Hello all,

Sorry this ended up being so long, I wanted to document it as well as I could for both my sake and anyone who had a similar experience. That is one thing that surprised me, I wasn’t able to find any similar experiences out there, or at least to this extent.

Background:

I have been using DMT for a few years now, I have had around 30 trips, and up until somewhat recently most of my experiences haven’t been too outside the realm of expectation. Not to say that my experiences haven’t been the most intense and spiritual moments of my life, and when I say expectation I simply mean that the general flow of events for a trip, as well as the content being analogous to at least a few other people’s own experiences with DMT. In fact, the experience I am covering is what made me finally make an account on the Nexus, I have been a lurker for a while now, and only now have felt like I had something that I was obligated to share as I was unable to find any similar experiences. That being said, you should know my experience and methods with DMT, as mentioned I have had a few trips, and feel pretty confident with my ability to handle the sights and thoughts shared with me. I typically smoke the crystals via a crack pipe or similar apparatus. I almost always mediate before and after to help prepare myself going in and integrate the experience afterwards. My dosage was probably around 2 to 3 times threshold, I don’t typically measure unless there are some unknowns going in. The pull I was using I had already tested on more than one occasion and once again nothing special there. I was with a small group of friends, H, V, X, and myself. I had a positive mindset going in, I was in a pretty good place in my life in general and had shared previous psychedelic experiences with all those present.

Leading up:

Just like any other trip it was preceded by some meditation, discussion, and finally we put on some music. I don’t believe it is related, but I will note that it was math rock, my favorite genre, and this was the first time I had tripped to it. Anywho, V was not partaking, and H and X had gone before me, I soon followed.

After effects:

I opened my eyes around 7 minutes after closing my eyes, I didn’t remember anything except I had done DMT, and where I was, who I was, but the previous however long was completely lost to me. With my eyes open, I looked around, H and X seamed to be back to normal, I relaxed somewhat and looked down. I looked back up and asked for the music to be stopped. Here is a dialogue that happened shortly after.

H: How are you doing?
Me: Good, I just don’t know what’s going on
H: You took some DMT You’re probably still feeling it.
M: I know that, I just am confused
V: About where you are?
M: I know where I am, I just don’t understand anything
a small amount of time passes
M: Literally everything in this room confuses me, like all of it
H: What do you mean
M: That couch confuses me, the floor confuses me, I am confusing myself
M: How long has it been
V: Since you took the DMT?
M: Since I opened my eyes, but that too please
V: its only been about 10 minutes, maybe 4 since you opened your eyes
M: That confuses me, I know consciously how much time should pass but it still confuses me
H: Like how long it’s been?
M: *stammer* its hard to explain, it’s very confusing.
H: Ok
Some time passes as I try to ride out the confusion, maybe 5 or 10 min
V: Would watching something help
M: Maybe, I think so, I don’t know it’s still very confusing
V: It won’t confuse you to see something mythical, like magic
M: No, I know a unicorn doesn’t exist and manticores do (joke)
H: you can make jokes, but you’re still confused?
M: I think so yes

The rest of the night basically consisted of ten-minute intervals of time where a similar conversation would happen with me being very present mentally, and in control of all of my faculties, just extremely horribly confused by everything. After about an hour of this I became somewhat worried as any DMT should have stopped affecting me after 30 minutes the way I took it. A total of three hours passed since I first took the DMT, I was driven to my home by X, and was perfectly functional, just horribly horribly confused. Any level of self-reflection was equally, if not more so confusing, which made journaling my experience in the moment near impossible as it was mostly just ramblings and incoherent. I went to bed that before the confusion dissipated.

I awoke the next morning slightly less confused, but still very much confused. At this point I was somewhat prepared to be perma fried by DMT, something I thought impossible, although at the same time my ability to think about that and not immediately think “I don’t know, its just really confusing” somewhat lifted my spirits. While not quick, the confusing was dissipating, it wasn’t for another two days until the sensation became more akin to background noise than being the loudest feeling in every moment. The following two weeks or so I was able to meditate on the sensation and focus on it, although it was about as strong a sensation as a sock over your foot, you really only feel it if you focus on it, otherwise your brain tunes it out. As time passed the confusion effectively stopped, although even now I am pretty sure I feel different than I did before, but I don’t know how trustworthy my own sensations are, especially when concerned with self-reflection, “the system says the system is doin good”


Hypothesis:

Time for the system to say what happened to the system. This is of course a loose hypothesis than an actual explanation. First let me say, I think the self is more than just your memories, I think it is a mix of whatever it is that filters perception, memory, and then the part of you that is capable of thought. I think, that the part of me that either filters reality, the thinking part, or the memory of existing was wiped out during the trip. I had all of my memories, I was able to think about my memories and make conclusions about my environment and the people in it perfectly fine. There was just some deep level of disconnect I had with my reality. Although I knew everything in it, feeling it, perceiving it, was deeply new and unfamiliar. I had a concept of time afterwards, when asking how much time had passed I knew what a minute was, but I had no ability to feel a minute pass, or what it meant to feel time pass.

