(*The followong is disconnected from actual buddhist teachings and philosophy, though it uses many of the same languages and concepts*)

I've thought about this, while in the flash, your present incarnation, your life as "you" seems like a dream you had just awoken from, it quickly fades from memory, you cling to it, you remember you family, your friends, your "life", and realize your not even in the same universe as any of them, you want help, you think "call the fire department" or "call an ambulance", then you realize it's futile, it's just you and the after death and you have to face it on your own, you want a return to the "stability" of physical incarnation, this massive and seemingly instantaneous loss of everything you had ever known in your present incarnation is overwhelming,
....and at the same time you have entered this flashing, buzzing, moving, colorful intense continuum, where nothing is familiar, there's no time, no physics, it's completely alien to a formerly physical being...
now, at death, if you enter an identical state, when you panic, when you feel all the things listed above, it may cause you to hastily jump into a physical incarnation, rebirth...
Now, if you learned to not react to the disorienting and overwhelming nature of the after death, you will find nirvana, you don't need to reincarnate, you won't jump into rebirth...whether you stay in the bardo, and your perceptions simply turn the bardo into nirvana, or whether you transition into another area that is nirvana, is unclear from using DMT...

So maybe by tolerating the state's between death and reincarnation, it will lead to nirvana or heaven, and eventually to a mindful incarnation, while if you panic, it's possible to jump into an unfavorable incarnation...Though I'm sure karma determines a good deal here...if you panic, and are unable to reincarnate it could be hell...

Any way, this is all just fun speculation off the top of my head, though I'm sure learning to be calm and mindful in the flash will ultimately lead to the same result when you enter the after death...

...Though those who are able to attain nirvana will ultimately return to samsara to aide other sentient beings on their path, out of selflessness and compassion you reincarnate...so it seems even attaining nirvana is an impermanent act, for out of selflessness you can not stay.

-eg

Very interesting. You are a smart dude, I would love to go on a DMT trip with you and pick your brain a little bit

I'm always happy to speculate on these topics, I'm glad you were interested in some of these ideas.

I'm part of a small DMT using community in colorado, though there's people like me everywhere in the psychedelic community, more so than other places...and there's never any lack of novel ideas or good conversation in the psychedelic community, regardless of where your at.

Keep your mind and your ears open, and good luck.

-eg

Very eloquent way to put it eg! Thank you...

Peace

What a fantastic post!...your first experience quote sounds very similar to one I had recently (minus the mantis). It was my first breakthrough, and I haven't posted about it yet because I'm still deciphering it all...but I'd dearly like some opinions in the meantime!

So I too was dosing way too high. I'd convinced myself I couldn't breakthrough due to previous failure to do so. In fact, my vaping was poor on the previous attempts and after upping the dose to 100mg (spice) I got the vaping right this time and KABOOM!!! Pretty close to what you described. And yes, unbelievably positive after effects. My life changed with one inhalation...all for the better.

I have to get back in there, I know that, but I guess there's info for me to process at the moment. To be honest I think I'd be pretty scared to do it right now. I'm just going to wait for the right time to come.

In future I'm going to be very careful with dosing and I'm going to get myself a GVG too. I want to get up to threshold...and maybe just beyond.... I thought to load 20mg spice and see how it goes. I'm a hash pipe smoker , so don't have trouble with the smoke, I can do it in one hit. But take myself up a bit more gently with a lower dose...? I don't think I had a "normal" breakthrough experience with it being such a high dose before. A lot of it I don't recall now....but I'm able to process it vibrationally...at the risk of sounding cheesey!...it really is the most incredible thing that ever happened to me.

What I found the most scary was the speed of entry, I was gone in less than 5 seconds...and this total amnesia that I had... I literally didn't know anything after the breakthrough flash. I was just in this void, yes a bit deja-vu, didn't know where I was, or even who I was. I had no prior recollections of my life. And no memory of "entry"...what the hell just happened? Certainly no memory of the dmt hit. It was so utterly confusing that I panicked of course....the single most terrifying experience of my life, without a doubt. (I'll write a report soon.)

What I need to know is what a breakthrough is like when it's not a crazy big dose like I did? Does one similarly get this total amnesia typically? And no sense at all of the physical? (what I called an actual death experience)...Are all breakthroughs so intense or does it depend on the dose ie. is there such a thing as a mild BT and a strong BT???...As you can tell, I'm new to this....

The other troubling part was that I got up and wandered, only a minute after take off. My wife was my sitter and she reports that about a minute after the hit I stood up (I was just repeating " I'm ok" over and over). I didn't make it far and then she got me back on the sofa, but I was up again...first contact I had back with physical, I remember being on the floor, I started off laying on the sofa. Is it normal to move around? I thought one became pretty immobile...?

Any and all advice/opinion for a newbie would be welcome.

Peace and love X

Thank you!

I find one of the hardest things to accomplish is putting language to a DMT flash...

As mckenna articulates:


It took me quite some time before I could ever speak about this event...

