Aum_Shanti wrote:I have to say, I still did not manage to break through with this. But I also always just loaded 30mg.
Hm, what's a actually a "breakthrough"? Experiencing yourself floating in space for real?
I haven't found a perfectly clear definition of a DMT breakthrough yet.
Do you need to loose awareness of physical body and location and really "space out" to call a DMT experience a "breakthrough"?
Would you consider clear contact with entities (you might encounter them while present in your room, still aware of your body and location, the locatoin maybe appearing distorted in one way or another) sufficient to speak of a "breakthrough"?
Does the expression come from virtually "breaking through into other dimensions"? Do you experience a lucid dream with eyes open? Or would you simply consider the state of consciousness you access with increased levels of DMT a true breakthrough in personal development (and maybe a breakthrough in personal [psychedelic] enlightenment)?
All I have is my experience:
On my first Ayahuasca trip I didn't break through. I vomited early. Therefore only small amounts of DMT got absorbed by my body. Though I experienced oneirogenic effects. I entered a closed-eyes journey that tricked me into really thinking and feeling I was in a lucid dream at one point, but actually I was only lying on the bed awake, eyes closed.
Since I've had real lucid dreams before, this experience wasn't a breakthough in personal consciousness development. I didn't experience any distortion of perception, and I didn't consider it a breakthrough. Besides, the oneirogenic effect might have been triggered by the harmaline I had taken approx 10 minutes earlier.
My second Ayahuasca trip the next day I consider a breakthrough into hyperspace. At that time I already knew LSD very well. Yet, DMT took me to an entirely new level of psychedelic experience. I was lying on a bed during the trip. I can't recall whether I was lying there with eyes open or closed when I experienced being in hyperspace. I know I had my eyes open at some times and closed at others. Open or closed, it didn't make much difference. It didn't significantly change where I was and what I was experiencing in my mind.
This was a very intense experience. I never had immersed as deep into psychedelic realms before. In comparison, LSD now meant swimming on the surface of the sea, while this Ayahuasca experience was really a dive deep into it. I visited the other side. The experience was as clear, coherent and immersive as it never or only seldom had been before on LSD. For me this was a breakthrough in every respect. I didn't have the slightest doubt that I had "broken through" in the sense DMT psychonauts refer to.
DMT experiences were slightly different from Ayahuasca trips.
Submodalities were basically the same, DMT at work (let's call it DMT aRt work). But with DMT the setting was different, e.g. no vomiting, sitting upright, all at home and only 10 minutes of intense trip time in average.
Sometimes I couldn't remember whether I had eyes open or closed. Some DMT sessions I can hardly remember anyway. I remember some fragments or representations of what I experienced, but the experiences resemble too complex representations to remember in standard consciousness. It's easier to remember sub-breakthrough events.
I've experienced DMT trips I'd call "sub-breakthrough". That's clearly visible, moving patterns (on walls, carpets, objects), interior gets that plastic-like touch, but there are no substantial animations of objects or encounters with entities. Maybe some thingy things are around, and with closed eyes I get some light kaleidoscopic effects, sometimes there's a feeling affecting the entire body, sometimes gentle Muses's kisses.
Almost certainly I experience mental relaxation, a very nice and convenient state of consciousness to contemplate things. That's basically what I'm used to experience when I vaporise around 20mg, using the PET/alfoil system or the electronic pen vaporiser. It's what I call a meditative, contemplative or introspective dose.
50-60mg I got to know as 10 minutes of what I'd call "breakthrough time". From a sober scientific point of view you'd say 10 minutes of "intense hallucinations". From a more mystical point of view you'd maybe say... "breakthrough"? When tripping with eyes open, most times I remained (faintly) aware of my body and location, although I was "hallucinating" massively, taking off with my mind into psychedelic experience. Sometimes I lost awareness of location and body completely and experienced totally out-of-our-worldish things. With eyes shut, on 50-60mg I always take off into hyperspace to totally different spaces and places, having visions, encounters in a truly strange space, during which I forget my surroundings.
One remarkable thing is that no single Ayahuasca trip was like another, and the same accounts for DMT. They were all quite different, unique. And I wouldn't say that the difference is defined by sub-breakthrough/breakthrough only, that's a very one-dimensional measure. Compared to LSD I'd speak of a broader "bandwidth" of types of experiences. Once you know LSD, you basically know what to expect. Ayahuasca and DMT seem to me a bit different here. "Submodalities" basically stay the same, you know what to expect on that level. Only you don't know what's going to happen, while LSD to me seems more predictable or controllable here (but maybe that's a question of experience, and today I'm still more experienced with LSD than with DMT).
How would you describe a breakthrough, or how would you describe the difference between breakthrough and sub-breakthrough?
Quote:But for me the problem seems to be mainly to get additional tokes, as I immediately get disconnected from my body upon the first toke...
Sounds familiar, but I don't experience a disconnection from my body, since with eyes open I often remain aware of it, at least faintly. Though I often remain in the position I'm sitting in for vaporising rather than moving into the relaxed position the chair would allow, leaning back. It takes a while until I remember to lean back and relax, often minutes. Multiple times I also intended to close my eyes or lower the eye mask from my forehead over the eyes, but I didn't get that far. Sometimes I just managed to get a third toke before falling into trance stiffness...