Range of DPT experiences

[alienmindscape]

A few thoughts on Daniel's DPT experience.

Daniel's DPT episodes intrigue partly because my own experience with the chemical has been so much more milquetoast. This goes a ways to affirm my suspicion that my powder was perhaps compromised by sitting for hours on a hot radiator – the repository for all incoming mail in my NY apartment. I also note that my DPT is more saffron, or salmon than Daniel's cream-colored batch.

Whether my DPT was weakened or not, after multiple imbibing, including snorting, oral, and rectal administrations (the latter is probably the most effective, but I keep forgetting about that route, only weighing the oral vs. snorted options), I haven't had a really strong experience, other than when I smoked some 6X salvia on top of it. I've snorted enough, probably over 100mg, to suffer nasal and respiratory distress, and still without strong visuals, and certainly nothing like a poltergeist manifesting itself in my apartment. [Amusing sidebar: Once I spilled some 5-Me0-DiPT while loading it into a gel-cap, and later found a dead roach in the same spot, lying on it's back, wiggling legs and antennae in ecstasy or horror, hard to tell which.]

Jeez, all this talk about DPT up the nose, and I can smell it. Just had a sneezing fit and had to blow my nose, and I could almost swear there was some DPT powder in there.

So, I was trying to account for this wild range in experience on DPT between myself and Daniel. And if the Temple of the True Inner Light uses smokable DPT as a baptismal into their brand of Christianity, fully believing that DPT is the flesh of Christ, than I can only assume that they aren't getting the effects which spurned Daniel to pronounce that there are "worse things than death," and that he thought he might lose his soul. For the Temple dwellers DPT is an incarnation of Christ, and for Daniel it brings forth a poltergeist in the initial form of an unfamiliar winged brown bug in a drawer. If mirrors mysteriously fell at the release of these discarnate entities in the Temple of the True Inner Light, as happened in Daniel's apartment, the place would be in shambles. I also know that "Murple," the resident know-it-all at the "shroomery," recommended DPT as his favorite, and the most underrated research chemical. There were running debates at the shroomery over whether DPT produced CEVs or OEVs or both, and there was a pretty strong split. Murple was in the camp that didn't experience much in the way of visuals.

Stanilslav Grof concluded, after presiding over 2000 5+ hour LSD sessions with his pychiatric patients, that LSD did not produce consistent results, but was a "catalyzer," or magnifier of one's own inner psyche. This could be true to some extent with DPT as well. My guess is that each psychedelic is a magnifier of one's own inner psyche, and also potentially provides direct mystical experience, but with the particular flavor and specific characteristic of the drug in question (Salvia has it's radical alterations of physical space and orientation).

The sea of relativity, though, isn't the only clue here. I also note that Daniel's female companion who also snorted the DPT on the fateful evening found herself puking in the sink. This is more a reaction to ingested than snorted drugs. I recall Daniel said he got the courage to do the DPT after having some drinks (hope I'm not mixing up his two DPT reports), and it could be that the alcohol potentiated the tryptamine in some fashion. If his companion had also been drinking, this could explain the emetic effect of the DPT. Can't remember if his failed attempt at swallowing a gelcap of DPT was on the same day, or the prior attempt, but it may be that snorted DPT could activate the ingested variety thus inducing a stronger episode.

I'm assuming that I didn't get the full dose, either because of the quality of the chemical I had, or because of how my body chemistry assimilated it. I do recall on my first session (they get progressively weaker) running through a repertoire of abhorrent imagery: crushed skulls in garbage and shit, bloody entrails and the like. I also experienced something like an alien examination and tinkering with my brain. I could feel some sort of mechanical feelers scurrying over my cerebral cortex like inquisitive metal spider legs. If these visions were much stronger, I might have come to the same conclusions as Daniel.

Lastly, what was most interesting about his DPT experience is that he seemed to not just go into another realm (as happens on DMT): the denizens of the other realm came back into consensual reality.

I'll have to give the DPT another try, even if it's with my least favorite, though the most effective route of administration. Perhaps sample the second batch received, which didn't sit on the radiator (delivered in warm months).

Just some thoughts.

~ alienmindscape

PS. Saw Daniel read at KGB. Nice guy!

[ October 31, 2002, 10:30 AM: Message edited by: alienmindscape ]

[daniel]

My theory as I discuss in the book is that the brain is something like a radio receiver, and different psychedelic chemicals reveal different bandwidths of a spectrum that may be infinitely large.

