I started lurking on this forum to improve my extraction skills. I quickly noticed the quality of the trip reports, and realized almost every variation of my breakthrough experiences have been experienced by someone else. This allowed me to better conceptualize and translate my experiences to friends while sharing "the light", and also extinguished a very deep sense of loneliness caused by a lack of finding compelling evidence somewhere in this world that my soul is indeed one with another human. It became obvious to me that my first-hand experiences of my source of existence/potential have been identical to those experiences had by members of this forum.
I'll introduce myself by describing my experience with entheogens and narrating about my situation in life to allow readers to get to know someone who is regularly sharing the transcendental mindspace.
For about a year and a half I've been extracting DMT and mescaline from raw plant materials using reagents and equipment bought from local retail stores with the exception of my sep funnel. I would approximate that I've extracted a total of 15 grams of DMT and 3 grams of mescaline. I almost exclusively consume my yields personally, but very occasionally will share with a friend intrigued by my attitude towards life and interest in psychedelics.
My history with psychedelics began with occasional cannabis use at the beginning of my high school experience. In my undergraduate experience I lost myself to highly social alcohol and cocaine consumption, and became interested in DMT. I did not know anyone with access to DMT, and I had 3 years of experience working in chemistry research, so I extracted it myself and taught myself to break through with the help of many hours of listening to the prophetic words of Terence McKenna. I've had between 20 and 30 hits of what was supposed to be acid, but recognized that only 2 of those hits were undoubtedly real LSD, and quickly declined further usage due to the scarcity of those 2 hits. I have had about 10 experiences with between 3 and 5 grams of "penis envy" mushrooms. I used to smoke cannabis daily, but have replaced cannabis with DMT. Most weeks, I consume DMT at least 3 times. My desire to achieve a full breakthrough varies depending on my issues in the real world, but has typically been such that 1 of every 3 smoked experiences has been a subjective "breakthrough". I have experienced caapi brew with or without swallowing oral DMT about 15 times, and I hold a deep place in my heart for the caapi vine for the gifts it has given me regarding my direct experience of my dream state.
I come to this forum seeking something, but have not considered defining that something. Instead I've realized that the something is related to my issues with the world, its potential awakening, and the exchange of ideas between DMT-minded people and the certainty of self-identity with others with shared spiritual experiences. I'm pursuing a PhD related to life sciences and I try to maintain hope that if our world changes radically enough in the near future I could be involved in studying the physiology of natural DMT or psychedelic clinical treatment or verifying the scientific basis for psychedelic clinical treatment.