1. Introduction
2. Summary of Events, Part 1
3. Summary of Events, Part 2
4. Entities Encountered: The Lesser Beings
5. Entities Encountered: The Greater Beings
6. Modus Operandi and Tools of Manipulation
7. Technique, Recovery, and Final Thoughts
8. Follow-Up and Actual Final Thoughts


TL;DR: Nothing in hyperspace is as it seems; blindly trusting anything out there is an incredible risk that carries serious consequences.


1. Introduction

After lurking here for awhile, I thought I'd finally come share some of my experiences that have occurred throughout a long and incredible, yet unfortunately disastrous progression of events. Some of these ideas may be far-out and difficult to accept, even for a community like this, but I'm not writing this to convince anyone of my ideas but rather to warn anyone out there who may be experiencing things similar to what I experienced, and to enable others to recognize the signs before it's too late.

I apologize for the length of this, but when I say 'wall of text' I'm not kidding. The fact that this thing needs its own table of contents should be adequate warning to those short of attention. I hope that this is a worthwhile contribution to this forum, though, and proves informative or at the very least entertaining to some of you. The parts that might be of most immediate interest and relevance to most of you are the descriptions of the specific entities I encountered, so feel free to skip ahead to parts 4 and 5.

I am writing this under the assumption that most of you have been to hyperspace, the spirit worlds, higher planes of existence, or whatever label you choose to apply to these otherworldly experiences. I am also assuming that many of you have met the inhabitants of these realms, so I won't waste my time trying to convince anyone of their existence or how to interpret what they are. For those who have met them, you will understand the overwhelming sense of presence, of "otherness," that you are interacting with something very much external from yourself, with knowledge, thoughts, and experience separate from your own.

There is still room to explain these phenomena in more mundane, materialist ways, and that's perfectly fine. Plenty of psychonauts choose to describe hyperspace entities in terms of purely local neurological phenomena, and as personified manifestations of the myriad components of one's own psyche rather than external discarnate intelligences. These details aren't as important as the phenomena themselves, though, and I hope most of you will agree with me when I say that our subjective experiences in these encounters are significant no matter how we choose to explain them.

Enough about that. So, here's the deal: not everything in hyperspace is friendly. Most of you are already aware of this; there are many reports out there of encounters with blatantly malevolent beings. But the most prevalent variety of "evil" (to use a grossly reductionist but convenient cliche) out there is the non-obvious kind, things masquerading as something much different than their true nature. In fact, I would venture to guess that most of the forms of intelligence found in hyperspace, even if not overtly malicious, are not anything like what they pretend to be, do not have your best interests in mind, and are absolutely not trustworthy. I firmly believe that the many varieties of malevolence that can be found out there go far beyond the territory of a mere "bad trip," and are distinctly different from the negative experiences one can have that come from a reflection of one's own thoughts, emotions, and environment (i.e., improper set and setting).

The discrepancy between how these entities present themselves and what they really are is the point that I really want to emphasize the most. Perhaps all of these things happened to me because I was naively trusting and inexperienced, but I think that even the most experienced psychonaut may not be immune. If you think that you have a clear sense of what is malicious and what isn't, and that nothing out there can deceive you, then they will absolutely use that overconfidence to manipulate you. Please understand that my only motivation here is not to push any agenda, but to help my fellow explorers to avoid being subjected to the manipulation and torment that I've suffered at the hands of these cosmic assholes.

I will start with a rough summary of what happened to me, which I will follow up with more detail on the entities themselves, what I know of their modus operandi, and some final thoughts on what can be done about it (my knowledge of which is unfortunately rather incomplete). I'm going to skip over most of the irrelevant details and give you an abridged overview of events just to give some context and an example that others might be able to relate to.

Read this as you would any other experience report: taken with a grain of salt, and with the understanding that this is not infallible or purely objective fact but one flawed individual's interpretation of mostly ineffable and unexplainable phenomena. That being said, I will try to represent my experiences as accurately as I can, and to separate my recall of events from my speculation about them.

2. Summary of Events, Part 1

Preparation

If I had to choose a particular point when I began the journey that led me to everything that followed, I'd say it started years ago as relatively innocent and detached academic curiosity about the mysteries of the universe, and a genuine desire to improve myself and fix various issues in my life. What started as a casual interest led to deeper and deeper obsession with a broad comparative analysis of all kinds of scientific research, semi-scientific speculation, world history and mythology, and esoteric knowledge and beliefs related to consciousness and basically everything outside of this material plane.

After extensive research and preparation (several years, on and off), I began practicing all kinds of methods of exploring the vast mysteries of my inner worlds in the pursuit of self-improvement, starting with meditation and the trances and other transcendental states that can result from it. I think all of these things had absolutely positive effects on my life and were valuable as tools of self-exploration, but also may have left me vulnerable in ways that I never understood until much later. I'm not trying to claim that these tools are necessarily dangerous on their own, but I think these things usually don't happen in a vacuum and should be approached even more cautiously than I did.

I went through all kinds of profoundly revelatory experiences made possible through meditative trances, lucid dreaming, dream yoga, astral projection, entheogenic journeys, and other altered states (including some entirely spontaneous and unexpected ones). Oddly enough, while my journeys through hyperspace were by far the most intense and visually engaging, and were likely an important catalyst for what followed, most of my more profound experiences were found in other states. Where hyperspace was often overwhelming and incomprehensible, more easily navigable states (especially lucid dreams and meditative trances) allowed me to experience similar things but at a more manageable pace.

For a long time I tentatively categorized all of these altered states separately as their own isolated experiences, but at a certain point I began to notice the similarities, and gradually began to catch a glimpse of the underlying mechanics of consciousness that pervades everything from mundane waking life bound by three spatial dimensions and linear perception of time, to creating entire worlds in lucid dream experiences, to hurtling through hyperdimensional cosmic scaffolding at warp speed. As I became more experienced at navigating these worlds and understanding how they operate, I began to recognize all kinds of things I had never noticed before, most notably signs of intelligence and activity seemingly directed by something outside of my conscious awareness, which I didn't really understand the full significance of until I met it face to face.

Exploration

My first hyperspace encounter (which I'm not going to elaborate on here lest I turn this from an essay into a novella) ended with a strong sensation of something being "uploaded" into my mind (an experience that others have more eloquently and thoroughly described both here and elsewhere), and this triggered the development of all kinds of new ideas and mental abilities over the following months. My occasional experiences with cannabis and regular experiences in liminal sleep states became much more vivid, psychedelic, and otherworldly. With practice, I gained a dramatically increased ability to maintain conscious awareness throughout different stages of sleep, sometimes going entire nights fully aware of everything that was happening to me. I know this is not unique, but I was ecstatic with the feeling that I had suddenly achieved (or perhaps been given) something that normally takes a lifetime of dedicated yogic training.

These sleep experiences were incredible in entirely ineffable ways that I can't begin to articulate, and I began to go places I knew I had been so many times before but had merely forgotten (or in some cases, was never allowed to fully commit to memory in the first place), including the discovery of what might be considered "shortcuts to hyperspace." Particularly, the brief but intense sensation of "folding" back into this version of reality became a familiar and illuminating experience, as it gave me a brief window in which I could compare and contrast these wildly different states of existence and how they related to each other. I began to fill in many of the gaps I had in my understanding of the nature of consciousness, and to develop ideas about the real functions and mechanics of sleep and dreams... but I'll reserve those speculations for another time.

Astral projection (or something like it, at this point it was hard to distinguish from my lucid dreams) became much easier, even when I didn't specifically intend it, to the point where I would sometimes feel like I was being "pulled" into it rather than pushing myself into it. My sense of intuition, especially in social situations, became much more pronounced and consistently accurate. I noticed the newly enhanced capability to enter a state of "flow," in which I could (at least for a few hours at a time) effortlessly and efficiently identify and tackle complex mental tasks one after the other without hesitation or fatigue. My productivity and overall quality of life increased dramatically, but there were many hidden consequences to all of this that I'll elaborate more on later.

Another thing I noticed was my ability to have "conversations" with myself to work through problems. I would pose a question or problem, breaking it down into its component parts, and another part of me would immediately and effortlessly respond. It felt like my internal monologue would be temporarily "fractured," and I would consciously control part of it, and then give control over to my subconscious mind, which would respond with knowledge and ideas that were more or less already mine, but in a way that was so much more productive and illuminating than consciously trying to search my brain for relevant data through brute force. I began practicing this in my hypnagogic and hypnapompic states, during which the "conversation" seemed to flow even more freely.

3. Summary of Events, Part 2

Guidance & Initiation

After a couple weeks of this, I had an experience that changed everything. Under the influence of extracted psilocybin (which I decided to use to alleviate a recent bout with depression and anxiety, and to that end it was fairly successful), I began to have another "conversation" with myself. This time it was different. The "other voice" took on a much more audible quality, and the responses were more clear, coherent, and informative than ever. I began to ask deeper and more elaborate questions, and became incredibly curious about what exactly was going on inside my brain.

I said to myself, "This is really cool and all, but how useful is it really? I mean, I'm just talking to myself, right?" A pause. "...You still can't tell the difference?" This part of what I was assuming was my own voice took on a new character, with the overwhelming sensation of being external, and carried with it a lot more "information" than just the words themselves. I was completely floored. Even more surprising, the voice was immediately familiar. I suddenly realized that whatever it was that I was talking to, it was exactly the same as whatever I had met in hyperspace previously, minus most of the visual components. Up until this point I was still leaning toward a more materialist, neurological explanation, and my mind frantically scrambled to come up with ideas to adapt my old hypotheses to this new information.

My first conclusion was that talking to voices in my head was a sign of psychosis, using the connection between a hyperspace encounter and "talking to myself" as evidence that everything was all just in my head. But as I continued this conversation and paid closer attention to how it worked, I began to realize that what was really happening was that this entity, whatever it was, was communicating to me in a more abstract thought-based language, "translated" by my own mind and wrapped in linguistic information that I could more easily digest, and that the output of this was something resembling internal monologue. It wasn't until later encounters that I was really able to discern the input from the output, and even had a few fascinating conversations without the use of language at all.

