archetypal fool

Hey TFP. I want to share my most recent experience with the Spirit Molecule (aka DMT), and the profound effect it has had on me. If anyone's not a fan of drugs or hallucinogens, I assume they can be mature and respectful enough to quietly move along before casting judgment or criticisms. Individual freedoms and all that jazz.

Before moving on, I just want to clearly state that DMT isn't a "fun" or party hallucinogen by any means. It can take you through the universe and outside of it - it can enlighten you and give you the answers to the universe, or you can see and feel your mouth as it consumes your head. It's not for cheap thrills. Also, always research anything you add to your body, but that goes without saying.

And for the record, DMT = "spice", which is what it's sometimes called in communities where it's popular.

After cleaning up my apartment, I set about preparing the chill-room. Lights were dimmed and incense was lit, then music was put on. Pink Floyd's "Echoes" would be the mood. This trip would be the most rewarding one I've ever experienced, thanks mostly to the music.

Just some quick background: I was in quite a slump emotionally - my depression had re-emerged a couple of months prior, just as it always does. It usually lasts for the better half of a year. I'd destroyed a relationships with a close girl who I really liked (as some of you may or may not remember), money was low, people scarce, family distant... and as an unemployed and starving college student, I had even lost all enthusiasm for studying, and my grades were going to shit (I should say "are", since there's only a month left of class and there's not much that can be done at this point). Needless to say, a lot of things were weighing heavy in my mind.

I loaded ~60mg of DMT between layers of blue lotus petals, and went about consuming the mix. This trip seemed to be more introspective, as the visuals, while amazing, were the weakest I'd experience with the spice thus far. Just as the vocals emerged in "Echoes", I was sent into hyperspace. Nothing made any sense, and I was absorbed into an infinite sea of geometric patterns of red and gold and green. I opened my eyes to see that my room was transformed into patterns of moving polygonal shapes, and directly across from me was an entity projecting from some distant wall. Its presence felt distinctly feminine, though it had no describable shape. It was with this entity that I discussed my life.

We talked about why things were the way they were, and what I'd have to do to change. I talked about how I can't form personal relationship with people, and how I can't bring myself to be social enough to do anything about it. She explained to me how I'm not dependent on anyone anymore, and only I had the power to change my life - no one would offer me the chance to change things. This was especially true because I moved away from my family and friends, but the impact of that fact hadn't really affected me yet. Hearing it from third person really made the situation solid, but this didn't bother me at the time because of how profound that realization was. A lot of personal things were discussed and dissected in such a way that every topic resulted in a philosophically penetrating revelation.

When I came out of the color void, the whale songs in "Echoes" were just ending. All the visuals I experienced during the trip were gone, but the entity was still present, and we carried on the conversation internally. I couldn't feel any emotions, which helped because my thoughts were crystal clear. I could feel the euphoric effects wearing off just as the song was climaxing towards the second set of vocals (in my opinion, this is one of the most profoundly beautiful musical ideas ever expressed). I felt disappointing about the fading state-of-mind, but at the same time the internal character stressed that I was the same person coming out of the DMT void as I was coming into it, and any realizations made during the trip were just as true after the fact. Just as the vocals came back in, I felt a tremendous rush of energy through my body - this was one of the most profoundly happy moments of my life. The timing with the music could not have been more perfect.

After the song was over, all discernible effects from the DMT were gone. I got up and felt totally enlightened in a way I haven't felt in years. My mind felt so clear I didn't know what to make of it. I wanted to go out and be with people - this is something totally opposite my personality. I wanted to crack open my biology textbooks and read them again. I wanted to see my family and friends, not because I was sad or lonely or necessarily longing for them, but because I loved them so much.

One of the things I realized during the trip was that I am overweight. It didn't really bother me until the trip, when I realized that one of my problems was my self-conscienceness stemming from that fact. Since then I've found the enthusiasm to start working out again. I've also become more social and open with people. Since then I've made new friends - people who I'm certain I would have never even spoken to if I hadn't had the experience. I've also found the motivation to start studying again. I've even picked up my violin for the first time in months, and found the music that came out of it ravishing; I've decided to keep it up and return to my former musical status. (Ysaye, watch yourself... here I come again!)

