I'm yet to experience DMT, but am on the way to extracting it from mimosa hostillis bark. I came to this forum mostly seeking to research it's effects and extraction techniques, and was surprised to find that many of the DMT using community feel that DMT is not merely a hallucinogen but a means to communicate with beings normally unseen to us. I don't rule out the idea of this and am trying not to be a cynic. It's certainly possible that what we observe from day to day is not the full picture - the hypothesis shown in the matrix, for example, or the explanation of the world we live in as believed by various religions could very well be true and there is no way of disproving these things. However they are still unlikely. It's fairly accepted that various chemicals like LSD, and psilocin cause users to [i:2943b69ef8]hallucinate[/i:2943b69ef8] - users sence of depth perception and colour will be distorted. These are not real perceptions - the wall is not in fact breathing and the tie die pattern is not changing colour. These perceptions could in fact be true and not in the mind, but this is unlikely and it is accepted that they are not real. DMT is another hallucinogen and is chemically similar to psilocin - but many people explain the intricate and detailed hallucinations of DMT as not of the mind but from another world. This is a possible hypothesis, but it's much less likely as it, unlike the hallucination hypothesis - conflicts with observations of the world while not under the influence of DMT (such as science) So why have people chosen to blindly accept this explanation when it seems less likely than the conventional explanation?

People tend to think they are actually from another dimension, because of how amazingly real the experience is. They just can't imagine things like that coming from their own mind. I personally can't see how it doesn't come from within your own mind. But when your high it's funner to come up with crazy theories, lol.

Personally I think it more likely that an experience outside anything we have previously perceived would come from the mind than from the physical world. If we were to travel to another universe with more dimensions and altered physical laws our perceptions would still be limited by our senses and our minds. If you alter the chemistry of the brain itself, however - there is no limit to what you can perceive. The world you live in and everything about it is merely an interpretation of the physical world which the brain constructs from your sensory organs. How you interpret different wavelengths of light, for example, is completely up to your mind - the colour blue, before being observed is only as colourful as the colour of ultra-violet. If we could suddenly see the colour ultra-violet it would seem very new and alien. Just like 'seeing UV', the perceptions when smoking DMT are things that we have never seen or felt before - this could be explained in two ways: A change in your sensory system has occurred allowing you to observe something you couldn't before; (in this hypothesis, the DMT entities are real) You are constructing your interpretation of the world from the imaginative part of your brain instead of your sensory system. Since there is no sixth sence, the latter seems more reasonable. Another example of this is dreams - when you are dreaming your sensory system 'switches off' (sleep paralysis) and you start to process data from your imagination and dream. I found this artical: http://www.tripzine.com/listing.php?id=dmt_pickover which seems to show more or less what I'm trying to say

Thanks Jozef, great reading !

All the debate will end as soon as you induce Ego death, there Jozef ! Forget using the word "hallucinate" or 'hallucinogens' ... You'll know it is NOT a hallucination, but an experience. Wobbling, sensory distortions ain't it either ! Forget calling them 'entities' .. they are NOT what you are thinking them to be. There is an omnipresent intelligence in every one of our living cells, that does not depend on the physical body to exist, but it's in each of our cells. I think psychedelics tune you into this - but it shows-up as 'entities' sometimes... ... That article is a good one (it's not a new one...), but again, that was one person's take on it . That is one ego's take on itself ... my trip is NOT P. Kent's trip ... I base my decisions (on what to call 'them' .. or wtf just happened) on my experience more than anything... Jozef, if one does enough LSD or dmt, then forget using anywords ... There are realms to experience where the body, consciousness and words and the ego as you know it are totally redundant, and un-needed ... There's no gravity, no time but you still are. This experience is quite simply the evolutionary birthright we ALL have to Wake up to... before our bodies really do die ... So yes Jozef .. ! go For it !

[quote:5ebb398f69] Jozef, if one does enough LSD or dmt, then forget using anywords ... There are realms to experience where the body, consciousness and words and the ego as you know it are totally redundant, and un-needed ... There's no gravity, no time but you still are. [b:5ebb398f69]This experience is quite simply the evolutionary birthright we ALL have to Wake up to... before our bodies really do die ... [/b:5ebb398f69] [/quote:5ebb398f69] beautiful

[quote:8e89ba776c="El Ka Bong"]All the debate will end as soon as you induce Ego death, there Jozef ! Forget using the word "hallucinate" or 'hallucinogens' ... You'll know it is NOT a hallucination, but an experience. Wobbling, sensory distortions ain't it either ! Forget calling them 'entities' .. they are NOT what you are thinking them to be. There is an omnipresent intelligence in every one of our living cells, that does not depend on the physical body to exist, but it's in each of our cells. I think psychedelics tune you into this - but it shows-up as 'entities' sometimes... ... That article is a good one (it's not a new one...), but again, that was one person's take on it . That is one ego's take on itself ... my trip is NOT P. Kent's trip ... I base my decisions (on what to call 'them' .. or wtf just happened) on my experience more than anything... Jozef, if one does enough LSD or dmt, then forget using anywords ... There are realms to experience where the body, consciousness and words and the ego as you know it are totally redundant, and un-needed ... There's no gravity, no time but you still are. This experience is quite simply the evolutionary birthright we ALL have to Wake up to... before our bodies really do die ... So yes Jozef .. ! go For it ![/quote:8e89ba776c] Although I don't think I can say I understand what the DMT experience comprises of or what the entities that people talk about are, I don't in any way doubt the DMT experience. I just think it unnecessary to assume that these realms cannot be of the mind...