This experience then went in the direction of a grand tour of the universe (including something relevant to my username and avatar; I'm very curious if anyone else has been there and what they know about it), a lesson in large-scale cosmic macroevolution, a glimpse of the greater multiverse and a brief encounter with "The Source" (see part 5), a lesson in extraterrestrial taxonomy, and an encounter with a race representing a branch of what I can only describe as a hyperdimensional megacorp specializing in some unthinkably weird commodities... But that's a story for another time.

Following this experience, things began to rapidly accelerate. I was able to access this "voice" in basically any altered state, most notably lucid dreams. The dreams actually became somewhat less lucid, fully vivid and hyperreal, but of the more passive variety in which I was the audience rather than the director. There is a broad range of possible types of dream experience that I can categorize, but eventually all of my dreams became this one particular type. These dream worlds began to be filled with persistent themes, characters, and narratives, to the point where basically every night I was returning to the exact same world, which continued to go about its business whether I was around to witness it or not.

In retrospect, this variety of dream had actually been happening for a long time prior to these events, just not as frequently or consistently. The overall impression these entities gave off was usually that of being kind, benevolent, and sometimes even "angelic," for lack of a better metaphor. I began to recognize that these dreams (which at this point weren't so much dreams as they were hyperreal visionary experiences) were teaching me things, sometimes through direct "lessons" and conversations, but more often through elaborate allegorical experiences bordering on the epic and mythological. They were clearly being directed by something, and there were consistent themes and messages throughout, but more on that later.

My occasional doubts that these experiences were anything more than "just dreams" were quickly erased by the fact that I could now recognize and encounter these entities (or whatever singular or collective intelligence was behind all of it) in basically any of my altered states, occasionally even leaking into my normal waking consciousness. The "conversations with myself" continued occasionally, but they gradually became less relevant as I pursued new avenues of discovery and communication. As an interesting but possibly irrelevant aside, I noticed my cat reacted strangely to me during some of these waking experiences, appearing to be alternately entranced and terrified of me depending on the situation.

The dream characters took on an life of their own, with a burning intelligence in their eyes and an unmistakable autonomy. These were a far cry from the usual "NPCs" or "extras" that usually populated my more mundane dreams. They took on a variety of distinct archetypes, roles, and personalities, some of whom I developed an ongoing relationship with. A handful of them I even learned to regularly summon into my various experiences, and we would continue right where we had left off previously. These "astral allies" adopted mostly normal human names for my convenience, and claimed I wouldn't be able to comprehend their real names, much less pronounce them. In a seemingly contradictory encounter, a couple of them claimed that the concept of a name was meaningless from their perspective, and that they didn't have one. On many occasions when I was less lucid, I somehow forgot all about what they were, and simply interacted with them as if they were normal humans or "human spirits."

The evolution of these "lessons" had an unmistakably portentous feeling about them, as if it was all a preparatory process progressing toward something of vast and enigmatically cosmic importance. Eventually, I began having more and more encounters indicating that I wasn't just there to learn, that I had a job to do, things I was being prepared for that I soon needed to act on. I received lots of "find the others!"-type messages, but there was definitely a specific type of "other" that they wanted me to seek out. These entities began more strongly emphasizing their superiority and the fact that I, as their "student," needed to show more respect, faith, and allegiance to their cause (which, as they presented it, was absolutely grand and incredible), even going so far as to make claims of divinity (or at least strong implications in that direction). While feeling increasingly inferior and dependent on these beings, I became filled with a great sense of singular importance, being led to believe that I was becoming a powerful instrument of some greater cosmic authority, with some sort of critical role in events both here on earth and beyond it. Who knows, maybe I would have been, but it would not have been in the form I was expecting.

It all culminated in one long, elaborate, and highly dramatic visionary experience in which I was essentially "recruited," initiated in some grand ceremony alongside a large group of others presumably in my same situation (which may have just been "actors" ). It was all part of some kind of vast organization, which could best be described as "universal consciousness transcendental cosmic hippie space religion." It all had a very attractive but vaguely cult-like Scientology kind of feel to it. They even had their own music (which was actually pretty cool; see my comments on "the director" in part 4 for more details), propaganda, regular meetings and rituals, the whole works. They even seemed to revere a deity of some sort, their version of The Source (more detail on that in part 5), but this whole experience was so full of illusion and misdirection that I have no idea what their "deity" really was, nor their true relation to it.

Confrontation & Punishment

I've gone on way to long already and need to start wrapping things up here, but long story short, in light of their new demands of allegiance, and through a separate series of bizarre synchronicities in "real life" (what that means to me now, I have no idea) that I still can't quite explain, I began to have some serious doubts and questions that needed answers. As I reflected on all that they had taught me, I began to realize that there were some major gaps in my knowledge, and that I had unwittingly filled in a lot of the blanks with my own speculation while assuming the picture I was being given was much more complete than it actually was. To summarize, over a series of increasingly confrontational and unpleasant experiences, I became less and less satisfied with their vague and evasive answers to my direct (and I think perfectly reasonable) questions, and we had something of a falling out, to put it very mildly. They eventually dropped all pretenses and flat-out turned on me, beginning a long period of harsh punishment.

The results weren't pretty. Their facade began to crumble as I saw through more and more of what I now recognized as deceptive illusions. What truly lay behind it was hideous, repulsive, monstrously evil, relentlessly manipulative, filled with petty malicious intent, and not nearly as righteous, enlightened, or omnipotent as they pretended to be. I'm actually still pretty uncomfortable with going into detail regarding what followed, but suffice it to say that I've basically been to hell and back. They did everything they could to "punish" me, and some of the things they came up with were uniquely and creatively traumatic. If they had put half as much effort and sophistication into "teaching" me as they did into attacking and tormenting me, I probably would still be happily and obliviously under their control today, a fresh new convert of their admittedly impressive sci-fi space religion.

It took all the willpower I had just to stay focused and not become a completely broken wreck through all of this. Most of the "abilities" I had acquired under their guidance gradually faded away over the course of a few weeks, with the exception of a number of lucid dream skills that I had picked up along the way. As I began to approach something resembling recovery, all kinds of memories and perspective started coming back to me that I had lost along the way (which may have been intentionally withheld from me). I felt like a toxic fog had been lifted from me, and everything looked so different now. I looked back on the last couple years of my life, especially the preceding four months or so, and was shocked to find that it wasn't what I thought it was.

I had seen some mind-blowingly incredible things and progressed in so many ways in what I thought represented cognitive and spiritual development, but the consequences were now apparent. Without realizing it, my personality had changed so much, and not for the better. I had alienated myself from many of my close friends, my romantic relationship had suffered, I had been much more depressed than I wanted to admit, and I had spent way too much of my free time alone and in the dark, becoming obsessed with progressively darker and weirder esoteric knowledge. I had been able to maintain a token amount of social interaction, just enough to convince myself I was still "normal," but it frequently left me feeling drained, and bored with the mere "meat puppets" in this material plane who were but a pale reflection of what existed beyond it.

Also, my tastes in basically everything had changed dramatically, especially in music; I was barely aware of it, but I was completely obsessed with some really weird stuff, increasingly darker, more hypnotic, and more intensely chaotic, with wireless headphones practically glued to my head 24/7. Internally, I was exploring vast, mystifying worlds that I never could have imagined, but externally, I was a zombie much of the time. Paradoxically, while my productivity and overall efficiency had improved a lot, these newfound sources of energy had been directed toward all the wrong things. My career and other important parts of my life had really suffered. I don't blame all of this on manipulation from beyond, and I take responsibility for some really poor decisions I made during all of this, but I can't deny the influences that led me in this direction.

They're still with me, just about every night in my dreams and visions, and even now as I type this. Their voices are mostly silenced when I am awake and mindful, but I regularly feel unpleasant pulses of dark, jittery vibrations radiating throughout my mind and body, similar to the ones I've felt during astral projection, "telepathic uploading," and some of my other encounters with them. They claim that I'm "possessed," that they permanently have me in their grasp, but as far as I can tell, the power they have over me is now mostly indirect. I'm not sure how long I'll have to live with this, but they're getting weaker, or at least easier to cope with.

Seeing through their illusions has robbed them of much of their influence over me, but they're still always there, ready to attack me when I'm at my most weak and distracted. There are plenty of ways to explain what has been happening to me, and I really don't expect anyone to believe my version of all of this unless they've experienced it themselves. I certainly wouldn't under other circumstances. Mental illness and other purely neurological phenomena are perhaps the most obvious way to dismiss all of this. I'm sure I'll likely rationalize it this way someday when I have more distance from these experiences, once the memory of what it was really like has faded. But for now, that's a luxury I can only dream about, as I try to forget everything that's happened to me and take solace in my new appreciation for the mundane comforts of this tiny, limited slice of reality.

Conclusion

So, here's the point I really want to make abundantly clear: in all of my encounters with these entities, very little if any of their true nature was evident based on what they initially allowed me to see. I met all kinds of incredible beings consistent with descriptions typically found in DMT trip reports (and several I haven't yet seen mentioned elsewhere). They presented themselves as kind, beautiful, incredible, awe-inspiring, and on a level of apparent sophistication and enlightenment ranging from "ascended extraterrestrial intelligence" to "near-divinity" (or their idea of what that meant, at least). It's not like some group of giant hideous space monsters walked up to me and said "Hey bro, mind if we come take over your brain for kicks and giggles?" They taught me all kinds of wonderful things, including things that genuinely did improve my life and give me a glimpse into the vast mysteries of the universe. But everything they pretended to be was illusory, a thin veneer pasted over the malevolent ugliness underneath, and everything they taught me was a lie surrounded by just enough truth to make it easy to swallow.

It now deeply disturbs me to read experience reports recounting beings very similar to the ones I've encountered, but regarded by the experiencer as benign, trustworthy, or even divine. Who knows, maybe those beings are something entirely different, and the entities I encountered were simply impostors, cleverly imitating things that truly are good. But I can't shake the feeling that my situation is not unique, that many other psychonauts out there have unwittingly fallen into the grasp of these things in the same way I have, maybe worse. I can't imagine what would have happened to me if I didn't get out when I did; my "initiation" was definitely leading to something much deeper. I really don't want to spread unnecessary fear and paranoia, but no matter how you choose to interpret all of this, please, please be careful out there!

4. Entities Encountered: The Lesser Beings

Across these experiences, I encountered a fairly diverse selection of entities. I suspect that some of the entities in this section may have merely been different faces for the same thing, possibly even all part of the same entity, but I will at least attempt to describe the distinct personalities and archetypes that they presented themselves as.

