Here there are dragons.

Before the circumnavigations to the globe and polar expeditions finished completing the terrestrial map, in the medieval incomplete maps, the areas still to be discovered painted mythological beings and put the expression "here there are dragons" to show that it was "terra incognita".

I wanted to name this post this way because, in my opinion, reaching the breakthrough with a psychedelic is very similar to trying to reach unknown lands using one of those medieval maps. Where we will have to climb mountains, descend through loose stone scree and cross oceans, all located inside us.

Reaching terra incognita requires a process that depends on each person, on how complicated the paths of his or her soul are. There is no minimum number of steps needed to reach it, I have known people who broke the veil in 6 experiences, I needed 20. The route I want to share, my map, does not have to be yours dear reader, but I want to leave it written, in case someone can help you in your expedition. I have convictions, immutable truths, acquired in my journey, but in principle I know that they are for me, so if at some point I speak in a categorical way is because I feel so. But each person will arrive at their own truths, which may differ greatly from mine.

---

Degrees of intensity, breakthrough and ego death:


Degrees of intensity:

I think I could subdivide the degrees of intensity of DMT into three main phases that I describe for experiences done with eyes closed:

-Intensity grade 1:

Visuals that encompass the entire field of vision with a 2D mesh with moving patterns, geometric, fractal and mandalas with different color intensities.

-Intensity grade 2:

Visuals clearly take on "volume" and are in an obvious 3D manner, Variations of shapes, patterns and depth occur fluidly and constantly.

-Intensity level 3:

We move from being mere observers to navigators. We move through and with the world that unfolds before us, moving between changing forms, traveling at high speed or slowing our progress in complex structures.

The degrees of intensity described here depend solely and explicitly on dosage and may change from person to person.


Breakthrough:

To break through the veil and reach this state requires reaching a degree of total trust in this substance. Let's say that the brain will automatically send warning signals, because the physical and sensory states induced by DMT are new and unknown. These warning signals may vary from person to person, but usually the trigger is a "measurement error". Our brain is an efficient machine that is constantly doing a system status check, temperatures, operating frequencies, threat detection and a huge list of tasks to check that the system, i.e. you, is operational. Therefore any anomaly detected will generate this automatic response.

Many of our senses enter into synesthesia with others depending on the degree of intensity, moving towards a total loss of kinesthesia and merging all at one point in the highest degrees. The usual alarms will be wondering if we are still breathing, the loss of time count, thinking that we have died or have become hopelessly trapped in the world we are navigating, these alerts, fears and phases sometimes bordering on panic will "take us out" of the experience.

-"Why did I get so scared, if what I was seeing and feeling was so beautiful?"

I believe that stopping to analyze these states can be very beneficial for us. Revealing and highlighting our fears and misgivings, bringing enormous value to our existence. Not many people deal with such intense internal struggles. It is said that people who are about to die often regret two main things, the love they did not give to themselves and the love they did not give to others. There are studies that compare NDE's with the effects observed with different psychedelics being very similar¹. In the case of NDE's induced by psychedelics we have our lives ahead of us to fix those regrets we may feel.

At least as I understand and feel, we have to navigate all these states before we reach full confidence that allows us to have a full and uninterrupted experience. As for dosage, I don't want to say that in this case it is not important, but we may be surprised that with smaller amounts than we needed to reach a Grade 3 suddenly we experience a "different" intensity.

In my case, after returning from my first Breakthrough, I was impressed when I called the person who had taught me and accompanied me in my first experiences: - "But if I only took a 10+35mg, I was thinking of doing an average experience before going to sleep.", to which he responded with a long and loud laugh: +"You have finally arrived... well, you must remember that at this point we are not in charge, when you manage to abandon yourself completely everything changes".



Death of the ego:

After starting to navigate more confidently through terra incognita I remember one day when I was planning the set&setting to do a powerful experience in a lonely mountain hut, I started to grow a feeling that began with a slight sense of fear and reached a state bordering on panic.

-I thought, -"If I do this shot, I'm not going to be me anymore, I'm going to disappear".

The thought was "what's going to happen after I do it?" were they going to implant someone else inside me or an entity that wasn't ME? Thoughts along those lines were creating in my mind. So I postponed the plans until I could carefully analyze the sensations I was experiencing and be sure that I wanted to go through with it.

Let's say that what we call ego, has been accompanying us since always, growing with each accumulated life experience and reinforcing itself inside us, telling us how we are, what we like, what we hate and what we love. Something formless but present in everything we do. It has been in control for so long that it will use every means at its disposal to continue to hold on to the control it has acquired.

Let's say that after each trip, from the first ones of low intensity to the moment I found myself, a change had been taking place in me, in my attitudes, in my actions, that which I called friendship, that which I called love, that which I identified as something to hate, everything had blurred and had acquired another meaning. I looked at the world in a different way, I had acquired levels of assertiveness towards myself and the world that made me another person, the loss of who I "was" before starting my treatment with DMT was so deep and marked that many people around me asked me surprised that it had happened, that "I looked like someone totally different".

After weighing the journey that had led me to that day and being unquestionably sure that whatever happened if I made that trip, the reality was that up to that point all the trips had always been a help, a life lesson, a beacon that showed me what things I needed to work on in myself to stop hating myself. And even in those hard and rough trips, in all of them there was a vibrant and powerful love that emanated and permeated everything.

The balance of pros and cons left no room for doubt, no matter what happened from now on, I knew that with 99.99% probability whatever the experience I was going to live it would be positive for me. So I cornered the thoughts that emanated from that "I" that did not want to disappear and I had no doubt that I wanted to continue "exploring terra incognita".

In my case, if I had to synthesize how it was in my case, I would say that I abandoned myself in such a way that when I returned to my body, I remember opening my eyes slowly and feeling surprised, when I moved my arm I began to look at my hand with a deep sense of strangeness and wonder:

-"I am, .........human, I am .........alive?".