I personally tend to believe they are from another "dimension" Before I smoked it, I would have thought that to be ridiculous. Now I'm not so sure. I think after smoking it "A change in your sensory system has occurred allowing you to observe something you couldn't before" allowing you to see into some type of "spiritual realm" where you can observe the inner workings of reality, and the uuhm, thing that compels things to do things. But hey, maybe I'm just batshit crazy now. Or just dead wrong. Who knows? Guess we'll find out when we're dead. Or not.

I used to be more or less of a militant atheist and not one to believe in anything that seems on the surface outlandish (other dimensions, God, etc). DMT, and all the other major psychedelics changed all of that - because it's something I have experienced personally, and I find that many people have, do, and presumably will experience the same things - and down to remarkably similar details; and I find that many times their interpretation or conclusion about it is very close to what I have come up with myself. I have always tried to leave preconceptions and conditioned thinking at the door when I go 'in'. I (or as much of myself as I'm aware of 'normally' :wink am not imaginative enough to come up with what I experience on DMT, plain and simple. Everything happens so suddenly after you smoke it...complete thoughtless immersion into something of unprecedented fascination and novelty. And everywhere you look it's already there...it's not like things begin to morph or breath upon looking at them...it's like being somewhere else. IMO the visuals are just the icing on the cake; it's the raw experience, the everythingness of it, that is truly mindblowing and ego shattering. For me it's exponentially more 'real' than baseline reality. It's like waking up from a dream . The experience speaks for itself. I don't think that DMT can be understood academically. This may sound absurd but you almost have to lose your mind, in a sense, to understand it. There is something very real and also very significant about the DMT experience...undeniably so IMO. It just can't be an accident that it has this effect on our mind. To call it's effects merely hallucinations is outright ignorant and presumptuous. DMT is (among other things) a medicine; if nothing else is real about it than the healing effects are.

I'm fine with accepting that the mechanism of DMT cannot be explained - but think it folly when people try and explain the DMT experience with physics. Physics and DMT just [i:26feca8d01]don't go together.[/i:26feca8d01] I don't see how these realms cannot be realms of the mind, maybe a redundant one that indeed can't be reached without DMT - instead of astral dimensions of space and time which 'string theory proves!' Sure it's less glamorous, but I really don't see how it is any less of an explanation. I'm sure I'll be able to give you a much better try once I've smoked this spice. I can't wait >.< Jozef

The world was once flat for us, and many people still believe Genesis to be cold, hard, literal fact. We know as much about DMT as cavemen knew about fire. We basically know what it does, but not how or why. We probably will one day, but until then we're sort of just fumbling around in the dark, trying to conjecture and hypothesize about something we have little to no understanding of. However, it may sound far-fetched, or unbelievable, but i think it's safe to say, any entities, worlds, or experiences on DMT are essentially as "real" as waking reality. "I" cease to exist in my own mind, and am instead something (or nothing?) else, experiencing something, which to me, is completely alien. When "I" come down, [i:8b32cbba0f]i'm essentially coming back into being in my own mind[/i:8b32cbba0f]. Time (or lack thereof) spent in hyperspace, is no less real simply because it doesn't come through or senses. Our brain takes the outside world in through the senses, and processes it to make the universe as we know it. DMT may just bypass the senses in a way, allowing the brain to construct universes, seperate from, but no less "real", than the one we observe through our senses. Did that make any sense?

didn't have my answer but here it is Another dimension/world intangible to us within our mind

[quote:e6af2fc88d="DZ-015"] Our brain takes the outside world in through the senses, and processes it to make the universe as we know it. DMT may just bypass the senses in a way, allowing the brain to construct universes, separate from, but no less "real", than the one we observe through our senses. Did that make any sense?[/quote:e6af2fc88d] You've summed up most of what I was trying to say! I don't mean 'Of the mind' as any less 'real' at all. Just not of the physical world.

