Toes Dipped. Eyes Opened. Dimensions Crossed.
By: A Peek Behind The Curtain Of Consciousness
Tags: Dmt, Psychedelics, Ayahuasca, Plant Medicine

Toes Dipped. Eyes Opened. Dimensions Crossed.

Note: As an experiment, this piece was written in three parts: The first part was moments after a session with DMT. The rest was written in the days proceeding and the days following.

When you’re a child and something frightens you, you can close your eyes as tightly as you can to try and shutout whatever it is you’re hiding from. Maybe a scary movie. Maybe you think there’s a monster under the bed. Whatever it may be, you feel safe there because there is nowhere else you can go and nothing else you can see––just the darkness of the insides of your own eyelids.

Imagine if, as an adult, instead of that perceived security, when you closed your eyes something else was there–another door–and once you open it, you’re pushed farther and farther into another world you don’t quite understand, but you can’t look away.

You can’t close your eyes and hide from it because you are it — it’s all taking place inside of your mind. Like riding a rollercoaster, unable to control your surroundings, but so taken by the magnificent colors, shapes, and images whirling around that the spectacle is enough to ward off the mild anxiety you may feel at first.

You can’t get off this ride, so you have no choice but to breathe and let go, because fighting it is futile.

Once you surrender, your chest gets warm, spreading a calm throughout your entire being, like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Your body itself starts to dissolve into nothingness.

For a second, you have to ask yourself if you’re still alive because your body is gone, even though your thoughts are still very much there––an understandably overwhelming feeling. But if you focus on being in the experience, instead of fearing the strange sensation of your body melting away, it’s bliss as you’re ushered through the unknown, towards the center of something you can’t ever seem to reach.

The more you try to focus on the source of all this energy, the deeper the energy pulls you into this other world––familiar yet foreign.

There is an actual force tugging at your mind. They aren’t quite hands reaching for you, but there is no other way to explain them. I suppose calling them web-like fractals is as close as one can get. They want you to come with them. I want to say they are inviting you, but that would imply that you had a choice, and you don’t. That doesn’t make it scary, however. In any other circumstance, you would be terrified, but you’re not. You’re just an observer letting it happen. Letting your mind float away, body-less, curious, unexpecting.

The most peculiar part is, you don’t feel alone. And I don’t mean that figuratively. It’s as though you have crossed the veil. Even with eyeshades on, alone your room, there is some other presence there––again, not frightening by any means, just peculiar.

… And then suddenly … it’s over. And you’re back in your body, and you’re back from wherever it was you just were — it certainly wasn’t earth as we know it. And the experience was so beautiful, so unworldly, and transformative, you find yourself weeping like a small child cradled in your mother’s arms — safe, loved, and secure.

It is, to quote a friend, “like getting a hug from God.”

…

There is nothing more cliché than the analogy of “opening your third eye” when talking about plant medicine. As a writer, I hate clichés. They are cheap, boring, and hokey. Every time some guy with a man bun in Austin tells me to “open my third eye,” I roll my eyes. But I like man buns so, I usually keep the conversation going.

Having said all that, of all the plant medicines I have used, nothing has given me more appreciation for this overused cliché as Dimethyltryptamine, DMT, or as some call it, “The Spirit Molecule.”

I should mention that I’ve never “broken through,” as they call it, or at least not in the way I’ve heard it described — though I’ve gone pretty far.

I haven’t met the “elves.” I haven’t had “alien abduction” experiences. I have felt the presence and seen vague images of other beings, but it doesn’t align with other firsthand accounts I have read about.

I think I should also mention, I’ve never actually smoked it. I’ve only used a concentrate from a vape pen.

While vaping DMT is said to be a milder experience, since you can control, to some extent, how intense you want your trip to be, you can still “launch.” I just haven’t yet mustered the courage to do so. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t crossed dimensions I didn’t plan on crossing when inhaling a bit too much. I guess some may argue that I have launched, but perception is in the eye of the beholder and I feel like I would know.

In my seven-eight sessions thus far, the most intense was the one that encouraged me to write the first chunk of this article. The only thing I can even compare it to is playing Mario Kart on Nintendo 64, racing down Rainbow Road at warp speed––except you don’t have access to the controller. I was a little caught off guard, to be honest. I didn’t actually mean to go that far, but I laid back and I let it happen, what else was I to do?

But this experience is not the one I want to focus on. I want to tell you about the first time DMT and I became acquainted.

A Lifeline

I was reborn the second time I took Molly and danced outside at a music festival I mentioned in another essay. That was easily the most beautiful moment of my entire life.

The second was my first real encounter with DMT.