I think this explains why my confusion lasted so long, while the substances had been metabolized and no longer affected me, the newness of reality was still there, my inability to grasp at concepts I had information of persisted. I believe that I had to relearn what perception felt like form the ground up, and thus as of writing this I am not nearly as confused about things like couches or time when I first opened my eyes.

Implications:

The implications for myself, and whether or not I am the same person as before I haven’t really grappled with. I kind of rather leave that barrel of monkeys somewhere else, maybe an entity has an answer for me who knows. I do somewhat find the idea of different selves inhabiting the same body at different times adding memories to it somehow romantic. But I honestly don’t know how to interpret or expand upon such thoughts and ideas. It’s quite confusing.


Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think, or if I failed to specify something to your satisfaction.


Travel well

-Sealer

That is quite an introduction my friend. I am glad you are ok. I think you got a mega dose, possibly from going after your friends who were not clearing their share? I am certain you will be able to integrate the meaning of your adventure with time. Thank you for sharing your story!

This is quite common and is an unfortunate side of dmt that should be expected to happen every now and then (on failure to achieve transcendance). Confusion and the inability to interpret any visual stimuli are indicators that one should rest, not try to be 'awake/sober/normal' or try to use the mind in its waking consciousness functions. This means no talking and no thinking and no moving for at least 30min-1hr (till the dmt clears out.) This too shall pass.

Very interesting.

Before musing on this, I note that the duration of the closed-eye phase was 7 minutes which would not conclusively point to a mega-dose being taken. Also, having no recollection at all of what had happened bar taking DMT is an uncommon event. The take-home message IMO should be a reminder to recognize how powerful DMT is, the dangers of any kind of complacency which can arise from many previous and in some ways "predictable" travels which meander along a recognizable trajectory, and the capacity for the sense of self to become fundamentally tampered with in an unanticipated or conceivable way (until it happens).


What I am about to propose is speculative, general in nature with perhaps some relevance to SealerofJars experience, and does seem to apply in my own observations. The notion of a self has as its scaffold so much more than is usually considered, and its maintenance is an ongoing and evolving/reifying process which is exclusively concerned with its own persistence. The scaffold is erected most rapidly in ones earliest years through a process of conditioning, experiential learning and "osmosis" from ones environment and culture, with further floors/poles being added through adding in beliefs and conscious learning beyond infancy and childhood. An overlooked but mind-bogglingly adept quirk of the scaffold is that it both serves as 1. a permanent "catalogue" or reference work to which all perceptive input is referred, to calculate how it relates to the selfs survival, and 2. simultaneously also puts limitations on what one actually perceives, in light of its own survival needs (or beliefs). Like the Ouroboros, the snake looping round and eating its own tail, its a loop in which much is actually closed.

The implications of this quirk range far and wide, and are intrinsic to the creative ability of man, but also much of his/her suffering in life.

So, the sequence goes: 1. perceptive input (which is biased and never fully "objective" ) is evaluated against 2. a reference work which establishes the parameters of the self, resulting in 3. an interpretation, to which meaning is applied which 4. generates an emotional/feeling tone which prompts some kind of action (the aim of which is..... the survival of the self!).

I would therefore speculate that DMT can rip out a few pages of the reference work (or if you prefer loosen a pole or 2 in the scaffold) which buggers the selfs ability to generate an interpretation pertaining to its own now shakier "survival", hence producing a less clear meaning (ie confusion), whilst leaving what is perceived as clear and normal as in the sober state (which is still partial, but in not quite the same way as it was).


Having a tool such as DMT at our disposal is in some ways "more than can be handled" by ourselves. But for most, the resilience of the self means it will re-establish itself and dispel the confusion relatively quickly. For some, however, the perturbation to the self can be much more protracted.

Through a crackpipe unless a hit is completely cleared the liquid and vapor recrystallizes to the glass. In this way someone may only finish half their dose. Say they finished 20 out of 40 mg. This happens twice. Now there is 40 mg already in there. You dump in another 40 and now you're at 80. The peak blood concentration was probably just more than you've experienced before, you held the hit in longer, took a bigger hit, etc etc.

There are a lot of variables when smoking.

I would not say this is completely unusual. I don't know exactly what everyone considers breakthrough, but I consider breakthrough to be when time and space ceases to exist. Colors, sounds, shapes, time are all inconceivable. It is a state of complete singularity. I think people get here on 5-MeO-DMT more easily because the amount to smoke is so much smaller. You are everything and everything is you. The first time I was able to achieve this I dumped a huge pile of DMT, 200mg+ into the pipe because I was having trouble going somewhere else on just 20mg or 30mg. I didn't finish it all, but I held in the hit for as long as possible and within maybe 10 seconds time and space did not exist in any way. During this time my head was limp and I puked a little on myself; but I was completely unconscious for 7 minutes. When first regaining any sort of ability to distinguish colors, shapes, sounds and time my vision was a swirl of geometric patterns and figures. There really isn't any way for me to remember what happened in those 7 minutes because the concept of time and space did not exist.

This is probably what happened to you. You just broke through super hard.

I am not sure what exactly you mean by "confused" though. After this happened to me things were certainly electric and strange, but I would not say a couch "confused" me. I went to work an hour later. It was intense and left an impression, but I am not sure I would describe it as confused.