Somehow, where you are at shamanically and psychically ('set and setting,' plus karma and level of occult development) magnetizes the experience in a way, and directs not only what you see but what bothers to look in at you -- and perhaps, interact with you as well.

I now see my intense DPT experience (which involved no booze, by the way) differently than when I wrote the book. The entity that I met could be described as a "Luciferic" spirit using Steiner's terminology (see 'Lucifer and Ahriman' and 'Cosmic Ego' in the Steiner e-library), or as a Djinn according to the Muslim tradition. Even though it blew out my world for a few weeks, I would say the experience was kind of a compliment - that I had reached a certain threshold of knowledge and development.

As I quote in my book, many DPT accounts have a similar flavor to mine. I also associate it with "The vision of power" which is the visionary experience associated with Geburah, 5th Sephiroth in the Qabalah.

[Julian]

I felt that DPT "worked" because it set up an interuptive feedback loop within my system, which brought me to experience much which I wouldn't ordinary experience.
But the experience was of the parameters, of the "negativity" and felt very limited...
Regardless, my body didn't like the stuff at all, and I was very uncomfortable.

This is compared to Acacia DMT taken orally which is transparent, smooth, flowing and in accordance with my bodies rhythms.
For example, I felt like a sterile robot on DPT, trying to spit out my words (I took it with a woman who was my sitter) and bring through a meaning or rhythm which were jarring within me.

With DMT, my consciousness and voice all comes out and flows beautifully...and one is brought to a very clear connection...
The connection I felt with DPT was with the artificial human world, which is of course very present, but also very painful and I was forced to deal with my connections related to our interpersonal networking.

I didn't feel able or comfortable to in any way expand very far into other dimensions or whatever, and feel that this occurance would somehow be forced with this substance at higher dosages.

I personally think DPT has a limited applicability, and in my experience these chemical tryptamines and phenethylamines are all very similar in effect and experience.

I would recommend 2CB to anyone, and it is one of the most powerful psychedelic tools I have found...for prepersonal, somatic and psychic awareness of a useful and workable type.
I haven't found 2ct7, tma2 or DOB to be anywhere near as good.

DPT is quite hard edged...and even though I have felt somehow poisoned taking 2CB, perhaps even moreso than with DPT. The DPT felt like a sacridgious poisioning, and the 2CB felt like useful poisioning. When I first took it was very pleasurable, however, I feel the body can create a tolerance or dislike to having these chemical phenethylamines in the system.

Basically, with the tryptamines, I really feel DMT is IT, and anything else is a substitute for The Real Thing...
In terms of availability and ease of use, the plants are available to purchase online and preparation is not that hard with a bit of effort. DMT ends the search, it puts you right in front of what is there and brings you to a head, and you have to deal with it.
These chemical tryptamines feel like kinky cousins vying for attention...alchemical diversions...that may be fun, but may not be!

Julian.

[alienmindscape]

Daniel said:

"My theory as I discuss in the book is that the brain is something like a radio receiver, and different psychedelic chemicals reveal different bandwidths of a spectrum that may be infinitely large."

Does this mean that consciousness itself is also transmitted to our brain receivers as well? It has already been established that the process of thinking occurs in the physical brain, and memories are stored there. Thinking is impossible without memory. One can't finish a sentence if one can't remember how it began, for example. So, at very least, we must acknowledge that much of what we experience as "consciousness" is at least facilitated by the material brain.

However, even if consciousness were dependent on a material brain, and arose as an "emergent property," such as in the "multiple feedback loops" and "reentry mapping" that Gerald Edelman proposed, it is, in itself, immaterial. Relatedly, the scientist, Humberto Maturana thought that we exist in language, and are engaged in an ongoing process of weaving the linguistic web in which we are embedded. You might recognize the overlap between this and some of McKenna's thinking, such as that the evolution of consciousness occurred in conjunction with our ancestors imbibing of psilocybin mushrooms and their consequent discovery of abstraction and language. Maturana concluded, "The world everyone sees is not THE world but A world, which we bring forth with others." I imagine the emergent property of consciousness, molded by the linguistic web, as something like an intangible cartoon bubble above my head. Who knows what this bubble is capable of registering or interacting with when altered or potentiated by the introduction of psychedelic compounds.

