Hacker News Reader

Comment by researcher88 | Hacker News Reader

DMT is easily tolerated by the body and only lasts 10 minutes. There's no hangover type effect and it doesn't last hours. It's also infinitely more intense, with an overwhelming sense of love and comfort.

LSD is like riding a bicycle but DMT is more flying in a spaceship that actually travels through dimensions. There seems to be a much lower or non-existant risk of a bad trip. (Unlike the version you drink, which can take you to hell and back.)

View on HN

> an overwhelming sense of love and comfort.

This is exactly how I would describe my experience with DMT. Once it hit me, I immediately felt as if nothing bad could ever happen to me. All tension, physically and mentally, was immediately removed from my body. Pure comfort and excitement. I'd never felt that level of calmness in my entire life even if everything that was happening to me visually was crazy.

I'm curious if you or the grandparent poster have encountered the DMT gnomes/elves? Apparently it's not uncommon on DMT to have the gnomes/elves appear and tell you the secrets of the universe or something. They're described here by Terence McKenna:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna#Machine_elves

(And now I have to listen to Shpongle's Divine Moments of Truth song, which perhaps coincidentally clocks in at a touch over 10 mins long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1-2d6wxudE )

Not that I can remember. Although I really do want to experience it. There are parts of my experience I can remember quite vividly and other parts that are just blank gaps in between.

People I've seen use DMT have met 'elves', 'machine beings' playful spirits, and all kinds of other entities.

I have numerous times. They come in varying degrees depending upon how much you smoke and the manner in which you smoke (its a bit tricky to figure it out at first). The first "level" (if you will) is a sort of cartoonish kaleidoscope of cards or images, almost 2d. The second level is when you loose the notion that you are on your couch; the experience becomes totally immersive and "you" can no longer be separated from "it". People describe it as a room, but this description is far, far, far from accurate. The third level is when you quite literally come in contact with some kind of extraterrestrial or extra-dimensional entities (these are the only words I know to describe what they are). They seem to be infinite in number because no experience is ever the same, with each contact being immensely different. One common theme however is telepathy; communication most certainly takes place, but it is not with words. Its like immediate meaning and understanding without the limitation of time. It has happened to me during every single encounter and has led me to have a much greater understanding of post linguistic possibility.

Another thing I would like to add is that DMT is the only psychedelic that I know of (maybe mushrooms can hit this place at certain very high dosages) where open-eye reality can be completely transformed, when looking around you are no longer laying on your couch but in some kind of pod and the pipe you are holding suddenly contains a beautiful jewel and is embroidered with some kind of alien language and where, with each subtle movement of your eyes the pod you find yourself in transforms into different shapes with different panels, each wired to your optic nerve. Holy fucking shit people: what is going on out there? More than meets the eye. Its remarkable and weird and beautiful and scary and the greatest of mysteries.

Apologies for the total insufficiency of my words. Everyone -- everyone -- should try it sometime, and particularly atheists and general skeptics. Your faith in your own certainty will be dismantled immediately and forever. The experience is anything and everything but a mere hallucination; its like turning the frequency on a dial and suddenly hitting some kind of super powerful organic SETI message that knows you are going to arrive.

You just described the plot of Contact with Jodie Foster :)

I know! I was even going to mention that in my post.

I have never ingested DMT, so thanks for the interesting write up. Salvia Divinorum is another psychedelic that might can produce incredibly strong visuals. It is the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen, and produces far stronger hallucinations than LSD or mushrooms. As with DMT it is very short lived, the effects lasting around 5-10 minutes. It was used in shamanistic ritual, so perhaps it also offers the same spiritual/metaphysical properties. However my environment wasn't really ideal for introspection so I didn't experience that side of things.

Salvia == absolute abject animal-like terror. Wouldn't recommend

I usually describe the body/mood response from DMT as similar to that of some mellow MDMA (without any speedy additives).

When it hits me (DMT) I feel a warmth spread throughout my entire body. I've done DMT somewhere between 300-500 times, though it's been years now.

>some mellow MDMA (without any speedy additives).

so, comparable to MDA?

"an overwhelming sense of love and comfort"

Funny, I would describe my experiences with meditation using exactly the same words. Combined with really wonky visual effects.

(with meditation in the zen-buddhist context I think this perception alteration is probably just considered a potentially harmfull side-effect.)

I see no harm in chemically induced warmth and comfort but chemicals are not the only thing that can make us experience altered states of perception and relaxation.

