Sanista
Rising Star
Hello everyone! This is my first post on this fine forum, although I have been a reader of it for many years and often found helpful knowledge within it. Until today, I have had no cause to ever register - all my questions have been asked by others and the answers easily found.
I'd like to share, if I may, an experience of mine today, which happened within the last eight hours or so. I've never felt compelled to write a report of my psychedelic experiences before, but then I've never felt so shaken by one before either. I'm hoping that taking the time to write it down, and hopefully receive some thoughts on it, will help me process what has happened.
I’m afraid the report is somewhat wordy – I have tried to be succinct however I do not want to miss any details which may give you a better feel for the experience.
Background
To give you an idea, I'm late 20s, male, and I have been taking psychedelics for the best part of a decade now. Mostly LSD, but also some mushrooms, 2C-B, and every so often, some DMT. I've gained most of my psychedelic experience with LSD - I've taken countless trips, far more than I could remember or count - and some of those were at quite high dosages, which I'd worked up to over time. I almost exclusively trip alone, and I always try and work some meditation into my LSD trips.
As I've got more experienced with psychedelics over the years, I've seen common themes emerge between my trips, and I'm often able to transport myself back to similar mindsets which seem to build on each trip. For example, I often return to a place in my mind that I have experienced on both LSD and DMT, and this place feels a bit like a 'spiritual gateway' for me - when I have reached this place in my head, on any given trip, I know that my soul is open and receptive, and I often feel my ego starting to shred away.
Over the years, this state has become enhanced as I enter it more, and each time, less of my ego hangs on. I feel like this is, in a way, training myself to be more resilient and enabling myself to let go more on each successive trip. I enjoy achieving this headspace and I actively seek it on each trip. I am telling you this to show that I practice my psychedelic use with purpose, with a goal in mind, and I work towards it.
I have consumed DMT on quite a number of occasions - mostly my experiences have been sub-breakthrough and relatively unremarkable (to anyone else, that is, they were fascinating to me). Often there were interesting CEVs, usually a nice sense of warmth and togetherness, and they always thoroughly enjoyable experiences. I have used DMT on it's own, but more often than not I use it while already on LSD, as I (personally) find the two experiences complement each other very well (if DMT is the top shelf, the LSD is the stepladder helping you get up). Nobody should combine psychedelics (or any other drug) unless they have done their own research.
In summary, I trip with purpose, I try and build on my meditation in each successive trip, and I consider myself an extremely experienced user of psychedelics who has never yet come up against anything he could not handle - until now?
The LSD come up
So today, in the early afternoon, I was well rested, in my own home, and decided to take 330 micrograms of LSD (my usual 'go-to' dose), and the purpose of my trip was to relax, listen to some music, de-stress and contemplate some things that had been on my mind.
The first part of the trip was uneventful - I came up quickly, I enjoyed dancing around my kitchen with some music in my ears, my mood was exceptionally high - I felt fantastic. At about two hours in, I was tripping very hard and in the peak of the LSD experience, and I sat down to do some meditation.
Instantly I was transported to a familiar headspace - I started feeling a sense of connectedness with the world, and I started seeing some very familiar closed eye visuals that I often associate with this meditative state.
Part of the tapestry on my wall started glowing bright as I focused on the centre of it and I felt little shreds of my ego being picked away, as I so often enjoy when meditating on psychedelics, and my body felt a little bit lighter for each shred which was removed.
The first DMT experience
I had the sense that I was ready for more, and I wanted to try again for that elusive DMT breakthrough experience, which I had been trying hard to achieve for years. I loaded up the bong with 100mg of 50% changa and took it all in two hits.
Now, I will say, if anyone else had been describing this to me, or if I had been reading my own experience elsewhere, I would doubt the legitimacy of it. Even as I type it now, it sounds so bizarre. I can assure you I am trying to be as accurate as possible, and I’m not exaggerating for effect.
I was relatively disappointed that when I opened my eyes after the 2nd hit, I was still in my room. However, my disappointment did not last for long, as the centre of the tapestry on my wall which I had been focused on before smoking the hit became even brighter, extraordinarily so. This bright light grew bigger and formed four corners, and essentially a portion of my wall was replaced by this pure white rectangle which had space behind it, as if it was a door to an entirely white room.