Daniel continues:

"Somehow, where you are at shamanically and psychically ('set and setting,' plus karma and level of occult development) magnetizes the experience in a way, and directs not only what you see but what bothers to look in at you -- and perhaps, interact with you as well."

Yeah, maybe. Certainly few have had or sought the opportunity, as you have, to work with shamans. It makes perfect sense that, for example, an advanced mediator might navigate a 5-MeO-DMT journey better and further than one who hasn't developed that kind of capacity. My meditation skills aren't very advanced, and I saw the white light on it, but I wouldn't be surprised if a skilled meditator could have a more intense and rewarding experience. We know the infamous story of Ram Dass giving large doses of LSD to his guru, and nothing happening, which insinuates that the guru was already familiar with those realms, or something equally powerful.

That dosage or potency of the chemical involved would pay a part, however, is undeniable. One can't expect to have the same mushroom experiences as Terence McKenna if one doesn't take the five gram prescribed dosage. Speaking of McKenna, he thought LSD just produced little blips and fan shapes on the wall, and dismissed it. Alan Watts, on the other hand, announced that his LSD experiences were more profound than his previous spontaneously occurring mystical experiences, but DMT was disappointing, a play thing. Do we conclude that McKenna and Watts have different shamanic, psychic, and karmic propensities and therefore respond differently to the various "bandwidths" of the spectrum that psychedelic compounds can expose one too; that LSD is more conducive to Watts, and DMT more to McKenna?

McKenna also was not a fan of ketamine (which he thought was a new chemical without history of human interaction), and his limited salvia experience was of a "cartoon" nature (he literally saw ridiculous cartoon kittens).

Casteneda might say that DMT and mushrooms were Terence's plant teacher (I forget the exact phrase he used), but not mescaline (which Terence also didn't favor) or salvia.

What I’m getting at, I suppose, is that if one were more shamanically experienced, or psychically developed, or what have you, wouldn't one's experiences be enhanced across the board, irrespective of which known potent psychedelic were taken? If this were the case than would we look upon Watt's disappointing DMT experience as reflecting a lack of this nature of development? Wouldn't we conclude from Terence McKenna's enormous success with DMT and psilocybin mushrooms that he was an advanced shaman…? But then what does one conclude based on his disappointing encounters with other plant "entheogens?" I guess we go back to some people, perhaps, having stronger proclivities in certain bandwidths of the possible spectrum.

Just some thoughts.

~ alienmindscape

[daniel]

alienmindscape writes: "It has already been established that the process of thinking occurs in the physical brain, and memories are stored there. Thinking is impossible without memory."

Actually I am not sure this has been established. Certainly, thoughts cause changes in brainwaves and chemistry, but that doesn't mean they are generated in the physical meat - just as this sentence appearing on the computer as I write it doesn't mean the computer generated it, or the TV tubes flimmering means that the show was generated by the set. As for memory, the discovery that they are stored holographically similarly challenges the brain-based thesis. See Talbot's "The Holographic Universe" for details.

I think there was a social/political dimension to McKenna not exploring LSD: That would've been too easily dismissed as a "60s thing."

As for 5-MEO being more profound for a meditator, that is what Pita's "Transformation" post suggests - however that makes it even more interesting that most esoteric systems are against drug use of any sort.

It seems that certain people have certain more or less momentous experiences awaiting them with some substances rather than others for reasons we really can't fully explicate at this point. Either they are more attuned to a certain bandwidth, or that bandwidth is more attuned to them. With my DPT experience, part of me felt "Oh of course, here you are again," whereas DMT felt extremely impossible to my sensibilities - and yet I know people who felt that DMT was like "coming home."

[alienmindscape]

Hi Daniel:

Thanks for the reply. I agree with most of what you said with reservations about the nature of consciousness.

"Certainly, thoughts cause changes in brainwaves and chemistry, but that doesn't mean they are generated in the physical meat…"

Would one say that the calculations a computer performs, such as crunching numbers in Excel, are generated in the hardware? The idea isn't that thoughts are generated in the meat, but in something like a field that is produced by the complex interplay of the various components of consciousness. The metaphoric "field" of consciousness is an "emergent property," which is one that transcends the mere elements from which it is made. The notion is not that mind is a thing, but a process.

"…just as this sentence appearing on the computer as I write it doesn't mean the computer generated it, or the TV tubes flimmering means that the show was generated by the set."

