My crazy idea involves DMT having become a meme that uses others as its salesmen, often individuals that have never consumed it. I must preface this by saying that I have experienced the substance at very high doses, many times.

Lately DMT appears to be growing as a flag bearer or symbol to materialize a preconceived notion of someone’s intent, belief or hopes. This is to say: if one previously beheld the idea of a spiritual existence after death, then their interpretation of the experience may be heavily biased in reinforcing entities as spirits. Yes, I am suggesting here that the DMT experience is actually benign in function and may serve only as a catalyst in the ignition of pre-seeded ideas for the general populace. This follows with people branding the substance sacred or precious so are we not falling into a new age religion / ideology of sought’s thus fulfilling the age old Zen koan involving a finger pointing at the moon?

Another point I wanted to discuss is the Integration of experience over time.
This seems to me to negate one of the promises of DMT’s benefits over meditation, yoga, religion etc. Mckenna (a brilliant mind) often stated that what is needed is a break from the traditions and thought systems with a return to direct experience. He continues with an analogy of reality involving a targets bullseye with DMT square in the middle and other psychedelics as coordination points. Integration over time, at least to me, is still not hitting the nail on the head and still remains a promise, an assumed trust that reality will be revealed if you give it time / effort. Ultimately the experience IS the experience and not your later spin or assigned flavor.

I am also going to suggest that the mere fact that somebody is prepared to take the substance is already an indication of their awareness and curiosity in life and that in some cases serves only as a placebo or validation for someone to move forward. Also, I have often seen reports of people communicating with entities whilst under and taking the content as gospel. I fail to see why an unusual even out of this world experience should be an excuse to drop your critical method of thinking instead of simply gaining another perspective.

I derived these ideas after asking myself these questions:
- Am I really being honest with myself about what I wanted to obtain from DMT
- What was actually delivered?
- Was I lost in fuzzy warm feeling of DMT over-hype?

DMT is an exquisite technology no doubt but I feel compelled to call a spade a spade

Wow, this is an amazing post Borris . I could feel your sincerity through my screen .



Most definitely so! I remember reading a study on near-death exp journal that said that for the most part religious persons who had a NDE saw their deity. While most of the atheist persons who had a NDE simply experienced a flash of their life and saw family members, w/o any deity presence. I think that many people project their subconscious mind during altered states so they're fighting through a lot of ego projections or preconceived notions. Upon reintegration, if they're still holding their beliefs then they may interpret what they saw as absolute objective truth. Or simply self vindication. & How much self vindication can you have until it turns into individualism or egocentrism in the form of you imparting these beliefs unto others? Naw mean? Personally, I do believe in a spiritual realm, but at the same time don't always see it projected in my altered states. So I'm more or less an agnostic on what's really going on.



Completely agree. Like all psychedelics, I see DMT as a great tool for the subjective exp of reality that we call 'life'. It is what it is psyche (mind) delic (manifestation). Now of course many people get into the whole idea of whether the mind is local or outside of the brain, but I think this is silly in regards to psychedelics. They are chemically effecting our brain, so do we honestly believe that psychedelics are transporting us outside of our brains? A lot of new agers say we're tapping into the 'collective consciousness' w/o even understanding the actual history of that term. It was conceived in the 19th century by French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, to describe the shared beliefs of a society that operated as a uniting force. Not nearly having anything to do with indigenous spirituality on spirits and dream time which is a whole other story. Nonetheless, I think that the turn of the hippies into the yuppies in the 70s & 80s with the self potential movement started the era of hippie individualism. This lead many to capitalize off of psychedelics incorporating them into objective theories on reality and the unification of subjective exp through their "teachings". I guess where I'm going with that in terms of the Zen koan, is that we've got a lot more finger pointers now. So yeah, I do see your point about where we are at with the psychedelic community in relation to the new age religious claims.



The psychedelic exp is very fleeting. It can definitely turn you on to new ways of thinking, and after most of my trips I feel like my mind is reset or on a different level. But I understand what you're saying about the difficulty to really integrate everything over a long period of time as opposed to more daily disciplined practices. I guess the best option is to do those disciplined practices like yoga and meditation in conjunction with your psychedelic exps. I think that is the best way to integrate these altered states with your waking life over longer periods of time.



In the DMT community I definitely see this a lot, to the point were it is scary. But the ayahuasca community seems to have a better hold on this. They know that you are likely to run into 'trickster' entities and to not take everything you learn as literal. Maybe it's because the aya practitioners have a slower progressive exp, where as DMT is short and overwhelming so you want to savor everything you can remember which subtly shuts off your critical thinking filter.

Impeccable synopsis Borris, enjoyable to read. But sounds like ( to me) youv've reached the end of the road with the mollecule

It's equally misleading I believe to include what is often extremely and comparatively short integration periods against decades of practice which may provide you with substantially little, if anything at all. There is a much deeper faith that there's anything "special" about those other practices at all that must be accepted as compared with DMT which can have the ability and tendency to place even the newcomer directly at the feet of perceived deities. If you're looking for instant enlightenment, then no, DMT isn't for you, but you seem to be misconstruing "the benefit" of DMT that McKenna was alluding to.

this seems to be accurate. the drug seems to trip 'this is important and significant' sensors, leading the gullible and desperate almost the same way a cult leader does.

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right. i've broke through amidst a cacophony of entities screaming as i hunted them down, slaughtering them one by one. and when the last entity was visualized on the end of a spear, i felt clarity dawn and that holy power filled me. if what i really wanted was proof of a religious attitude, i would have submitted to or acquiesced them and let the 'size' of the DMT high overpower the critical/analytical faculty.



personally i'm sure that for some people it's a sinister addiction, but that is not the
drugs fault.



well, if you look at coke heads, meth heads, they treat their chosen substance as sacred or precious, complete with ceremony, ritual, and prayer/meditation... our habit of 'making holy' applies to whatever we find our god in, drugs, people, a cause, an idea. and like you said, dmt is almost like a meme, mind-scape virus



yeah, i know what you mean. mckenna was cool and all, but was also a wacked out drug addict, and what you just described is the essential error that madness makes in order to avoid and excuse.



some people want to be used and abused, i guess. no excuse for excuses... i guess it just feels good to them. rat pushes dopamine lever.



i want applaud and encourage you, for your temperance, caution, and refusal to be mentally violated, in the face of what may be the most powerful drug and sensations.

I see a sea of words attempting to explain some very basic ideas here.

Mckenna as wacked out drug addict ? That's an unfair overly simplistic accessment.