Aspects of the Entheogenic Experience: Death/Rebirth
My first time with DXM was rough. Having only taken about 150mg I should only have been on a first plateau trip. However, shortly after I reached the peak of my trip, I began to panic immensely. Everything around me in my room took on a dark, different, confusing appearance. I started to cower on my bed, leaning down on my hands and knees to try to catch my breath. When I looked at my hand and arms, I could see my skin was beginning to melt. I could slowly see more muscle and bone under my skin, and began to feel the skin on my face and chest melting. I could see myself from a third-person angle, writhing on my bed dying and melting.
And then, just like that I was normal; my skin was attached to me, and my surroundings remained confusing yet unthreatening. I was crying by this point, though I don't know when that started. I sat down and eventually managed to relax by smoking some cannabis, but my first DXM trip stands as my most frightening trip of all time.optimystic - dextromethorphan
It was early morning,after-party with a lot of MDMA.So we decided to "clean our heads" with acid.2 hours after admiting one black"mycro dot"LSD, I begin to realise that it will be strong.My "trip sensor" was telling me.After a short upset, flash came wery fast.At first I have become(felt like) a child, than like a baby, than like a monkey, I didn´t understand nothing, I had fear of humans,I couldn´t talk and interact with others, cause everyone had their own upset, later I had fear of everything-a baby monkey, then some kind of strange radioactive noise (which was coming from a sky,at first I tougth that was alien space craft-than I realised something more powerful,like strong(invisible) electro-magnetic field that came and suck my mind,soul and life all throught back of my neck,sucking every cell off of my brain,burning me painfully,slowly,my eyes turned up around so I could see how is my brain melting...cell by cell.and than just black),than I died.I died of fear of dying..-dont remmember for how long I was in black out, it didn´t seem too long,I start to realise that I didn´t die,my new reality was much worser than death, something between life and death,a massive emptiness of nothing, a twilight zone, I remember that moment cause than I really wanted to die,didint want to stay forever kept in that hole,death has better "taste" cause I´ve been tested it yet, it couldnt be worse than death. If I had a gun,I wouldn´be writening this right now. I couldnt think...than,I mean later(cause time died too,time didn´t exist at all, it was just one endless moment, when I realise that I am alive, but empty,souless, shell-like state, without a spirit, soul and mind- accepting that horrific reality,that feeling of lonlyness without end, that was peak of my horror-trip. Soon I felt like a ghost living in empty shell-my body was shell...so I realise that I am alive, but still "they" were keeping my mind,or was I cursed to stay paralised and crasy forever, sitting and watching like a plant, and couldnt tell noone what is really happening in my mind, cause I culdnt speak,or move any part of my body,couldnt do anything to show that I need help....I started to think: now everyone will laught "look at her,pore, what she has done from herself, so young, so pretty, but so stupid to take that drug,and stay paralised..haha..how stupid was she"...and "what would my mom say when she sees what has left from her dauther"..or "she is mentally ill, and must live to the rest of her life in mental institution".so I realise that I am thinking-that means progress, maybe I wouldnt stay invalid and crasy..maybe there is hope, maybe I will be back.than slowly time has been back, second later I was second better...that last up an a hour or two,..maybe I felt asleep between,..at some point I remembered last night-party-MDMA-morning after-taking LSD,, I remembered everything at the moment... and it was all bad trip, and I will be o.k. hopfully...than I saw that I pised up into my pants,but I was happy that I am realising things like that...I didint felt shame at all-I was happy like a child,I felt I was safe,I was thinking normally again,everything was as it use to be(except my pants)..I wasn´t crasy anymore...I came back to reality, but whole week I was remembering horrific details from the other side... Sorry for grammar mistakes, I am from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegowina, English is my second language!!!wish u all best.
Tanny - LSD(after MDMA)
Each thought I'm given brings me closer to the end,
But as these letters dribble onto this page and my heart slows its beat,
I remember there is no end just as there was no beginning....
So in this gap of empty thought,
I have become the alpha of my own omega,
where I'm next to nothing more than a mass of awkward life, struggling to die
for another chance to live. . .
So While Abraxi dance around my thoughts to the music of my brain, I notice that
this dream becomes more lucid each day.
With that being said, I can no longer stand the sight of time,
for we never could see eye to eye.....
as I watch my old skin fade into the night, I cant help but gasp a breathless sigh,
wondering if I was ever alive?
Echoes of truth become null in this void,
and the light I thought I was just went out...
...but as dark it is in this place,
I'll be alright, as sure as I'm already dead.
In this thought I'm born again, as lost as the past and as sure as the future.....
Alas! my temple was never meant to fly, so I will continue to float in my bloody vessel,
waiting for it to pop like a balloon trying to leave it all behind......WAKE UP!The Red Calevera - doesnt matter....
My experience with salvia happened during the first semester of my freshman year of college. i had been very interested in salvia prior to my experience, and had tried it once in the summer before college with a friend of mine, but neither of us had any effects to it(probably because the salvia which we had purchased over the internet was a ripoff). so when i went to college in bozeman, mt. (where the drug culture is actually quite large), myself and a group of my friends decided to give it a shot. since i had smoked salvia the summer before, which was labeled 20x extract and had no effects to it, i decided to purchase the highest potency available (which happened to be the Purple level of the SalviaZone brand of extract, which i believe is 30x or 40x).
