Exp. Report Experience and questions about first DMT trip

[dtlp]

First I guess I should give some info. I'm into Jung and I know a little eastern and western philosophy/religion, some esoteric/occult stuff as well, and I'm heavily scifi oriented. Have read, listened to podcasts, and other videos about trip report. I've tried mush and lsd in the past, but was never able to 'let go' because I always start thinking the concept of ego dissolution and psychs in general are some kind of spiritual trick or something. Haven't had any sort of bliss experience on any psych before. Just lethargic and sometimes cried and laughed with catharsis. So I figured I'd try some deemz to just full send it with no way of fighting it. Here's what happened.

Set: pretty decent, a little nervous but nothing from my life I feel that's bothering me.
Setting: Friend's backyard. Fire pit. Open garage near by. Dog on leash attached to a leader line above us.

Failed attempts of doses at .03 on a 2 digit scale and used in a dab rig. We try .06 next. Friend said he got very slight effects, we figure maybe the product is degraded or something. I load up .08.

I hit it and hold it in. Came on abruptly, very strong. Stronger than any trip I've done before, even 4g of APE. Looked around and it seemed like a film strip stuck on a single frame like a computer crashing, very vibratory and glitchy. Instant shift like my perceptual bandwidth increased to see what was always there, like the veil pulled back. Seemed like ME and THE ENVIRONMENT were being pulled apart and if I let it happen, I’d cease to experience the life of 'me'; I'd wake up as a literal different person in a literal different life - effectively, game over for me. Very familiar feeling and thoughts/realizations I haven't thought before but felt like I’ve experienced the EXACT same experience/thoughts to include the people and setting before (like eternal recurrence/eternal return), and that the only way I'd ever experience DMT was in this exact moment, like my life was all a setup and predestined specifically to take the DMT at that point. I felt struck by lightning and heard/felt a snap or a pop then immediately like an electrical cord was yanked from my mouth. I smelled and tasted an electrical fire and thought I had short circuited. I made weird mouth movements because of the taste of an electrical cord being yanked/cut and felt sparks shooting out of my nose. It was like I was being pulled off of life support or my simulation was crashing. I thought if I didn't resist, I was going to vibrate through the space between molecules and die. I also got some kind of mental image that I feel like I've seen before, as if it's some kind of loading screen between death and life and committing to it would increase the visibility of it and the next time I open my eyes I'd be living as a literal different person. I can't remember what it is but I want to say some kind of astronaut helmet wearing headphones and outlined with sharp angled buzzing colors moving outwards. I jumped up from my chair.

Surroundings seemed to take on a cardboard appearance where 2d objects formed together to make a 3d form exactly like a 3d cardboard model, and seemed like stage props. Even the stars seemed to be like stage lights or observers, almost like every star was an alien spaceship or camera. The vibe suddenly shifted and felt hellishly biblical like I realized I was in hell and that my two friends there were the devil, but also protecting me from something in a beneficent manner. This something was either God or the nature of reality (that this is hell and 'normal' life is just an overlay to hide this truth). They spoke like they knew some ultimate truth that I was just being made aware of and reassured me I’d be ok even now that I knew. They laughed and it felt like they were getting retribution on me, or were pleased that I finally had those realizations. But also like they finally succeeded in tricking me to take the drug. This is when I was convinced that I had to fight the trip because everything I've read about psychedelics were a lie - there is no hyperspace or entities or euphoria or bliss or anything, it's just a con to trick users into dying or soul capture or something. I grabbed onto my friend's hand to ground me back into normal reality and the dog's leader line above got interpreted as a literal lifeline, a failsafe to keep me tethered here in case I didn't want to die. I started walking around the slightly inclined grass but it seemed incredibly wobbly, unstable, and shifting/moving around like being incredibly drunk. While pacing around, I approached the open garage and was told I don't need to go in there, which got interpreted as "there's behind the scenes stuff in there, don't bother them" and that I wasn't supposed to know about it. One friend was blocking me from the firepit (obviously to be safe) but I took that as "you don't need to get too close to God/consciousness/truth/hellfire." I told them this is gonna be weird but I needed to jump around a bit then asked for a group hug to keep me tethered.