Yes, but neither would we say that what is projected from the television originates in an immaterial spiritual realm.
Neither would one say that the beam emanating from a flashlight originates somewhere other than from the flashlight, or that the calculations performed by a calculator come from outside it's casing.

Another thing to consider is that our consciousness is distinctly a HUMAN consciousness. The cognitive linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, in their book "Philosophy in the Flesh," propose that the rational mind (reason and logic) are not the objective tools we've taken them for granted as for thousands of years, but are structured on the basis of the body. It turns out that we primarily think in terms of metaphor, which is always a calling back to our physical perception and orientation. We think in terms of such concepts as: inside, outside, in front of, behind… Lakoff and Johnson assert, "The same neural and cognitive mechanisms that allow us to perceive and move around also create our conceptual structures and modes of reason."

If the source of consciousness were a spiritual realm, why is our resultant thought specifically an extension of our body awareness? It seems we think of our distinctly human form of consciousness as consciousness itself, and not as one possible limited form of it.

I'll take a look at the Talbot. I just picked up a book called "Consciousness at the Crossroads," which are interviews between prominent scientists and theorists on consciousness and the Dalai Lama. Should prove interesting.

Also, I'll have to dig up the material about thinking and memory residing in the physical noodle. Don't have my books with me.

Adios hombre

[ November 01, 2002, 01:50 PM: Message edited by: alienmindscape ]

[Julian]

DMT felt extremely impossible to my sensibilities I have found that the task is to make DMT possible in this reality, or more accurately, not DMT itself, but the possible states of awakening allowed in the human organism.

I have come across this feeling of IT (whatever IT may be!) not being possible, quite a few times, in myself and others. And there is a certain truth to that understanding I feel.

Someone I was guiding once said, "It's not possible"
And I said, "what isn't possible?"
and she said, "the truth isn't possible"
And I said, "If it is the truth, then it must be the only possibility, as it is the truth!"

But then the western mind tends to make things more explicatedly complicated than they primarilly are...

Julian.

[daniel]

Alienmindscape writes: "Another thing to consider is that our consciousness is distinctly a HUMAN consciousness. ... If the source of consciousness were a spiritual realm, why is our resultant thought specifically an extension of our body awareness? It seems we think of our distinctly human form of consciousness as consciousness itself, and not as one possible limited form of it."

I don't think it is necessarily the case that "our consciousness is distinctly a human consciousness," despite what your cognitive linguists might say.

My hypothesis is closer to the occult philosophy of thinkers like Rene Guenon. In his book The Great Triad, Guenon proposes that what we experience as human existence might be only one limited form of a much greater range of possible states and conditions that belong to our evolution as beings. I find this idea supported by the farthest edge of dream experiences, which seem to border on other conditions of existence having little to do with what we ordinarily know as earthly life. Psychedelics can also have the effect of making you aware of possible forms of existence that are not totally unfamiliar yet are absolutely beyond the limits of our present human language systems.

Here is a quote from Guenon (p 93):

"People usually have no trouble accepting that the elements drawn from the environment to contribute to the make-up of an individual human being (technically the stage of 'fixation' or 'coagulation' of these elements), must be restored to the environment (the stage of 'solution') when that individuality has terminated its cycle of existence and the being passes to another stage. Everyone can witness this process directly for themselves where the corporeal elements are concerned. But what seems less easy to accept, although the two things are closely linked in reality, is that on transferring to another state the being leaves behind completely all the conditions to which it was subject as a human individual. The inability to grasp this face is doubtless due primarily to the impossibility of visualizing (if not conceiving of) conditions which belong to a totally different order of existence and cannot be compared to anything belonging to the state of existence in which we live."

[Bill Bridges]

Concerning thoughts generated by the meat in the brain, there is now some evidence to suggest that some of the material in our intestines is neurological material, or similar to it. This fits in with ancient Chinese beliefs that many emotions, if not thoughts, are "thought" by the belly, not the head. Supposedly, this material helps the immune system process the type of response it makes to illness. I've been told that, in the Chinese medical system, it's good to swallow any mucus you have with a cold, because the belly can then examine it and respond properly.

I wonder what thus "gut mind" means for processing entheogens. Do the guts participate in making a hallucinogenic experience? In other words, psychedelics may not work on the mind alone, but also the "gut mind." (Where we generate "gut instincts", I suppose.)

[alienmindscape]

Hi Daniel:

I don't think what we are saying is incompatible.

