DOSE:		oral	Mushrooms	(dried)
	1 hit	smoked	DMT

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

[The end of this report links to a 30-month follow-up by the same author]

I am a lightweight. I had whet my appetite with psilocybin and felt as though there was more to experience in the realm of psychedelics. I could count on one hand how many times I had tripped on mushies before my descent into DMT, but I was determined to breakthrough on the first go.

I ate some mushies beforehand (about 3 stems and 4 caps) and prepared to smoke the DMT. I used a gravity bong and got all 60 mg in one hit. As the smoke hit my lungs, my vision funneled, and the ringing began. I was scared shitless as soon as it occurred to me I was going under. I held the whole hit for at least seven seconds.

Immediately, the world went black. I lost all feeling in my body, couldn't perceive the room around me (despite my eyes being open), and I was essentially dead. Slowly, threads of reality were fed to me; I heard an entity introduce itself to me, and I could slowly grasp my consciousness. As it was fed back into my mind, I held onto every shred of being that I could -- the sensations of light, dark, color, sound... I realized I was dead, and life was tangibly within reach. I latched on for dear life, even when I had no idea who I was or why this was happening to me.

And then I could start to see again. Whispers of light broke open the wall of black, and I slowly waded through the murky æther until I could perceive a room around me. It was pure white. The entity from earlier was sitting before me, and I could put a face to the voice. It was humanoid, a being of electric, undulating white light. It was warm and kind, and I instantly perceived it as a friend. I felt like I was dying, so I asked.

"You're not dying, this is DMT."

I didn't remember taking any drugs, didn't know what DMT was, didn't know why I was in a white space with a being of light. But I felt reassured. There was a fear, insistent, at the back of my mind, telling me that this was the afterlife, to hold onto my humanity as long as I could. I was scared. I didn't know who I was. I was a fresh consciousness plucked from the Nothing, and I feared ever having to return to that state of no cognitive selfness. My body felt heavy, fuzzy, like lead. Electrified. I felt every nerve as if it were TV static. I kept fading in and out. The entity stood and approached me at an imperceptible speed.

"Am I dying?" I asked again. It reassured me I wasn't. It started counting. I felt like I was falling down, away from the light, into the ground, buried as my body continued to collapse. With each number it said, I knew it was counting down the time to my death. I fought it. Fought the lead in my limbs. Fought the static in my mind, my body. Eventually, I fought enough to see nothing but pure light. The entity was happy, it put its hands on my face, and led me down a 4-dimensional tunnel in which I experienced every human memory and emotion almost simultaneously. I felt safe, I felt happy, I felt loved. I was overwhelmed with the assurance that life is the most beautiful, precious gift a creature may receive.

"I get it," I kept chanting, as more memories were flooded into my mind. They weren't my memories from my life before the DMT trip. They were every memory, of every being, big and small. I had no sense of identity, but I felt as though I was being constructed by God in real time. I had experienced the cognitive evolution that a young human goes through during the first 25 years of their life all at once. I realized, instantly, the weight of consciousness. I could perceive it, which is something I took with me once I left the trip.

The entity multiplied. Each one felt like an angel. They were stark in form; gender-ambiguous though decidedly nude. No genitals. No facial distinctions (though they did have "faces"! Just not any that were familiar or perceivable with the lucid mind). The many entities held me in their arms as they carried me down a line, one hug passing me to the next, until I reached the last of the line: me.

I thought I had died and been initiated into the afterlife. In truth, this was the end of the most vivid part of my hallucination. I fell off the couch I was tripping on, and became instantly reminded of reality. The shrooms had kicked in, and I could see the room around me breathing, undulating, achingly familiar AND estranged. Where was I? Who was I? Who was in the room with me?

My tripsitter, who was alien, but still familiar. He reminded me of his name, but it meant nothing. I didn't remember who he was, just that he could be trusted. I tethered myself to him and rocked to and fro, desperate for the alienness of the experience to be over. I wanted to know who I was. I wanted to know I was safe.

"You are Ash. This is your apartment. You are not dying. You took DMT. It'll be over in 15 minutes."

Reality was stuck on a feedback loop. I was tossed wall to wall, the room changing around me. I floundered on the rug, fingers digging into the fibrous material in a lame attempt to ground myself. Each attempt was in vain. The room would not sit still. My tripsitter would repeat himself, saying what he had just said two seconds ago. I would repeat myself. My thoughts would repeat themselves.

"I wish things would stop repeating," I kept saying. Everything that left my mouth was repeated. "I want it to stop."

He would kindly inform me that the trip was almost over.

"It's almost over?"

"Yes, just 20 more minutes."

"You said 15 minutes 20 minutes ago."

"I know, but it's almost over."

"It's almost over?"

"Yes, just 20 more minutes."

"You said 20 minutes 5 minutes ago." In reality, 2 seconds had passed.

"That's right. That's because it's 20 minutes ago."

My frustration was unending. I knew something was wrong. He shouldn't be repeating himself. I was mad at myself for doing this to myself. I felt suffocated by the insincerity of reality. Why wouldn't things just behave normally? Who was I? When would it end?

At this point the trip tapered off. I was still experiencing mild visuals, and the repetition of sounds, words, scenes, and thoughts would intermittently spring up. But I was mostly in my lucid state. I remembered who I was. I remembered that I smoked DMT. The shrooms were mixing nicely, brewing a more intense visual effect. I was cold, colder than I've ever been before. I sobbed uncontrollably. In my bewildered state, I had scratched deep marks into my hands, face, and neck, leaving noticeable red lines. I huddled in a mass of blankets, suddenly very heavy, as I let my body rest. My tripsitter broke down, too. Both of us experienced my unfiltered reaction to death. It shook us.

The trip itself haunts me. I don't regret it, but as a young atheist, I took DMT with the sincere hope that it would quell the existential horror I felt knowing that there was no afterlife. Instead, I felt burdened by the realization that I am tethered to my physicality and consciousness until the day I die, and that I am intimately familiar with what consciousness is. I cannot put this into words in a satisfactory manner, but I hope anyone reading this understands my fear. It's the Lacanian Real, and it's painful to acknowledge it.

I am recovering. I intend to keep experimenting with psychedelics, eventually another DMT blastoff. For the time being, I am sober, and will be for a while. I am still an atheist, though I'm realizing my understanding of the universe is extremely limited. If there is a god, it is energy, it is omnipresent, and it exists within every living creature. I still don't have the answers. If I ever figure it out, I'll return with a new report.

30 MONTHS LATER....

Exp Year: 2018	ExpID: 112657
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 20
Published: Dec 15, 2018	Views: 1,898
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DMT (18), Mushrooms (39) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Guides / Sitters (39), Entities / Beings (37), Difficult Experiences (5), Combinations (3)