14/5/08 - Recollection of the night before...
Until last night I was fooling myself about what existed at the heart of the DMT spectrum. Here I was thinking I had experienced the profound intensity that people like Terence McKenna & Timothy Leary spoke of in regards to their DMT experiences; last night allowed me to feel their words with utter terror. This experience was brutal yet beautiful. Completely ego shattering.
My intuition told me that this batch of DMT would be far more potent than any previous DMT I had smoked simply because the crystals were visible on the herbs. It was as if the DMT crystals were winking at me with invitation as I observed the substance. Its trickery would be known to me in one huge inhalation of what was the equivalent of 3 full regular cones compacted into a party cone piece (much larger than conventional cone pieces). I attempted to exhale into my girlfriend's mouth with much trouble & then released a huge cough. Within seconds I was as McKenna said, "struck by noetic lightning". In my peripheral vision I could see my girlfriend & instantly thought 'Betty Boop' for some absurd reason she assumed a cartoon-like quality. A huge surge of psychedelic energy completely & utterly obliterated my consciousness & began to deconstruct the physical 3 dimensional domain I existed in. I felt paralysed as the hypnotic dream-like state swept over me & I lost conscious control of the experience - this I had never endured before. Paradoxically, it felt familiar as though I had always been in this other modality but simultaneously it felt completely foreign & I forgot about my existence in the realm of consensus reality. It felt like the space I had launched into after penetrating the membrane of reality is where I've always existed, a coming home of sorts, and that this new modality was more "real" than any previous contact with consensus reality that I had had before.
"Fuck!" was exclaimed several times as the DMT modality asssembled itself. In the process this vacuum imploded, inverted & contorted all physical reality & the laws of science broke down in a bizarre fashion. My computer monitor was suspended in 3 dimensional space, each part of its frame seperating & then undergoing a pulling from the top left corner to the bottom right & vice-versa. The DMT had finished assembling its superbly perfect geometric presence. All bets were off. Consensus reality wasn't even an afterthought. This is where the experience engendered sheer terror in me as I felt trapped & completely overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the modality shift. My rational faculties could not stay in sync with the experience & thus I had no tools with which to tinker with it. Chaod abounded at hyperspeed. The DMT demanded absolute attention & respect. This is where the 3 dimensional, cubic hologram appeared. It was autonomous & stood in its own right independant of its environment. The edges of the cubes were adorned with very spiritual & religious patterns akin to those on the margins of Buddhist thangkas or hindu tapestries. The cube's corners were encrusted with perfect spheres that adjoined to the adjacent cube, creating an irridescent (mostly green & red) grid that occupied the space between every other physical thing in the room. It was as if the hologram was transmitting some kind of signal to me & my interpretation of it was that it was urging that I understand & pay heed to the physical relationships I have with other objects around me. Even though I may not be in direct contact with these objects I still have a relationship with them in the sense that these objects & myself are the building blocks comprising a geometric piece of living, dynamic art. This was the artwork of the reality of this galaxy.
As the DMT abated its organic growth & tapered off into the catacombs of my memory I was struck by a profound sense of deja vu that echoed in sync with the dissipation of the substance. I saw myself twiddling my fingers & remembered that I was trying to touch the transfigured geometry around me. The experience confounded me because it feels like the parallel dimension you enter whilst dreaming yet you're conscious but you rationally realise that you've never been there before. I am convinced that DMT is the chemical responsible for the dream-state & that possibly this dream-state is actually a parallel continuum that we must all transit to in the process of sleep. Whether this dimension is accessed through the mind or through chemical recalibration of the senses & then tapped into by the mind eludes me. DMT's significance seems greater than the mystery of death because it will show itself & flamboyantly taunt you with its geometric scales but in doing so will leave you with more questions than answers. I could dream up a thousand metaphors to costume the DMT experience & not one of them nor all of them in their collective merit could be tailored to snugly clothe the body of DMT. My agenda is reaffirmed: I must try to understand this enticing enigma that simultaneously engenders fear & exhilaration. The greatest thing I realised from having this experience is that I must humble my intellectual arrogance & become more open-minded towards other peoples' interpretations of the psychedelic domain. As much as I have to contribute to this ontological inquisition is as much as the next intruiged person has to offer. Other people from differing cultural & social make-ups must experience this to amass a larger databank in order to build a stable model of this human experience. I cannot do this alone as everyone is interconnected like the DMT hologram.
DMT though very similar to the psilocybin experience presents hallucinations that are for more geometric, versatile & autonomous in that they're not merely distortions of visual stimulus. Perhaps this comes down to my lack of experience with the mushroom in the sense that I haven't had a large enough dose, but these are my assumptions at this point in my psychedelic initiation. In my personal dictionary I cannot find a word powerful enough to do justice to the DMT experience - it's ineffable. In short it is a poetic paradox that is at once incontrovertibly terrifying & at the same time exhilarating. I think Terence McKenna summarised the nature of the experience best: "Load universe into cannon. Aim at brain. Fire."
"If You Don't Go Into The Experience Fearing You've Taken Too Much, Then You Haven't Taken Enough."