Even my friend's wife seemed to be "in on it" - and for this moment, myself and everyone there broke character during a movie scene and they were letting me wig out for a second before trying to get me back on script. The entire event seemed orchestrated like it had been planned for a long time and finally they figured "he is ready/we are ready to show him." I really wanted to describe all this to them but felt like it'd be a disservice or that I should stop talking about it or else I'd solidify that it was real. Also, a VERY synchronistic song came on shortly after.

TLDR: So the gist of this was that it seemed and felt like a blend of The Matrix, The Truman Show, and The Good Place.

My questions (answer how you want - spiritually, psychologically, just hallucinating, from experience, etc): What's up with that feeling of short circuiting? It felt totally physically real. Why did I smell/taste an electrical fire and feel sparks leaving my mouth and nose? Did I get close to ego death or breakthrough? I feel a little ashamed or embarrassed that I can't commit to the dissolution but it's so scary, I get convinced absolutely that I won't come back to experience this life in this body, like the narrative will end, and that "just let go" is a trap. I don't know how to get over this fear, I guess I kind of like this boring life. What's up with the sense that I wasn't necessarily talking to my friends, but I was talking to the actors that played the characters of my friends? What am I supposed to take from this experience? What am I supposed to learn about myself? Literally any other advise or insight you want to add.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Transform]

Hello and welcome to the Nexus! You've certainly arrived at the right place to explore these questions. My main answer is "yes, DMT can be unbelievably strange (and it sounds like you got off lightly)!"

I think it's best to regard these things with a healthy dose of scepticism - but it's easy to say that when one isn't in the midst of such an experience. It's ultimately up to you how you make sense of reality, and what I think one of the things that psychedelics can do is show us how our reality-building faculties work. Mind you, the first time I tripped was back in 1991, so it may have taken me a while to come to that tentative hypothesis.

If you're planning on exploring further, I'd advise getting a better scale and vaporisation device, since those doses sound a bit on the high side. Are you holding the hits in for long enough? Are you using any medications which could interfere with the action of psychedelics?

Another thing to try might be keeping your eyes closed. It would also be a good idea to ensure that you remain seated or reclined - your friends seem to have done a good job of keeping you out of harm's way.

I think you would do well to tone down your credulity a little and also consider what kind of mental environment you're cultivating for yourself. Do you practice any kind of pre-launch rituals, prayers or intention setting? How might you prepare your space?

Have you ever read any of Robert Anton Wilson's works?

Good to have you here, stay safe!

 

[dtlp]

Hello and welcome to the Nexus! You've certainly arrived at the right place to explore these questions. My main answer is "yes, DMT can be unbelievably strange (and it sounds like you got off lightly)!"

I think it's best to regard these things with a healthy dose of scepticism - but it's easy to say that when one isn't in the midst of such an experience. It's ultimately up to you how you make sense of reality, and what I think one of the things that psychedelics can do is show us how our reality-building faculties work. Mind you, the first time I tripped was back in 1991, so it may have taken me a while to come to that tentative hypothesis.

If you're planning on exploring further, I'd advise getting a better scale and vaporisation device, since those doses sound a bit on the high side. Are you holding the hits in for long enough? Are you using any medications which could interfere with the action of psychedelics?

Another thing to try might be keeping your eyes closed. It would also be a good idea to ensure that you remain seated or reclined - your friends seem to have done a good job of keeping you out of harm's way.

I think you would do well to tone down your credulity a little and also consider what kind of mental environment you're cultivating for yourself. Do you practice any kind of pre-launch rituals, prayers or intention setting? How might you prepare your space?

Have you ever read any of Robert Anton Wilson's works?

Good to have you here, stay safe!

Hey, thanks for the quick reply!

Yes, I try to remain skeptical to the things that come during a trip, but that fear of dying and not coming back to my body is one I can't seem to conquer.

I had informed my buddy to get a .000 scale but I think he understood it as 0.00 instead. We used a dab rig because I had been reading it's a really good way to go. Hot start didn't work for us but cold start did the job. I definitely made sure to hold the smoke in as long as I could. No medications.

I had fully intended to keep my eyes closed and remain seated, and I did a decent job until I got that fear of permanently ceasing to exist and had no control over myself when I jumped up, that's when I got the short circuit sensation, feeling of a cable being cut, and the electrical fire smell/taste. I had never seen any trip reports mentioning this sensation, so I wasn't aware it was a possibility. That combined with the feeling of vibrating out of life is what caused me to hold on to reality. Noteworthy: I did have a kind of mental breakdown a few years back and I think I slipped into psychosis for a bit (the books mentioned below helped pull me out and become normal again). I distinctly remember that I had the same electrical fire smell and thoughts that I had short circuited during that time as during this trip, but the trip was way more apparent - the smell and taste were strong, but definitely reminiscent of that dark time a few years back.

