If i missed an existing thread on this, sorry. But, im confused. I see the term "breakthrough" used a LOT in experience reports, yet when i read the report there was no breakthrough described. May be just a matter of semantics. A breakthrough to me is total immersion into another reality. Ego-death. Becoming one with all that is. Buddha consciouness. No-mind. Not the pre-breakthrough fractals/colors and all that jazz. Sorry, i just get frustrated when i see a heading useing the word breakthrough and then read the report to find it didnt happen. I know its impossible to describe these things and we all have different experiences but can we not agree on what a "breakthrough" is?

I've had breakthroughs where my ego was intact but I was totally immersed in another reality. How do you expect someone to textually describe they were entirely immersed in another reality? I know many of my personal experience reports serve as markers for me. I don't try and report on any minor detail, I merely convey the larger signposts, hoping that they may bring something to other people, but mainly to serve as a reminder to me, of what I experienced. You are not these people, you were not in their position when they had the experience and did not experience what they did. One of the most common statements regarding a breakthrough is "You'll know when it happens". Given that this is some of the most oft-repeated advice re: breakthroughs, we should take it as having some truth, imo. Thus, if we accept the truth within that statement, we accept that the DMT user will know when he/she has a breakthrough and we can only hope that they can convey it to the best of their abilities.

In reading your post, I must say, it sounds an awful lot like you are trying to force your understanding of the "breakthrough" experience onto other peoples reports. Why do you get frustrated when you determine that from someone's words they didn't have your conceptualization of a breakthrough? I know of at least one other member who reports one of his most intense breakthroughs as leaving his ego entirely intact. If you have broken through multiple times, you know how different it can be from one time to the next. Why are you gonna yell at the DHL guy for not being from UPS, even though he just handed you your package?

Well that answers my question. Its impossible to put it in words. I by no means meant to box in DMT by my little descriptions. In my first breakthrough my mind was totally intact. I do feel though there is a major distincion between experiences. Hence the term breakthrough. No? It just gets thrown around a lot. Sure, in a sense any profound experience at all is a breakthrough. But on this forum i thought breakthrough had a more specific meaning. Sorry like i said im confused.

I'm on board with your vantage point and perspective. If one does not actually break through the perceptual membrane which separates our normal consciousness from a whole other universe and level/plane of being... it is not truly breaking through, it is merely expanding to a certain point and not completely breaking through and move beyond the barrier of this 'membrane' into uncharted territories.

I have often thought about just what constitutes a 'breakthrough experience' and it would seem, from the various descriptions, that one person's breakthrough is another person's pre-breakthrough experience. And even when we actually do have this complete breakthrough... where do we draw a line whereby we can say with any degree of certainty that there are not other more subtle breakthroughs, beyond what we could have ever conceived of as being a breakthrough?

For example, if I achieve an altered state of mind in which I feel myself merging into the White Light, so too, witness myself consciously morphing into a higher and far greater level of consciousness, at what point is the breakthrough complete? In my own experiences, until I am fully immersed into the Clear Light of the Void... I am still in ascension mode and going into subtler phases; still stretching the 'membranes', yet not quite interphased with the emptiness of the Godhead. that being said, if we merge beyond our own sense of self and in so doing, experience a full whiteout... Who is left to transmit the the vision and symbiosis to the reasoning part of the cognitive brain functions???

You really hit the nail on the head, it is a case of semantics.

Consciously speaking or for that matter, supraconsciously speaking, until we fuse our soul with the web of Spirit, the interlocking Grid and exponentially expand into the insubstantiated, formlessness... we are still on this side of the looking glass (so to speak), pushing against the boundaries of this membrane. I am most eager to hear others ad their perspective to this intriguing thread.

Defining the term “breakthrough” is a bit like defining “intelligence” or “consciousness”. They’re all terms we think we know and understand, but on closer examination, we realize that things aren’t as simple and straightforward as they seem.

I think “total immersion in another reality” is a good start. But then I think of a few experiences I’ve had where it appeared that a breach in reality occurred – where hyperspace entered into everyday reality. In those experiences, I was aware of and “fully immersed” in both realities at the same time.

Ego loss isn’t a good breakthrough criterion for me at all. My deepest and most difficult breakthroughs didn’t involve any loss of ego at all. If anything, my sense of self was heightened and clarified to an extent I’ve never felt in everyday reality. Generally, I don’t experience much ego loss with DMT (in contrast, salvia almost always causes profound ego loss).

And then there are philosophical and semantic distinctions: Some people say that they reach a point where they no longer exist – where there is no “I”. If perception continues and these perceptions are remembered, then there was a perceiver. We can, by definition, refer to the perceiver as “I”. The only way one can completely lose sense of subjective perception is when one is unconscious and not perceiving.

It is interesting that some people who report having breakthroughs at some future point proclaim that NOW they know what a breakthrough really is – that what they experienced before turned out to not be breakthroughs at all.

Why do we even need the term? Isn’t a description of an experience enough? Why the need to categorize and compartmentalize?

Words exist for their use values, in particular contexts. My friend finds "breakthrough" a useful way to describe sessions with DMT where she actually enters a different dimensional space from her normal surroundings. If she remains in her room, for example, but everything is candylanded out, she doesn't consider herself as having broken through.

I kind of like to metaphorically compare it to an orgasm. You can have an orgasm or not, but there are also shades in between, ranging from hard-to-tell to mind-blowing ego-death orgasms. If you see what I mean.