I can say certainly that the depression I had fallen into is totally gone thanks to the Spirit Molecule. How long it will last, I have no idea, but I haven't felt this happy to be simply alive in a good while, and this is weeks after the fact. I believe the drug to be a potent (natural) antidepressant and therapeutic medicine, especially if one is in the right state of mind. Not to mention the fact that DMT is easily extracted from plant sources, costs next to nothing, and completely without side effects or threat of death from overdosing if one is intelligent and/or responsible.

Honestly, one of the main things that interested me to the spice in the first place was its purported antidepressant properties (with its tremendously powerful hallucinogenic properties a tiny notch ahead), but after trying it a number of times and experiencing nothing more than interesting visuals, I'd lost hope of it helping me sort out my life. But today I'm a different man. Today I'm alive. And I have the Spirit Molecule to thank.

Finally, on a totally different note, don't tell kids about the drug. They already ruined salvia, a plant with antidepressant and very potent hallucinogenic properties, by posting stupid videos on YouTube, leading to national attention and the mint being banned in several states, including mine. I don't want DMT's sources to be next on the stupid list.

//////////// Anyways, enough about me. Does anyone else in the TFP, or perhaps friends of TFP members, have any experience with DMT?

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I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have yours. But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love, belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality. ~H.A. Overstreet

biznatch

Nope, although I have had moments where I could focus, think much clearer, have (silent) conversations with myself and figure out quite a few things about my life on cannabis. Cannabis always makes my thought process very intense, to the point that it's hard to multitask. Multitasking is overrated anyway.
Drugs can help you come to grips with a problem, but it's always the mind that does it. The molecules we throw at our brain receptors just allows our mind to focus differently.

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SSJTWIZTA

i've wanted to try DMT for years now! hopefully, one day, ill get my hands on some.

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First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for me And there was no one left to speak out for me.
-Pastor Martin Niemoller

Willravel

If it's not from an exploded worm, I wouldn't feel comfortable calling it "spice".

I don't personally have experience with DMT. I won't take it until I understand the exact affect on the brain.

Crack

Isn't that the case with most all things? The problem being that most of the time we are not at all intelligent and/or responsible?

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Crack, you and I are long overdue for a vicious bout of mansex.

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MSD

DMT is already schedule I. There's little risk in further legal action being taken.

From what I've heard, your experiences with it helping you depression and turning your life around are the norm and not the exception (this only goes for people who were looking to get that result.) Psychedelics have tremendous potential for psychiatric care and it's upsetting that so many have been put on schedule I, preventing even tightly controlled clinical trials. Another great example is the 1950s/60s study in Saskatchewan that found that after a single dose of LSD used in therapy, 65% of alcoholics had not had another drink at the end of the 18 month study, and in 2006, many still had not.

new man

Individual freedoms and all that jazz mean we can comment, when you post your experience on a discussion board.

Do you have a mirror at home? Have you ever looked at your body image? If you needed drugs to see clearly, then maybe you need to spend more time figuring out why you are lying to yourself.

And if you think I am being harsh, go to the self-esteem thread. No more coddling people who think they need an escape hatch when what they need is to CLEARLY look at reality.

it's great that you are finally taking care of yourself and starting to make your own improvements. You are the only one who can do this. But do you really think it takes a drug to make you realize this, or that you finally stopped feeling sorry for yourself? You started doing the things that made you feel better; gaining personal control, increasing your knowledge and formulating a picture and a goal for your life, practicing a talent and nurturing it, comunicating with other people. These things make people happy, and when they are happy other people sense it sometimes they want some of that too.

Plan9

So... drugs, legal or not, are often the placebo people need to change their lives?

We long for the easy external tangible because we can't find the hard internal ghost to grab.

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healer

Dude, you should definitely try the poetry thing like Baraka suggested. You've got a way with words that's refreshingly honest.

/creepy compliments.

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Wrexify

Well said. I can't help but wonder whether society's disapproval creates a stronger placebo effect. It's a "my situation is SO desperate that conventional methods won't help me" kind of mentality.

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Zeraph

Haha, most drugs anyway, are far, far from placebo.

