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Gone Forever, Then Back Again
DMT
Citation:   Psychonautical. "Gone Forever, Then Back Again: An Experience with DMT (exp112599)". Erowid.org. Feb 4, 2019. erowid.org/exp/112599

 
DOSE:
1 hit vaporized DMT
BODY WEIGHT: 150 lb
Before I start, let me disclaim the most important lessons I learned from my first time breakthrough experience:

1). GET A SCALE, GET A SCALE, GET A SCALE!!! I cannot over emphasize how important it is for one to get themselves a good scale before delving into uncharted territory. I did not, and could have hurt myself. I still do not have an exact dosage of how much I ended up taking.

2). Properly clean or clear the device you are smoking out of after every hit. Not everyone gets all the spice in one or two tokes.

2). Set & Setting. My first time experience was rather spontaneous and in a setting I had never been with people I barely knew.

3). Prepare yourself mentally. I felt like I died, I know now that it is necessary to feel that way and open up to it.

This story began on a rather uneventful night. I was hanging out at a bar with some friends though I hadn't had anything to drink that night. Among some great friends that I had known for a long time were two newcomers. These two kids were younger than me by a few years but seemed cool. We quickly realized we had some things in common, most particularly, our passion for psychedelics. I could tell one of the kids really knew what he was talking about, the other didn't talk as much but was certainly an admirer of LSD and Psilocybin. Given the topic of discussion, we decided to leave the bar and go back to one of their houses to smoke some tree and talk more about psychedelics.

On the way, I mentioned to them that I had some DMT. I had acquired about half a gram awhile back and had only ever dipped into the smallest of doses. I was apprehensive about diving off the deep end by myself without a sitter. At the mention of DMT both of them perked up and were immediately interested in trying it with me as neither of them had the chance before. After grabbing the spice along with a glass vaporizer of mine, we headed off to one of their houses to test it out. As soon as we got inside I noticed my friend's basement was quite a mess. There were clothes strewn about everywhere and just about every surface was cluttered with random stuff. I mention this because I believe it played into my experience some. I feel like it cluttered my mind.

Since I didn't have a scale
I didn't have a scale
, I poured an undetermined amount onto a guitar pic and slid it into the vaporizer onto a bed of ash. Looking back, I believe that amount was more than enough for a breakthrough but the vaporizer came with a slight learning curve and the two kids didn't know how to use it optimally. The one kid who seemed to really know his stuff wanted to go first so I happily obliged since I had done a low dose before. As he lit flame to glass, the pipe started to fill up with white smoke. He drew it all in and despite my instructions, released the air from his lungs within 5 seconds or so. I usually hold it in my lungs for 15-30 seconds. Within the next 10 seconds effects came on for him and he seemed to really enjoy it. However he said it wasn't as strong as he was expecting from everything he had read on it (probably due to a relatively small hit that wasn't held in long enough). I didn't even think about how there could be residual unvaporized DMT in the pipe and I loaded another hit. I passed this hit to the second guy and made sure to instruct him on how long to hold his breath in. He took the hit but had trouble keeping the flame lit to the pipe. He sucked in all the white smoke from what was vaporized and held it a little longer and released the second he felt that awesome wave come on. Again, his hit wasn't that big and he didn't hold it in long enough. He really enjoyed the closed eye visuals and mentioned that he could feel it working in his body. He even mentioned that he thought he saw visions of it working at the molecular level.

Again, I didn't think that there could be more unsmoked DMT in the pipe and loaded even more DMT. If I had to estimate, the amount I loaded had to be over 50mg at least. From everything I'd ever read, most people have to take two or even three hits to breakthrough. I never knew I could breakthrough so intensely from just one hit. I was so unprepared for what happened next.

As soon as the glass was heated, a very dense white smoke filled the pipe and I took it all in clearing the vaporizer. Within just a few seconds I felt an intense rush come over my body. It got infinitely stronger by the second. I remember it hitting me so hard that I got confused and forgot what happened at first. Then something reminded me that I had just taken a huge hit. I looked at my friend and he had intricate shroom like patterns running up and down his face. At that time, about 15 seconds into the hit, something jumped out into my visual field. It was a tiny hand sized, jester like, elf or something. It hopped around the room in a playful manner that wasn't necessarily benevolent. It seemed more like a trickster. In fact, one of the last things I remember before losing touch with reality was thinking that the tiny figure came from within me and had tricked me into just killing myself. As much as I've read up on DMT and the effects of ego death/loss of reality, I had no way of knowing how intense the experience could be and I wasn't ready. It terrified me because it was my first time and I thought I took a fatal dose. That's why I can't stress enough to get a scale and work your way up, starting with smaller doses to become familiar with how intense a given dose is for you.

Back to the 15 second mark, the jester or whatever it was stood perched on my friend's shoulder and jumped across the room onto the coffee table. I tried to follow it with my eyes but the most intense tracer effect I have ever experienced happened next. As my gaze went right to left from my friend to the table, his face and everything in the background moved with my eyes in a way that appeared to make his face duplicated and super imposed across my whole visual field. I saw like 12 of his heads looking at me spread across the room. The effect was so intense that I had to close my eyes and then boom!

