i'm newer to the deems but have been jumping in with both feet over the last 2 mos since my first trip. have ab 15-20 trips under my belt rn and just completed my first extraction last weekend. i've definitely been enjoying the experimentation phase and the newness of the type of awakening this magical stuff provides. i've noticed phases as well even in my short frame of reference so far. you just brought up something in ur post that made my jaw drop though.
can't say i've experienced the hand thing you describe, probably just bc i try to keep my eyes closed for most of the trip to try to make it easier to bt or remain in the dmt space when in a bt, but my last few trips have been similar to one another in when i close my eyes there is a very short period of the vibrancy and beautiful colorfulness and rapture but it quickly gives way to a much less "pretty" or "exciting" state that up until now has lasted the whole trip. it's like everything goes kindof hazy and out of focus and... meh? or kindof grey, like i'm standing in a cloud of swirling smoke with very faint colors
trying to show through it but not able.
i really hope this doesn't last long. i'm taking a short break at the moment to hopefully reset and to not let it form any kind of a mental conditioning where i'm triggering this type of trip to occur out of expectation. anyway, the part that caught me off guard was this translucent grid u mentioned. in these last two trips i've been seeing the grid too. it's been appearing usually between my 2nd and 3rd hits as the effects are really coming on in full, right before going out. it starts to materialize. for me it basically looks like very very small dots arranged in the air in a 3d cubed pattern like if the room i was in was filled with maybe 1x1x1 inch clear cubes. everywhere there would be a corner, theres a tiny differently colored dot forming a 3 dimensional cubed grid in the space. and it's all kindof connected with this transluscent goo. thats literally the words i used in the trip report i recorded afterward bc i didn't want to forget i was seeing it. needless to say my mind has been running with all of the sim theory information i was devouring back in like 2014-15 ish haha. i had been planning to post ab it as well to ask if anyone else experiences this.
but what really tripped me out was when i put my meta quest headset on yesterday to play some vr games and saw the grid at startup while it was setting the safety boundary so u don't take out ur tv or ur dog (or ur kid) in the middle of a virtual sword fight. the headset maps ur surroundings and anywhere there is an obstruction there's a 3d grid in the air. small dots. in space. in a cubed pattern. u seein' where i'm goin' with this?...