OP Was going to try it but I gotta wait till I get off my SSRIs first. I heard it works on similar neurotransmitters and mixing the two ain't good. (I ODd on SSRIs once, it was unpleasant)

n0nsensical

There is nothing "placebo" about the effects of psychedelic drugs. The effects are very real. The word placebo has a specific meaning for something that has no physical action but causes a psychological reaction. But all drugs do have physical actions by definition. It just so happens that the physical actions of psychedelics cause a largely psychological reaction, but they have physical effects as well and are no placebo. If you don't need or want to have a powerful spiritual experience, then you are not the target audience and don't need to be taking DMT. But some of us do.

A more accurate word would be catalyst. It's true that psychedelics cannot cause you to be any way you couldn't otherwise be. But they can show you who you are and can certainly be a push in a direction for better or for worse. Most people who are drawn to the psychedelic experience simply enjoy it for what it is. I've never tripped on DMT but I've had plenty of bad trips along with the good ones, and even though I didn't necessarily enjoy the experiences at the time, I still learned something from each one and don't regret getting into it. In fact, everytime I take a psychedelic, or any drug, I know there will probably be bad parts to it, but that's just life, and if you're not prepared for the worst you shouldn't take psychedelics. Death and insanity don't scare me. Living a perfectly sane and sober life scares me.

People who wouldn't enjoy psychedelics don't typically try them in the first place, except for a small proportion of risk takers who will do just about anything for the rush, or crowd followers who will do just about anything because everyone else is doing it. Well, I guess everyone is a crowd follower to some degree. The proponents of the 60s "revolution" weren't correct to say that everyone should do it, and I'm sure they realize it better than anyone now. It might have worked for the indigenous peoples of the americas to have everyone in their society try it once, but I think it's safe to say things are a lot more complicated now. Even in their societies, often only the shamanic types would continue doing it after the first time, that's probably a good model.

With DMT we have the ironic situation where, even though the chemical compound itself is a Schedule I drug, it is in fact contained in the central nervous system of most vertebrates including humans, and far more plant species than will ever be listed in any law or indeed, botanist's code. So if you already have access to DMT, you don't have much to worry about, like MSD said, it's not getting any more illegal but even the government can't uninvent chemistry or DNA.

SSRIs are not a dangerous combination with DMT, but they will significantly mute the effects of the DMT. MAOIs, on the other hand, do not combine well with just about anything and can literally make you trip for days on DMT or weeks on shrooms or acid. That is how the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin make Ayahuasca, even though they take the DMT orally it is highly active because it is combined with a natural MAOI. If you take DMT orally without an MAOI, nothing happens because it is quickly broken down in the digestive tract.

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"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." --Abraham Lincoln

Wrexify

I agree, "catalyst" is a better way to describe it in this context. In my limited experience with people who use psychadelics for this kind of decision making, they tend to act incapable without the help of the drug.

At the risk of sounding like a "don't do drugs" ad, I think that this is the kind of attitude that leads to unnecessary dependencies. If psychadelics help you get a clear view of your situation before making a life change, that's one thing. When you start to think that it gives you the ability to do things you couldn't normally do, that's where it's probably doing more harm than good.

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MSD

There's a lot we have yet to find out about how the brain works. Is it really that hard to believe that hallucinogens that frequently produce introspection and quasi-religious experiences can change things? Just because you can't prescribe it doesn't mean it doesn't work. I would also expect that the kind of person who is willing to try these drugs is typically the kind of person who would be changed by them.
Public Service Announcement: Extensively research potential interactions between any drug you want to take and any medicines you area taking. This is especially important with SSRI, SNRI, and MAOI drugs since they have the most common and some of the most severe interactions.

archetypal fool

I suppose you're right. I guess what I was trying to say is that it's next to impossible to smoke a lethal amount of DMT.

This is also very true, at least in my opinion. For me, the experience gave me a solid, level ground - a totally clear mind with which I could really sit down and think things through. Clearly (from an atheist perspective), the entity I spoke with was not some extraterrestrial or some transcendental being as a lot of DMT users would testify - it was my internal dialogue probing and digesting all the questions and concerns that were bothering me at the time. It didn't change me so much as allow me to change myself. It's far from a placebo affect. Also, your post summarizes my thoughts on the subject perfectly.

