Experience:DMT (30mg, glass pipe) - First DMT trip ever turned therapeutic

For as long as I can remember I had this irrational fear of mystical, unknown or otherwise fictional. For example, I am a fan of SCP Foundation, but a lot of articles there make me feel anxious. It feels like I'm not alone in the room, that if I look away from the screen I'll see something scary. I have the same feeling when I watch horror films or play horror games. Mostly I just try to ignore it, because consciously I realize that fiction is, well, fiction. But it's always there, suppressing and overwhelming me, messing with my ability to enjoy this kind of nerve-racking content.

And it's actually worse - that fear impacts my life as well. In hostile or uncomfortable situations I get numb, it's becoming hard to make a choice that I will be glad with afterwards. For instance, I once had a quarrel with two drunk guys near a bar and I just stood there, letting them mock and insult me. I convince myself that I was just trying to resolve the situation in the most peaceful way, so that three of us could be on our way unharmed. But I know that's a lie - I'm physically well trained, I have hand-to-hand combat experience. I could easily engage those guys and properly respond to that ridicule they dawned on me. But I didn't and I let that whole situation get to me. Similar things still happen from time to time, although not in such dramatic context.

Before the trip

So, I was very enthusiastic about trying DMT. I have an impressive record of LSD usage and I decided to widen my psychedelics experience. For a long time I heard that DMT is an intense substance and I wanted to meet one of those autonomous entities (someone to talk to, huh?), so my curiosity led me to that. Besides, my local dealer had it in store.

I got my hands on some freebase DMT early in the morning, before work. I spent a couple of hours surfing the internet for ways to ingest it. On a practical note - God, it's complicated! I was not ready for that at all. Disappointed, I decided to postpone my trip until evening. I also told my kind friend that I have DMT at my disposal. Turned out, she haven't tried it either and has no idea how to properly administer it.

Evening comes, she texts me and suggests we use a simple glass pipe. Bewildered, I agree, and she buys one on her way to my house. While we were talking, discussing life and the oncoming trip, I was preparing my dab, measuring out the dose and pouring it into the pipe. Somewhere in the middle of that I realized that I was afraid that the experience will be too intense. Before ingesting the dose, I told my friend that I needed time to think. I sat down on the floor with eyes closed, trying to figure out where the anxiety comes from. In a couple of minutes of internal dialog I concluded that I understood my emotions enough and I'm now ready for the trip. Well, the conclusion was not correct - I barely scraped the surface. Don't rationalize your emotions, kids, you need to feel them on a deeper level.

The trip

So, I lay on the couch, glass pipe in hands, and I light the fire. The powder quickly melts and soon vaporizes. I take it all in in two hits, hand the pipe over to my friend and nod at her - "turn off the lights". I lay in the darkness staring at the ceiling, my body being rapidly taken away by euphoria. I lose it in seconds. A random sound came from the street and got smudged into DMT ringing. I realise that I forgot everything, I have no anchors to my past life. Ego died and I didn't even notice that. Then geometry came into view. It was almost cinema-worthy - a flower composed of rhombuses slowly expands from a singular point on the right edge of my vision field, when it reaches it's full size, WOOOSH - it abruptly opens into a corridor in my ceiling. The corridor seemed to be composed of layers. They had no texture, only contour. It was as if someone took a lot of paper sheets, carved a shape in them and placed them vertically one after each other. And the shape was constantly changing, from simple circles to wavy curves. There was something in the end, a wall, a door, I don't remember. At some point the corridor itself visually curved, making a turn, but I still could see the full length of it, as if I was not in euclidean geometry anymore.

But the most important part - fear. It started with the ringing and grew with visuals. It was even more terrifying because I felt l that it was a malicious intent, targeting specifically me, trying to scare me. I recalled my inner dialog and tried to rationalize this fear. It only helped a little. It was a losing battle between the fear and my conscious will. At some point, when the effect started to wear off, when I remembered who I am and that I actually have a body and limbs, it backed off. I waited a little, relieved and appreciating the geometry. Suddenly I realised that I know where this fear, spatially, is located. I could raise my hand and point a finger - "I know where you're hiding, behind one of those paper sheets!" I actually did that and laughed. The fear was not in me anymore. It was a simple human delight, not even euphoric. I rejoiced like a child and nearly cried.

I waited a little longer, waiting until the geometry settles. It ended with the same flower that started it, folding in itself, decreasing in size into singular point, vanishing.

When the lights came on, I told my friend about the experience. I was talking for good 20 minutes, describing the trip and my overcoming of the fear. I had so much energy and calmness, it was an amazing sensation that I seemed to have lost throughout my life.

Afterword

I now realise how much I underestimated set and setting. My latest LSD trips were just an entertainment at this point, I can take solid doses on a whim, just because I'm bored. But I figure that spending a couple of minutes in silence with my thoughts helped me concentrate on that malevolent feeling in me that it came up during the trip and I located and processed it, not rationally, but emotionally. I don't know what would happen if I went on this trip alone in the morning, unprepared and unknowing.

Submitted by Sad Bracket