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      Dmt

      Thoughts? Opinions? Experiences?

      I'm thinking about trying it.

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      Are you thinking orally or smoked? Either way you're in for quite a ride. I had a couple grams of the stuff a while ago and just ended up giving most of it away because I got scared of it after maybe 10-15 trips. Mind you, nothing bad happened. I just knew if something bad did happen it would be really bad. That's the way it has always been with psychedelics for me though; I'm never scared of them until after I've experienced what they're capable of. I did have a couple of times where I took way more than I should have and became very... I dunno fried I guess. Overloaded. Saw too much. Luckily those times I was smoking it so the duration was short.
      Last edited by FriendlyFace; 04-26-2013 at 08:11 PM.

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      My thoughts, for whatever they may be worth....

      DMT proponents almost invariably advance the following arguments:

      1. DMT is naturally occurring and necessary to dreaming, therefore DMT use is natural and harmless.
      2. People who have not used DMT can not have informed opinions about DMT experiences.

      This argument is also quite common:

      3. Getting drunk with alcohol is worthless and bad for you, so opponents of hallucinogen use are hypocrites.

      I see at least two major contradictions here:

      1. Alcohol is also naturally occurring, and necessary to the body. Yet it also kills you if you ingest too much. And long term use of it for its mood altering properties is a life-wrecking problem for a large number of people. So the argument that use of naturally occurring hallucinogens is healthy and safe based on their naturalness is fallacious.
      2. If DMT induced hallucinations are just like dreaming, then my dream experiences that match what DMT users describe ought to give me the same insight that their experiences give them. And if I can't know what they experience, then they can't know what I know from my experiences either. But if DMT effects are as natural as they claim, then my unusually exotic dream experiences should be very much like theirs.

      So here's what I have to say about DMT after having perused DMT web sites, and found what they describe to be very much the same as what I experience without DMT....

      The drug does give you a sort of sensory appreciation for the deep unity or fractal-like inter-relatedness of everything. It also gives you an appreciation of how limited an subjective our everyday perceptions are.

      There is also a brutality in chemically forcing of these kinds of experiences, and this is reflected in the experiences that people describe. The images are beautiful, and feel beautiful, but there is a coldness to them, like the compassion has been hollowed out of everything somehow. Visions of world-eating demons are described with equinimity. Other people who have deeply harmed by drug use are treated with hostility and contempt, not with understanding and sympathy.

      There is also nothing that any user of DMT or other hallucinogens learns that can't in my experience and observation be gained in other ways. To the contrary, as Sageous commented in a recent post to another thread, hallucinogens give the user an impression of expanded awareness while actually contracting it in crucial ways. Its like the inverse of the cliche about gaining wisdom and discovering how little one knows. The hallucinogen user thinks they know more, but talk to them about what they know and they know remarkably little. Sageous made his comments based on his experience with LSD and (I think) mushrooms, but from what I can tell from discussions with DMT users it applies just as strongly there also. Again, the idea that a non-user can not judge the wisdom of a user is a dodge: if using naturally occurring drugs is really that natural, then there's no reason that my own meditative and astral experiences shouldn't be applicable.

      Here's one major weakness in my stance on this, as I see it: I gain an awful lot of insight by psychic empathy with other people. So I can't really say what experiences I myself would have if there were no hallucinogen users. My view is also a bit hypocritical, in that my natural mental state is in some ways like other people experience when they're stoned, so it may be unreasonable for me to benefit from that while arguing that they should not take steps to stimulate that same sort of thing. But I'm trying to use who I am the best way that I can, and it seems to teach me that there's a limitation and a price to the exotic astral/sensory kind of experience. I would give it all up for just a little bit more love. And DMT use is not giving people that love so far as I can see, it gives them a feeling that is like a reflection of love, but in action and temperament it seems to turn them into a bunch of small-hearted bastards who care about tripping but not so much about other people. Or maybe they started out that way, but in any case its clearly not curing the problem, and I see an awful lot of evidence that it makes it worse.