I also get the same effect from cannabis - if anything, it stimulates my mind and makes me think about every little thing to a detail that I normally wouldn't venture to. I would say that the DMT experience is very different, in that instead of making me think about things in great detail, it helped me think of things in a broader perspective. The dissociative effect - the loss of "I" or "me" - definitely helps in this regard.

Granted, but you know what I meant. That wasn't a plea to keep mean people from hurting my feeble feelings. The subject of drugs often brings people who are unable to think about the subject objectively or without drawing stereotypical caricatures of their users. The anti-drug slogans need not be repeated a single more time, as they don't add to any important discussion.

You're right. I didn't need to try a perfectly safe substance that has anecdotal and scientific evidence of anti-depressant characteristics that costs little more than a value mean at McDonalds. I could have just sat down and thought about my life, the way I'd been handling myself for months. Problem is, that never helped. For someone with depression, doing just that is more likely to make matters worse than better. You sit someone down who thinks their life is shitty and you tell them to think about their life, they're going to end up feeling shittier than before.

As is often the case in people with your position on the subject, the biological aspects of depression and anxiety are grossly uncredited. You treat the idea of depression as some sort of mopy and sad disposition. It isn't that simple, and anyone can research into the neurological aspects of depression and see that. It's wilful ignorance to believe that depression can be simply thought away without any outside influence.

Exactly. DMT helps some people clearly look at reality. I don't know if you're aware of this, but it's difficult to do that when you're already in a state of pain and self-loathing, as any attempts will loop back and make things worse; DMT lets you escape that for a second and address yourself directly. My experience is far from unique. Like I said before, DMT isn't a "fun" drug; it's specifically meant for use as a healing and therapeutic drug, just as much as any prescription. But of course, its psychedelic properties will make people conjure up images of "tripping balls" and seeing pretty colors - things that are, in my opinion, merely bonuses added onto the experience.

Yes, I don't feel sorry for myself any more, and I'm studying more, and I'm working out, and nurturing a talent and communicating with people more. This is all true. What I'm saying is, I woke up one day not doing any of those things, then I took the drug, I addressed myself directly and objectively, and then I immediately had a passion to do all those things we've listed and more. Absolutely, DMT had a hand in it; I'm certain that, had I not had the experience, the day would have just been another day, and not a thing would have changed. As we stand right now, I've had a positive life-changing experience directly catalysed by DMT. Outside comments that the experience wasn't necessary could not be more wrong in my mind.

I get what you mean, but there are a couple of things that can be addressed. First, people take drugs to give them the ability to do things they couldn't normally do. Whether it's alcohol for letting someone open up and maybe let some inhibition go, or cannabis for letting people relax. Could these activities be considered to cause more harm than good? And, second, though I know you're speaking generally, DMT doesn't cause dependency - people who consume it constantly are most likely doing so for the visual psychedelic effects. I haven't had any deep or pressing questions since my last DMT trip, and so I haven't use it since.

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I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have yours. But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love, belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality. ~H.A. Overstreet

Psychologist

no offence, but tl;dr.

I read until the part where you had a chat with spice girl, and decided to tell you that i do have chats with random spiritual entities, only my experiences were nowhere as psychedelic as yours and they tend to occur inside my head and with a sexless, well, thing.

Ok fine, I don't know if mine are spiritual or not (I highly doubt so) because as I grew up, I learnt that there's this word called introspection and well, if you find that you need a drug to induce you to a hallucigenic state where you can gain some semblance of escape + offer you some introspection, by all means, go ahead to induce it, although for the sake of the stumbling wayward impressionable teenager/misguided person who happens to stumble across this thread and would think "hey what a good idea! If op is able to meet colourful deities and have such fantabulous conversations with them about life and how much it's screwed, maybe I should try it too!", I would suggest that they DO rethink it over because there ARE ways that such an experience is able to be induced WITHOUT the need for hallucinogens.

All you need is to either be in a very charged up state and have clarity of mind. I tend to philosophize and rationalise my actions/behaviours when I feel mentally sharp.

Just my two cents.