My friends and i then waited until the night and went out to the basketball court behind our dorms (not wanting to get written up for smoking in the dorms) and sat down in the grass next to the court. i decided to try it first, and we loaded my friends pipe with a large pinch of the salvia. then with everyone standing around me, i lit the pipe and inhaled a large gulp of the smoke. it seemed like the salvia hit just as i exhaled and instantly everything in my sight zoomed away from me. the next few minutes are very difficult to explain, but i'll try to explain the experience to the best of my abilities. once everything in my site had zoomed away from me, i was thrown into a new reality where everything was strange. i wasn't seeing anything through my eyes. i was completely in my mind. then somehow i realized that the reality the i had been living my entire life in had just been a joke, and everyone and everything in the universe knew about it... kind of like the entire universe had just tricked me for the sake of sick humor (like the movie the Truman Show, multiplied by a million). i was then in an odd looking neighborhood, where every surface looked as if it was made out of Legos. I was in the front yard of a house and had seen someone across the street in another yard (once again the person look the legos, but i recognized a familiar female face on the figure.) i felt that the girl across the street could help me and stop the pain that i was going through, so i ran to her, but as i crossed the street what looked like a mail truck stopped in front of me and men jumped out of it and grabbed me, the woman that i was running to also grabbed me and they tackled me on the lego textured pavement. they then threw me in the back of the mail truck and began to drive off, while restraining me. for some reason there was a christmas tree in the back of the truck and i was pinned by the people against it, with the pine needles digging into me. i then screamed something like "stop this, let me go back" and they all laughed at me, they didn't say anything to me but i heard voices explaining that the world was ending, and that everything i knew was wrong. i don't have any other vivid recollections of the trip, other than everything becoming dark and the world turning into a wheel, and then everything in the world stripping apart (like threads unraveling the sphere of reality that i was in, which doesn't probably make any sense). i then came back to reality and my friend was laying on top of me with a terrified look on his face. my friend explained to me that they had tried to take me inside after i had taken the hit of salvia, and then face planted into the cement sidewalk next to the basketball course. he said that when they touched me i screamed and tried to fight them, and that i had tried to sprint off towards the street, so he had to tackle me and lay on me to restrain me. at which point i came out of my trip. for the next 45 minutes to an hour i kept going back into the trip (and i believed that every time that i slipped back into it that i was being ripped away from one reality and placed into another, like parallel universes.)
i eventually came down, but it was the single most horrifying experience of my life. i understand that i made countless mistakes with the setting and how i used it (especially with the high potency, but i can't even imagine how any substance could ever do that. i'm still scared from it, and it somewhat distorted my sense of reality for several months.
all i have to say is damn... hahahaJames - Salvia (Purple Level of the Salvia Zone Brand)
I've been told that psychedelic experiences will continue to get better and better with each use. But in my case, my first has been my best. I went into my trip completely unaware of what was to come, with a totally open mind. I ate about 3.5 grams (dried) and smoked some marijuana to calm my nerves. I didn't know what was to be expected, but I immediately scensed when the psilocybin was doing its job. My limbs began to feel, and almost look, detached from the rest of my body, as though they were not my own. Then the laughing then set in. It was entirely uncontrollable and maniacal. There wasn't a thing in the world that didn't have potential to enduce laughter in me. And once the laughing subsided, I sunk into another world. A world that knew no limits. My thoughts flowed around me, and around the room, like an ancient river. And as my thoughts left the burden called my body, my life worked its cycles. It was as though each cycle signified the beginning, middle , and end of a single life. And then it would start all over, but with a different theme and color than the last. As my mind, as well as the cycles, slowed, I reconnected with the 'normal' world. But I re-entered with a morphed perception of reality. It was the most eye-opening, peaceful, and completely extraordinary moment in my life up to that point. You haven't lived until you've allowed your mind to leave the weight of your body behind to explore new dimensions.
CarolEYEn - Magic Mushrooms
Around the age of 19 I discovered through reading that Psilocybin is a very weak toxin and I had in my posession several ounces of dried P. Stuntzii and decided to test the hypothesis. I took a ziplock bag stuffed to capacity with the dried mushrooms and simmerd up a tea with about 3 cups of water. After 15 minutes I realized that I had to get to bed if I was ever going to get there, and that alone was a profound heroe's journey in its own right, but shortly after I got into bed I felt quite a bit of fear that I might have indeed found the toxic level of Psilocybin.
So I died and went to Hell (I was still in the final stages of being raised Catholic (this event was the final nail in that coffin)) and experienced many layers of damnation, but was able to remain centered and without any real fear. I was not so much resigned as completely accepting of what went on around me, and after a great deal of time and punishments I was discovered by Satan because I simply did not belong there. I was then given a final test - all the pain in the universe - which manifested as a point of the brightest light imaginable that seared throughout my being, but still I remained centered and endured without tears or screams. After passing that test I was given a long lecture by Satan, of which all I can remember is that "total freedom is total evil", interpret that as you will - I take it to mean that without boundaries our will lacks any direction and will certainly be lost; but either way it came from the mind of a young man under the influence of probably over 50 mgs. of Psilocybin and should be taken with several grains of salt, perhaps an entire horse-lick. After the lecture I was released and slowly edged back from death, which was by far the most fascinating part of the experience. I wish I could describe the sense of non-being slowly becoming a being in a physical body, it was befuddling at first re-learning how to move muscles and breathe, and all the while the afterglow of the drug itself was getting in the way of the reawakening. After some time I managed to get up and discovered that I had wet the bed, so my first duty as a reborn human was cleaning up the mess I left behind from my last life. That was almost as profound to me as the event, and doing that load of laundry was a tiny exercise in joyful drudgery.
Tea Junky - Psilocybe Stuntzii
Journey Into Naked Awareness:
A First Experience with the Ayahuasca Analogue Jurema
"True nakedness is the one and only sign of truth. Yes, only truth
is naked. So that you may rise within yourself to the place where
truth is laid bare, each of you must become free of everything
inside that is opaque and impervious to the divine world. When
you achieve this nakedness, you can go very high and receive
messages, advice, wisdom, love and God's help. You must stand
quite naked before heaven, that is to say, stripped of your
greed, your self-interest and your false ideas. The more you
strip away, the higher you rise. Then, when you come back down -
and you always do have to come back down, because as long as you
are on the earth you have to perform your earthly tasks - you
dress yourself again, that is to say, you again take up your
activities, your projects, your relationships with your family,
friends and neighbours and so on. It is necessary to clothe
oneself for the world, but not for heaven: heaven loves only
'naked' beings." -Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
In the spring of 2004, I had the opportunity to teach a short course on "The Varieties of Spiritual Experience" at the Renaissance Academy (part of Florida Gulf Coast University) in Naples, Florida. The course was only eight sessions and met once a week for two hours. For purposes of better dialogue and that we would all be on the "same page," I asked the students to read two books, William James'"Varieties of Religious Experience," and a relevant book that had just been published, John Horgan's "Rational Mysticism."