The days leading up to this I was listening to light/feel good instrumental music and breathing slowly and deeply throughout the days, as well as trying to convince myself it'll be a good experience and it's ok to let go, there's nothing to fear. I thought a lot to a Mckenna quote about how Nature loves courage and to throw myself off the cliff to find it's a feather bed. I don't pay attention to news or politics or any sort of negative information. I try to do things I enjoy doing and just being relaxed. When I trip at home I'll clean the house, shower, have some items ready, pray for a good time -though my last shroom trip was kind of a weird and tough one (the APEs).

Yes, I've read the Illuminatus trilogy, Schrödinger's Cat, Cosmic Trigger trilogy, Prometheus Rising, Quantum Psychology. I've also read a lot of PKD, including The Exegesis. about 5 or 6 books by Stan Grof including both Psychonaut books. And quite a bit of Jung. I suppose also worth mentioning is Huxley's Doors of Perception and Perennial Philosophy, as well as Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces. There's also a bunch of other random but similar stuff all related to consciousness or esoteric religion/spirituality. Again, I am very inclined toward SciFi and psychological and cerebral movies and shows.

 

[Transform]

Hm, that "electrical fire" olfactory sensation makes me wonder about a couple of things. One is the connection between the microbiome and mental health. I wonder if the "insane" intensity of the DMT come-up triggered a flashback to your previous episode of crisis, and in turn whether that time of crisis was connected to a microbial imbalance which led to the production of the odour. Of course, it also depends on what you consider to be a burnt electrical smell since there are several variations of this. If it's more of a plasticky smell, that could simply be related to the odour of the DMT itself, but the odour of burnt metal has a bit of an interesting tangent to it.

You may well be aware, clean metal has no odour of its own (maybe with the exception of osmium, but that's an extremely rare case for an exception). What we consider to be metal odour is in fact that of volatile molecules derived from the catalytic oxidation of skin oils on the metal surface. Similarly, the odour of blood derives from catalytic oxidation of skin oils by haemoglobin. My inference concerning electrical burnt metal would be that the spark releases catalytically active particles of metal and metal oxides which react with oils within the nasal cavity to produce the burnt smell. It's possible for a microorganism tm produce a burnt odour in a similar way, just as the similarity between the odours of iron and of blood are due to an near-identical reaction.

Anyhow, I'd best leave it at that for now, but I hope this provides a little food for thought!

 

[dtlp]

Hm, that "electrical fire" olfactory sensation makes me wonder about a couple of things. One is the connection between the microbiome and mental health. I wonder if the "insane" intensity of the DMT come-up triggered a flashback to your previous episode of crisis, and in turn whether that time of crisis was connected to a microbial imbalance which led to the production of the odour. Of course, it also depends on what you consider to be a burnt electrical smell since there are several variations of this. If it's more of a plasticky smell, that could simply be related to the odour of the DMT itself, but the odour of burnt metal has a bit of an interesting tangent to it.

You may well be aware, clean metal has no odour of its own (maybe with the exception of osmium, but that's an extremely rare case for an exception). What we consider to be metal odour is in fact that of volatile molecules derived from the catalytic oxidation of skin oils on the metal surface. Similarly, the odour of blood derives from catalytic oxidation of skin oils by haemoglobin. My inference concerning electrical burnt metal would be that the spark releases catalytically active particles of metal and metal oxides which react with oils within the nasal cavity to produce the burnt smell. It's possible for a microorganism tm produce a burnt odour in a similar way, just as the similarity between the odours of iron and of blood are due to an near-identical reaction.

Anyhow, I'd best leave it at that for now, but I hope this provides a little food for thought!

I did consider that this was just some kind of exposure therapy to my previous crisis because many of the elements were there.. actually, now that I think about it, it seemed almost like a complete recreation of my ~1.5 year long crisis. Religious trauma about going to hell, the electrical fire smell which is a very particular smell, the distrust of people around me due to the truman show feeling brought on by delusions of paranoia, and trying to "escape the matrix," extreme senses of synchronicity, the impending doom/dying feeling. Huh.. Yes I know this still sounds a little mental, but I'm a grounded and contributing member of society again haha.