      Maybe that's not what you wanted to hear, but that's my honest opinion anyway. Best wishes.
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      shadowofwind, DMT hallucinations are not "just like dreaming," nor is there any evidence that endogenous DMT has anything to do with dreaming. I have never had a dream that in any way resembles a DMT flash. To say that you know what DMT is like without having tried it is like me saying I know what being in (romantic) love is like because I've heard someone else describe it. As for your description of what DMT does to people, I know no one who has had any such experience, and I know quite a lot of drug users.

      During and after the month or so that I was dosing DMT (mostly orally) I was able to realize and change a lot of things about myself. It is what made me realize that I had been a complete bastard, and that I HAD to change... I had always wanted to change, but it was no longer a question of want. It was a vital responsibility. I found I was crippled by experiences that had been buried in my subconscious for 15 or 16 years... things that I didn't even remember happening until I was forced to face them. It is medicine of the highest order, and has been used as such for longer than anyone can guess. I am a much friendlier, kinder, more loving, and all around happier person now.

      With regards to the knowledge imparted by DMT: You say that you know the things that psychedelics purportedly teach you on your own. So does anyone who has spent time contemplating their reality. But there is a difference between knowing and experiencing. For example, I had always known that time doesn't exist, has no length or direction of movement. However in one particularly powerful DMT flash I was able to experience an eternity in no time at all. A span of "time" that had no beginning and no end. More than a billion years and at the same time less than one trillionth of a second.

      While that sort of thing is interesting and mind-blowing, the important part for me was the healing that I was able to do. I hate to jump on you, but it sort of gets my goat when someone criticizes something that has done so much for my life without having had any experience whatsoever with it themselves. From my standpoint you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Despite your astral projection and meditation experiences, your body is physiologically incapable of producing an active dose of DMT. Period. Psychedelics are of course a double edged sword, and change can go in both directions. Obviously with irresponsible use things can go sour pretty quickly. I know people who ruined themselves with lsd and mushrooms years ago and are still recovering. DMT, however, has been used safely for millennia and is an integral part of many indigenous cultures.

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      Quote Originally Posted by FriendlyFace View Post
      With regards to the knowledge imparted by DMT: You say that you know the things that psychedelics purportedly teach you on your own. So does anyone who has spent time contemplating their reality. But there is a difference between knowing and experiencing. For example, I had always known that time doesn't exist, has no length or direction of movement. However in one particularly powerful DMT flash I was able to experience an eternity in no time at all. A span of "time" that had no beginning and no end. More than a billion years and at the same time less than one trillionth of a second.
      In your contrast of my presumed knowledge with experience, you obviously have no idea what I have experienced in relation to this.

      Also, time does in some sense exist, even though a person's experience of it may be very limited and misleading. Your experience of eternity is real and valuable, but it can be misleading also, in part because of how you unavoidably feel about the strength of the experience. And the experience doesn't give you the full understanding of how the experience fits with other thoughts and impressions you have about time, which remain primitive.

      Quote Originally Posted by FriendlyFace View Post
      I hate to jump on you, but it sort of gets my goat when someone criticizes something that has done so much for my life without having had any experience whatsoever with it themselves. From my standpoint you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
      Fair enough. A very big part of my life experience has been watching people I love fuck themselves up with drugs. An equally large part of my life has been exploring and understanding my own exotic experiences, which include mind blowing experiences of timelessness. If you don't want other people making assumptions about you and what you know and have experienced and what you need, then that cuts both ways. My views, even to the extent that they may be wrong, are very deeply grounded in experience. I'm not just throwing assumptions around willy nilly. You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about my thoughts though. For instance, you said that my description of what DMT does to people does not fit the experiences of anyone you know. And yet, the experience of timelessness that you just described is very much a part of what I mean. No doubt I did a poor job of explaining myself. But I still think your impression of where I'm coming from is a very poor caricature of it.

      Maybe one other thing I should add....I am not suggesting that nobody should do drugs. I know it sounds a lot like I was suggesting that, but its not easy for me to communicate the nuance of how I see this, and my posts are way too long for most people to want to wade through at all. If you think you were helped by using DMT, I don't have the thought that you are wrong about that. Life is complicated. But there is this other side of the picture too which I'm trying to describe also, and its a very big part of the picture. And the way you have characterized your experience of eternity, and the way you mischaracterized what I have experienced, does fit the kind of thing I was trying to describe.