The first class, about 15 or so people showed up. It was an interesting discussion, because most had come with no background in mysticism or even spiritual experience, and there was just one guy, an older man in his late forties (or so it seemed -- I was 34 at the time), who had been attracted to the course and who was obviously quite seriously into all this stuff, even moreso than myself. So when I broached the subject of "mysticism," and asked the mostly older Neapolitan audience what it meant to them, one conservative-looking Neapolitan raised his hand and said,"I associate that with what primitive people used to do..." Needless to say, once I got going that first session, that guy never came back. But it was somewhat remarkable that many of the others did return for the subsequent sessions, and were open to hearing me out.
I just want to relate a couple of things that happened during the course of our sessions, because they shed light on my later explorations of "entheogens." (Note: I will be mainly referring to these so-called drugs as "entheogens," or god-inspirers -- I prefer this term over "hallucinogens," "pyschedelics," and even over "plant medicine" because there are some substances, like MDMA and LSD-25, which are chemically synthesized in a laboratory. Two other useful terms are "shamanics," in the sense that these substances take one on a shamanic journey into the nature of consciousness; and "consciousness expanders," because they do seem to expand one's consciousness beyond the normal, everyday consciousness. Perhaps these are even preferable to "entheogens," because certainly not everyone who trips has an experience of God, but "entheogens" seems to be the term many are using these days, perhaps mainly to distance these substances from the pejorative connotations of years!
past).
At one point, maybe halfway through the course, I dropped a bombshell and made it known that I was open to exploring entheogens myself -- as William James himself had done a century earlier, as well as John Horgan, who had been a materialist science writer before taking Ayahuasca -- and I invited response. Everyone seemed opposed to the idea, including my mother who was also sitting in for the course (!) All except for that one guy, who it turns out was a very experienced user of plant medicine (at this point, I didn't even know how to pronounce "Ayahuasca" -- he corrected me). For most of the course he had been just listening intently and basically holding his tongue, but now he felt the pressing need to say some things. In essence, the point he made was that plant medicines such as Ayahuasca, which is mainly what he had explored (and perhaps he had come because Horgan's book deals so much with Ayahuasca -- highly recommended, by the way), opened doors to other dimensions of existence that might otherwise take years upon years of meditation and other spiritual practice to attain to. He argued that for those who feel the strong desire to explore these other dimensions of existence, but who have not found meditation and other spiritual practice to be effective pathways, why shouldn't they be allowed to maturely, consciously explore these natural, God-given plant medicines? And he basically was defending me, too, saying that obviously all of my searching and researching and studies had led me to a similar conclusion. But all of the others in the class, perhaps especially my mother, expressed some grave concern and reservations about me. I guess because I seemed so pure and innocent, whereas this other guy seemed like a hardened veteran in comparison. Or I should say: A softened veteran. Because there was a softness and glow in his face and eyes that were hard to mistake for anything other than that of an initiate into more awak!
ened states of being. Couldn't everyone see that, I wondered?
It's interesting that at that point I didn't try to befriend this man and ask him to basically "hook me up." Nor did he approach me. There was a part of me that wasn't ready to really go there, and from what I read from Horgan's mixed experiences and somewhat frightening description of Ayahuasca, I wasn't too interested in trying it anyway. But the real reason was because I was still, at that point, not wanting to take or ingest anything that would in any way hurt my body, or that would radically change myself. In theory I was open to entheogens, but there was a part of me that just was not prepared to go there. At least, that's what I'm hypothesizing now in retrospect. Let me just backtrack a moment and tell you a little bit about my past history with drugs.
Until I was in my early twenties, I had no past drug history, actually. This was because at 14, I made a conscious decision that I wasn't going to do any mind-altering substance. The ironic thing was that a lot of my peers thought I was on drugs all the time, just because of the way I looked and acted. I had long hair, played the electric guitar, and apparently looked pretty freaky and out of it most of the time. That was just for a couple of years, though. Once I got into distance running, I began to look and act different. In a sense, distance running was my drug for many years, and I kind of prided myself on having this natural high and not having to use drugs to get my happy on. In fact, I became adamantly opposed to all drugs and alcohol. This was partly due to messages from my parents and the media, but also because I was becoming a control freak and purist who would never do anything that might make me do something crazy, or that would in some way damage my body or psyche (or take away from my athletic performance). It's interesting that the same year that I said "no" to drugs, I also: Quit the guitar and stopped listening to music; quit masturbating; stopped watching t.v.; started distance running; became radically antisocial (I stopped talking to even my closest friends, and never dated or partied); and decided -- no, swore -- I was never going to ever use another swear word ever again. Without knowing anything about Nietzsche, I was well on my way to becoming an ubermensch. I had chosen the ascetic path, and it was a path I more or less kept on for most of my adult life.
So basically, I was a pretty straight arrow (without any judgment attached to that), on the path of straight and narrow. Even when I began to loosen up a teency bit towards the end of college, I had the attitude of "I'll try anything once, but only once." So I got drunk -- once. And I smoked pot -- once. And that was it. Then I got into Yoga, and all of the teachers I was following were saying that drugs were a no-no, and so I continued on the straight and narrow path I had set for myself way back when. In reality, though, I had been open to doing entheogens since Graduate school, since the age of 25-26 when I went through a kind of drug-free hippie period (I couldn't find a holding company), but Yoga took me away from that. So there's the short of it, and now we can continue with our tale...
It wasn't until a couple of years after that course I taught at the Renaissance Academy that I became friends with two old souls, heart beings who guided me through some journeys with E. It was the beginning of shamanic journeying, and I quickly realized what I had been missing. Not that I hadn't had beautiful entheogen-free experiences in my life (I'll get to some of them later), but this was something else. What I also appreciated about it was that it allowed us to cut to the chase, without much ritual or the other conventional trappings of religion that are usually requisite of the seeker. Or: we could create our own rituals, and individualize the process more. We didn't have very strong doses of E, but it still brought me into a state of blissful Presence, beyond egoic thought patterns and mental conditionings -- no past, no future, no need to do anything or be anything in particular, just Be. Just Be the Love that I Am, that We Are. That was E for me. I h!
ave done it 4 times over the past couple of years.
