I’ve been interested in DMT ever since I first heard of it back in 2010. I was a freshman in college and was interested in psychedelics in general, mostly acid as I was a huge Beatles fan (many thanks to my father for the musical introduction). Listening to their music as a child it was obvious that something changed about halfway through their career. “Strawberry Fields” is a far cry from “Please Please Me”, and when I looked into it online the general consensus seemed to be – drugs.
Once I discovered this fact, I knew I simply had to get my hands on the stuff. “A Hard Days Night” is great, but the older I got, the more songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows” appealed to me. They felt like a glimpse into a secret world that was a universe away from the predictable and mundane suburbia I had emerged from.
And so I found myself one evening laying in my dorm room bunk bed browsing YouTube on my iPod Touch looking for videos about psychedelics. One video caught my eye with a title that was something like “The most powerful psychedelic known to man”. Clicking into it I realized it was a radio interview with Joe Rogan.
“The Fear Factor guy?” I wondered.
In it he was talking about DMT. “You’re shot straight into the center of the universe, surrounded by these beautiful strings of light but they’re made out of love, and you can hardly hold it together but they’re telling you to pay attention and not give in to amazement, and the whole thing is over in just 5 minutes!”
“Wow.” I thought.
“That sounds like a bit too much for me… but maybe someday.”
Well, someday took a while to arrive, but this past October it finally did.
I was laying in bed with my girlfriend, both of us on our laptops. I was watching YouTube, when I happened onto another video about DMT.
“Someday I really do want to try that stuff.”
Through the years I had dabbled in acid and mushrooms, having had a number of beautiful experiences (and a couple mildly uncomfortable ones). Overall, I felt that psychedelics had very much been a net positive in my life, yet DMT was, for me, still uncharted territory.
“Why not just get some and try it out?” my girlfriend asked.
“Well… I think it’s kind of tricky, you have to smoke it out of like a crack pipe I think, I don’t know.”
“Well, suit yourself but it sounds like you want to try it.”
And so after a little research and realizing that DMT cartridge vape pens were a thing, I had one ordered and on its way.
I’ll fast forward through the next few months for the sake of brevity, but essentially I took many trips with that cheap little vape pen, and had a great many beautiful and love-filled experiences. The power and rapid onset of the experience was alarmingly intense, but with time and acclimatization I (very) gradually began to grow less afraid of it.
I did however have a question forming in the back of my mind, which was “Have I actually ‘broken through’ yet?”
To clarify for anyone less familiar with the standard description of the effects of DMT, “breaking through” is generally regarded as the eventual goal for the DMT habitué. It is described as the dose in which one’s perception of the standard consensus reality we spend most of our time in dissolves away completely, leaving one fully immersed in the experiential world of DMT, commonly referred to as “hyperspace”.
I had had several trips where I felt like I was glimpsing visions of alien worlds (and alien beings), but the visions always felt a little muddy. I had also had several trips where I felt like I was close to reaching some new level, yet was left feeling like the cartridges I was sucking on simply weren’t up to the task of getting me… there. Whenever there was. I wasn’t sure, and mostly assumed I was simply over-thinking and over-questioning my experiences, but I knew I wouldn’t know for sure until I upgraded my vape setup.
Which finally brings me to the present, when a couple of weeks ago my new sub-ohm tank and box mod (heavy-duty vaping battery) finally arrived.
After some experimentation and failed attempts at winding a coil and building a wicking setup (I had no idea vaping could be so complicated), I had what I thought was a fairly well put together vape.
This was late on a Friday night however, and I was far too tired (and a little too scared) to give it a proper try.
That weekend we had a two-day music festival / birthday party to go to, so I knew I wouldn’t really get a chance to put the new vape fully to the test until the following week. I did however end up having several lovely low-dose trips in the days leading up to my first breakthrough, which I’ll detail quickly for the sake of completeness.
The Thursday before, I had tested out a newly-filled cartridge which was my gift for that weekend. Then, Friday I had taken a couple small puffs off my newly built vape for testing purposes. Then, that Saturday afternoon I had gone for a light trip off the new vape, just to ensure it really did work (it did). And finally on Monday it was a holiday and I decided to take a light relaxing trip that afternoon.
I include all of this to say that I had happened to have several beautiful and gentle trips back to back in a relatively short period of time. This was new for me, as I typically hadn’t gone more than once every week or couple weeks up to that point. All of this put me much more at ease with the substance than I had been up to that point.
I also found myself meditating more than usual. That Sunday morning, one of the party-goers led the group in a short breathing and mobility routine, and it had felt so good that I kept it up and meditated again on Monday.
Which now finally brings us to Tuesday. The day of my breakthrough.
I told my girlfriend that I wanted to do a guided meditation with her, and then do DMT. She put on a “Meet your Spirit-Guide” guided meditation and we both lay down on the couch. I would normally be fairly allergic to such new-ageyness, but I decided to go in with an open mind and to get what I could from it. It led through various visualization exercises and was really quite relaxing. It spoke about opening one’s self up to trusting that the spirit you’re meeting is benevolent and is here to help and guide you.
The meditation ended and my mind and body were still and relaxed. I got up to relieve myself, then settled back down on the couch, vape in hand.
I closed my eyes. Took several deep breaths.
I knew I had the intention of going deep, but I felt the fear rising up inside, as it typically did.
“Maybe I’ll just do a light trip first,” I thought.
“To build confidence.”
Then I remembered the words of the meditation, telling me to trust in the benevolence of whatever I was to meet.
I felt a calmness radiate out from the center of my chest and I decided to trust. Tilting my head I took a large, confident toke off the vape, still thinking to myself “I can back out after one or two hits if I want to.”
As I held my breath and felt the now familiar, heavy warmth rush through my body, I somehow knew I was ready. I was going for it.
Three more giant rips followed the first one. Swirling colors and hazy geometric patterns descended onto my eyeballs as per usual.
Suddenly, my entire field of view cracked open, like the shell of a giant crystal egg. My world model underwent an acute state change, crystalizing in an instant into a completely new shape.
The world erupted into complete pandemonium in the best way. Everything was moving so fast that I couldn’t give an accurate description of anything, but it felt very space-age. Everything was pristinely clean and brightly lit and seemed to be made from different colors of shiny, reflective metal. Small baubles whipped into and out of existence in front of me.
And I wasn’t alone. I couldn’t see them but I had the sense of a huge crowd that was cheering for me. As though they had known that today was the day I would finally make it through and they were all in their places waiting for me, ready to put on this insane show to welcome me in.
It felt like every trip I’d taken thus far, and indeed like every experience I’d had over the last few days had been orchestrated to allow me to experience that moment. To get me comfortable enough to be able to break through and not freak out. And it felt like this was just the beginning. Like the prologue to my story with DMT was over and Chapter 1 had just begun.
And just like that it was over and I was back in my living room laying on the couch, laughing and shaking my head and muttering “What the fuck.” with an ear to ear grin across my face.
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