My DMT Breakthrough

Recounting the most impossible experience of my lifetime.

Becoming an aficionado of psychedelics, it was inevitable I would come to experience what many describe to be the strongest of them all — DMT.

For those unfamiliar with the drug, there is a lot to be said about DMT.

It is the active ingredient in the Shamanic substance Ayahuasca, commonly referred to as the spirit molecule for its spiritual benefit, or colloquially as the businessman’s trip, due to its relatively surprising short duration of 20 minutes.

Despite the fear and anxiety before ingesting such a substance, it was certainly an appealing prospect that I could effortlessly fit a 20 minute appointment with God in my schedule.

Indeed, I would soon learn it is no exaggeration that people enter an ineffable and impossible realm — claiming to meet God, other deities, clockwork elves, and one’s life capriciously flashing before one’s eyes.

Though lasting 20 minutes on average, people often report feeling like they had been gone for much longer; we’re talking months. The distortion of time is a fact familiar to those who have experienced psychedelics before, but DMT is unique in respect to its short duration in this realm, yet an eternity in another.

Such grandiose claims about DMT make it naturally intriguing to many, but this comes with an understandable amount of fear. The feeling of dying and come back to life, though leaving a lasting impact on you, is not a comfortable one.

At least with LSD and shrooms, you can take some time off and laugh about ways the world is wonky with your friends, but DMT feels more like a catapult to another dimension.

What I have personally found most intriguing about DMT is its natural occurrence in animals, nature, and even within us. It is allegedly true that DMT is found in our brains — with some theorising the substance is released during dreams, and potentially during death. This was initially a hypothesis which eventually became all the more convincing when a 2011 study found its natural occurrence in rats.

If that is true, there is some irony to enjoy in the fact that every individual possesses a highly illegal substance their entire life.

But taking DMT is not as simple or casual as ingesting other recreational drugs. As Terrence McKenna had instructed, there is an anecdotally tried-and-true method to ensure one could ‘breakthrough’ on DMT, thereby completely departing from the Earthly realm.

The method is to take three long inhalations of smoked DMT through a pipe for around 15 seconds — each drag tasting more of vile bitter plastic than the previous, accompanied by a sharp harrowing sound, with visuals becoming more lucid and perfect before one’s soul is ripped out of one’s body and dimension.

The mythical breakthrough is difficult to achieve, because in very literal respects, it feels like taking that third, final drag is surely going to be the one that kills you. I had a few unsuccessful initial attempts with my friend, which though considered a ‘mild dose’ in DMT land, still had strong remnants of feeling interconnected with everything and super bright visuals.

But I know this wasn’t the experience everyone was talking about.

Even though DMT is physically harmless, it still takes a lot to remind yourself in the midst of smoking it that it is impossible to die. It took a few times beforehand to get past this mental barricade, but nothing to this day has ever vividly felt like I had actually died.

I took my first drag from the pipe, with DMT looking like desert sand sandwiched between some weed, and held it in for 15 seconds. The taste of the bitter plastic tasted the most disgusting, and made it difficult to breathe in for a long period of time.

Upon exhalation, I knew I had to immediately take my next one to have any chance of breaking through. A loud, yet inviting ringing sound pervaded my hearing.

As I take another drag in, I become much less focused on how the burnt plastic tastes, and now concerned that I am about to die, and what I am smoking is literally killing me.

But I was determined to not give up here, in the midst of feeling my existence swallowed by a black hole.

It is letting go of the fear of death that allowed me to truly escape into the next dimension. Once I had embraced this fact, and took the final drag, my soul was ripped from the tethers of my body, and I went elsewhere…