Do you have any advise about the whole letting go part? I always meet that dissipation feeling with "I can relax into this and end the current dream and start a new game (reincarnation in the true sense of death/rebirth)."

Thanks for the insights btw, I think talking to you helped me realize the trip was a recreation of previous crisis.

 

[Transform]

Glad to have been of service - and we're quite accustomed to hearing of far crazier things around here, so you're good on that front. Your story leaves me wondering about the background to your crisis experience (and I'm very glad to hear you've recovered, btw), but before going too far down that rabbit hole (I'm no psychiatrist, after all) we'd best consider the question of letting go.

My first feeling comprises of wondering exactly what you desire to let go of and why - what makes you feel that you're holding back, and from what? Where would you be wanting to get to? Since this seems entirely a phenomenon of the mind, I ought to ask if you have any experience of meditation? You're striking me as quite a cogitatively inclined individual so do you engage with any particular techniques in calming the 'monkey mind'?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "dissipation feeling" - could you expand on this? And what if that turned out to be the letting go that you'd sought all along? (lol)

Beyond that, my own experiences with letting go have been painful and drawn out affairs, at least in the case of 'real life' situations so I'm feeling my capacity give meaningful advice has run up against a boundary. With any luck, some more of our lovely members will chime in soon enough.

One final thing to mention is the value I've found in harmala alkaloids as an adjunct to personal development - you may see that they get discussed quite a lot around here!

 

[dtlp]

Glad to have been of service - and we're quite accustomed to hearing of far crazier things around here, so you're good on that front. Your story leaves me wondering about the background to your crisis experience (and I'm very glad to hear you've recovered, btw), but before going too far down that rabbit hole (I'm no psychiatrist, after all) we'd best consider the question of letting go.

My first feeling comprises of wondering exactly what you desire to let go of and why - what makes you feel that you're holding back, and from what? Where would you be wanting to get to? Since this seems entirely a phenomenon of the mind, I ought to ask if you have any experience of meditation? You're striking me as quite a cogitatively inclined individual so do you engage with any particular techniques in calming the 'monkey mind'?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "dissipation feeling" - could you expand on this? And what if that turned out to be the letting go that you'd sought all along? (lol)

Beyond that, my own experiences with letting go have been painful and drawn out affairs, at least in the case of 'real life' situations so I'm feeling my capacity give meaningful advice has run up against a boundary. With any luck, some more of our lovely members will chime in soon enough.

One final thing to mention is the value I've found in harmala alkaloids as an adjunct to personal development - you may see that they get discussed quite a lot around here!

I don't mean to just dump all this in a bad way. Like I said, I've thought I'd come to terms with a lot and crawled my way out of some rabbit holes, made myself healthy again, did self-psychotherapy through being creative, spoke to a psychiatrist, and am currently in therapy (though more so for figuring out life plans and goal). I'm just sharing this information for conversation purposes and to find value/knowledge in/from trips and people more experienced than myself.

Crisis was brought on by many things all hitting at once. The first was the events of 2020 and a lot of negative information polluting my mind with fear, anxiety, existential dread, and fully buying into dogmatic religion as a prior athiest. I suddenly believed a lot of things i hadn't before, and I got carried away with it. While the world was seemingly falling apart, my personal life also got obliterated in all the ways you can imagine, which left me really out of touch and depressed. I looked into many different things over the course of this time period to try to find things that could give an answer and I found a few in unlikely places, namely the books previously mentioned. I also found correlation in what's called "tower moments" in tarot, "saturn return" in astrology, the nigredo in alchemy, the dark night of the soul, descent to the underworld in a Joseph Campbell/Jungian sense, and i suppose maybe Chapel Perilous a la Robert Anton Wilson?

