What is it really like to feel “the Spirit of the Universe”?
A recollection of my first time on DMT, the Spirit molecule.
What is DMT
DMT, chemically known as N,N, Dimethyltryptamine, can rapidly induce an extremely immersive state of consciousness characterized by vivid and elaborate visual imagery. Traditionally, DMT is consumed via drinking ‘Ayahuasca’, a concoction of DMT and β-carbolines that enables DMT to stay in the human body for longer by inhibiting the gastrointestinal breakdown of DMT (source).
The name ayahuasca is a compound word in Quechua language; a combination of the word aya menaing soul, ancestors or dead folks and wasca (huasca) meaning vine or rope (Luna, 2011). The most prevalent translation of ayahuasca is “vine of the soul”. Of course, there is a skeptical alternative meaning suggesitng that the substance is the “rope of death”, but…that’s subjective to experience.
Ayahuasca has been a central element of many healing ceremonies in the Amazon Basin, most commonly used amongst the indigenous people of the Amazon as a form of traditional medicine and cultural psychiatry. (source)
On a more tangible level, ayahuasca may act against chronic low grade inflammation and oxidative stress via the Sig-1R which can explain its widespread biological therapeutic indications. (source)
In this recollection, I describe my personal experience of the Spirit molecule, DMT, consumed via smoking instead of the traditional ayahuasca concoction.
Subjective Details
As with most things, there are four distinct aspects to the experience: mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual. I want to talk about the physical and emotional experiences separately.
But first, some context. I took this trip with a group of women that I built trust with prior to introducing DMT into the mix. I knew that though the environment wasn’t completely familiar, I was safe, guided and taken care of by these women. I chose to control my settings a bit further by playing a soundtrack that helps me connect with myself. I also opted to sit up when I took my dose. While it’s recommended to lie down, I prefer sitting up because it allows me to experience the differences and gives me some control over how, when and who to surrender myself to.
The (meta)physical experience:
While this was by far the most challenging trip to articulate for me, I have some 3D vocabulary to explain this 5D (or more?) experience.
Once seated, with my magical companions around me, I took a guided dose using a DMT vape and breathed out. Another 2 hits and I knew that I was getting there. It takes about 10 seconds to know if you’re there. There being a state of existence that was distinctly not human. And that’s where I was.
I was not a body because I was no longer in a tangible state of existence. It was like being multidimensional but in more ways that I could comprehend at the time.
Put ‘simply’, imagine a simple triangular kaleidoscope as the lens through which you view your surroundings. I was in a sphere of triangular windows. That was what I saw. There were not many colours, mostly just shapes. And a reflection of myself or maybe other beings in those windows but they were too far for me to perceive them.
There was no gravity. I was suspended amidst wherever I was. No pressure or forces keeping me there but I was not standing and I was definitely there at my own will. But I wasn’t one entity. I was split into my surroundings. I… was my surroundings?
At some point I realized I had my bearings and let sounds back into my realm of perception. What was interesting was that the sounds from around me were passing through me as if I were an empty space.
Imagine a corridor with echoes from all around the structure within which it stands. Some sound near, some sounds far. I could understand the words but I couldn’t deduce the source. But I was carrying them through me as if I were the space that held them temporarily. An echo chamber, if you will.
Now imagine… being the corridor. The sounds pass through you, from around you as you hold space for them to do so (I mean…what else can you do at that point).
It was the same with touch. My companions made sure to give me loving touch so I didn’t feel too far from this reality. However, I couldn’t distinguish between the source of touch but I could sense that it was being implemented onto the space that I was.
If someone touched my shoulder from behind, I felt like they were really far behind me and that it wasn’t a shoulder but a random part of the space that I was. My body didn’t really exist as a distinctive combination of limbs or identifiable regions. I was, for the lack of a better explanation, integrated into the Universe. As if suspended amidst. I sure as heck wasn’t a solid. I wasn’t even a liquid. I could pass as a gas but since there was no pressure, I would say I was more complex and dimensional.
Just as I began to grasp at all my senses, I found myself needing to let go of perceiving. It was becoming a burden to be mentally present to the extent that I was. I was tired. So I let go, trusting my company and guide to take care of me if I needed to be taken care of.
This was the beginning of the emotional part of my journey.
