Great article for the hard headed materialists among us.


The Case Against DMT Elves

another long winded attempt by a n00b trying to piece everything together...

just my opinion.

James Kent a 'noob'? Hardly...

we ALL are!

I have read that article a few times before...I find it just as speculative as any other approach.

I dont think that DMT is anything at all similar to dreams for one thing..or that it makes use of similar mechanisms in the brain.

They point out things like the fact that researchers have stimulated areas of the brain that produce altered states, like the sense of a presence etc..but what does that mean?..does it REALLY discredit anything?

I also dont understand how some of the stuff I see while on DMT and it's cousins is just misinterpreted brain signals..more and more latley I have been thinking that this is silly...at least from my personal experience..I see places, cities, machines..things I could never have imagined in my wildest dreasm..so much more than geometry and blinking lights etc..and I SEE ART MADE FROM PEOPLE IN OTHER CULTURES THAT SHOW THE SAME THINGS FROM THEIR EXPERIENCES..so why then are they not having my dreams?

From the article..


"..> DMT visions have nothing to do with the psychonaut's life and they are not as chaotic or illogical as the plots of our dreams. They do not contain simple household objects that you see in dreams.

I disagree with this. You can impose any imagery you want in the DMT state. I know a guy who always sees tricked-out cartoon hot-rods when he smokes DMT. I know a woman who only saw hideous zombie-like faces and corpses. I have seen vivid images from my own life (memories, family members, etc.) as well as mundane objects in the DMT state. If the user stays "unfocused" the imagery tends to dribble out of the subconscious and swirl into the realm of the fantastic (hence the archetypes), but if you are "looking" for something within the visions you can generally make it appear..."


I have never found that I can "look' for something and make it appear..sure one may see archetypal imagry but at real high doses of these things for me I go to specific places and see specific things that seem inherant to the DMT trance itself..and NOT comming from my own psyche..

I am not saying that DMT elves etc are "real"..whatever that even means..but I dont find this article to any more convincing than any other theory out there..

"> The DMTVerse seems completely foreign to the user. No matter how hard I try, I can not imagine the vast, intricate, ornate palaces and temples common in the DMTverse.

True! But this is because you cannot consciously "will" your visual system to collapse into a chaotic state, or you cannot "will" your temporal lobe to become excited and produce the presence of God (though perhaps long-practicing mystics can). There is too much neurochemical redundancy to keep your brain from falling into these states at any old time (unless you are schizophrenic). The ornate palaces and temples are heavenly archetypes, this is obvious when you look at ancient architecture, especially in the Middle East and Asia. "


Now this seems like a lot of BSing to me...again I am not saying it's true or not true..but this guy seems to be pulling any old explanation he can use out of his hat.

There is more going on in the DMT trance than the visual system collapsing into a chaotic state..or the temporal lobe creating the presence of god..really I find that an attempt to simplify the whole thing..what about the people who dont experience god?.. He assumes that all these cities and palaces etc are heavenly archetypes..well then how come I have had many many visions of these places that has NO association with heaven or hell at all..and why is this obvious when you look at ancient architecture? Seriousily how is it obvious?? is he saying that the ancients had visions of these places so modeled their buildings after them..or that what we see in our visions are based on ancient palaces?..which one is it?

For instance I have taken bufotenine many many times and I have seen places that later when I looked it up, looked specifically chavin. before I knew anything about the mayans I was eating lots of mushrooms and later when I studied the mayan culture..I recognized alot of the iconography from my mushroom visions..I think this guy has it backwards..

I believe that ancient people modeled archetecture after what they saw in their visions..not had archetypical visions of even more anciet palaces..

"As it is, DMT appears to produce amazingly consistent visual patterns in all users. That is a significant fact, and it points to the conclusion that DMT is very simple in it's action without a lot of room for variation."

I still dont understand how this proves or disproves the validity of the visions...If I take a man from india and stand beside him and we both look at the same tree I am sure we will see the same visual patterns that make up the tree under normal brain chemisty as well..does that mean that the tree is somehow not real?..or that the mechanisms of the brain in that state are very simple in their actions?

Again I am NOT saying anything either way..all I am saying is that this person comes to alot of conclusions..yet I am not convinced..I dont necessarily dissagree with the details surrounding what they are saying..but I am not convinced that they really challenge the validity of the experience..

"Well, the "real" world exists independently of the observer, what we perceive as reality is an abstract representation assembled in our brain from sense data. We just don't dwell on this fact very often. Why does a deeper understanding or vision of this world have to be classified as another world or a parallel world? Why not just assume it is a hidden (or hard to see) aspect of this one?"


