found in the brains of all mammals and in plants on every continent. Interestingly, there is a surprising consistency between the DMT trips of different people leading some to think that this chemical key
transports you to a dimension that actually exists, somewhere out there. There's a convincing case for it since the experience is so
and yet repeatable by different people.
When you smoke this, the onset is very rapid. 30-45 seconds,
you know? There's this feeling which comes over your body -
half arousal, half anaesthesia. The air appears to suddenly have
been sucked out of the room because all the colors brighten
visibly, as though some intervening medium has been removed.
And then there's a sound, like a piece of bread wrapper or
cellophane being scrunched up and thrown away. A friend of
mine says this is radio-entelechy leaving the anterior fontanelle
at the top of your head. I'm not sure I want to line up
with that... but a membrane is being ripped; something is being
torn. And then there is a complete rupture of the mundane plane. And you fall back into this
hallucinogenic space, and what you see is a slowly rotating red
and orange kind of thing, which, over the years we've
nicknamed, uh, "The Chrysanthemum." And it's.. this
represents some kind of disequilibrium state that has its roots in
the synapses. What's happening as you're watching this
Chrysanthemum is that millions and then hundreds of millions
of DMT molecules are rushing into these serotonin bond sites
in the synaptic cleft and disrupting the serotonin and switching
the electron spin resonance signature of these neural junctions
in this "other" direction. And this is taking, you know, 30 or 40
seconds, and there's this rising hum, this
____nnnmmmmMMMMMMMM^^^^
that rising tone; the flying saucer tone of Hollywood B
movies... you actually hear this thing.
And then, if you've taken enough DMT (and it has to do
entirely with physical capacity: Did you take, did you cross the
threshold?) something happens ... for which there are no
words. A membrane is rent, and you are propelled into this
"place." And language cannot describe it - accurately. Therefore
I will inaccurately describe it.
The rest is now lies. When you break into this space, you have
several impressions simultaneously that are a kind of gestalt:
First of all (and why, I don't know) you have the impression
that you are underground - far underground - you can't say
why, but there's just this feeling of immense weight above you
but you're in a large space, a vaulted dome. People even call it
"The DMT dome", I have heard said, had people say to me, "Have you
been under the dome?" and I knew exactly what they meant.
So you burst into this space. It's lit, socketed lighting, some
kind of indirect lighting you can't quite locate. But what is
astonishing and immediately riveting is that in this place there
are entities - there are these things, which I call "self
transforming machine elves," I also call them self-dribbling
basketballs. They are, but they are none of these things. I mean
you have to understand: these are metaphors in the truest
sense, meaning they're lies! Uh, it's a jeweled self-transforming
basketball, a machine elf. I name them 'Tykes' because tyke is a
word that means to me a small child, and I was fascinated by
the 54th fragment of Heraclitis, where he says: "The Aeon is a
child at play with colored balls" ... and when you burst into the
DMT space this is the Aeon - it's a child, and it's at play with
colored balls, and I am in eternity, apparently, in the presence
of this thing.
There are many of these things, but the main thing that's
happening is that they are engaged in a linguistic activity of
some sort, which we do not have words for, but it's visible language. They are doing the visible language trip. When you
break into the space, they actually cheer! The first thing you
hear when you pass across is this 'hhhyeaaaaaayyy'. - you
know the Pink Floyd song? "The Gnomes have learned a new
way to say Hoo-Ray?" This has gotta be what these guys were
talking about; how else could it be? It doesn't make any sense
otherwise.
You break into this space... the gnomes say hoo-ray! And they
come rushing forward and they, and, and the thing then that
happens is... and people say "is there risk, to DMT? it sounds so
intense. Is it dangerous?".
The answer is: yes, it's tremendously dangerous; the danger is
the possibility of death by astonishment. And you must prepare
yourself for this eventuality, because you are so amazed.
Amazement seems to be the emotion that has torn loose and
swamped everything else - I mean astounded? When was the
last time you were genuinely 'ASTOUNDED'? I mean, I think
you can go your whole damned life without being
'ASTOUNDED'... and this is astonishment, you know, raised to
the N-th degree to the point that your jaw hangs...
And it raises issues: like you say, "Jesus, ah, huhh ... I must be
dead!" And you, and the weird thing about DMT is it does not
effect what we ordinarily call the mind. The part that you call
"you" - nothing happens to it. You're just like you were before,
but the World has been radically replaced - 100% - it's all gone,
and you're sitting there, and you're saying, "Jesus, a minute ago
I was in a room with some people, and they were pushing some
weird drug on me, and, and now, what's happened? Is this the
Drug? Did we do it? Is this it?" And meanwhile, these things
are saying: "Do not give way to amazement; Control your
wonder." in other words, they try to bring you down. They
say, "Don't just goof out on this; pay attention. PAY
ATTENTION... to what we're doing." "OK, what're you
doing?..."
