First steps

[ThatChemGuy]

Hi everyone, new friends.
I'm a chemistry student (less than a year away from my degree, I hope) and I was always fascinated by mind-altering substances. English is not my native language so I'm sorry for every (present and future) linguistic mishaps. Also I'll always use Tor to post here so, sadly, my presence may be occasional.
I had a fair number of experiences with a fair number of substances (obviously I'm not going to list them here)... but never with DMT. Where I live DMT is like Iridium: extremely rare and otherworldly expensive.
Being a chemist I always wanted to try an extraction but I didn't want to buy source material from the internet and have it delivered to me because the sentence for heavy-drugs (i.e. not weed) related crime is pretty harsh in my country. But a couple of months ago a friend of mine came to me with some MHRB he bought nearly 10 years ago, so wheels are in motion now.
My main scientific interest atm is extraction solvent polarity and how it affects product yeld and purity. If, in the future, I'll get access to an NMR spectrometer (very remote possibility) I'll try to get a spectra of jungle spice (again, it's very remote but never say never).

Science apart, my "phylosophical" research is always ongoing (like many of you, I belive). Beign an extremely logical and scientific mind, my research, even if about completely ethereal 'stuff', actually resembles the scientific method a lot. You may think it's impossible to get to the Truth using only logic (and you're right) but, I think, logic helps a lot in creating a framework to work with, like understanding HOW the Universe works before asking WHY. ((p.s. "how" is not intended in a mechanical-scientific sense here, It's more like 'how God works?''how time works?' 'how things exist in this particular state?'.
Lately (couple of years) I'm trying to separate psychedelics from 'research' even if, at first, it got a big boost from them. The main reason is they may (imho) introduce biases in the framework that are very hard to find and correct. Another reason is that I'm actually pulling apart from illegal drugs... for obvious reasons.

I'm really curious about DMT because it can easily cause an ego-death experience (I never had one) but I'm equally scared by it: can an ego death actually shake my belief system to the ground? or is it a necessary extension? only time will tell.

For now, ThatChemGuy out. Peace and love.

 

[Expander]

Hey. Welcome on board! I'm pretty new here as well and got a similar background as you: non-native speaker and a scientific background, even if it's not chemistry.
I'm a very scientific and logical mind as well and I'm not planning on getting rid of everything of that patterns.
I think DMT is a pretty good way to break down those logic (and often restricting) walls a little and trying to expand and explore the mind of a scientist. As already discussed in my introduction to say the experiences are hard to compare and therefore hard to interpret in a scientific way. What this molecule Dusty your mind is pretty hard to describe in human language as you may already know. This doesn't make it less interesting to experience.I found out, that going in a trip with a open mind (I usually keep on thinking 'show me what I have to see' and really mean it) and totally let go brings the most interesting results to me so far. It's up to you to try to interpret your experience afterwords in the scientific way. Even if your approach is, that this molecule just opens up the filter in your brain it's still hard to believe, that all of that happens just in your thoughts.
I also started to research on meditation for eleminating pre-flight anxiety, which had pretty beneficial effects on my general stress level. I never considered meditation as esoterical hocus-pocus anyway, but never tried it out of lack of interest.
I believe, to combine a scientific/logic and open mind is a pretty cool combination.
Have fun exploring!

 

[ThatChemGuy]

Thank you for your response!
I think it's pretty much what's I'm going to do, actually. I'm just waiting for my glassware to be delivered. A separatory funnel will really come in handy.

I have to say, in the end science isn't useful per se in the study of multi-dimensional reality, the great power of science comes from the fact that it's shared between individuals. So something like quantum mechanics is true for all living beigns (inside it's own 4-D boundary) and understandable by all human beigns.
Sadly it can probe only lower dimensions, let's say.

 

[Expander]

Indeed Have fun exploring and researching!