What?..so now here it seems he is almost admitting some sort of validity in the DMT state..
If this reality is just an abstract representation of "real" reality(which I agree with), and if the DMT trance is a deeper understanding of this world, than that would seem to contradict what he was saying before in some ways..and if the DMT state is a "hidden" aspect of this one than what is the difference between that and calling it "another world"..to me this is just relative to how you want to scale it..the only agrument there is symantics..call it another reality, call it another LEVEL of this reality..same thing in the end.

Really I dont think anyone knows..and I think that the real answer to the question is going to be something different from what the current theories about it are..from both camps.

I posted this up a long time ago. Turned into a long ass thread. I'll see if I can find it.

Found the original thread: It was in the general DMT section: http://dmt-nexus.me/foru....aspx?g=posts&t=3436

yeah, I read this article a long time ago too. I don't agree with the guy.

He obviously doesn't have an esoteric beleif, that the world is comprised of different densities or 'planes' with the higher planes being accessible by extreme meditation, astral projection, other techniques like that,... or smoking dimethyl diethyl or dipropyltryptamine.

I agree with the guy. People always tend to justify some phenomena by saying that some divine, and supreme entitiy made it happen. DMT is no exception.

Reality is the product of our minds. Different states of mind will alter the reality you see. The reality that we all live in for instance, is just one interpretation of the information the world gives us, and still varies from person to person. This includes data from our senses, as well as our memories. You will find that "real" is a very vague concept, and relies completely on your own mind. Nothing is "real".

As for controlling the DMT experience, even the DMT-NEXUS faq on this site states:

"Travel is possible at Level III. One may, for example, assume the form and consciousness of a bird, and fly as a bird does (cf. Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan pp. 191-196). The limits of of this stage, if any, are unknown. There may be transitions to further stages."

Obviously, the DMT experience can be controlled, somewhat, by your own thought. Which makes sense really, as the dream state which you enter when you go to bed every night is also a product of your mind, and is easily controlled by thought as well. Or else nobody would bother spending years learning to induce lucid dreams.

I highly doubt that elves and fairies are as common in DMT experiences as everyone states. If DMT has really been used for centuries, and there is tons of art that reflects people's experiences through those centuries, where are all the elves and fairies in this art?



Don't you find it rather strange that the "higher planes" that are accessible only though life long spiritual training and meditation, can be easily emulated and surpassed by ingesting one molecule?

What happens when the human mind can be connected to a computer that can generate ANY reality you wish? Radio emulates sound. Pictures emulate vision. Who says that you can't do this to the other senses as well?

Reality is entirely subjective, i can't stress this enough. When we say "reality" we are referring to the product of a mind in a normal state. But again, "normal" is also entirely subjective. Maybe people with psychosis are the "normal" ones and we are the looney ones with an abnormal state of mind? You are quick to dismiss this theory as you have been taught your whole life that the common thought held by the majority is the valid truth. Most see the grass as green, so it must be green. Many things currently considered normal were considered appalling in the past, and may be so in the future.

But aren't some subjective realities simply distortions and delusional? For example, a psychotic individual may perceive that I am a giant tarantula and that my goal is to cook him and eat him. There is no valid truth to that version of reality even though it may be real to the person experiencing these thoughts. So even though reality may be a product of our minds, there is some underlying and objective truth of being that precludes his ideas. I guess the real question that I struggle with is whether DMT gives me access to a different objective version of reality or should the experience get thrown in the trash bin with my schizoid subject who believes that I am tarantula who wishes to eat him? Is DMT a perversion of experience or a bonafide portal to another reality?

Reality is only subjective to beings with the cognitive ability to think about their perceptions. There is an objective reality. I don't see how anyone can dispute that.

Regardless I don't think this explanation in this article is sufficient to explain the dmt experience. I do think it can be explained within a normal materialistic framework but we need to know more about the brain to be able to fully understand whats going on and how it works.

But maybe you are indeed a tarantula, and it's only in your mind that you aren't. Why is he wrong and you are right?

Maybe everything you think is real right now is all in your head. You are in fact currently locked in straight jacket in some ward on a completely different planet, raving about white puffy things floating in the sky, microscopic balls with positive and negative charges orbiting around each other, spinning buildings with horses impaled on poles that children get on top of, and edible red goop that comes in metal containers that keeps you alive. When you look at it from a different perspective, the reality we live in is just as absurd as the one you experience when you smoke spice.

