Typical psychedelics are incredibly interesting to me. They stand apart from many other drugs in their relatively low toxicity, high potency and potential for novel and intense psychological experiences. For these reasons, initially, i've dabbled in various psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin containing mushrooms and DMT. Out of those, DMT has given me experiences i still try to understand over a year after i last tried it.

I won't write a full trip report here but i'll briefly describe an experience that, upon reflection, made me question my beliefs about DMT. During a (what i remember was a low dose) DMT trip i distinctly remember seeing and perceiving some sort of being somewhere near my legs in front of me while i lay down. It looked like a mudskipper, sort of like my avatar. It was looking at me, i felt its presence, but i didn't feel threatened. I felt that it was just observing me benignly. At the same time i sensed that something was directly behind me, a feeling you might get if somebody was breathing down the back of your neck. It felt as if beings were gathering around me, coming closer and closer. Since it was not what i've heard others describe as a "breakthrough dose" (it was smoked freebase), it seemed like their presence was weak and short-lived and this experience would have been much more visceral had i smoked more.

I've never felt anything like it. The experience of feeling like you're encountering other beings suddenly is almost indescribable with words, but what really got me thinking was somebody elses report that they too have seen beings that resemble a mudskipper. This was on DMT-Nexus but unfortunately i can't find the thread anymore. It leads me to ask the question, are the hallucinations simply somewhat consistent and specific to DMT or could there be something more going on? I have also seen Mantidae (though not felt their presence) during a DMT trip, and others report similar visuals. At any rate, it has me fascinated and i want to go further in to this strange world.

I am working towards doing an extraction of DMT and DMT-Nexus has been very valuable for information. This is a fantastic website with a positive attitude towards others and utmost respect for harm reduction, two things i value greatly when it comes to psychedelics and drugs in general. I feel like you're my people.

Thank you and keep up the great work.

I think the vastness of what we experience is often condensed version due to our limited language. There are certainly similarities but how are we to determine exactly how similar experiences are.

Example... I am glad I did not hear anything about Terence Mckenna until after I had tried DMT. I feel that many people attached to the idea of seeing elves, tykes and jesters simply because of his descriptions. Joe Rogan and others play into this as well.

Don't think about pink elephants!

Glad to have you here! Welcome to the Nexus!

I feel the same sort of thing about the book The Spirit Molecule, I am glad I had had several strong breakthrough experiences before I read the book. The part about being sexually attacked by crocodiles was not comforting to read.

I agree, anyone who's heard McKenna's reports on his experiences with DMT will be subject to confirmation bias. I had heard about the elves and such before i took DMT but in all honesty my default position is that the effects are purely in the mind and don't give us access to other spaces that are inhabited by beings we can't normally see. I like to have fun with the idea of encountering other beings though, or in my case experiencing a difficult to define feeling of "presence", like i'm being watched, along with fleetingly seeing strange creatures.

As for having a bias towards interpreting certain visuals as particular beings because of being fed prior information, that's definitely likely. What i found really fascinating about DMT though is a definite sense that i wasn't alone (as i keep saying), and i think i would have felt the same way had i not heard anything about DMT before. To me though, that was an effect of the drug nothing more; albeit a very novel one as far as i'm concerned, but for more experiences psychonauts perhaps not.

Looking back it's kind of funny that of all things, i thought i saw a mudskipper. Hoping for a more interesting encounter in the future. I want elves!

Thanks. Very glad to be here.