They say "this is what we're doing," and then
they proceed to sing objects into
existence. Amazing objects. Objects
that are Faberge Eggs, things made of
pearl, and metal, and glass, and gel,
and you, when you're shown one of
these things, a single one of them, you
look at it an you know, without a
shadow of a doubt, in the moment of
looking at this thing, that if it were
right here, right now, this world
would go mad. It's like something from
another dimension. It's like an artifact
from a flying saucer. It's like
something falling out of the mind of
God - such objects DO not exist in this
universe, and yet, you're looking at it.
And they're clamoring for your
attention. " 'k at this! 'ook at This! Look at THIS!" and they pull
these things... and each one, you look into it and it begins to
open into this wonder that you must fight. You say "No, don't
look at it, look AWAY from it!" because it's so wonderful that
it's swamping my objectivity and destroying my ability to
function in this space.
Well, then they say "now you do it"...
And the objects that they make have the peculiar ability to
themselves generate this linguistic "stuff" which condenses as
other objects. So beings are making objects, showing you
objects, the objects are turning into beings and making other
objects, these beings and objects, they jump into your chest -
and then they jump back out. They jump into your body and
disappear into your body, and then they jump back out, waving
these things, just throwing this stuff in all directions. They are
- the word that comes to mind is: they are Zany. It's like a Bugs
Bunny cartoon, uh, gone mad. And all of this energy - they are
elves. This is what elves are. It's this weird thing, where they
love you - or they like you a lot, but you can tell that their
sense of humor is Weird. And that you must be very careful of
the deals you cut with these things. I have different
kinds of feelings about it. One is (and this really threw me for a
loop when I figured this out) after many many of these trips,
and analyzing this place I kept going to, I finally realized: "this
place is... somebody very weird... it's their idea of a reassuring
environment for a human being! It's like a playpen. It's this
warm, well lit, secure, womblike environment, and when I
break into it they, these things, the elves and the toys, are toys!
These are things to amuse me. The way you would hang, uh,
cubes and blocks above a cradle... a playpen, you know?
Because children are supposed to coordinate shapes and bright
colors. That's what these things are: they are toys to try and
get me to coordinate my perception in this place. It's a holding
area of some sort - someone's created this and is watching me.
OK - that's one metaphor for what it is. Another metaphor is...
I took this stuff to the Tibetans, and to the Amazon. I gave it to
Tibetans, they said "this is the lesser lights, the lesser lights of
the Bardo. You cannot go further into the Bardo and return.
This takes you as far as you can go." When I gave it to shamans
in the Amazon, they said "It's strong - but this is, these are the
ancestors. These are the spirits that we work with. These are
ancestor souls. We know this place."
Then the last facet of it that I want to
mention is: there is this "you must be on
your toes" thing - don't let these guys get
behind you. They are tricky. And their
elfin humor may not be your idea of a
good time.
And I said to myself, where have I had,
before, this feeling that I'm having now.
It's a feeling of being with people that I
can't trust, but who want to help me, and
who seem to be trying to, uh, cut a deal. That was the word
that gave me the clue: "deal." And then I remembered, "I know
where I felt like this" - I felt like this in the Crawford Market in
Bombay when I had a kilo of Gold in my pocket and I was
trying to trade it for hashish, and I was surrounded by all these
Arab hash traders, and they were saying "we're your friend,
just wait, don't worry..." And say "yes, I KNOW you're my
friend and I'm NOT worrying, but, you know, brbrbrrr...
perform!" And so then I said: "Aha the creatures in the DMT
flash are Traders..." They're Traders. And that's what this
weird feeling is - it's a business environment in there. We're
having a business meeting. They're saying... and then the
objects! Then I remembered- the objects... they're trade goods!
They're saying: "How about thissss! How about This!".
What do they want? What do I have that they want?... They're
meme traders, is what it is. And I think that what they wanted,
and got, and took - without bothering to even say a word
about it - was everything I knew about the "I Ching." And
they're like art collectors. They say "well, the idea is primitive,
and primitive in its execution, but with a certain kind of internal
integrity that one really must respect..." So they're primitive art
collectors, and what they left me with, then, was, uh, my own,
you know, their model of time. Which is the closest thing to
one of these hyperdimensional objects. The objects themselves
cannot exist in this world. But the blueprints of them can. And
this afternoon, if the computers are up and running, I will run
through this "time idea" with you.
.