Imagine you are face to face with a person. Based on what you see, you know that that person is in front of you. Now turn around, close your eyes, and put you hands over your ears.

Is this person still there behind you? Yes? Why? You can't see him, hear him, feel him, taste or smell him. So as far as your mind is concerned, he is not there anymore. But he is...is he? The only way to know is to turn around. Until you do that, there is no way of ever knowing. As far as your mind is concerned, he is no longer part of your reality.

Just like you consider your visuals on DMT to be "real" and to exist in "other dimensions and levels", you can state that people with psychosis are gifted and can communicate with beings in "other dimensions and levels". So why do people with psychosis get locked up, while normal people get salvia to communicate with other beings?

Are elves and the entities real? Yes. They are real during your 15 minute DMT experience. And only then.

^^I think this kind of reasoning is flawed and I've tried to explain why many times. Just because your mind sees something or percieves something doesn't mean its real. Real reality is best studied objectively.

You can see like a hundred threads discussing this in the philosophy section.

are you trying to correlate a dmt experience with dreaming? the two are vastly different.. different pathways involved, different neurotransmission systems.
and controlling the 'lucid dreaming' you're thinking about is a semi-waking state

everything is a product of the mind, the perception of time and matter are products of the mind.

When I'm over there the objective study of reality itself seems to be fully contained within this consensus dream from which I've just awoken. There is no contradiction- consensus reality appears as if a higher order of dream. Simply a more complex, self-consistent and rather dull dream which contains within itself all objective phenomena and the study of those phenomena.

When I'm over here the objective study of reality of course seems perfectly valid and so is able to disprove any objective basis for the 'reality' of the other state. Again, there need not be any contradiction. The rules of one reality need not apply to the other.

From this side the other looks like a 'reality' without objective basis and we can prove this scientifically.

From that side this one looks like a 'reality' without objective basis and we can know this experientially.

I believe that this is why any supposed 'reality' of the DMT state will never be validated by scientific enquiry. Because from the perspective of this world it actually does not exist. Science may well go on to prove beyond doubt that it cannot ever exist- that it's just another psychosis. Then the scientist may die, look back at this world and see contained within it all of his proofs. All of the works of man. All in perfect agreement with each other. All contained within a little reality bubble which is ever receding away from him- revealing itself to be one of billions of similar reality bubbles all containing, within themselves, their own proofs that they and only they could ever possibly have been based on 'objective' reality.


or perhaps I'm just being silly now.

Either way I only say this because I saw it to be so.

Without human observers reality would go on. Before human observers there was reality. We see the evidence everywhere.

Why would it be otherwise?

Maybe I should change that and say there was a universe. Or maybe this discussion should go back to the philosophy section we have like 50 threads going on about this.

As for controlling the DMT experience, even the DMT-NEXUS faq on this site states:

"Travel is possible at Level III. One may, for example, assume the form and consciousness of a bird, and fly as a bird does (cf. Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan pp. 191-196). The limits of of this stage, if any, are unknown. There may be transitions to further stages."


Someone should edit this in my opinion. I read all these books and enjoyed them and have all the early books but it is certainty not a reference book. Not to mention there is no proof of DMT in ANY of the books the closest thing is a smoking mixture aged in a gourd there are NO traditional reports of any thing like this ever being used by the Indians of Mexico so chances are Carlos made it up.

In fact it would now appear he was most likely a womanizer cultist who used the books success to take advantage of others, I do not think this was a evil plan but it may have been what played out. Not judging the guy I am chuckling at my favorite datura story now when he wakes up in a filthy drainage ditch with Don Juan holding his head out of the stagent water splashing it into his face to cool him down from the high datura dose. I can see his beet red face looking up from the filthy water..

As far as the Elves I am on a debate break for the holidays. But I do not understand how people assume things truly exist with out a doubt with no proof of anything. Me I do not dismiss many things as truly false but but there is no way I can assume something to be true with out a doubt with no evidence what so ever. I enjoy learning about things and to me how can one learn things that are based on assumptions with no factual evidence for me I cant because how do I know I learned anything? But thats just me...Im still a noob


Peace
MV

I've FILLED my mind with stories about DMT elves and never met them! I asked for Elves for Christmas--something I was curious about for a long time--and ended up getting Jesus, instead (not Christian, but I respect the Bible among all great religious texts equally).

I've seen Seraphim, insects, single-celled organisms, dryads, aliens, parasites, demons, outer space... but I'm still wondering... "WHERE ARE THE ELVES?!?!?!"

(...and I just noticed that was typed at 11:11. )