NikkiPotnick1981 said:
...But I...cant look at them or watch them closely. I notice them moving about in the background. I've had a dragon lady fly around in one trip. She came right up to my face a couple times then flew around again. But I couldn't seem to look her in the eye or study her... evaluate her...
Couple nights ago I went in, a jester appeared. The genderless being just danced around to my right. I could see it with my peripheral vision but couldn't bring myself to turn my head or move my eyes to look over at it...
From all that I've experienced on DMT, this seems like a fairly common phenomenon, at least at relatively "lighter" journeys where one is still able to hold some level of awareness of oneself, even if it is a minuscule semblance of some awareness of some "part" of oneself.
Relatively "deeper" trips can, and often times do, take all semblance of anything previously known by the traveler and throws them totally away for the duration, e.g.
completely forgetting that "you" even exist or that "you" ever did exist or ever will exist (this is rather very common in relatively higher dosages + proper set & setting). Don't
ever underestimate the factors of set, setting, previous psychonautic experience, meditation practice, breathing practice, ability to manifest inner calm rather effortlessly when needed, etc. All this and more plays a huge role in what you/not you experience when traveling the hyperspatial realms.
I suggest being patient with yourself and the DMT experience itself NikkiP. Patience can only help any situation really.
Perhaps try to think of it in this way (simply to help you get different perspectives on your question):
What if it's DMT's way of attempting to tell you that you need to utilize your peripheral vision more than you have in your life up until now? Heck, I have used peripheral vision techniques in various meditation practices over the decades, to be able to see in the dark much more clearly and to avoid catastrophic traffic accidents in the split-second nick of time.
That may sound rather odd, but DMT has communicated (never in words, but seriously communicated nonetheless) to me over the years many odd (but then ending up very useful/insightful) things that would make me give a big "WTF was that?" (always with a smile though) by the time I'd be approaching baseline consciousness after hyperspatial journeying.
Remember that any meaning that you might derive from a DMT trip is
your choice of meaning and your's alone. No phenomena means anything at all from the vantage point of "The Biggest Picture", but we, as human energy fields, are, for whatever reason, meaning-making machines so to speak. It really seems at times as though creating meaning out of the whole, phenomenological universe (which "means" absolutely nothing in & of itself) is what we're actually "meant to do".
On the other hand, I could be totally "off my rocker" :surprised .
Best of luck to you NikkiP.!
Peace.