      I've got a plane to catch soon and will be busy for a couple of days. But if you'd like to have more discussion I'll be back later. Best wishes.
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      I hope I didn't imply that I know anything about what you have experienced, and if I did I'm sorry. I merely used timelessness as an example of how DMT has made concrete in my mind a number of things that I was able to grasp conceptually. I also hope that I made clear that although such experiences are profound, their value is almost non-existent compared to the therapeutic properties of this molecule. My life is not particularly affected by transient experiences of cosmic oneness, DMT induced or otherwise, however the mental reprogramming I was able to do changed my life permanently.

      When I said that the effects you describe don't sound familiar, I wasn't referring to the headspace and beautiful visuals, I was talking about the cold emptiness you refer to and the belief that you have learned a lot from the experience. Myself and my colleagues have always been aware that DMT leaves you with a million questions and no answers. This is all just my experience though. I of course believe that you have met people who feel differently, and I agree with you that they are probably deluding themselves. While I don't think I have learned anything new, I know that I have resolved quite a lot.

      Again, my main issue was with your assertion that you know what DMT is like because you have read reports of its effects that have similar qualities to your own experiences and because you have minuscule amounts of DMT in your bloodstream. I also spend a good portion of my life watching loved ones destroy themselves with substances, and have spent quite a lot of time doing so myself. Just like anything else in life, drug use requires mindfulness and responsibility to keep horrible things from happening. I agree with you that the logistics are nuanced, and that drugs are not for everyone. But generally if someone is considering using DMT for the first time, they have reason to believe that it will be beneficial for them. That is where so many people go wrong: intention. They start to use these drugs just to get "fucked up," and then can't unfuck themselves up.

      Anyway, I apologize heartily if I come across as cold or assholeish, it's the way I tend to write. I know I'm quite tactless. Have a nice flight, and of course further discussion is always welcome.
      Last edited by FriendlyFace; 04-27-2013 at 12:28 AM.
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      Quote Originally Posted by shadowofwind View Post
      hallucinogens give the user an impression of expanded awareness while actually contracting it in crucial ways. Its like the inverse of the cliche about gaining wisdom and discovering how little one knows. The hallucinogen user thinks they know more, but talk to them about what they know and they know remarkably little. Sageous made his comments based on his experience with LSD and (I think) mushrooms, but from what I can tell from discussions with DMT users it applies just as strongly there also.

      And DMT use is not giving people that love so far as I can see, it gives them a feeling that is like a reflection of love, but in action and temperament it seems to turn them into a bunch of small-hearted bastards who care about tripping but not so much about other people. Or maybe they started out that way, but in any case its clearly not curing the problem, and I see an awful lot of evidence that it makes it worse.
      I think you're mistaking correlation with causation here. A jackass will remain a jackass regardless of what you give them; be it water, a hug, or any sort of drug. The only thing that can cure someone of their douchebaggery is self-reflection.

      If Bob starts experimenting with a psychedelic for the sake of chasing thrills or just another good trip, then he won't learn anything (or at least not much). The drug itself has nothing to do with that, their motivations/intentions/expectations/temperament/personality/etc on the other hand do. Psychedelics let you see things from a different perspective, they don't improve or harm you in and of themselves (unless of course you abuse them). It's what you learn (or don't learn) from that shift in perspectives that determines whether you walk away from the experience a better man, or if you end up stunting your own mental growth. And of course, to get the most out of any psychedelic experience, you need to spend a fair amount of time being "clean" as well. Sober, high, sober, high, etc. If you're high more times than not, then you aren't experiencing much of a shift in perspectives, rather getting stuck in that one frame of mind.

      Take marijuana users for example. Most users you run into are goofs. But it's not the plant that did that, those people were loopy to begin with. Hell, people who are "like that" are more likely to try the drug anyways. And those people inevitably shape that "drug culture" - shaping the views/motivations/intentions/expectations/temperament/personality/etc of almost everyone else who starts smoking marijuana. Once a large number of people start viewing the cannabis high in a certain light, almost everyone else starts experiencing that sort of high because that's what they expect to happen after that first toke.