But E is illegal (Schedule 1 -- no medical value(!)), and we had been told by some friends that San Pedro is very similar in its effects to E, plus it's legal. So I experimented with that next. The first time I had a fairly deep experience (for me), and you can read about it in a separate tome ;) that I wrote. The second time I tried San Pedro, with hopes of blasting off into the mescalito empyrean with a higher dose, I never left the ground basically, but it was still an overall positive experience (you can read about that experience, too, in a separate piece).
After I did San Pedro the second time, I got into reading Ralph Metzner's book on Ayahuasca, plus Daniel Pinchbeck's "2012" and "Breaking Open the Head." These books began to inspire me to take the "Vine of the Dead." I asked my friend and mentor who has been guiding me, and he thought it was a good idea, too. He did some research and told me that I should try an Ayahuasca Analogue (known as "Jurema") prepared with Mimosa Hostilis Root Bark, and Pegamum Harmala (Syrian Rue). I did quite a bit of research, too, and discovered that this is one of the better Ayahuasca Analogue's, perhaps not quite as potent as Ayahuasca itself, but quite effective. (And I was all for doing this, but you know the thought did cross my mind that one of the ingredients has the word "hostile" in it, and the other "harm" and "rue"(!), but I wasn't scared...)
So I ordered the stuff from Bouncing Bear Botanicals, let it sit in the fridge for a couple of weeks, and then just the other night (August 3rd), prepared it and drank it. But before I relate the experience, I want to go into "set and setting" (Timothy Leary's terms) a little bit, because this seems to be so important when doing these shamanic journeys.
One thing I want to mention is that I spoke with my father before the journey. I wanted to call him because we hadn't spoken for some time, and I wanted to let him know that I still loved him, and possibly heal some things with him. I didn't want to push any buttons, or confront him too much on any thing, just to check in with him. I don't want to go into a lot of details, but one thing he said to me which I feel was important and possibly symbolic was, "You're thinking a lot better now." Basically what he meant was that I'm a bit more grounded these days in material reality, whereas he used to say to me things like, "What planet are you on?" Because I used to be much more airy fairy and idealistic. Not that I'm judging that as good or bad, though he certainly did. But when you do these kinds of shamanic journeys, I'm finding that it definitely is important to be grounded and to be focused and to have one's wits about one. Perhaps that's one reason I was read!
y for this experience.
Because I do kind of feel that, despite what I may have consciously chosen in regard to taking drugs or not taking drugs, there are other forces at work here. I do feel, and have felt for some time, that there must be guides who are protecting me from myself basically, and leading me to take these journeys at the right time and in the right place. That's just my sense, I could be wrong, but there's been so many instances in my life when I seemed to have been saved from some tragic fate by an unseen hand. And when I was going through the journey the other night, I could definitely see more clearly how my entire life had led up to taking Ayahuasca. It felt like everything was just a preparation for this experience, and I had been prepared for it by non-material entities, call them spirit guides, angels, ascended masters or what have you. I'm open to this being just a delusion caused by the plant medicine (something Pinchbeck discusses in 2012). But I'm getting a!
head of myself...
When I did San Pedro the second time, I recited all of my intentions in front of my video camera, recording them for posterity. I didn't do that this time (nor did we capture anything on video), but my intentions were essentially the same: Healing, opening my heart, connecting with higher realities, exploring other dimensions, gaining more insight into my life and life's purpose, receiving answers to all or at least some of my existential questions, meeting God? (didn't have any preconceived notions or expectations, actually, especially in regard to that last one). My set was, at least on the surface, very good, steady, ready -- I was ready. I had done my homework (lots of reading and watching YouTube videos (including Krystle's)), fasted, clarified my intentions, and felt I knew what to expect. And as far as the setting -- A.'s temple is a beautiful, safe place to journey, and she was available to help me if I needed it, and as it turns out, I did...
Preparation: I used a few different preparation recipes I had gotten off the internet. First, I put about 10-15 grams (I used a small kitchen scale that probably wasn't too exact) of the Mimosa bark in the blender with a couple inches of water and blended it on low for a couple of minutes, putting that in the fridge for later. Then, I boiled about 5 grams of the Syrian Rue, chewing and swallowing a small bit of it raw. I boiled it for about 15 minutes, straining it once and re-boiling for just 5 more minutes. It actually smelled pretty good, and it was making me hungry. So I enjoyed at least drinking it (a couple golden chalices full) as I prepared the Mimosa. I boiled the Mimosa also for about 20 minutes, straining it once during that time. I drank it approximately 20-30 minutes after consuming the Syrian Rue. The Mimosa was this brownish liquid that really resembled the San Pedro I had consumed only last month. Fortunately, though, it didn't taste nearly !
as gross. Still, at a certain point, I just couldn't drink any more, possibly because the Syrian Rue had begun to take effect. So I had a whole chalice-full left over, and I mistakenly thought that I might be able to drink it later if nothing much happened. In retrospect, given that my experience probably rated a 7 in intensity on a 1-10 scale, and given that once the Mimosa really kicked in, I was freaking out a bit, it was very good that I was not able to drink that other cup of Mimosa. That's one reason why I say I feel like I was being protected. Who knows what would have happened if I had forced myself to drink to the dregs. (Note: The time was approximately 9 pm when I had finished consuming everything.)
