Excerpts from : DMT The Spirit Molecule - by Rick Strassman

DMT The Spirit Molecule:

excerpts collected by Rajiva

... Giving something a name is not trivial and expectations can modify drug effects. Experiments injected volunteers with adrenaline, the fight or flight hormone, under different sets of expectations. Adrenaline caused a calm and relaxed state in volunteers when told they were receiving a sedative. If told that the drug was stimulating, volunteers felt anxiety and energy. I prefer the term psychedelic, or mind- manifesting, over hallucinogen. Psychedelics show you what’s in and on your mind, those subconscious thoughts and feelings that are hidden, covered up, forgotten, out of sight, maybe even completely unexpected, but nevertheless imminently present. Depending upon set and setting, the same drug, at the same dose, can cause vastly different responses in the same person. One day, very little happens: another day, you soar, full of ecstatic and insightful discoveries; the next, you struggle through a terrifying nightmare...

... The generic nature of psychedelic, a term wide open to interpretation, suits these effects. Psychedelics affect all our mental functions: perception, emotion, thinking, body awareness, and our sense of self. Perceptual or sensory effects often, but not always, are primary. Objects in our field of vision appear brighter or duller, larger or smaller, and seem to be shifting shape and melting. Eyes closed or open, we see things that have little to do with the outside world: swirling, colourful, geometric cloud patterns, or well formed images of both animate and inanimate objects, in various conditions of motion or activity....

... A spirit molecule needs to elicit, with reasonable reliability, certain psychological states we consider "spiritual". These are feelings of extraordinary joy, timelessness, and a certainty that what we are experiencing is more real than real. Such a substance may lead us to an acceptance of the coexistence of opposites, such as life and death, good and evil; a knowledge that consciousness continues after death; a deep understanding of the basic unity of all phenomena; and a sense of wisdom or love pervading all existence....

... A spirit molecule also leads us to spiritual realms. These worlds usually are invisible to us and our instruments and are not accessible using our normal state of consciousness. However, just as likely as the theory that these worlds exist only in our minds is that they are, in reality, outside of us and freestanding. If we simply change our brain’s receiving abilities, we can apprehend and interact with them. Furthermore, keep in mind that a spirit molecule is not spiritual in and of itself. It is a tool, or a vehicle. Think of it as a tugboat, a chariot, a scout on horseback, something to which we can hitch our consciousness. It pulls us into worlds known only to itself. We need to hold on tight, and we must be prepared, for spiritual realms include both heaven and hell, both fantasy and nightmare. While the spirit molecule’s role may seem angelic, there is no guarantee it will not take us to the demonic....

...Why DMT is a candidate for being the spirit molecule? DMT occurs in our bodies. We produce it naturally. Our brain seeks it out, pulls it in, and readily digests it. As an endogenous psychedelic, DMT may be involved in naturally occurring psychedelic states that have nothing to do with taking drugs, but whose similarities to drug induced conditions are striking. While these states certainly can include psychosis, we must also include in our discussion conditions outside of mental illness. It may be upon endogenous DMT’s wings that we experience other life – changing states of mind associated with birth, death, and near death, entity or alien contact experiences, and mystical spiritual consciousness....

... All spiritual disciplines describe quite psychedelic accounts of the transformative experiences, whose attainment motivate their practice. Blinding white light, encounters with the demonic and angelic entities, ecstatic emotions, timelessness, heavenly sounds, feelings of having died and being reborn, contacting a powerful and living presence underlying the all of reality -- these experiences cut across all denominations. They also are characteristic of a fully psychedelic DMT experience. Several meditative disciplines bring about an intense fine tuning of attention and awareness; for example, one pointed focus on the breath. The brain’s electrical activity, as measured by the electroencephalogram, reflects this synchronization, or bringing together, of brain activity. Brain wave patterns during mediation have been measured slower and better organized than those found in everyday awareness. The deeper the mediation, the slower and stronger the waves....

.... Other techniques: chanting & visualization can lead to blissful and sublime states of mind. In these conditions there is a dynamic yet unmoving quality to the experience, like a standing wave in a river. It looks as if the wave is not moving at all while water rushes along on all sides of it. It fact, it is the rushing water that produces the wave. And those waves create a unique note, or sound. Such wave phenomena, by their production of a particular note or sound associated with their frequency, establish wide ranging and diffuse fields of influence. Objects within those fields vibrate sympathetically, or with the same frequency, a phenomenon called resonance. Like when a note shatters a glass, even tho the sound is not especially loud. the glass vibrates sympathetically, or resonates, at the same frequency as that of surrounding sound. in a similar way, meditative techniques using sound, sight, or the mind may generate particular wave patterns whose fields undue resonance in the brain.....

