PRE-CONDITIONS
(mind)Set: calm and curious.
(physical condition) Set: physically anxious - some irrepressible shivers despite not feeling cold
Setting (location):friend's living room, tidy
time of day: (12 or 24 hour system, daylight? starlight? overcast?)night time
recent drug use: (list also any kind of medication)small glass of wine one night previously. some cannabis two weeks previously
last meal: small piece of cake 2 hours previously

PARTICIPANT
Gender: male
body weight: 80kg
known sensitivities:
history of use: no dmt. few salvia trips. few lsd/2cb/magic mushrooms

BIOASSAY
Substance(s): DMT
Dose(s): 40mg
Method of administration: bong, sandwiched in ash and torched, single dose


EFFECTS
Administration time: T=0:00 (expand this if you used delayed administration for multiple substances or the same substance with multiple doses. Use indices.)
Duration: 6 minutes
First effects: 10 seconds
Peak: 2 minutes
Come down: negligible
Baseline: immediate

Intensity (overall): 4 - Extremely
Evaluation / notes:

OPTIONAL
Pleasantness: 4
Implesantness: 3
Visual Intensity: 4
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AFTER-EFFECTS
Hangover: 0
Afterglow: 0 (positive thoughts but no objective afterglow like with other psychedelics)


REPORT

I'm kneeling on the ground with my face to a bong loaded with approximately 40mg of spice. My guide has given me clear instructions. I should smoke the whole lot in one inhalation, fall back onto the bean bag placed behind me, count to 10 and exhale. Strange things will happen to me for a few minutes. He will watch over me in silence until I open my eyes and speak, at which point he will play some music and furiously scribble my first impressions that I will be likely to forget.

I take it all in. Quickly, I lose confidence in myself and ask if I should hold it in and I am reminded to count to 10. I fall back onto the bean bags, but I don't count to 10. The air in the room thrums and I exhale "that's weird".

A structure rises above me in fizzing hissing popping silence. It is a vast, living architecture of kaleidoscopic patterns championed by a female figurehead. It is absolutely powerful, beautiful, concrete and unearthly, but I am distracted by it's utter familiarity. I can't figure out where I have seen it before. All I can remember is the knowledge that this very moment would happen, but that is impossible. The structure challenges my disbelief. It will show me how possible it is. All I have to do is look at it. Of course I want to look at it, but it deserves my full attention and my mind is held back by inquisitive wonder.

What am I experiencing? How did I come to be experiencing it? Why does this strangest of things also seem the most familiar?

As long as I ask these questions, I cannot look at it. Such complex beauty demands my full attention. The structure beckons me. The female figurehead whispers Come. I stop questioning and give myself over to the beauty. It unravels, revealing it's endless depths and draws me in, granting pleasure of orgasmic intensity as long as I don't question it. There are openings and it will pull me through them as long as I don't think.

I hesitate. There is a strong feeling that these are openings to death or madness, to another world or an enormity that will crush everything I've ever known. I can't be sure I will ever return and this reminds me of everything I am being asked to give up, so I am back beneath the structure, thinking and wondering.

It does not give up. It seduces me again and I am drawn into it, and I go so deep that everything becomes so beautiful and pleasurable my breath is literally taken away. It is a scary sensation. Rather than drawing slowly to a close, my breath accelerates into tiny rapid oscillations, and my heart is vibrating in my chest. It feels like death and it is difficult to convince myself that it is not death. I toy with this pivotal depth, pulling back from it and allowing myself to be drawn back in but no further. Maybe it's not death, but time freezing, as the place I am being asked to go is timeless. This is equally terrifying, because if time freezes how will I come back? It is like a spiritual black hole. Other people seem to have come back from it, but there are inconsistencies in subjective and objective time perception when dealing with black holes. I realize that I'm not going to do it, that I love being a human and breathing and thinking, the world that I live in, the life that I lead. In any case, there is a conviction that this structure is somewhere that encompasses my existence and I will return to it soon.

"No music yet, but I didn't do it" I report back.

I watch it fade away. Still dancing and tempting.

===

Everything is normal when I open my eyes. I describe it to my scribe. I am initially convinced that I did not do it and I will never do it because I don't have what it takes to say goodbye to the world.

One story that sticks out in the following conversation, is that of Terence McKenna prompting a buddhist monk to try DMT for the first time, and the monk afterwards, unfazed, reporting that it was the lesser lights of bardo, a Tibetan concept of the afterlife. I found it plausible, and I'd like to know if the monk had merely observed the structure from afar in his meditation or passed through it.

It is only the day after, and I am already thinking I will try again. I no longer think it was death I was scared of, but control. In day to day life, I struggle to be in the moment, so why would I find it any easier to forget the past and future when faced with something like that?

I have been to timeless places before. Strong concentrations of salvia have stuck me in otherwordly loops that seem endless, and have always come back from them eventually. But going there wasn't a conscious decision. Once the drug was in my system, I was catapulted there.

On LSD in botanic gardens, I have fallen into twirling fractals hidden in plants. The further I fell, the slower time froze. Then, I went willingly, but it wasn't as daunting as where the spice wanted me to go.

I will meditate and practice being in the moment, and leaving my thoughts and body behind. I think to get anywhere near what the spice offered this way would require more time and dedication than I can offer, but maybe it will help me to accept that timeless moment if I ever try it again.

For now, I am simply glad to know that it's there.

This happens to me a lot lately. Almost instantly after getting into the experience I run into what I have began to call the pre-portal area. It is always so familiar, like it has never been any different. More or less forgetting the rest with it. Time and space are immediately screwed up.

What you describe seems to happen to more people, being taken to the edge of what seems existence (earth existence, or seemingly any existence). Death and rebirth. But in the end you don't do it.

To me it bears a resemblance to what Crowley called 'Crossing the abyss', crossing over the enormous void between the phenomenal world and its noumenal source. This does indeed resemble the Buddhist intermediate realm known as Bardo. Both have stages (or "lights" ) to cross and each stage has an entity (or "Demon" ) associated with it.
In other types of literature it seems more or less equivalent with passing the lower and upper astral planes, before emerging in more complex spiritual planes (no longer associated with the material plane).

Welcome.

This experience is something special; something completely ineffable. You'll soon realize, that if you keep on the path, that this experience is bottomless.

Well written report though; definitely enjoyed reading that. That feeling of the life just being squeezed out of you, like a sponge, gaining in intensity, heavier and heavier, coursing. Loss of the sensation of breathing let's you know that things are unfolding nicely. ;P

Once again, welcome.

Welcome.

Next time, let go.

Thanks all I'm definately curious about the bottomless possibilites, and if I'm to explore them it will probably be after extensive reading/discussion about here...

I suppose what I'm thinking now is how much trust it will take for me to let go. I'm remembering that first instant where I noticed the effects coming on - an absolute certainty that I was dealing with some entity that had intentions with me. It's difficult to give yourself over so absolutely to such an unknown and seemingly powerful entity. Most people obviously seem to have very positive experiences when they do so, but I can't help but wonder if some sort of sacrifice has to be made. It definitely felt like a sacrifice was being asked of me, and I suppose I freaked out because I didn't know what or how big it was.