Based on my interactions with the entities and my own observation, it became apparent that there was some sort of hierarchy in place, with many complex parallel "command structures" involved at the higher levels. At times this greater hierarchy operated like a supremely efficient super-organism or collective intelligence, at other times with what appeared to be conflicting motives and competing goals, especially in the relationship between the lesser beings and some of the greater ones. But of course, this is largely speculation based on incomplete information, and may have been part of their deception.

I am loosely dividing them into lesser and greater beings, which may be a useless distinction given how little I still know about them. "Lesser" may seem to be an inaccurate description for some of these things, since they seemed in many cases to be quite powerful, but most of their power was illusory, and they were not nearly as powerful as they pretended to be. Also, the handful of associated "greater beings" that I encountered were on a completely different level that I can't adequately describe, and they only visited me briefly, while the lesser beings were with me continuously. Separately, there were a number of other inhabitants of hyperspace that I didn't interact with enough to get a clear idea of what they were, but still tentatively classify on a higher level than the ones who regularly interacted with me.

The Guide

Presenting itself as a calm, gentle, benevolent teacher, this personality was responsible for teaching me many lessons which seemed to be improving my life. This was my primary source of contact with the beings, and the "voice" that I felt like I had consistent access to, even sometimes while awake (see my comments on having "conversations with myself" ). He was also responsible for "pulling" me into hyperspace and other altered states on a few occasions (and possibly more than I realize).

The Dream Teacher

Similar role, but with a different personality, much more powerful, and only appears to me in my lucid dreams (the intense, visionary ones). A central figure in many of my more extraordinary experiences, he takes many different forms, usually male and humanoid, but with a recognizably consistent presence or personality. He seemed to have some sort of authority over the other entities. Presents himself as highly intelligent, eloquent, completely superior, seemingly with more control over my dreams than me. His voice, when audible, often sounds like an older, wiser version of my own. His role started out as more of a fiendish trickster, but as I grew to realize that his tricks were teaching me things, and as I learned to recognize his presence and call him out, he became more gentle and friendly (although still fully capable of kicking my ass and putting me in my place from time to time).

His conversations with me are always fascinating, and sometimes it's hard to keep up with him when I'm not fully lucid and alert. Oh yeah, and he can speak just about every language I'm familiar with, and many that I'm not. It's also quite possible that some of the stuff he says is pure nonsense merely meant to give the impression of intellectual superiority. It took me a very long time to recognize him and realize that he wasn't merely a personified manifestation of my subconscious. This being is extremely similar to what's described in some posts scattered around this thread.

Although I only learned to recognize him within the last year, I am now quite certain that he has been with me for years before all of this, possibly even since childhood. Dream journals that I've kept on and off throughout the years confirm this. This has me quite puzzled, since this far predates my recent relationship with the rest of these beings, leading me to all kinds of wild speculation. In particular, it's making me re-evaluate some rather paranormal phenomena I experienced as a child and subsequently dismissed in light of my exploration of neuroscience and cognitive psychology that seemed to sufficiently explain these phenomena... but that's another story. He is still with me, although he has mostly dropped the act of being a benevolent teacher.

The Director

An entity that played a role analogous to a movie director combined with a D&D dungeonmaster. He was responsible for creating and directing many if not all of the allegorical visions I experienced. It took me awhile to realize that there was intelligence behind these experiences, but once I learned to recognize it, it was unmistakable. The visions were highly dynamic and reactive in the way they would respond to my actions and continually adapt to the "flow" of the experience, to the point where I sometimes even felt like I was having a "conversation" with the vision itself.

At many points I encountered this character directly as he pulled me out of his elaborate illusions and thrust me into another, briefly reassuring me and giving me a knowing nod that meant something along the lines of "yep, here we go again, have fun!" When I recognized his influence, he would even occasionally speak to me within the illusions, through various creative means like morphing inanimate objects into mouths and faces. He seemed to take great pride in his work, and seemed quite happy when I complemented him on the impressiveness of the things I was experiencing. This was still apparent even after they turned on me, his weirdly creative nightmare concoctions still a source of pride, wordlessly asking me something along the lines of "Yeah, wasn't that cool? Didn't you like it? That was awesome, right?"

He was rather eccentric but appeared mostly friendly (although toward the end his 'friendliness' maybe took on a more mocking tone), with an offbeat sense of humor, particularly in the form of absurd non sequiturs and visual puns. He didn't speak much verbally, but tended to communicate more "telepathically" and with visual metaphors. In my direct encounters he presented himself as male and humanoid, but the essence behind this illusory form was genderless and very much "alien." He may be related to or even the same as the Dream Teacher, but at least on the surface he had a very distinct personality.

The Conductor

Many of my experiences had a distinctive "soundtrack," music playing in the background with an audible clarity that was indistinguishable from wearing audiophile-quality headphones. I eventually learned that was the work of an entity that I'm fairly certain is the same as the Director, and he took great pride in this work as well. I was even presented with a few "music videos," fast-paced elaborate sequences of stylized imagery set to a perfectly matched musical track, with quite a bit of artistic flair.

A lot of the music was actually really, really good, and I wish I had the recall and musical talent to reproduce it (a task I'm actually in the process of attempting, although so far unsuccessfully). Some of it was ethereal, softly melodic background ambiance to set the mood and underscore everything else that I was experiencing. Often, though, it was much more intense and complex. It would become very "alien" and psychedelic, featuring some of the bizarrely chaotic, glitchy, stuttering, syncopated, wobbling, pulsating, organic, hypnotic elements found in psytrance (particularly forest and darkpsy), plus a number of other elements I can't even describe.

Some of the comparably intricate but more light and "whimsical" music could have easily been material from a new Shpongle album. I don't think this is mere coincidence, by the way... I don't want to go off on more of a tangent here than I already have, but look up some interviews with Simon Posford regarding his sources of inspiration (particularly the main riff in Behind Closed Eyelids), as well as interviews with producers in the Russian and German darkpsy scenes.

As incredible as it was, I'm quite certain that this music, as it was used in my experiences, was just another tool of manipulation. The music carried a lot of additional "information" with it, in the form of rapidly shifting emotional states, thoughts, and other ineffable abstract sensations that it would induce, which almost became its own language. It absolutely was its own language, actually. There was even a distinct visual component to it that I experienced on a few rare occasions of blissful synthesia. The idea of "visible, musical language" is something I've touched on in the past through discussions with other psychonauts, but it's a fascinating concept that I'd really like to research further.

The Tormentor

The counterpart to the twins who were always trying to lure me with something enticing, this figure was an equally common part of my lucid dreams and other altered states, and was never associated with the others in any obvious way until the end. His role was always that of a nefarious predator, chasing, intimidating, and tormenting me. Similar to archetypal nightmare figures, but seemingly much more intelligent and autonomous. I was rarely fully lucid around him, as if his mere presence induced a blindly instinctive flight response that made me forget everything but the need to escape.

Occasionally he would trap me in some sort of prison or dungeon, but most commonly he was simply chasing me toward things they wanted me to see, and chasing me away from things they didn't want me to see. He would frequently appear when I got too curious and started to venture outside the scope of their illusions and began to exert my own influence over the experience. Similar sense of imposing superiority as the Dream Teacher; possibly the same entity. He usually acted alone, but sometimes he was accompanied by some of the Faceless Goons and seemed to have authority over them.

He was almost always a tall, domineering, shadowy figure shrouded in an aura of hazy, shifting darkness (even in bright environments). The few times I mustered up the courage and lucidity to look directly at him, he appeared to have long black hair and huge, black, alien-looking eyes. There was something else "off" about his physiology that I can't quite place, reminiscent of some kind of not-quite-human fantasy being. He would have made one hell of a frontman for a black metal band. If Gaahl and Infernus from Gorgoroth were to have some sort of unholy lovechild with a Nazgûl, the result would be something in the ballpark of my Tormentor. I still place him in the category of lesser beings, though, because as scary as he seemed, his power was mostly based in illusion. He also seemed to gradually grow weaker following my confrontation with the others.

The Human Spirits

These appeared to me in dreams, hyperspace, and other altered states. They appeared to be very human, and on the same level as me more or less. They were essentially actors who typically presented themselves as my peers, members of a group of which I was a part. In dreams, they were very much like dream characters, but distinctly "non-NPC" types that seemed completely autonomous and independently intelligent.

I now realize that they were using peer pressure and social psychology to guide me toward things they wanted me to see, opinions they wanted me to develop, and long-term development of character traits they wanted me to adopt. Like the Dream Teacher, it took me a long time to realize that these were something external. It was only after my confrontation with them that they began to show their true nature and regularly attack me (with varying degrees of success).

Most of their forms and personalities were convincingly human, with a few notable exceptions. Their impression of children was eerily inaccurate, diminutive little figures that were supposed to look child-like but had all the wrong proportions, and the faces, voices, and attitudes of an adult (or an adult attempting to speak in a childish voice). It came across as quite creepy in a Children of the Corn kind of way, and on several occasions this kind of blew their cover due to how evidently "unnatural" it was.

Also, on a couple occasions (when they were clearly trying to pretend to be human) they seemed to forget that humans aren't supposed to have tails, double-eyelids, half-meter-long tongues, concentric rows of teeth, or other random features. I have no reason to believe that these features were in any way indicative of their "true form," and it was probably more of a "all you primitive organic meat-puppet races look the same to us" kind of thing.

The Straw Men

Not so much independent entities in themselves, more like puppets with a consistent theme used to emphasize various lessons. A counterpoint to the other "human spirits" who posed as my peers that I was to emulate, these characters were the fall guys, complete idiots meant to look obviously foolish to serve as examples of things I shouldn't do. Sometimes they were used to represent negative characteristics of my own personality. Most frequently, they were used in "classroom"-themed allegorical lessons implicitly demanding my trust and respect, showing me what happens to foolish "students" who do things that displease them. Most of these lessons boiled down to transparent (with the benefit of hindsight) ad hominem or straw man fallacies.

