This is a cautionary tale about how you can turn DMT against you. For all the warnings that psychonauts give about set and setting being important, I'd like to share with you some of my experiences related to my experimentation on this concept as it pertains to DMT.
DMT Faux Pas #1:
I have a small bubbler loaded with marijuana on the bottom, DMT crystals in the middle and tea leaves on top. It's perched on the edge of a wicker table with my TV on it. The TV is on at a decent volume and is playing Star Wars: A New Hope. Sadly in this version Han Solo did not shoot first, and that's about the scene I'm on. In my own goofy mind I've decided to see what DMT would be like while distracted. With the TV blaring a movie and a bunch of ambient noise going around. Why not. I grab my pipe and lay back into a plush Papa-San style love seat. I spark the tea on top and begin my inhale, all while watching Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan start off their little adventure. I can taste the smoke. When I finish my first exhale I go or hit two, a major massive lung busting toke that has the entire bowl aflame with the bubbler thickened with white vapor. It feels like my head is crunching.
While looking at the TV, nothing is changing. The movie isn't warped in the slightest. Everything is as it should be. But outside the TV, the room is changing. The spots where outlets are are flickering as if they can't make up where they are in space. The door to my TV room is open and I can see a bright yellow light pulsing from it. It seems like the walls are bending around this glow, like a portal. I immediatly leave my movie and head out the door. Everything gets quieter from the outside noise. But my head gets louder. I can feel my inner voice get weird. I follow the light through a few open doors. It leads to my bathroom (I had left the light on). When I look at myself in the bathroom mirror I get the sensation that my face is sheering. That the right side and the left side are not matching up. When my face finally comes back I hear chattering. I get the sensation that there are entities all around me. I can hear them and their vibratory chatter, but I can't see them. I can feel them pry into my head. That's when things take a turn for the crazy.
It begins to feel as if my brain is on knobs like a radio dial that keys into emotions and personalities. It also feels as if there are strings (frequencies) going into and out of my head. As the sensation overtakes me, I feel as if the entities are playing around with the knobs in my brain. Part of me feels like they're fucking with me and part of me feels as if they're just playing. Like they're trying to show me something. In the span of a couple of minutes I go from depressive to exited to horny to nervous to anxious to orgasmic to jittery to quirky to goofy to jealous.
. There seems to be no letting up from this emotional maelstrom. And it doesn't feel pleasent at all. Even when I was tuned into channel giddy, my consious mind knew that it was going to change violently and tumultiously, like the ups and downs of a nausea inducing roller coaster. While all this is going on I turn on the shower. Trying to get a grip on the chaos that's going on in my head. While each emotion shifts the room takes on a different ambience. Such as for the 20 seconds I was depressed the room was quite grey and forboding. When I was horny the room was rather pinkish. Though after a while they settled on a frequency that made me feel somewhat like a baby. I felt curious and explorative though ultimatly ignorant. I knew that I really didn't know anything, but I didn't care, it was all too interesting. At that point the colors brightened to a cartoony vibe. It was then that I realized what I was being shown. I was learning what the approriate mindset was when approaching DMT. It should be one of innocent curiosity where all fear is cast aside in favor of exploration. As that epiphany washed over me, the entites seemed to back off and I began to take control over the emotional radio station that was my brain. I set the dial to awe and began to coast my way through the rest of the trip with a smirk on my face. It was a very intense trip. It makes me think of the conflict that one has with their locus of control. You either blame outside forces or strengthen your own will to control your world. I got to feel what it was like to be on both sides. Not totally bad, but certainly not good. A true learning experience.
Glowing Experience #1:
This is about a week after the aforementioned Faux Pas.
I had just gotten done with a brisk workout. My mind was completely focused. I'm sweaty, but still a exhillerated. When I get to my house. I move completely and without hesition. There is nothing going on in the back of my head. No worries, no daydreams. Nothing. I move to load my pipe. I fill my bubbler with hot water. Load in the glass screen. Layer a bed of peppermint leaves followed by DMT followed by peppermint leaves (I wanted to try something besides tea which I had been using before, though this is my third time using peppermint, the other times weren't worth noting). After loading the pipe I lay back in a comfy chair and start my inhale, slow and methodically using my diaphram and partially sucking at the stem like a straw. The world starts to shake, but that doesn't deter me. I take another major hit and I feel myself sinking into the chair. The whole world explodes like a flower of browns and greens and pinks (the colors around my room). It spirals like crazy. I can feel myself slipping into something greater.
But for one reason or another I decide to stand up. That is when I see my room glowing and pulsing and flickering. It's beautiful. The colors are so bright, there are pinks and yellows an purples cascading up the walls. I walk around. My hands are bright with shimmering lights around them. I go and look at myself in the mirror. My smile is Cheshire cat like. I feel like a god. At one with the universe. Everything around me is moving. Everything is humming and buzing like a musical symphony. It is one of the greatest experiences ever. I think I finally have the right mindset to approach this substance with.
I had a similar glowing Godlike at one with the universe experience again about 2 days later. Using a similar mindset of letting go. Both of those experiences combined with my first two major trips with DMT (see my first post) are some of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. All of the other trips have been either sub-par or not approached with the appropriate mindset (such as my fervent attempts to reach a "breakthrough" like it was an aggressive quest or my trying to smoke DMT just to get "fucked up" or my smoking of DMT when I had a head cold. All of which are bad ideas). Though you live and you learn.
DMT Faux Pas 2#:
DMT + really good marijuana in a chillum pipe. This was not a good idea to start out with. I decided to smoke it like an addict would because my last two experiences (this was the Friday after my last experience as mentioned above) were so awe inspiring. I was chasing hyperspace in a sense. I was also tired and was in the middle of having my allergies be a bother to me. All of these factors should have stopped me, but like I said I was not in the right mindset. I should have gone to bed, but instead I loaded up the pipe and began to hit it. I even felt like I shouldn't have been doing that as I was doing it.
From the first inhale I began to feel stupid and scared. Confused and jittery. The room began to get menacing, and somewhat like the first mentioned Faux Pas, I began to feel possessed, but this time it was all dark and foreboding. My muscles ached in a painful way. They began to twitch (I occasionally do get muscle twitches). I felt somewhat depressed and shallow. Like I was emotionally in a gutter. This must be what an addict feels like. I began to go through rituals to try to help myself out of this funk and it certainly was a funk. In a metaphysical way it seemed as if my third eye was going to completely close up. I played my guitar in the darkest most terrifying part of my house trying to show that I wasn't afraid. It didn't help much. I did stretches. I felt almost burnt out. It was terrible. The absolute worst kind of trip. Part of this is probably due to the fact that lately large doses of marijuana have been making me feel more confused and less in touch.
I have come to the conclusion that I will never mix marijuana with DMT anymore. It may work for some people, but for me it just doesn't ever seem to work out. In fact I am going to give up smoking pot for a little while and focus on working out more and eating healthier, which certainly helps with the DMT experience. Quite frankly I think that the addict mindset has been getting me down, and I need to get past it. Smoking just for the sake of smoking isn't the way of doing things, likewise drinking for the sake of drinking, ect. You need to have a reason for why you're doing things. A rationale. And at that time I certainly didn't.
Lesson learned it seems but it was a hard way to learn. Either way I hope this helps.
Remember set and setting and if you screw up, just make sure to pick yourself back up.
Peace.
(Also it would be helpful for anyone to share their wisdom regarding particularly dark moments with DMT and their own personal Faux Pas while experiementing with this substance).
"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here’s Tom with the weather."