I had been eager to try the substance for years, but the time was never right. I’ve learned to trust my intuition with hallucinogens. I could just feel that I wasn’t ready. Finally, in December, the tides had changed.

My brother was given a terminal cancer diagnosis. My relationship was a shit show and the Covid lockdowns had left me spending most days by myself, alone, trapped in my thoughts, and more neurotic than ever.

Thoughts of self-harm turned into a reality, as did a pressing urge to take my own life, something I had not felt in two years.

My doctors had me on a steady cocktail of Benzodiazepines, mood stabilizers, and some other anxiety medication they threw at me to stop me from hurting myself — a habit I had not outgrown from my teen years. But Klonopin numbs the pain, and I needed to feel everything and face it all. I needed something to keep me going that didn’t come from a pill bottle. I needed deeper introspection.

What Is DMT?

DMT is found in almost every living organism, including humans. It something already inside of us, so when we take it, it’s like coming home in a sense.

DMT can mimic what it feels like to die, according to clinical research and personal accounts–– I highly recommend reading, DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences.

Given my mental state, I wasn’t scared of death. Therefore, I was no longer scared of DMT. Facing my brother’s pending death, there was also a part of me that wanted to know what he would experience.

Seeing that I was in crisis, my friends drove from three different states to be by my side and guide me through this journey.

We lit holy Palo Santo wood to cleanse my apartment of bad energy first — believe me, it needed to be cleansed. But there was a ceremonious aspect about it that made the experience that much more special.

Guided by a trusted friend, I had a practice run first. “Put on the headphones. Inhale in for seven seconds. Hold in as long as you can. Exhale. Close your eyes. Lie back. Listen to the music.”

This was just to dip my toes. I saw mild visuals, felt warm. But nothing too crazy.

Then came round two. “Put on the headphones. Inhale in for 15–30 seconds. Hold in as long as you can. Exhale. Close your eyes. Lie back. Listen to the music.”

… Wow …

Here We Go!

It wasn’t until the exhale that I felt it. The first thing I noticed was a slight tightness in my head, then my jaw dropped, my mouth hung open, and I was no longer in the room. My body got warm, not Molly warm, divinely warm. Again, it felt like God was filling my blood with love (ugh that’s so cheesy, I know).

I saw fractals, if you don’t know what those are, see the bottom of this post. The whole world is made of fractals. It’s the only mathematical principle that intrigues me. When you see them, it’s like seeing infinity.

I want to be very clear in my wording here, DMT communicates with you, but that is not to say that I heard voices — I may have mental health issues but hearing voices is not part of them.

It’s much like your thoughts, where you can’t see or even hear them, but they are real.

I had loved two men with all my heart since my divorce, neither of whom loved me back. I had clung to that heartache because that is what I do, I hold on to pain.

But as my mind thrust me through pink and yellow fractals, the DMT told me to let them go. That I had to let them both go. Inside what I can only describe as DNA-shaped visuals, I saw all the art — music, writing, etc — that I had yet to create, all of which I would not be able to create if I decided to take my own life.

I don’t remember who wrapped me in a blanket. I don’t remember a lot of what was going on around me, but I knew where I was, and that I was among friends.

I realized that for my whole life I had sought the acceptance of men because I had never experienced unconditional love from my family or self-love. But I had to focus on choosing myself now. There was only me (see song above). That is all there is.

At this realization, I could feel myself begin to weep uncontrollably. I’ve never liked myself. I’ve never found myself to be worth anything. But within a few moments, I finally realized how much I meant not just to the world, but how much I meant to myself.

I wasn’t running from the broken girl I had always been anymore, the one with the reputation of having cuts on her body and crying in the bathroom during school dances. Instead, I was holding her, telling her I cared about her and her suffering, and that she was loved more than she could possibly understand.

A New Perspective

Earlier that week I had made a list of reasons to die and reasons to live, the former column vastly outweighing the latter.

The night before I had hurt myself and I had every intention of doing it again … until the trip ended.

The thought of hurting myself after that first session was unthinkable, blasphemous even. How could I do that after feeling so much love for myself?

I had let men in my life control how much I value myself since I was a teenager. But it didn’t matter anymore, because I finally loved myself.

Each time I come back from “the other world” I find myself curled up in the fetal position crying because there is just so much beauty and love to be found.

I pride myself on my writing, but nothing I articulate in words can do DMT justice. It’s not like acid or mushrooms. It’s like nothing you’ve ever encountered.

It’s like a dream, where it’s so vivid while I’m in it, and then afterward I can’t quite seem to hang on to whatever it is I just witnessed, which is why I wrote the first part immediately after. But I want to go back. Every single time, I just want to go back because there is so much divinity in it. There is so much in this universe we don’t understand. DMT shows us just the tip of the iceberg.