      Ignore any grammatical errors, I just woke up and I'm still a little groggy.

      Quote Originally Posted by shadowofwind View Post
      There is also nothing that any user of DMT or other hallucinogens learns that can't in my experience and observation be gained in other ways.


      1:16 - 1:37

      I know cannabis isn't traditionally classified as a hallucinogen but my point is that, given the way it affects the brain, it lets you use your mind in a way that you simply can't when sober. If you're processing information differently with the aid of these drugs, then you're by default learning in a way that the sober mind can't.
      Last edited by GavinGill; 04-27-2013 at 02:57 AM.
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      Just a quick change of pace...

      Linxx: if you are still following the chat, could you let us know why you want to try DMT? I'm more than curious -- as this is a dreaming forum, with a focus on LD'ing, I was wondering if you wanted to use DMT to enhance the effect or accelerate the development of your lucid dreams. If that's the case, you might try a different route, because you will only hamper your efforts (while, ironically, believing that you're doing great). If you're just curious about the drug and its effect, or want to explore in the manner that FriendlyFace suggests, well, that's a different story, and one with which I honestly cannot argue. So let us know...

      Now one quick totally irrelevant comment that I felt a need to make:
      Quote Originally Posted by FriendlyFace View Post
      ... To say that you know what DMT is like without having tried it is like me saying I know what being in (romantic) love is like because I've heard someone else describe it.
      In fairness, I would bet that there is a very long line of authors, poets, and songwriters, from Shakespeare to Yeats to Paul Simon, who would beg to differ with that comment. Humans have an outstanding capacity to understand and even visualize what is described to them; don't sell that short.

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      I never said you can't get some vague idea of what an experience is like by reading about it. However, understanding something qualitatively and visualizing it based on someone else's description is a far cry from firsthand experience. Also, I am interested to know why you claim that DMT use will stunt progress in lucid dreaming. Do you have personal experience with this? If not can you refer us to your sources? In my experience, dreams became much more vivid during and for a few months after my DMT use. That being said, I think it would be ill-advised for anyone to use DMT for the sole purpose of enhancing dreams or lucid dreaming ability.

      to the poster below me: it's pretty easy to get for anyone, even though it is scheduled in most countries. DMT is present in and rather easily extracted from many readily available plant sources.
      Last edited by FriendlyFace; 04-27-2013 at 02:57 AM.

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      Is DMT even available to you? In some places it's a controlled substance.

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      Quote Originally Posted by FriendlyFace View Post
      ... I am interested to know why you claim that DMT use will stunt progress in lucid dreaming. Do you have personal experience with this? If not can you refer us to your sources? In my experience, dreams became much more vivid during and for a few months after my DMT use. That being said, I think it would be ill-advised for anyone to use DMT for the sole purpose of enhancing dreams or lucid dreaming ability.
      You sort of answered your question yourself: Lucid dreaming is not about vividness, it's about self-awareness.

      The trouble with hallucinogens, including DMT (and LSD, and peyote, and ayahuasca, and no doubt many more) with regard to LD'ing is that by their nature they create doors rather than open them. Those doors may indeed open to some amazing experiences, experiences that might change your life, or at least your outlook on life. But they add imagery and amp up your perception, challenging your cognition, erasing your memory, and generally setting your self-awareness in a distant back seat for the entire ride. Your dreams might have been more vivid, but I would bet that your sense of self during those vivid dreams, your sense that "this is all a dream, a universe created by my mind," was greatly diminished (even in cases where your hallucinating mind proudly, vividly, proclaimed that you were lucid though not a scrap of waking-life self-awareness was present -- that's happened to me a few times).

      This was because all that vividness, all that extra input, overpowered the tenuous grasp that self-awareness holds during the best of dreams, replacing it with stuff that was more than cool enough to help you forget that you were supposed to be lucid. On top of that, drugs like these fill you with an artificial sense of confidence and depth that convinces you, especially after the fact, that great things happened, so you'll believe that you were just plain expert at whatever it was you were doing (video cameras are fun to have around to show people after the fact just how expert they were). And no, I'm not talking about simple visual and tactile awareness, both of which are often heightened to astounding (if still imagined) degrees. I'm talking about self-awareness.