I'm not exactly sure what I desire to let go of. Maybe I'm trying to make sure I'm psychologically and spiritually healed? I think I'm more so looking for some type of gnosis and increased self-awareness, plus I REALLY want to feel the bliss that people describe on these substances, insight into the universe, along with the meeting of entities/aliens/Gods, whatever. I'm not unhappy but I'm not exactly happy, I'm more so just content in a bored sense, so I'm looking to have a fresh go at the world where I actually feel enthusiastic about life. I also want to have the full experience that people talk about, breaking through to another side and returning, because I KNOW if it happens, it will solve the rest of my worries regarding the fear of letting go, and if that's taken care of, then the delusion and fear of not returning is solved. I used to just sit and meditate every day, for maybe a year and a half or so, but then I just incorporated it into every moment. I've gotten good at accepting and allowing whatever is happening around me without an emotional reaction to it - it's been years since I've even been angry and I can't even remember how to contort my face into a scowl anymore, and that kind of just about used to be my default haha. I shrug things off now like its primary nature. If I'm at work I'm just blanked out and solely focused on the work, or I'm letting my mind wander without latching on to feeling my thoughts. I am quite introverted and typically keep to myself, unless I'm at work, but I still remain pretty quiet unless spoken to.

I do think the dissipation is the letting go, from what I understand at least, and that this is the ego death that people mention is terrifying at first and then extremely fantastic. My problem is that in the moment I'm no longer thinking it's just a trip or hallucination or whatever - I become convinced that it's resist or die, without returning - like I'm willngly giving up my soul and will to live. I hear people say they melt into the universe, become one with it, lose their sense of self, that sort of stuff. I feel like I've almost gotten to that place a couple of times, but when it's there, I fight it and have the need to stay firmly in consensus reality. Like I can't just fizzle out to the universe because I still want to see where life takes me and I don't know if I'll return if I melt into the universe. I think my crisis allowed me to learn how to let go during normal life, to accept change as the only constant and not remain attached to things because it causes suffering. I can't take this with me into a trip, though.

I've just looked up harmala alkaloids and found I know a bit about them already - MAOI's. I'm not sure of their solo effect but I know it makes DMT ingestible and essentially become ayahuasca. I don't think I'm ready for that yet haha.

 

[Transform]

Hey, no problem at all with posting about this stuff - I never intended a dismissive tone (it was past a sensible bedtime for me again!)

It seems rather that we attuned to a certain resonance here - in the past few days I'd been exploring a point in my life where everything changed just as you describe it saturn's return, chapel perilous, and even as far as finding an actual Tower tarot card in my path on the street. Funniest of all is that I appear to be coming up to the 23rd anniversary of all that stuff having come to an absolute head (thanks, Bob!)

I'll have to keep this brief again, but I think we should remember the verse, "to fathom hell or soar angelic, take a pinch of psychedelic". Illumination always has the potential to be a double-edged sword, so remember to see the beauty of everyday things (and plant fruit trees if you can).

 

[dtlp]

Hey, no problem at all with posting about this stuff - I never intended a dismissive tone (it was past a sensible bedtime for me again!)

It seems rather that we attuned to a certain resonance here - in the past few days I'd been exploring a point in my life where everything changed just as you describe it saturn's return, chapel perilous, and even as far as finding an actual Tower tarot card in my path on the street. Funniest of all is that I appear to be coming up to the 23rd anniversary of all that stuff having come to an absolute head (thanks, Bob!)

I'll have to keep this brief again, but I think we should remember the verse, "to fathom hell or soar angelic, take a pinch of psychedelic". Illumination always has the potential to be a double-edged sword, so remember to see the beauty of everyday things (and plant fruit trees if you can).

Oh I didn't interpret your tone as dismissive whatsoever. Again I want to thank you for even having this conversation. Even if I were to interpret it as criticism, I'd take it constructively, so seriously don't worry about that aspect! I just wanted to iterate that I'm cluing you in to any aspect that may have/ did impact my trip, because I'm eager to be open and to learn/grow, as well as hopefully incorporate this path in the future.

I lol'd at the 23 reference to Wilson! I think movies are a GREAT way to use analogies and obviously The Number 23 with Jim Carrey comes to mind, which shows the synchronicity and possible accompanying psychosis when taking synchronicities WAY too far. Though I do admit that maybe some movies are responsible for producing some of my fears/delusions because they hit really close to home in the moment of a powerful trip or even crisis.. Literally finding a tower tarot card in the street is wild, and I'll confirm there are such instances of synchronicity that are just as mind boggling as tripping and I can't discount them.

I thought of that specific quote during my drive to work this morning. I'd like to mention that since my trip, I have felt more participatory with life than I have previously, like being more talkative and engaging at work.