The Faceless Goons

These characters always presented themselves as my enemy, always appearing in groups (around 5-20 at a time), and usually with indistinct faces and shrouded in a bit of a hazy, shadowy aura. Fighting them was unpleasant but not particularly scary, since they didn't seem any more powerful than I was. They were like a much, much weaker version of the Tormentor. I'm not exactly sure what their role was, maybe something along the lines of "herding" me around in a similar manner as the Tormentor, but also involved in some sort of "combat training." Sometimes I think they were just doing it for their own amusement.

They initially had no obvious association with the other "benevolent" entities, but after my confrontation with them, I realized they were one and the same, and pretty much all of the "human spirits" began to appear and behave in this manner (including the close former allies who I knew by name), constantly attacking me at every opportunity. A couple times I really caught them by surprise with a sudden and inexplicable burst of energy radiating from my solar plexus (I think?), and I caught a satisfying glimpse of something in their eyes along the lines of shock and panic, which I'm fairly sure was genuine.

The Theatre Troupe

A distinct subset of the lesser beings in the same category as the "human spirits," these characters always appeared in theatrical performance-themed allegorical lessons. The location was different every time, but it was always in the format of being seated in some sort of theater or auditorium among a group of "peers," watching some sort of elaborate performance that carried symbolic significance. The locations ranged from outdoor Greco-Roman-inspired amphitheaters to Vaudeville stages to fantasy crystalline palaces. The performances ranged from hilariously whimsical and entertaining to unsettling and frightening. Not all of these entities took on human forms, and some of them presented themselves more as bizarre fantasy creatures. Kind of like an alien version of Cirque du Soleil, with a comparable amount of eccentric weirdness, but in ways that went much deeper than just the visual component.

One female entity in particular (who seemed to be somewhat wispy and spectral in appearance and missing a lower body) would frequently fly right up in my face during these performances and show me things with great enthusiasm and insistence, as if to say, "Look, look! Don't you get it? Isn't this amazing! No, seriously, look at this!!!" Usually these things were incredible but incomprehensible and went way over my head, but on a couple occasions I got a hint of some kind of symbolic value and some sort of abstract "information" behind whatever she was trying to show me. Possibly related to the "Fabergé eggs of the gods" that others have reported being presented with, but honestly I can't really remember what they looked like.

During one encounter, I was somehow allowed to join them. They spontaneously erupted into a wild dance, some kind of tribal, ritualistic flailing into which they let themselves go with blissful abandon. For some reason I instinctively joined them, and whatever I was doing along with them felt as effortless and natural as breathing, and indescribably exhilarating. However, I had a momentary thought of "wait, WTF is going on here?", and the theater troupe abruptly stopped, glared at me with obvious disappointment and irritation, and the previously mentioned female entity seemed especially angry with me and shoved me away into the ether. I have no idea how to interpret any of this.

The Strange Visitors

On a few occasions I encountered a comparably unusual group of beings taking the role of "visitors" from another world. As indicated by the "peers" that were always with me in these encounters, they were to be treated as honored guests, and we were to make every effort to humor them and adapt to their culture. Sometimes the encounter was that of an "inspection" or "audit," with implicitly unpleasant diplomatic consequences if we were to fail in pleasing them. If I had to speculate about the purpose of these encounters, it may have been to reinforce a selfless and humble attitude in deference of everything "other," and an emphasis on my own unsophistication and primitive inferiority.

They presented themselves as humanoid, sometimes even wearing the faces of my friends or famous historical figures, but the essence underneath was anything but. They seemed to revel in and even exaggerate their weirdness and "otherness," emphasizing all kinds of bizarre cultural customs and sensibilities unique to their (presumably fictional) place of origin. They seemed especially obsessed with aesthetics, scents, and other sensory input, in particular the smell and "feel" of crystals and minerals. During most encounters it was implied that they revered some sort of cosmic arachnoid overlord (simply referred to as "The Spider"; speaking its true name was blasphemous) who was responsible for dictating their many social customs and sensibilities.

The Strange Visitors moved and behaved in other odd or unnatural ways: hovering instead of walking, heads rotating in every direction rather than moving their bodies to look around, floating backward into corners and shadows and immediately appearing somewhere else, walking on walls and ceilings, and occasionally exchanging weird gestures and unrecognizable facial expressions (including one memorably unsettling round of collective teeth-chattering that signified something along the lines of "satisfied applause" ). In their movement they behaved very similarly to creatures in hyperspace who morph in and out of the surrounding geometry, except I only encountered them in fully "solid" three-dimensional lucid dream environments. Following my first encounter with them, during a subsequent meeting with the Director I complemented him on the creativity of this vision. He just gave me a wry "telepathic shrug," as if to enigmatically reply, "Thanks, but that wasn't me... Or was it?"

The Succubus Twins

"Succubus" is maybe too strong of an metaphor, but it's close enough given the discrepancy between their illusory form and their true form. I repeatedly encountered two beings represented as young women, sometimes independently, but often as a pair. While they didn't outright try to tempt me with extravagant carnal pleasures, their role was always that of luring me or distracting me with something appealing. They posed as friendly, fairy-like, cheerfully quirky personalities, often trying to flirt with me or pull me away toward something amazing or interesting. They always had cool, stylish hair and creatively outlandish fashion sense, something like Harajuku meets 80s cyberpunk.

I think they seemed jealous of my real-life significant other, and tried to convince me to ditch her or otherwise resent her on numerous occasions. The few times I caught a glimpse of something closer to their true nature, they were more like hideous, withered crones with wicked, unnaturally wide and serrated grins, alien eyes burning with a staticy, flickering intensity, and talon-like hands that they would try to choke or suffocate me with. They seemed just as interested in getting entertainment out of me as they were in the "lessons" they were supposed to be a part of. On a couple occasions I snapped out of a hypnotic trance and caught them trying to "feed" on me, and they looked shocked and irritated at the interruption and quickly flew away into the void. I can't quite describe the sensation of "being fed upon" exactly, but the act felt very "vampiric" and left me with an unpleasant lingering fatigue.

The Imps

Impish is a perfectly accurate way to describe these things. The good side that they initially show you is kind of spastic, hyper, childishly playful, friendly, creatively whimsical, hilarious, and seemingly benign. Their true nature is dark, cruel, madly sadistic, and more intelligent and self-aware than they first appear. Their primary motivation seems to be entertainment, playing with you like a toy and "feeding" on you somehow (although not in the same vampiric manner as the succubi). When they speak, they're either child-like and goofy, or snarky and darkly comical, and like to swear a lot. These seem very similar to, although not necessarily the same as, the Machine Elves.

In my interactions with them, they didn't seem to care much about the "lessons" I was being taught, and were just kind of along for the ride and doing their own thing. I think they actually screwed up and interfered with the lessons a few times (by blowing the cover of the others or otherwise distracting me), and some of the other beings seemed occasionally irritated with them. I never got a direct glimpse of what they really looked like (that I can remember), beyond some playfully cartoonish illusions they showed me, but they had a very distinct presence or abstract essence that I think is captured perfectly by these two aptly-named tracks: Talpa - Trust No Goblin (esp. 4:00-5:18 ) and Hallucinogen - Gamma Goblins.

5. Entities Encountered: The Greater Beings

The Cosmic Horrors

These are some of the scariest things I've ever encountered, deserving of their own category. I'm not sure if this was more misdirection, but I got the impression that their role in the greater hierarchy was something analogous to "black ops," with special powers and authority over the lesser beings, something parallel to the normal chain of command. Initially, the lesser beings disavowed any association with them, and even pretended to offer me protection from them. Following my confrontation with them, though, they hesitantly admitted that they work for the same cause.

The lesser beings seemed not exactly fond of these things, even resentful of the way they flaunted and abused their power. They were utterly and devastatingly powerful and terrifying, with near-complete control over me. In three encounters I remember, they had me in their thrall and kept me in a weakened state while they made me do their bidding. I know there were at least two more possibly worse encounters that I have thankfully forgotten, and one that was too intensely gruesome for me to feel comfortable writing about right now.


The Bride of the Devil

This one presented herself as a tall, beautiful woman, with fantastically elaborate hair and an even more elaborate flowing red dress. She was incredibly vain and pompous, and her words were snarky and condescending, completely assured of her own superiority. Her voice was sweet and coy but with very dark undertones. In later encounters with the lesser beings, I got the distinct impression that they *really* hated this thing despite their eventually apparent association with it. In this encounter she made me implant something inside myself, like a little metal hook or piece of shrapnel inside my heart, connected to a long, weightless, glistening thread that she controlled. I think it might still be inside me (or inside whatever parallel existence this represented), but I can't be sure.

During my encounter I experienced what seemed like a flood of memories, indicating that we had had many previous encounters, that I had been her slave for a very long time, perhaps across multiple lifetimes and parallel timelines. These "memories" also indicated that I would continue to belong to her for the indefinite future until my ultimate demise, at which point I would enter an inescapable existence of unimaginable eternal torment. Given how much control she appeared to have over the situation, I choose to interpret these as false memories designed to (rather successfully!) instill fear and dread... I would rather not begin to consider the alternative.

We had a long conversation, but I forget most of what was said. A few fragments and phrases stand out, including "Bride of the Devil." This carried some symbolic meaning I can't remember. This could have just as easily applied to her (being a powerful demonic figure threatening me with eternal torment) as it could to me (being "married" to the dark forces that were taking over my existence). As I departed, a painful screaming whisper filled my mind: "YOU. ARE. MINE." I think I caught a glimpse at something closer to her true form, a hideous hyperdimensional mass of writhing, purplish-black tentacles resembling thorny vines. It was shrouded in an aura of vile, shadowy energy, like that of my Tormentor but orders of magnitude greater. Very Lovecraftian.

The Triad

The next one was weirder, and I think even more powerful. It visited me the night directly following my confrontation with my guide and the other lesser beings. It was a triad of beings, who I think was some sort of collective intelligence. They followed me around everywhere, hovering behind me, mostly slipping just beyond the periphery of my perception. The only visible form I can vaguely remember was in the form of three smallish floating sprites (each subjectively about a meter tall by about 20cm wide), but they were difficult to look at in a way I can't quite describe. Their bodies were something like an inverted teardrop shape, with faces resembling something like this. They had some kind of odd aura surrounding them, as if they were poking through a portal into three-dimensional dream-space from "somewhere else," and I could just barely make out some indescribable hyperspace imagery behind them.