I promptly felt my body be pulled towards the light, and I was consumed by it. My perspective changed and I became aware of my own body now floating in this white room, and I was looking down on my body. Each part of me started to detach and split off - I saw my legs detach, one by one, and then my arms, and they floated away into the nothingness until they were gone.
Eventually, all that was left was my skull, with no torso, and I saw my head split open and my brain slid out. I could see the fine details of the tissue on my brain, and it looked healthily pink. I then watched my brain split in half down the middle, and each part of my brain went flying off into different directions. I was consumed by whiteness for a few moments longer and then eventually I was spat back out onto my sofa, with crazily intense visuals filling my room.
I was absolutely floored by how REAL it was - I still had my sense of self, and I knew I’d taken DMT and LSD, but there I was, quite literally watching parts of my body float away, in full HD vision, as if it was the most ‘ordinary’ thing ever, the same as going to the shop to buy some milk.
I felt pleasant throughout the whole experience, and I was never scared or afraid when I was in the white room. Once I calmed down a bit from the DMT ‘haze’, I became very reflective and intensely in awe of the experience I had just had. I’ve seen lots of things ‘in my head’ before, but never had I seen, clear as day, such a blatant disregard for reality. It made no sense to me that I could view myself having my limbs torn off and my brain split open, but it had just happened. I saw it with my own two eyes. It was clear as anything else I’d ever seen.
I sat for approximately two hours trying to make sense of it (whilst still tripping on LSD), and I considered it an extremely profound experience, and one that was unknown to me. I finally managed to distract myself from the experience for a couple of hours, and got some food and watched some television.
About 4 hours after the initial experience with DMT, and about 6 hours after I took the LSD, I felt fully recovered and recharged from my DMT trip, and I still felt in a very positive mind state. I was very intrigued to know more about what I had just experienced (‘was that a breakthrough?’) and I decided that I would take another round of DMT.
The second DMT experience
I meditated for a while beforehand, and then loaded up 100mg of changa into the bong and managed to take it all in one hit. This is where it all went wrong.
As I was doing a very long, slow, inhale, I was watching the cherry of the changa in the bowl of the bong glow red. I recall this red glow getting brighter and brighter and consuming more of my field of vision as I inhaled. This was already a more intense visual effect than I was usually used to when smoking changa, and I had a good idea that I was in for a heavy ride. I placed the bong down.
The next memory I have is finding myself in a completely white room, again. There was just intense whiteness all over, with intricate patterns that looked vaguely like clocks floating through the air like ticker-tape. I immediately felt an intense panic and fear. Fear like I’ve never felt before. I had no idea who I was, where I was, or what was happening.
Information was coming at me from all angles - the visuals were intense although I cannot remember the exact nature of them. My mind was totally overwhelmed, and I just wanted it to stop, but I was too confused to know even that I had taken DMT. I did not remember taking it. I could not form any thoughts or do anything other than be completely subject to the experience unfolding in front of me.
The fear was absolutely overwhelming. It was the most intense emotion I’ve ever experienced. I was utterly terrified. I kept looking around, trying to find a way out of this white room, and at one point a door appeared, but then was snatched away from me when I got nearer to it. I turned around, looking for another door, which then disappeared again - this kept happening, as soon as I got close to a door, it vanished. Something was mocking me. I felt trapped. Someone had captured me. Had I gone insane?
I eventually became familiar with the thought that I had taken DMT and I had broken through. This induced even more panic - I’d already been ‘trapped’ in this white room for far, far longer than a typical DMT experience lasts. I could’ve sworn that I had been trapped for many hours.
I began to accept that I was trapped here forever. There was no way out. I’d sent myself into a psychosis. I was never going to come down. I started accepting that I would never see life again. I’d never see anyone I knew again. This was it. I was going to die here, in this horrible white room. The sheer horror of it all was unimaginable. I can still feel the panic now as I write this. I’ve never experienced anything like it, or even close to it. It was deeply traumatic.
Eventually I became aware of my own body again, but was not allowed to move it, and I watched my perspective rapidly flip around my body, in 360 degrees of vision, with images of myself folding over on top of each other.