In other occasions, thinking that "I had died" had a layer of fear and relief to see that it was not so, but this time it was something different, the feeling was to have the certainty that there is no such thing as death. I could not express what experiences or what visuals I had on that trip, only that what I "was" during that trip, I could define it as that I was a crystal, clean, small and unbreakable, with perfect edges and clean geometry. I was an entity that had no doubts or questions, because, so to speak, I already knew the answers. It radiated love, light and navigated in a precise way.

Being back in that body of flesh and blood, full of rules and norms, full of beliefs, full of doubts and questions induced a strong cognitive dissonance.

-"I am not this, no, not at all" I said inwardly, I AM that entity that wandered free and in tune with the unity of the whole. This body that I inhabit is only a construct. It was like noticing that I had a lot of things left over, like having an armor that weighed me down and limited my movement and the conviction that everything that "made me be me" was nothing more than a lie that I had fed myself.

-"I am a blank page, an adaptable being, I am not something fixed.".

---

Before finishing I would like to emphasize that I deeply believe that it is NOT necessary to reach the Breakthrough or the death of the ego for the experiences with DMT to have a deep and positive effect, in fact, in my case the suicidal thoughts and the internal dialogue that did not stop to crush me in a constant and obsessive way disappeared in my first 10 trips, without having experienced a Breakthrough. I was already "cured", to continue navigating these worlds should be a conscious and reasoned decision. So my main advice would be that you should eliminate the expectations about it and simply focus on identifying, in each trip and step you take, what things it has brought to your life, if that experience has served you well, what lessons you can extract from the emotions you have lived, maybe it will make you come to the conclusion that you have had enough and you have achieved your goals, whether you have reached the Breakthrough or not.

The only important thing here is your well-being, for that there are no degrees or places to reach, it is a subjective decision that only you can decide. Based on a careful observation and analysis of your inner world.

A big hug to all of you!

P.S.: I am not sure if I have published this post in the right place, I have doubted where to place it, I apologize in advance and if so I ask the administration team to place it where they think it is convenient.

---

¹:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih...pmc/articles/PMC6107838/
https://www.frontiersin..../fpsyg.2023.1083361/full
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih...pmc/articles/PMC9401141/

---

Some of the music that accompanied me writing this post:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6hvCgNJD7o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DUCKGyojpE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c-RbGZBnBI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1WC_1QAYgQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE1ges9nn6A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keUAod4r4UQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADBKdSCbmiM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA8gyKygQcY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtoJy--3BJA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3kaYbJmOXk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fTwkG87hG4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_J4Mtn7YxA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEosZpuahK4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL5d_xvdlPo

---

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

This is a really great post.
Literally all of my fears and expectations were discussed in this thread (except for the one where my brain says "What if this person is an entity trying to convince other people to "let go?" ).

I really appreciate the effort and detailed thoughts you put into your posts. It is really great to know that there are many people out there thinking the same things, and looking for the same answers. Great for the 'soloists' to have a remote friend to advise.

Love it. Thank you.

Falcata,

This is a superb report. Very well written and thought out. I really appreciated it and resonated with a lot of what you wrote. Your summary and analysis at the end was fantastic. Thank you for that.

I haven't posted in a while but I wanted to say that I really appreciate your message here. I especially like the learning and healing mentality of your language.

Additinally I am of the opinion that these experiences present themselves at opportune moments in one's life and it is okay to go a long time without coming back to the experience.

This is my first time reading your post so I'll welcome you to the Nexus!

Thank you brother.

As I always say, "in reality we humans are as alike as two peas in a pod", in fact that is one of the things that fascinates me the most about psychedelics, that we all experience emotional phases and have tremendously similar visuals, a "hallucination" is linked to the subjectivity and subconsciousness of each individual, therefore a Japanese person, a Nigerian person and a Canadian person, for example, should have completely different "hallucinations", however, all humans experience similar visuals, geometric patterns, mandalas, fractals. It is clear that altered states of consciousness are something deeper than a simple hallucination, they are a door to visualize "reality" with another set of senses, it is something that we still do not fully understand and I think it should be studied in depth.








Hahahahahahahahahaha. Actually, we are all entities that inhabit this construct called human being, I have a hypothesis about it, I have it on the list of things to write.





Thank you sister.

Let's just say that I feel I have to record my experiences and I try to be careful how I express them. There is a song that I feel represents me:

[Chorus 1]
This will be my monument
This will be a beacon when
I'm gone
Gone, gone
When I'm gone
So that when the moment comes
I can say I did it all with love
Love, love
All with love





By the way, analyzing the lyrics and the video, I'm sure Röyksopp & Robyn dissolved in the ether before writing that song. right?




Thank you for your words, really.

I completely agree with your opinion, in my case after feeling "cured" I continued traveling for several reasons, after the profound changes I experienced, I wanted to help others who wanted to use this tool to help them in their lives, therefore, I should go further and deeper than someone I initiated was going to reach. Also because of a kind of thirst for knowledge that pushed me to continue traveling to terra incognita.

But after one last trip in which, let's say, all the answers were solved, I felt that I didn't need to travel any further. Since that day I only do one or two experiences per year if I feel I need to "orient the compass" and with that I have more than enough to keep my darkness at bay. Now it's been over a year since I've done any experiences and to tell you the truth, I feel great.

I also stopped doing initiations, because I realized that I was investing a considerable effort in each person, something that I do not regret, on the contrary, but I realized that I was unconsciously stopping working on myself, because I still had (and still have) a lot of work to do. Soon I plan to do some initiations again, so I will travel again more regularly, without knowing very well why I ended up registering in the nexus. It's a pleasure to be here.