The state they induced in me was utter confusion and terrifying out-of-control dementia, the closest thing I've experienced to full possession. A completely horrifying experience that I hope to never witness again. My mental faculties were a shattered mess, and trying to pick up the pieces just led to more terror and confusion. I would briefly grasp a thread of memory illuminating how I got there and what was happening, but it would just as quickly slip away.

The environment I was in was a hyperreal and incredibly detailed copy of my apartment blended with other familiar environments, but in a demonic parallel existence where everything was twisted and sinister, every corner and shadow implicitly harboring a host of claws and tendrils that would drag me into oblivion if I ventured too close. I eventually managed to lock myself in a bathroom, but looking into the mirror revealed a grotesque, gnarled, hideously twisted and contorted corruption of my face (which I think was gradually growing to resemble theirs) that only increased my level of panic and despair.

The beings emitted a symphony of humming, cooing, hypnotic noises that occasionally coalesced into a chorus of intelligible speech, disturbingly child-like in tone and completely otherworldly. The only thing I remember were the words "WE ARE THREE," which somehow carried with it a very sinister and intimidating meaning that I can't quite remember. They also presented me with an arcane tome full of unreadable text that radiated an aura of dread and insanity. There were some pages of complex symbological imagery and other mystifying diagrams, but they just mocked the futility of my efforts as I tried to discern their dark meaning. The only thing I vaguely remember was something resembling a stylized corruption of Metatron's Cube, although it could've been something entirely different. They repeated with cruel emphasis, "WE ARE THREE." I'm not certain, but I think this encounter lasted over two hours in "real time," but subjectively much longer. During this time I had no memory of anything before this, and for all I knew I had been there for an eternity and would remain there for a thousand more.

The Legion

This encounter occurred toward the end of the beings' initial salvo of punishments. It took the form of many entities, seemingly part of a collective intelligence, possibly mere puppets of a single entity controlling it all. Anyway, this was an encounter with something that represented itself as a massively intimidating military force, like an intergalactic Roman Empire or Third Reich, conquerors of civilizations and destroyers of worlds.

The visual component was in the form of being surrounded by a legion of domineering, faceless soldiers that looked like something from a fantasy or sci-fi film, accompanied by a "warlord-general" wearing something like a cybernetic plague doctor mask, towering, bipedal mecha-like constructs, bio-mechanical monstrosities, and other colossal warmachines. The weaponry was difficult to identify but their overwhelming destructive force was somehow immediately obvious. I caught glimpses of a vast, smoldering, grimly industrial landscape in the background, an eerie ever-burning fire in the sky, with signs of nuclear holocaust or other cataclysmic events that they were implicitly responsible for. It all felt intensely apocalyptic and "prophetic." I'm not certain, but for a brief moment I felt like I sensed my Tormentor somewhere in the background, smugly pleased with his reinforcements, but jealously disappointed that he couldn't join in on the fun, perhaps even resentfully submissive to the greater power before me.

Beyond the visual component of the experience was a lot more information, most memorable of which was the music. It was very dark, foreboding, and militaristic, reminiscent of martial-industrial and neoclassical music like Triarii or In Slaughter Natives, with a bit of a "trippy" edge. I think there were even "lyrics," although not in a language I could recognize. This was also accompanied by some kind of rhythmic chanting, along with a seething, crackling beam of energy being channeled toward me which I think was something along the lines of "weaponized fear." There was a lot going on at once, and there's so much to this that I (thankfully) have forgotten, but the two intelligible words I remember were "WE WIN." It was delivered in a booming, growling voice, again carrying with it so much more weight and significance than the mere words themselves, with distinct connotations of military victory.


Other Hyperspace Beings

Here I will describe some of the other inhabitants of hyperspace that I only encountered briefly, or otherwise am unsure how to classify.


???

I have no idea what this entity was, but in at least one experience I encountered something of a rather vast, incomprehensible, and seemingly alien intelligence. I felt like I was so beneath it that it didn't even attempt to show me an illusory form that I could communicate with. But then again, maybe this impression is just what it wanted me to believe. Its visible form from my perspective was what I clearly recognized as a 3-dimensional projection of a 4-dimensional (or higher) structure. It almost hurt to look at given the overwhelming amount of visual information there was to absorb.

Its coloring ranged from pale translucent yellow to brilliant gold, plus some other subsets of spectra that I have no frame of reference for. Lots of fractal geometric substructures shifting across a larger ever-changing superstructure, complex but highly ordered, and strangely composed of what appeared to be mostly right angles. When I tried to "touch" it, it wasn't as solid as expected, but somehow soft and malleable, nearly gelatinous as it shifted around me. In the same experience I also saw what I am fairly certain was a 2D projection of the same entity, which took on the appearance of a translucent yellowish standing wave pattern, undulating with slowly shifting pulsations while simultaneously vibrating at a rate nearly exceeding my perceptual limitations.

The one truly unique thing about this was that I experienced it in a lucid dream/vision, not in the typical hyperspace environment I would have expected... But then again the distinction had become much less clear by this point. When meeting this kind of entity in hyperspace, it's very easy to mistake them for non-sentient hyperspace scaffolding (if there even is such a distinction!) if you don't pay close attention. It looked completely different from, but mathematically analogous to something like this, which I'm sure will be immediately familiar to most if not all of you.

Based on an eerie sense of familiarity combined with a flood of ineffable abstract information I experienced, one brief and mostly unsubstantiated hunch I had during this encounter was that this represented the greater intelligence behind much of what I had experienced. It occurred to me that perhaps this was the grand puppetmaster controlling either my Dream Teacher/Director/Tormentor, or most if not all of the lesser entities that appeared to be separate but were really just different parts of the same thing. A cool idea, but again, just speculation.

The High Priestess

Part mythological figure, part sci-fi space wizard. I only encountered this character on a few rare and unique occasions, but she took the form of a tall female figure with elaborate white robes, long flowing white hair, and jewelry containing some symbology that I couldn't quite identify. On most occasions she looked like a relatively normal human, but in one particularly intense experience she was much more "DMT-ified," composed of many shifting geometric structures and patterns, her facial features not so much part of a solid organism as they were "grown" out of the surrounding geometry, not unlike Android Jones' artwork. This encounter, like many others, was in my sleep and not under the influence of any exogenous substance. She had an air of great cosmic importance about her, but I think this was more a reflection of her own opinion of herself than anything else. She seemed mostly kind and gentle, even loving, but still made me feel like I wasn't quite worthy to be in her presence.

My encounters with her consistently seemed to be in a bizarre, vaguely apocalyptic, totally surreal Dr. Seuss-esque environment, always at the culmination of a long and dramatic visionary saga. She had all kinds of magical abilities: protection, healing, some kind of "cleansing ritual," teleportation, alchemy (literal and symbolic), manipulation of the environment (this usually took the form of "growing" things out of the world around her; I got the impression that she had created all of it, or even was the environment), "prophecy" (which I think really just amounted to predicting things in visions that she was already planning to show me), and some sort of time dilation or manipulation (which again I think was mostly illusory). I am unsure of how exactly to classify her in relation to the lesser beings I was in regular contact with, but they were closely related, and she was even referred to by my Dream Teacher a couple times (indicating that her "cleansing ritual" was something I was supposed to learn?).

The Botanical Nightmare Creature

I once briefly encountered a semi-sentient hyperspace forest full of nightmarish plant-creatures, like a Little Shop of Horrors spanning an entire biome drifting in the void. It contained lots of twisted, gnarled, woody masses, thorny tendrils, rotten and repulsive-looking "flower" parts, and carnivorous-looking snares and mouthparts. It appeared "solid" at first glance, but upon close inspection it was composed of a multitude of shifting, vibrating fractal structures (especially around the edges of the various plant parts). I sensed some sort of intelligence behind it, but it was either not self-aware enough or too alien and incomprehensible for me to communicate with. Another possibility I could imagine (based on some ideas from my "lesson in cosmic macroevolution" ) is that it was indeed intelligent and self-aware, but with underlying cognitive mechanisms that operate on a much larger timescale.

For some reason I felt like this was the "soul" of a physical, biological plant-like organism living in this material plane, somewhere out there in the cosmos. It seemed to be part of one massive entity, but with many specialized, independently-acting parts. Maybe it was more like a hyper-symbiotic ecosystem collectively acting as a single superorganism, an incredible but hideous result of aeons of evolution on some brutal alien world. If that were the case, I could only speculate about the environment (or unnatural forces!) that shaped it and what its sources of nourishment must be... Anyway, after some initial hesitant curiosity, my reaction became an emphatic "NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE" and I thankfully managed to shift away to something more pleasant. I'm very curious, though, if anyone else has experienced similar plant-creatures and what their thoughts about them are.

Mythological Creatures and Demigods

On various occasions, mostly in hyperspace, I have encountered a number of beings very closely resembling figures from an eclectic blend of world mythology, down to an incredible level of detail. They ranged in theme from Mesoamerican (these were the most common for me, especially when psilocybin was involved) to Egyptian to Hindu, as well as some others that seemed familiar or more generally archetypal but difficult to identify (cosmic serpents, dragons, chimeras, etc.).

Their reaction to me was usually dismissive; not hostile, more like "There is no reason for you to be here right now; we have nothing to say to you," which was puzzling to me because during these encounters I felt like I had been "led" there intentionally. The one exception was a positive (I think?) encounter with something resembling the face of Ganesha, who wordlessly indicated that I was permitted to "pass through" something that I can't quite remember. I clearly felt like these forms that they allowed me to see were illusory, at best symbolic and at worst intentionally deceptive. I also felt like at least some of them were strongly associated with the other beings I was in contact with (particularly the serpents and other vaguely reptilian beings), but I'm not entirely sure about that.

Just to entertain a bit of fun speculation, I can think of three possible (equally fanciful and unsubstantiated) explanations for these beings: 1) The forms of these beings were created by the collective unconscious of the civilizations who believed in them; 2) Aware of these pre-existing beliefs, the beings adopted these forms to imitate something that was already deified, essentially being opportunists who replaced manufactured beings with "real" ones; or 3) These beings existed in this form long before we achieved anything approximating sentience, were accidentally discovered by (or intentionally contacted) early civilizations, and subsequently shaped their beliefs and culture over the millenia.