My visual perspective was changing so fast that I could barely even register the changes. It was deeply disorientating, like spinning round very fast on a merry-go-round. First I’d be seeing out of my eyes, then I would be looking down on myself, then I would see several copies of myself side by side, as if I had grown several more pairs of eyes and could see through them all concurrently. At one point my ‘perspective’ flew down into my hand, and then back up out of my torso, stuck in a loop, spinning between different parts of my body like a washing machine.
Eventually I was back in my body (but still confused, I didn’t know who ‘me’ was, yet) and I was subjected to a series of painful hallucinations of my teeth snapping in half. I quite literally felt them break off in my mouth, and I placed my fingers into my mouth and could feel that there were teeth missing. (Of course, my teeth were fine when I sobered up).
Still in the white room, but now in my body, I sat down on the floor - admitting defeat. I would sit here until I died, however long that may be. I hoped it was soon, I had had enough.
Eventually I started to feel like I was in a vaguely familiar place. Details slowly shifted in from the white light and I realised I was somewhere I knew and recognised. It took another minute or two before I realised who I was, and that I was sat in my living room, on the floor.
Curiously, I had started the experience sitting on my sofa, and I have no idea how I came to be sat on my floor. Presumably I had moved around during the experience, but of course I have no memory of this.
Conclusion
I sat there for almost 30 minutes without moving. The residual DMT effects felt like they took forever to wear off. I just wanted to be sober again. I felt like every visual was mocking me. I’d been humiliated by the substance. I wanted it gone, I wanted it out of my body. I wanted what had just happened to have never happened. I was broken.
Writing this now, several hours later, I feel okay, but still deeply confused and quite shocked by what has happened to me. I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I could handle it. Obviously, I was woefully underprepared. How can one prepare for such a thing? I have been 'training' for years to achieve ego death, and yet when I did, it was an awful, awful, awful experience. The worst I've ever had.
I was absolutely floored by the power of the DMT experience. I had done, in my mind, absolutely everything I could to be ready for it, but it was not even close to enough.
Note: I edited this post around 24 hours after making it, to fix some typographical errors (now that I am sober) and add some formatting to make it easier to read. The material content of the post did not change.
I'd like to share, if I may, an experience of mine today, which happened within the last eight hours or so. I've never felt compelled to write a report of my psychedelic experiences before, but then I've never felt so shaken by one before either. I'm hoping that taking the time to write it down, and hopefully receive some thoughts on it, will help me process what has happened.
I’m afraid the report is somewhat wordy – I have tried to be succinct however I do not want to miss any details which may give you a better feel for the experience.
Background
To give you an idea, I'm late 20s, male, and I have been taking psychedelics for the best part of a decade now. Mostly LSD, but also some mushrooms, 2C-B, and every so often, some DMT. I've gained most of my psychedelic experience with LSD - I've taken countless trips, far more than I could remember or count - and some of those were at quite high dosages, which I'd worked up to over time. I almost exclusively trip alone, and I always try and work some meditation into my LSD trips.
As I've got more experienced with psychedelics over the years, I've seen common themes emerge between my trips, and I'm often able to transport myself back to similar mindsets which seem to build on each trip. For example, I often return to a place in my mind that I have experienced on both LSD and DMT, and this place feels a bit like a 'spiritual gateway' for me - when I have reached this place in my head, on any given trip, I know that my soul is open and receptive, and I often feel my ego starting to shred away.
Over the years, this state has become enhanced as I enter it more, and each time, less of my ego hangs on. I feel like this is, in a way, training myself to be more resilient and enabling myself to let go more on each successive trip. I enjoy achieving this headspace and I actively seek it on each trip. I am telling you this to show that I practice my psychedelic use with purpose, with a goal in mind, and I work towards it.
I have consumed DMT on quite a number of occasions - mostly my experiences have been sub-breakthrough and relatively unremarkable (to anyone else, that is, they were fascinating to me). Often there were interesting CEVs, usually a nice sense of warmth and togetherness, and they always thoroughly enjoyable experiences. I have used DMT on it's own, but more often than not I use it while already on LSD, as I (personally) find the two experiences complement each other very well (if DMT is the top shelf, the LSD is the stepladder helping you get up). Nobody should combine psychedelics (or any other drug) unless they have done their own research.