The Syrian Rue began to take effect first as I felt my body begin to become calmer and more relaxed. After I had jumped on the trampoline outside for several minutes, I went in and sat in my little room which had a guitar, a blanket, a video camera, and that's about it. I didn't use a candle, just a little incense. (I had no music playing, either, though a few hours later A. put on a CD of Tibetan Bells, which played the rest of the night.) Soon I began to see visuals, at first not too distinct, and I began to become concerned that this would turn out milquetoast like my San Pedro experiences. But it wasn't long before my visual space opened up into a 3-D iMax-like theater and the visuals became clearer. Only now it was this tacky, kitschy, cartoonish, kind of Disney-like realm that I was experiencing. I had actually read Ayahuasca trip reports that talked about this realm, and one where the journeyer was thinking, as I was, "Gee, I hope this doesn't go on f!
or the duration..." Well thankfully it didn't for him and it didn't for me. It could be that for the dose I took, that's what was going to come in first. I actually was seeing this weird pre-teen world, with cartoon cut-out kids floating by as well as cartoonish geometric forms. It came to me that this is perhaps what children who pass on see as a way of comforting them before they transition on to other realms. It also occurred to me that perhaps this was just a mirror reflection of my own consciousness at that point in the journey (and/or the consciousness that most of us are in most of the time (!)). Because I didn't know whether I would be stuck in this really cheesy, kiddie realm the rest of the night, I began to speak my intentions aloud, saying things like, "I'm seeking guidance...Is there anyone who can guide me?" I was asking for true guides, though, I wasn't open to just anything coming in.
What's interesting is that as far as I can recall, the entire journey was free of any power animals, shamans, guides, aliens, clowns, fairies, deities, or anything much personal like that. But as I say, I don't recall any -- there very well could have been some visitations at some point in the night which I'm being blocked from remembering. Because what I'm understanding about DMT, both from the experience and also other people's trip reports, is that it's both this whole strange new world, and it's very ephemeral, like dreams (DMT is also involved with these) -- if you don't make a conscious effort to immediately write it all down or otherwise record what's happening, you almost immediately will forget 80-90% of what is revealed to you (although this high figure is probably more true for the smoked and/or injected DMT experience, as I'm discovering from Rick Strassman's excellent book, DMT, The Spirit Molecule). And fortunately or unfortunately, I didn't recor!
d anything this time...
Next I went outside for a brief period to see if anything would be different out in nature. My experience wasn't too different at this point, and I was getting eaten by mosquitoes, so I went in. Somewhere around this time I felt like I was about to vomit, so I quickly went in to the bathroom and knelt in front of the toilet. I actually haven't vomited for decades or more (seriously), and the one time I tried to do this certain yoga practice that requires vomiting, I found myself unable to do it. Partly it may be due to squeamishness, but also no doubt it's a strong stomach. I never puked much as a kid, either, while my older brother D. seemed to do it at least once a day. So I wasn't that surprised that even though it really felt like my body was ready to expel the foreign material, and though I even actually began to have convulsions, it never actually happened and after a few minutes, I was back in the other room. (Note: I didn't eat for 5 hours prior to the!
journey, and by this point, I was about 7 hours without food in my stomach. For what it's worth, A. told me after that my body was excreting this horrible smell -- I mean, more than usual :). Perhaps it was all it could do besides vomiting.)
The next part of the journey began when I asked A. if she would lie down in the bedroom with me. This was maybe an hour into it, but I wasn't keeping track of the time, I'm just guessing. By this time, I had graduated out of Kiddie City into what seemed to be a more mature, adult cosmos replete with sacred geometry and I don't remember what else. I sat up in bed and began to relate to A. what I was experiencing. All I remember is being amazed that I could be in seemingly two distinct worlds at the same time. This one world, the one opened to me via Ayahuasca, was v e r y s l o w, and seemed to be taking me down into the molecular level of things, but I was still able to talk about what was going on. I kept saying things like, "This is just amazing!" (Jerry Garcia, Captain Trips, used to say, "What a trip!) A. wanted to go to sleep, though, and she started to take me back into the other room, saying that she was happy that I was having such a !
great experience, but it was hard to relate as she hadn't ingested and was tired.
I think it was at around this point that I began to go so deep into this other realm that it became much realer for me than the physical dimension. For seconds and maybe minutes, I was losing all awareness of my body and that I was having an Ayahuasca journey at all. And it wasn't like I was lying down, either. I was standing up, and my eyes were pinned completely open and bulging out (according to A.), but I wasn't aware that I was even here. At several points when I did "come to," I began to get "concerned" (as I put it to A.) that I might get lost in this other world and not come back. It wasn't just that, though. I was really beginning to become convinced that everything I thought was real up until that point had been an illusion. I was dreaming it, or it was dreaming me. I wanted A. to hold me just to reassure me, but then I wasn't even sure if she was real. And then I got in the shower for the same kind of reality check, but I wasn't convinced that !
was real, either. I kept wandering into the bedroom, and A. kept leading me back, and the repetition made me think that I was trapped in some time loop that I would never get out of.
At this point, I asked A. to call K., because I was feeling that if this went any further, I might completely stay trapped in the multi-dimensional Ayahuasca world. A. called and it was good to hear K. on the phone (on speaker), and after he said a few things to me (most of which I just caught little bits of), and A's comforting words, I began to sense that I would make it through. Essentially, K. said that this was just a certain stage in the process of the journey and it would probably last just a while longer. I was experiencing the dissolution of my ego, and the Aya. was showing all the places where I hold tension, and what I need to let go of. One thing that K. said to me at that point particularly sticks in my memory. He asked, "This is what you wanted, isn't it?" And I was feeling, "Yes and no." Because not many people would willingly, knowingly seek for their ego boundaries blasted apart -- especially if they knew what a harrowing ride they were in for.
But I needed to hear what K. said because I seemed to have forgotten that it was the DMT that was creating/facilitating this experience, and that once it had run its course, I would come back down to earth. Amazing that I would forget that, you might think, but again, what I was experiencing seemed so real that it felt quite plausible that I might not return from that consciousness. I couldn't even get but a few words out at a time. Both K. and A. wanted to know what I was experiencing, but there was no way that I could describe it. All I could say at one point was, "I feel rooted" (the Syrian Rue was making me feel like a tree rooted to the earth -- I found it even more powerful than the San Pedro, and much smoother -- the SP made my body feel puffed up). I several times requested that K. come over to where we were, and I recall him saying that even if he were to do that, there wouldn't be much that he could really do as he didn't know what I was experiencing. In retrospect, it was good that I spent the rest of the journey on my own (K. hung up, and A. went into the bedroom to try to sleep -- which she didn't because she was worried about me, as she told me the next day), because the next part of the journey took me into spaces I really could only go on my own. Perhaps the experience would have been quite different with someone else with me.