Boom, I closed my eyes and couldn't feel my body anymore. Interestingly enough, for a few seconds the room seemed to still be seen with my eyes shut as if my consciousness had expanded or something. Around this time a voice appeared in my head and was starting to inform me of what was happening. It told me that I died and even as it said that I felt like I saw two living entites come out of me and instantly inform my friends that I was never coming back as the spirits tried to comfort them. The way it played out was so real and made me think that somehow, this happens to everyone when they die. I thought, "Fuck I'm dead! But at least the spirits who took me were kind enough to console my friends." I remember I kept saying things like "Fuck" and "Oh My God!" I was in utter awe of the sheer intensity of the experience. Interestingly enough my friends did not hear me say any of that instead they said I kept saying "I'm Sorry" over and over. Thinking back on this I can only assume I said that because I felt bad about killing myself on this dude's couch and leaving them a dead body to freak out about. This was the last thing I remember before complete loss of reality.

Next I was taken through the most terrifying mindfuck I've ever been through. Though I couldn't see the source, something was informing me in a matter of fact style that I was dead but not to worry because I had never been alive in the first place
something was informing me in a matter of fact style that I was dead but not to worry because I had never been alive in the first place
. The exact words escape me now but the message seemed to be along the lines of "life is a paradox, a lie, an illusion." It's as if when I'm in my body experiencing "reality" its actually an illusion. Where I was now was eternal non-existence. It informed me that we only exist for a little while in these bodies but our souls or consciousness belong in a realm of non-existence. It was apparent that this realm was where we come from and where our souls must return to when we die. Here, every concept I could think of was instantly debunked as something that doesn't exist. Here there was no physical pain, no heat or cold, no modality sense at all. I had no body I was just essence or energy. There was definitely no sense of time. As soon as I got there it was like I had always been there and that I'd forever be there in an infinite now. There was no passing of time. Everything just was. Here I completely forgot I had a body. I forgot who I was and that I had ever existed. I forgot any friends or family. I forgot everything. Meanwhile I was being bombarded visually. The images came at me so fast and with such intensity that I have no way of recollecting most of it. I do remember at one point feeling like I was in a red maze with black or white polka dots (I can barely remember this part) and everything was shifting or morphing into the next thing I was to be shown.

This experience was so terrifying for me because at first I truly thought I killed myself and I was struggling to accept it. The longer I denied the fact that I died, the more intense and confusing the experience was. I feel like my consciousness was flipped on it's head. Things would suddenly become apparent and make absolute sense then seconds later I was shown how that concept was completely and absurdly wrong. It was such a mindfuck. Somewhere along the trip, I finally accepted that I was dead and that's where I forgot about my existence altogether. After this I believe the trip smoothed out. The hardest part was the struggle with death. I may have a fear of dying that I need to get over. This acceptance of death came towards the end of my trip. Because right after that, the scene shifted to something I can only recall as indescribable beauty.

I'm not sure how I arrived to this part of the trip because the memory just didn't come back with me. But somehow I shifted from that red polka dot maze to floating in outer space. I couldn't feel anything physically but there was a sense of awe at the beauty of what I could see. I was watching a sunset at the edge of the cosmos. The star was a darker shade of color than ours, a deep orange, almost red. There seemed to be black structures around it but they were arranged in a very aesthetically pleasing way. Beautiful as they were, they seemed to have a function that I could not understand. They seemed very alien like. I felt like I was getting closer to it and there was an idea that I might make contact with some sort of entity. But unfortunately the trip started to end here.

As I gazed at that awesome spectacle, I could suddenly feel sensation coming back into my arms. Around this time my brain goes "Holy shit! How could you forget you belong to a body?" My arms started grasping at my legs that I still couldn't feel but I knew they were there because my arms could feel them. Over the next minute sensation came back to the rest of my body and I realized for the first time that my eyes were shut. Before now, it was like I had no eyes. As soon as I opened my eyes, everything flooded back to me. It was like my memory needed to finish rebooting before I could use it. I looked at my friends and had no idea who they were at first. I had no idea where I was or what I was doing in that room. For a second I didn't even know who I was even though everything felt so familiar. It took a good 5 or 6 seconds for everything to come back to me. And when it did I immediately screamed "OMG! I'M ALIVE! I'M HERE! I CAN'T BELIEVE I CAME BACK! I'M SO HAPPY TO BE HERE! My friend quickly calmed me because I was too loud and his parents who were upstairs could not know what we were doing. He was a great comfort in easing me back to reality. He slowly explained that everything was just fine. Looking back I can only thank him for that.

Though I was back in my body I was still very much tripping. There were visuals everywhere and everything had that acid glint to it. I started shaking profusely and felt very cold even though it was about 75 degrees Fahrenheit in the room and I was wearing a hoodie. My friends grabbed a blanket for me. After a minute or so the shaking subsided and I felt warm again.

By 30 minutes after the trip I felt mostly back to baseline but I was everything but the same. Since that harrowing experience, I have gained such a deep appreciation for my life. I'm much more upbeat about my outlook on things. I have become more accepting of the things I can't change and see them as the way they are supposed to be. This was by far the most terrifying experience of my life. I have gained such a deep respect for this spiritual tool.

I have tried it a few times since then but haven't broken through since that first time. I look forward to the day that I breakthrough again and I believe this time I will be much more prepared. I will have a scale, be in a better setting, and use a clean vaporizer next time. I'm still not sure how much I took but given the intensity of it compared to my other experiences with the spice, I believe I did way too much. That combined with my first breakthrough are why I think it frightened me so much. I came to the conclusion that I was gone forever, then I came back again. I believe next time I will be more prepared for a journey outside my body. To anyone who read this I hope it was helpful. Learn from me and come with respect and humility or you could be humbled in a horrifying way. May you all find peace in your journeys. Stay safe all you beautiful souls.

Exp Year: 2018ExpID: 112599
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 29
Published: Feb 4, 2019Views: 2,173
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DMT (18) : Difficult Experiences (5), Entities / Beings (37), General (1), Small Group (2-9) (17)

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