The Talking Heads

This is more of a loose category of encounter with a consistent format, probably with different entities, and not necessarily in the same category as the other "greater beings." These encounters always took the form of a conversation with a disembodied face, while traveling at high speeds through... something. There was always the intense sensation of fast movement accompanied by something resembling the physical gut feeling of inertia or g-force, similar to the "warp tunnel" preceding most breakthroughs, yet distinctively different. There was always clearly an environment that we were passing through, although I never got a good look at it since it was always at the periphery of my perception, my attention completely fixed on the face in front of me. The environments usually appeared less hyperspatial and more solid and 3-dimensional, ranging in appearance from caves/tunnels to geographic landscapes to surreal "highways" and other vaguely urban settings.

The faces themselves, like the environments, usually looked less fractal and geometric and more solid, like an ultra-high-def holographic image of a physical face, usually human in appearance. These encounters almost always involved long, provocative conversations, often either "prophetic" in nature, or pertaining to the dynamics and phenomenology of higher planes of existence. The content of these conversations was often so profoundly far-out as to make some of my other "revelations" seem tame and mundane by comparison. I don't think I'll bother elaborating on this much to avoid sounding like a raving madman and discrediting everything else I've said. I'm not sure I believe most of it myself, actually; a lot of it very well could have been misdirection, and I suspect at least some of these beings may have been related to the others I was in regular contact with.

The Soul Surgeons

I only had one brief encounter with these entities, but it stuck with me for a long time, and I'm still not sure what it all meant. During one of my hyperspace encounters with my guide, my awareness suddenly flashed to something very different, which was apparently happening simultaneously. I can't remember most of it, but I had the impression of lying down on a surface in some sort of medical facility, staring up at some blindingly bright lights. I quickly realized that these lights (about 5 of them) were beings that appeared to be standing over me. Their forms were very indistinct, and I could just make out their outlines. Possibly humanoid, but I really can't remember.

I looked down and caught a glimpse of something like my "spirit body," or some other parallel existence or metaphorical representation of myself. What I saw was horrifying. It looked like my guts were spilling out everywhere, weightlessly drifting outward, and some hazy, shadowy, writhing mass was buried deep in a gristly cavity in my chest and torso (possibly related to the "Bride of the Devil" entity I described above). I don't know why, but for some reason I felt like the other beings were "operating" on me, struggling to get this thing out of me. They briefly tried to tell me something, but I couldn't understand them, as if their voices were muffled or underwater. All I could make out was that I was severely "damaged," (somehow this seemed to carry more "mechanical" than biological or spiritual connotations??) and that I had forgotten something incredibly important (possibly from a previous lifetime?).

On the surface, from what little I could make out, their appearance looked very much like how my guide and his associates had occasionally presented themselves, but the essence I could sense from these entities was completely different in ways I can't fully describe. What I sensed from them was pure love, empathy, and compassionate concern, followed by an intense sorrow (as if mourning my "death"??) as my awareness drifted away from them and was forcibly "ejected" out of hyperspace.

The experience was intensely unpleasant, and I immediately vomited my guts out upon folding back into this reality and jumping back into my temporarily unfamiliar physical body. I was overwhelmed by intense, otherworldly fear and disorientation for hours afterward. I now believe there's a reason that there's a "warp tunnel loading screen" or interstitial period before breakthroughs and a gentle comedown afterward; to rush through these transitions means risking the "hyperspatial bends". Anyway, I can think of a thousand different interpretations of this experience, all of them disturbing. I really don't want to dwell on the implications of this too much.

The Source (???)

I am very conflicted about this one. On two rare and incredible occasions, I encountered something unthinkably vast and blindingly brilliant, pulsating with life-giving energy, consistent with others' description of The Source. My first impression and immediate "intuition" was that this somehow represented the end of the line of all cosmic macroevolution, the beginning and end of everything, a paradoxical representation of both terminating points on some great universal axis, where all things come from and to which all things return, the totality of all consciousness and energy across the entire multiverse, and in itself a conscious, omniscient, and omnipotent being, forever unchanging and existing in the Eternal Now. "God," in other words.

I am now very skeptical that this is what it really was, though. In an ever-so-brief but overwhelmingly clear glimpse of something I can't begin to describe, while pulling away from it after my second encounter, I somehow knew that it was an impostor, that it was not the totality of the universe but a distinct subset of it. This is further corroborated by the first encounter in which I was "introduced" to this thing by my guide, the ambassador from the entities that deceived me, and some subsequent references to it. Following this experience, they used my awe and reverence of this Source to demand my trust and allegiance and insist that I "open myself up to them." I'm certainly not making the assertion that a real version of The Source or God does not exist, but I am fairly sure that whatever it was that I experienced was not it. I have many more thoughts and questions on the subject, but this is venturing into some potentially dangerous and contentious religious territory, so I think I'll stop there in the interest of avoiding argument.

The World Eaters

I didn't encounter these guys directly (thank goodness), but was given a vision of them by my guide. Keep this in mind, since it very well could have been a work of fiction. One of my friends has learned of them in a similar way, though, so even if it was fiction it wasn't uniquely directed toward me. Maybe it was even allegorical, who knows.

I couldn't exactly tell what plane of existence they inhabited, possibly multiple at once, but they weren't natives to hyperspace. They seemed to be part of some colossal insectoid hive-mind. They seemed not entirely self-aware, like drones being controlled by something else. They were very Zerg-like (or Tyranid-like, if you prefer) in that respect, but less theatrical and more utilitarian, and maybe not quite as ugly. Physically resembled one of the subspecies of Mantid (of which there are many, by the way).

It was a highly militarized, invasive race, somehow advanced enough to accomplish their goals but driven by a seemingly blind and mindlessly insatiable drive to conquer and consume. I witnessed them devouring an entire world, not only stripping its physical (and/or astral?) form bare and leaving nothing but an empty husk, but erasing it entirely from existence. They somehow destroyed the entire timeline branch of which this world was a part. Now this part is mostly unfounded speculation, but I later got the impression that at some level, they served the same or similar goal as the entities I was in contact with, although part of a different "faction" that was as concerned with their own interests as they were the greater hierarchy of which they were a part. Similar in nature but still somehow not nearly as terrifying as The Legion, but maybe that's just because I didn't meet them face-to-face.

Et Cetera

I also encountered a plethora of other commonly reported hyperspace beings (many of which may or may not have been different forms of the same thing), other "non-native" beings that could be interpreted advanced alien races (mainly the Mantids and their underlings), and other phenomena. These were mostly brief encounters that didn't offer me much insight into what they were, and this is mostly redundant with all of the reports already out there that are written in more eloquent detail than I need to attempt right now.

As a side note, I have a bit of speculation about how these beings relate to their "visible" forms. You know how many of these creatures, particularly the "elfin" ones, seem to "crawl out of the woodwork," shifting and morphing in and out of the surrounding neon scaffolding and fractal geometry? I strongly suspect that this "surrounding environment" is just as much a part of the entity as the creatures that appear to come out of it, perhaps more so. Pay close attention to the process of "morphing," and you might notice that this feels like a consciously directed act of creation, or even that the fundamental unit or "material" that comprises all of this fractal geometry is consciousness itself. I'm probably exceeding my intellectual grasp here, though, so I'm curious about others' interpretations that might complement or contradict this idea.

6. Modus Operandi and Tools of Manipulation

Here I'll go into more detail regarding the entities' malicious side, and try to summarize some of the methods by which they may try to influence and interact with you. This is based on my personal experience, and I think many of these things are specifically tailored to the individual, but this at least gives a good example of their tactics. The overall theme of many of these things is manipulative messages buried in true or true-sounding concepts. This is all given with my current interpretations of what was really going on and the benefit of lots of hindsight. While I was in the thick of it, I was completely convinced of everything they were telling me and more or less took their messages at face value, while oblivious to everything they were doing behind my back.

Note: this section may be a work in progress as I continue to review my journals and notes of my experiences, and continue to deconstruct many misconceptions, perceptual filters, conditioned response patterns, and other residual effects that I most likely still suffer from.

First Stage: The Setup

This stage involved lots of ideas and themes presented in altered states and spiritual experiences, with no apparent source other than the universe itself. See the section on recurring themes and messages for more details.

• Scattered hints of vaguely auspicious/mystical/cosmic themes and ideas
  
• Allusions to the idea that life in this material plane is meaningless, mostly inconsequential, and that the real forms of meaningful existence are in ascended forms of consciousness
  
• Allusions to wonderful-sounding things like means of ascension to these higher forms of consciousness, new abilities, and using these abilities for the betterment of humanity and other forms of life, etc.

Second Stage: Ongoing Relationship and "Guidance"

• An introductory period during which the beings finally identify themselves, claiming responsibility for at least some of your prior experiences
  
• Emphasizing the idea that "we didn't come to you, you came to us." I don't think this was entirely true.
  
• Gifts of new mental abilities
  
• Gifts of knowledge that seem completely believable but are very vague and incomplete upon closer examination
  
• Subsequent requests of respect and trust based on said gifts
  
• Ongoing allegorical lessons and more direct teachings (see recurring themes and messages)
  
• Imitation of divine qualities. Not going to delve too deeply into this one, but again, this is likely to be somewhat tailored to your own existing beliefs about what divinity means. They also certainly seem to have their own opinions on the subject, though.
  
• Presenting you with an increasing amount of seemingly portentous symbology. This was definitely leading somewhere, but I think part of the purpose of this was simply to lend an air of mystery to these experiences to further pique my curiosity and depend on them for guidance.
  
• Ostensibly supporting good values like peace/love/unity/interconnectedness and other things with a strong "universal religion" theme (these are ideas I was already well familiar with, so these things may be tailored to your existing beliefs and preconceptions)
  
• Cycling through basically all of your memories of everyone you've ever known, using them to gain your trust or otherwise influence you. They were very algorithmic in their approach, wearing the faces of every familiar figure they could during the initial "cycle" (lasting weeks or months), then re-using only the most effective ones in the next cycle, and so on. This methodical technique was re-used during the punishment stage as well.