I want to say amnesia, but that's not the correct word, because I know exactly what happened, but it was without human language to put to it, when you can't put human language to an event it becomes difficult to store even as a memory, even though the memory is there...

...when telling a shaman from Peru what had happened to me, he instantly lit up, beaming he began to recall his ayahuasca initiation, in which he was mauled by juguars, torn limb from limb, then resurrected with "magic stones", he experienced something VERY similar to me...only with an Amazon flavor to it...

-eg

This is where I want to give advice, but if you ask just about every other DMT smoker out there, they will tell you I'm doing it a manner very different from theirs.

First, the DMT is smoked out of a special pipe with cannabis (if the person does not smoke cannabis we use sage or mint leaf) this pipe is intentionally insufficient, as the second property of why this method is unique involves a massive dose. I've never seen this method fail, though the goal is transformative, rather than recreational. (Picture of the pipe attached)

I made a comment regarding the amnesia aspect in my last post, but yes, every breakthrough using this method is just as intense.

-eg

First off I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to post your Experiences and thoughts.

I've often wondered, though meditation and psychedelic experiences can we actually learn to stay calm within the other reality or bardo? Can we be totally unafraid of anything and just embrace the dive down the infinitely deep rabbit hole? How far can we travel through eternity before we must get out and back to something somewhere else?

If reincarnation exists, do you think it's possible to reincarnate not only in the future, but also in the past as well? Surely that would create parallel existence and worlds one off from this one?

Very interesting thoughts, keep them coming!

Cheers

Did anyboday tell you to smoalk changa out of a tomahawk? Don't listen to them - they are crazy!

Not changa, crystalline DMT on top of cannabis.

First a small amount of cannabis is placed into the bowl of the pipe, next between 150-200mgs (0.15 to 0.20 grams) is placed on top of the cannabis. Then a single large inhalation is taken.

I've heard all the criticisms of this technique and have fully taken them into consideration, most involve inefficiency in vaporization, which is intentional, there's now way all 200mgs are going to reach the smokers lungs, though in my experiance whatever does manage to make it to the smokers lungs is sufficient to induce a peak experiance.

I think the Coincidentia oppositorum of war and peace represented by the peace pipe is fitting for DMT, plus the peace pipe adds to the set and setting of the experiance.

-eg

I'm not sure, though I feel learning to stay calm and even enjoy these after death states may in fact be a key in reaching nirvana. What causes these states to be overwhelming? Well, there's the disorientation involved with the transition out of physical existance, the lack of physical surroundings and a physical body, the feeling your entire ontology has been pulled out from under you, the lack of physics and time, and so on, can all be sources of discomfort, disorientation, and panic.
Then there's the aspects involving attachment, you remember your life as "you", you remember your friends, your family, everybody you had known and loved, as well as your favorite places and activities, and you realize your in a separate dimension from all of it, an uncrossable barrier has been placed between you and your former existance (similar to the barrier between you and the after death in life) as you remember these things, you cling to them, you see them fading and just as a dream quickly fades after waking, they begin to slip away, and this is traumatic, like sand slipping through fingercracks everything you had ever known in your previous incarnation is slipping away.
...but just as attachment, clinging, and desire cause suffering in life, the same is true in the after death, most suffering is self inflicted, and when you identify and deal with the sources of this self inflicted suffering, you are able to realize how easy it is to find happiness or at least comfort in any situation...
...so suffering in the bardo could just as easily turn to ecstasy in the bardo, it's your view of the situation that makes a good deal of the difference...

Though I'm not sure that a simple rearrangement in perspective in the bardo is the key to nirvana, well, if panic in the bardo will cause one to jump into an incarnation, then remaining calm in the bardo would prevent jumping into an incarnation, and if you remained in the bardo, and found a way to interpret the bardo as ecstasy, this could, in a sense, be attaining nirvana or reaching heaven.
...Though this is easier said than done, you can encounter unimaginable horror or beauty in the bardo, and you will find you have very little control over what's going on around you, I'm sure karma plays a huge role as well...

DMT allows me to reach the after death, the bardo, a state/place after death but before reincarnation, but offers no insight on what comes next, do you transition into an eternal paradise or hell? Do you jump into another incarnation? With DMT it's as if you have a bungee-cord connecting your conscious-being to your physical body, your thrown into the bardo, but before you can make it any further than this after death "between", you are pulled back into the physical incarnation which your conscious-being initially departed.




This has drove me crazy for quite some time...

Say there's an infinite amount of places to reincarnate into, like, every living species on earth could be a potential incarnation, then all the species on all the planets and places in this universe become options for incarnation, then every type of conscious being in every other dimension outside of this universe becomes an option...it seems unlikely that you would ever incarnate in the same place twice...

Which may be why it's hard to remember past lives, if in one incarnation you were a squid on earth, and in the next you were a human on earth, it would be near impossible for memory transfer, you would have to regain the conscious state afforded by a squid brain to correctly process and recover the memory...

Now think if you reincarnated from this universe into a different dimension, memory transfer then seems impossible...

