I have often read some variation of the phrase "Doing work with DMT (mushrooms, etc)", and I was curious what people mean specifically?

I assume some therapeutic and/or spiritual context. I also assume people mean different things, just wondering the specifics. If you use DMT therapeutically, can you detail your thoughts/process?

I think it's a euphemistic way of describing the taking of a drug. There may or may not be ritualistic context involved, and that certainly will vary from person to person. I can have quite the spiritual experience with it with little other than loading my GVG and sitting in silence in my computer chair. I used to ring ancient solfeggio tuning forks before hand, and journey with crystals and pyramids, but nowadays, I leave most of that off to the side and just get to business.

Doing work with substances for me means focusing on something specific - a specific goal in mind - be it improvement of well-being, resolution of psychological/emotional "knots", tuning in with the cosmos, analyzing your current XXX (relationship, situation, feeling...).

Focusing on this kind of thing doesn't always result in you actually getting it figured out or having a trip that has anything to do with it, especially with DMT. But sometimes it does. For me this works far better with LSD and occasionally with mushrooms. DMT usually chooses for me, where it wants to do its work, but I do always feel like it's working on me, or I'm working on something, when I take it.

I'm not into big rituals for when I do work with substances, though a few things can help focus your mind, such as music and visual cues such as symbols, lighting or specific objects that can lead your mind towards the subject you want to work on. Once again, this mainly works with LSD for me. With DMT, especially vaped, it hardly matters what's around me. Later it's the integration that really puts it all together. Self-reflection, analyzation of the whole trip from all angles etc.. For me this kind of "work" has lead to serious improvements of my life.

I don't think it's necessarily a euphemistic way of describing taking drugs, since I do believe we can benefit from taking psychedelics and similar substances - and not just in the same way that we benefit from eating a pizza with some good wine (which would also be good already). MAPS for example is showing some very specific examples of how to work with certain substances - helping you overcome PTSD or the fear of dying.

It can mean a lot of different things to a lot of people

Generally speaking i use it to emphasize that you are actively engaged WITH the plant teacher/psychedelic state, and that it is an allie you are learning to work with or use in a positive and beneficial way that can facilitate self-healing, growth, expanded awareness, creativity etc... just like you would learn to work with a friend on X, or a tool on Y

A lot of people outside the psychedelic community think they are some kind of shallow quick-and-easy spiritual short-cut that we just ingest before sitting back and letting it blow our minds.. but the reality is that it really is hard work to step off that steep ledge again and again and face what comes to the surface of your awareness out of the ocean of possibilities

I've thought about this a lot but it's still a mystery to me as well.

I drink ayahuasca for healing and spiritual development. In my experience, working with ayahuasca is a bit like meditation. You benefit from meditation not only when you sit but afterwards too. Since I started drinking, I feel calmer and more grounded, I am also more mindful and present in everyday life. However, all this has happened on an unconscious level and I haven't yet been able to figure out how to work on specific issues with conscious intention.

But I'll continue drinking as long as I keep seeing results in my life.

I think it is euphemistic as Global stated.

But now that I have toyed with the phrase I would say, for me, "doing work with DMT" means taking low, moderate and strong doses in an investigatory capacity. With mushrooms I pretty much know what I am gonna get and that feels more recreational than DMT so I don't consider I am "doing work" with mushrooms.

DMT really does feel like hard work sometimes...I mean in the sense of fear before launch. Still, I have always been a grafter and am in no sense work shy

I didn't mean to belittle people's work with it. I myself take it quite seriously and find it to be quite educational as many here have probably already gathered about me, but I think the phrase packs the potential for "euphemistic abuse".

I don't work with DMT, it works on me, I just hunker down and let it do its job.

It seems to be working a treat.

For me it means continuing and expanding on my spiritual theories, which spice has played a significant role in.

It's a term the meaning of which has evolved along with the evolution of my relationship with the spice. Everytime I undertake a 'session'-which for me means repeated use over short periods of time separated by longer ones, both my intent and results become different. At first, I didn't know I was doing any work at all, it kinda worked me over, really, but now as I understand the substance, it's potential as a healing agent, and it's effects on my body,psyche , and dare I say-soul, I seem to grow with it.

My experiences with DMT are intensly spiritual, and the spice has proven itself to me over and again as a substance with the ability to both break down and restructure my mind and body in ways that I never thought possible. It actually cured a 22-year hardcore addiction to heroin as well as a debilitating depression that had caused two serious suicide attempts and has made me today a person I can look at in the mirror and smile back at, knowing deep within that I am good. It has enabled me to'work through my karma', by showing me that I am a reflection of a divine source of life behind this universe that exists beyond and throughout time. And solidified a faith that carries me through both the times I must endure and those that I celebrate.

It 'killed' me, once, just prior to my joining this community, which has received my enduring support and gratitude ever since (love you folks! Still) and that experience removed all doubt that this source exists as well as showed me my true relationship with it.

I am now engaged upon a life course that will carry me far into my future, and that path involves 'working with DMT'

'Working with DMT' saved this guy, who had wondered, for so many years, just why none of the very real opportunities for honest-to-God bodily death that had manifested in his life realized themselves to that end, and who now knows his place and purpose in a loving fulfilling life.

That's beautiful, Null.

Wonderfully put.

Null24, those are some amazing words, which resonate with me deeply.

It goes to show how powerful this medicine really is. Thanks

To me it's less a case of doing work, but having work 'done' on me. Since I feel I have little control over the experience, I just allow myself to be open and let it flow in.

This of course defies my own logic, because I believe the whole journey comes from within myself in the first place. I like to think of it as the subconscious 'I' doing work on the waking 'I' which I feel every day. Of course I feel like I am doing none of this myself, but 'I' suppose 'I' am.

its a hero's journey, entering the belly of the beast and coming out renewed



This ritual is seen in many cultures and is a archetypal process of transformation of entering the unknown & being reborn.

THE BELLY OF THE WHALE

Hiram Abiff, Jesus also come to mind.

Doing work with this for me has been a committed
Long term practice of exploration .
Ritual setting with shamanic techniques .
Deep study of traditional uses and techniques of
Different psychedelic substances . Botany ,biology , chemistry , archetypes,
Mysticism, Native American mythology , Mayan culture, neuroscience, string theory ,
Astronomy, system theory , mathematics , non verbal communication, alien life ,ufos
and the list goes on

Altered states of consciousness. A hunger for knowledge collecting books
On every possible subject relating to this.

That's just the tip of the iceberg .

My work with this has been a deep personal journey and evolution of self discovery
That will continue to unfold in amazing ways . If I had a religion this would be it .