      In short, it might have been a great trip, and you might even have learned something, but you did so at the expense of self-awareness, and not its enhancement. Self awareness equals lucidity.

      As an aside, this point isn't just for hallucinogens. Supplements like gallantamine and huperzine tend to encourage vividness in dreams, and if doses are too high, that vividness will make the dream far more interesting "as is," causing you to forget about lucidity (not always a bad thing, BTW!). I agree that it would be ill-advised for anyone to use DMT for the sole purpose of enhancing dreams or lucid dreaming ability.

      Though I feel my personal experience was extensive enough to make my point (that's all I'll say about this; I'm not playing your "prove it" game), I still do not feel that your "you have to have done it to understand it" argument is valid. I have no kids, but when I tell my sister that a Pizza-Bites-only diet is not good for her 6-year-old, and she says "What do you know? You don't have kids," is she right too? Facts exist and can be known without having to directly experience their source, and though it certainly would help, you do not need to have a complete personal understanding of a thing to know what it is or what it can do.
      Last edited by Sageous; 04-27-2013 at 06:00 AM.

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      It seems your experience with psychedelics differs greatly from mine. Obviously acute affects of psychedelics will lower your self awareness. That is one of the beautiful things about them. I was speaking in the long term - for example, LSD use permanently obliterated a number of my autistic symptoms, which included a very low level of self-awareness and an almost absolute lack of empathy. I never asked for you to prove anything, I simply asked for your own experience or that of others which you might be referring to. While your experience is of course valid, please know that it doesn't apply to everyone. You should not assume that psychedelics harmed my self-awareness just because they did so to you, especially since in my specific case there were medical professionals who immediately noticed and acknowledged the benefits. It is easy to delude yourself with these drugs. Just because (I assume based on your post) you did so doesn't mean that everyone will. It's also very possible to use them to ground yourself in the long term.

      As for the thing about the pizza bagels, I can't think of a sillier argument. Knowing a fact is quite different from having an experience. Although you know that pizza bagels are unhealthy to eat all the time, you don't know how it feels to be morbidly obese as a result of eating too many pizza bagels (hopefully). If somebody watches pornography and masturbates to it, that doesn't mean that they know what it's like to have sex with another person. If someone reads a book about World War I, that doesn't mean that they know what it's like to be in the trenches trying to stay alive. You don't want a surgeon operating on you who has simply read about surgery and looked at diagrams but never performed it. Please tell me you don't believe that intellectual knowledge is the same as firsthand experience.

      Anyway, I think I've said pretty much all that I have to say here about my experience. You can take it or leave it, just remember that everyone is different and what happens to you or a friend because of irresponsible use and self delusion is not necessarily what psychedelics do to people in general.

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      ^^ Well, I guess you should count yourself very lucky, FriendlyFace, as you are in a very small minority of successful users of hallucinogenics.

      For what its worth, I was speaking not only from experience but from knowledge. I have chosen to also allow myself to learn from the experience of others as well as my own, and gain knowledge and insight from what they share with me -- that seems a much healthier way to live than the solipsistic choice of finding truth only in what you've experienced. To ignore the dangers and inefficiencies of drugs like hallucinogenics just because you're sure they worked for you -- despite the acres and acres of real-life evidence standing in front of you -- is disingenuous at best and not the wisest thing to share with the young and often impressionable users on these forums.

      BTW, your odd interpretation and complete misunderstanding of my pizza-bite analogy said it all, I think.

      Good luck to you, and I truly hope that you continue to experience good fortune with DMT. Beyond that, I to am already tired of beating my head against this particular wall.

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      So anyway, let me try this again:

      Linxx: if you are still following the chat, could you let us know why you want to try DMT?

