Note, this is very long.

The experience and writing presented here took place in the summer of 2013. I recently found the text file that I used to document all of my psychedelic experiences in before abandoning this type of documentation in favor of drawings. Looking back at it now I could not have gotten any more than 15 - 20mg of DMT into my system, but it was still easily the most intense psychedelic experience I had at the time. I still look very fondly of this trip as it made me wake up to the beauty and wonder in everyday life for first time. It may hold some particular interest to those who are new to DMT/psychedelics and want an example of some of the revelations that are possible.



PRE-CONDITIONS
(mind)Set: Default, no pressing issues or recent achievements to push my mindset into any particular range of emotion.
(physical condition) Set: Healthy, nothing out of the ordinary to note.
Setting (location): My living room couch, low level light.
time of day: Most likely 2 - 3AM/2 - 3 hours after midnight.
recent drug use: N/A
last meal: Can't remember, although my usual guidelines at the time called for a 4 - 5 hour fast before using serotonergic drugs.

PARTICIPANT
Gender: Male
body weight: ~77kg
known sensitivities: None
history of use: Beginner psychedelic and DMT user at this time, all previous psychedelic experiences were low dose LSD/Mushroom/DMT trips.

BIOASSAY
Substance(s): DMT
Dose(s): Approx. ~50mg, actual amount that made it my system most likely much lower
Method of administration: Smoking, via the sandwich method utilizing inactive herbs (parsly if I remember correctly)

EFFECTS
Administration time: Not logged, most likely in the early morning.
Duration: 12 - 15 minutes.
First effects: Nearly instant.
Peak: Approx T+ 0:00 - 0:05
Come down: T+ 0:05 - 0:08/0:10
Baseline: Not logged, most likely at baseline at T+ 0:30

Intensity (overall): Subjective, at the time I'd rate it at a maximum 4 but if I were to go through an identical experience I'd put it at a 2.5/3.
Evaluation / notes: First moderate DMT dose.



REPORT
(Copied from the text file, slight spelling/grammar/context edits).
7/9/13, DMT experience

I'm not going to time log any of this because I just recently came out of the trip.

That was the closest I think I've ever got to dying. DMT is very latin american-esque. As I was taking hits from the make shift pipe I had made, I started to feel that DMT "floating" feeling. Eventually the pipe starting warping, almost as if my vision was composed of different colors of liquid and someone just took a small brush and swirled them together. I took that as my sign to pull off of it and close my eyes. The visuals were box like patterns, had a lot of similarity to Amazonian/Mexican indigenous art. Breathing became hard, and slowed. I felt as though I were dying, so I used all my effort to take in as much air as I could. While in that mindset I remembered the advice of "just let go" and give in to the drug. Spurred onto this advice, I physically tried to stop breathing and hold my breath. This was easier said than done however. I was making every effort to stay alive and keep breathing. Opening my eye's helped a bit, and upon opening I noticed that the OEVs weren't actually that intense. The curtains on my door were warping. In particular I noticed that the edges of the curtains warped into the shape of silhouette of two faces with pointy chins. Really cartoon like, and the faces were looking at each other. They were almost ominous, malicious looking. As if they were minions for some evil boss of some sort. A feeling throughout the experience was one of fear and panic, I desperately wanted to run to my mother (who was living across the country at the time) and have her tell me everything was ok. That feeling was immediately followed by the realization she could not do anything to help me, and that the drug would have to run its course. I tried telling myself that dying from DMT was impossible, but that's not very believable if you're laying there gasping for air.

Eventually once it started to come down I got ahold of myself, breathing became easier and I opened my eyes. My walls looked huge and far away. Direction was flowing and could be changed at will. I could either look up at my wall (like normal), or look down on it as if I were standing on a large cliff above it. I looked at a painting to my left (across the room) of the animals going into Noah's Ark and it was alive. The sky on the painting was flowing, and the animals were walking into the boat. I still felt uneasy, and really wanted to come down as much as I could. However I was ASTONISHED, and I was so shocked at what happened to me. There is nothing that can compare to the intensity I felt laying there dying. That overwhelming feeling that shook me to my core. I experienced something similar while on the come up to a DXM trip that included severe nausea early in my youth. Just the feeling of complete and utter helplessness as the drug ravages your body. At that moment you truly understand what death feels like, you can easily imagine that overwhelming feeling becoming so overwhelming that it destroys your very being. I imagine this is what death is, a feeling that is far too intense to come back from. It's pure and utter terror, and really made me glad to be alive both times that it happened. I can see experiences like that being useful for people who are suicidal or who take the act of dying lightly.

Being an atheist and a rationalist in pretty much every sense of the word, I don't think there's anything when we die. Death just being the dissolution of your being which is scary purely because it is incomprehensible. It was because of this notion that death didn't really scare me, I didn't see it as particularly frightening. The conditions which would bring about death is what frightened me most, I wanted to go out peacefully and with no pain. Due to not being properly afraid of death I didn't particularly appreciate life to its fullest extent either. I almost became accustomed to the everyday beauty of life, and took it for granted. That seems to be the natural human condition. We, as a species, are unappreciative of what we have and instead just focus on material things. There's nothing wrong with being that way, but it can leave people searching for themselves in things which are fleeting and temporary. It causes people to miss the beauty of life, which is a thing to behold. As I said, this seems to be the natural human state. Psychedelics remind you of the beauty of life and how much you want to keep living by showing you the totality and fear associated with death. A wake up call, is what I'd describe it as. After such a traumatic experience you become more intuned with the beauty of everything around you. It's a humbling experience but not in the sense that it knocks you down, but instead it simply builds everything up. Psychedelics do not take away beauty, they magnify it. Humans are self centered and can easily forget that everybody else has feelings, experiences, and can have been through things that were just as intense for them as it was for you. Psychedelics will remind you of this.

One more thing that is worth mentioning. Immediately after the experience I never wanted to use or touch another psychedelic again. That mindset has left, but I can feel that I'm not as eager to jump into a psychedelic experience. I can feel my psyche holding itself back, and I can feel fear from my ego. My ego does not want to go through something like that again, and is recoiling in fear whenever the thought of it is brought up. I suspect this is due to the experience not yet being integrated into my mental being, and that it will go away with time and thought. I may use DMT again soon, I may not. There's a tearing feeling regarding using it again; part of my being wants to go the extra step and actually "die" and break through, but the other never wants to experience it again. I suspect this will make for a rough next psychedelic experience as my ego fights with all its might not to be slain. More low dose LSD or DMT experience will be advisable so my ego can get reaccustomed to the psychedelic mindset.

Reflections (7/24/15):
There isn't much I have to add to this aside from a clarification on the breathing difficulties I experienced during the peak. I have no reason to believe that those were anything other than the DMT modifying my brain's ability to "sense" itself. I don't have asthma, and that method of administration never resulted in a similar reaction before or after. Breathing wasn't labored, I don't remember there being any resistance to taking breaths. Just that I could not get enough air into my lungs and my system fast enough. This was the only time I had anything of the sort happen.

Also, the following psychedelic experiences after that (moderate and high dose LSD/Mushroom trips) went very well with no hint of the same terror that DMT presented me with. Over all, this experiences is probably the trip that I look back most fondly on. It gave me very valuable insight to the nature of death, which is one of the most mysterious unknowns in human history. Never would I give this experience up for anything.