In summary, I trip with purpose, I try and build on my meditation in each successive trip, and I consider myself an extremely experienced user of psychedelics who has never yet come up against anything he could not handle - until now?
The LSD come up
So today, in the early afternoon, I was well rested, in my own home, and decided to take 330 micrograms of LSD (my usual 'go-to' dose), and the purpose of my trip was to relax, listen to some music, de-stress and contemplate some things that had been on my mind.
The first part of the trip was uneventful - I came up quickly, I enjoyed dancing around my kitchen with some music in my ears, my mood was exceptionally high - I felt fantastic. At about two hours in, I was tripping very hard and in the peak of the LSD experience, and I sat down to do some meditation.
Instantly I was transported to a familiar headspace - I started feeling a sense of connectedness with the world, and I started seeing some very familiar closed eye visuals that I often associate with this meditative state.
Part of the tapestry on my wall started glowing bright as I focused on the centre of it and I felt little shreds of my ego being picked away, as I so often enjoy when meditating on psychedelics, and my body felt a little bit lighter for each shred which was removed.
The first DMT experience
I had the sense that I was ready for more, and I wanted to try again for that elusive DMT breakthrough experience, which I had been trying hard to achieve for years. I loaded up the bong with 100mg of 50% changa and took it all in two hits.
Now, I will say, if anyone else had been describing this to me, or if I had been reading my own experience elsewhere, I would doubt the legitimacy of it. Even as I type it now, it sounds so bizarre. I can assure you I am trying to be as accurate as possible, and I’m not exaggerating for effect.
I was relatively disappointed that when I opened my eyes after the 2nd hit, I was still in my room. However, my disappointment did not last for long, as the centre of the tapestry on my wall which I had been focused on before smoking the hit became even brighter, extraordinarily so. This bright light grew bigger and formed four corners, and essentially a portion of my wall was replaced by this pure white rectangle which had space behind it, as if it was a door to an entirely white room.
I promptly felt my body be pulled towards the light, and I was consumed by it. My perspective changed and I became aware of my own body now floating in this white room, and I was looking down on my body. Each part of me started to detach and split off - I saw my legs detach, one by one, and then my arms, and they floated away into the nothingness until they were gone.
Eventually, all that was left was my skull, with no torso, and I saw my head split open and my brain slid out. I could see the fine details of the tissue on my brain, and it looked healthily pink. I then watched my brain split in half down the middle, and each part of my brain went flying off into different directions. I was consumed by whiteness for a few moments longer and then eventually I was spat back out onto my sofa, with crazily intense visuals filling my room.
I was absolutely floored by how REAL it was - I still had my sense of self, and I knew I’d taken DMT and LSD, but there I was, quite literally watching parts of my body float away, in full HD vision, as if it was the most ‘ordinary’ thing ever, the same as going to the shop to buy some milk.
I felt pleasant throughout the whole experience, and I was never scared or afraid when I was in the white room. Once I calmed down a bit from the DMT ‘haze’, I became very reflective and intensely in awe of the experience I had just had. I’ve seen lots of things ‘in my head’ before, but never had I seen, clear as day, such a blatant disregard for reality. It made no sense to me that I could view myself having my limbs torn off and my brain split open, but it had just happened. I saw it with my own two eyes. It was clear as anything else I’d ever seen.
I sat for approximately two hours trying to make sense of it (whilst still tripping on LSD), and I considered it an extremely profound experience, and one that was unknown to me. I finally managed to distract myself from the experience for a couple of hours, and got some food and watched some television.
About 4 hours after the initial experience with DMT, and about 6 hours after I took the LSD, I felt fully recovered and recharged from my DMT trip, and I still felt in a very positive mind state. I was very intrigued to know more about what I had just experienced (‘was that a breakthrough?’) and I decided that I would take another round of DMT.
The second DMT experience
I meditated for a while beforehand, and then loaded up 100mg of changa into the bong and managed to take it all in one hit. This is where it all went wrong.