      I'm more than curious -- as this is a dreaming forum, with a focus on LD'ing, I was wondering if you wanted to use DMT to enhance the effect or accelerate the development of your lucid dreams. If that's the case, you might try a different route, because you will likely hamper your efforts (while, ironically, leave you believing that you did great). If you're just curious about the drug and its effect, or want to explore your limits, well, that's a different story, and one with which I honestly cannot argue.

      So let us know, especially after you've heard so much from each "side" ...

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      A few comments....

      Nobody claimed that intellectually knowing a fact is equivalent to other kinds of experience. That claim keeps getting swapped in and refuted in place of other better arguments that were made. My earlier point was that altered mental states that I have experienced do give me some insight into drug induced altered mental states, and give me some insight into how those alter a person's life. I know that my experiences aren't exactly equivalent to anyone else's, but they're a lot more than just intellectual ideas.

      Another point, which is closer to the one that Sageous made, is that even an intellectual and imaginative understanding of something is adequate to form some reasonable opinions about what its like and whether doing it is a good idea. I haven't killed anyone, but I enough of idea of what that is to inform a choice about whether I want to do that. I haven't gone rock climbing, but I have a fairly good idea about whether I'd enjoy it based on my experience with off trail hiking in cliff areas. I haven't had sex with a child, but I know that it wouldn't be good for me or the child. This seems like an extreme example, but I've actually had discussions over on slashdot where I've been called judgmental and ignorant for making that assertion. Even drug use proponents usually have opinions about the risks and benefits of dangerous drugs they haven't tried. Is that unreasonable? So I agree with Sageous that his pizza-pocket diet example is on target. He didn't claim that he knows exactly what its like to eat nothing but pizza-pockets based solely on having thought about it or having read something about it in a book. He claimed that he knows enough to have a reasonably informed view about whether its good for health.

      FriendlyFace: Having known people who abused drugs, you must know that the justifications that they make to themselves and to their friends and families often include the same arguments you've been making here. That doesn't mean that these arguments are wrong when you make them. You could be making them honestly and objectively, even if they were distorting them under pressure of their psychological addictions. But I think its also something to be aware of, since its part of the context of the conversation.

      To reiterate, I'm not saying that I don't believe that you have been helped by using drugs. It does seem plausible to me. But I agree with Sageous that the benefits you cite are not the biggest part of the picture for the majority of people. I also want to add that one of the tricky things about evaluating the impact of a drug or even any idea, is that partaking of it alters the objectivity of the part of your mind that makes that judgment. This is an issue for me too, when evaluating the effects of having persued self-knowledge for 20 years without using drugs. You can see this sort of thing clearly in the difficulty religious people have in recognizing the adverse effects of their doctrines: they reinterpret all of the negative results according to those doctrines and assign them other causes. This is very much a difficulty with drugs, with the added biochemical component.

      Incidentally, this last point is an example of one of those things that I understand intellectually in relation to drugs, having observed it in close friends and understanding the logic of it, without having gone through it myself. I have experienced something similar with Buddhist and Vedic ideas though, so in the context of ideas it is more than an intellectual observation, I've gone through it also. Again, in relation to experiencing timelessness, I have had significant mystic experiences in that regard, so I do know something significant about what that does to a person, even though my experience won't be identically the same as yours.

      I agree with Sageous that lucid dreaming is often conflated with vivid dreaming, particularly on this site. If someone says that drugs made them more lucid I don't have any reason to doubt that though, it seems plausible based on what I know. I do still doubt that drugs help with a person's objectivity when evaluating the meaning and implications of mystic experiences. Again this is based on converstations with drug users. I agree with GavinGill that its not completely possible to tease out cause and effect in this context though. I'd also add that not only do people have expectations based on group-think, but that a lot of that group-think happens psychically when using the drug, and that experiencing that kind of sharing is a large part of the attraction of a drug. This is also where I claim some of my perspective, because I do some of that also when listing to drug inspired music or trying to internally locate the experience of a drug user when they describe it. This is also why I made the disclaimer I did, that I can't even tell how much of my own experience is dependent on theirs. I realize that 'materialist' drug users, who don't think that experience of identity crosses the air gap between our skulls, aren't going to buy this last argument, but I'm mentioning it anyway because it is part of my experience. Even if you don't buy this last point, its still true that I have my own experience with altered states though.

