DMT Amnesia

A visit to the tryptamine void

Substances: DMT

Here I insert some information about my past drug experience. Well, it's not that expansive. The usual fucking around with alcohol and pot, around 20 experiences with my beloved narcotic-entheogen DXM, some of which utterly mindboggling and impressive (I guess I should write there about that "empathetic communication with swirling sentient crimson cloud" -thing later), two trips with LSD (with first I was so stoned that the THC dominated the whole trip, but second was what could be expected, and quite rewarding too), some experimentations with N2O and one with opium tea, which didn't really do anything. Yes, and also a severe depression, which at its worst could be most accurately described as months-long bad trip. Psychedelics have helped me to climb over this particular wall, shown me hope where I honestly couldn't see any and generally provided fresh perspectives to my situation in addition to the old one which was and still often gets cluttered with apathy and bleakness which sucks out everything from everything, so to say. Sadly the drugs, including alcohol, have also been a lure of an easy escape to a place where there still is pleasure and beauty, rather than a tool of bringing those things back to standard reality. However, I have resisted this successfully most of the time.

But back to the DMT. It was early afternoon and we had found ourselves located in nice rocky clearing in the midst of a small forest. I held the lighter above the material, careful not to let the flame touch it. The first of my friends then inhaled, but the pipeful of harsh plastic smoke rushing through his throat proved too much, and he coughed it all out. Result -> nothing at all.

I then went through this same procedure with the another of my two friends, with significantly better results. This guy didn't manage to break on through to the other side, but got extreme open-eye visuals. Fractals, pyramid flying through the sky and stuff. Some of you can propably imagine.

And then it was my turn. My friend scraped some residue off the pipe and put them into the bowl, and to my satisfaction I noticed that the amount wasn't so small as I had thought. Vaporization of DMT started. Soon I saw that inside the pipe was a good amount of white smoke. I exhaled and then inhaled deeply from the pipe, determined to get it all and keep it all in. Mind you, I was under the impression that there wasn't much DMT left and I would have to use it as efficiently as possible to get any major visuals.

The smoke was very harsh, but keeping it in proved not to be too difficult. I laid back and thought: "Odd, there was more of the stuff than I had assumed." That thought, and the feeling of my body exhaling, proved to be last things that made any sense in the terrestrial meaning of the word.

When I breathed out, this circular geometric pattern multiplied dozens of times on orange background appeared out of nowhere and casually pushed my regular perception away. Then it turned three-dimensional, and then it turned completely real, and then I had this feeling of rushing into it with terrible speed... And this all took about two seconds. Like being a particle in a supercollider.

I don't know what happened after that. There is a gap in my memory which should be about 7-8 minutes long in standard human time. According to my friends I waved around in a most odd fashion, didn't respond to outside sensory input in any way although my eyes were most of the time open.

At some time my memory recording kicked back online, because I have these vague memories of this silvery, futuristic city. I didn't have any recollection of having smoked DMT, or having existed in physical sense. I was someone, which was perhaps me, but this someone certainly didn't remember 20 years of life in Northern Europe. Anyway. In this city were also sentient, fully personal lifeforms. I do not remember exactly what I talked with them, but I recall having been rather assertive and strict. Nor do I remember any details of these "aliens".

After this I transformed into the city and the entire space around it. Streams of thoughts and memories passed right through me. My state of mind was quite dreamy (delirium would also depict it well), as one could imagine living city's mind to be. However, this state didn't last long. My flowing, irregularly shaped body began to slowly coalesce into really freaky form. I mean, your hand for example doesn't feel so odd after you have used it for your entire life, but when you don't remember seeing one ever before, it decidedly feels weird when part of your swirling body turns into one.

In pace with the reintegration of my body followed the return of familiar concepts. "Wow, this feels odd -- hey, time is flowing onward!" Soon I began to feel familiarity with all this. Like, "I wonder what is happening now... hey, I have been here before. And I think too in a way that feels like I've done it before..." Then flashes of "Fuck, this is my body! This is why I remember having been here before. But why am I floating amidst all these dreamy pictures?"

After this I began to hear voices, and fairly quickly realized who they were. Then I understood for the first time during the trip that it was a trip, and for a short while became scared. "How can I come down if I'm as high as now?" The fear passed away as quickly as it had came, as my capability of rational thought was being restored. All the while I had answered on instinct to the questions of my friends who asked if I had heard them talking to my during my visit to hyperspace and stuff -- of course I hadn't.

Soon I again could use my eyes. I really couldn't move, though, so I just laid there and stared at the forest searing my poor brains with shimmering waves of red, gold and green. It was like perceiving all the life-energy in the trees and plants and everything, and it was not a bit short of totally amazing. I was told to look at the sky, but I couldn't gather the necessary energy to flop over to my back, and thus restrained to staring at the trees.

My physical strength came back fairly soon and we walked away, though I still felt wobbly and watching my step carefully proved a challenge when ground tried to distract you by flowing around. Some 30 minutes after the toke I was completely back at ground zero, though still somewhat mentally baffled by my experience.

All in all I must say that I was blasted completely out of my league. The fact that I had only prepared myself for minor, recreational blast of hallucinations of course had its influence, but I doubt that I could have mastered this substance even if I had known what was coming.

The amnesia might be indicative of this. What do you think? Is there some other explanation than my poor mind staring at the zillions of talking fractals, saying: "No, I won't deal with this" and shutting itself down?

If I'll have another chance to use DMT, I'll propably do so, just to see how much correct preparation matters.