I said, "It seems we think of our distinctly human form of consciousness as consciousness itself, and not as one possible limited form of it."

You countered with the Guenon influenced hypothesis, "what we experience as human existence might be only one limited form of a much greater range of possible states and conditions that belong to our evolution as beings. "

Both quotes posit a limited human form of consciousness among limitless possibilities. My argument is not that consciousness is necessarily only a material phenomenon, but that many aspects of it are a product of material consciousness.

The Dalai Lama offers that in Buddhist theory "consciousness is understood as a multifaceted matrix of events. Some of them are utterly dependent on the brain, and, at the other end of the spectrum, some of them are completely independent of the brain."

"Scientism" is the belief that nothing exists unless is has been proven by science. This stance is weak because one only has to look back historically to recognize that electricity existed before science discovered it. There is always that which exists but has not been discovered by the scientific toolkit, which is most adept at investigating the material realm. Some spiritualists completely reject "scientism", not surprisingly, but go to the opposite extreme and declare that all of physical reality is an illusion. One view sees all as material (with the immaterial being an illusion), the other sees all as immaterial (with material being an illusion). Even Buddhism recognizes, though, that the material and immaterial realms coexist. The Dalai Lama asserts:

"The Madhyamaka, or "Centrist," view is so called because it seeks to avoid the two extremes of reifying phenomena on the one hand, and of denying the existence of phenomena on the other."

You said, "I don't think it is necessarily the case that "our consciousness is distinctly a human consciousness," despite what your cognitive linguists might say."

Well, you might agree that what we perceive with our senses as external reality is distinctly a human version of external reality. Color does not exist independent of eyes, for example. We see within a given range of the visual spectrum. Our perception of the outer world is a reflection of our own anatomies. In actuality, we only perceive (physically speaking) that which directly impacts our bodies. Our eyes are not beams that project out to the thing seen: we see that which bombards our retinas. In the same way that there is not color without eyes, there is no form without perceiving bodies. Our perception of form, or matter reflects the part of the possible spectrum of form that our anatomies can detect. We don't experience reality as an octopus would. Our physical existence defines external reality. We are the defining and the delimiting factor.

As all colors combined produce white, all form might produce void. Thus, just on the other side of my skin may be the void. All of the ways in which I perceive physical reality are an extension of my particular apparatus for doing so. Nevertheless we generally take it for granted that the perceptions of our limited sensory apparatus constitute reality itself. Our language structures are based on these perceptions (how could it be otherwise?), and thus our reason and logic also reflect this orientation.

Consciousness is thought to have developed through evolution. By consciousness I don't mean "awareness" but "awareness of awareness," or self-reflexivity. Our ancestors probably began to communicate as our close relatives, the chimpanzees, do today. Chimps use elaborate hand signals to communicate. These signals signify a level of abstraction because the symbols stand in for actual events. As our ancestors grew more upright their hands were free to communicate more effectively. Eventually these hand acrobatics were conferred to the tongue, which, significantly is controlled by the same motor section of the brain as are the hands. We began to elaborate sounds and even sentences among each other. This implies that consciousness was a social development. The cognitive linguists argue that we live in a web of language that we constantly weave and are embedded by. This sort of scenario may not be the final story, but it does suggest that much of what we are conscious of we are conscious of in a way that reflects our anatomies, our history and social development as humans. This does not say that this inherently human framework cannot be transcended.

"…the farthest edge of dream experiences, which seem to border on other conditions of existence [have] little to do with what we ordinarily know as earthly life. Psychedelics can also have the effect of making you aware of possible forms of existence that are not totally unfamiliar yet are absolutely beyond the limits of our present human language systems."

I agree. I know this first hand. But there are multiple possible explanations of this phenomenon. I fleshed out some of my ideas in a piece I wrote over the weekend, but the entities corrupted the copy of the file I burned. I don't feel like typing it up again, especially since my mind isn't potentiated by any herbs of insight, so I'll offer the prolonged stoned ramblings at a future time.

Adios hombre

[ November 04, 2002, 08:01 AM: Message edited by: alienmindscape ]

[Morninggloryseed]

>I also note that my DPT is more saffron, or
>salmon than Daniel's cream-colored batch.

That ain't right. DPT hcl should be a pure white crystalline powder. Any off-colors represent impurities. Be careful with impure drugs. Unless you are talking about DPT freebase, which is usually an amber-colored oil.