I would definetly understand why this would be beneficial in a therapeutic setting.

We are probably still laking in proper terminology but this anxiety reduction caused by these techniques is something that really should become part of the general medical practice. I think some people become substance abusers because they seek this release from their inner turmoil and loose themselves in excess or desperation.

I would definetly understand why this would be beneficial in a therapeutic setting.

I did not get an overwhelming sense of love and comfort (5-MeO). I got the opposite. The experience is what taught me that I shouldn't personally be dicking around with my consciousness that way.

My understanding is that 5-MeO DMT is very different from DMT. Have you tried both?

Nope. That's why I mentioned the variety, though.

5-meo-dmt is a completely different beast than N,N,DMT.

For one, while 5-meo-dmt is endogenous to many organisms (Bufo Alvarius/Colorado River Toad/Sonoran Desert Toad being one of them) it is not found in the human brain.

It's also said to be more intense in an uncomfortable direction than DMT.

FYI, DMT production in the human brain is not supported by any scientific studies. There were studies that found negligible amounts in rat brains, but those have not been successfully duplicated. So it's possible that it's there, but it's commonly stated as a fact when in reality, we just don't know.

DMT production (or even existence) in the brain hasn't been conclusively demonstrated, but it has been found in other human tissue, so it is produced somewhere in the body. Dr. Rick Strassman (who has written books on specifically this subject) seems to make a good case for its production in the brain, but you're right that it isn't accepted as scientific fact yet.

as Doug Stanhope once said: "There's only two types of people who are against drugs: the people who have never done drugs and the people who really sucked at doing drugs."

Try again with straight DMT.

What did he say about the type of person who can't hear anything negative about any drug without trying to turn it into a debate about prohibition? Are they just sort of intuitively good at psychopharmacology? If so, I'll get right on that recommendation.

it appears you classify yourself as the "sucked at doing drugs" category.

As to your question, I don't think you've listened to much Stanhope if you're asking that.

Whoosh.

No, he's just really good at doing drugs

If you ever change your mind in the future, I think you would have a more positive experience with N,N-DMT. DMT is very similar to serotonin and trytophan so perhaps that's why it's well tolerated by the body.

With a breakthrough dose (e.g. 4 hits), you simply cannot believe what is happening as it's happening. It feels like you are in a dimension of hyperspace with a sensation of intelligent forces communicating with you; laughing at you in a ultra high definition resolution of colors, geometric shapes and positivity. It feels more real than reality. Whatever it is, it is certainly a grand mystery of life.

I have been to a number of indescribably beautiful alien places with DMT, places that have completely shaken my notion of what is, but I have most definitely met beings that could only be described as pure power and evil. Tred lightly

You don't seem to know what you're talking about... the chance of bad tripping with DMT is about the same as with other psychedelics. It's just waaay more intense and has a shorter duration. And actually, most people argue that Ayahuasca is more likely to give you an easy ride than pure DMT, which can be "just too crazy".

Absolutely agree. I've taken ayahuasca dozens of times, and am pretty comfortable with it (not to say I don't still experience at least a momentary frisson just before drinking most every night), but I still have tremendous trepidation about straight DMT.

As a friend who's done both described the latter, "Load universe into cannon, aim at head, and fire."

corroborating the grandparent's post. I've personally done DMT more than 10 times, and haven't experienced a bad trip yet. I've had bad trips on mushrooms, several, in fact. Not a single bad trip on DMT.

Well, I have the exact opposite experience. I've always had pleasant trips with shrooms (over 10 trips) but at my first DMT trip I experienced some anxiety (didn't break through)... nothing traumatic but I could imagine it going much worse. Because of that I went on to read "The Psychedelic Experience" as it contains lots of advice on ego death trips, and if you read it you'll realize bad trips on DMT are just normal.

Arguably the short duration helps quite a bit... bad trips don't start instantly....they are more of a gradual building of anxiety that builds to a sort of panic attack.

If you smoke DMT and don't have a breakthrough you may feel a lot of discomfort, which may cause anxiety. That's exactly what happened the first time I tried DMT, and I was already pretty experienced with other psychedelics...

You are absolutely right and I should had said a proper or significant dose. A small dosage of DMT can be very uncomfortable and cause anxiety. But if you take 3-4 hits, or otherwise get a proper dosage, I have never experienced a negative result.

And, as I said in my original comment, drinking DMT in Ayahuasca can take you through a hellish experience.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com