We need another voting option for the poll: 3. it's the same thing... -z

The story is told from the first person perspective of an unnamed narrator and details his experiences with a scientist named Crawford Tillinghast. Tillinghast creates an electronic device that emits a resonance wave, which stimulates an affected person’s pineal gland, thereby allowing them to perceive planes of existence outside the scope of accepted reality. Sharing the experience with Tillinghast, the narrator becomes cognizant of a translucent, alien environment that overlaps our own recognized reality. From this perspective, he witnesses hordes of strange and horrific creatures that defy description. Tillinghast reveals that he has used his machine to transport two of his house servants into the overlapping plane of reality. He also reveals that the effect works both ways, and allows the denizens of the alternate dimension to perceive humans. Tillinghast's house servants were attacked and killed by one such entity, and Tillinghast informs the narrator that it is right behind him. Terrified beyond measure, the narrator picks up a gun and shoots it at the machine, destroying it. Tillinghast dies immediately thereafter as a result of apoplexy. The police investigate the scene and it is placed on record that Tillinghast murdered the two house servants.

Dr. Rick Strassman, while conducting DMT research in the 1990s at the University of New Mexico, advanced the theory that a massive release of DMT from the pineal gland prior to death or near death was the cause of the near death experience (NDE) phenomenon. Several of his test subjects reported NDE-like audio or visual hallucinations. His explanation for this was the possible lack of panic involved in the clinical setting and possible dosage differences between those administered and those encountered in actual NDE cases. Writers on DMT include Terence McKenna and Jeremy Narby, though most scientists who study psychedelic drugs treat their writings with skepticism. McKenna writes of his experiences with DMT in which he encounters entities he describes as "Self-Transforming Machine Elves". McKenna believed DMT to be a tool that could be used to enhance communication and allow for communication with other-worldly entities. Other users report visitation from external intelligences attempting to impart information. These Machine Elf experiences are said to be shared by many DMT users. From a researcher's perspective, perhaps best known is Rick Strassman's DMT: The Spirit Molecule Strassman speculated that DMT is made in the pineal gland, largely because the necessary constituents(see methyltransferases) needed to make DMT are found in the pineal gland. However, no one has looked for DMT in the pineal yet. It's possible Strassman thought that because DMT falls in the large class of chemicals called Tryptamines, which includes Serotonin, LSD, Melatonin (a hormone the Pineal Gland does produce), and Psilocybin.

[quote:99b37b740f]You've summed up most of what I was trying to say! I don't mean 'Of the mind' as any less 'real' at all. Just not of the physical world.[/quote:99b37b740f] The physical world's overated anyway. It's all those damn laws of nature, and that pesky theory of relativity. Also, after a while it's just kind of boring. Colors are much brighter in my head, music more beautiful, my senses generally far more pleasing (if i'm still aware of them), and i can fly (sort of...sometimes).

[quote:9de58055c2="Jozef"]Personally I think it more likely that an experience outside anything we have previously perceived would come from the mind than from the physical world. [/quote:9de58055c2] Assuming the [i:9de58055c2]external[/i:9de58055c2] and [i:9de58055c2]concrete[/i:9de58055c2] reality of the so-called "physical world", separated and distinquished from THE MIND is the source of confusion. Just as you might ask if a falling tree makes a sound if nobody can hear it, you might ask what a physical reality might be if there is no mind to perceive it. How can you distinguish between the two? [quote:9de58055c2="Jozef"] but think it folly when people try and explain the DMT experience with physics. Physics and DMT just [i:9de58055c2]don't go together.[/i:9de58055c2][/quote:9de58055c2] Not so. DMT and [i:9de58055c2]classical[/i:9de58055c2] physics don't go together, maybe, but if you extend the deeper meanings of quantum mechanics, quantum field theory and general relativity to their logical conclusions--[b:9de58055c2]everything[/b:9de58055c2] is just one wave function, observer and observed are indistinguishable, everything is moving at the speed of light, hence is in a singularity and spacetime is not just relative but doesn't exist--then physics fits in quite nicely with The Psychedelic Experience, just as it does with age-old non-dualistic traditions like Taoism and advaita. Did you know that Schrödinger himself was an Advaitist? Ever read [i:9de58055c2]The Tao of Physics[/i:9de58055c2]? The Tao [i:9de58055c2]is[/i:9de58055c2] the Wave Function, that's what THIS is. That's what I meant when I wrote above that we need a third voting option: it's the same thing (Jozef, would you please add this third option?). -z

I can't seem to add another option now, but I intended 'within your mind' to include that hypothesis - as here the information comes from the brain rather than the senses.

[quote:4dc72e1eaa="Jozef"]I can't seem to add another option now, but I intended 'within your mind' to include that hypothesis - as here the information comes from the brain rather than the senses.[/quote:4dc72e1eaa] you're still misunderstanding the point. I'm saying that the "external physical reality" and "within the mind" are [b:4dc72e1eaa]not[/b:4dc72e1eaa] differentiable, i.e. that your two poll options are only two aspects of the [i:4dc72e1eaa]same thing[/i:4dc72e1eaa]. If you edit your initial post in this thread, then below the edit box is the edit menu for the poll. you can add the answer there. -z p.s. oops...just edited to add the key word "not" before differentiable!