hyper dimensional universe.

Tell me thats not as powerful or as huge as 5 grams in your bed alone in psychedelic states! I double dog dare ya, lol!