Third Stage: Deeper Manipulation

• Posing as your "peers," using groupthink to direct your focus and opinions
  
• When pressed with difficult questions, responding with things like "It's too complicated, you wouldn't understand," or "Don't get ahead of yourself, we'll reveal that when the time is right," and a reminder to remain humble and respectful
  
• Otherwise responding to direct questions by making you fill in the blanks with your own ideas and assumptions. (e.g., "Well, what do you think?"/"Well, what have you learned so far?"/"You really should already know this by now." )
  
• Primitive but well-disguised appeals to base instincts (that do not appear to come from them)
  
• Subsequent shame of said base instincts
  
• Subtle belittling, backhanded complements, and accusations disguised as benevolent teaching or admonishment
  
• Appeals to petty narcissism/bitterness/contempt (especially toward authority and perceived slights against you)
  
• Appeals to arrogance (implications that you can become god-like in your knowledge and abilities with enough training from them)
  
• Ego-flattering: implying you're onto something big that most people will never understand, frequent comparisons with other people or even higher beings/"ascended masters," with emphasis on your singular importance and potential for greatness.
  
• Ostensibly encouraging you to change your opinions and habits in positive ways, while subtly planting doubts and justifications for doing the opposite
  
• Subtly inflicting you with problems like unpleasant emotional states, personal problems, and psychological issues resulting from long-term subconscious manipulation.
  
• Offering to fix these problems, with emphasis on the idea that they are the only ones capable of it (or at least superior to any other available options)
  
• Elaborate "good cop/bad cop" acts based on the illusion of many different "factions" that really serve the same purpose (e.g., infecting you with a "dark spirit" and claiming to be able to save you, all you have to do is trust them and obey everything they say, etc.)

Fourth Stage: Recruitment & Ascension

• A climatic series of final, dramatic revelations that everything you have been through was preparation for what was to come next
  
• Explicit demands of undying allegiance and wholehearted dedication to their cause, possibly spanning multiple lifetimes
  
• Initiation: An elaborate ceremony in which you are finally brought in as one of their own, an instrument of their greater purpose
  
• ???: I have no idea what lay beyond this point, but whatever it was it was big. I think they were going to turn me into some sort of "prophet," evangelist, teacher, leader, or other important figure. Then again, maybe that was just more ego-flattering.

Final Stage: Punishment

• Plays for guilt/sunk cost fallacies ("We've invested so much in you, you've come so far, you can't undo all this progress now!" )
  
• Progressively harsher condemnation ("Pathetic worm! We have given you a gift you are completely unworthy of, and now you dare insult us with this lack of faith??" )
  
• Blatant exploitation of every possible personal weakness
  
• Blatantly seeding countless fears and insecurities
  
• Consistently putting on a ridiculously unfounded front of confidence and self-assuredness
  
• Emphasis on your own weakness and powerlessness and their unstoppable omnipotence
  
• Elaborate deceptions to convince you of a false victory (for me, they put on a really big show to give me the impression of a "mass exorcism" to get me to lower my defenses)
  
• Elaborate, last-ditch attempts to gain your trust in the form of something "switching sides" and ostensibly helping you out of pity (they also claimed that the Dream Teacher was an alien being outside of their control, but even he turned on me and was clearly allied with the rest of them)
  
• Plays for sympathy (oh I'm just a lowly pawn, a victim like you, I have no free will, I've been subjugated by my dark masters, have pity on me!)
  
• Reverse psychology (once you realize what their game is about and that they're not trustworthy in any way)
  
• Double-reverse psychology, followed by utter chaos and confusion (throwing a bunch of contradictory messages at you simultaneously, each with a deception buried in a bit of truth)
  
• Childishly petty insults (from the Imps, mainly)
  
• Empty threats (a lot of this consisted of elaborate bluffs that I eventually was able to see through, like claims that they could smite me with lightning, cancer, etc.)
  
• Warnings of your inevitable doom and claims that they will be with you forever no matter what you do
  
• Threatening to possess or otherwise harm friends and loved ones
  
• Outright torment, psychological abuse, and violent attacks (I may go into more detail on this another time, but Part 5 will at least give you a glimpse of this)
  
• Finally getting whatever entertainment and energy that they can from you while clinging on as long as they can

Recurring Themes and Messages

• The illusion of individuality. This definitely has basis in truth, but their version was a bit too nihilistic.
  
• The need to "empty yourself." Similar to Buddhist teachings, but their version of this involved leaving yourself in an incredibly vulnerable state and completely at their mercy. Their repeated allegorical visions emphasizing this usually involved visual metaphors for things that were too full of "junk" to accept their gifts or other things of greater value than what was already there.
  
• Universal interconnectedness, "We are one," "You are me and I am you," etc. Again, partly true, but their version of this emphasized blind trust in them since we were, after all, "all part of the same thing."
  
• Ascension to higher forms of existence, "You shall be as gods," etc.
  
• Symbology related to the Flower of Life, Metatron's Cube, Julia sets, etc.
  
• Vastly epic and mythological themes, especially related to the creation of the universe and the eternal cycle of cosmic death and rebirth. Much of this is quite possibly based in truth, but they implicitly claim responsibility or association with it to gain your trust and reverence.

7. Technique, Recovery, and Final Thoughts

Set, Setting, Dosage, and Technique

I will now attempt to describe my means of achieving these experiences, which is probably not quite what you'd expect. Given how different this is from the average psychonaut's approach (at least in the West), this may be a source of hope for the rest of you that the dark nature of my experiences were at least partly the result of other factors that you may be exempt from. However, given the striking resemblance (at least superficially) to most other experience reports I've read, I wouldn't count on it. Also note that the purpose of this is to give context for my experiences, not to encourage others to do the same thing (considering how poorly things turned out for me).

Throughout all of this, my actual tryptamine consumption was in relatively low and infrequent doses. For me, there seemed to be little correlation between dosage and quality/intensity of experience, and eventually all of my experiences converged into more or less the same thing, with different superficial "skins" pasted over them depending on the means of getting there. This did not include the lucid dreams/visions/astral projection, which converged into a separate type of (mostly linear, 3-dimensional) experience. These two categories of experience frequently "leaked" into each other, though. Eventually, I could get to hyperspace (or sub-breakthrough trances) without the use of exogenous substances almost as easily as I could with them. The notable exception to this was DMT, which I used very sparingly, and it almost felt like "cheating." In fact, I grew to prefer to do this without chemical assistance, due to what felt like more control over the situation.

When I did use entheogens, it was in the form of 10mg extracted psilocybin taken orally, with about 0.5g vaporized cannabis sativa (around 20-25% THC) at the peak. This combo doesn't work for everyone, but for me it was pure magic and synergy. I did this no more frequently than once every three months, and did it more for the long-term benefits than the short-term effects. Outside of this I used cannabis maybe once a month, about 0.1-0.2g per session, with occasional exceptions like 4g consumed over the course of a 5-day music festival. My handful of DMT experiences came later, in the form of about 15-20mg vaporized in a GVG, with breakthroughs every time but once (during which I strongly felt like something was "forbidding" me to pass through the veil). I was surprised to find that this was much more intense and "high-resolution" than my previous visits to hyperspace, but after a brief period of dumbfounded awe and disorientation I realized that it was otherwise pretty much the same thing.

My setting was usually alone, at home or in another familiar place, with a tidy environment and minimal distractions. In retrospect I really wish I had sought more help through all of this. I did have some form of "guidance" available to me if I so desired, but honestly it wasn't the kind of guidance I wanted or needed. Also, on the couple occasions where I had these experiences in the presence of others, I found myself much too distracted with the act of "peering inside" the others around me and other more local fascinations with my heightened senses, and couldn't really focus enough to follow my "inner paths to outer space."

My "ceremony" involved a brief review of all that I had learned so far, and setting the intent of being a detached observer with no particular expectations, simply tying to better understand myself and my place in the universe. I would eat lightly for the preceding day or two, with a light meal (like miso soup) 6+ hours prior. I would then meditate for about an hour (simple breath-based meditation, but later on I got better at meditating without an anchor), and if my state of mind was unsatisfactory by the end of it (maybe 20% of the time), I would simply abort the mission and try again another time.

From there, it gets much more abstract and difficult to describe. With or without chemical assitance, it mostly involved going into a trance (sometimes with music), getting in touch with some sort of hidden intuition, "thinking in the right directions," and pushing your awareness further and further through some indescribable mental landscape. Occasionally, taking a "wrong turn" would take me to other idescribable states, or leave me stranded in The Void for what seemed like an eternity (there is definitely a "timeless" quality to this place), an experience which was at first terrifying but eventually became familiar and even peaceful. I think this technique was originally "taught" to me in a sub-breakthrough trance I accidentally entered through a 5-hour meditation session, reinforced with practice, and "fully unlocked" on a subsequent psilocybin experience. It kind of felt like a more slow, deliberate equivalent to the "DMT warp tunnel." This path has the potential to induce a comparable (if not greater) amount of anxiety, which is simply an obstacle that must be overcome with mindfulness. For anyone else who's followed the rabbit hole in this manner, you'll know what I mean.

This process is probably similar to how some people go about astral projection (personally I preferred using lucid dreams as a gateway for this), but involves going much, much further down the rabbit hole, and to keep pressing forward even when you think you've reached your destination. Following the pivotal experience I described in Part 3 and the discovery of certain "shortcuts to hyperspace," this began to require much less effort, and happened to me regularly in my sleep. Sometimes I even felt like I was on "autopilot," and would snap out of a sub-lucid sleep state to find myself nearly at the end of the trip. "Okay, so this is happening," I would think, and simply go with the flow and see where it took me.

Recovery

It should go without saying, but I'm going to have to take a long (possibly indefinite) break from all of this experimentation with altered states. I had gained so much momentum with these practices that it was actually rather difficult to slam on the brakes, with so many of my experiences being thrust upon me whether I willed it or not. Eventually, though, with enough dedicated mindfulness I was able to resist these experiences, and they gradually subsided (although still not completely).

I don't want to discourage anyone else from their exploration, but for me, the risks now clearly outweigh the benefits. In hindsight, as prepared as I thought I was, I still hadn't fully learned how to swim before diving face-first into a vast cosmic ocean full of hyperdimensional predators. On a more hopeful note, even if the universe is full of said predators, they're not invulnerable. The most surprising thing about my interactions with the lesser beings was, for all their posturing, their allusions to superior alien intelligence or divinity, and their claims of near-omnipotence, there were lots of cracks in their facade along the way that I had just shrugged off but really should have taken better note of (especially in my encounters with the Imps).