      Thanks FriendlyFace for the apology, it wasn't necessary, but I still appreciate the acknowledgement that my experience isn't just being written off as unreal, even though I think the conversation did get drawn back into the intellect vs experience debate in a misleading way afterwards.

      Gotta go.
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      Mother of God, I just typed a long explanation and then accidentally hit the cancel button. I will respond when I have the chance to use a normal computer, because typing on my iPhone is making me crazy!

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      Quote Originally Posted by linxx View Post
      Mother of God, I just typed a long explanation and then accidentally hit the cancel button. I will respond when I have the chance to use a normal computer, because typing on my iPhone is making me crazy!
      Open a reply window and see on left bottom, if there is "restore saved content" or something like that.

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      Quote Originally Posted by gab View Post
      Open a reply window and see on left bottom, if there is "restore saved content" or something like that.
      ha too late, thanks though



      Alright. No, I am definitely not interested in the drug solely for the purpose of enhancing lucid dreams. In fact, I actually kinda fell off the lucid dream boat awhile ago(I'm suffering from a lack of inspiration and effort, unfortunately) and I need to get back on, but that is beside the point. Currently, I have become more interested in the obe/ap side of things, stemming from certain experiences I've had, from which have led me to begin to believe there is MUCH more that exists beyond what we perceive in this physical reality than I did before. Now, concerning DMT, from what I've heard from a very trusted friend and through things I've read about it on the internet, it seems as it acts as a bridge from the world of the physical to the world of the spirit. It is that impression that has left me compelled to try it for myself.

      Now, I know there are many critics who will argue that whatever is seen or experienced on hallucinogenic drugs is simply a fabrication of the brain, that it's not actually 'real', and that is fine, and you may be right. But I don't care to get into that conversation and I'd rather not be lectured in that sense. I think we each have a right to our opinion, and a right to decide what is 'real' or not for ourselves.

      I also know there are those of you who would say that depending on certain chemicals to reach those altered states is not the best way to go, and to that I would respond that if this was the one and only thing I'm planning to do to learn about those things, then I can see how that could turn out to be a bad thing, sure. However, I only plan on doing it once or twice, just to try, to gather what I can from it. And I don't see how it could do much harm in that case. And either way, of course, I plan to get much better at certain techniques that allow me to see and learn those types of things without using mind altering substances.

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      ^^ Okay.

      It looks like you've got a fairly sound plan based on a lot of thought. In other words, you seem to have already decided to experiment with DMT.

      That's fine, and good luck to you, but it does beg a question: if you already know about DMT, already plan on taking it, will not hear arguments against taking it or explanations about why DMT isn't really the "spirit molecule," and I guess have no need to hear arguments supporting DMT, then why did you start this thread, and subsequebtly send a few of us down a fairly annoying spiral of an argument?

      Just curious.
      Last edited by Sageous; 04-27-2013 at 10:39 PM.

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      Oh ha I'm sorry if that's what it seemed like. I think I decided I want to do it for sure in the time span between posting that and now. But I was merely trying to take in information about it and wanted to hear what people thought. Saying 'I'm thinking about trying it' was simply an explanation of why I wanted to know. It was not because I specifically wanted for people to tell me why I should or shouldn't try it. I think I was mostly expecting to hear people's experiences on the drug and the effects it had in their life or with their point of view on things. Maybe I wasn't as clear as I should have been, but I don't really think I'm responsible for the conversation turning the direction that it did, although I found it interesting and helpful all the same.

      So, maybe I should instead ask if anyone would like to share their DMT experiences and what you took from it, if anything.

      Oh, also

      Quote Originally Posted by Sageous View Post
      will not hear explanations about why DMT isn't really the "spirit molecule"
      Did I say that? I don't think I did. If anyone would like to explain to me their opinion on that, I would love to hear it. If anyone covered that in any of the previous conversation, I apologize, I must have missed it.

