Greetings Cdoc!
Like yourself (I'm addressing SWIY), I haven't done very many drugs -- mostly clinical grade opiates (never long-term, once or twice), Marijuana once or twice, and a very light dose of psilocybe cubensis (about 1.5 grams). But like you, I felt drawn to DMT for some ineffable reason, though had similar reservations about its use.
If you haven't experienced psychedelics yet, I would suggest you start with low doses of DMT to get the feeling of the "reality-shift". It's not so much the colors, fractals, patterns, etc. that are the transformational tools embodied within the DMT experience, but rather the dissolution of duality and previous conceptions of reality. It's nearly impossible to verbalize without having experienced it, but you'll know immediately when you do so.
Now regarding your lack of experience -- some will say you need to try shrooms or lsd or something "lighter", but I disagree. I find that if one plans to do a full-blown breakthrough, all previous experiences are sort of thrown out of the window as far as contextual analysis of the experience is concerned. It will be difficult to even have a concept of memory or recollection of past experiences in hyperspace anyways, though I suppose the integration of the experience may benefit from a history of psychedelic use. But even integration has limited benefit from past experiences, as each experience (even within the DMT hyperspace) can be dramatically different from the next.
On that note, be prepared to have "good" and "bad" experiences, or what your egoic mind would label them. In my experience, each trip is neither good nor bad in the traditional sense; they merely exist as reflections of the deepest truth packaged in a way which is most congruent with one's current state of existence. If you are in a "bad" state prior to going in, you will sometimes experience what one would label a "bad" experience going through to the other side. A lot of this has to do with how immediately one labels an experience, and meditation helps with this. Most people label every single object, experience, and emotion that they ever encounter, as all conscious experience is filtered through the egoic mental processes.
However, at deeper/higher levels, DMT will shred your ego for a bit, or attempt to. Most people have problems when "they" (their cognitive identity, who they take themselves to be, their ego, etc.) try to hang on. That was my biggest problem; it's difficult to let go of who we all take ourselves to be, and to realize it's ultimately a false idea altogether (though most eastern philosophies, e.g., advaita vedanta, state this anyways). In some ways, it will be and even feel like dying. "Death" is really only a concept of the ego -- true awareness is inseparable from the present moment, which has no concept of death or future events. This is why Buddhists sometimes refer to Enlightenment as the "little death" or "the death before death".
So be willing to let go of "you" for a bit. The most important thing to remember is not to fight or resist the experience. Allow whatever it is you are experiencing to be, but do not personalize it. Merely "be the experience". In doing so, "you" (your deepest essence of conscious presence) will be revealed, and in doing so "you" will realize the falseness of separateness, and be once again rejoined with universal consciousness (as some experience, "returning home"
.
With all that being said, throw away any preconceptions or expectations prior to making the jump. You won't need them
-- Wanderer
Wandering back to the home I never left.
All posts made by this member (Wanderer) should be read and interpreted solely as fictional accounts of fantasy, and in no way represent or depict real events or the life of any living or deceased persons.