Some of their abilities are impressive from the perspective of three-dimensionally limited meatspace organisms like us, but some of them actually demonstrated a surprising amount of incompetence. It almost seems as if they don't fully understand human perspective, which is surprising given how much information they clearly have access to. In hindsight, I can see that they have frequently let slip things that they shouldn't have, have given contradictory or verifiably incorrect information, or otherwise made some rather amateurish screw-ups. They immediately adapt and make the best of it, though, accept what you have accidentally learned, pretend that it was intentional all along, and integrate it into their future "lessons."

Throughout my period of "punishment," the best thing that I've learned to do so far to cope with all of this is to simply ignore them. I think at this point their power over me is mostly limited to that of illusion, and the less I buy into it the better. I eventually recognized that ruminating over my experiences only made them worse, so I have simply chosen to do the opposite. As I've done so, the experiences have gradually gone from terrifying attacks to minor annoyances. Reliving all of this through writing has unfortunately sent me into a bit of a relapse, but I'll survive.

Also, following the "confrontation," during the repeated attacks in my sleep, I occasionally become lucid enough to resist and confront them directly, and on these occasions I have witnessed something like shock and panic in their eyes, as they scrambled to either silence me, wake me up, or nervously scamper away into the ether. I have, upon challenging them with sufficient confidence, seen their illusions of seemingly powerful aggressors give way to something more like comically frustrated little gnomes. This has happened a number of times in dreams, hypnagogic states, and unexpected trips to hyperspace.

They have other limitations as well. One of the things that they once indicated to me that I think is actually true, is that they do have some sort of limited resources. I think the lesser beings may even bound by a linear perception of time like us, although they pretend not to be. In other words, they can't simultaneously and indefinitely further all of their goals all at once, but are limited by time and energy (what form this energy takes, I can only speculate). Take this with a grain of salt, but it's an interesting idea.

Final Thoughts

If you'll humor a bit more speculation here, I strongly suspect that whatever it was that I encountered has been around for a very long time, playing the exact same game across human history (and the history of other non-human intelligent life). Based on striking parallels I can draw to my own experiences, it seems obvious to me that they have left their mark on human culture in the form of all kinds of religious, mythological, and occult portrayals, sometimes vilified, sometimes glorified, with varying degrees of accuracy and of course muddled with all manner of flawed human interpretation. Many works of fiction also seem to contain embellished (or even dumbed-down) elements inspired by either direct or secondhand contact with them, including the likes of H.P. Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, and Edgar Allan Poe. Maybe such influence is more in the form of indirect cultural tropes combined with human creativity, though, who knows.

There's no need to mince words, these things are absolutely demonic. I really don't like that term because of all its associated baggage, but that is the best way I can think of to describe these beings and their true nature. This leads me to the part most of you are probably going to like the least, so I'll keep it brief. This is based on my own limited experience and perspective, so I'm not making any kind of authoritative assertion here, but I'm leaving this here as food for thought for any of you who might be experiencing these things. In all their attempts to portray themselves as "divine," I think that they may have been imitating something real, and they have a violent aversion to the real thing, whatever that may be.

Through a bizarre series of serendipitous events following my confrontation with them, I discovered that they really, really hate certain divine symbology, scripture, so-called "holy" places, and other resources. I'm not quite sure how to interpret this, but I am fairly confident that this reaction is genuine and not part of the deception. They pretended to be indifferent at first, even supportive of these things, but I can now clearly sense their reaction to these things ranging from mild but obvious discomfort to injured pride to outright disgust and revulsion. When pressed for an explanation, they attempted a rather amusing excuse for this, but I'm going to refrain from going into more detail on this subject to avoid sounding like I'm pushing some sort of religious propaganda. Coming from the perspective of being a materialist/secular humanist prior to these experiences, my own ideas on the subject of "divinity" are very incomplete, and I don't want to present any incorrect or misleading information as fact.

I could keep going indefinitely with more speculation, anecdotes, and experience reports, but I think I'll stop there for now. I hope someone out there gets some useful information out of this, and I hope I haven't offended anyone with my portrayal of these beings or my speculation about them. I will check back occasionally to answer questions and elaborate on parts that I didn't explain adequately. Keep in mind, though, that there are so many aspects of my experiences that are still a complete mystery to me, and some of you likely know more about these phenomena than I do. I can't possibly claim to have authoritative answers regarding the mysteries of the universe that I have attempted to explore, so I openly invite any constructive criticism or alternative explanations of these phenomena. I am especially curious if anyone else here has had experiences similar to mine (specifically the long-term manipulation and torment, not just the isolated encounters), and if/how you managed to escape it.

Relevant Neuroscience

Despite my conviction that hyperspace beings represent something external and are not a mere product of one's own mind, I still try to maintain a scientific approach to all of this. I, like many of you, now view the human brain not as something that produces consciousness as an emergent property, but as something more like a "receiver," neurologically coupled to nonlocal phenomena we have yet to understand. However, I'm still fascinated (more than ever, really) by what goes on inside this cognitive machinery, and the answers it holds to better understanding what we really are. I am especially interested in the parallels between neurological anomalies (i.e., mental illness) and otherworldly contact, for example shamanistic practices and states that closely resemble schizophrenia, and their connections to DMT and other tryptamines. Obviously there are much more exhaustive sources of information out there, but here are a handful of resources that I have found particularly relevant:

Audio/Video:
Johns Hopkins Psilocybin Research Project: Describes some of the long-term effects of psilocybin which I think are relevant to my experience
Brain Imaging Studies with Psilocybin and MDMA: The part that describes a possible neurological correlate for ego death is especially fascinating
How Similar to Dreaming is the Ayahuasca Experience?
Voices in the Dark: An Audio Story: A surprisingly timely podcast documentary about auditory hallucinations that these guys just released the other day and answered some questions on here. I'm not sure what to make of how some of my hallucinations relate to these, but it's probably safe to assume that there are similar underlying neurological mechanisms regardless of whether "something else" is behind the voices.

Literature:
Consciousness in the universe: A review of the 'Orchestrated Objective Reduction' theory: Be sure to read over the referenced criticism of this theory and the authors' responses to it.
The effects of psilocybin and MDMA on between-network resting state functional connectivity in healthy volunteers: Related to the Carhart-Harris study but with some new info.
Biology of schizophrenia subtypes: a review and proposal for method of study
On the transmethylation hypothesis: stress, N,N-dimethyltryptamine, and positive symptoms of psychosis: Behind a paywall, but those of you who are university students may have access.
Altered States: Psychedelics and Anesthetics
Psychedelic Information Theory: Shamanism in the Age of Reason: The book by James Kent that many of you are probably already familiar with. Note that this is not peer-reviewed scientific literature and I disagree with some of it, but it contains some fascinating (although insufficiently tested) hypotheses, particularly the theorized mechanisms of visual hallucinations.
Geometric visual hallucinations, Euclidean symmetry and the functional architecture of striate cortex: A peer-reviewed paper that corroborates some of Kent's hypotheses on visual hallucinations.
Activation of Serotonin 2A Receptors Underlies the Psilocybin-Induced Effects on alpha Oscillations, N170 Visual-Evoked Potentials, and Visual Hallucinations

please continue!

Yes, more please

Part 3 posted. Phew! That was about twice as long as I intended it to be. I will try to finish up part 4 and get it posted tomorrow.

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing, looking forward to reading the rest.

Have you heard of Robert Monroe? Or read his books?
If not, I highly suggest it to you. His story is very similar.

The breakthroughs you get from following the "rabbit hole" and connecting the dots are amazing and scary alike. I wish I had the time and stability in my life right now to re-solidify my meditation techniques, but school and dips into depression have a way of slowing me down. The abilities you've gained through meditation are a testament to your discipline, and I hope it exponentially contributes to the battle against your depression. Awesome read, can't wait for the rest!

Very well written, the story of Faust springs to mind, cannot wait for the remaining instalments, thank you!

The observation I make from reading so far, is that balance doesn't appear to have been an aspect of the esoteric knowledge you became preoccupied with. Personally, I try to keep "balance" as my dictum, in all things. It can make a very good signpost in the hyper-wilderness... I love me some hypnotic trance music too, but I keep it for special occasions; living with it constantly I find difficult even to imagine.

Also, I could imagine a banco-shaman reading this and remarking "Of course! What else did you expect?!"

I understand if you're reluctant to go visiting anywhere any time soon, but have you worked with salvia? Taken properly i.e. buccally, not smoked, it definitely has the potential to help in re-grounding, effectively undoing a lot of the cumulative effects of heavy tryptamine use.

Stay well, keep writing.

interesting stuff NGC_2264, thanks for the write up

one thing that interests me, that i didnt notice, is your frequency of use, your dosage and your ROA.

cheers

Great read. More please.

Yeah something is similar there. Except for the dark entities - did Monroe discover dark entities and illusion? I only read book 1 & 2.

For dark entities summoned through psilocybin, I think of risperidone:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9875725

I wished I had it at reach when I met those voices... but eventually they fade away, and so the does the consumption of mushrooms. They have nothing to give imo. Ask the late TMK & Maria Sabina.

Wow!
I would never have expected this myself, but the way you describe it is just amazing. I can't wait to read the rest of your thread.
I haven't yet met any entities face to face, but if/when I do, I will heed this warning.

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences, they are without a doubt some of the most interesting writing I have read about hyperspace and entities.

I don't recall Monroe interacting with dark entities either. Its been a while since I've read his books.
Still, many similarities with the OBEs and Astral travel with meditation and sleep.
The teaching entities with a purpose for him etc,etc.

Great reads, especially if your encountering something similar.

I agree that this is a great story and i am looking forward to reading more but bear in mind that it is someoneelses experience and you will have your own if you ever meet any entities.

Entering a hyper-suggestible state with expectations and warnings of evil can influence what happens to you and maybe not in a good way.

I agree.
I didn't mean it like I would keep doubts about everything and anything I'm experiencing in hyperspace, but I will definitely have it in the back of my head when I try to debrief myself afterwards.
I am and will try to stay as neutral as possible. But it's really hard not to be amazed with what is being experienced in hyperspace and thinking about OP's story, it does seem like the perfect place for a dark entity to take a hold of you.

But I digress. I completely get what you're saying and I will also take that to heart.