      Oh I guess I sort of did imply that. I think what I was getting at is you shouldn't bother giving me the argument that a drug induced experience is only a creation of your brain and you do not actually leave your body or meet entities, you only think you do because our brains can be very convincing and make things seem real that aren't. I'm not saying this in a rude way, but just sparing whoever might have dived into that conversation from making the effort, because I'm already aware of that side of the argument.

      However, if someone has a different explanation of why DMT isn't really the 'spirit molecule', I would love to hear it.
      Last edited by gab; 04-28-2013 at 12:04 AM. Reason: posts merged

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      Oh. Okay; thanks for clarifying.

      Hopefully the conversation will continue now, and in the directions you hope, because that would be interesting!

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      Quote Originally Posted by linxx View Post
      Now, concerning DMT, from what I've heard from a very trusted friend and through things I've read about it on the internet, it seems as it acts as a bridge from the world of the physical to the world of the spirit.
      Quote Originally Posted by linxx View Post
      I think what I was getting at is you shouldn't bother giving me the argument that a drug induced experience is only a creation of your brain and you do not actually leave your body or meet entities, you only think you do because our brains can be very convincing and make things seem real that aren't. I'm not saying this in a rude way, but just sparing whoever might have dived into that conversation from making the effort, because I'm already aware of that side of the argument.

      However, if someone has a different explanation of why DMT isn't really the 'spirit molecule', I would love to hear it.
      There isn't a simple dichotomy between real and not real in this context. I know for certain from my own experiences that supernatural experiences are not "only a creation of your brain", but just as certainly they do make things seem real that aren't. For example, even while awake in my normal state, I can make it seem that my thoughts are occurring outside of my body. I understand why this is possible, that I am manipulating a mental map. The primary reason that my thoughts ever seem to be in my head is because my head is midway between my ears. The presence of my brain in my head is incidental to experiencing my thoughts to be in my head, notwithstanding that the brain is involved in the creation of the thoughts, which is known for other reasons. At the same time, this same power of imagination seems to be closely connected to the production of other objectively verifiable paranormal phenomena, so the experience of projecting my thoughts, or anything else, is not all just pretend either. I'm confused about this. I can also see that most other people are even more confused than I am. They either assume that this stuff is all imaginary, or they embrace a lot of made up and mostly nonsensical ideas about the 'world of the spirit' and wander around in it lost. My view on the drugs is they almost always contribute to being lost, and work against understanding the real nature and significance of any of this. I can see that I'm not going to convince anyone of any of this though.
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      ^^ Why, I don't know, but that just gave me another thought:

      Why would chemicals like DMT do anything spiritual? After all, aren't they by nature and definition nothing more than physical devices meant to affect physical changes in your physical brain? Where does the spiritual stuff come into play?
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      As defined by the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy: "Religious experiences can be characterized generally as experiences that seem to the person having them to be of some objective reality and to have some religious import." Unfortunately you don't get to decide what is and isn't spiritual for other people.

      Any experience is the result of chemical and electrical activity in the brain. The spiritual stuff comes into play when the person having the experience considers that experience to be spiritually significant. Who are you to say that one person's spiritual experience is somehow less valid than another's?

      I defy you to drink a strong ayahuasca brew and not have a spiritual experience
      Last edited by FriendlyFace; 04-29-2013 at 11:14 PM.

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      Quote Originally Posted by Sageous View Post
      ^^ Why, I don't know, but that just gave me another thought:

      Why would chemicals like DMT do anything spiritual? After all, aren't they by nature and definition nothing more than physical devices meant to affect physical changes in your physical brain? Where does the spiritual stuff come into play?
      The experience is what causes people to believe it is spiritual. Their reasoning behind can only go as far as "when I take dmt, xyz happens". From a scientific point of view DMT is not by any means a unique kind of drug and isn't known to have some kind of spiritual effect. Generally most theories by people who believe DMT has spiritual properties are full of wholes and problems, no one can actually provide a good reason as of yet.
      Off course whether it is true will for now remain a mystery, their word is as much a lie as it is the truth since we just don't know for sure. Despite the extremely huge probability of DMT just being another everyday drug there is a tiny chance of it being something more and a lot of people are willing to cling to that idea.
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