scorpion said:
Let's look at this logically. There are two possibilities regarding DMT and other psychedelic drugs:
1) They actually do open some sort of psychological portal to another plane of reality that we cannot experience with our normal consciousness.
2) They simply make you unbelievably fucking high, inducing what is essentially temporary insanity.
Most people interested in DMT lean toward the first possibility and take it explicitly for this purpose, which I find utterly perplexing. If it is truly the case that DMT opens your consciousness to another realm, should you not be the least bit concerned? You would be opening up your mind to spiritual beings whose power is far beyond yours, and you would be doing so while your mind was essentially incapacitated and incapable of responding normally. What in the world would give you the confidence to presume that these mysterious beings have your best interest in mind? I will just be blunt: it's very likely that these "spiritual beings" you encounter on a DMT trip are demonic entities. There is no reason to trust them, and there is no reason to trust yourself to be able to intelligently respond to whatever sort of influence they exert on you while your mind is completely impaired by the drug and open to them.
I regard these sort of psychedelic excursions as utter foolishness and the height of hubris. Intentionally submitting your weakened mind/spirit to the influence of demonic entities has to be one of the dumbest activities possible. It would be like taking a boat out to shark infested waters, dumping a bunch of chum in the water and gleefully doing a cannonball off the side of the boat. Utterly stupid. You have no idea what you're playing with. You are utterly powerless and at their mercy in that realm. These illusions of enlightenment are just that: illusions. You return to the normal world thinking you've expanded your consciousness and gained a new perspective. But you actually have no idea what really happened, or what sort of influence was exerted on your unconscious mind by the beings you encountered. You think everything was cool, but who knows what sort of seeds they planted deep in your subconscious mind while you were distracted with all the strange sights and sounds.
I view a trip as a temporary rewiring of neural pathways. However, I have had some extradimensional experiences, for lack of a better word, and whether temporary insanity or real, the sense wasn't that I was exposing my mind to a new realm but rather perceiving one that was present at all times and simply flying above my radar. Patterns in material, as well as patterns of behavior in people I knew, which I never noticed before were still there when I came down.
Areas of brain functionality are increased, others are decreased. Tripping around people, whether old friends or new introductions will give a completely different perspective of their mental map, in my experience it's usually a more accurate one than I can generate interacting with someone sober despite a reduced ability to engage in coherent discussion with them. It's especially fascinating to observe strangers interacting at a party or festival, the interpersonal dynamics are exposed as never before. Tripping by oneself can be like looking in at one's own mind from the eyes of a different person - looking at past events and personal behavior it is possible to gain new insight into our own motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. With most hallucinogens, at least at standard recreational dosages, a person has to choose to enter this introspective state, but with others like ibogaine, from what I've read, it seems almost involuntary and can lead to drastic life changes for better (and probably for worse in some cases).
When I was younger it was almost a test of manhood for us - see who could eat the most of some plant or chemical and not completely lose their shit. This
was foolish and irresponsible and led to some pretty terrifying experiences as well as some enlightening ones. When I do anything now I make sure that I'm in the right mindset and go into it with a goal of what I hope to achieve from the experience.
We can't even unequivocally state that these visions are anything more than random neuronal firings, there's no reason to assign a demon label to them. I rarely do anything harder than alcohol anymore but when I do trip, for the last decade at least it's been a positive experience every time. Not necessarily a fun experience, but always beneficial, and some of the revelations I've had under the influence have markedly improved my social, psychological, and financial well-being.