Note: There were moments of lucidity during the experience when I could still think fairly rationally in the 3D word, and there were other times when my consciousness was completely absorbed in the other dimensions, almost like I was asleep and dreaming, just more intensely. Sometimes K. or A. would say things to me and "I" just wasn't there any more to answer them, or I would hear them, but it seemed from very far away. Or due to time dilation, because time was slowed down so much in this other realm, it would take me the longest time to answer. At one point, when I came out of/back from the multi-dimensional world for a spell, I recalled a humorous, relevant story that I once heard related by Ammachi, one of my first teachers on the yoga path. In the story, there are these three yogis meditating in a cave. So they're just sitting there in lotus pose, deep in meditation for years, and finally one of them says, "Hey, did you see that horse?" And then a few more years pass, and the second one says, "Yeah, that was awesome!" And then a few more years pass, and third one says, "If you guys don't shut up, I'm leaving!" It occurred to me that I finally understood this story on an experiential level.
So K. and A. left. It must have been around midnight at that point. I had now been tripping for 3 hours or so. The next 4 or so hours of the night were in many respects the most revealing, and at once seemed like they lasted an Eternity, and but a moment.
William Blake:
To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.
He who binds himself to a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sunrise
"Eternity's Sunrise" -- that's actually a good way of describing the space I ultimately moved into. As I allowed the ego death process to run its course and didn't fight it or get freaked by it, I felt myself coming into these purer and purer realms of consciousness. At times, on the way to that point, it felt like I was being hyper-driven at warp speed into these hyper-realities of exploding colors and geometries. And when I came into this feeling of naked beingness, I felt no sense of body awareness whatsoever -- it was the closest I ever came to feeling like "Pure Awareness." By the end, I was just Awareness, and I was in this realm of pure Light and Love. At some points it felt like I was in my Light Body. Alex Grey's artwork made complete sense from this vantage point, and I could even at some points see and feel this spiritualized body that I was now in. It felt like I was stripped down to my essential nature, a newborn, naked, devoid of all earthly clot!
hes and limitations (like in the Aivanhov quote I began with -- it came to my emailbox the day after the journey). The reality, of course, was even richer and beggars the ability to describe it all.
In my more lucid moments, I had no doubt that this was Enlightenment, and though I didn't think of that word but rather "Pure Awareness," I was convinced that I was Enlightened, and there was nothing more to do but to "Allow More Love to Be" -- a phrase which kept coming to my mind and lips over the course of the morning. It wasn't personal, though, it was like that was the Universe speaking through me, saying it wanted to "Allow More Love to Be," and "Release All Limitation." I was just the vessel through which the message was coming. In some respects it seemed a very personal message, but it also felt like that all of Life is this movement into more and more Love, and that there's no end to how much Love there can be, and that my being here is only for Love.
Over the course of those early morning hours, I also realized how my whole life had led up to this point, had been just a preparation for this experience of Awakening to my/our essential nature. It all made complete sense, and the timing for this experience also felt perfect (it occurred to me, too, that had my body expelled the foreign substance prematurely, I would not have been privy to the later stages of the journey). At that point, nothing could convince me otherwise than that I had fully "Arrived" and would henceforward be recognized as a spiritual master of the nth degree. Not everyone would recognize it, but people who had themselves had this or a similar experience would see their reflection in me. So my work now was to not hide my light under a bushel, but to fully shout it from the rooftops and mountaintops. Because if I didn't share this, I would be spurning my calling, insulting the Universe that had gifted the experience to me. For all I kne!
w, this might have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, this might be it -- no more such revelations might be forthcoming in the future.
Delusions of Grandeur induced by DMT? No doubt, but I'm not the only one. Daniel Pinchbeck struggles with this himself in his book "2012." Through taking Ayahuasca, he feels like this messianic, prophetic figure ("Quetzlcoatl"), like he has been given this role to be a kind of savior of humanity. My question is: Does everyone feel this way on Ayahuasca, or is it that you will only have this Enlightenment experience if you have been sufficiently prepared for it? Could it be the latter? Just as not everyone reading these words will grasp the full import and meaning of them, so too, not everyone that has an experience with Ayahuasca will necessarily "get" it.
So, did I fully "get" it? From my perspective now, a few days later, the answer seems to be the negative. When I was resting there in Pure Awarenss, I felt that that feeling would stay forever, and to some degree the experience has certainly shifted me, and continues to do so, but in many ways, I realize it is only the beginning (which in one sense is what "initiation" means). Now I must conform my life to the Experience, to ground myself more in the Experience. At that point, I didn't think I would ever need to do another entheogen again. But now I feel that it still will be useful for me, as long as I'm living and working in the world and not in a cave or ashram. Because the universe is Yin and Yang, I can't remain in too Yin a state of being, I must keep exploring consciousness, but all the while knowing, as Walt Whitman once wrote, "Love is a kelson of creation."********
It's 5 night later, Friday, 3:30 in the morning, and I just had what seemed like about 5 straight hours of tripping in my sleep. It wasn't just that I was dreaming -- and I was dreaming -- but that I was having these whole dream scenarios based around taking DMT and visions it was producing, and it felt very similar to the actual experience. I have no idea why it happened tonight. Could it be that it was because it's been so heavily on my mind, and consumes my waking thoughts? Was it a flashback? Is this going to be a normal occurrence now? I'm sensing that it will be a good thing to begin keeping a dream journal again, and writing everything down as soon as I awaken. I haven't done this for years, but it seems like an important step to sorting through things. (K. suggested a good analogy on the phone the other night: My Ayahuasca experience was like an earthquake, and these are merely the tremors after the quake, and they will subside over time.)