As I was doing a very long, slow, inhale, I was watching the cherry of the changa in the bowl of the bong glow red. I recall this red glow getting brighter and brighter and consuming more of my field of vision as I inhaled. This was already a more intense visual effect than I was usually used to when smoking changa, and I had a good idea that I was in for a heavy ride. I placed the bong down.
The next memory I have is finding myself in a completely white room, again. There was just intense whiteness all over, with intricate patterns that looked vaguely like clocks floating through the air like ticker-tape. I immediately felt an intense panic and fear. Fear like I’ve never felt before. I had no idea who I was, where I was, or what was happening.
Information was coming at me from all angles - the visuals were intense although I cannot remember the exact nature of them. My mind was totally overwhelmed, and I just wanted it to stop, but I was too confused to know even that I had taken DMT. I did not remember taking it. I could not form any thoughts or do anything other than be completely subject to the experience unfolding in front of me.
The fear was absolutely overwhelming. It was the most intense emotion I’ve ever experienced. I was utterly terrified. I kept looking around, trying to find a way out of this white room, and at one point a door appeared, but then was snatched away from me when I got nearer to it. I turned around, looking for another door, which then disappeared again - this kept happening, as soon as I got close to a door, it vanished. Something was mocking me. I felt trapped. Someone had captured me. Had I gone insane?
I eventually became familiar with the thought that I had taken DMT and I had broken through. This induced even more panic - I’d already been ‘trapped’ in this white room for far, far longer than a typical DMT experience lasts. I could’ve sworn that I had been trapped for many hours.
I began to accept that I was trapped here forever. There was no way out. I’d sent myself into a psychosis. I was never going to come down. I started accepting that I would never see life again. I’d never see anyone I knew again. This was it. I was going to die here, in this horrible white room. The sheer horror of it all was unimaginable. I can still feel the panic now as I write this. I’ve never experienced anything like it, or even close to it. It was deeply traumatic.
Eventually I became aware of my own body again, but was not allowed to move it, and I watched my perspective rapidly flip around my body, in 360 degrees of vision, with images of myself folding over on top of each other.
My visual perspective was changing so fast that I could barely even register the changes. It was deeply disorientating, like spinning round very fast on a merry-go-round. First I’d be seeing out of my eyes, then I would be looking down on myself, then I would see several copies of myself side by side, as if I had grown several more pairs of eyes and could see through them all concurrently. At one point my ‘perspective’ flew down into my hand, and then back up out of my torso, stuck in a loop, spinning between different parts of my body like a washing machine.
Eventually I was back in my body (but still confused, I didn’t know who ‘me’ was, yet) and I was subjected to a series of painful hallucinations of my teeth snapping in half. I quite literally felt them break off in my mouth, and I placed my fingers into my mouth and could feel that there were teeth missing. (Of course, my teeth were fine when I sobered up).
Still in the white room, but now in my body, I sat down on the floor - admitting defeat. I would sit here until I died, however long that may be. I hoped it was soon, I had had enough.
Eventually I started to feel like I was in a vaguely familiar place. Details slowly shifted in from the white light and I realised I was somewhere I knew and recognised. It took another minute or two before I realised who I was, and that I was sat in my living room, on the floor.
Curiously, I had started the experience sitting on my sofa, and I have no idea how I came to be sat on my floor. Presumably I had moved around during the experience, but of course I have no memory of this.
Conclusion
I sat there for almost 30 minutes without moving. The residual DMT effects felt like they took forever to wear off. I just wanted to be sober again. I felt like every visual was mocking me. I’d been humiliated by the substance. I wanted it gone, I wanted it out of my body. I wanted what had just happened to have never happened. I was broken.
Writing this now, several hours later, I feel okay, but still deeply confused and quite shocked by what has happened to me. I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I could handle it. Obviously, I was woefully underprepared. How can one prepare for such a thing? I have been 'training' for years to achieve ego death, and yet when I did, it was an awful, awful, awful experience. The worst I've ever had.
I was absolutely floored by the power of the DMT experience. I had done, in my mind, absolutely everything I could to be ready for it, but it was not even close to enough.
Note: I edited this post around 24 hours after making it, to fix some typographical errors (now that I am sober) and add some formatting to make it easier to read. The material content of the post did not change.
