[quote:ca5998712c="zero"] One thing that will add is that if you were thinking about whether or not the experience was good for you DURING THE EXPERIENCE, then you certainly weren't anywhere near the realm that DMT can take you to. And maybe you don't want to be, that's completely understandable, it's not for everyone. I think you would find great wisdom and room for serious personal exploration with Ayahuasca though man. It doesn't get more natural and organic feeling than that, period.[/quote:ca5998712c] No, if you read what I wrote, you would recall that I clearly said that I wasn't thinking about anything. The dominant and overriding thought was one of complete surrender - a state I believe I achieved through careful meditation both before and during the experience. However in the end I (as I said) I became bored with the psychedelic colour scheme - and it was this that brought me back to a sense of myself and to a decision that it was all very unnatural and not overly impressive. Perhaps if there had been more blues and reds and a wider spectrum of colours in general and less of what in a strange way seemed an almost cliched green electro organic glow to everything (somewhat as you would expect if you were in a forest setting and you believed that a substance you had taken had made the plant life 'glow with green energy'), and perhaps if the process of extraction had not been quite so arduous and artificial for my friend SWIM and perhaps if the entire paraffinalia required and process of consumption of this substance had not been so artificial and Westernised and so far removed from the original context in which this substance was originally consumed, then maybe my impressions may have been different. But there are a lot of perhaps in this - and some of these I am uncertain I will ever have he opportunity to fully resolve. I certainly could try some Ayahuasca - and this might help with the impression of the artificiality of it all and the dirty Westernised extraction and consumption process' - but again, it will come down I think to the actual authenticity of the experience and may still find myself being concerned that it is impossible to recreate an authentic experience both within my own very Westernised world and my own Western mind. I am interested too to hear what the actual tribes people of the Amazon make of this experience, because I am sure that to some large degree it will work only within the context of one's own personal experience and one's individual expectations. For example do you imagine that such primitive tribes people will speak in terms of 11 dimensional superbeings, or aliens that intersect many different physical and non physical realities? Or would they be more likely to speak in terms of Gods, with half man and half bird bodies, or of many headed monkeys, or giant panther like entities who offer messages of healing and wisdom for the tribe - and also messages of comfort from both recent and long dead ancestors? If the experience and the insights gained from it are real, then why is is likely that in a different context, different people from different cultures will have both very different experiences and an entirely separate visual and mental vocabulary for explaining them? Or do you think that perhaps as you are Western, you are by definition smarter and that therefore these 11 dimensional entities etc. are in some way more disposed to reveal themselves and their purpose more fully to you? From a Western perspective, perhaps an avid sci-fi reader and believer in aliens and other worldly phenomena in general might be more disposed to being anally probed in a gigantic golden alien pyramidical hypergallactic space ship of some description or other, but from the perspective of a non believer and a sceptic in such matters, or from the perspective of someone from entirely another culture from our own, your impressions are likely to have no common value or theme at all with their experiences. This is why I referred earlier to the capacity of many psychedelics in bringing out much of what is in your mind already, rather than having the capacity to plant anything profoundly new there. Anyway, how about we make it interesting? How about the next time any of the cosmic explorers here decide to partake in a journey 'into the beyond' that you do as McKenna and others have done and ask these entities for something real and practical you can bring back to this world and then report your findings here? These entities may feel there is 'as much value in curing cancer as there is for us in saving flies from spider's webs', however as someone who has lost a number of friends and close relatives to cancer in the past, I would personally find such an assertion both unfeeling and even perhaps potentially quite callous. I would certainly be interested in discovering a way to ease all human suffering (and all suffering in general) - but if their answer is to 'take DMT' I just don't think as a universal answer that that would wash so well. Drugs often do have the potential to offer a short term relief from suffering, but if you make them the focus of your life, they have an equal potential to create suffering also. Perhaps someone some day might create a drug that offered us the potential to be eternally happy - but how much value would that happiness have if it ultimately was not in fact real? I think that a true search for fulfilment and happiness must start with the self - and perhaps if we are lucky we may find some small aids and insights that help us along a little further in our journey. But I think it is a mistake to place an over reliance in these aids and to devote our faith entirely to them. Anyway I am diverging horribly from my original purpose. As I said this particular experience has probably made me more skeptical rather than less so. However it might not dissuade me from reassessing my options and revisiting this topic at some point in the future.