The emotional experience:
This part of the trip was impacted by the environment the most for me. My lesson was learning to surrender myself which requires a lot of trust. Trust in my environment, but more than that: in myself. I didn’t know what myself was at the time but I also don’t know what myself is in this current reality so really there wasn’t much difference there. But trusting a gigantic unknown, as a primarily cerebral person, was a tug of war within myself. This is where my company helped me feel safe enough outside of myself to then explore the feelings of non-safety inside myself and reconcile.
My personal experience was tears because I was finally facing the emotion of fear. The fear of risk.
The risk of surrender. Learning to trust that everything will fall into place. And that not only will I be held by others but I will be held by myself.
The risk of receiving love. Learning to receive the words of love from my company without needing to intellectualize it. Learning to feel being loved without calculating the probabilities of potential conditions attached to receiving love.
The combined risk of surrendering myself to a purpose that will reveal itself in time and the impact of that surrender on the conditional love I am currently adapted to receiving. As a people pleaser, this one was fucking hard to let go.
I moved through this fear intensely, recognising that my childhood trauma of not feeling in control of my life intersects with the knowledge that I have been in control in multiple different dimensions — literally in that moment — and I am choosing to surrender out of self-trust. If I can have my own back when I’m a fucking room, I can have my own back when I’m a human.
I also recognised my high need justify my existence. I think I can owe this to a lot of conditional love in my life. Having to prove my worth to others over and over again to receive attention programmed me to equate being loved with fulfilling conditions adequately. This is probably one of the most false beliefs I have. Love is not conditional. Love is Universal. More on that at a different time.
As I realized that being space meant my existence was designed to be true, I came to the conclusion that being space also means existence. And that if I exist as a part of the Universe, there is no reason to doubt that I exist for a reason. That I am a part of the whole by design and nothing outside of my existence can comment on it. I am because… I am.
At this point, the weight, the grief, the shame I had carried on my shoulders for upwards of two decades came crashing down and I cried until I laughed at the release. The much needed release of all the bullshit I have learned over the yers about my worth, my purpose, my success, and so many other socially defining aspects that really weren’t up for discussion any longer.
At the end of my laughter, I opened my eyes and looked around at the beautiful, magical souls that carried me through this transformative experience of…7 minutes (I mean, time really is a social construct), and felt like I came home. To them. But mostly, to myself.
I am healing. I am choosing that I deserve to be here. And I am focused on enjoying every fucking minute of being the human I am.
A Shift in Perspective
The integration period of DMT is not like that of other psychedelics. It’s faster. It’s embodied. It’s far simpler because it helped me just ‘be’ the next day. I showed up wanting to be here. I went for walks and stopped to stare at the grass. I called my mother to hear about her day. I messaged my father to ask about his plants. I did this because I decided to reclaim my right to live the way I want to. Unconditionally.
I decided that my joy wasn’t conditional. That I was made to feel the full spectrum of emotions and experience the full spectrum of what it means to be human. I decided that I would no longer shame myself in the name of productivity. Or guilt myself into sitting through one more one-sided conversation. That I would speak up for myself because if I ask for what I desire, I have a higher chance of receiving it than if I stay silent.
After seeing a shift in how I showed up to my day post-trip, I concluded that I have gained two distinct gifts.
Gift of Experience
If what I experienced is where we go when we are no longer human and the default state of existence is multidimensional where there is an absence of physiological reception, then my existence as a human is a fucking gift.
If I am eternally present as a soul and can perceive and witness existence within my bubble in other realities but cannot interact with what I am witnessing then I feel compelled to truly exist in this reality.
I’m lucky to be able to touch my cat every morning and feel his purring run up my arm. Lucky to hold my loved ones close to my beating heart and enjoy the sensation of transmuted energy between us. Lucky to taste the warm butter melting on a freshly toasted slice of bread. Lucky to smell the air in the morning the night after it rained. The ability to experience this shit is a fucking limited time gift.
I want to be here because I’m given the opportunity to experience what it means to be human.
No exchanges.
No returns.
What in the fuck am I doing intellectualising everything with my mind when I’m meant to be in a body.
Gift of Acceptance
If all matter exists as parts of a whole, and I am matter, I am a part of the whole. This realisation helped me come to terms with some deep emotions of unworthiness that have kept me stagnant for a lot of years.
I believe that we all are who we were meant to be when we came here and all we have to do is remember. So much of our childhood is spent on learning about what is expected of us by others that we forget to check in with what we love. We forget that even though the world may attach conditions for its approval of who we are, we aren’t meant to be everyone’s cup of tea. But the one person who will drink from the cup is us. And that we must always return to ourselves.
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