Parting thoughts (for now): The Ayahuasca Analogue that I did, Jurema, was certainly the most transformative entheogenic experience of my life, and perhaps the most transformative experience, period. I would recommend it even more highly than E or San Pedro, though again, the doses of E. and San Pedro than I had taken were not as high as the Aya. dose, so it's not a fair comparison. I can only say that for me, Aya. gifted me the most profound experience yet.
Synopsis The entire experience lasted 8 hours, and in the last 4 or so hours I experienced the dissolution of my physical body, and was taken into a space of Pure Loving Awareness.
The experience does not seem to fit neatly into any one category, and names like "Godhead" seem too ambiguous. Did I experience the Godhead? Was it a death/rebirth experience? Union with everything? It felt like a little of each, and none at the same time. And I did experience fear at first because the world(s) which opened to me seemed more real than this one, and I thought that I would never come back to my body.
As I let go of that fear, I was given greater insight into what Unity Consciousness is, feeling as though I were just pure, bodiless awareness. The mantra that kept coming to my lips was, "Release All Limitation, and Allow More Love to Be," and it seemed that I was being told this personally, but also that it described the whole progression of the Cosmos, of all Life. I felt that I had attained Enlightenment (or touched it), and was now completely spiritually awakened. But I also realize(d) that it's a never-ending process. Next time I plan to record all or part of the session.Allyn de Lev - Jurema (Mimosa Hostilis and Syrian Rue)
I was tripping one time and it was bad. It was about my second time tripping. I think the reason i had a bad trip was because of the bad setting. I didn't really trust the people i was with. I also had just broken up with my boyfriend. But it started out that I felt like my friend was not tripping the same as me. And then her boyfriend and sister came in and were not tripping. And that weirded me out. I felt like no one felt the same way I did. I blacked out for a little bit. I remember going to the bathroom and walking to the door. But I felt like I was in a completely different place than everyone around me. Eventually I felt like my trip would never end. I felt like I was going to be tripping for ever and that I was going to be stuck forever with these people I didnt like. My friend wouldn't let me leave the room so this could be why I felt this way. I kept trying to go outside and she wouldnt let me because her mom couldnt know that we were tripping. So I eventually pushed my way out and her mom found out that I was tripping and she called the cops. I felt like now I wasn't even alive, I felt like I was dead and this was a bad dream. The ambulence came and they took me to the hospital. I felt like in order to stop tripping I had to tell my mom and the doctor everything that I had done wrong and that I truly wanted to change. After I told the doctor everything I felt like I kept going in and out...seeing black and white. Then I eventually came back to reality and realized that I was in the hospital and I was in alot of trouble. I feel that all this happened to me because my boyfriend just broke up with me, I didn't trust the people that I was with, I was dealing with inner deamonds. See I just got kicked out of my moms house for doing drugs, and I had been mean to everyone around me, I was just not a humble person and this experience humbled me. I thought I was invincable and this made me realize that I am no better than the next person.
caseyjones - mushroom chocolates
This was my first and most profound experience on LSD although i had take mushorooms before in moderate doses and had similar experiences though not to this profoundness. It was also the first free form duff'n psytrance party I had been to. I had arrived there with 50 dollars in my pocket and was so determined to get to the party i rode in the trunk of the car. It was like there was this energy pulling me in that direction and even though I did not have what i beleiived to be enough money to have a good time. We arrived at the party and seeing as i was in the trunk I missed the 15 dollar gate fee which i thought would help a bit. I had stepped out of the car and the rave was fantastic lights,visual music was all mind blowing and pointing towards a edge culture that may represent the tribal feeling i had been looking for. Synchronistically i had heard about the effects of this drug DMT earlier on in my life when i was about 16. I told myself i needed to have it back then because it was described so amazingly for its mind expanding perspective changing properties. I had taken two Ecstacy tablets off my friend who chemically tests them so i knew it was mdma. In a state of euphoria when the pills had kicked in about and hour after i dropped them, I decided to sit down next to the most esoteric interesting new age person i could see in my search for psychedelic knowlege. He chopped me up a bit of weed and i asked if i could buy some off of him, he refused but still produced quite a quantity to smoke. I then jumped straight into asking him about his experiences and some what would have seemed unusual questions from such a non hippy boy at the time. It did not take long for me to mention the fact that though i had had my share of pills and other street drugs i had never taken hallucinogens in specific LSD particularly that much because of the availibilty in Aus as oppossed to sites in america where you can just buy mushrooms. He then darted off onto the dance floor and i was confronted by a man in front of me that in my mind i am convinced is as close a thing there is to a western shaman. Phil then man who darted onto the dance floor then returned wat seemed like after half an hour, he told me to open my hand and placed a white piece of card board with a small black dot in the middle and told me to ingest it guessing it was a micro dot and him confirming that i put it in my mout immediately. As I sat there for a bout another 45 minutes talking to him about tripping the LSD i beleive started to take effect. Then the man who i was convinced was a shaman packed me a cone and passed it to me, I smelt the bong and it was like i knew this smell beofre i then asked him what it was and he said DMT, It was like my life had been leading up to this moment I was about to embark on the journey of my life and nothing would ever be the same and thats what i was looking for. I steadily pulled the cone of mix which was a dreamers mix of plant material. I then facced phil and said Im going down...down...down... I was sucked into another universe everthing that i was looking at was a Paradox of my life. I looked to the right of me and a mans head floated around mind repeating time time space space. I then looked forward and the man i was convinced was a shaman had thick vines growing out of his pitch black eyes I then looked to the left at the dance floor and there was mirrors faccing each other the whole way down my line of visions showing reflective symbolic picutures in them. I looked back and i could see people shrouded in auras, purble blue red green white. I man stood up that was sitting in the circle with us and when he broke the circle it was like he slipped out of the dimension we were inhabiting and i lost sight of him. After the DMT had worn off enough for me to see the floor i then embarked on a journey out the back of the shed we were in to look at the mountains. The LSD was definately in strong effect now, Looked at the mountains and where they met the sky a tear opened and sucked my conciousness into it. I was in this abyss for a moment in space becuase time didnt exist. The sun was coming up now and unfortunately i was the only one of my freinds to take any hallucinogens, so i was tossing up getting a lift home with the guys who gave me the LSD and DMT. Unfortunately i decided to go home with the people i originally came with on the way home we were driving through ranges when we crashed through a guard rail and hit a tree. Fortunately no boddy was hurt but it definately was an experience on LSD. We then waited around for a while and i contemplated that i had died last night when i experienced the DMT and that this was a way of the spirit saying that if i wanted to play around with it . It was going to see if i was ready for the real thing. Then i got home and started reasearching shamanism and saw that generally near death experiences are common when being coaxed into the spirit world. And since that day my life has felt like one big spiritual mission and much more of these substances has been taken.