..... Sacred words, visual images, and mental exercises exert uniquely desired effects. Such effects may occur because of the specific fields they generate within the brain. These fields cause multiple systems to vibrate and pulse at certain frequencies. Of course, the pineal gland also is buzzing at these same frequencies.....

..... Practitioners of tantra attempt to achieve the best of both of these worlds. This spiritual discipline recognizes that sexual excitation and orgasm produce highly ecstatic states, and therefore uses sexual intercourse as a meditative technique. By combining sex and meditation, tantric practioners access states of consciousness not available with either practice alone. Pineal dmt release stimulated by both deep meditation and intense sexual activity, may then result in especially pronounced psychedelic effects.....

Features of a mystical experience:

The 3 pillars of self, time, and space all undergo profound transfiguration in a mystical. experience. There no longer is any separation between the self and what is not the self. Personal identity and all of existence become one and the same. In fact, there is no personal identity because we understand at the most basic level the underlying unity and interdependence of all existence. Past, present, and future merge together into the timeless moment, the now of eternity. Time stops, inasmuch as it no longer passes. There is existence, but it is not dependent upon time. Now and then, before and after, all combine into this exact point. On the relative level, short periods of time encompass enormous amounts of experience.

....As our self and time lose their boundaries, space become vast. Like time, space is no longer here or there but everywhere, limitless, without edges. Here and there are the same. It is all here.....

..... In this infinitely vast time and space with no limits self, we hold up to examination all contradictions and paradoxes and see they no longer conflict. We can hold, absorb, and accept everything our mind conjures up: good and evil, suffering and happiness, small and large. We now are certain that consciousness continues after the body dies, and that it existed long before this particular physical form. We see the entire universe in a blade of grass and know what our face was like before our parents met.....

...... Extraordinarily powerful feelings surge through our consciousness. We are ecstatic, and the intensity of this joy is such that our body cannot contain it – it seems to need a temporarily disembodied state. While the bliss is pervasive, there’s also an underlying peace and equanimity that’s not affected by even this incredibly profound happiness......

..... There is a searing sense of the sacred and the holy. We contact an unchanging, unborn, undying, and uncreated reality. It is a personal encounter with the Big Bang, God, Cosmic Consciousness, the source of all being. Whatever we call it, we know we have met the fundamental bedrock and fountainhead of existence, one that emanates love, wisdom, and power on an unimaginable scale......

..... We call it enlightenment because we encounter the white light of creation’s majesty. We may meet guides, angels, or other disembodied spirit, but we pass them all as we merge with the light. Our eyes now, finally, are truly open, and we see things clearly in a new light.....

..... The import and momentousness of the experience stands alone in our history. It may serve to focus the rest of our life toward the completion, filling out, and working through the insights obtained.

Here are some quotes after experiences:

"the long term effects are very interesting. It leaves me in a different state. It’s not altered, pre se, but more open to synchronicity, magic, and unexpected opportunities"....

.... "DMT shook some things loose, as it was so shattering. I now find I have more control over my reality by letting go; it’s a paradox. I’ve found that the dmt experience intensified verbal, visual, and musical abilities. Overall, dmt, showed me another level or process I needed to see. Nothing I thought or felt made any difference in terms of controlling the sessions. I learned the beneficial aspects of losing control.".....

..... "I’ve had more creative urges, and I’ve been writing more. As chaotic as they are, the dmt sessions have helped me to be more centered. Having gone through it gives me more of a sense of strength in myself.".....

...... "It’s really changed my feelings about death. I’m not nearly as afraid to die as I was before. It has also really changed my view of life about how things are basically not as they seem. There is a certain falling away of expectations.. I’m also less afraid of my own insanity. There’s this programmed guilt to fit in and be normal but I feel less inclined to be that way now. I’m not as interested in people or social lubrication situations that don’t have a lot of meaning to me. Friendships that aren’t that important are fading away... I’m not in such a hurry to get things done now. I am more relaxed in general. I am less goal oriented. If things don’t get done now, they will sooner or later. I now have a much more tangible sense of cosmic and divine consciousness with an altered sense of selfhood in relationship. A more real sense of connectedness to all around me. I am more integrated. My own divinity is less of an abstraction thinking and feeling overlap more now. I see people more as organisms. I’m more open minded and laid back. Most of my experience fade with time. Not so with DMT the images and ordeals from my sessions have grown more clear and refined. I recall being able to face the eternal fire of creation and not be burned, to bear the weight of the entire universe and not be crushed. This brings some perspective to my mundane life and I am able to relax and embrace it more easily. Outside me, not much is different. Inside, I rest in the comfort of knowing my soul is eternal and my consciousness endless"...........