I actually have a good deal of speculation in this area, and I apologize that I was unable to really even scratch the surface or go into any real depth, but I've been incredibly tied down by other research, and only have a minimal amount of time that I'm able to spend freely...

Seriously though, next time I get a good amount of free time, I'm going to sit down, smoke some hasheesh, and write a well written and well thought response, I have all these concepts in my head already, but articulating them in a way that is readable for others can be a challenge, so.Again I apologize for the brief and quickly written reply, but I can assure you I'm going to return to this topic in the near future.

(Was unable to edit before I posted, please excuse any typos)

-eg

Again, I get a good deal of criticism for my dose range with DMT, though I still feel dosing high is essential for what we are trying to do.

Consider this:

These are the low dose (smoking) records from TIHKAL:


Now, consider the single record involving a dose which I would consider acceptable:


Quite the difference, no?

I've said this all along, what I'm doing is not recreation, this is transformation.

I'll let it go though, because honestly I can't recommend that others actually take these doses...Though for myself and a small group of trusted friends and family there's no other way to smoke DMT...

-eg

as a 24/7 barefoot guy , we would be worried that the pipe-hawk falls on our foot - blade down..... oouch

Of course some of us are able to achieve transformative experiences as described on as little as 25mg. Maybe it’s a function of differing neurochemistry?

I use a couple of analogies to express my views regarding dose size:

1. A low dose of DMT is like being brought to a door but no further – you know something lies beyond, but you’re not permitted entry. A higher dose is like being brought to a door with a window in it – you can see what’s on the other side, but you cannot participate. A sufficient dose of DMT is like opening a door, entering, and fully participating in the eternal mystery.

If the door is opened sufficiently to allow passage and full participation, is there anything gained by opening it wider?

2. A dose of DMT is like listening to music: At a very low dose, one has to strain to hear the music. Much of what is present in the music is too quiet to sense. At a sufficient dose, the music is loud and clear – every note and every nuance can be heard and appreciated. Turn the music up to 140 dB and the beauty and nuance are lost. What was beautiful is now painful and extremely unpleasant. Beyond a certain point, what is the point?

Maybe it's also related to efficiency of uptake by the lungs? Both in the sense of individual physical disposition and individual technique and utensils.

I wonder if the variation in individual sensitivity is distributed equally with intravenous administration as it is with vaporizing (and smoking)?


Excellent, sir!

To me, every level has a special spirit with a special target functionality, something another level (higher dose or lower) cannot mimic nor outclass nor out-beat.
If one can only recognize/appreciate the values of the hard tones, that is nothing to be proud of. People who don't hear whisper are called deaf and are missing out on what is brought forth there and nowhere else.

More is better? No, it is only different in my view. I disagree with Gibran a tad that it is the same door just wider-or-not. To me it looks more like different doors all together.

IMO, for transformation [1], all circumstantial factors together will determine, and in that game the dosing is just 1 element, important yes, but still and only tiny little 1.

I still wonder and do not understand how my least dose-powerful ceremonies have led to the most transformative results. But it becomes more apparent that the non-dose factors were eventually underestimated. Even up to the stuff I considered mumbo jumbo, or spiritual romantics, mikmak, bullshit, ...

I don't believe at all in higher dose equals transformation.
Also I don't believe that lower doses equals recreative.

[1] some people tend to mix up being <far out> and <transformation> too easily. I've seen it working in reverse.

Ha, I never even considered this. It's a ceremonial pipe, so the blade is dull.

Plus a sober helper usually takes the pipe from the individual who smoked before they exhale.



-eg

I think these are excellent analogies.

As for the genetic piece, I've actually heard that the number of 5HT2a/2c receptors in your body is genetic...but I'm not sure this is true.

Keep in mind the crystalline DMT is being smoked out of a 1.5 foot long peace pipe on top of marijuana, in reality I'm guessing about 100mgs manages to make it to the lungs...

This is wasteful, I suppose, but on the other hand it's never failed to induce the experiance we were trying to...

Anything less than a ++++ (shulgin scale) would be unacceptable.

I agree with your analogies to a point...I also think that arrogant egos may need to be destroyed so that they can transform into a conscious and spiritually aware being, this may be traumatic, it may be unpleasant, but it also may be necessary.

My community is called "the church of Entheogenic gnosis", the basis if our spirituality is experiance, we experiance the non-physical first hand, we experiance the after-death first hand, we experiance the Divine first hand...all spirituality and religion is the exegesis of this experiance, so we removed the exegesis and all the nonsense that comes with it.

There is no "one proper way" to use DMT, I guess your intentions and goals determine a good deal.

If you want to be the most efficient you can vape 30mgs doses, efficiently using all your DMT, but this can be difficult for neophytes and non-enthusiasts, and the potential for a "failed brakethrough" is significant.

My methods "waste" DMT, but will consistently produce a peak experiance for ANY person who participates, I've never seen my method fail...Though I'm also very very very selective about who I initiate, I may just be picking people who are mentally susceptible to the peak DMT flash...

-eg