Illuminotme - MDMA,LSD+5meo DMT
about a year and a half again i had the most powerful trip of my life. theres a lot that led up to why my trip went the way it did but ill just say the main things.
so i just ate an 8th and its starting to come on really strong. i go outside to go piss and i start seeing demon-like figures spewing out of this tree. i went inside and found myself in a dark room. it was here where i was sent to "limbo." as i was in this place, i was told of all my wrong doings and all my good deeds. i was judged and sent to hell. when i was going through this, the "mushroom god" or my "spirit guardian" (whichever you prefter) kept telling me that all i had lived for had been diminished; all of the money my parents put into schooling and my growing up, gone. I couldnt stop grieving over how i could never say im sorry or that i even loved them. "You're dead. You chose to eat these shrooms and now you're stuck here to live in your misery."
the next day i spent trying to process my trip. and i the one thing i really learned was that you've got to be able to let go. As soon as i accepted death, my trip slowly started to become more enjoyable. and i also learned that no matter how many times you've eaten shrooms or tripped on anything...respect the shit out of it because you will definitely be put in your place.BudSmoker - mushrooms
On a one special Entheogenic experience I saw death and rebirth through a Christian’s perspective. What I mean is I experienced heaven and hell and the depth of purgatory. Many times before have I experienced life and death but not actually a born again experience like this.
I was actually reborn in the light as I came into existence. I became me, not as before but as a new being just inserted into an existence already existing. I had just taken a mouth full of ergot wine, I allowed it to sit in my mouth for what seemed like and eternity swishing it around like it was Listerine, slowly feeling the wine ferment in my mouth. Thirty mins later I had to be alone, I secluded myself from the others at the far end of the house in the master bed room.
What happens next is still mind boggling. I wont go in to too much detail right now maybe some other time, but the first thing I see is a beautiful white star that grows and consumes everything the further in to this light I go, the better I feel, I start to forget everything and learn everything is alright consumed by a euphoric sensation of peace and happiness I panic remembering anything that feels to good to be true is.Frightened I search for a way out and slowly head away from the light as drunken euphoria washes off I feel a sense of relief as though I just retained my being. This is probably the closest to dying actually dying not just pondering death or envisioning the experience but actually never knowing me again.
From this stage I believe what I experienced next was a state of purgatory because there was only me, myself and I all looking at each other judging my self, this didn’t last long but I could see others achieving this level then staying there punishing them selves for the things they have done or believe or not, here is where hell can be afflicted to ones self. Worry that people are laughing at you? Worried about the way you look? Here is where worries become repetitive and repetitive and repetitive. Until you can conquer your fears here is where you will stay and this continues long after the drugs wear off. This is an everyday state of mind. Hell is spending a lifetime worrying.
cloudmover - ergot wine
Personally I think that every psychedelic experience is a death and rebirth cycle. We must die of self to live with god or the cosmos or whatever name you choose to give the infinite.
It felt like I was being pulled by the strongest force imaginable out of the body from above and behind my head. This whole process was shear terror because I realized that I was not in control. I was no longer steering the ship so to speak. Something had taken over and I felt tiny and useless compared to this huge and all powerful thing. I kept trying to run away from this pull with all my strength, but the effort was futile. It had control and there was nothing I could do, so I must have given in to it because the terror finally subsided. Now it has control and I am long gone, dissolved into the biggest clear ocean imaginable so to speak. It was like the mind had become the entire cosmos, and was infinite-clear air. It had no substance, no color, no shape, no sound, no smell, no characteristics, but at the same time no limitations or boundaries. It was like seeing through to the transparent nature of infinity without really seeing, and it is impossible to describe. I don't know how long this lasted, maybe it is still going on to a certain degree, but that was 7 years ago. I haven't tried psilocybin since then.
I think that what happened was only a tiny, brief, and incomplete glimpse into this "clear".John Croley - psilocybin mushrooms
Last time the mushroom spoke to me I was bewildered. I was rather naive at this time in my life and in a sort of spiritual limbo but thought I would be fine because my last mushroom trip went fantastic despite my terrible set & setting. My friends and I decided to eat 3.5 grams of an unknown strain of mushroom in my friends house.
The taste of these mushrooms was much worse than the last ones and the stem was longer and skinnier with a smaller cap. I felt the effects within only 5-10 minutes. The onset felt much more dirty and strange than the last batch. Within 20 minutes I found myself in one of the strangest & scariest trips of my entire life. We went outside to the deck and I promptly sat down and closed my eyes and saw organic imagery pulsating & vibrating in ways unbeknown to human linguistics.
I found myself in the Logo's that Terence McKenna always spoke of. I had this horrible feeling and I wished I never took the mushrooms and swore off drugs for the rest of my life. My mind was moving incredibly fast. I was exhibiting strange behaviour so my friends asked me if I was OK. I exclaimed "No, no, no" then silence. I just stopped talking, this I thought couldn't get any more intense.
Boy was I wrong, I don't remember this part but apparently we drove down to another friends house where they guided me to the living room area where I sat down immediately. At this point I lost my ego and didn't know anything really.
Pure awareness is all I was at this point. Ornate facets of color & sound permeated my existence. Everything that I considered reality before this trip was being re-arranged like there was nothing to it. When I came back to reality I was reborn and my spirit was renewed. This was the classic death & rebirth trip. My old ego was lost and I was given the wonderful gift to be a new person. Thanks for reading!
ParadigmShift22 - Psilocybin Mushrooms
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